The EX1 uses three "newly designed" 1/2-inch type Exmor™ CMOS sensors, each with an effective pixel count of 1920 x 1080. I haven't yet heard if they use the diagonal designed used by the V1. (With 1920x1080, and thus no need for interpolation, there may be no need for a diagonal system.) Even if not, it seems Sony is moving to CMOS whenever possible.

The 1/2-inch type image sensor provides a sensitivity of F10, a signal-to-noise ratio of 54 dB, and horizontal resolution of 1000 television lines. That's a significant increase over the V1's 750+ TVL/ph.

The camcorder is switchable between 1080p, 1080i and 720p, with a multiple frame recording capabilities of 59.94i, 50i, 29.97P, 25P and native 23.98P. The SXS card will record at either 35 (HQ) or 25Mbps.

The HQ mode supports both 1920 x 1080 and 1280 x 720 resolutions. So it looks like we have a 1080p60 camcorder that can also record 720p60. What will JVC do?

The SP mode supports 1440 x 1080 resolution at 25Mb/s, which provides compatibility with HDV 1080i products. Footage recorded in the SP mode edited by connecting the camcorder through its i.LINK digital interface.

The PMW-EX1 camcorder has a Fujinon 14x zoom lens. The lens offers a wide angle of view of 5.8 mm (equivalent to 31.4mm on a 35 mm lens). Finally a real WIDE lens!

The new camcorder offers a “Slow and Quick Motion” capability -- also commonly known as “overcranking” and “under-cranking” in the traditional film world -- for creating unique “looks” or special effects of slow and fast motion. Other creative capabilities include Slow Shutter, Interval Recording, a Picture Profile™ feature, and a histogram indicator, as well a 3.5-inch color LCD screen (viewable area, measured diagonally).

The PMW-EX1 camcorder is expected to be available in November at a suggested price of less than $8,000.

Looks like a big brother to the V1 -- with the V1 possibly working as B camera. But possibly not given the huge increase in chip performance.

Looks like a big brother to the V1 -- with the V1 possibly working as B camera. But possibly not given the huge increase in chip performance.

...Or you can see the EX1 as a smaller brother of the higher end models, for which it looks like this might make a perfect B cam. Testers are suggesting that it produces a very comparable picture to the F350.

It looks very much like a 350 with a lower-quality lens on it. It's a great cam, perfect sizing for indie work, and very fast and easy to get a great image. Great glass (arguably the best in class).

Thread moved from the V1 / FX7 forum to the XDCAM EX forum.

The lens on the EX1 is extremely good with very little CA and almost no flare or ghosting. In some respects it is better than my Canon 1/2 HD lens that I have on my F350, a lens that costs more than an EX1. It makes an excellent B camera to either XDCAM HD or HDCAM. The cameras all share the same gamma curves and colorimetry. I'll be doing some more shooting with an EX1 next week and hope to do some more in depth testing.

Alister, you don't happen to have a demo frame, have you?
(CA has become one of my main concerns after buying my Canon A1.)

After seeing it in the flesh there was one little detail that quite impressed me, and which seems to have got little mention amongst all the talk of pixel counts etc. Not only is it 1/2" chips and a true manual lens, but the grip rotates. That may not sound much, but it lets you hold it with the wrist straight, which I found substantially more comfortable than cameras like the Z1 or HVX200. I'd have preferred to see it as a shoulder mount at this size and weight, but this mod is a big step forward.

"So it looks like we have a 1080p60 camcorder that can also record 720p60."

I believe this camera can only do 30p in 1080 mode. In 720 mode it can do 60P.

It's 1080i60, 1080p30, 1080p24 as well as 720p60, 720p30 and 720p24.

European settings are 1080i50, 1080p25 and also 720p50, 720p25. Hope this helps,

There is no European model of the EX1; "one world, one camera" type of machine.

...Or you can see the EX1 as a smaller brother of the higher end models, for which it looks like this might make a perfect B cam. Testers are suggesting that it produces a very comparable picture to the F350.

This post was moved from the V1/FX7 Forum so it was aimed at these folks. In this Forum, the EX1 is indeed a "smaller brother of the higher end models, for which it looks like this might make a perfect B cam."

PS: "I believe this camera can only do 30p in 1080 mode." That's too bad as the Region 50 countries need 50p and also desire 1080.

I believe it doesn't lack any format, Steve - both 50i and 25p are there.

from the EX1 brochure:

"The imaging devices used in the PMW-EX1 camcorder are three newly designed 1/2-inch type “Exmor”™ CMOS Sensors, each with an effective pixel count of 1920 x 1080,which produce images in 1080P, 720P and 1080i HD resolutions. It is switchable between 1080P, 1080i and 720P with a multiple frame recording capability such as 59.94i, 50i, 29.97P, 25P and native 23.98P*."

...I'll be doing some more shooting with an EX1 next week and hope to do some more in depth testing.

We'll be anxious to see how the zoom speeds compare to standard 1/2" Fujinon lenses! Be nice to have something with decent extreme slows.

Now, if they just make a way to use existing lense controllers, we'll be in line for one come Nov. (and maybe even if they don't...)

Very slow zooms are not a problem. The lens on the EX1 behaves exactly like the expensive canon lens I have on my F350.

It will shoot 1080P upto 30fps, above 30fps it is 720P at any frame rate upto 60fps, so 50P and 60P are both available.

That is very good news on the lens, and we are looking forward to getting this cam!

With our little "RIO" recorder setup for ingesting the SDI output from it, and converting to CF in field, we should have some nice material for Prospect to work with in post with PP CS3. Things are looking up!

Apparently there is a form of CA reduction circuits in the camera.

A good lens. Not so sure on the wides. But overall a good lens. I've just used a pre-production version on a dramatic shoot and I am currently writing up a more detailed appraisal (with the caveat being that is was not a final model and still had many issues to be fully expected on such a device).

Does anyone know if you can contral the iris remotely like the HVX200?

This would make it a great camera for multi-camera shoots along with the lens controls.

Very slow zooms are not a problem. The lens on the EX1 behaves exactly like the expensive canon lens I have on my F350.

I'm not as interested in slow zooms as fast ones - can you do a true snap zoom with the zoom ring on the lens? I was under the impression the zoom is still servo-driven which seems to severely limit the max speed you can zoom in.

I don't think that is the case. Like all pro manual lenses, you can disengage the servo when in manual to give you snap zoom control.

You can dis-engage the zoom servo for very fast zooms, again just like a full size lens.

Now... A version with 1080p60 would be nice... and AVC Codec would be too, intra only or IPB compressed. that would knock the HVX200 out of the park.

Plus, if 1080p60 comes, we finally might need a 1080p60 broadcast standard sooner than later...

Now... A version with 1080p60 would be nice... and AVC Codec would be too, intra only or IPB compressed. that would knock the HVX200 out of the park.

Plus, if 1080p60 comes, we finally might need a 1080p60 broadcast standard sooner than later...

Any camera with 1080p 60 will not speed up the process of broadcast adopting that standard (there are a few high end cameras that are capable of this). In fact, the opposite is true. Think later as bandwidth is the problem. With the NTSC television system, it would take a super efficient compression sceme to broadcast 1080p 60 as it takes twice the amount of bandwidth of 1080i 60. Broadcast stations are set on broadcasting 1080i 60 or 720p 60 for at least the next decade in NTSC land. Remember, they have a huge investment in high definition that has to pay off. We're seeing in the U.S. cheaper is better, even for large broadcast companies. I recently learned that Scripps/Howard owned WFTS in Tampa, Florida, went with Grass Valley Infinity cameras for their high definition news cast. They are also expected to purchase JVC 250s for their news gathering, which includes the live trucks. To date the ABC affliate still uses standard definition Beta SX for news gathering. Thus, only the studio portion of the news broadcast is high definition. We are talking Scripps/Howard, one of the largest broadcast groups in America. So for broadcast, don't count on 1080 60p for awhile.

As far as 1080p 60 in an under $10k camera, I don't expect to see that for a long time, also. It just doesn't make any business sense when 1080i and 720p look just fine. In fact, camera manufacturers are shooting themselves in the foot because more and more large companies are choosing the cheaper models (Scripps/Howard example above) instead of their more expensive models. Since this seems to be a growing trend, I think the technology is going to slow down as far as the under $10k camera is concerned. If anything although it seems unlikely to me, you might see a company come up with a way to get the 1080 60 progressive signal out, like through HDMI. But I don't foresee an actual 1080p 60 mode on an under $10k camera in the near or even distant future.

The adaption of smaller cameras for ENG work might speed up the camera development, not slow it down, but I do agree with John on 1080p60 adaption.

Many news outlets are using the Panasonic HVX200 since they can shoot DVCPro50(SD) now and more to DVCPro100(HD) without a change in gear.

I can't help but think that Sony is hoping ENG is prodded to move to HD with the Sony EX1. Given that one can use SDI out for SD (although not as efficient as SD directly to the cards) I suspect you'll see this enter the ENG market too. It's low light and high durability make this a good "war" camera too.

I do think Panasonic will counter Sony with an AVCHD I frame "prosumer" camera though. I suspect it'll be in the camera that replaces the HVX200.

The JVC 250 is HD (HDV) only with SDI out also so we're going to have an interesting battle in the ENG market. I suspect JVC will also come out with a means to easily record to non tape. It probably won't be solid state and may or may not be optical . . . might be hard drive.

No I don't see much reason for manufacturers to push 1080p60 though as stations don't have any motive to go in that direction.

The ONLY reason I can see going with a JVC250 over the HVX200 or EX1 is that it's shoulder mount (interchangeable lenses but I don't think that's critical for ENG work).

I agree with Craig.

When I look at the EX, I think wow, Sony is sort of cutting off the 330/350 line of XDCAMs at the knees with this quality/pricepoint.

But the more I think about it, maybe they are seeing that a lot of folks (big and small) just are not ready jump yet, so there are profit margins at the $10,000 price range.

One thing that will never change is budgets.

Just because it is HD does not mean all of the sudden one can afford to pay twice or more as much per camera compared to SD purchases (which they already own).

Tim, budget is a big (the biggest?) factor in all this as you note. For example, NY1 uses shoulder mount camera and 2 person crews (op and talent) for their "big name" reporters. Everyone else is one person creaw with HVX200. Reporter actually has to carry and set up their own camera so gear must be protable (small/light weight) and delivery post workflow must be similar (all P2).

There are many XDCAM cameras being used in ENG and all the SD ones are shoulder mount. I'm sure Sony would like to move ENG to HD. Hence the 330 and 350. The problem is Sony had NOTHING in the small camera market for ENG. I'm sure they saw the HVX200 flourishing and they had to do something to keep XDCAM users from moving to P2 over time.

Hence the EX1. The battle begins(!) in the small camera ENG market! Whereas the HVX200 can't truly match the quality of its bigger bros, the EX1 can match the 330/350 easily. Sony can offer card based acquisition and ingest that will work well with the optical disc version in post.

Compared to the 330/350 (335/355) Sony can sell a boatload of EX1s to news organizations. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if they're thinking they can move some P2 based outlets over to XDCAM and the EX1 is a "transition" camera. There's much I can speculate on that but I'll save it for another post if someone asks why.

BTW I was an video engineer in an organization heavily invested in BetaSX so I know how purchase thinking can go (both good and bad).

It seems to me that the EX is squarely aimed at the HVX 200 and small shops 1 to 3 employees like mine. The interesting thing to me is that Sony did draw a line between the 330/350 XCDAM HD and EX lines with the fact the the EX records MP4 wrapper and XDCAM HD uses MXF, allowing direct and fast editing with Avids. So if your a big market TV station or post house you're likely to stick with the 330/350 because you don't have to convert to MXF like you would the EX. I really can't speak for smaller markets. Do they edit predominantly with Adobe and Apple FCP??? I know that end to end Avid setups are still widely used here for broadcast.

I'm not a TV station under intense deadline pressures. Relatively speaking, I have the time to convert.

Cheers

By the way, HVX 200 is also MXF encoded. It will be interesting to see if that codec wrapper starts to fade or become a standard.

David, in my market I'm seeing MANY HVX200s used for ENG work and I'm in a BIG market - NYC. So if the EX1 is aimed at HVX200 it'll get a strong look at for ENG work. I really think you exaggerate the impact of the MP4 wrapper. It'll be easy/fast to strip that off. I suspect Sony's thinking is that MP4 wrapper can broaden and ease compatibility.

News organizations think in terms of VOLUME purchases. You miss the entire budget issue. A news organization can send out many 1 person crews with the EX1. It won't replace the 330/350, it'll supplement it . . . just as the HVX200 has for its bigger P2 brethren.

There's a market / workflow battle between P2 and XDCAM and Sony, for obvious reasons, wants to win that.

Keep in mind the EX1 is HD only to card. SDI will support SD out though and they'll probably be converting that to DVCPro50 or IMX30,40,50 on the fly. Sony is trying to make it easy/affordable to ENG to move to HD and volume sales of EX1 will do more to do that than 330/350 sales. Many XDCAMs in ENG are SD only so the EX1 makes the transition affordable since it may be able to come close to the 350 in quality.

The use of smaller cams is really part of the VJ, video journalist, movement in ENG. The concept was proven usable at New York 1 and then Bay News 9 in Florida both used one reporter who also shot and edited their own stuff. The problem became it's super time consuming and hard work, especially in FL, to lug around a full shoulder mount cam and sticks to hold it. Plus, I'll add and editorial note that I feel the ease of use of a lot of the smaller cams auto features benefits the VJ style.

So now they not only get to save money because the cams are cheaper but they get to have nearly half the labor cost with very few, if any, photogs on staff. I do think both the HVX and EX are aimed at that market. They allow a light weight kit, HD delivery, and tapeless media(yet another cost savings). The EX has more upside thanks to the HD SDI out which can allow clean feeds out of the cam to a truck if need be.

More and more ENG has seen budgets and staff go down and these cams fill that bill. As usually the EX will probably produce great results in skilled users hands.

Going with mp4 instead of MXF made sense in a lot of ways. right now that only programs that support MXF are NLE's. Many graphics programs such as After Effects do not work with MXF files. In my opinion MXF was a very stupid idea and many other formats could have filled it's place. MXF is a very closed system that it hard to add support for. Using mp4 means that many graphics programs should now work with the footage right from the start without needing to convert and export to a different format from within your NLE. If you really must have MXF for a NLE then the conversion tool is very fast and it converts during transfer to your internal drives. Re-wrapping is very fast. There are even free tools out there to strip out the m2v stream from a mp4 file if you really must do that. Again these tools are very fast. I'm actually glad SONY decided to use a more open format.

Going with mp4 instead of MXF made sense in a lot of ways//If you really must have MXF for a NLE then the conversion tool is very fast and it converts during transfer to your internal drives. Re-wrapping is very fast. There are even free tools out there to strip out the m2v stream from a mp4 file if you really must do that. Again these tools are very fast. I'm actually glad SONY decided to use a more open format.

Thomas - - I'm editing on Avid Xpress Pro... so I'm pretty sure I'll have to convert to MXF. I've been worrying about this, but your post makes me hopeful that maybe I don't need to. Question: if footage I shoot on an EX (if I get one) is converted during transfer... does this mean real-time playback and capture (as I'm doing now, on tape), or is there still a way to drag-and-drop from ExpressCard to Avid Xpress Pro (faster than real time)?
thanks for any advice on this.
Malcolm

It seems to me that the EX is squarely aimed at the HVX 200 and small shops 1 to 3 employees like mine. The interesting thing to me is that Sony did draw a line between the 330/350 XCDAM HD and EX lines with the fact the the EX records MP4 wrapper and XDCAM HD uses MXF, allowing direct and fast editing with Avids. So if your a big market TV station or post house you're likely to stick with the 330/350 because you don't have to convert to MXF like you would the EX. I really can't speak for smaller markets. Do they edit predominantly with Adobe and Apple FCP??? I know that end to end Avid setups are still widely used here for broadcast.

I'm not a TV station under intense deadline pressures. Relatively speaking, I have the time to convert.

Cheers

By the way, HVX 200 is also MXF encoded. It will be interesting to see if that codec wrapper starts to fade or become a standard.

David,

Actually on AVID, the MXF import process is not that simple. There are different flavors of MXF. Sony's XDCAM and XDCAM HD uses the MXF OP-1A file structure (audio is interleaved with video) but AVID uses MXF-Atom (audio and video are kept independent). So, when you are importing XDCAM or XDCAM HD MXF files in AVID, they are first unwraped and then rewraped as MXF-Atom. That is a fairly time consuming process and I expect that importing XDCAM EX files into AVID may just be as fast if not faster.

Thierry.

Sorry to keep saying it, but the EX1 is NOT aimed at ENG. That's not to say someone won't use it in that capacity. It is meant to be a wedding/event shooter's camera with larger sensors and better lens controls than were previously available in this price range and form factor.

Yes Craig, you do see HVX200's being used for ENG in some locales. But they also don't seem to be holding up to the rigors of daily ENG usage. That's not to say it's a bad camera, just that it wasn't intended to be used as a daily news camera. That's much more suited to the HPX-500 or the 2000 or 3000 series full size units. And every seasoned news photographer detests the use of non-standard, non-shoulder mount cameras. They have limitations that make the wide variety of ENG scenarios very frustrating at times. BTW Craig, your email addy in your profile is NG. Please update it so I can respond to your private mail messages.

The VJ concept has also been tried in some places and it seems to not be working well either. Trying to get one person to do two or three very specialized jobs at once leads to a lower quality product on the air and has hurt the ratings of some of those stations. There are excellent reporters, and there are excellent cameramen. There are very few that are excellent at both, let alone being able to fully deliver on both disciplines at the same time. Trying to get one person to do multiple jobs always looks good on paper, but rarely pans out in real numbers. How long would it take you to wash, dry, and wax your car? Now let 5 or 6 car wash employees go after it and see how teamwork makes a big difference in time saved.

-gb-

Sorry to keep saying it, but the EX1 is NOT aimed at ENG. That's not to say someone won't use it in that capacity. It is meant to be a wedding/event shooter's camera with larger sensors and better lens controls than were previously available in this price range and form factor.

Yes Craig, you do see HVX200's being used for ENG in some locales. But they also don't seem to be holding up to the rigors of daily ENG usage. That's not to say it's a bad camera, just that it wasn't intended to be used as a daily news camera. That's much more suited to the HPX-500 or the 2000 or 3000 series full size units. And every seasoned news photographer detests the use of non-standard, non-shoulder mount cameras. They have limitations that make the wide variety of ENG scenarios very frustrating at times. BTW Craig, your email addy in your profile is NG. Please update it so I can respond to your private mail messages.

The VJ concept has also been tried in some places and it seems to not be working well either. Trying to get one person to do two or three very specialized jobs at once leads to a lower quality product on the air and has hurt the ratings of some of those stations. There are excellent reporters, and there are excellent cameramen. There are very few that are excellent at both, let alone being able to fully deliver on both disciplines at the same time. Trying to get one person to do multiple jobs always looks good on paper, but rarely pans out in real numbers. How long would it take you to wash, dry, and wax your car? Now let 5 or 6 car wash employees go after it and see how teamwork makes a big difference in time saved.

-gb-

I'm going to agree and disagree with Greg on this one.

I agree that the VJ concept is inferior in terms of production quality. I have seen reporters fresh out of school over expose and mis white balance hundreds of hours of footage. It is very rare to find some one who has the skills to manage both jobs reporting a story and shooting great video.

I disagree that it failing or going away. The ad dollars at local stations has been going down for some time. For that mater a compelling case can be made that local and national TV news is a dwindling media. The only way local stations can compete with other media (cable, direct marketing, web, print) is to lower their labor cost and increase productivity. The sales pitch that was made to them with the VJ concept is that they could cover more local stories because their workflow and speed would be better then the station still waiting for both the photog and reporter to arrive at the story.

The HVX has been widely used, in particularly internationally, for ENG work. Agreed the EX and HVX are not really rugged enough for the kind of abuse that ENG causes but the cams are a quarter of their full size counter parts.

I am not a fan of the VJ concept but it will continue to be a big part of ENG. The EX will be a big hit with ENG if it's lens lives up to the hype and the workflow and storage are improved over P2.

OT- Profile updated - emails address was YEARS out of date! Sorry!

Sorry to keep saying it, but the EX1 is NOT aimed at ENG. . . . -gb-

The market may decide otherwise. I'm certainly am not a fan of 1 person crews but they seem to be quite common and growing FWIW.

NY1 is one example, Now RNN just outside of NYC too. I'm seeing 1 person crews with HVX200s in many places. I've heard others are seeing Z1s in other markets BTW. Certainly the BBC was using Sony PD-150s and so was CNN in some cases.

BTW it's not the "lead" reporters who are on the 1 person crews. It's the folks who might only be gathering b-roll for VO type stories and getting an occasional shot at setting themselves up on camera.

While the EX1 will no doubt do well enough in the wedding/event market, I don't think HD-SDI is a strong "sell" in that market.

Sony certainly wouldn't market it against the 335/355 just as Panasonic wouldn't market the HVX200 against the 500/2000/3000 in the ENG market but the "market" has a way of deciding this. DV wasn't supposed to be "professional" either if I recall when Sony came out with the VX1000.

Only time will tell but my hunch is that the cable news market will be buying EX1s and they'll use the SDI out for Standard Def (converting to DVCPro50 or IMX my guess) "on the fly."

The ONLY thing I see preventing a "budget" decision to go with the EX1 for some ENG uses is that it's HD only so it depends on whether such organizations accept an SDI to some SD conversion as part of the workflow.

What I see in my market (NYC) and why NY1 News (and others) use small cameras in some cases seem to be that it can often be easier for someone to get to a story via subway rather than van in NYC traffic. It's often easier to throw a small camera in a cab or car when the news vans aren't available. There's also the need to have a "throw away" camera in some environments. Durability? You can burn through a few EX1s for the price of a 355.

Greg, I'm not saying it will REPLACE the 335/355 but it's going to become a well used supplement IMHO.

We're kind of going off topic of EX1 details.

One place I see a lot of conversion to video with more manageable sized cameras is traditional print media. Newspapers now have web sites and are starting to use video for that, and by using HD, the stills they can lift are of sufficient quality to print.

No doubt about it that these cameras make great supplemental units to their full size cousins. But some stations tried to go VJ across the board, and that was a bit extreme IMO.

Overall though, I'm just thankful that the proliferation of new uses for media has increased the demand for video at both ends of the spectrum. But as always, it comes down to using the right tool for the job at hand. I've been known to pull a spark plug or two with channel lock pliers, but it's much less frustrating to do it with a properly sized deep socket with internal rubber boot. If I had to remove and replace spark plugs all day, every day, I know which tool I'd reach for.

My statement about the EX1 not being aimed at the ENG market is Sony's assertion, not mine. How it gets used, as has been stated, will be determined by the end users just like mini-dv, then HDV.

-gb-

We're kind of going off topic of EX1 details.-gb-

I guess the on topic tech detail would be what's coming down the HD-SDI port. I believe it would be 8 bit uncompressed 4:2:2 but does that included Time Code if it were reading it off the express card?

I'm also wondering if it'll write to card and send out HD-SDI simultaneously with matching code?

I guess the on topic tech detail would be what's coming down the HD-SDI port. I believe it would be 8 bit uncompressed 4:2:2 but does that included Time Code if it were reading it off the express card?

I'm also wondering if it'll write to card and send out HD-SDI simultaneously with matching code?

According to the brochure PDF on Page 15 both HD-SDI and SD-SDI
output timecode and embedded audio. Most likely uncompressed 8bit 4:2:2 down the pipe. But nothing in the brochure confirms.