Does anyone know if this camera has a pre-record function that would record maybe 10 seconds or so BEFORE hitting the record button? Would be great for lightning storms.

I'm really confused as to what sort of signal comes out of what interface. We've got SDI, firewire, component....what connections output full hd and which ones are downcoverted? Blu-ray home recorders are probably a year or so away from north american shores, and I would imagine they will have firewire ports on them. Would it be possible to take the full hd signal from this camera and send it to a recorder (or any other device) via firewire? I'm not looking at the video so much as "data" but just as a video signal.

One other note. People are comparing this camera to the big XDCAM HD rigs with thier 3/4 imagers and I'm wondering if the EX1 is going to have the same dynamic range. Maybe Sony has something up their sleeve, but I see this camera blowing out highlites sooner than the big cameras. Any data on the latitude?

Thanks.

Not certain, but I think somewhere Sony said pre-record would be enabled via a firmware update at some point after the initial release.

People are comparing this camera to the big XDCAM HD rigs with thier 3/4 imagers ...

You mean 2/3" imagers. The XDCAM HD full size cameras are also only 1/2" at this point - a new 2/3" SONY XDCAM HD is coming up. It will be 4:2:2 and have the capability of recording at a higher bit rate, so that will be quite a bit better than the EX or the current XDCAM cameras. But for now, the full size XDCAM HD cameras have the same size sensors and record at 1440x1080 while the EX records in full 1920x1080.

Sorry, I meant the XDCAM rigs. Not the XDCAM HD ones. Not really an apples to apples comparison is it. My bad.