A few points here:

1. We do use filters on our paid shoots but not on this test. We are trying to test not impress.
2. I will use a polarizer but only at close to 90 degrees to the sun anything else does not work well.
3. 1/2 ND, Grad ND, and ND along with Polarizer are normally in Doug's Matte box and my kit all the time but off for the test.
4. DOF had nothing at all to do with the test. We are not trying to make video we can use only video so we can evaluate camera settings. Neither of us would ever use any of this footage for anything but this test.
5. We set all the shots at f/8 to f/5.6 so we felt we were in the sweet spots not caring about DOF.
6. Tricks for dynamic range well we all have them and we all know how to deal with them but again not part of this test. If you want to see nice footage just look at Doug's clips on Vimeo. His stuff kicks butt.
7. By the way the 800 and 700 have +19 difference in detail settings. The 700 is set sharper due to the different market. (This is straight from Sony)
8. We still stand by our eyes the 800 is the clear winner when viewed on a proper monitor might be hard to see crushed on vimeo. But glad it has stirred interest and we did this knowing in advance the 800 was better and happy we proved it. Also knowing the 350 cannot be better then the 800 in our eye's.

Back to agreeing to disagree.

Thanks guys for your input.

Any chance of some frame grabs as the vimeo clip makes it appear that the 350 has greater dynamic range. The 350 in the vimeo clips is retaining much more shadow detail while highlights seem similar and as both are encoded the same I would expect any crushing or distortion to be the same for both cameras. The shot with the blue car and trailers would be interesting to see as frame grabs.

I'm going to take a look at both the 350 and 700 tomorrow using a simple black to white grad on a computer monitor. This will give good reliable insight into the relative dynamic ranges.

800 on the left, 350 on the right.

Paul, in regards to point #4. above, are you saying the softness in the corner is not dof? I have never seen f5.6 this soft. Something is wrong.

Edit:

Actually it should be softer because it's 720p not 1080p. I still think the image on the left is oversharpened, at least for my taste.

Same split image as before, 800 on the left, 350 on the right. This time the 350 image was photoshopped to match the contrast, brightness, hue, and sharpness of the 800 image.

Tom there are multiple thing going on here.

1. The 350 was about 5-6 feet left of the 800 so what is framed in the top left is different subject. You can see the 350 has the tree and 800 does not.
2. Exposure is not exactly the same but both are within our f/8 - f/5.6 range that we discussed.
3. Vimo does not handle any of the clips well on the edges.
4. You can’t take a heavily compressed still pulled from a vimeo clip, put it in photoshop and have it mean anything to us.

Again 800 wins in OUR eyes! No problem that you disagree but you won’t change our minds.

I tried my usual grey scale latitude test on the 350 and 700 this morning, but my computer monitor does not have enough contrast to highlight any difference between the two. Both have more latitude than my EX1. The test did show up some more interesting behavior in the detail and aperture circuits with the 350, but I'll discuss that over in the Picture Profile thread.

4. You can’t take a heavily compressed still pulled from a vimeo clip, put it in photoshop and have it mean anything to us.

Again 800 wins in OUR eyes! No problem that you disagree but you won’t change our minds.

The vimeo clip is all I had to go by, Paul. I have no doubt the 800 is better, I've said that. But the difference I see is just its unique processing, ergo sharpening.

I had a few minutes today, a nice sunny day, to grab some further frame test shots and these I believe are quite telling, and perhaps give a good idea of the differences between the PMW-350 and PDW-700.

There are 4 grabs with standard settings (2 standard gamma, 2 Hypergamma 4), same lens on both cameras, both cameras set to 5600k white. Looking very closely at the pictures what I see is practically identical dynamic range. The white van in the distance is blown out on the PDW-700 standard gamma shot, but this is I think just slight differences in the knee, on the Hypergamma shots it appears about the same for both cameras.

What is interesting is the slightly better chroma clarity from the PDW-700, if you look at the distant red cars and the yellow bushes there is more clarity to the PD-700, but then this is to be expected as the 700 is 4:2:2 against the 350's 4:2:0.

So I chose to do one further test this time with both cameras recording on to a NanoFlash at 100Mb/s. These grabs are quite revealing as the chroma resolution is now much more evenly matched. If anything now I prefer the 350 as the specular highlights on the distant red car (behind green box) look better from the 350

So my conclusion is that the recordings from the camera are superior from the PDW-700, no surprise there, but add a NanoFlash and the difference between the cameras is tiny. You just have to be happy with CMOS over CCD.

Stop Press: Just as i was about to post this I noticed on the NanoFlash grabs that the 350 appears to be holding on to highlights better than the 700. Look at the white house doors on the distant houses and the white vans. I can see details of the door frames in the 350 shots that are lost on the 700.

Thanks Alister for the grabs,

Both theses cameras look close in image quality but I still prefer the 700 over the EX, I'm a fan of the CCD. The 700 chroma wins of course but considering the cost between them the EX is so close.

Cheers

The build quality of the 700 is nice, it's like a tank compared to the 350 which doesn't quite have that same high end feel to the switches, but then the 350 is a lot lighter. The differences between the 350 and 700 in the grabs is mainly white balance, but the slight color differences should be easy enough to match via the matrix. I like the 350's picture as they seem warmer. At the same time there is still a little too much yellow/green in both for my liking.

It would be nice to do that, but I don't have my 2700 any more (or my PDW700!). Would have been good if I had an overlap period where I owned both, but I traded the 700 for the 2700.
Steve

I'm looking at a 2700 v the PMW350 right now Steve. What made you jump to the Varicam. I should add we just used the Varicam in Paris and it has a completely differerent look to the Sonys. It works beautifully with skin tones in particular. I love the functionality, price and value of the 350, but to me the skin tones look a little flat like DVCAM does. I just not sure at the moment which way to jump.

Peter

I had a few minutes today, a nice sunny day, to grab some further frame test shots and these I believe are quite telling, and perhaps give a good idea of the differences between the PMW-350 and PDW-700.

Were both cameras using the same lens Alistair? The 700 has horrible Chromatic Aberation. Look at the chimneys left of screen. The fine detail in the trees is also not resolving as sharp as the 350.

If the 350 is using the stock optimised lens, I'd like to see it tested with a generic HD lens like your 700 has. If I get a 350 I would be using my HJ21x7.5, not the stock one.

Peter

Peter,

I tested the HJ17x with my 350 and the CA was very bad. I then tested the HA18x and ZA17x by Fujinon and found a huge difference. I purchased the ZA17x since we could not tell the difference with the HA.

I think Alister said it was the same lens on both cameras.

check you pm

Peter, 2 things made me swap the PDW700 for the HPX2700. Main one was that slomo was difficult to do in the 700 and a breeze of course in the Varicam, also had a feeling that the transcoding in the 700 to get the slomo was degrading quality a bit. The other reason is that the 2700 is what a lot of the high end nature docs are being shot on.
I agree that there is something just really nice looking about the Varicam pictures, and I'm sure that if you sat down an audience of 100 people from layman to experts, and showed them the same 10 minute film shot on a Varicam and a PDW800 you'd have a lot of them saying that they thought the Varicam nicer - just a guess though of course.
Steve

Peter,

I tested the HJ17x with my 350 and the CA was very bad. I then tested the HA18x and ZA17x by Fujinon and found a huge difference. I purchased the ZA17x since we could not tell the difference with the HA.

I think Alister said it was the same lens on both cameras.

check you pm

Wow, same lens. Then the 350 wins in that area...

yes same lens on both cameras.

David are you looking to buy a 350 and not sure if you should buy the kit lens or not?

Yes I am actually. Please advise.

The kit lens is exceptional value for money. It is as sharp as many far more expensive HD lenses and due to the 350's CA correction, CA is minimal. There is some barrel distortion, but this is not excessive, it's similar to an EX lens in that respect. The zoom control is not quite as precise as a $10k lens. It is also prone to flare but good matte box or longer hood will help.

You can use the 350 with the kit lens and get very good results. There are better lenses that will give incremental improvements in image quality, but whether anyone would know or realize in the finished production is debatable. It's only when you do careful side by side comparisons that the differences show up. The 16x8 zoom range is limited compared to most high end HD lenses and 8mm at the wide end is OK for general use but not particularly wide. Clearly if you need to do wider or longer shots then the kit lens may not be for you, but perhaps for those jobs you could rent the appropriate lens. The decision will depend on your budget, do you spend the money on a better lens or do you spend it on a good tripod, monitor or other equipment, all just as important. Of course you can always start off with the kit lens and upgrade later. I think it's a good starter lens for those migrating from SD to HD, it is almost certainly better than trying to use an SD lens (assuming your shooting HD), but in the long term you may want to get a better lens.

David I agree with Ailster the kit lens is very nice.

check my ad in the DVinfo classified my 350 with kit lens, 2 - 16GB SxS Pro cards, and 3 year transferable Sony warranty is for sale.

Just a slight diversion, Steve, you mentioned that you sold the 2700?

Thanks Alister for your always valuable input. I expected exactly what you posted. Have you decided on which camera you are keeping?
Best wishes

Just a slight diversion, Steve, you mentioned that you sold the 2700?

Yes, why are you looking to buy one?
Main problem is it's so popular in the high end wildlife field that no-one was wanting to use mine as they all have their own! It was my third camera in 12 months, I don't have any camera at the moment.
Steve

It's interesting you mention the Varicam and wildlife connection Steve. I've shot lots of AV installation stuff for zoos in Africa and Indonesia. it's an area of work I really love. I notice that Thierry Humeau is using the 350 in Africa, albeit with some highlight issues. It all comes down to the 1080 v 720 thing to some respects.

Peter Corbett
Powerhouse Productions
Powerhouse Productions (http://www.php.com.au)

All I can say is that the Varicam was the staple of "Planet Earth" and the new HPX2700s are the staple of most high end wildlife units in the UK. The team making the mega-blockbuster new Planet Earth rival for Discovery have just bought 5 2700s, while the Beeb are gearing up for a massive new Africa series with it too. "Life" which I did only a tiny bit on but know the production well was all Varicam (excpet slomo on Photron and Phantom).
If it's good enough for them...
Well-respected RSPB Film Unit also just bought a 2700 having tested it vs the PDW700.
Steve

All I can say is that the Varicam was the staple of "Planet Earth" and the new HPX2700s ...... If it's good enough for them...
In TVB Europe recently there was a report from a tech seminar, including statements from the technical head of BBC HD. (See http://tvbeurope.com/pdfs/TVBE_download/2010/TVBE_January_2010.pdf page 10.)
But despite the growing acceptance of HD, Quested showed no sign of relaxing quality standards, reeling off a list of no-go specifications. These included footage from up-res SD, Super 16, HDV or any camera with sub half-inch sensors, compression at less than 100Mbps (intraframe) or 50Mbps (interframe), NLE codecs operating below 160Mbps and live MPEG-2 contributions at less than 60Mbps, plus all 720p equipment — with the honourable exception of the Panasonic Varicam, as its variable frame rate, so essential to landmark knowledge series such as Life, was not available on 1080-line kit.
Which implies to me that the 2700 is seen more as "best currently available" rather than ideal. It also suggests that whilst it may be best choice for programmes such as "Life" NOW, it may not be in the near future.
Well-respected RSPB Film Unit also just bought a 2700 having tested it vs the PDW700.
I assume that decision was taken before the PMW350 was released? A 2700 vs 350 test by them may have given a different decision. OK - the 350 will still have to be do variable frame rate at 720p, but for all on-speed shooting can be used at 1080p/25, at full 1920x1080 resolution.

David, obviously there would be a preference for a 1080 slomo Varicam rather than 720, but I don't think they'd use the 2700 if it really wasn't good enough.
The RSPB did buy the 2700 before the 350 was out but it wouldn't have changed their decision, trust me. The EX3 was around and for wildlife, as I've said before, it's massively superior to the 350 for reasons of weight and lens power, and image quality between the 2 is apparently very close.
A company I work for a lot has a Sony 750 and an EX3 but even when slomo would be advantageous they don't get me to use the EX3, they just don't think it's good enough, they call the 750 the "proper camera" and just use the EX3 when ultra portability or other special needs arise.
If the 350 makes big inroads into blue chip BBC NHU productions I'll eat my words, but I just don't see it.
Steve

Steve I agree with most of what you are saying. Though I have to disagree when you say the 350 is close in picture to the EX3. I think the 350 is a nice step up and the 2/3" sensor has many advantages.

Also I am surprised they would choose the 2700 over the 700 but that could be due to the 700 not having proper over/under cranking. The optical disk is a fantastic recording media.

Well the 2/3" chip has advantages and drawbacks - better light gathering but less magnification so it's a trade-off.
From what I've heard the EX3 was reviewed as being very close to the PDW700 and the 350 is too, so it follows that they are all fairly similar - ie similar enough for it not to be a massive deal.
To be honest, I think one of the reasons the RSPB chose the 2700 over the 700 and many other is that they looked at the pictures on a big HD monitor and thought the 2700 just looked better. No scientific instruments involved, it just looked better.
Steve

Just checked my emails from Mark at the RSPB, he confirms that they "preferred the look of the Varicam" over the 700.
They also just bought an EX3 as a B camera to the 2700!
Steve

"Life" probably tells a better story at lower resolutions. The enhanced color palette of the Varicam is appealing, but not explicitly faithful. I think if you shot in low light, the 2700 would get killed.

We shoot plenty of stuff in low light Tom. In fact when the Varicam first came out one of its big selling points over film was its low light capabilities. We did use 500 ISO stocks but they were pretty grainy, and the Varicam was a revelation.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by ""Life" probably tells a better story at lower resolutions".

Steve

To be honest, I think one of the reasons the RSPB chose the 2700 over the 700 and many other is that they looked at the pictures on a big HD monitor and thought the 2700 just looked better. No scientific instruments involved, it just looked better.
Hmmm. I wonder how much thought was given to the way the cameras were lined up.......

From what people have said earlier in this thread I think that's the real lesson here. Factors like chip resolutions affect resolution, but the primary factor determining "look" is probably more line up than make, model etc.

I've found some of the images earlier on very interesting (especially Alisters) and am left with the feeling that between such as the 350 and the 700/800 I doubt I'd be able to tell them apart in isolation - split screen, maybe. Any choice between them would be far more influenced by factors such as solid state or disc? Cost? Maybe absolute build quality? Importance of power consumption ? Etc etc with "look" a secondary factor.

And bring the 2700 into it, and I think the BBCs remarks are telling. Here it's what it looks like in varispeed that is of big importance, to the extent of being more so than absolute resolution in normal speed filming. At least for wildlife etc programmes. Hence it wins out over the 700. But compare it to a 350 and it may be a different story.

From the remarks I quoted earlier, it's also clear that for the 350 to be accepted it would need a separate recorder such as a nanoFlash. The "no-go specifications" for acquisition include .... "compression at less than 100Mbps (intraframe) or 50Mbps (interframe)". Also interesting to note that whilst they consider AVC-Intra 100 acceptable for acquisition, it isn't for post - "NLE codecs operating below 160Mbps" are also considered no-go.

I think you're barking up the wrong tree David. "Look" was just as much the way it handled motion as the still frame look, that's what Mark told me, he thought the 2700 had much smoother, nicer motion.
And I think your idea of looking at split screens to tell the 350 and 700 apart tells a lot of the story, you're talking about still frames and peeking at the pixels. I think you'd tell them apart OK if you watched 2 shots of birds flying.
Could be wrong though.
Steve

If two frames taken from separate streams look the same, it follows thàt the motion will look the same if the framerate and shutter are the same.

These cams shoot in black and white. The color is added by digital processing. If the Varicam has a uniquely desirable palette and gamma, you wouldn't dare correct it in post. On the other hand, if you do correct it in post, you are applying a more desirable palette and gamma, which can be done with any of the cams. What you can't do, is add resolution where it didn't exist.

Steve no doubt the varicam 2700 looks nice. I understand your point and know the Panasonic right out of the box looks nice. What still puzzles me to this day is why the 3700 does not have over cranking?

Hard to tell a client who says I NEED 1080p that a 720p camera will do the job. We get stuck in the position that the client/producer is always right.

And I think your idea of looking at split screens to tell the 350 and 700 apart tells a lot of the story, you're talking about still frames and peeking at the pixels. I think you'd tell them apart OK if you watched 2 shots of birds flying.
Could be wrong though.
Steve
No you are right.
Humans ( brains ) don't see pixels we see and understand shapes, outlines, motion and how all that combines, and are extremely sensitive to details that can not be explained at the pixel level. Which is why this is difficult. With technical screenshots and not so artistic looking images cameras may look the same. Push things into something more interesting looking, do serious color-correction, shoot strong backlight, nit-pick on skin-tones, etc, differences become clearer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade#Spatial_updating
"...Humans and other animals do not look at a scene in fixed steadiness; instead, the eyes move around, locating interesting parts of the scene and building up a mental 'map' corresponding to the scene..."

I think you're barking up the wrong tree David. "Look" was just as much the way it handled motion as the still frame look, that's what Mark told me, he thought the 2700 had much smoother, nicer motion.
"Smoother, nicer motion"? Following on from what Tom says, I'd only add that such as rolling shutter effects could also make a difference to how motion was portrayed - but in a comparison of the 2700/700 we're talking about two CCD cameras, so that can't be applicable here. So the only differences I can think of that would affect motion handling are framerate, shutter angle, and interlace/progressive.

If we assume we're talking about both cameras shooting 720p/25 (not a lot of point doing anything else if we want varispeed), that fixes everything else except shutter angle as far as I can see. Is it possible we're just talking about the way the 700 derives varispeed? If so, what's the argument? We're in agreement that the Varicam does it better than the 700 - it's why the BBC chose it for these programmes in spite of it's resolution. My question was what when the comparison is the 2700 v the 350?
And I think your idea of looking at split screens to tell the 350 and 700 apart tells a lot of the story, you're talking about still frames and peeking at the pixels. I think you'd tell them apart OK if you watched 2 shots of birds flying.
No, it doesn't tell any of the story - split screen can just as well apply to split screen moving video as still images, and that's what I was thinking of. Yes, it's conceivable that the CMOS/CCD difference could theoretically make a difference to how flying birds looked - but I'd suspect it would be a small order effect, and even if there was any difference, would one look absolutely "right", the other "wrong"?

Whatever you think of the 2700, I doubt you'd deny it would be even better if had 1920x1080 chips and offered full resolution at 1080p/25 in addition to it's current abilities. There shouldn't be any doubt that it would be better still if it offered full varicam frame rates and cranking at 1080p resolutions. That's obviously what such as the BBC want, from reading that quote.

David beat me to it as I was set to argue against myself with a point about rolling shutter versus global shutters, in lieu of the psycho-optical phenomenon, which while likely, points only to a subjective judgment.

We know the rolling shutter fills the frame at least 2khz. I don't know how fast a hummingbird beats its wings, but the rolling shutter would seem likely to render that motion unfavorably in comparison, agreed.

Hi guys,

I'm watching this thread and loving the banter going on here. I have a question about the 2700, does this camera do SD or is this a HD only camera.

Thanks

HD only Simon.

We use the 2700 on commercials, edit native 720P in Final Cut Pro, export to ProRes 422 HD, then import that file to Windows Procoder and downrez to SD for H.264 transmission Master. You may have seen some Swisse Vitamin commercials featuring Rick Ponting and Sonia Kruger which we produced on Tony Brennan's 2700. A new bucnch of Swisse ads with footballer Tom Harley start next week on Seven which we also shot on the HPX2700 in 720P.

Cheers,
Peter Corbett
Powerhouse Productions
Powerhouse Productions (http://www.php.com.au)

"Smoother, nicer motion"? Following on from what Tom says, I'd only add that such as rolling shutter effects could also make a difference to how motion was portrayed - but in a comparison of the 2700/700 we're talking about two CCD cameras, so that can't be applicable here. So the only differences I can think of that would affect motion handling are framerate, shutter angle, and interlace/progressive.


I'm quoting from the RSPB head's email to me. But I think it says a lot about what we've been debating. You might point out to him what you've just said to me and his reaction is likely to be shrugging his shoulder and saying "OK, but the Varicam picture just looked nicer to me" and no matter what anyone says, that is all that matters.
I would never deny that a 1080/60P Varicam would be preferable to a 720/60P one, of course it would . BUT, here's a thought and another debating point - I'd probably rather have a 720/120P Varicam than a 1080/60P one. This follows the reasoning that 720 is probably "good enough" even on a big HD screen, and 120fps would be really useful for a lot of wildlife stuff, almost gives us our Arriflexes back! For cinema release stuff you could use the 1080 one. Presumably this will never happen though with 720/120P not being an HD fomat.
Steve

Some interesting points being raised.

The problem with the "it just looked better" test is that you don't know how the cameras were setup. Sony's tend to look quite crappy without any adjustment whereas Pany seem to dial in a much more "filmic" look as standard. Of course engineers in Japan may have a different opinion as I heard they prefer a more electronic look there and think of film as old and stuttery.

Many cameramen never use the paint menus in their cameras at all, especially on hire kit.

I've shot a fair amount of 720p for large screen including several filmouts. Filmouts loose rez anyway and help blur the line between 720 an 1080 but in general it depends on subject matter in the frame. Close ups tend to be fine in 720 but wide vistas with high detail really benefit from 1080. I'd be interested to know if the Beeb use the 3700 for such shots in order to gain the extra detail. They definitely use HDCAMs on Planet Earth for certain scenes... and a little film!

Of course, like for like, 1080p is always better that 720p as are higher frame rates. IMO 1080 is "enough" rez for virtually anything but as said below I'd like to see framerates over 100fps soon. I'm also hoping Sony will release an upgrade board for the 350 that allows all the options of the nanoflash on board. They may do so if they want to take a slice of the nano's profits for themselves. That would be harder with the 700 as the discs aren't fast enough. I'm guessing 50/50 whether such a board will be released.

I'm quoting from the RSPB head's email to me. But I think it says a lot about what we've been debating. You might point out to him what you've just said to me and his reaction is likely to be shrugging his shoulder and saying "OK, but the Varicam picture just looked nicer to me" and no matter what anyone says, that is all that matters.
That's completely missing the point Steve. It's back to what I said in post #82 - "Hmmm. I wonder how much thought was given to the way the cameras were lined up......." and I see Mike is thinking exactly the same.

You may like to ask him exactly that point - ideally invite him to join in this discussion. If you took a camera out of it's box and how it looked was the way it was, period, then "the look" would indeed be all that mattered. But that's not the case - not with the higher end cameras, anyway. The "look" can be made to vary widely on any of them. And in the case of digital cinema I believe the norm is to shoot RAW and the "look" be determined in post.

There's a lot of reason to believe that out of the box Panasonic cameras have a look more preferred by those from a "film" tendency, Sony are preferred by those influenced by TV. That's not to say either is right or wrong, but it's important to realise that if the adjustments are there, either camera can be made to look either way - at least by someone who knows what they are doing.
BUT, here's a thought and another debating point - I'd probably rather have a 720/120P Varicam than a 1080/60P one. This follows the reasoning that 720 is probably "good enough" even on a big HD screen, and 120fps would be really useful for a lot of wildlife stuff, .......
A good point, but isn't that the third stage in what I'm saying? A camera with 1920x1080 chips, that will overcrank in 1080 up to 60fps, AND ADDITIONALLY overcrank in 720 up to 120fps?

Mike that would be interesting if Sony put a board in the 350 to do that same as the Nano. I don't think that would happy since CD is being helped by Sony and it helps them sell cameras.

I was told by someone from Sony that the F800 disk can handle over 200Mbps. That might be cutting the size in half and using a 50GB disk as a 25Gb disk.

It's you that's missing the point David, the guy preferred the look of the motion which is not something that'll be altered by Paint settings. Both cameras would have been same shutter etc.,Mark is very experienced and knows his stuff well enough to knot that out of the bix settings are not what you'd use.
As for 120P, what I was saying is if it was a question of which one you had to choose, which would it be - 702/120 or 1080/60? Obviously it'd better to be able to choose.
Steve

Hi Peter,

Couple of questions. What lens were you using with the 2700 and also the delivery to SD for H.264 transmission Master.

I was asked to delivery to H.264 the other day and was confused with this format. Can you shed some light on the compression settings. I did some comparisons with prores and found H.264 came out looking softer than prores, maybe my compression settings were wrong.

Thanks

It's you that's missing the point David, the guy preferred the look of the motion which is not something that'll be altered by Paint settings.
No, but it could be altered by such settings as shutter, and it was implied that his preference was down not solely to "the look of the motion" anyway - I was responding to "....his reaction is likely to be shrugging his shoulder and saying "OK, but the Varicam picture just looked nicer to me". That implies much more than just motion to me.
As for 120P, what I was saying is if it was a question of which one you had to choose, which would it be - 702/120 or 1080/60? Obviously it'd better to be able to choose.

It shouldn't boil down to a choice, that's the daft thing about the higher end of the Panasonic range at the moment. There's no doubt the 3700 is good as far as it goes as a 1080p/25 camera - but why doesn't it do 720p, and able to do 50/60fps in that? It's expensive enough, and other cameras don't seem to have a problem.

Mike earlier raised the question "I'd be interested to know if the Beeb use the 3700 for such shots in order to gain the extra detail. They definitely use HDCAMs on Planet Earth for certain scenes... and a little film!" If the answer is yes, it seems very unsatisfactory to have to take a 3700 and a 2700 along on a shoot, then select one camera or the other on a shot by shot basis?

Mark's such an experienced guy he's not going to swayed by simple things like the setup, believe me. I've thought the same thing, looking at the Varicam there is just something nice and high quality feeling to it, hard to say exactly what it is, but I had my 700 and 2700 setup with BBC settings, and they were good settings, and there is just something about the Varicam that's really appealing.
You're right about Panasonic being an odd bunch, you could say they're protecting sales of both 2700 and 3700 by each having something the other does not, but why not just make one in the first place, I agree with you a 3700 with 720 option. I get the feeling they may pull out a quality argument, backed up by people like Alan Roberts at the Beeb, which is that for the optimum 720 picture you need a 720 chip and that converting from a 1080 chip like the Sonys do is sub-optimal. How much truth there is in this I don't know, certainly I thought the 720 from the PDW700 looked pretty good, slightly less so from the EXs.
What's Panny's next move going to be I wonder, as with the Varicams (plus the 3000 don't forget being in a real no-man's land), and the mixed feelings HPX301 they do seem to be losing the plot a bit.
Steve

We've seen comparisons between the 350 and 700 from Alister that are roughly equivalent, and of the 350 and 800 from Doug and Paul that are hugely disparative.

More curious to me is how the PDW700 compares to the 800.

I tried to locate one here in Denver for a test, all I can find for rent is the F900 w/lens for $1,300/day and the HPX2000 for $1,100/day, with lens.

If the 700 is not identical to the 800 then there is something very odd going on as they have all the same gear inside AFAIK (ie chips, processing). The 800 is just a 700 with all the optional extras as standard and a few extras like overcranking.
Steve