Sony unveils the EX3 successor: PMW-300

[Matt Davis]

There are so many little details...

16x - it makes a difference in conferences

iPad control - swoon, that's going to be wonderful

24 bit audio - yay! (capture a far wider dynamic range)

Planning Metadata - guys, we're getting there at last!

Quick-rec - yes!

It even brings back iLink - may seem silly, but this was a great trick for capturing stuff in an emergency.

It will be interesting to see how one can pack that viewfinder down to fit it into carry-on. EX3s could be a little bit of a nightmare in packing down or packing away. Yes, it could sit in its own box, but would it go in an overhead bin in Europe?

If I were to be starting again, I'd be going PMW300 over PMW200 - the EX3's wide is awesome, and I really like the idea of having some B4 glass for conference records. It just comes across as another 5+ year camera.

[Les Wilson]

Originally Posted by Glen Vandermolen

If they really listened to customer feedback, they'd have made it a full shoulder design.

Actually they did. The eyepiece is designed to move up and down to accomodate shoulder braces.

[Glen Vandermolen]

Originally Posted by Les Wilson

Actually they did. The eyepiece is designed to move up and down to accomodate shoulder braces.

??
Explain, please. I see the eyepiece is movable, but so is the one on the EX3, to a small extent.

[Les Wilson]

Originally Posted by Glen Vandermolen

??
Explain, please. I see the eyepiece is movable, but so is the one on the EX3, to a small extent.

According to this: The Sony PMW-300, the EX3 replacement has finally arrived! XDCAM 422 and XAVC! | XDCAM-USER.COM

"The viewfinder design is new, it has a higher resolution panel than the one in the original EX3 and is closer in design to the PMW-350 or PMW-F5 LCD viewfinder. It’s mounted to the body with a rotating arm, that allows about 4″ of forward, backward and height adjustment so adapting the camera for use with a full shoulder mount should be quite straightforward."

Anyone whose put a handycam form factor camera like the XF300 or EX1R onto a shoulder mount realizes it raises the LCD and the EVF up too high. The PMW-300 sounds like it harkens back to the XL-1 with the flip down chest pad as well.

[Glen Vandermolen]

That sounds like you have to attach the camera to an after market shoulder mount, is that correct?

EDIT- I see it has a flip down shoulder/chest pad, nice! And thanks for the link, Les.

[Glen Vandermolen]

You're right, Matt - it looks like it's a camera that can be used for many years. Especially since it will be upgradeable to the XAVC codec.

The Sony PMW-300, the EX3 replacement has finally arrived! XDCAM 422 and XAVC! | XDCAM-USER.COM

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Glen Vandermolen

If they really listened to customer feedback, they'd have made it a full shoulder design.

But surely that's a different camera? A case of as well as, not instead of?

What you're thinking about sounds more like the 50Mbs upgraded PMW320?

I agree with what you're saying about the full shoulder design - it's why I went for the PMW320 rather than the EX3 at the time - but there's no question that the EX3 (now PMW300) may be a better choice for some. If you did a lot of travelling and wanted to be as lightweight as possible, but wanted something better than the pure handicam design of the EX1/HPX250/XF300, for example? To say nothing of things like interchangeable lenses.

I was wondering why they didn't just announce the PMW200, 300, 400 all in one go, but thinking about it I suppose the drip, drip of new products may be pretty good strategy, keeps them in the news?

If an upgraded PMW320 does come along, the question now has to be what will they call it? :-) Sounds like it's got to be between 300 and 400, but 350 has already been taken! Maybe the "PMW325" would be most logical!?

[Gints Klimanis]

1080p60 with a data rate that supports that (100? MBits/second) would convince me to upgrade from an EX1 as I typically use 720p60 .

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Glen Vandermolen

You're right, Matt - it looks like it's a camera that can be used for many years. Especially since it will be upgradeable to the XAVC codec.

The Sony PMW-300, the EX3 replacement has finally arrived! XDCAM 422 and XAVC! | XDCAM-USER.COM

Question really for Alister, as the above link is to his site. I'm interested to hear him say:

Next year you’ll be able to add the new XAVC codec as an option. This will be the Long GoP version of the codec announced at NAB and also coming as an option to the PMW-400.

and I just wonder why it's the long-GOP version? I was assuming it to be more likely to be 100Mbs I-frame only, 10 bit 4:2:2 - which is certainly one of the profiles.

Compared to XDCAM 50Mbs, the DISADVANTAGES to that are going to be twice the bitrate and extra edit workload - but obviously there will be advantages as well. But long-GOP may mean bitrate savings without quality compromise - but ..... for a codec designed to come into it's own in a couple of years time, will that matter as much, given the rate of year on year price drops per GB?

Compared to 100Mbs, there's still a lot to be said for 50Mbs at the moment, but the cheaper memory gets, the less of an issue it becomes?

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Gints Klimanis

1080p60 with a data rate that supports that (100? MBits/second) would convince me to upgrade from an EX1 as I typically use 720p60 .

Ahhhh.. a bit speculative, but I was commenting about what Alister Chapman says in his website about it

Next year you’ll be able to add the new XAVC codec as an option. This will be the Long GoP version of the codec announced at NAB and also coming as an option to the PMW-400.

My thoughts were "why the long-GOP version?" Higher frame rates may answer that question. If a given system was 100Mbs I-frame only for 1080p/25, then for comparable quality a move to 1080p/50 means doubling the bitrate - 200Mbs. (This is the case for the latest Panasonic announcements. To get 1080p/50 with AVC-Intra, they need 200 Mbs.)

Use long-GOP and it's not the case. You keep the I-frames the same *time interval* apart, but double the number of frames (difference frames) between them. Since they are far smaller than I-frames in terms of bitrate, it means that you can double the framerate, keep the same quality, yet only need to increase the bitrate a small amount relative to 25p.

[Gints Klimanis]

And ... I hope the audio limiter can be disabled or programmed, even with presets.

[Bo Skelmose]

Absolutely not a bigger shoulder camera - this will be a great camera - just missing 1080-50p on this and the PMW-400..

[Jack Zhang]

Agreed. Not pulling the trigger on a camera that is still limited to 1080 30p or 25p. I don't want S35 to get broadcast compliant 1080 60p. (AVCHD 2.0 is nowhere near broadcast compliant)

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Bo Skelmose

...........this will be a great camera - just missing 1080-50p on this and the PMW-400..

But is it really missing it - or is it just waiting for the XAVC upgrade promised next year?

You won't get 50p with XDCAM 50Mbs, it's not in the spec, so no 50p at the moment. But it may come next year as XAVC is perfectly capable of it, together with 10bit working.

[Bryce Comer]

From this photo, https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.n...64816081_o.jpg
it looks suspiciously like the viewfinder is removable too! Would be awesome if it was, the one on the EX3 can be a pain to deal with when trying to pack it.