Sony have released a new XDCAM HD 422 optical disc camcorder. The PDW-680 is nearly identical to the PDW-700 except the optical block is the CMOS block used in the PMW-350 and the 680 will ONLY have the interlace modes, there will be no option to shoot progressive. Externally it is the same as the 700 with the exception of an "Exmor" badge on the side. The price (£18k???) is considerably lower than that of the PDW-700.

Sony gave us food for discussion with this camera, especially for those amongst us who predicted the imminent death of the XDCAM disk and the unstoppable rise of progressive recording...

I had the demo PDW680 with me the last week - looks totally like a 700 except it says "EXMOR" on the right side.

Seems a bit less noisy than the 700, lacks only very few features, probably suffers (didnt test) from rolling shutter (-> Flash lights) like all EXMOR do.

Probably its a clever move : some freelancers are trying to buy a used 700 - and the 680 exactly fits this price gap. Since 720p50 is not that important for TV (but for web it does...) , interlace is fine.
Also, deinterlace software got better the last years, so in worst case shoot i, convert to p.

NOT in USA? I asked sony and found that the announced cheaper PDW-HD1200 will not be sold in europe either (that would be my baby...)

hmmm...

uli

Interesting move by Sony. I am glad to see that they are bringing out more XDcam optical disc cameras. So nice not to have to do a data transfer at the end of a long shooting day !

I dont see a new camera coming the next 12 months.

Remember: Sony has no 10bit codec in the broadcast range (HDCAM SR does, but thats another dog).

When announcing a new camera, Sony has somehow to widen the 8bit recording by another codec. And that would mean incompatibilty with the existing XDCAM HD (HD, EX, 422) line.

Lets see what will happen in the future...