Has anyone heard anything about this camcorder I myself have heard that it can film in true widescreen, it retails for $4000 so this would be some achievement if true.

It is the pro version of the TRV950 camera.

It is not 16:9 native format or at least it does not talk about that on the last brochure I read.

I believe the least expensive Sony with 16:9 CCDs is the DSR500WS.

Do a search for the camera and you can find sites with the camera brochure on them.

Yes I think you right as soon as I posted that thread I did a search on google and could not fing any info saying that is was true widescreen, looks like my source was talking out of his arse.

I just read on a WEVA forum that a guy at the big WEVA show in Las Vegas saw the camera and it is, according to him, true 16:9. Strange that Sony is not publicizing that.

I'm going to ask a few questions around.

Sony is claiming that the pixel count in the CCD is high enough to deliver high-resolution 16:9.

Still not quite a statement about the ccd being a true 16:9

And the street price is within $100 or so of a VX-2000.

Sony are advertising the DSR-PDX10P in Broadcast Engineering News August 2002, Australia as:

"World First:
REAL 16:9
The wait is over!"

It claims "it brings true 3-CCD high resolution 16:9 performance to a handheld DVCAM camcorder."

It then invites you to visit

www.sony.com.au/production

but I did'nt find any more info.

Together with the MX5000, this camera has the potential to severly affect 4:3 sales. I don't think I will ever buy another 4:3 camera again.


Jim



Jim

hi Chris,
as i understood, PD10 is'nt true 16:9 camera, but it has megapix chips, so it can read all TV lines in 16:9, PD150 just cuts off 25% of lines. Sony guys said it will beat hands down 150 in 16:9 format, even having (near)1/5" chips compared to 1/3" PD150. What is more impressive, it uses 14bit coder (150 was.. i'm not sure.. 10 or 12bit)
so far it's only words. I'm waiting for first PD10 to try it out.
I think that CCD and optics are the same as TRV-950, some slight differences in audio part and mechanics.

regards,
Margus

From what I can gather the normal effective 4:3 TV ratio is floated on a 4:3 CCD chip. The rest of the chip is not used except for stills and of course image stabalisation (hence the floating effective area). I think what sony claims to do is not to float the a 4:3 aspect on the 4:3 chip but to use all the horizontal space of the chip to capature the 16:9 and the vertal resolution is kept the same without having to cut off due to the megapixel ccds..

I am not sure if this is true. anybody who has played with it do tell. Will there be a new PD150 with this widescreen function from sony in the future (It would kinda make sense if they did it on the TV950 pro version)

<<<-- Originally posted by ThreeSixtyProductions : . The rest of the chip is not used except for stills and of course image stabalisation (hence the floating effective area-->>>

Ohhh - are you saying then that the 950 & PDX10 have reverted back to electronic image stabilisation?

Previous 3ccd Sony cams all used optical stabilisation.
Unless things have improved a great deal with EIS (and I know there has been *some* improvment over the years) then this sounds like a huge backward step if it's true...

No I still think they use optical image stablisation. But even with OIS they never seem to use the entire CCD (I think the optical image stablisation still movies a 4:3 picture around a large 4:3 aspect to some degree. (I am not expert on this if somebody can explain it I would be very grateful).

Now if the PDX10 can resolve more TV lines in t he 16:9 aspect due to the mega pixal count of each CCD does anybody know the number of lines it resolves at the 16:9 aspect.

The other question from this too is how do NLE handle this aspect full resolution in the 16:9 aspect.

Optical Image Stabilization on Sony camcorders is actually Canon's own technology licensed to Sony and called "Super Steady Shot." It employs a mechanical process involving a vari-angle prism and does not affect image quality as electronic image stabilization does. Hope this helps,

Regarding 16:9 NLE - my 4 yr old Raptor setup copes with 16:9 very well, except it can't handle a mix of the two ratios on in one project.

This new 16:9 ability sounds very interesting and is something I would probably upgrade my Panny MX300 for - the world (and Australia!) is going in this direction and the pace is on the increase...

Panasonic have a new cam (MX500) coming out in a few weeks with a similar 16:9 capability. There is also a neat little feature on some new Panny cams (I hope the MX500 is one of them) where it uses the full size of the megapixel chip in a special video 'zoom' mode to give a longer range zoom rather than going from optical to digital zoom as most cams do.
I havn't explained it very well here - I must try and find the original article - the bottom line is that it makes full use of all the megapixels (that are normally only used for stills to chip) during video zooming...

I was at the IFP Market in New York today and the Sony Rep. claimed unequivocally that the PDX10 has native 16:9 CCDs. He said this means it's 16:9 mode has 30% more resolution than the 16:9 mode on the TRV950 (which is native 4:3).

From what I have heard the CCDs are 4:3 however normally the entire CCD is not used eg has an effective resolution, which is smaller. From what I can gather as each chip is is mega pixel there is enough resolution to allow all the horizontal part of the chip to be used and the verticle resolution stays the same as it would at 4:3 530 tv lines resolved.

Does anybody know about the DV codec and can explain how full resolution 16:9 can be recorded at 25meg/second bitrate.

For what it's worth, I specifically asked this question of the Sony Rep. and the engineer guy they had there. They said the TRV950 has 4:3 chips, but uses it's megapixel resolution to capture 16:9. But they said the PDX10 has different CCDs from the TRV950. They said the PDX10 has 16:9 CCDs, which therefore have better resolution in 16:9 mode (30% better) than the TRV950. Maybe the reps don't know what they're talking about (that seems pretty plausible) but I did very specifically ask this question.

Has anybody got there hands on one a PDX10?
Video Camera and desktop video in Australia did a review on it the DSR-PDX10P (the pal version).

The specs say the CCDs are 4:3 but they also say it delivers true widescreen 16:9

The 16:9 mode is achieved by using all the of the horizontal pixels on the trhee 1.07 million pixel CCDs. These pixels are used by t he still imaging function. By using the space on the left and right hand side of the 4:3 video frame zone on the CCD a wider angle of view is created whilst maintaining full vertical resolution.

The effective rating in normal 4:3 video mode of the CCDs is 690,000 pixels per CCD, still mode is 1,000,000 pixels.

The CCDs are sony HAD technology

The reviewer stated that colour accuracy, saturation and defination in shaow ares of the picture are superior to the results from the TRV950

A few links I thought might be helpful the one with the 16:9 explaination confirms my belief on how the 16:9 is caught on 4:3 chips

http://www.exco.it/pagine/sony/dsr.htm (general info)

http://www.creativevideo.co.uk/reframe.php?url=http://www.creativevideo.co.uk/cgi-bin/browse-no-frames.cgi?view=item&item=sony_dsr-pdx10p

Now that link has the pictures which show how the 4:3 chips captures 16:9, the think which is interesting that I did not really think of is you get a wider lense. 8mm by their calculations.

What is interesting is it seems you must loose a fraction of your verticle resolution something I thought would not happy, still not sure how many TV lines it will resolve in 16:9

I'm not suggesting you're wrong about the 4:3 vs. 16:9 native dimensions on the chip. But I don't see where on either of those links it says that the chips in the PDX10 are 4:3 in dimension. In fact, the statement on the second link, "oversize 3-CCD block," would seem to indicate the chips are not the usual 4:3 dimensions. Also, I don't see the pictures you mention (that show how 4:3 chips capture 16:9).

Also, I'm wondering, if the megapixel chips are high enough resolution to possibly capture the same resolution in 4:3 and 16:9, is the argument about what sort of "native" chips these are academic?

Hi there donking I am not saying I know for sure just adding the information as I found it really (the video camera mag review says the chips specs are 4:3) True about your comment with the high resolution chips being able to capature 16:9 within a 4:3 space, however the suggestion that the field of view is 8mm wider suggests that it does use the side bits of the the 4:3 chip usally reserved for still images. Which means more wide screen picture (which I would be interested to know the actual width of the CCD used then as it would also effect depth of field etc marginally)

What I really want to know is how many lines does it resolve in 16:9 what is the real resolution it provides? How does the DV codec cope this this. These questions I do not know the answers for, but it seems a promising product.

hi,
about this 16:9 stuff i don't really believe that pdx10 has true 16:9 chips. if i try to take max resolution picture onto memory stick, it forces me to 4:3 ratio. But it definently uses different tehnology for 16:9. When switching pdx10 to wide mode, it increases horisontal angle of view, pd150 in that case decreases vertical angle of view.

rgrds, Margus