Can't see the point of a 60Gb hard disk recorder. For £750 ( $1300) you can buy a very good specced laptop which you can download your SXS cards to.

From what I've read so far I cannot see any justification for the EX3 being almost £1500 / €2300 / $3000 more than the EX1 unless there are some other surprises! Or else I'm suspecting that the EX1 was underpriced so that it sells and now the EX3 has been correctly priced. Which might hint that the EX1 could have benn underpriced because the early buyers were unwittingly the beta testers?!

The hard disk recorder will piggyback on the camera and record continuous video for more than three hours - and it's small. But I agree that it's not all that compelling otherwise, for the price.

I hope not; that would be a rude awakening indeed. Nigel Coopers info suggests "£5995 inc. vat", the EX1 retails at about £4600 incl. tax. List may be more, but if this is indeed the European pricing, US pricing should be even less.

I believe 'street' prices could come out under $9000, which is pretty amazing!

All conjecture on my part, ofcourse.

George/

P.S. Numbers based on % differences between Europe and US pricing, current market prices at official dealers and Nigel Coopers article.

this:

http://web.mac.com/philip.bloom/Phil...XDCAM_EX3.html

I suspect Sony is playing it smart around the possibility of the hard drive recorder eating into SxS card sales. I suspect those cards have HUGE markup attached to them. And I expect that, even at 60GB, the hard disk recorder will be quite pricey.

I'm sure the majority of EX1 users would prefer to have a single 250GB hard drive rather than a dozen or more SxS cards lying around. By offering a small, expensive 60GB drive, it doesn't make the choice so clear. Therefore people will end up with a mix of stuff which = more sales.

Will the new hard drive fit on the EX1?
Looking at Phil´s review video it looks like the EX3 has a very special "B" slot for the HD which the EX1 lacks???

Could it be EX3 only? This would not be nice...

Thanks Brendan! :-)

guys I you hadn't had searched out that link. That is not for public consumption and using it through .mac will crash my bandwidth very quickly. I said I would publish the link as soon as I was allowed to. Nigel has again broken the embargo.

The page has no video or text and only says "Phil Bloom -Review of SONY EX-3"

Phil removed everthing a couple of minutes ago.

What a mess, and NAB even hasn't started!

yep. I had to. That was not the proper review. It was on my .mac webspace, not philipbloom.net which is where it will be hosted this afternoon.

I wonder if the EX3 might scan at more than 60 fields a second? 72 a second or something. That would justify it.

Sorry Phil.

I had assumed it was public.

I deleted it from iweb republished to iweb, now I seem to have lost my review. Oh dear. Now have to find a way to rebuild it...

How did you get that link Brendan?

No trickery ;) from this page:

http://web.mac.com/philip.bloom/Philip_Bloom/Home.html

1st link from the box below the pictures.

but where did you get that link from? Just trying to work out how that happened..

I still have a browser window open with your review on it. I think I could save and email it to you if you want.

Sami

thanks Sami, I have found a copy that I had backed up thankfully, still recreating it all now though!

I don't know - i can't go 'back' further with my browser I must have opened you mac homepage in a new window.

Checking my history I have been here:

http://www.philipbloom.co.uk/Philip_Bloom/Home.html

and on your blog.

Must have been from one of the two.

Phil,
What time will the review being posted (Vegas time zone)?
(or GMT or UCT or whatever)

doesn't matter. I don't think it was out for long. It was all incorrectly formatted and a work in progress but more worryingly all traffic should be directed through www.philipbloom.co.uk or philipbloom.net otherwise the whole site crashed very quickly due to my bandwidth being really limited on .mac. I only keep a version of my site on there due to the limitations of iweb and the way the blog HAS to be hosted there otherwise comments don't work.

I really need to use a proper web building prog or get someone to do it for me!

Probably in about 3 or 4 hours!!

On Nigel's website:

The EX3 takes half-inch interchangeable lenses, but with a different mount to that found on Sony’s professional half-inch shoulder-mount XDCAM HD camcorders. Having said that, the EX3 will ship with an included adapter to allow use of standard half-inch lenses (such as those currently used on Sony’s XDCAM HD full size camcorders such as the F330, F350, F335, and F355) to be used; standard B4 mount.

I guess that explains the price difference with the EX1.

Phil,
I found the link to the review and the video on a german forum. Thats why I asked in my initial post here that I wondered that it is already online, and thats why I did not post the link here.

I read it early this morning...

regards,
Gerald

dont worry its all cool. It's a shame it all came out in such a mess. It should have been really simple. Sony press conference at 3pm in Vegas. Nigel, me and anyone else then are free to post out stuff. Simple embargo. Due to the early publishing by Nigel it got all messy hence we are over 100 posts into this thread before the review is posted. Ideally I wanted my first post to have the proper link in it!

I think you can ask Chris Hurd to update your inital post. Anyway, lots of hype already; that's not that bad for a new product launch.

George/

P.S. The more I think about it, the more I like the cover over the audio level controls! I guess I am a geek!

This camera sounds great, but Sony's marketing strategy doesn't feel very user friendly here. They posted plenty of information about their other new cameras but kept this under wraps till the last second. As a result many of us who would have waited for the EX-3 bought the EX-1 assuming that we would have at least a year till its replacement came out.

So now I'll probably take a loss along with lots of people who dump their 3 month old cameras to upgrade. I guess i'd feel better if I had made money off this thing already.

Oh well that's the modern age. My local rental shop - a long time Sony house - recently sent a letter to Sony pleading with them to slow down the rate at which new technology comes out because it is running them out of business.

By the way nobody has mentioned the plugs for Time code in and out on the back. That's a big deal for multi-camera work. When will this be available? Immediately?

Lenny

Lenny, the EX1 is still a fantastic camera. I shot some footage yesterday using it and the new Letus Ultimate. I cannot tell you just how utterly jaw dropping the footage is. The sharpness and detail is breathtaking.

Phil.

Do you the EX-3 with the new letus adapter plugging straight into the camera will take better pictures than the EX-1 that has the old Letus extreme attached to the fixed lens?

I would assume the EX-3 Would be best if used this way? Perhaps though they may be so close as to be inconsequential?

What are your thoughts?

Thank god Phil can bring everybody back down to earth right when they are about to abandon their EX-1's as if the EX 3 is 2/3 inch chip size, global shutter, 4-2-2, and 80MBS vbr.

Would you dump your pretty wife after 3 months if your wifes twin came over with a bigger set of knockers? :)

hard to say without trying it out. Depends on how good the glass is that Letus use...

I'd enjoy the smaller knockers because they won't bounce between the knees after a few years ;-)

I'm more excited about the EX1 firmware than the EX3. But the EX3 with the letus ultimate sounds cool.. Getting the pdw-700 at work so that too will be cool. The 700 and the EX3 with letus ultimate as B-cam will be cool!

Looking forward to your review, Phil!

Yes I would

Will the press release be covered live somewhere?

And does somebody know of a blog that covers NAB in depth with all the new stuff? Videos?

i dont think the press release will be live.

How Im seeing it at the moment.

The new LCD screen with magnifier. I think a monitor for my needs is essential and would be better.

The fast and slow motion button is not neccesary as its an effect that I wont use very often.

TC in and out Again not neccesary

Hard drive For me is not neccesary when footage can easily be dumped on a laptop for my needs.

Interchangeable lenses? Well the type of lenses for this camera are often more expensive than the camera itself Like the Canon style cameras not many used this function.. But for me it would be nice with the new letus adapter and there is another expense.

BUT does the standard glass allow more defination already than the camera can resolve? So will this actually make any difference?

Also Sony will be bringing out new full size versions of its XDCAM range that will have 50mb a sec.

The EX-1 being lighter cheaper may still be the better way to go. Although it doesnt have a shoulder mount I find I can hand hold it for a while and its easy to buy a cheap shoulder mount.

Has Sony marketing got this wrong? Perhaps they should have introduced this one first. Buying this camera could be a price to high for indie filmmakers and a price to low for pros?

I guess if I had a choice I would have gone for the EX-3 And then watch as the latest XDCAM cameras kick it into touch.

A lovely looking Complete Camera that is so right and yet?

After analysing the pictures, it seems that although the lens is interchangeable, there is no flange back setting knob on the Fujinon lens (just like the EX1). Am I right to assume that the electronic back focus is still present in the menu? And so what happens if a 1/2" pro lens is attached to the EX3 that have such a flange back setting?

Speaking of making backups:

There was a joke about Satan and Jesus competing to see who was better at computer work. They were given an hour to see what they could do. After 55 minutes of furious effort the power suddenly went out and Satan was cursing!

Jesus sat smiling until the power came back on, and he proceeded to print out reports, pie charts and diagrams.

Satan complained saying Jesus somehow cheated. He screamed, "How can you output all of that when the power went out? I lost everything!"

At that point, Christ replied, "Because Jesus saves."

I don' think the EX3 is a replacement for the EX1. It's got the same features as the EX1, plus some broadcast essentials, it's just a more industry-oriented product. It's not like the EX1 is obsolete now.

PS: Can the EX1 flip the image on the LCD via menu?