http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20070921/sony_99.jpg

This is interesting. The site is in Japanese. I wonder if this will be a 2008 NAB product roll out. I wonder what in/outs it supports and if it had an internal hard drive.

There already was a mock-up at IBC 2007. It was placed under glass on the XDCAM EX Hands on stand.

Is there any info on the planned I/O?
Looks like a recorder < red REC button? >
Nice and small for location shoots. With internal Hard Drive could be a nice
backup or layoff device!

It would be nice to be able to swap internal drives too ... :) Say you fill up a drive and can't get to the studio... pop in another drive :)

I know I'm dreaming...

MRW

Wouldn't it have been nice for Sony to bring this out at the same time as the camera, so we could all set up our work flows accordingly!

By the time it comes out most of us probably won't need it!

Maybe they still will?????

Vaughan

With a solid state workflow, how does a 'deck' make any sense? What does this get you that a laptop doesn't?

That's my question.

If it was covered in rugged rubber (built for the field) it might be better suited for field/location shoots. But it looks more like something built for a studio environment in which case I agree that it doesn't appear to make much sense vs a laptop.

Isn't the deck sort of the same idea as the P2 field recorder? In other words, it might have a hard drive inside that the footage would be dumped to and then later it could be used in the edit suite as a feeder deck. Also, it might work as a mastering unit and live-to-air player?

Just thinking some possibilities here.... (speculation only, no real info).

Since there is a record button on this thing one advantage that there may be with a deck is for it to record XDCAM material from other sources.

For example we cannot see the back of this thing but it may have a HD-SDI input port back there. Then from your NLE you could output your live timeline back to a SxS card for a edited master.

Of course I do not know for sure that it will do this but what else would a record button be there for?

I know this may also seem hard to believe but there are still people who will want an easy way to pop in a card and watch the video on a real HDTV. Tapeless is great for editing but not so much for just watching your footage. With tapeless you either have to run the card from the camera hooked up to your HDTV or put the footage in your NLE timeline and play it out through a HD output card to your HDTV. Some people will prefer to have a deck so they can quickly view each card to check out their footage.

There could be lots of other uses for this deck such as a dedicated deck to feeding SxS cards to a HDCAM dek via SDI. Sure you could use the camera but even a lot of DV users buy a deck at some point so they don't have to use their camera for feeding.

I know this may also seem hard to believe but there are still people who will want an easy way to pop in a card and watch the video on a real HDTV.

And of course you also mean without using the camera right... because the camera can do that too.

Tapeless is great for editing but not so much for just watching your footage. With tapeless you either have to run the card from the camera hooked up to your HDTV or put the footage in your NLE timeline and play it out through a HD output card to your HDTV.

You missed one.

In any case- don't you have your NLE hooked up to a "real HDTV"?

I always had a CRT monitor and a "real TV" on my SD NLE, and in my newfangled HD NLE I have HD monitor. Along with the upgrades I am doing I'll be getting an HD projector.

Some people will prefer to have a deck so they can quickly view each card to check out their footage.

Well, you can do that yourself in camera.

If you hand the footage off to an assistant of some sort, so the camera op can keep shooting, well they may as well be using a laptop. Then they can log and transfer footage at the same time they check it out for you.

There could be lots of other uses for this deck such as a dedicated deck to feeding SxS cards to a HDCAM dek via SDI.

If I had an HDCAM deck, I'd feed that from my NLE timeline. That's the one you missed.

If I have to deliver an HDCAM tape at the end of the shoot, then I have to have my HDCAM on set right? Then why screw up my footage with SxS XDCAM recording? I'd feed the HDCAM deck uncompressed HD SDI directly from the camera. I can do a confidence monitor from the HDCAM outputs, which are post write. (Those outputs are labeled 'monitor')

Sure you could use the camera but even a lot of DV users buy a deck at some point so they don't have to use their camera for feeding.

Imagine a world where every laptop came with a DV tape drive. I bet you know where I am going.

I don't need a feeder deck. Neither do you.

In the odd circumstance I don't have a machine equipped with the right slot, I can use any USB equipped machine with a USB adaptor. Panasonic makes such an adaptor for P2. Sony even makes one just for SxS. Of course the cameras also offer this option.

Oh, if you are worried about "wearing out" the connectors on your camera, then I'd like to welcome you to the world of solid state video.

Things are about to get very reliable.

The SxS sockets of the EX1 are rated for 30,000+ insert&remove cycles.

If you shoot 8GB cards exclusively, on HQ and you shoot ten hours of footage a day, every day then you have 30 cycles a day, or an average of 15 per SxS socket. The camera will sustain that shooting rate for 6 years on average before you experience a socket failure. Of course, if you use 16GB or 32GB media at the same shooting pace you would be looking at an average of 12 and 24 years between failures.

If your cameras are that busy, then you should have the cashflow to replace them readily with even newer better technology when they do fail.

I'm not going to tell you such a thing is useless, if its priced right with the right feature mix. Especially since we don't know what it actually does.

I will tell you that it has to be very competitive with a laptop in features and price for the application. Laptops keep getting better and cheaper too, so thats a big hurdle.

Right now that hurdle is at $5500 for every possible task the deck can offer. That gets me a Macbook with AJA ioHD and a couple of external combo USB/Firewire drives and a USB SxS or P2 reader.

I there is an HD-SDI, then another advantage would be to injest via Aja HD I/O into ProRez or Avid Media Composer Adrenaline into DNXHD. This would save a little time vs. injest and possible conversion to MXF (For Avid) or for those who don't like to edit MPEG. I can could see a post house with a machine room using a device like this.

I there is an HD-SDI, then another advantage would be to injest via Aja HD I/O into ProRez or Avid Media Composer Adrenaline into DNXHD. This would save a little time vs. injest and possible conversion to MXF (For Avid) or for those who don't like to edit MPEG. I can could see a post house with a machine room using a device like this.

Well with the open timeline in both Avid and Final Cut you can drop XDCAM on a timeline that outputs DNxHD or ProRes.

So, ingesting directly from SxS should still be faster than doing a capture over SDI. Solid state ingest and rewrapping is pretty darn fast.

This workflow already works for XDCAM footage on Professional Disc. I expect that once software support is in place that SxS will work a lot like XDCAM does right now. While support for Final Cut appears to be in place right now, there will have to be an update to Sony's ingest software to support XDCAM SxS in Avid.

Generally speaking I expect to use the SDI on the EX1 only when I am capturing live off the camera head- usually for effects work. (That includes any sort of heavy grading.) Basically when 4:2:2 vs 4:2:0 matters or when the compression levels matter.

For the projects I want to do that will be quite a lot actually, but we'll see how that pans out relative to what I actually do.

Alexander the same could also be said for those who shoot DV but the fact is a lot of DV and DVCAM decks have been sold over the years. Maybe you see no need for a deck but there are people who do like to have a deck so they don't have to use the camera. I'm not saying you should buy it or even that I would buy it but maybe there are people who would. How can you speak for everybody in the world? I just gave a few reasons as to why somebody out there with the money may want the deck.

Besides we do not yet know how much it will cost. Chances are it should be cheaper then the camera since it doesn't have the whole optical half of the camera to deal with.

Alexander the same could also be said for those who shoot DV but the fact is a lot of DV and DVCAM decks have been sold over the years.

Well, I guess what I am saying is that this is a different beast from DV/DVCAM/HDV and the other tape based solutions.

I already addressed reliability. In the past we bought decks because we didn't want to break our expensive cameras tape transports feeding footage. It was better to break a relatively cheap deck. In fact I bought a DV deck for this purpose.

That is simply not an issue with solid state cameras.

The price has to be very competitive with a laptop for me to consider such a device. I think the Sony SxS USB reader is about $250 USD. Coupled with a low end dual core laptop, that makes for a very cheap ingest and logging system. It also adds the ability to process footage for scopes and to keying on location. There is a LOT of value in the laptop solution, and that is tough to compete with.

This device has to compete with that very effectively in both price and features.

One area such a device may be useful is in the case where you specifically don't want too much computing, and thus image manipulation power. Law enforcement for example, or high security facilities. (Not too secure or otherwise your deck, camera and media never ever leave.)

Now, this thing might have SxS 4:2:2 recording at 50Mbps, HD-SDI in and out, a 160GB laptop hard drive, firewire, USB, bluetooth (for a keyboard) and be $700. That would be an insane value, and I'd snatch one despite all my stated issues.

Alexander, you are imposing your workflows and preferences on others. Thomas, David and I have already stated that there are facilities, workflows and other reasons for having a dedicated deck, instead of using the camera or a laptop. We don't know the specs or the price of this unit, so why don't we just leave it for the moment and return to this discussion when we all know more, eh? :-)

Alexander, I am guessing you have never worked in a large (or even medium sized) post house or in a broadcast setting.

Some people are going to be in positions where they do not want to transfer the footage to a laptop and then turn around and transfer that to their raid. They may be in a facility where they just want to walk in pop the card in and do the transfer, and possibly transfer the cards directly to a tape source to hand to the client (without tying up the NLE or Camera doing it, yes there still are those clients who want to preview the footage on tape).

Remember CNN has already ordered a bunch of EX's. This is exactly the type of thing you would expect to see in a setting like that. It gives one the ability to walk in pop the card into the machine and send the contents wherever they want.

Remember just because you can do something form the time line doesn't mean it is the most effective use of the NLE. Especially in a news setting a preview station that doesn't use the camera or NLE can be a very useful thing. Pop the card in, preview, and rout the files you want where you want them. That can be more effective in certain settings than transferring to one hard drive, previewing, and then making the transfer from one hard drive to another.

There are many different work flows and I am sure Sony didn't just whip this up because they thought it looked cool.

K

Kyle's right. Sony has to address many needs and workflows if they're going head to head with P2. P2 already has a headstart and is entrenched into several post houses and news outlets.

Of course if they wanted it to be cool they would sell it in a wide choice of colors! Just kidding...

Like Jiri said, we'll see what it can do when it comes out. In the meantime it would be great if someone would snap a still shot of the back of the unit if they happen to see it at a product show. That way we can see what I/O's this puppy has.

Cheers...

In the meantime it would be great if someone would snap a still shot of the back of the unit if they happen to see it at a product show. That way we can see what I/O's this puppy has.Fully agreed, and until that can happen, we're pretty much at a stand-still here. I believe Jiri Bakala is right; this is basically the same idea as a P2 field recorder. At the very least it seems to be an NLE ingest deck, a highly useful item all on its own. Obviously this product serves the ENG / EFP market... the person who says "you could just do it with a laptop," is perhaps not familiar with the fast-paced working demands of a professional news-gathering environment. This is a robust NLE feeder with a VTR interface and who knows what sort of I/O connectivity; this is what the field editor needs and frankly I wouldn't be surprised if Sony also introduces a similar item with a laptop form factor similar to their AnyCast work stations.

Horses for courses... the right tool for the right job. While I appreciate the good intentions behind the ultra-cheap "just use a laptop" mentality; that's really not what we're about here. While we tend to attract a lot of one-man bands and dirt-cheap kludges; this site is also all about discussing the *real* tools of the trade, and this deck certainly qualifies.

I'll re-open this thread for further discussion as soon as we know more about the deck (especially the back side of it). Somebody please let me know when that happens. Special thanks to Jiri, Kyle Self, Thomas Smet and David Parks -- much appreciated as always,