Sony PXW-X70 announced: Pro XDCAM version of AX100

[Christopher Young]

Originally Posted by Todd Mizomi

3. You will need two adapter cables. The Varizoom plugs into one adapter, which plugs into another adapter, which then plugs into the X70. Kind of a pain in the arse, but it works fine..

Purchased exactly the two items Todd mentions and the Varizoom VZ-Rock works beautifully with them. You can have nice smooth ramped speed zoom take offs and landings without any problems. Nearly as good as a proper B4 zoom contoller and that's saying something.

Edius handles the XAVC-L codec at this time. I believe Sony Creative hinted some time in December for a general release of the decoder.

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney.

[Todd Mizomi]

Sony Remote Control RM-VPR1 with Multi-Terminal Cable for Sony Digital Camera

I have this remote control also, but the zoom rocker on it is not as smooth as a lanc controller like the varizoom or the libec ones. The sony remote controller zoom only seems to have two speeds, slow and fast. By using a varizoom or libec lanc controller and the two adapter cables I previously mentioned, I am able to get very smooth controllable zooms.

[Ron Evans]

I have this tripod and it works with all my Sony cameras http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/913260-REG/sony_vctvpr100_highend_remote_tripod.html.

Ron Evans

[Richard D. George]

Has anyone tried the "Prepare" version of Sony Catalyst (the one for $200)?

[Mike Griffiths]

Yes, I have it, so much better than 'Browse' and easy to work with. Batch processing, preliminary rough cut, trim etc, colour adjustments if wanted.I export as Pro Res into PP CS6 and away I go. Not sure if it's worth $200 tho'! But at the moment it really is the only way to get footage into anything other than PP CC ( ?? and Edius??) at a reasonable rate. There is a 15 day trial ,worth trying out.

[Christopher Young]

If anyone is interested the X70 got a big workout yesterday at a conference day. I thought it would be a good opportunity to try it out in a serious work environment. It was one of the three cameras we used on the day.

Like most conferences there were speakers, breakout sessions, and plenty of socializing. The venue used to be an old railway workshop. It has glass skylight panels along its roof so again a real mix of lighting and lighting levels from low artificial light in the adjoining seminar rooms to quite bright daylight down the centre of the venue. All in all the X70 did a pretty respectable job. The greatest joy was working with something so small and light.

This clip comprises a variety of shots from the days shoot, if you get bored easily don't download it as it's about 12 minutes worth and about a 186MB download . It was all shot AVCHD 1920 50i @ 24-mbit as per the clients request. For this upload it was reduced down from 1920 to 1280 x 720 and rendered to 50p @ 2000kbps to maintain the more natural smoothness of the original 50i footage.

https://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/x46exg

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney

[Andrew Smith]

Ahh. Yes. I remember that venue.

Liked the anecdote about the Window swirling.

Does the picture from that camera seem a bit soft to you?

Andrew

[Christopher Young]

Not to me. I wouldn't want it any sharper. If I shoot 50-mbit 50p and then render to 50p it does look a bit sharper so bare in mind that in this instance this was an 24-mbit AVCHD 50i to 50p render and 50i to 50p is one of the worst conversions you can do.

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney

[David Johns]

Originally Posted by David Johns

Hope my quick test video is of use

UPDATE: with many apologies, I have withdrawn my earlier video from YouTube as it appears I got confused during my testing (due partly to the hoards of test clips I had in my bin, and partly maybe to me being decrepit)

That very quiet beeping noise you could hear when I had the mics in a silent room under a pillow WAS in fact being recorded by the PXW-X70 itself. It stops when you stop recording and starts when you start.

The Canon XF200 did NOT in fact hear the sound. It is being generated by the X70 internally (you can't hear it with ear up against the camcorder). This is weird and annoying (I am re-uploading the video but it goes under a new URL, YouTube doesn't let you replace videos as such)

I also wonder if the X70 I have on review is broken in some way (it went through several reviewers before me). For a start, the internal mics don't work at all regardless of setting.

But worse, both XLR channels pick up slight electronic crackles and noise as you handle the mic (tried various ones) even with the handle volumes set to 0.

And if the Channel 2 input is set to Mic or worse, Mic + 48V, after a few seconds it generates a very nasty level of background electronic static crackle across both channels regardless of what's plugged into the XLR socket and regardless of the handle's Rec Vol setting on that channel. I've tested and re-tested. Add in the attenuation and it sends it to the background. Channel 1 is fine, Channel 2 causes problems. It's intermittent though, sometimes (like when I did the main part of my test video), both channels were fine. But it's repeatable.

Anyone else seeing the same thing?

[Ron Evans]

Not sure if this does apply to the X70 but for the NX30U, FDR-AX1 and the NX5U that I have it is important that if only one XLR is used , say XLR Channel 1, then the channel 2 input should be set to line. This is in my manuals. I have one Sony mic that has a lot of handling noise on any of them, the other ( same mic model) has none and a Rode NT2 has no noise on any of them !! The bad mic does not have to be handled , just touch anywhere on the camcorder. Mount off camera and it is fine.

Ron Evans

[Terence Morris]

Originally Posted by David Johns

UPDATE:

That very quiet beeping noise you could hear when I had the mics in a silent room under a pillow WAS in fact being recorded by the PXW-X70 itself. It stops when you stop recording and starts when you start.

This "beeping" is a slightly alarming finding. Anyone else?

[Len Imbery]

Could it be caused somehow by the rec light?...try turning that off in the menu and see if it still happens...

[Paul Anderegg]

Looking for some assistance evaluating my DSC/vectorscope calibrated X70 PP settings. I don't think I can get the colorimetry any more accurate using the minimal color correction adjustments, so now it seems to just be a matter of working out the white balance issues.

Unfortunately, or fortunately if it works for you, the push-to-white A/B on these cameras not only alters/sets kelvin, it adjusts the entire whiting process for the entire picture. This means if you white balance off of a white card with an LED light with a bit of magenta, it will apply a green cast to the entire picture to bring the white to center. This is fine if you are able to white off a subjects face prior to an SOT, but for me, it basically green tints my background and blacks after my LED lighting falls off about 10 feet away.

Anyway, looking for anyone who could perhaps put the following test settings in their X70 and give them a trial run. Looking for opinions on how they work in daylight, because I work nights, and the sun in uncooperative at these hours. These settings were calibrated using a DSC chart and vectorscope, with the WB set at indoor/3200k and a 55watt IDlight. I had to apply a PP WB off-set to chart using the indoor setting. For accuracy here, I push to white merely to get the color temperature, then go into the main menu, and set my manual kelvin to that number. This gets around the problem of the camera compensating for my cheap LED CRI. I actually use a copy of this PP setting specifically for push to white.

Looking to work through the PP "white balance" adjustments screen. If you are getting very accurate colors with the w/b PP settings at 0 with daylight or incandescent, then these settings are probably finalized. Gamma and knee values thanks to Chris Young. See below for a test video with these settings from yesterday, available in 720p60 on Chrome.

BLACK LEVEL: 0
GAMMA: ITU709
BLACK GAMMA: MIDDLE, +7 (M for deeper blacks, H for more gradability)
KNEE: MANUAL, 87.5%, -2
COLOR MODE: STILL
SATURATION: 0
COLOR PHASE: -1
COLOR DEPTH: R+5 G+3 B+5 C+5 M-2 Y+5
COLOR CORRECTION: COLOR REVISION 1&2
MEMORY1 COLOR: PHASE 23, RANGE 32, SATURATION 24
MEMORY1 REVISION: PHASE +15, SATURATION +15
MEMORY2 COLOR: PHASE 10, RANGE 31, SATURATION 0
MEMORY2 REVISION: PHASE +7, SATURATION +3
WB SHIFT: (Looking for if you can improve on anything other than 0)
DETAIL: LEVEL +7 (720p60 AVCHD is a bit soft, added some sharpening)
DETAIL MANUAL SET: ON
V/H BALANCE: 0
B/W BALANCE: TYPE 3
LIMIT: 7
CRISPENING: 2
HI-LIGHT DETAIL: 2

PXW-X70 color calibrated test video - YouTube

[Zenes Petrusin]

Originally Posted by David Johns

That very quiet beeping noise you could hear when I had the mics in a silent room under a pillow WAS in fact being recorded by the PXW-X70 itself. It stops when you stop recording and starts when you start.

Hello,
I try noise on my x70, nothing bad. X70 has maybe fan, this noise dont go from lens or steadyshoot, if cover mic with hand or pillow you can hear this noise generated from inside camcorder, but is not normal situation. And if you use external mic or dont covering integrated mic with auto gain not has any problem with sound.

I find someone with this situation on ax100. Dont realy reason for returning camcorder ;)

SONY FDR AX100 4K FAIL review RATTLE tattle NOISE whirring C0032 - YouTube

[Andrew Smith]

Can't hear the beeping on the recording, just a hum in the background that might possibly be from the lighting in that room.

Do you have some sort of audio of the beeping?

Andrew