I've been keeping my eye on this forum because I'm thinking that one of my next camera upgrades might well be an EX-1 (or EX-3 when out.)

Now that it's been around for a while, I wanted to get a sense of what the initial adopters think about how it's integrated into their workflow.

How are you editing? How are you delivering? When you purchased it, what do you wish you'd known THEN that you know NOW?

Are any of you shooting 16x9 but protecting for 4x3 then delivering that aspect ratio to some part of your client base? If so, how's that working for you?

I'd particularly be interested in hearing from working shooters who also edit their own material into finished deliverable product.

Have you found a workflow that you can depend on? And if so, how do you deliver your finished work, both to SD and HD targets?

Thanks.

All relevant questions. If you've been following this forum since the release of the EX1, then you might also want to be asking about the cost of ownership issues:

a) Sony's build quality (i.e. loose screws, broken mike mounts, evaporating paint, etc.)
b) Component failures (i.e. lenses, LCD's, power related circuits and such)
c) Repair depot effectiveness (i.e. how many times has your camera been to the depot)
d) Firmware improvements and method of delivering updates

All in all, the EX1 seems like is "high maintenance".
Is this what we can expect with the EX3???

1)Editing FCS2

2) Delivering SD DVD

3) What do I wish I knew now what I knew then? If I knew that if you didn't EXACTLY follow the reccomended workflow long (read very important) clips WILL NOT GET IMPORTED and you may format the card without having the data on your HD!!!!

4) 16:9 stays 16:9 for me all the way to SD

I shoot and edit most of my work and or supervise the edits. The cam requires major attention to manual controls. You will increase your post production CC time. The transfer speeds from the cam via USB has been about 2X for me and consisitently so. Others see to get 4 to 6X. My system is fast. File sizes are SMALL so thats great compared to AICC.

Positive news here: Low light is so good (IMO) that it is the ONLY thing not making me sell all of my EX related stuff and go back to a Z1. The Z1 just makes an amazing image so easily it is rediculous. Very little post required. The low light... well just so so.

The workflow for me has been really hard to take. Twice I lost very important clips because I was tired and at 2am HAD to clear the cards for shooting the next day and lost both a ceremony and a super important reception event. Yes it was user error but again the provided software is NOT user friendly. Why the hell should the user beware that long clips may not load? Rediculous.

I am looking at spending MORE money on a card reader to get near the alleged fast transfer speeds available from the early reviewers. $250 +/- AND third party software ShotPut Express ($50) to help with the workflow.

I find myself shooting in 720p because the compression from full HQ to SD DVD is just horrendous. Requiring a trip to QT then to compressor. More time in post.

SO, ( I will be flamed for this ) I spend more time in post, have a harder time shooting, and the end product looks worse than before requiring an additional step to make OK.

I think once I move to HD delivery (thanks for nothing Apple) via third party software and hardware I may enjoy the EX more.

I bought this cam in an effort to gain speed in the studio ( not so ), shoot with less fill light (FOR SURE), and have an overall better image at delivery ( not so ).

There are those magic moments that this cam will just blow you away but I am slowly wondering if those times are worth all of the other hassles.

I shoot events. Live, one take, no set up events. OH sorry, the audio on this cam is great... this is a HUGE plus. Low light and great onboard audio (IMO).

I did have screws loose and my paint is rubbed off on my "wheel" but that stuff really doesn't bother me that much. Haven't had to send in the cam so can't report on that.

OK, I have vented, on the positive side the cam really is a full pro cam. The specs are incredible at this price point for sure so that having been said I still feel that this cam will be the one for many many shooters. Ask again in a few months when I'm making BR disks.

Hope I didn't PO too many people but these are my findings as per the OPs inquiries. Still having a hard time figuring out the final archive deal. Think I may use toast to break the fies to DL DVD sized for archiving.

Thanks for your insights Mike.

I think we all want to hear the real deal, not the script from the Sony brochure.

The only bad thing is that it seems many people have to send the camera in at least once for something, me included.

Everything else is stellar. USB import is 4x and faster with my Export port on my Laptop (MacBookPro).

I haven't lost a clip yet. Sony Clip Browser looks like a BAD piece of shareware and takes some time to figure out given the poorly written PDF manual but once you get over that, it's all piece of cake to me.

I've shot corporate for web delivery.
Digital Signage delivered in wonderful HD (MPEG2 Program Stream HD).
Currently working on a Cable Spot going from HD to 16:9 SD and no problems so far (will be delivered as MPEG Program Stream SD).

So far every client who has seen the footage I shoot with camera is willing to jump to HD even if it's SD delivery for the moment.

I have NO PROBLEM with the workflow at all. Copy to hard drive, backup to DL-DVD, Import and Edit in Final Cut Pro, convert to delivery form (Compressor, Episode Pro, Squeeze). Backing up to DL-DVD is slowest link though. Overall it beats tape "by a country mile" and I have nearly 30 years experience.

Back Focus and Battery Drain when switched off were a problem, but have now been sorted out by Sony with about ten day turnaround and loan camera under UK Prime Support. Image quality is stellar for this price range. FCP is a big NO-NO for editing, far too slow taking 6 -10 times longer to render identical footage than EDIUS on a Mac Pro. No problems with the direct transfer from SxS to EDIUS/HD using the Sony File Transfer software. The slowness of the auto white balance is overcome by pressing the white balance button when necessary if operating in the ATW mode, a small inconvenience, but not major in my opinion. I don't find the rolling shutter a problem in the real world shooting situatiions that I work with and the excess Infra Red sensitivity may be overcome by the use of a suitable filter. I hate the on-off switch! Camera physical balance is not as good as the Z1.

Geoff

Mike DON'T use toast to break up you files. ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS use the Sony clip browser to do things like that. It has a function for splitting BPAV folders into smaller sizes.

There is a new version of the Clip browser due out very soon that will eventually include a full set of tools to convert the HD files to SD.

I love the EX1, never before have I had quality form a small form factor camera that really offers pictures that rival those produced by full size cameras. You can't treat it like tape, you have to think differently with the workflow, but once you fully embrace it you will never want to go back to tape. I shoot using 8Gb cards, each card gets backed up to a single 8Gb DL-DVD. I find this to be a great simple system, no trying to remember which clips I did or did not backup, one card, one disc, simple.

The FCP workflow is very tightly integrated and fast, no need to use intermediate codecs as with EDIUS so no concatenation issues.

Some of the buttons and switches could be better designed but these are very minor issues.

You should remember that many that post on forums only do so when they have an issue, when everything is working they don't post. Look through all the camera forums and you will see that the vast majority of new camera designs suffer teething troubles.

FCP is a big NO-NO for editing, far too slow taking 6 -10 times longer to render identical footage than EDIUS on a Mac Pro.
Geoff

Sorry that's just your personal opinion, FCP works VERY well with EX footage. So what if render times are longer when going to final output, and I would be surprised if the difference is that much,it still wouldn't persuade me to switch to Edius!!

As for the camera, Workflow is fine for the EX once you have done your research and PQ is stunning.

No experience with Edius, but I find it pretty great workflow with FCP. I have no problems with it really and find it all quite zippy. My old company is having many pains with the EX-1 and Premiere Pro on a PC.

FCP is also nice, because it is much more industry standard, and their are many facilities in the area that I can get hired to sit down at and edit because I know FCP.

I run Edius, but edit with the mp4 files, no intermediate codec required at all, and rarely need to render anything - I'd hate to be "industry standard" I'd rather be an "odball wierdo"

Paul

I run Edius, but edit with the mp4 files, no intermediate codec required at all, and rarely need to render anything - I'd hate to be "industry standard" I'd rather be an "odball wierdo"

Paul

Originality is also completely valid!

I'm an early adopter of the EX1 in France.
Editing with Final cut pro + color + motion + after effect.
Shooting with this camera is so amazing, easy and pleasant. Never had a camera with so clear LCD you can rely on.
SxS cards are easy to use and to unload using a macbook pro (+ external drive to be secure and unload faster). I have 2x8Go which is enough for fiction as long as you have help to unload them once full. More is comfort.
Low light capability, lens precision iris ring... beautyfull (just take focus point on the LCD, don't rely on the lens mark as long as you haven't tested your lens for back focus issue with ND filters).

Workflow goes like this :
shoot, unload the card (copy the folders) to you hardrive, import in FCP in XDCam EX native. You may set your project to Prores 422 HQ if needed. export to prores and compose in After Effect. Grade, export to whatever you need (MPEG4/h264) using compressor.
I'm still working on a dual 2GHz G5 and it is working fine (previews are slow, of course).
If adding SD footage, just use them in FCP, it will take care of everything. If any problem, after import, recompresss them to prores.
For SD export, use compressor. Nothing more to do.

For SD export, go to mpeg2 for DVD
For HD, go to mpeg4/h264 or use an export card (Decklink or so) to export to HDCam or HDCam SR recorder, or anything your client wants.

This camera is really powerfull, in its image quality (see Phils Bloom work) as well as in the workflow which is rock solid.

For almost 8 months with this camera I never, NEVER, had any problem which was not my own fault.
Of course, this all depends on you. This camera is not the "all automatic" toy you may want to shoot your vacations and edit on iMovie, which is what here seems to be looking for. This camera is professional and need you to have some knowledge.
Please, stop comparing the Z1 to the EX1. EX1 may not be as easy to use but well, you don't drive a Ferrari the same way you drive a bicycle. Or do it at your own risk and don't complain :)

My comments about the better rendering and real time performance are based on extensive experience using both FCP and Edius on the same MacPro. There is no changing of the EX footage to an intermediate codec, real time pre-viewing of multiple 3d picture-in-pictures, for example, does not result in the lost quality as in FCP - if needed, rendering of multiple pips is in excess of 6 times the speed of FCP; there is better colour correction with the addition of adjustable gamma curves that are not available in FCP unless you export to 'Color'; the final rendering is faster. Edius's main weakness, in my opinion, is it does not have such good sound editing software as FCP. I'll agree that there are some things that are better in FCP, such as alpha channel support, but overall I think that Edius is by far the more efficent package. So I would suggest that you download a trial copy of Edius and spend a little time to learn how to use it (tutorials are available on th GV website)and then you will find that what I am saying is true.

Tried it and thought it to be VERY clunky to use compared to FCP with a fraction of the featureset of FCP Studio.

I was talking about your comment the FCP is a "no-no" for EX editing when it clearly isn't!

interested in hearing from working shooters who also edit their own material into finished deliverable product.

You'll have to prise my EX1 out of my cold dead hands. After a shaky start, I'm firmly committed to this technology, may even sell my Z1s and PDX10 to part fund an EX3.

I shoot and edit 720p25 on corporate events (conferences, seminars, junkets), editing and delivering a finished programme on-site. I use lots of time-lapse and slo-mo, and have built a Picture Profile based on generously shared info found here that gets me what I've always wanted: a sort of Progressive DigiBeta look from a little camera.

My worflow is simple: cards go into MacBook Pro, XDCAM Transfer Tool names clips and bins junk, these are imported onto one or two hard disks (or a backup is copied across), and these folders of QuickTime movies are dragged and dropped into the footage bit of FCP where it becomes immediately available and no less speedy to edit than DV.

I use Colorista for colour correction and look generation, which is GPU accellerated. I use DVmatte Pro for any chromakey work, again GPU accelerated and very happy with 720p footage. At the end of the edit, I export a self contained movie in the same XDCAM-HD format, then use Compressor (with frame controls switched on) to create SD-DVD and H.264, or Episode to create FLV and MPEG1. It can also crop to 4:3 at this stage, though I've only had one 4:3 requirement since buying the camera.

From Edit Sign-off to Finished DVD is about 45 minutes if I make things pretty. Half an hour usually. That includes export, compress, author, burn, test on a project around 3-7 minutes long.

I bump up SD to 720p if I need to incorporate it. I burn all footage to BluRay BD-ROM for archiving alongside the Hard Disk versions. I wish I'd upgraded my Mac to Leopard sooner as I had a scary import bug where 20% of shots wouldn't import on the first, second, third and sometimes 28th attempt. I never lost anything, but I did my ingest in private. On Leopard, it's been (touch wood) perfect.

As for the camera? I'm very glad I learned how to cure back-focus through these forums - thanks to all who shared. I'm very glad I listened to the horror stories, but feel even better that I've not been affected by bad paint. I'm on record for not being seriously affected by flash photography or CMOS distortion on fast pans.

I've seen vignetting twice on my camera, but having recently shot a couple of jobs on my old Z1s, even they suffer from vignetting and I never noticed it before.

Play and test and play and test and measure your results from Picture Profile tweaks. What works for some won't necessarily work for you. When it does work, you'll know - luminous pictures. Wonderful.

What do I wish I knew then what I know now? That you can rent SxS cards, but you want to own at least 4x 16 GB cards. That there is a weird grip that means you can sort of hand hold an EX1 without ending up with one fore-arm like Popeye. That the audio levels lag behind the controls (like picking your nose with rubber gloves on!), that the EX1 is extremely sensitive to very deep bass signals, and that it has a rather crude limiter. That there is no White Balance up/down control, that the Direct Menus control should be set to Part if you want to use switches. And I should have bought the Vortex DVD from the get-go.

For me, it's all the best bits of the Z1, the JVC HD100, HVX and DSR-570 rolled into one.

You'll have to prise my EX1 out of my cold dead hands.

Same here!
Some of the negative stuff written here is way off beam.

OK - my EX1 had to go back to Sony for the backfocus treatment. It was with me again in about five days and works perfectly now.

This is clearly the best video camera I've ever owned.
Fantastic workflow - Final Cut Pro edits it like a dream.
Fantastic images - simply streets ahead of anything even several thousands of GBP more expensive.

And (possibly best of all) - YOU CAN FOCUS THE DURN THING!

It's the first "prosumer" camera I've experienced that you can focus accurately - every time.

Steve, perhaps I should have said that FCP was a NO-NO for me; my apologies.

Regarding the EX1, I can only echo the comments of Matt and Andy; you only have to look at Phil Bloom's footage to appreciate the image quality that can be attained.

Geoff

I've been using the EX1 since February.

Time code is set to time-of-day which makes finding specific coverage a bit easier. It's set to shoot 1080p30 in HQ mode. And the 0.8x Sony WA adapter almost never comes off.

There's a CAVision rail system with shoulder brace to help steady the camera. The matte box won't fit over the WA adapter so that solution has to be figured out sometime later. And I have a Kata cover to protect the camera from getting drenched by the occasional salt water splash.

We have three 16-gig cards and two 8-gig cards (those came with the cameras). Each are labled from one through five.

At the end of the day, each card is transferred with a MacBook Pro to a mirrored RAID. Each BPAV folder is copied into a unique, numbered folder for that day's shoot, and that matches the card's number.

The shots are transferred en masse with XDCam Transfer software, and dragged into FCP for editing. After a story is assembled, it's media-managed to get rid of anything that hadn't been used, then transferred into Color for color correction and grading.

I intentionally set up the camera so the shots look slightly flat. It's then brought up to spec in Color. This way I avoid crushing shadows or blowing highlights. The camera's histogram feature is a big help and the results always gets great compliments. A TV reporter asked if the show was being shot with a Red One camera.

I already posted this elsewhere in this forum. It's a sample segment from our show: http://hawaiigoesfishing.com/videos/hgf_103_ulua.mov

We invested in a second camera to handle our in-studio two-camera shoots, and also provide a backup in case one camera went in for service. So far the only thing we needed fixed was the four-way switch at the top of the handle. That selector switch wasn't working properly from day one. Also, the paint rubs off easily but I'm not too concerned. I'm thinking of covering the vulnerable parts with clear tape just so we don't have to send in the camera until absolutely necessary.

We're thoroughly pleased with what the camera can do. Never had any issues with the rolling shutter at all, and almost everything is shot hand-held. It has great dynamic range: when shooting people against the glare of the water I'm always surprised to see lots of detail in the shadows, rather than silhouettes.

Dean, I had a chance to see your footage earlier today. Stunning images. And honestly, I didn't know that the female talent doing the show intro was greenscreen until I read it elsewhere. If you don't mind, I am adding that snippet of video to my library so that when my bosses ask why we dropped nearly $7k on a camera, I can show them.

When I first started working with my EX-1, there were a few concerns, well noted on this forum. But I kept hearing this sound in my edit studio: "I can't believe how good this looks." and "My god, I can't believe the color you are getting." And "we are just thrilled with the way this has turned out."

I waited for 2 years to buy this camera. Had the HVX 200 in my hands and money in my pocket, just couldn't buy it. Too many concerns. (but granted, some folks have done stellar work with it)

I feel this technology is a little new--a few bugs need to be worked out. But wow, what pretty pictures and clean sound.

Workflow: FCP, Mac Pro, USB transfer tool 2.7, Bill Ravens PP settings.

Dean,

With all the exterior stuff you're shooting, I'm wondering what f stops you are using.
I've notice that my Ex-1 gets soft after f8 and it's quite noticeable at F16.
I assume this is just diffraction from the smaller lens opening, but I haven't noticed it with other cameras - Maybe I didn't look before this either.

On those exteriors it might require higher shutter speeds or an additional ND or polarizer.
just wondering what you guys do.

By the way iI also think the camera is lovely and I like the workflow. Only issue is the rolling shutter with flash. I won't use it for some jobs because of that.

Lenny

3) What do I wish I knew now what I knew then? If I knew that if you didn't EXACTLY follow the reccomended workflow long (read very important) clips WILL NOT GET IMPORTED and you may format the card without having the data on your HD!!!!

hey, what's this about long clips? What's happening? And how long is "long"?

Dean,

With all the exterior stuff you're shooting, I'm wondering what f stops you are using.
I've notice that my Ex-1 gets soft after f8 and it's quite noticeable at F16.

Leonard...

I use the built-in ND2 filter for the most part, and it's usually kept in place until late in the day when the sun starts to set. As for F-stops, it's usually less than f8 as the camera does go soft when closing down to f16.

If you don't mind, I am adding that snippet of video to my library so that when my bosses ask why we dropped nearly $7k on a camera, I can show them.

Perrone...

Sure thing. Just be sure to keep the "Hawaii Goes Fishing" portion in place.

Aloha,

Dean nice job on the video. It's obvious the EX1 worked well for that project.

long (read very important) clips WILL NOT GET IMPORTED and you may format the card without having the data on your HD!!!!

What's this about Mike?

I've never had a clip fail to get imported.

I suspect this has happened to you because where you have one clip spanned over two cards, XDCAM Transfer can show "No Media" (and a black display) for the first part of a clip. This is confusing because if you look at the timeline of that clip, you will see a mark where the 2nd card footage actually begins. Move the playhead to there, and start importing!

It took me a while to suss that out but I don't have any problem at all with long clips - sometimes 30 minutes or more on an 8GB card, so they span two cards.

I don't format my cards until I've checked that every clip is on my hard drive AND backed-up onto a second HD.

Just a fast THANK YOU to all for the thread participation.

It's helped a lot in resolving issues, tho I'm still wondering a bit how people here handle the post part of the process, not so much editing, which seems pretty straightforward, but rather adapting the EX1s picture frame size and resolution for delivery for legacy SD formats.

What are you guys doing when a client needs output for BOTH HD and SD - as in feeding a program for both types of broadcast stations?

And is anyone originating in 16x9 High Def, then transcoding everything to 4x3 SD for delivery? And if so, how's that working for you?

Thanks again.

(BTW, Dean - your stuff look GREAT! Are you delivering to the local cable company station in HD? If so, what are you delivering? Tape? Files? Hard Drives? Thanks.)

I've cut SD DVDs from 1080i. Pretty straightforward workflow for me. Video came in as 1080i MOV files. I transcoded to 1080p AVI Cineform files then did all my editing, grading, and so forth. Then I output 2 versions.

1. 720p 16x9 for web use
2. 480p 16x9 to go to SD DVD.

Easy as could be.

Just a fast THANK YOU to all for the thread participation.

It's helped a lot in resolving issues, tho I'm still wondering a bit how people here handle the post part of the process, not so much editing, which seems pretty straightforward, but rather adapting the EX1s picture frame size and resolution for delivery for legacy SD formats.

What are you guys doing when a client needs output for BOTH HD and SD - as in feeding a program for both types of broadcast stations?

And is anyone originating in 16x9 High Def, then transcoding everything to 4x3 SD for delivery? And if so, how's that working for you?

Thanks again.

()

I dont use an EX1 but all you need to do to create a SD delivery is to drag the HD sequence into a new SD timeline and it will letterbox the clip ready for broadcast.
It keeps the 16.9 aspect and couldnt be easier.

Regarding long clips, I had the chance to see how well one continuous shoot would work, recording an event. I never stopped recording but let the EX1 span from card A to card B (I have 2 8GB cards). When card A was full, and the clip was still recording onto card B, I popped card A out of the slot and downloaded the contents via the Expresscard slot in my Macbook Pro, taking about 5 minutes. Then I popped card A back in the Ex1 and deleted the clips on it while the EX1 was still recording on card B. Then when B was full the EX1 started recording onto the now blank card A. I ejected card B, downloaded, popped in and erased it, and so on. I think I did this several times back and forth.

When I was done, I was a little concerned that the Sony XDCam transfer software would blow it and somehow I'd have a hard time getting the clips together. No problem. The Full 2 hour clip appeared on the preview for clip the last card I recorded on. The long clip played completely seamlessly. It's good to know this can work in the field, and this would have never worked with a tape-based camcorder. It's pretty amazing.

Have just returned from shooting doco with 2 EX1s. Pictures are superb and cut in perfectly with Digi Beta library material. For high def the pictures are looking good when intercut with HDCAM. Have not regretted EX1 decision. Remotes don't work, paint coming off, Backfocus issues solved thanks to this site, Iris freezes now and again but pictures are breathtaking for the price and weight of the camera. I feel an EX3 coming on.

Iris freezes now and again.

I hadn't heard of this one before.
Not happened to me. . . nor the paint problem.

I agree, the remote's useless.
Even worse, any f-stop over f8 results in a SOFT image (and I'm not convinced f8's useable) but it's still tremendous value for money and as far as I can tell, nothing comes near (certainly not the Panasonic HVX200).

I would rather have the resolution of the EX1 knowing that a little may be lost along the road of post production than have a softer resolution to start with. Iris freezes now and then - switch off camera and boot up again and all is then fine. Size,weight,quality of picture on camera has speeded up our location shoots.