May I suggest something else? Is it possible for whoever is going to NAB to pop along to the major NLE stands and discuss the HD to SD conversion problems? Maybe one can take a DVD full of video clips shot in different quality and have a go there and then. I'm thinking especially of Adobe Premiere and FCP.

Ideally the best test would be to do a side by side shoot, for example an EX1 set on HDV mode and a Z1 and taking both clips to the stand and see the end result. Maybe some NLE wizz kid can shed some light as to why EX1 footage is causing us some problems in software conversion.

i think descending en masse would be a bad idea! Like the village heading towards Castle Frankenstein with pitchforks!!

Yep, lots of people have faults on their cameras and that really sucks. That is what needs to be sorted out asap. Other things like wish lists for firmware, that will just come in time.

I absolutely agree with that. Someone should release some kind of software (a plugin/filter for our favorite NLE will be great, though it should be implemented inside of the NLE, and not be just an add-on) to correctly perform downconversion from HD to PAL or NTSC. And that has anything to do with the EX1, the camera does his job of producing SHARP images very well, it's just that the footage is not correctly downconverted by the NLEs. I don't understand why when I put 720p50 footage on a PAL timeline in my NLE it just drops every other frame and transforms it to 25p instead of 50i... And why hasn't anyone implemented by software the same solution that has been used for years in CCD cameras (two-line averaging to reduce aliasing and twitter effects)? The answers to our problems are well known from a long time ago, but...

Sometimes I feel like the guys who made these programs have absolutely no idea of how interlaced video works, they don't realize that interlaced frames are NOT a single frame, but two fields separate in time and shifted spatially. They should read some good books about how television and video technology work, and they will clearly see what they're not doing well.

I know I've gone off-topic, but I had to say that.

Tales from the Mac Side
 

Are you perchance using a certain Mac based NLE beginning with 'F'?

My only 'secret sauce' way of getting the equivalent of Standard Definition EX-1 in interlaced PAL is to put the final edit (at ProRez 720p50) through After Effects to reinterlace, which feels like doing the school run in a digger but it does make fabulous SD.

I put the interlaced question out to a few experts and got no better than the above. Apparently Vegas will reinterlace, but is PC only. I looked into Mac solutions including JES deinterlacer (which has a re-interlace option), Compressor (doesn't reinterlace unless anyone knows better), Episode, Squeeze, Quicktime Player Pro, et seq. Nothing yet.

Trouble is, as my AE solution works, I can't allow myself the time to go Skunkworks again until I either hit a pain barrier (e.g. when I upgrade from Tiger and my senescent After Effects 6.0 fails) or I get some spare time (August?).

If given the opportunity to raise this with the FCP team, I think what we have here is what Apple calls 'An Excellent Third Party Opportunity' (which sounds better than '... yeah, whatever'). What the US Developer community may fail to recognise is that most of Europe's going 16:9 at SD as it's 'Good Enough' (no drop frame or pull-down, no colour drifts, 4:2:0 DV to 4:2:0 DVD, 20% higher rez than NTSC) so we're stuck with SD for a while yet. And that means making 720p50 into SD50i.

Other questions for Sony:

Why do camera's have to be sent to Sony for firmwares?
Why can't they make it available so users can do it themselves, instead of having their camera lost for another week at least... ?

And what do you gain by having newer firmware?
Do you need newer firmware versions, if you have an old one, but aren't experiencing any backfocus problems or vignetting issues?

cameras can be firmware updated yourself through the USB, when the firmware comes out....

But I've just read in a thread that someone spoke with a Sony employee who said they aren't planning to make them available, and you should ship your camera back... or is this incorrect?

i was told the opposite of that. When the first firmware update comes out, any day now, we shall see. I doubt Sony will want to deal with the hassle and expenses of this.

It is supposed to be a simple USB interface update program that downloads with the firmware update

That would be great news. If that's the fact, just ignore my question ;-).

Well, I've got my fingers crossed. ;)

Sony, is safe doing this by providing the discalaimer: In the event of a failure during upgrade, the user will be responsible for all shipping expenses to Sony service.

Lol, getting nervous Phil?

Just giving a bump to this thread, in case the people that are going to NAB were forgetting this ;-).

Thanks,

All Great Questions
 

Sittin' out here on the edge of my chair, waiting for a list of answers from the NAB front. --especially Re: firmware update

And I might add, there are some little quirks, but this camera is generally fantastic--the more I use it, the better it works.