Any news on the Sony PMW 500

[Paul Cronin]

Fully agree with you Doug,

The slow motion off the 800 at 1920x540 60p looks fantastic and much better then 720p 60p off the EX1/3 for more reasons then bit rate.

Alister do you still own your 700? Or do you use the 350? Or both?

[Steve Phillipps]

Doug, Paul, that's interesting to know. Although of course the chips and processing that make 720 in the PMW500 and PDW700 won't be same as the EX cameras and that could make a difference.
Steve

[Paul Cronin]

Agree Steve,

I would think the chips and color spacing have a lot to do with it.

[Simon Denny]

Hi Ned,
How has the 500 performed for you? It would be great to hear more from you.

Cheers

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

Given that the 500 recording formats are 100% optical disc compatible (in UDF mode) this would suggest the same recording bit rate limitations. So I speculate that the recorded bit rate is not doubled as with the EX, which is why the resolution is halved vertically.

Interesting....... Does anyone have access to a PMW500, who can try recording a minutes worth normal, and a minute of 2x overcrank. And then compare filesizes?

[Paul Cronin]

David I would be happy to test that out when I have access to a demo from Abel. We are trying to work out a date for this now.

[David Heath]

That would be very good Paul.

Alister - it does occur to me that if the PMW500 behaved similarly to the EX (so a 2x overcrank gets recorded at 100Mbs), the resulting file could still be 100% optical disc compatible (in UDF mode). Dub it across to an XDCAM deck, and there need be no difference (as far as the deck sees it) between such a file and one shot without overcrank. The recording rate restrictions of the disc need only limit the transfer speed in this case - not the datarate of the file whilst filming or for normal playback.

So it's conceivable the 500 may have an advantage in this respect over the 700 or 800?

But the only way to be sure is to try it.......

[Alister Chapman]

I agree that the 500 should be able to write to a SxS card at 100Mb/s and that the clip should then play back correctly if dubbed to an optical disc. But it would not meet the specifications for an XDCAM HD file AFAIK.

I might be completely wrong, it is just speculation, as has been said the only way to find out would be with a test recording.

As for whether 1280x720 or 1920x540 looks better, well a lot depends on the scene. Landscapes and scenery will almost always look better at 1920x540 as they tend to have lots of horizontal information, but imagery with geometric patterns can look very strange at 1920x540 as you see the image softness across the vertical axis while the horizontal axis is twice as sharp. Rotating objects appear to cycle through soft and sharp due to the H/V imbalance, becoming visibly sharper as they pass through horizontal only to go soft again as they go vertical. I shot some flag twirling cheerleaders at a festival and you could see the flags going soft and sharp as the spun, very strange.

At the moment I'm concentrating on 3D so I only have a bunch of EX3's and EX1R's. I'm getting a pair of F3's as soon as they become available, so the 700 and 350 have gone as I have no use for them at the moment.

[Ned Soltz]

Alas have to send the 500 back to Sony.

Very impressed with its performance as a production video camera.

Solved the problem of formatting the SxS card that I mentioned in an earlier post-- the card was locked. Duh.

Only one very strange concern, which I suspect is more related to FCP than to the 500. Shot some 720 23.98 footage to SxS cards. I have all most recent versions of FCP and XDCAM Transfer software. XDCAM Transfer reported that 23.98 footage as No Codec and would not import, even when I ticked the import without codec installed box in the prefs. It would preview the footage in XDCAM Transfer but not import.

I could import that same 23.98 footage into Avid MC5 and PPro CS5 and it would show up as 23.98.

Ned

[Ned Soltz]

To Doug... Thanks for the historgram info. Really buried in the documentation and not referenced at all in the index.

Ned

[Steve Phillipps]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

imagery with geometric patterns can look very strange at 1920x540 as you see the image softness across the vertical axis while the horizontal axis is twice as sharp. Rotating objects appear to cycle through soft and sharp due to the H/V imbalance, becoming visibly sharper as they pass through horizontal only to go soft again as they go vertical. I shot some flag twirling cheerleaders at a festival and you could see the flags going soft and sharp as the spun, very strange.

That's the sort of thing I was wondering about, that imbalance potentially causing problems.
I still think the PMW500 is the pick of the range at moment - although like a lot of people I do like the optical disc scenario with file-based workflow but with an instant archive.

Steve

[Paul Cronin]

Steve I am also seeing the 500 as the pick of the lot.

[Simon Denny]

Hi Paul,

I'm about to order a PMW500 this week. I have made the decision and going for it. The next decision is what cards do I purchase for the 500. I use the MXR adaptors with SDHC cards for my EX1 but I don't know if theses will work in the 500. Sony are selling the Pro cards but man they come with a heavy price attached.
I use the disc system all the time with my Sony PDWf350 and love this work flow but when I travel for extended periods out bush I find taking 10 or more disc's takes up a lot of space. Now the card system I love, you can have a pocket full of theses and go all day without the storage problems of the disc's.

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Simon Denny

I use the MXR adaptors with SDHC cards for my EX1 but I don't know if theses will work in the 500.

Have you considered having a couple of true SxS cards to record onto initially, then copying all clips across in camera to SDHC? (Maybe more than one copy for security.)

It gives the peace of mind of initial recording to SxS, and since SDHC cards aren't vastly dearer than optical discs they are cheap enough to take 10 with you at a time. You can certainly do this with the PMW350 - I'm assuming the 500 allows for "copy all clips" from one slot to the other?

[Simon Denny]

Thanks David,

Thats what I'm thinking, although If I shoot 4.2.2 at full bit rate I'm wondering if the SDHC cards can handle the data rate. I'll have to look into this further as I'm just approaching this problem now.