Pdw-f800

[Alister Chapman]

I should get my hands on one at NAB so I will find out exactly how the overcrank modes work.

[Steve Phillipps]

Great Alister, and if you can find out whether the 700 can be upgraded to do it that'd be fantastic.
Steve

[Andy Shipsides]

I pulled this out of a Sony document about the F800. Looks like the camera will be shooting slow motion in 1080p. Pretty cool stuff. Sorry for the formatting, but check it out:

• 23.98p Format Standard
– Available in the recording formats of MPEG HD422 and MPEG HD420 as a standard feature.
• Not available in SD formats.
• There is no 24.00p (23.98p)
• For 720, pull-down recording into 59.94p is only available as that of current PDW-700.
– 2-3 Pull-Down Output:
• There is no 2-3 pull-down output for 1080 although SD output is available by 2-3 pull-down process for monitoring purpose.
– This is the same functionality for 23.98p of the PDW-700 with the optional CBKZ-FC02 installed.

• Slow & Quick Function Standard
– Available in progressive formats of MPEG HD422 1080 mode.
• For the system frequencies of 23.98p, 25p, and 29.97p
– Not in Interlace, 720p, HD420, nor SD
– Over cranking speed: up to x2.0 (i.e.1/2 slow speed)
• Shooting speed can be set at every single frame between 1p to 48p/50p/60p.
– 23.98p: from 1p to 47.95p at a frame step　
– 25p: from 1p to 50p at a frame step
– 29.97p: from 1p to 59.94p at a frame step

[Steve Phillipps]

That's what I dedeuced from the brochure, so it'll be half vertical res like the F355 you would assume.
So Andy, please please please find out for me whether or not the PDW700 will be able to be upgraded for variable frame rates! I used to have an F355 (briefly) and found that the slomo, even though half res, looked really really good, so would be happy with it on the 700. In 1 way it'd be better than having it in 720 mode, as you need to keep changing discs and powering down to change from 1080 to 720.
Steve

[Simon Wyndham]

I doubt that it will be half res since the chips are natively capable of high framerates at 60fps. The only reason why they might reduce the resolution would be to lower the datarate to be able to write it to the disc fast enough.

[Steve Phillipps]

I always assumed on the F355 that it basically took in an interlaced image and split the fields then duplicated them (ie shot 50i and made it 50P), that seemed the logical way to me. Is that not correct?
It's not just the data rate writing to disc that needs keeping down, it's the processing speed needed to process twice the amount of info in a second - I would have thought anyway.
Steve

[Alister Chapman]

The F35* cams use interlace CCD's with clever processing to get 25P. The 700 has native P sensors. I suspect it will be full res P overcrank, so that begs the question at what bit rate?

I'll know tomorrow.

[Steve Phillipps]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

The F35* cams use interlace CCD's with clever processing to get 25P. The 700 has native P sensors. I suspect it will be full res P overcrank, so that begs the question at what bit rate?

I'll know tomorrow.

That would be such a quantum leap I'd highly doubt it - it would make the Varicam 2700 seem like a toy, high end natural history producers have been desperate for 1080/60P for ages and never seen it even on the horizon so stuck with Varicam, I just can't imagine it just appearing like this.
I'll stick my neck out - it definitely won't be full res 1080/60P! Look forward to you proving me wrong tomorrow Alister - and I'll get my cheque book out immediately for the PDW800 if it is.
Steve

[Greg Boston]

Greetings from fabulous Las Vegas. Alright gents, spent all day yesterday with the 800. Here are some things I came away with.

Yes, it is half resolution when overcranking.

The 700 will be able to do 24p with the option board, but WILL NOT be upgradeable to over/under cranking.

Some other quirks we discovered..

You lose the 2x focus mag and the digital 2X extender when the 800 is in 24P mode. They tell me it's a hardware limitation.

I asked specifically why the 800 and who is it targeted towards. The answer is that it's aimed at the production market whereas the 700 is positioned to be a news camera with the idea that news doesn't need all the bells and whistles that the 800 has.

Physically, the two cameras are pretty much identical. The only giveaway is the 800 gets the Cinealta badging on the right side whereas the 700 has the PowerHad badging in that location.

-gb-

[Brad Smith]

Greg can you confirm whether or not SD will be an option in the 800? I still need the SD option but I'm a production cameraman, not a news shooter.

Cheers,

Brad.

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Brad Smith

.....can you confirm whether or not SD will be an option in the 800?

It appears so - Sony : Sony expands XDCAM HD422 series with new camcorder and deck : United Kingdom .

.....offering a frame rate of 23.98P natively in 1080 mode and multi-format recording flexibility as standard – including standard-definition recording to support legacy formats (MPEG IMX®, DVCAM™ and 4:2:0 HD content). They also provide multi-format (1080i/720P) recording, as well as HD/SD conversion and cross-conversion during playback between 1080i and 720P.

[Peter Beeh]

I'm left curious about what 'half the resolution' actually means when overcranking the 800... Does that mean we might be working with more pixels if we shoot at 720p 50/60, which is 2/3rds the res? I've found it quite easy to get 720 material out into a useable slo mo form by going through vegas, and while I'd rather just flick a switch if I want to overcrank, is the resulting resolution trade off greater than working 720p footage? Perhaps something one of you NAB attendees might be able to qualify?
Thanks,
Peter

[Alister Chapman]

Overcrank will be at 1920x540 so overall it's still more pixels and will probably look sharper than 720P

PDW700 been awarded Gold status by discovery at 24P, so should be same for PDW800.

[Brad Smith]

[QUOTE=Alister Chapman;1114926]Overcrank will be at 1920x540 so overall it's still more pixels and will probably look sharper than 720P

Alister, Can you please explain 1920x540? that no sense to me at all. Seems out of aspect, wouldn't it be more like 1280x720?

[Alister Chapman]

Only the vertical resolution is halved. In effect the camera shoots 1920x1080 in overcrank but the image only contains 1920x540 resolution.

On a side note anyone going to the Sony booth must take time to go look at the codec stress test demo, very interesting.