Sony PXW-X180

[Les Wilson]

I note the mic holder has come down from the periscoping PMW-200. Wonderfully, this camera is 12v using BP batteries.

Did Sony also respond to PMW-200 criticism and fix the external power connector to be outside the battery compartment as they did with the PMW-300?

[Alister Chapman]

The power connector appears to be under a cover at the bottom of the rear panel of the camera, below the HDMI and audio out. I notice Sony have even added a little bar to attach cables to with velcro straps to act as strain relief. At least that's what I think the bar is for.

[Cliff Totten]

OK,...I'm probably WAY out there on this thought but.......

I see a cooling vent/fan on the right-rear body side. Hmm,.....why? We can be certain that three 1/3 inch sensors wont need that. Is that for the CODEC circuit to keep cool?

Sony lists the "effective" pixel count to be 2 million per sensor. (For 1080 shooting, yes this very nice)

However,...and here goes the "crazy" part: "Effective" almost never means "actual" in legal marketing talk.

Could these sensors really contain 8 million "actual" pixels each?

This camera was protected under glass at NAB. Is it a wild and crazy idea to possibly suspect that a quick firmware change will turn this PXW - "X" 180 into a future 4K camera? And this is why it needs that cooling vent/fan?

I also see no mention of a "Bionz X" processor either. Hmmm.

You are free to throw all the rotten tomatoes you want at me now!! ;-)

CT lol

Edit: Or,...could there be a sister "Z" 180 model released with the firmware that "unlocks" 4K? We all know Sony traditionally loves to share lenses, parts, circuit boards and bodies with other cameras in their fleet. (It's smart and cost effective...so that's not a crazy idea) How much do you want to bet that the processing power is in there and the full 4k codec chips are in there too. Judging by the size of that rear end,...heat dissipating ability might be there too. Will the sensors have 8 "real" MP each?

[Bill Petropoulos]

Originally Posted by Cliff Totten

I see a cooling vent/fan on the right-rear body side. Hmm,.....why? We can be certain that three 1/3 inch sensors wont need that. Is that for the CODEC circuit to keep cool?

The Panasonic AC160A, SONY PMW-200, and Canon XF200/205 use vents/fans, and they're not setup for 4K.

I think it's because they are pushing these small sensor cameras as far as they can, efficiency-wise.

[Ron Evans]

I think that the fan is needed to cool the unit when encoding XAVC intra as this will be over 120Mbps, I think. Looks like the same sort of fan unit on the Z100 and my AX1. If those sensors really have more pixels then they will not have good low light performance just like the similar size sensors on the PXW Z100 and the FDR-AX1. They would be 3 sensors so a little better.

Ron Evans

[Jack Zhang]

Can anyone else confirm this uses BP-U? Could they use the same NXCAM-based body for 1/2'' perhaps?

[Alister Chapman]

I believe it's BP-U. It's part of the XDCAM line so it should be BP-U.

[Jack Zhang]

The NXCAM based body is what's making me question whether it is BP-U or not. B&H also assumes L-series since there is no concrete info online about it, and the only accounts are from those that went to NAB.

[Ron Evans]

This video from NAB shows it to be a BP-U30. VideON | Announcing Vegas Pro 13! | NAB 2014 This seems to always go to the Vegas 13 announcement but there are set of videos at the bottom of this page one of which is the PXW-X180.

Ron Evans

Edit: Here is a link that shows it with a BP-U60 http://cvp.com/index.php?t=video/nab...x180//autoplay

B&H shows an NP-F970 as an accessory battery for the PXW-X180. Are NP and BP battery packs interchangeable, or does B&H have it wrong? It would be nice if it can use (cheaper) NP batteries, I would be able to use them from my NX5U then.

[Jack Zhang]

B&H has it wrong it looks like. NP and BP are not exchangeable. BP is slightly wider than L-series. I've tried, they don't fit. B&H were also the source for my confusion too.

I on the other hand locked into BP-U batteries (I converted a Flolight to BP-U just for my own purposes) and welcome that they're sticking to BP-U batteries.

[Alister Chapman]

It's definitely BP-U. It is an XDCAM camcorder.

But here's confirmation from Sony:

PXW-X180 (PXWX180) : Accessories : Other : Sony Professional

[Jack Zhang]

Alister, just saw your sample footage from the camera and it does look pretty good. Some detail was lost in the process of being delivered for YouTube, but at a short glance, it seems the over-sharpening issues I've seen on previous Sony cams have all been solved.

Can you confirm you can record HD422 (not XAVC) in exFAT on a SDXC card?

Looking very forward to if there's a 1/2'' variant to be released possibly next year.

[Shaun Roemich]

Originally Posted by Jack Zhang

Can you confirm you can record HD422 (not XAVC) in exFAT on a SDXC card?

I don't believe that will ever be possible, meaning exFAT. Pretty sure UDF is a requirement for the file structure that Sony has implemented with XDCamHD. Remember that XDCam is more than just a codec.

[Jack Zhang]

Originally Posted by Shaun Roemich

I don't believe that will ever be possible, meaning exFAT. Pretty sure UDF is a requirement for the file structure that Sony has implemented with XDCamHD. Remember that XDCam is more than just a codec.

Originally Posted by Alister's Blog entry on the X180

The ability to use a multitude of codecs is fantastic and perhaps better still is the fact that you can use SDXC cards for XDCAM or XAVC at up to 50Mb/s, so even XDCAM HD422 can be recorded on this low cost media.

Sample Footage from PXW-X180 XAVC/XDCAM/AVCHD camcorder. | XDCAM-USER.COM

Can you confirm this, Alister?