I'm a noob - and know it. So my ignorance shows. What I surprise.
But at least you looked - so the post wasn't a total waste, I hope.

Bill, I wouldn't have known Hugo either before late November '06. I had the pleasure of receiving a 3 hour presentation from him on compression technology and why Sony chose MPEG2 long GOP for XDCAM HD.

-gb-

I hope we will see it live on the IBC.. we can touch &tryout the camera in a showdisplay on a tripod or something with some nice girls to focus on -;)
Sofar with mentioned price, i'm in love and maybe this camera will be for me the final step from SD to HD.

Erik

I will freely admit that a camera like this is strictly drool material.
As a practical matter the price point is simply way out of my league.

But also as a practical matter I am intensly interested in the
transition to flash memory as a recording medium.

Tape has well known problems. No need to rehash.
If you have a builtin hard drive, what do you do when it fails?
None of them so far is user replaceable. It's not like you go to
BestBuy, or anywhere else, and pick up a notebook drive to pop in.
So replacement/repair is very expensive.

But flash should be far more reliable than either.
And if a stick fails, replacement is easy.

What does interest me is a camera like the Canon XH-A1 being updated
with this sort of technology. And this is a technology that would be very
easy to migrate downward to consumer camcorders.

I haven't had any reliability problems with tape since the 3/4" days. However, I do think different things will eventually replace it, but not for many years. The high end HDCAM and Varicam cameras are going to continue using tape for a long, long time, and so are the HDV cameras.

With its complete system, ie., not just the camera but the cheap XDCAM disc burner that allows you to make XDCAM HD discs of your footage from the SxS cards, Sony has made a tapeless workflow actually useable for people like me. There's still the hassle of having to load the data from the cards to a computer and then burn the discs, but at least you have a way of getting the contents to disc easily and economically. It would be better to get an XDCAM HD F350 and record directly to discs, but a guy can buy the EX and the burner for half the price of the bigger camera. Actually, when you throw in a decent lens for the F350, EX looks even cheaper.

My first Betacam camera with lens cost about $40K. The current DVCAM package was about $25K. The two decks were $10K each. The XDCAM EX is only $8K. Assume another $2K worth of cards, and about $3K for that XDCAM disc burner (it can be networked, so no need for two in our place), and switching to XDCAM HD is a no-brainer for us when we get ready to retire the old camera.

The only question will be, is the cost savings of EX worth the hassle of having to spend the time burning all the footage from cards to discs, or would it be best to spend more and go for the F350.

Bill, you only have to burn to disc if you want that as an archival medium. Otherwise, you can store the stuff on your hard drive if you trust it as an archival system. Some folks say okay, while others say nay. As cheap as hard drives are getting, setting up a mirrored RAID for integrity wouldn't be a totally bad idea.

-gb-

What discs do you use if you're shooting on 8 or 16 gig cards? That would have to go to one of the HD DVD formats, wouldn't it? My understanding from other boards is that you can't go into the folders and split up the data without creating problems.

What discs do you use if you're shooting on 8 or 16 gig cards? That would have to go to one of the HD DVD formats, wouldn't it? My understanding from other boards is that you can't go into the folders and split up the data without creating problems.

Sony has made a cheap XDCAM Disc burner for capture (well, transfer) and archiving on XDCAM Discs. I guess it will have automated software.

BTW, when is this camera supposed to be released??

Bill,

Sony has it's own BD (Blu-Ray) disc format for XDCAM in 23gb and soon 50gb size. There is also a unit about the size of an external harddrive that will allow you to dump your XDCAM EX footage via computer (not sure if it will allow you to just go straight from the camcorder or not; I doubt it). This is a great option for archiving (though expensive at $3500.00)

Todd

Hopefully the V1 will go to $2K to $2.5K in an line shakeup, so the production cost saving XDCAM EX falls to $3K to $3.5K in short time. This really allows for an big growth expansion opportunity fro this new format in future, 4:2:2 35mb/s, 4:2:2 50mb/s, 4:2:2 10-bit 50mb/s, 4:4:4 50mb/s, 4:2:2 10-bit 75mb/s, 4:4:4 75mb/s, 4:4:4 10-bit 75mb/s, 4:4:4 10-bit 100mb/s, not to mention an switch to AVC. Tape is so inflexible, compared to file systems that take an range of rates. That's many years of camera upgrades.

For those who haven't read it yet, there is an article on XDCAM and the XDCAM EX at:
http://www.broadcastnewsroom.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=148318

The part I found interesting is following in quotes from the author Mike Jones:

"XDCamHD EX shares all the specs of its disc-based sister; MPEG-2 IMX, 18, 25 and 35mbps. We assume the new 4:2:2 color sampling Sony announced at NAB07 will be part of all future XDCam HD products including EX."

Maybe this is the surprise I've heard hinted at?? Who knows, interesting though.

I've been wondering, with the XDCAM format, is progressive also written within 1080i as PsF - like the 24/25/30p on the V1, for instance?

"XDCamHD EX shares all the specs of its disc-based sister; MPEG-2 IMX, 18, 25 and 35mbps. We assume the new 4:2:2 color sampling Sony announced at NAB07 will be part of all future XDCam HD products including EX."

Well that first sentence is DEFINITELY wrong! It's MPEG2 Long GOP, not IMX. The IMX is found only on the PDW-530 SD XDCAM camera and is 30, 40, or 50 mbs with 4:2:2.

I think the author got his wires crossed.

Update: I read the article in question, and the author has posted a response to the original with the corrections. So Gabe, you got your hopes up for nothing.

-gb-

That portable xdcam recorder does sound expensive, but it also makes archiving your footage pretty simple. So assuming you had your laptop, the recorder, and bunch of xdcam disk with you - it'd be pretty simple to transfer your footage to an archival medium when out in the field.

Should hopefully mean that dropouts are a thing of the past!

That portable xdcam recorder does sound expensive, but it also makes archiving your footage pretty simple. So assuming you had your laptop, the recorder, and bunch of xdcam disk with you - it'd be pretty simple to transfer your footage to an archival medium when out in the field.

Should hopefully mean that dropouts are a thing of the past!
You might as well have a laptop with a Blu-Ray drive built in. This is why Sony must make the portable drive compatible with the XDCAM EX. I know that XDCAM discs might be more reliable than standard Blu-Ray discs but you will save a lot of space this way.

You might as well have a laptop with a Blu-Ray drive built in. This is why Sony must make the portable drive compatible with the XDCAM EX. I know that XDCAM discs might be more reliable than standard Blu-Ray discs but you will save a lot of space this way.

Since Sony already makes a stand-alone consumer DVD burner, and there are many units out there that will take a memory card and transfer the contents to a hard-drive (portable media players and video storage units - both consumer priced), I figure it won't be too long before someone makes either:

1) a portable hard drive that lets you dump memory card data to it. These are already out there and primarily used to put photos or movies onto a hard drive, then take it to your livingroom and play them on a TV. Since the new cards will be made by many manufacturers and should start showing up on most new laptops, I expect there will be machines of this type that accept the EX's cards within 6 months or so. Consumer units should run about $300 maximum.

2) a stand-alone unit like #1 that uses a blue-ray DVD instead of a hard-drive. For those that don't trust archiving your material to a HDD, this would be optimal, right?

I would want something like #1 but with a removable hard drive. I just picked up a 1TB drive for less than $250 and would have no issues loading up a drive and setting it on the shelf to archive my footage. I already do it with smaller drives (mostly 320GB and some 500gb) and like to keep one project per drive since they are now so very cheap.

OK, that's my hope for the future. I am very excited about this new camera and am already bugging my local rental house to get some - so I can try one out before purchasing.

Just my $.02 (or probably only worth $.01 or so...)

Andrew

I can't help but feel that the need to offload to HD in the field not going to be something that is quite so in demand.

The XDCAM HD cards are much lower in cost and have a higher capacity (in terms of minutes of recorded footage) than P2.

Many people will be filming less than 90 minutes of recorded footage per day. And even if you average 2 hours per day you only need 3 x 16GB cards ($300 a piece). Okay so $900 isn't the price of three HDV tapes, but it's more within the financial grasp of lower-end PSC camera-jockeys than 135 minutes of P2 cards.

I'd quite happily spring for the extra cards just to avoid the headache of working out where and when I'm going to shift my footage from card to HD.

Many people will be filming less than 90 minutes of recorded footage per day. And even if you average 2 hours per day you only need 3 x 16GB cards ($300 a piece). Okay so $900 isn't the price of three HDV tapes, but it's more within the financial grasp of lower-end PSC camera-jockeys than 135 minutes of P2 cards.

A lot of the freelance work I’ve done were over 90 minutes of shooting and if your producing a documentary or a film, you may need a minimum of a few hours of footage each day and there is an event that I want to tape overseas that may be up to several hours of footage each day for around 3 days or more. For that situation I would obviously get a laptop to dump my footage but it would be a lot quicker if they had a portable XDCAM unit. You mention that you can always buy more memory cards if you need longer hours but for my case I would have about 15 hours of shooting and if it lasts a whole week, that’s about 35 hours of footage. Now that’s a lot of memory cards. Sony should also make a more economical unit that uses standard Blu-Ray discs instead because 4,000 dollars is pretty steep for your average person. A unit like this should cost 1,000 dollars and the discs would only be around 10 dollars each since you can already get 25 gig Blu-ray discs for fewer than 15 dollars apiece.

We have many dance concerts every November and December and we are looking at these cameras for good low light performance to take over from Vx 2000's. (FX 7 is just not good enough for dark concerts)!

The longest concert is just under 4 hours, with three cameras, repeated next day! Last year I had 24 hours of tape to wade through!

So you can see I'm VERY interested in economical workflow for these cameras!

Cheers Vaughan

A lot of the freelance work I’ve done were over 90 minutes of shooting and if your producing a documentary or a film, you may need a minimum of a few hours of footage each day and there is an event that I want to tape overseas that may be up to several hours of footage each day for around 3 days or more. For that situation I would obviously get a laptop to dump my footage but it would be a lot quicker if they had a portable XDCAM unit. You mention that you can always buy more memory cards if you need longer hours but for my case I would have about 15 hours of shooting and if it lasts a whole week, that’s about 35 hours of footage. Now that’s a lot of memory cards. Sony should also make a more economical unit that uses standard Blu-Ray discs instead because 4,000 dollars is pretty steep for your average person. A unit like this should cost 1,000 dollars and the discs would only be around 10 dollars each since you can already get 25 gig Blu-ray discs for fewer than 15 dollars apiece.

I don't think it would be quicker or more convenient to have a portable XDCAM disc unit in the field (I'm guessing we're talking about the professional media discs rather than hard drives...?)

It's not going to run at much faster than real-time. If you shoot 3 hours of footage in a day, then generally you're working pretty flat out - and I'm guessing you're not going to easily find another 3 hours to offload footage from your cards. You could double up on your cards, but by the time you've done that you can shoot your 3 hours anyway! If you're working with a laptop at the end of the day that's more practical as transfer speeds are going to be faster (given that an HD can transfer faster than Sony Optical Media), and you don't have to interrupt your flow if (like me) you're working without an assistant to help transfer files in the field.

Now that’s a lot of memory cards. Sony should also make a more economical unit that uses standard Blu-Ray discs instead because 4,000 dollars is pretty steep for your average person. A unit like this should cost 1,000 dollars and the discs would only be around 10 dollars each since you can already get 25 gig Blu-ray discs for fewer than 15 dollars apiece.

Well thats why the camera is targeted at the pro market. It isn't aimed at an average person. XDCAMHD is in no way designed to be cheap for everyday people to use. $4,000 is not a bad price considering my old DVCAM decks cost more then that and the tapes were about the price of what a XDCAM disk costs. Thats the price of the pro market.

4,000 dollars is pretty steep for your average person.Thomas Smet took the words right out of my mouth, in his post above... XDCAM EX is not at all intended for the average person.

A unit like this should cost 1,000 dollars and the discs would only be around 10 dollars each...We're already there. It's called AVCHD.

Sony should at least make a portable Blu-Ray drive that is compatible with HDV and AVCHD if they worry that having compatibility with the XDCAM EX may threaten the sales of XDCAM drives. In this case, a laptop with a built in Blu-Ray drive is your best solution if you’re on a tight budget and there are already drives that are 4X write speed, that’s a little over 4X real time. Basically 1 hour of XDCAM footage will take just under 15 minutes to burn to a disc.
Its too bad Apple doesn’t offer a Blu-Ray drive as an option yet.


Still, like a lot of people are hoping, having compatibility with something similar to the PDW-U1 is a very smart move even if it costs up to 5,000 dollars. I can really see a market for this.

Still, like a lot of people are hoping, having compatibility with something similar to the PDW-U1 is a very smart move even if it costs up to 5,000 dollars. I can really see a market for this.

Where are you getting these 4 or 5 thousand dollar prices from? I believe the PDW-U1 is expected to sell for around 3K. Again, the XDCAM EX is not a consumer product and the necessary support equipment isn't going to be showing up at your local big box store with dirt cheap, loss leader pricing.

The PRIMARY market for the PDW-U1 is going to be as a stand-alone ingest device. This is something many post-houses or broadcast facilities can invest in for taking in XDCAM HD without owning dedicated XDCAM HD decks. The decks have their place, but for a facility that just needs to take in the occasional client supplied XDCAM HD footage, the U1 is the right ticket at the right price. And don't forget, when it first comes out, it won't even support writing to disc. That functionality is expected via a software upgrade early next year.

-gb-

I don't know if this has already been announced whether the EX will write proxies in SxS cards?

Where are you getting these 4 or 5 thousand dollar prices from? I believe the PDW-U1 is expected to sell for around 3K. Again, the XDCAM EX is not a consumer product and the necessary support equipment isn't going to be showing up at your local big box store with dirt cheap, loss leader pricing.


-gb-


That’s only because I heard someone say 4,000 dollars for the PDW-U1 so I added up to a grand to that for a unit with more features.


The real point I was trying to make since the beginning, is for Sony to release a portable XDCAM unit so that you don’t need a computer, that’s it.

just in passing....

i shoot for a number of organisations, incl. national broadcasters. i don't see them paying for cards!!! in house stuff maybe, but stringers and run and gun - no way..... tape is alive and well....

leslie

Our ABC just bought close to 100 HVX200s, guess they'll be buying at least some cards for them.

well hello there bob, fancy meeting you here!

they might have bought them - but are they going to send me one or two cards up when they want me to shoot? do i send them mine? we're not talking $10 tapes here, and i've had experience with ALL the major broadcasters not returning tapes, let alone cards....

leslie

I bet the workflow will be more like: shoot on flash, transfer to XDCAM disk, portable hard disk or Blu-Ray DVD and send THAT to the network, rather than the flash card.

Yes, it's an extra step. But keep in mind that this should be a relatively speedy file transfer operation, rather than a real time capture.

And who knows? Maybe the flash media will eventually get cheap enough that you can treat it like tape.

Although transferring off the XDCAM EX cards could potentially be very quick, transfer to XDCAM disk is just under twice as fast as real time at 35Mb/s. So if you've shot 90 minutes footage, you're still going to need to find almost an hour to transfer to XDCAM (by the time you've setup the transfer gear).

Hmmm... I didn't realize writing to XDCAM disc was so slow.

Hard drives should be pretty fast, though. They're getting cheap enough these days that they're starting to rival tape in terms of cost per gigabyte.

I could envision handing off a $40 portable SATA drive with several hours of footage on it as a reasonable media for broadcast use.

At NAB I asked the Sony guy the expected price point, and he said it would be more than the Z1, maybe in the $7-9k range. I saw this thing (okay, in a glass case) and it was pretty impressive looking (large, well built looking). I don't think you should expect this thing to come in at the prce range of an FX1

Although transferring off the XDCAM EX cards could potentially be very quick, transfer to XDCAM disk is just under twice as fast as real time at 35Mb/s. So if you've shot 90 minutes footage, you're still going to need to find almost an hour to transfer to XDCAM (by the time you've setup the transfer gear).

I think the newer gear is going to be much faster. What XDCAM device are you transferring to in that example above? That's one of the advantages of shelling out for the F-70 deck is that it has about twice the file transfer rate as the camera (F330/F350) does.

With the new flash cards, using an express card 34 reader, you should get some very fast transfer rates onto your hard drive. You can then do a long term archive to professional disc at a later time of your choosing.

-gb-

I think the newer gear is going to be much faster. What XDCAM device are you transferring to in that example above? That's one of the advantages of shelling out for the F-70 deck is that it has about twice the file transfer rate as the camera (F330/F350) does.

With the new flash cards, using an express card 34 reader, you should get some very fast transfer rates onto your hard drive. You can then do a long term archive to professional disc at a later time of your choosing.

-gb-

Theoretically all single laser XDCAM HD products are limited to 72Mb/s. I've never used the PDW-F70, so I can't comment about that - but the best you could ever hope for out of a single-laser unit is about twice real-time (if you're working with 35Mb/s material).

Dual-laser systems are capable of 144Mb/s, but they'll be more expensive.

You're absolutely right about hard drive transfers potentially being much quicker. Using a 160GB Hitachi 5K 2.5in drive (faster across the whole platter than their 7K drives) you could sustain a transfer speed that maxes out Firewire 400 - thus transferring 35Mb/s footage at about 11x real time (transfer 90 minutes of footage in 8 minutes).

I hope Sony integrate a hard drive controller into the EX (like the HPX500) so that the camera could control "dumb" portable hard drives to dump material onto over firewire...

I've been following with much interest the press on the upcoming EX as I think it might be my next cam. So I was really excited today to recieve Sony's XDCAM HD Disc Set and could finally get a good idea what XDCAM HD footage looks like on an SD DVD. Wow what a disappointment. I was playing it back on a high-end JVC player and 32 " Aquos LCD which was properly adjusted. Colors were drab and contrast extremely low on the Iditarod video. Orange/red colors, can't tell which, seemed to bleed. Snow was dingy and not crisp. This is contrary to everything I have read about the F-350.

What's going on here, do you think I just got a bad disc?

Regard

I saw that Idatarod footage in Chicago last summer, projected on a theater-size screen from a hard drive, and it was spectacular. I had an earlier XDCAM HD demo DVD too and it was also excellent. The demo DVD I had didn't have the Iditarod footage, but lots of other great stuff. I doubt there's anything wrong with the DVD. You might try it on a different setup someplace. If the colors look like they're bleeding, there's something wrong somewhere. There's no way it's in the original. I've had bad DVDs before, but never one that the color is screwed up. You could have a bad cable or something, dirty player, I don't know.

Thanks Bill,

No equipment problem on this end. Everything else I play back (mainstream movie dvds and my own) look great. I think its just a bad disk. I am going to order another one for comparison. I know the XDCAM has a great reputation. I just expected the demo disk set to be outstanding.

Regards,

Thanks Bill,

No equipment problem on this end. Everything else I play back (mainstream movie dvds and my own) look great. I think its just a bad disk. I am going to order another one for comparison. I know the XDCAM has a great reputation. I just expected the demo disk set to be outstanding.

Regards,

No complaints here about the colors from my camera. Early on, yes. But that was because I had a pre-production Fujinon lens that had sharpness and saturation issues. The replacement is razor sharp and colors are very vibrant.

It will be interesting to see how your replacement disc looks to you. Just remember though, that it's still being shown on SD delivery and doesn't do the footage full justice.

-gb-

Theoretically all single laser XDCAM HD products are limited to 72Mb/s. I've never used the PDW-F70, so I can't comment about that - but the best you could ever hope for out of a single-laser unit is about twice real-time (if you're working with 35Mb/s material).

Dual-laser systems are capable of 144Mb/s, but they'll be more expensive.

I'm fairly sure that the F70 does have a dual laser pick-up, which is why it costs so much and transfers much faster. But I still get faster than real time ingest from the camera and find that to be very refreshing over the 1 to 1 ratio I had with tape.

-gb-

I guess it must be a weird DVD then. Even my SD DVD looked great with its XDCAM HD footage.

One thought I just had...somebody at work had a DVD of that last Johnny Cash album, the one where he did his version of the 9 Inch Nails song. On the computer monitors it was incredible, probably the best looking music video I've ever seen. Shot 35mm of course. I took it home and played it on my TV at home, which was perfectly adjusted to color bars, and it looked washed out and crappy. Could it be that a DVD can be authored so it looks great on a computer and crappy on a TV? I've checked out my own DVDs on computer, on home TV and on video projection, and everything's consistent.

Bill,

Good point. I am going to try it out on my computer this evening.

Regards,

Well I played the DVD back on my computer and WOW what a difference. I think Bill is right, the Sony XDCAM demo DVD was optimised for computer playback. The 60i and 24p segments both looked great. I would still like to view a XDCAM SD DVD optimised for non-computer playback.

Regards,

I just ordered the DVD today. Can't wait to see it. I am really looking forward to the release of the XDcamEX. I think that it wil be the perfect camera for use with a Smooth Shooter or Merlin. If the lens specs are good, this could be even more revolutionary than the release of the XL1 years ago. Again, this will be a long summer!

Hi,

anyone here to tell me where to order the XDCAM HD demo DVD from?

Thanks

I'd really appreciate if anyone could post some screen grab from this dvd, I've seen some screen shot from http://www.lumiere.com.br/ (now this site is down) I'm not impressed with colorimetry of the camera...I've also watched recent xdcam videos on sony dedicated homepage (those shot in brazil), I found them very ugly, with a strange yellow look...I dunno if it's caused by the crappy web compression...I'm still in love with panasonic colorimetry (in particular skin color)...and waiting to choice the right camera for me...I really hope that someone that already has Xdcam Hd post some inspiring footage and grabs soon, so we can have some idea how the EX will be...

The XDCAM HD colour is very tweakable and there are plenty of scene files available to download that give a whole range of different looks.

My (subjective) opinion is that the F330 and F350 give a more natural colour-neutral look, whilst Panasonic camcorders tend to have richer reds.

Both are valid - and I love Panasonic's colorometry - but I've never had a problem achieving a look I wanted working with XDCAM HD.

Thanks Alex, I'm trying to convince myself about the "potential tweakable colorometry on almost evr'y camera on the market", maybe it's a sort of ineducate feeling but I believe that evr'y company puts in its camera a sort of ideal of beauty (it's easy point out the 4:2:2 vs 4:2:0 as main factor, Sony could have understood that it's not so fundamental in progressive schemes...), we can consider that it's not very professional, and neutral colorometry it's preferable, but I've the impression that Sony puts more efforts into the workflow and talk to journalist and freelance, about how simple is work with it. Evr'y guy I've seen in professional videos hosted by Sony, have done some comparison to Varicam in terms of workflow, I believe they are more happy to use Sony blueray disk than varicam tapes (considering also the price) in those terms they're honest...but I've perceived someone of this guys as they are a little censoring their emotions doing such comparison, I perceived this watching those videos.
It's more something to do with their face, and their expression...
I never worked with Varicam or Sony Xdcam ...and if I'll buy one of their little sister (Hvx200 or Xdcam Ex), the chosen one will be my "first camera", I've only watched for almost 3 years videos from all cameras on the market almost evr'yday (!!!) (last year I touched a little a Varicam, and one Hdcam in a sort of "NAB" in Rome) reading evr'y article I can...maybe I'm just a victim of the Panasonic marketing!
Do you remember Tosh Bilowski? ;)

I found them very ugly, with a strange yellow look

Its slightly odd for people to judge the colorimetry of a camera by watching web video or video from some of the demo DVDs such as the Land Rover Challenge etc. Anything from filters to creative colour grading may have been used on a production thereby drastically affecting the look.

For the record the HPX500, the XDCAM HD's direct competitor, doesn't have any colour matrix controls on it at all (I'm sat here with a 500 next to me right now). So tweakabilty is very limited on that camera (though it does have a very nice out of the box look).

Its slightly odd for people to judge the colorimetry of a camera by watching web video or video from some of the demo DVDs such as the Land Rover Challenge etc. Anything from filters to creative colour grading may have been used on a production thereby drastically affecting the look.Simon, I think that most of questions we have here are showing the lack of footage and screen grabs from Xdcam Hd despite it's already a year available. Considering current Xdcam models, their price are very high and much of operators that actually use Xdcam HD and have invested money on them, probably work for some company to write off their investement, so they don't have time to upload hundred of videos and stills as we can see with popular Hvx200 and Canon Xha1.
If I'd have some money or work for a company I'll do some test with them to have some idea...but I can't.
I hope someone will do some comparison between hpx500 and xdcam to give some concrete idea, it would be interesting to see how their footage can be mixed together, I'd really appreciate if someone that has the two cameras can do this test. Personally I'm still waiting the famous day in july (anyone knows more?) when Sony will tell us more about Ex...

For the record the HPX500, the XDCAM HD's direct competitor, doesn't have any colour matrix controls on it at all (I'm sat here with a 500 next to me right now). So tweakabilty is very limited on that camera (though it does have a very nice out of the box look).

Ooo, Simon! In terms of your personal preference, how would you compare the HPX500 to the F330/350? I'm not looking for technical comparison, but having not yet had a chance to play with an HPX500 I wondered how generally it stacks up against the Sonys.

Thanks.