I've just come back from our local movie theater where we rented 2K Christie projector. There were quite a lot of my friends from the movie and TV business. We wanted to check how EX1 looks on a big screen. Well... everybody was quite surprised that it looked that good. The test was done for our underwater productions based mainly on this short movie displayed 1080p:
Galapagos on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/1935228)

The light down there is quite different from what you can get on the surface but still the quality of the picture was great.

Sony have got behind this production - as the first feature to use the EX1 in the UK.

Sony have got behind this production - as the first feature to use the EX1 in the UK.

Pretty amazing camera.

Pretty amazing camera.

Pretty amazing shots dude!
congrats

love the whale shark. I was watching some of my ex3 video on our 92" screen with a HD pro jo. Looks great. Love this camera. The bigger you blow up the screen the more little details it brings out.

I've seen some of my EX and XDCAM HD material projected with an SXRD 4K in a full size digital cinema and the quality never cease to amaze me.

Wow, man, that final shot with that diver and that big whale... Gives me shivers.
Great footage.

The pictures from these EX-1 cameras are wonderful, without a doubt, I love the look when I plug into the HD monitor, or play back from the sxs cards. Projects put up on exposure room, vimeo look great on my computer but I can't imagine them on a 52 inch screen.
I don't yet have a blu ray burner or player, and as far as I know I can't edit a project in the native EX codec then write it back to the camera or deck to play it in full hd glory.
How are you exhibiting the edited video - which format, codec, deck, etc? I'd love to show off some footage in real HD but this seems to be the missing link.

Thx Herminio, I was pretty lucky :)

Denis, I use Final Cut for editing. The native EX format is rendered as Apple ProRes422. I took my Mac Pro to the theater and get it connected to the projector with Black Magic Intensity Pro via component cable. It worked as easy as with any HD monitor.

Btw: thw screen was 50 feet wide.

thanks Darek, and by the way your pictures are spectacular, I wish I had an opportunity to see them on that big screen.

it is very impressive to have all this subtle blue without excessive banding.
Did you edit with that in mind ?

Great pictures, Darek. Breathtaking !

Gratuluje rodakowi :)


Piotr

Spectacular footage and an excellent choice of music. Thank you for sharing with us.

For exhibition purposes I have been encoding to either XDCAM HD 4:2:2 or XDCAM HD 4:2:0 and writing to XDCAM HD discs then playing back using an XDCAM HD deck.

FCP Transfer tool version 2.8 will add write back to the camera and I will probably write my important projects back to SD cards.

I'd thought I'd mention "in home" HD use.

MacPro graphics card has two DVI outs. I take second out and use DVI to HDMI cable to my 46" 1080p HDTV. Clients can actually watch this monitor while I edit in FCP as it can send timeline out to HDTV real time. Once I do final ProRes export I can play that out to HDTV from Quicktime View/Present Movie . . .

Just thought I'd add this if you don't happen to have 50' screens available to you. I'd love to test this with a MacMini DVI to HDMI. For all those agonizing about going back to their SxS cards for portability, you can buy a MacMini for less than an SxS card.

I set my edit bay with a VGA connection to a 40" as a slave monitor, which also connects to a HD pro jo. When sending to the pro jo I use 1920x1080 but on the 40" I send it native at 1360x768.

YouTube - AVCHD Sony Vegas (64 bit Vista) Edit Bay (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl_IHmzE7fI)

that video was before I had Vegas 8 and my EX3..also some of the settings have been changed since that vid was made.

I'd thought I'd mention "in home" HD use.

MacPro graphics card has two DVI outs. I take second out and use DVI to HDMI cable to my 46" 1080p HDTV. Clients can actually watch this monitor while I edit in FCP as it can send timeline out to HDTV real time. Once I do final ProRes export I can play that out to HDTV from Quicktime View/Present Movie . . .

Just thought I'd add this if you don't happen to have 50' screens available to you. I'd love to test this with a MacMini DVI to HDMI. For all those agonizing about going back to their SxS cards for portability, you can buy a MacMini for less than an SxS card.

Hi Craig,

After our editors finish a first cut of a project we encode it for Apple TV [w/TC burn] and then FTP it to the producers home where it gets critiqued. It works great but it requires an additional computer @ the producers home and the producer has to copy the file, using iTunes to the Apple TV. I was thinking that the Mac Mini might be a better solution, but it doesn't have an HDMI output.

I'd love to hear yours or anyone else's experience with the MacMini as it might relate to this application.

Hi Chuck,

I think Apple really blew it with AppleTV especially since Apple claims that DVD (and Blu-ray) are dead. AppleTV only supports 720p24 which also seems to be the state of HD online (Vimeo for example).

If I'm working in 720p60 or 1080i60 or p30, that's what I want my client to see. Of course that may not be mission critical for burn ins but how is a 60p burn in going to work with p24 playback?

In any case a MacMini would make more sense. DVI to HDMI cables aren't too hard to find so no HDMI out is only a minor inconvenience.

If Apple were smart, when they do the next MacMini revision they should include the AppleTV features and they may well have an alternative HD playback . . . but Blu-ray players are going to drop below $200 real fast (wait for "black" Friday). It may be a bit before the BD Players with the "live" feature hit that price though.

BTW all this ties in to the desire that we want to have client screenings on a "big screen."


Chuck, one thing I've experimented with is doing the burn in and uploading to Vimeo with password protection. Client can then view online or download the source file to view on desktop. I should also mention that you can send Vimeo to an HDTV too. Using the 2nd DVI out of my MacPro I put the browser on the HDTV and then use Vimeo's Full Screen. Then you have to decide whether to have scaling on or off but just thought I'd let you know that could be done. I'm experimenting with these workflows with my clients but none of them require the client to buy a BD player or AppleTV.

All this could make the MacMini the ultimate HD solution since one could send DVI to HDMI to HDTV or even 50' screen whether from web or file. I'm not sure how about the integrated graphics chip would handle it though. I may try my MacMini to HDTV though. I'll also with CalibratedSoftware's codec one could play the EX .MOV files from the Mini (or even a Windows box) WITHOUT FCP. That'll save you a render too.

FCP Transfer tool version 2.8 will add write back to the camera

Is this confirmed? That would be so awesome.

Is this confirmed? That would be so awesome.

Yes - and it is available now Sony : XDCAM EX : United Kingdom (http://www.sony.co.uk/biz/view/ShowContent.action?logicalname=ssw-bc-xdcamex-0807) under Tools/Downloads. Registration is required to download.

The file size it will copy back is limited to 4GB. And exporting a sequence from FCP, the audio has to be set to 2 mono tracks, not a stereo pair.

Nick

Thanks man!

Beautiful shots. The sea turtle coming up to the camera was my favorite.

Sad though that if you've seen the documentary "Shark Water" it mentions how the Galapagos islands are being encroached on my commercial fishing vessels. Even though they are protected waters, illegal fishing is ever growing. If anyone hasn't seen the doc it's well worth seeing.

Sorry to bring the party down. Again, beautiful images and a great choice of music.

I just shot a short film this past week (my first serious 24p project with the EX1) and I think I am set on two different workflows:

If the movie will most likely be distributed on DVD, 720/24p mode is fine and exhibits less motion judder.

If the movie will definitely be shown on a movie theatre screen or has Bluray distribution plans, 1080/24p is the way to go.

I came to this conclusion by viewing 1080/24p footage of the EX1 and seeing a bit too much 24p jerkiness. In the 720/24p mode and then downconverted to standard def the motion judder is a lot less and equals the Panasonic HVX200/DVX200 cameras. Plus the lower resolution of 720p appears more "film-like", much akin to the perception the Panasonics have due to their lower quality resolution.

Has anyone else noticed this as well?

I came to this conclusion by viewing 1080/24p footage of the EX1 and seeing a bit too much 24p jerkiness. In the 720/24p mode and then downconverted to standard def the motion judder is a lot less and equals the Panasonic HVX200/DVX200 cameras.
?

Interesting observation. How would you explain this?

Gints,

Perhaps the amount of resolution that the EX1 produces at 1080p + 1/2" chips = more jerkiness? 35mm movies have more depth of field, even at wide settings, which results in less noticeable judder. The 1/2" chip is inherently has greater depth of field

Subtract a bit of the EX1's resolution with the 720p mode (and possibly some "magic" happening with the in-camera downres) and you get smoother judder although a softer picture.

As far as standard def looking better it's kind of like what I had to do when I got my 12 megapixel camera. All of a sudden my 4x6 photos, that looked great with my 6 megapixel camera, looked "soft" from the same lab. A simple downrez with bicubic sharpening to 4x6 resolution and the photos are nice and sharp again. Since going from 720p to 480i is less of a step than 1080p to 480i the resolution is perceptibly better. At least to my eye.

These observations are comparing hooking the EX1 up to my HDTV vs. watching standard def DVDs on both my interlaced television as well as my HD DVD player upconverted on the HDTV. The pulldown method of the DVD players could possibly be better than the EX1's so this is on-going experimenting...

For EX1 movie projections, have you tried stand-alone media players like WD HD Media player (http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=B001JZFQU4&tag=mo7iescom-20&index=electronics&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325), or Popcorn Hour A-110 (http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/index.php?pluginoption=catalog&task=info&item_id=6&main_id=0&category_id)? (latter has component outs, while former features HDMI only.)

Both can output 1080p24, as far as I understand the specs.

So all one should do is encode the movie into MPEG2 or WMV, copy it to the respective device's hard drive - and here is your HD video player that's 3-5 times cheaper than the proposed MacMini.

Interesting find Alex. They both look like competitors to AppleTV actually. Unlike AppleTV, they seem to support 1080p and even 720p60. BTW they both support H264 too. It does mean such a box could work going to an HDTV as well as "big" screen.

It does show how poor the AppleTV is IMHO. For Apple to claim the "disc" is dead and then put a box on the market that can't go beyond 720p24 is self defeating.

Of course there's the "marketing" issue to clients. Right now amongst AppleTV, Blu-ray, the above boxes Alex points to, a computer of some sort, which do you think your client already has in their possession? Probably the computer is most universal. That's why I'm thinking computer to HDTV is easiest to "sell" to a client. It's not easy to get them to buy a "proprietary" box. When going to the "big" screen (50' for example) it all depends what you can bring to the theater.

What brings me back to the MacMini is when we talk about the 50' screen. You may well see compression artifacts at that size. A MacMini with Calibrated{Q} XD Decode (http://www.calibratedsoftware.com/XDDecodeQ.html)
may be able to handle the XDCAM EX .mov file without any further compression. In fact, with the above component, a Windows box can also handle XDCAM EX .mov too. The alternative might be AppleProRes (which can play on Windows too now). Once you compress to H.264, even at high data rates (and the above boxes Alex points to mention codecs but not data rates) I'm not sure what becomes visible on 50' screen vs a 50" HDTV.

Hence the MacMini still looks to be closest to "universal" if you're dealing with the range from HDTV to 50' screen.

BTW all this also takes us back to Alister's comments about XDCAM Transfer's (v2.8) ability to go back to SxS. This means you can use the camera as your playback device (again with no further compression). The 4GB file limit may be a big issue though unless one can create a .smi file to link them and then use 32GB SxS card if your run time is over an hour.

Granted, EX1 footage does go through compression on edit, mastering, and projection output.

Question is how to minimize the compression artifacts while still maintaining smaller file sizes and fast operation than, for instance, uncompressed route affords.

My workflow right now:

Post:
- Convert EX1 files to Cineform Prospect HD 1920x1080p24, High setting (or Filmscan 1 for critical work)
- Edit in Premiere Pro (Cineform affords real-time)
- Import project as EDL (no rendering) into After Effects; apply visual effects, CC etc.; and render master from there in Cineform Filmscan 1.

Output:
- SD DVD: import that master in TMPGEnc Authoring Works 4. It affords very high quality encoding.
- Blu-ray: same (I have not finished this part yet - waiting on my BD burner now, but the BD file render did seem to complete fine.)
- Projection via PC/set-top box player: import Cineform master to Windows Media Encoder, make WMV 1920x1080p24 with 9Mps bitrate. (I'm waiting on my Popcorn Hour A-110 to arrive and test the set-top box route.)
- Projection via PC only: install free Cineform player and simply play the master file for best quality.

What's your workflow?

For EX1 movie projections, have you tried stand-alone media players like WD HD Media player (http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=B001JZFQU4&tag=mo7iescom-20&index=electronics&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325), or Popcorn Hour A-110 (http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/index.php?pluginoption=catalog&task=info&item_id=6&main_id=0&category_id)? (latter has component outs, while former features HDMI only.)

Both can output 1080p24, as far as I understand the specs.

So all one should do is encode the movie into MPEG2 or WMV, copy it to the respective device's hard drive - and here is your HD video player that's 3-5 times cheaper than the proposed MacMini.
Both of these look promising.

Over the next couple of weeks we're moving editorial to new (more spacious) offices so I'm not going to have much of a chance to evaluate either of these.

If anyone tries one of these please let us know what you think.

Great pictures, Darek. Breathtaking !

Gratuluje rodakowi :)

Piotr

Dzięki. A Ty co kręcisz?
I jeszcze pytanie o nanoflash. Pisales, ze cos wiecej wiesz... zdradzisz jakies szczegoly? Miales okazje to testowac?
D

Darek, great picture - congratulations! Have you stayed in Sipadan or Mabul? I remember this oil platform lookalike place in the middle of the sea in Mabul serving divers as hostel. Have you stayed there and took trips to Sipadan? Have you taken something on the land, too? There are pretty amazing places in Sabah, I wont mind seeing your footage if you got some.

cheers

Dzięki. A Ty co kręcisz?
I jeszcze pytanie o nanoflash. Pisales, ze cos wiecej wiesz... zdradzisz jakies szczegoly? Miales okazje to testowac?
D

Hi Darek,

Let me use English, as our Polish diacritics look awful for people without the right code page installed :)

I mainly do classical and jazz live performances. As to the NanoFlash - unfortunately I've been asked to keep it secret for now, but I can tell you it's certainly worth waiting for!

Cheers

Piotr

speaking of big screen. I recently learned the cameras used in the latest Star Wars movies were all closely related to the Sony F900.. which I then quickly did a search to see if anyone compared that camera to an Ex1/3. I found one that was testing about 8 cameras and always put the EX1 just below the F900..

So let's make a feature film! :)

Hi Darek,

Let me use English, as our Polish diacritics look awful for people without the right code page installed :)

I mainly do classical and jazz live performances. As to the NanoFlash - unfortunately I've been asked to keep it secret for now, but I can tell you it's certainly worth waiting for!

Cheers

Piotr

I'm thinking of investing in NanoFlash or waiting for Scarlet. EX1 is a great camera but for my underwater productions I'd preffer a smaller one and here comes Scarlet. We'll see when Nano is available. Any predictions of the release date?

Darek, Scarlet has a totally different workflow than EX1, as far as I understand... this does not scare you? :)

Plus, which Scarlet - they have 4 different versions now.

For EX1 movie projections, have you tried stand-alone media players like WD HD Media player (http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=B001JZFQU4&tag=mo7iescom-20&index=electronics&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325), or Popcorn Hour A-110 (http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/index.php?pluginoption=catalog&task=info&item_id=6&main_id=0&category_id)? (latter has component outs, while former features HDMI only.)

Both can output 1080p24, as far as I understand the specs.

So all one should do is encode the movie into MPEG2 or WMV, copy it to the respective device's hard drive - and here is your HD video player that's 3-5 times cheaper than the proposed MacMini.

I purchased the WD HD TV from Best Buys yesterday for $129. I don't have an external hard drive at home to test this with, but I encoded an HD file to H264, saved it to a USB thumb drive and it played it fine. However, it would not fast forward or rewind. I'm not sure if this is because I was using a thumb drive, so I'll try it again tomorrow.

This has a lot of promise but if I can't scan forward and backwards it probably won't work for what we need.

I didn't test different frame rates, but I did test 720P, !080i and 1080P and it worked fine.

Darek, Scarlet has a totally different workflow than EX1, as far as I understand... this does not scare you? :)

Plus, which Scarlet - they have 4 different versions now.

It's not that bad. There's native support for R3D files in FCP. I've already tested the workflow and it's quite simple. Nobody knows what Scarlet will be like but I'm pretty sure it'll be a great tool.

I'm thinking of investing in NanoFlash or waiting for Scarlet. EX1 is a great camera but for my underwater productions I'd preffer a smaller one and here comes Scarlet. We'll see when Nano is available. Any predictions of the release date?

Not this year, I'm afraid... But again, it's worth waiting for!

Not this year, I'm afraid... But again, it's worth waiting for!

I hope so :)

Hey serious question... When are we going to see our first feature length movie shot with an EX cam? Just so I can brag that I own the same camera would be awesome.

"Yea, that horror movie we just watched, shot on the same camera I own."

I would not be surprised to learn that a number of indie features were shot with EX1 already.

For sure, EX1 was used at least as B camera on many productions.

Here's some stuff. Not primarily features but it's in there. "S.N.U.B" Angry Badger Pictures. Behind the scenes stuff for James Bond "Quantum of Solace" so that'll be on DVD I suspect.
http://www.sony.co.uk/res/attachment/file/18/1207064695918.pdf

Hey serious question... When are we going to see our first feature length movie shot with an EX cam? Just so I can brag that I own the same camera would be awesome.

"Yea, that horror movie we just watched, shot on the same camera I own."

I purchased the WD HD TV from Best Buys yesterday for $129. ... it would not fast forward or rewind.

You mean you got a WD Media Player, correct?

I don't have that model, but I did purchase Popcorn Hour A-110, and it is just gorgeous :)))

Awesome picture and sound, and yes you can seek forward or back on any video file. I used files off of the external USB drives of different types (although not flash media yet), and streamed over network as well.

Here's some stuff. Not primarily features but it's in there. "S.N.U.B" Angry Badger Pictures. Behind the scenes stuff for James Bond "Quantum of Solace" so that'll be on DVD I suspect.
http://www.sony.co.uk/res/attachment/file/18/1207064695918.pdf


Ha that is great! I hope it's just a matter of time before some high profile movie takes a chance and uses it as a primary camera. I wonder is Panasonic/Canon and the others are kicking themselves for all the attention the EX cams are getting?

Docs yes, TV shows maybe but certainly a B camera. "High Profile" Features you're not likely to see less than a Sony F23. RED would be lower budget.

David Lynch's Inland Empire was shot on a Sony PD-150 so it's possible a maverick like him might find the EX convenient and good.

Features are likely going to want the Depth of Field of large chip and lightly or uncompressed codec for compositing and possible very heavy color correction.

Certainly a good "dogma 95" film can be done on an EX and some films of that genre have been big hits. "The Celebration" won at the Cannes Film Festival.

Here's another low budget feature shot on EX1 mentioned on DVInfo sponsor Abelcine
Abel Cine Tech - Shooting an Independent Feature with the Sony EX1 (http://www.abelcine.com/articles/index.php?Itemid=37&id=264&option=com_content&task=view)

Of course you're right but it's nice to dream. I imagine if they did use it, it would be output from the SDI only and run to some recorder or their choosing.

Hey guys, I think there was another thread somewhere but I can't find it... maybe this one is too old.

Anyway I post here because yesterday I saw on my local cinema "El Hombre de al Lado" (The Man Next Door), it's an argentine movie. I was intrigued to find out what it was shot with and after some research I found this:

17: Sundancing Part 1, Reflections | Leitner’s Cinematography Corner (http://blog.digitalcontentproducer.com/leitner/2010/02/13/17-sundancing-part-1-reflections/)

It was shot with an EX1 and it actually won the Sundance Cinematography award. But in my personal opinion, it looked kind of bad... but you have to consider it was very very probably shot without much lightning, in a very indie way. The truth is it looked like that, you know, a lot of burnt sections, underexposed subjects and the general "amateur look", not that it's something necessarily bad (it won the Sundance Cinematography award right?). I personally don't like it. I even saw some very soft exterior shots, as if they were using a high F-Stop instead of using the ND filters. The general look wasn't very appealing to me, it looked videoish and dead. I guess the conclusion is, if you want to make video look like film, don't just point and shoot and edit-as-is. Please remember I'm drawing conclusions without knowing all the facts, I'm just talking out of what I saw in front of the cameras.

At one given point I thought it was shot with HDSLR because I saw some aliasing on a wide shot and even vertical fixed banding but not in noise, in well exposed areas. I have never ever seen banding on my EX1 so I wonder if it was a product of the conversion or something like that. Maybe even the film projector, don't know, anyway, very weird...

Go see it if you have the chance! I'll probably go again with "shot with EX1" in mind. Let me know if there's anything you think it would be nice to look for.

I found a YouTube HD trailer!

YouTube - THE MAN NEXT DOOR OFFICIAL TRAILER (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqC0vlFEpxY)

Wow... I'm seeing so much more aliasing, more than I saw at the cinema. Maybe it's YouTube's fault? Sometimes it looks like 720p HDSLR. 0:30, it's just YouTube, right? The next shot as well, inside the van. What's going on?

0:42 pretty much ilustrates what I mean by "amateurish look". Underexposure and blown out highlights...

In general I think the longer focal length shots look better than the wide angles, I think we it's general knowledge that this cameras work that way. Closeups as seen in 1:00 didn't caught my flaw-looking attention in the cinema. The wides were the ones that looked kind of dirty to me.

What do you think?

>> I even saw some very soft exterior shots, as if they were using a high F-Stop instead of using the ND filters.

Closing aperture instead of using ND filters would actually INCREASE sharpness..

>> At one given point I thought it was shot with HDSLR because I saw some aliasing on a wide shot
>> and even vertical fixed banding but not in noise, in well exposed areas.

Probably bad intermediate codec they used for editing. Should've used Cineform ;)

Plus of course it could be that they tried to apply effects or render as 8bit instead of 16 or 32 bit, which would be a banding disaster recipe due to quickly accumulating errors at low bit depth...

"Closing aperture instead of using ND filters would actually INCREASE sharpness.."

?? I think the consensus is around F4 lies sweet spot, if you go higher than that the footage will start to look softer and softer and instead one should use ND filters. I have tested and confirmed this... I think maybe you are referring to using ND instead of going higher from F1.9?

Oh man, Cineform comes in again, I hate it because I don't know what it does! Some guys on the other forum on the T2i/7D section concluded that with CS5 there was no problem editing T2i footage natively, it looked almost the same than using Neoscene. This is not the case with EX1?