Firstly, a big thank you to Steven Thomas for compiling the list of questions for me (you gave me back my lunch break today Steve, so thank you mate!). I wasn’t able to get to answers to all of the questions, but I got most of them. I’ll also give you guys a brief run down of my thoughts on the camera at the end. So here goes:


1. Will the camera support a flip system for use with 35mm adapters?

No, there’s no flip system, which is a shame because the EX’s LCD is a beauty (more on that later). However, from what I’ve seen so far of the Letus35 Extreme (which flips the image with only ½ stop of light loss) that’s becoming less of an issue with the latest 35mm adapters.

2. What are the transfer rates from SxS to XDCAM ?

Will depend on your system, but the Sony guys were suggesting approximately 3-6 times fast than real-time download from the cards on to computer.

3. Will it be now possible to preserve the 1920x1080 format to XDCAM Disc instead of 1440?

No, however when the new XDCAM HD 422 disks arrive next year, you will be able to store your footage on those disks (albeit upsampled to 50Mbps). Peter Jefferson suggested that MP4 files could be stored as an archive, but not as an editing format.

4. How many stops of dynamic range the EX has, and how it compares to the 1/2" chip DV models?

Ben Allan ACS shot the EX sample footage for Sony Australia, unfortunately the tech I spoke to said he’d forgotten to ask him about dynamic range when they collected the camera. From the footage we were shown (screened on ruddy data projector – people at the launch up in Sydney got to see it on Sony’s 4K projector) I’d say that the EX’s dynamic range is very good – it looks better than any hand-held HD camera I’ve ever seen. Some of the sample footage had some very tough, contrasty shots in it (person in foreground standing in deep shadows under some trees, with a very bright sunlit house in the background) the detail in the shadows in the foreground looked superb - and this is with the brightly lit house in the background correctly exposed.

5. Are Progressive Segmented Frame modes (25PsF, 30PsF) available through i.LINK

I’m not sure, there was a table in the powerpoint presentation we were shown that had all of the possible output formats through HD-SDI, SDI etc. PsF might have been on there, they might not have – there were a LOT of output options on there, so I wouldn’t be surprised if PsF is one of them.

6. What kind of proprietary adapter is required to use the lens remote controller?

The Sony Australia guys don’t know yet.

7. Is the HD-SDI output live only and/or will it output recorded footage from the SxS cards at both bitrates?

HD-SDI offers output for both live and recorded footage.

8. Can the EX record to card and output SD out of SDI (downconvert) simultaneously and with matching timecode?

I’m not sure about matching timecode, but you can certainly record to card and output SD to a computer/capture device.

9. Will the EX accept a standard fujinon remote lens controller?

No

10. Will the EX be able to adapt (in any way) previous Lanc controllers such as the Manfrotto 523P?

Not sure yet, no one knows quite what Sony are planning for the lens controller.

11. Will the live HD-SDI output offer real 10bits and not 8 bits stuffed into a 10bit SDI stream?

I was told “real” 10 bits.

12. What requirements are for mobile workstations ( PC laptop clock speed, current MacBookPro or MacBook, Vista and Leopard compatibility), RAM size, Hard disk speed requirements?

Just about any current computer should manage just fine. They said they’d used a basic dual-core PC with 2Gb of RAM and Vista Ultimate, and that ran fine. If your computer can handle capturing and editing HDV you’ll probably be okay.

13. Can you copy HQ footage directly to FCS5or6 timeline without capturing or rendering?

Not sure about FCP5, but FCP6 will support XDCAM EX footage natively, just drag your footage straight off the SxS card and into the timeline and off you go! All you’ll need is download Sony’s codec for FCP6 (it’ll be available after they release the camera next month)

14. What are the best software options on PC?

Grass Valley’s Edius (Broadcast v4.6 – due soon) will support XDCAM footage via some software from Canopus (which unwraps the .MP4 files for you) workflow looked fast and simple, unwrap the .MP4s and throw them straight on the timeline.

Sony’s Vegas 8 requires you to unwrap the .MP4 files using the software that comes with the EX (looks quick and painless) and then you drop your footage straight on the timeline and start editing.

The workflows on all three of the NLEs we were shown (Edius, FCP6 and Vegas) looked quick and hassle free.

15. How does it perform against green or blue (or other color) screen?

No blue/green screen sample footage had been shot. I was told that someone had tried changing the colour of a t-shirt with some of the footage, and had pulled it off with some minimal colour fringing around the edges of the t-shirt. That’s as much as they knew I’m afraid.

16. How flexible is footage for coloring in native format?

The first footage we were shown was a short video of a woman painting, at first I was quite horrified by the blue tinting in all of the shadows, fortunately we were then shown that the footage had been colour-graded to look bluish (the native footage looked fine). I didn’t think it was a pleasing grade for that footage, but handled differently maybe it would have looked okay, that’s the only example of colouring I can give you.

17. Will there be a firmware upgrade in the future so that one can store 1920x1080 at 35 mbs from the iLink/firewire port on for example a new FIRESTORE model?

No word on whether firmware is being developed for Firestore, however 25Mbps 1080i should store on Firestore drives just fine.

18. Why no HDMI out?

Because they have HD-SDI? To my knowledge HDMI is a consumer format. The Sony guys sounded pretty adamant about this being a “Pro” camera. The camera has a LOT of output options, it would be hard to find a fault with the camera on that front IMO.

19. Can we use the bundled XDCAM Transfer tool on a PPC Mac, or is it only for Intel Macs?

I didn’t get to ask this question. But the good news is that FCP6 will support XDCAM EX footage natively, so you won’t need the software anyway… unless of course you’re running Vegas or Edius on a PPC Mac (do people run Vegas/Edius on PPC Macs?).

20. Can the EX1 record to DR60 (in SP mode, of course) without any SxS card inserted (or with them both 100% full)?

Good news here – the EX can both communicate with and record to the DR60 (in SP mode only) without any SxS cards inserted. And can record when both SxS cards are full, or as a backup whilst they’re recorded to.

21. What is the bit depth of the internal processing circuitry?

No official word on the internal processing circuitry. The images are captured off the CMOS chips at 14 bit A/D, the tech today told me that Sony’s internal processing is often twice the bitrate of the captured image - so 28 bit, assuming the EX follows this philosophy.

22. Will the cameras allow use of less expensive SSD cards or actively block them, even if they have sufficient throughput?

They dodged this question like true professionals! They wouldn’t say “no” but they also wouldn’t confirm if any non-SxS cards would actually work. Assuming that the read/write speed of a non-SxS card was compatible with the camera, it should work. But there’s no confirmation on whether any such cards actually exist. On the plus side – they didn’t say that camera would actively block such cards!

23. Will HD-SDI output live footage when over/under-cranking?

There’s been some concern about this, particularly for people using steadicam rigs on a regular basis. The bad news is that HD-SDI won’t output live footage for the majority of over/under-cranked framerates. The good news is that it will output the important ones. 1-23, 26-29, 31-49 and 51-59fps can not be outputted live via HD-SDI, however 24, 25, 30, 50 and 60fps (i.e. the regular framerates) are all supported.

The EX is a very interesting camera, in my opinion the ½” sensors and lens alone make a very strong case for anyone shooting HDV to upgrade. The image quality of HQ 35Mbps footage is a bigger improvement over 25Mbps HDV than I had imagined, and the increased lowlight sensitivity seems to suggest that this is a handheld HD camera that can really handle shooting low-light concerts, weddings etc.

However there are more things than just the image quality, that make me excited about this camera. The LCD is great, it has a 480x1920 resolution that combined with the focus assist function (a button that gives you a 2x magnification of what the camera is looking at) makes getting sharp focus quick and easy. It can display an unobtrusive live histogram as you shoot (handy), and can also display a DOF meter as you shoot (very handy).

This of course is all helped by the lens, which is awesome. I’ve never shot on digital with full manual lenses before, 16mm but never digital, the lens is great – MUCH, much easier to get your exposure and focus correct quickly.

I’m still a little sceptical about the workflow however. From what I’ve seen today there are going to be no dramas with getting your footage into your NLE, that part of things is going to be a massive bonus over tape – getting your footage on to the computer and edited is going to be a breeze. It’s archiving the footage you shoot that poses problems. The tech I spoke to suggested that archiving on blue-ray would probably be the best option for the time being, other people were suggesting simply using hard drives. It’s an issue I’ll be keeping a close eye on in the future.

There’s just one other thing I’ll mention, build quality. Compared to Sony’s V1 and Z1 camcorders the EX I saw both looked and felt surprisingly flimsy. The lens feels top notch, but the body and many of the buttons feel pretty cheap. Let me put it this way: this is a camera that I would throw a rain-cover over not at the first sign of rain, but at the first sign of dark clouds – it looks and feels pretty vulnerable.

I hope that was helpful guys, I’m certainly looking forward to getting a sample from Sony for a proper review (though with only one camera in the country at the moment, that could be awhile!).

Great report Mark.
As for the build, what you were handling was one of the 4 pre-production units in the country, so hopefully the build will be a little more robust.

Thanks so much Mark!

Great amount of information.

Can we use the bundled XDCAM Transfer tool on a PPC Mac, or is it only for Intel Macs?

I didn’t get to ask this question. But the good news is that FCP6 will support XDCAM EX footage natively, so you won’t need the software anyway… unless of course you’re running Vegas or Edius on a PPC Mac (do people run Vegas/Edius on PPC Macs?).

The XDCAM Transfer application will run on PPC Macs and no, you can't run Vegas/Edius on PPC Macs because you can't use boot camp, Parallels, or VMWare to load Windows.

-gb-

As one of those contributing to the lengthy list of questions, I'd like to thank you Mark very much for all the info!

Glad to of helped out Mark.
Great report.. Thank you!

Excellent. Thanks Mark for the time that you took to do this. You're a true professional. And thanks for a "balanced" opinion on your part.

Cheers.

Thanks so much for this report..very informative.

Do you happen to know the thread size ? 72mm?

Thank you very much for everything.

I'm kind of shocked that they said the HD-SDI was a "real" 10 bits. I'm still not sure if I believe it though. The issue of 10 bit video from a camera has been a funny issue in the past and can cause some mixup. It is pretty darn exciting if it is true however.

Hopefully it will offer 4:2:2 10bit via SDI. If it does, the upcoming FLASH XDR will make one heck of a combo.

Thanks for the info Mark, truly impressive.

Download speed from the cards is 2.5Gb/s, so you can work out download/shooting time fairly readily. Whether non-SxS cards will work seems to be debatable. Sony have had the cards engineered for reliable operation and say that "ordinary" cards don't have the necessary capabilities. Obviously these will get cheaper as production volume increases, so the current costs are not such a downer as first hit suggests.

I didn't consider the camera flimsy, but that will depend on how you wish to use it. The body is very compact and there is little real-estate remaining for any extra buttons or switches. Accordingly these are small and I can see how the criticism will be valid for certain applications. Seemed to me very similar to the Z1 for robustness, but perhaps I do treat my gear with more respect than many. Certainly not water resistant, but I'd assumed that the Z1 also needed a raincoat and have always cloaked it when shooting sailing regattas; so don't see the exposed switches as a negative. Guess it might depend on whether one owns the gear or just uses it.

There was a question asked about being able to invert the LCD image when using the camera with a 35mm lens adapter (as in the Redrock Micro). If the EX uses the same system as the Z1 you can invert the LCD image using a magnet, although it will still be a mirror image.

The material projected wasn't a good representation of the camera and much of it was a demonstration of how people mistake it for a consumer camera so you can shoot in public places without permits or attracting attention. The interesting stuff were shots of a model taken at exposures varying 2 stops above and below correct, showing the clips corrected in post. Here the camera was rated at 800 ASA and the images 2 stops under showed no noise when corrected, although that might not have been so with a decent projector. I would have liked to have seen a more testing subject, for there was little black in the image (blonde, fair skin, light background). The over exposed clips demonstrated soft clipping and I would have like to have been able to explore that -- appeared much more natural than the usual video clipping. One shot in the video cried out for correction (man in shadow backgrounded by sunlit building) and that would have been a good test of dynamic range, but couldn't judge it from the projected image. In the auditorium I was able to try some of the other cinegamma curves and they looked interesting but was unable in that situation to quantify their relative benefits (others kept wanting to look). The black stretch was very nice with precise control over its setting.


Incidentally there was also a large Sony HD TV screen playing a promotional video, and this looked excellent. Would have liked to have seen the test material on that.

The facilities built into the EX1 are excellent and this looks to me like a significant addition to the arsenal for low end producers.

Another view on the switch/button matter:

"In use the EX1 is just in the same ball park as the Z1 and HVX200, the layout, switches, levers and dails etc are all logically laid out and roughly where you would expect them to be on a camcorder of this kind. However, I didn’t like the White Balance, Assign 4 and Shutter lever under the lens to the front of the camcorder. They are just too small and difficult to ‘feel’ your way to during use. You have to flip the camcorder up to actually see what you are about to press. I’m more used to having a camcorder on my shoulder or on a tripod with my eye pressed up the viewfinder and having all the controls fall nicely under my fingers so I don’t have to take my eye from the viewfinder; you won’t find that here with the EX1. I found just about all the controls/buttons/levers/switches/dials on the EX1 to be just too darn small, and I only have regular size hands/fingers. This is a shame as the image quality produced by the EX1 means that some professionals will be adopting it as a B-camera to their higher end gear; and it is these guys that will have to tolerate the little buttons on the EX1. I personally feel that the EX1 needs to have a ‘macho’ makeover in the button/switch department; but that’s just me."

Serena, thanks for the review.

How large was the Sony HD that they were displaying the demo EX stuff on?

How would you compare what you saw to the current camp of sub $10K cameras?

Your welcome guys! Filter threads are 77mm Daniel.

I didn’t like the White Balance, Assign 4 and Shutter lever under the lens to the front of the camcorder. They are just too small and difficult to ‘feel’ your way to during use. You have to flip the camcorder up to actually see what you are about to press.

Well, it's not like you would be using the WB or Shutter controls 'on-the-fly' all that much. I don't really see this as much of an issue. Not to mention that over time one would get used to the placement of the controls and their feel anyway. As long as the overall built of the camera is solid, we have a great piece of equipment here.

The display was about a metre wide (but could have been bigger). In fact the screen they used for projection wasn't that much bigger, but better positioned. Like these recalled impressions, seeing different content from different cameras displayed at different times on different devices isn't a reliable basis for judgement of comparative image quality. However the EX really surprised me with the quality of the images, and I haven't seen that matched in the under $10K bracket. But every camera can look good when used well, and each when released has been a step up, but since entry to HDV this is the one that makes me think "the time has come to upgrade". Larger sensors (rather than smaller - I didn't care for dropping back down to 0.25" cmos), a real lens (mechanical focus and iris rings, zoom is probably servo, but control good), extensive processing options, great help for getting sharp focus and good exposure, good low light capability.
On the other hand, fixed lens, not weather proof (is there any camera under 10K that is) and you don't have tapes to store away. Is this one worth the extra cost over something already in the market? I think so if the extra cost gives you something you really need. But you can shoot great images with the FX1 (with care). Will clients value the difference between you and cheaper competitors? Probably not, in most cases. Will having this one improve your effectiveness and production throughput? That is the question!

The real question is: will the camera and its workflow make your life better?

I guess cell phones are getting worse. No pro-big button grand ma cell phones?
Sorry, but small cameras should have smaller buttons. I am very glad to have a full size pro zoom... like most... but it is a balance. SPORTS CARS are not SUVS.

Thanks Serena.

I'm looking forward to the improved image quality.
The better image quality will hold up better through post and the end results
will look better.

Download speed from the cards is 2.5Gb/s, so you can work out download/shooting time fairly readily.
I understood 2.5Gbs to be the speed of the bus, the cards being rated at a max 800Mbs?

Even then, I don't think you can give a simple one off answer for download speed, since I'd expect it to depend far more on the equipment being downloaded to etc than the cards themselves. 800Mbs would correspond to roughly 24x real time for 35Mbs material as a theoretical maximum.

In another thread Alaistair Chapman reports 4-5 minutes for an hours worth of material, so 12x-15x (400-500Mbs) is what he was getting in practice. But a lower specced laptop is likely to be slower.

Your welcome guys! Filter threads are 77mm Daniel.

77mm??? Is that the same as the Z1U or the HVX 200??

I believe the Z1 is 72mm, I'm not sure about the HVX200.

Until now most camcorders in the semi-pro arena use 72mm, while the pro broadcast lenses usually have an 82mm filter thread...

It's interesting that Sony have gone for 77mm... if I were them I might have been tempted to pad a little and take the thread up to 82mm... I don't really think there are any 77mm video filters available at the moment.

Does anyone make a step up ring from 77mm to 82mm?

Your welcome guys! Filter threads are 77mm Daniel.
Just an observation: (Ha...Alex beat me to the punch by 3 minutes!!!)

I'm not an expert in lense adaptors, but it seems to me that 77mm is not a standard/universal thread size. It seems to me everything has been 72mm, 82mm, or 58mm. I didn't see step down or step up adaptor rings in that size from Letus, Brevis, or Red Rock Micro. Even most screw in filters for cameras are 72mm. I'm sure the adaptor manufacturers will come up with a step up ring 72mm to 77mm.

Let me know if I'm wrong.

Cheers.

Check ut B&H, there is one 77mm-82 mm that will work for you.


http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/11692-REG/B_W_65027526_77_82_mm_Step_up_Ring.html



----------------------------
www.carldieker.com

Just an observation: (Ha...Alex beat me to the punch by 3 minutes!!!)
Hee! Hee!
I'm sure the adaptor manufacturers will come up with a step up ring 72mm to 77mm.

I guess the crux is going to be whether we get any vignetting with a 72mm "device" on a lens with a 77mm front element.

I have a teleprompter hood that attaches to the outside of an 82mm broadcast lens OR (via a special adaptor) screws into a 72mm lens. I doubt it will fit on the outside of a 77mm lens so I'm reeeally hoping that I can get away with a 72 to 77mm adaptor (to adapt the adaptor...)

Until now most camcorders in the semi-pro arena use 72mm, while the pro broadcast lenses usually have an 82mm filter thread...

It's interesting that Sony have gone for 77mm... if I were them I might have been tempted to pad a little and take the thread up to 82mm... I don't really think there are any 77mm video filters available at the moment.

Does anyone make a step up ring from 77mm to 82mm?

If you have a look at this page of the B&H website you'll find more than 35 filters size 77mm:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=search&A=search&Q=&sb=bs%2Cupper%28ds%29&sq=asc&ac=&bsi=&ci=112&shs=&at=Size_77mm

If you have a look at this page of the B&H website you'll find more than 35 filters size 77mm:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=search&A=search&Q=&sb=bs%2Cupper%28ds%29&sq=asc&ac=&bsi=&ci=112&shs=&at=Size_77mm

Certainly EX users will have plenty of UV filters to choose from... ;-)

I understood 2.5Gbs to be the speed of the bus, the cards being rated at a max 800Mbs?

Even then, I don't think you can give a simple one off answer for download speed, since I'd expect it to depend far more on the equipment being downloaded to etc than the cards themselves. 800Mbs would correspond to roughly 24x real time for 35Mbs material as a theoretical maximum.

In another thread Alaistair Chapman reports 4-5 minutes for an hours worth of material, so 12x-15x (400-500Mbs) is what he was getting in practice. But a lower specced laptop is likely to be slower.

The write speed for the cards is quoted as 800 Mb/s, the data transfer speed as 2.5Gb/s. However I agree that the transfer speed I suggested is unlikely to be achieved.

Sony was exhibiting EX1 (2 of them) at HD World in NYC today. Sony rep said that he had tested xfer speed previous day using a recent Sony Vaio laptop with 25mbps source (not 35mbps) and he found the speed to be approximately 3x real time. I had heard that before previously.

So now I'm confused between Alastair's experience and that told to me by the Sony rep.


The write speed for the cards is quoted as 800 Mb/s, the data transfer speed as 2.5Gb/s. However I agree that the transfer speed I suggested is unlikely to be achieved.

Sony Rep said he knows of no device yet to use their proprietary remote control port for lens.

So far only Sony SxS Pro (and Sandisk) cards will work with camera other SxS cards (apparently they tested) do not meet their minimum read/write specs.

Their Final Cut Pro plugin will unwrap the MP4 to MXF (so rep says).

There's no way to jam sync (momentary jam) between EX1 cameras (HVX200 can do this by firewire).

He showed me that there was a variable pad on the mic input (compared to PD-170 which has a build in -10db pad).

He said there was an issue with the responsiveness of some buttons in the preproduction model which would be fixed in the final release.

He said that he believes Sony has NOT yet made a decision regarding whether they were including 0, 1 or 2 SxS 8GB cards with the camera.

BTW he said Sony had been looking at various forums and found there was some misunderstanding and misinterpretation but unfortunately they don't have time to correct that and it was creating some apparent frustration.

I personally get the impression that Sony reps are still unsure of some of the information.

I personally get the impression that Sony reps are still unsure of some of the information.

...which is quite typical. I bet you anything that half of the people on this board know the camera better from the published info than your average Sony rep.

The write speed for the cards is quoted as 800 Mb/s, the data transfer speed as 2.5Gb/s. However I agree that the transfer speed I suggested is unlikely to be achieved.
I'm using as reference the Sandisk release itself - http://www.sandisk.com/Corporate/PressRoom/PressReleases/PressRelease.aspx?ID=3770 .

Just below the picture of a card is a paragraph talking about "High-speed data transfer of large video files", and that states that: " PCI Express™ has a maximum data transfer speed of 2.5 gigabits per second, twice as fast as PC Card™-based storage media. and "The target transfer speed of SxS™ memory cards is 800 megabits per second2."

I've not seen a WRITE speed specifically quoted anywhere, and the Sandisk link above seems quite clear that 800Mbs is the max card transfer speed (so the max READ speed), whilst the 2.5Gbs is the BUS speed.

Craig - regarding your 3x speed comment, it tends to show that the transfer speed depends on the weakest link in the chain, which is unlikely to be the card. What was the material being transferred to? If an optical disk, that is likely to be far slower than a hard disk. 3x sounds very slow for a card being read directly from a laptop slot to a hard disk.

The official sony line is 6 to 10x.

Some rough math. 800 Mega BITS a second is about 100 Mega BYTES second (actually 95.367 according to conversion chart below).
http://www.speedguide.net/conversion.php

http://bssc.sel.sony.com/BroadcastandBusiness/markets/10014/docs/SxS_PRO_specsheet.pdf
Note this on page 2
800Mbps** (=100MB/s)

That's 1GB every 10 seconds. (100MB/s takes 10 seconds to be 1000MB/s is 1GB/s)
16 GB card holds about 50 minutes at 35Mbps.
Note this on on bottom page 2
†Actual user capacity for 8GB is 7.4GB, and actual user capacity for 16GB is 14.9GB.
14.9GB would take about 150 seconds to transfer.
That's 2 minutes 30 seconds for 50 minutes of video.
That's just under 20x real time (rough given some rounding).

Sony XDCAM media has transfer rate of 2.4x
http://bssc.sel.sony.com/BroadcastandBusiness/markets/10014/xdcam_media.shtml
It mentions 86Mbps with one optical head and 172Mbps with two.

Some rough math. 800 Mega BITS a second is about 100 Mega BYTES second (actually 95.367 according to conversion chart below).
http://www.speedguide.net/conversion.php

http://bssc.sel.sony.com/BroadcastandBusiness/markets/10014/docs/SxS_PRO_specsheet.pdf
Note this on page 2
800Mbps** (=100MB/s)

That's 1GB every 10 seconds. (100MB/s takes 10 seconds to be 1000MB/s is 1GB/s)
16 GB card holds about 50 minutes at 35Mbps.
Note this on on bottom page 2
†Actual user capacity for 8GB is 7.4GB, and actual user capacity for 16GB is 14.9GB.
14.9GB would take about 150 seconds to transfer.
That's 2 minutes 30 seconds for 50 minutes of video.
That's just under 20x real time (rough given some rounding).

Sony XDCAM media has transfer rate of 2.4x
http://bssc.sel.sony.com/BroadcastandBusiness/markets/10014/xdcam_media.shtml
It mentions 86Mbps with one optical head and 172Mbps with two.

Those speeds are never going to happen.
1. Not device ever runs at the speed it can run in "theory" How many single hard drives do you know that run as 300 MB/S?
2. A laptop drive is going to become a huge bottleneck. This will be even more true if it is the same drive as your system drive. The more full or fragmented that single drive is the slower it will be. In order to get the best transfer speeds you will have to transfer directly to a 2 drive raid-0 product like a G-raid product. This will mean your laptop will need a FW 800 port. Even then you will never see 800 mbits/s even in a perfect world.

I understand Alister Chapman report 4 to 5 minute transfer time in another thread on this forum.

Alister is that the case?

Those speeds are never going to happen.
1. Not device ever runs at the speed it can run in "theory" How many single hard drives do you know that run as 300 MB/S?
2. A laptop drive is going to become a huge bottleneck. This will be even more true if it is the same drive as your system drive. The more full or fragmented that single drive is the slower it will be. In order to get the best transfer speeds you will have to transfer directly to a 2 drive raid-0 product like a G-raid product. This will mean your laptop will need a FW 800 port. Even then you will never see 800 mbits/s even in a perfect world.

Card data was given in this review
http://dvuser.co.uk/content.php?CID=171

A laptop drive is going to become a huge bottleneck. This will be even more true if it is the same drive as your system drive.

The laptop drive is likely the limiting factor, but I don't think it'll really be a 'huge bottleneck'. Modern laptop drives are pretty fast - sustained read/writes in the 50-60MB/s range (http://www.barefeats.com/rosa06.html). That gives us a transfer time of 20 seconds per gig - so maybe three minutes tops for an 8Gb card and six minutes for a 16Gb. If you can't take a 10 minute break per hour of footage shot you should still be fine if you can swap between two cards.

If you want to avoid using the internal drive you can pick up the 250Gb WD Scorpio for ~$200 and a triple-interface WiebeTech ToughTech Mini enclosure for ~$100, use fw800 and have a small, portable, bus-powered drive that'll hold at least 10-12 hours of footage before the transfer rate starts to slow down. In fact, at that price/size you could get two so you have short term backups in the field - maybe even do a portable RAID1.

We transfered some 2 minute long clips to a workstation PC via the USB reader at IBC and timed the transfer. It took between 10 and 15 seconds. I have been using an EX over the last couple of days and the transfer is extremely fast, with short clips it happens so fast you start to wonder if the transfer has actually worked.

We transfered some 2 minute long clips to a workstation PC via the USB reader at IBC and timed the transfer. It took between 10 and 15 seconds. I have been using an EX over the last couple of days and the transfer is extremely fast, with short clips it happens so fast you start to wonder if the transfer has actually worked.

I bet it is faster than changing out a film magazine, which is a process you don't want your AC or second AC rushing through. Nothing worse than fogged film, it happened to me once. And of course you have multiple cards and it won't slow down your shoot. And this transfer sounds fast as hell so it will be no big deal to do a card download between setups.

Which brings up a point. The role of AC almost becomes one of a "data wrangler" as one of his/her tasks. I guess you guys probably already know that.

BTW, Engadget showed a 125 Gig SD card proto on their site.

Cheers.

So if the transfer to a HD is so fast, what do ou do if you are shooting for a client and need them to walk away from the shoot with the footage? How fast is the transfer to the XDCAM disk and do you have to go through a computer?

The ideal would be a "field" XDCAM recorder that would work sans computer. Pop the card in and copy to disc.

I believe Sony's XDCAM writers state 2.4x realtime speeds.

Depending on how much data (how many discs you need) one might burn DVDs (or dual layer DVDs) from a laptop. One might extend that thinking to a Blu-Ray burner in the field. I understand there are Blu-Ray burners that can be installed in a laptop for about $1000.

Another (probably more expensive) solution would be to copy the data to slower cheaper cards and sell those to the client.

There's also data copied to a firewire drive attached to the laptop.

The choices may also depend on what's available to the client. While all this seems more (sometimes much more) expensive than tape (except maybe DVDs) the advantage is that you're handing DATA to the client. Some clients still can't playback miniDV (they don't have consumer camera at home!) and other clients are faced with "heck" if you hand them an HDV tape.

In the possible XDCAM HD scenarios it's possible to hand a client data on card/disc, etc.. It would be nice if Sony made the codec freely available if needed for playback.

BTW, except for clients with "pro" connections, handing them an XDCAM disc might not be most convenient for them. I actually saw a Craigslist post yesterday from someone who had something shot on a 350 and was handed an XDCAM disc. They were looking for someone with the ability to transfer the disc to something they could use.

So if the transfer to a HD is so fast, what do ou do if you are shooting for a client and need them to walk away from the shoot with the footage? How fast is the transfer to the XDCAM disk and do you have to go through a computer?

Transfer to XDCAM disks requires the use of the MXF conversion routine that will be included in the new Sony clip browser software. At the moment this only works for SP mode as XDCAM HD only supports 1440x1080. I expect this will get updated in the future. The MP4 to MXF conversion simply re-wraps the MPEG content into an MXF wrapper so happens on the fly. You can copy/convert straight from an SxS card direct to a XDCAM HD disk (using the transfer tool) at between 2x and 3x depending on the xdcam deck used.

Archiving to Blu-ray is a lower cost option and you can keep the full 1920x1080 resolution. Simply burn the root folder from the SxS card to the blu-ray disk and you will retain all the meta data and correct file structure.

For handing off rushes to clients I would recommend USB hard drives until such time as Blu-ray drives become common place. If you stick the Sony Browser Software on the disk as well the client can use that to view (full screen) and log the footage.

Some rough math. 800 Mega BITS a second is about 100 Mega BYTES second (actually 95.367 according to conversion chart below).

Officially it's exactly 100 Megabytes now using the modern base-10 definition, which equals 95.367 "Mebibytes". See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megabyte. However, the Windows file manager still uses the base 2 definitions.

I'm not sure whether this should go under this thread and whether this has already been discussed elsewhere.

Is it possible to transfer video clips from the EX1 to a fifth generation iPod without a pc? I got this idea from this site:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301059

And I also found this needed item since the EX1 has a firewire and not a USB connector:

http://www.eforcity.com/220567.html?efprcnetatxt071015=220567

Theoretically with this connector + an iPod + the EX will lead to file transfer on the field. Or am I missing something? Any feedback on this?

Also there still remains the issue of transferring speed which has to be seen whether it is worth it.

Yes, I think is technically possible use the iPod as a small field storage. You can use the ipod with the Sony USB reader/writer instead the adapter. This reader will come as XDCAM EX accessorie.

That's very interesting... I assumed that there would be no way of offloading without a laptop in the field...

But that would be incredibly cool. Let's hope that the Sony Card Reader uses one of the protocols supported by the iPod...