Hello People !

I am new to this forum, and this might be the wrong place to ask this kind of question, so forgive me if I am bothering around here ... :-)

I am some sort of "extreme sports indie film maker", mostly I do my own productions and then sell them to TV or my sponsors. I have a Sony PC101 and it has been a great camera for this kind of stuff (mostly outdoors sunny days), very often people ask me if it's DVCAM or even Beta ! (jajaja).

So this is my problem and question: I must get a second camera, and the choice seems to be the PDX10 or the PC350. I personally think that the 350 would be good enough, but sometimes I do freelance jobs for other atlethes and TV networks (AXN Latin America), and they are always asking me for a 3CCD cam, or at least something that looks like a "pro" camcorder, I know this is a stupid reason, but this is the world where we live ...

So I must follow the "mainstream" or do it my own way ... It's hard to decide, but there is one thing that would make my descicion easier: do you guys think that the PDX10 will be lot better than the PC350 ???????

thanks in advance

Marcos

I think if you're going to be doing any low-light shooting then think very seriously about crossing the PDX off your list. Don't know about the 330's performance in that department, but it couldn't be worse - could it?

tom.

well, Marcos - I've been trying to get some real info on the ntsc version of the pc350- it appears there's confusion about whether it's 30p or 24p- I've found a few web pages that discribe it at 30p and sony's own press release discribes it so but www.camcorderinfo.com has the only real revew and it says it has a bad 24p. I've written dvspot , which promises a review soon , to try to resolve this confusion. I think a good possiblity is to go with the pal model. There are some other threads by John Jay , who has a pal , and he says it's great and has real 25p. I'm thinking of going that route and then purchasing the nattress conversion plug in for final cut and output both versions , with pal having another 100 lines. My problem is I'm in an ntsc world with no pal deck , etc. My advice , if you're into sport filming , then you should consider the pc350 just for it's size. The pdx10 , while small , with it's mike , is considerable larger than a pc350 with a hotshoe mike. Maybe we can reel-in a ntsc version commentary. It's amazing , in this day , that with the camera available for a number of weeks now, there still hasn't been any feedback about the ntsc version. Maybe someone else could chime in with some additional data.

It's also worth remembering that the neutered TRV950 is now out of production, which suggests the PDX10's days are numbered also. Not sure what's in line to replace it's good 16:9 at that price point, but we'll see.

tom.

OK - I've been reading the forum at camcorderinfo and there's more postings about the 350 and it appears it is " funky 24p " except for the pal version which is 25p and apparently works better. The biggest complaint is the lack of audio monitoring . Well , that still keeps the pdx10 in the running for me ! Wouldn't it be nice if we saw a pdx20 released with everything we want with real 24p at the same price point. Sounds reasonable if the fx1 will cost $3700 !

<<<-- Originally posted by Kurth Bousman: The pdx10 , while small , with it's mike , is considerable larger than a pc350 with a hotshoe mike. -->>>

Just so you know, you can remove the mike and XLR box from the PDX-10 and it will still record audio from a pair of tiny built-in stereo mikes.

I'm not sure, but I think the 350 uses smaller batteries that fit inside the camera, which would limit its run time. Using the QM-91 on the PDX-10 I can shoot for at least 4 hours with the LCD screen on and phantom power mike. Another thing to consider is that the 350 uses touchscreen menus for all its functions whereas the PDX-10 has physical controls.

Well thanks Tom, Kurth and Boyd for your comments

I think I will choose the PC350, it might not be better camera than the PDX10, but it fits better my needs. My question was mainly about the image quality: true 16:9 ? and 1 CCD Vs 3 CCD ?

Like you guys said, the PDX10 it's an old camera, and the PDX20 might be on the way, but if it looks like the HC1000 I am not interested.

As for the audio, it's not a big deal for me, and I can always get an Beachtek Dual XLR Adapter with headphone jack.

Concerning the battery, there is a bigger one (NPFF71). But you are right, I would like better M series.

Because I am filming sports like paragliding and windsurfing, the size is very important, and the Automatic Control is very usefull. When I do manual control means I have time to set up the shoot, and then Touch screen is no problem for me.

I promise to post lots of footage as soon as I get the camera !

thanks once again

Marcos

please Marcos , we need some good input on the 350 and congratulations on your decision- the size issue is the king with that camera and if size matters for whatever reason . Boyd always does a great job of comparing the pdx10 and it is a beautiful camera and as he points out ,and when you take the mike off , it's very compact but you can't put it on a glove-mount. Check out the sony hotshoe mikes and www.waycool.com- let us know how it goes - Kurth