Sony announces the XDCAM EX

[Bill Pryor]

I saw that Idatarod footage in Chicago last summer, projected on a theater-size screen from a hard drive, and it was spectacular. I had an earlier XDCAM HD demo DVD too and it was also excellent. The demo DVD I had didn't have the Iditarod footage, but lots of other great stuff. I doubt there's anything wrong with the DVD. You might try it on a different setup someplace. If the colors look like they're bleeding, there's something wrong somewhere. There's no way it's in the original. I've had bad DVDs before, but never one that the color is screwed up. You could have a bad cable or something, dirty player, I don't know.

[Mark Williams]

Thanks Bill,

No equipment problem on this end. Everything else I play back (mainstream movie dvds and my own) look great. I think its just a bad disk. I am going to order another one for comparison. I know the XDCAM has a great reputation. I just expected the demo disk set to be outstanding.

Regards,

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by Mark Williams

Thanks Bill,

No equipment problem on this end. Everything else I play back (mainstream movie dvds and my own) look great. I think its just a bad disk. I am going to order another one for comparison. I know the XDCAM has a great reputation. I just expected the demo disk set to be outstanding.

Regards,

No complaints here about the colors from my camera. Early on, yes. But that was because I had a pre-production Fujinon lens that had sharpness and saturation issues. The replacement is razor sharp and colors are very vibrant.

It will be interesting to see how your replacement disc looks to you. Just remember though, that it's still being shown on SD delivery and doesn't do the footage full justice.

-gb-

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by Alex Leith

Theoretically all single laser XDCAM HD products are limited to 72Mb/s. I've never used the PDW-F70, so I can't comment about that - but the best you could ever hope for out of a single-laser unit is about twice real-time (if you're working with 35Mb/s material).

Dual-laser systems are capable of 144Mb/s, but they'll be more expensive.

I'm fairly sure that the F70 does have a dual laser pick-up, which is why it costs so much and transfers much faster. But I still get faster than real time ingest from the camera and find that to be very refreshing over the 1 to 1 ratio I had with tape.

-gb-

[Bill Pryor]

I guess it must be a weird DVD then. Even my SD DVD looked great with its XDCAM HD footage.

One thought I just had...somebody at work had a DVD of that last Johnny Cash album, the one where he did his version of the 9 Inch Nails song. On the computer monitors it was incredible, probably the best looking music video I've ever seen. Shot 35mm of course. I took it home and played it on my TV at home, which was perfectly adjusted to color bars, and it looked washed out and crappy. Could it be that a DVD can be authored so it looks great on a computer and crappy on a TV? I've checked out my own DVDs on computer, on home TV and on video projection, and everything's consistent.

[Mark Williams]

Bill,

Good point. I am going to try it out on my computer this evening.

Regards,

[Mark Williams]

Well I played the DVD back on my computer and WOW what a difference. I think Bill is right, the Sony XDCAM demo DVD was optimised for computer playback. The 60i and 24p segments both looked great. I would still like to view a XDCAM SD DVD optimised for non-computer playback.

Regards,

[Craig Hollenback]

I just ordered the DVD today. Can't wait to see it. I am really looking forward to the release of the XDcamEX. I think that it wil be the perfect camera for use with a Smooth Shooter or Merlin. If the lens specs are good, this could be even more revolutionary than the release of the XL1 years ago. Again, this will be a long summer!

[Zsolt Gordos]

Hi,

anyone here to tell me where to order the XDCAM HD demo DVD from?

Thanks

[Carlo Sigismondi]

I'd really appreciate if anyone could post some screen grab from this dvd, I've seen some screen shot from http://www.lumiere.com.br/ (now this site is down) I'm not impressed with colorimetry of the camera...I've also watched recent xdcam videos on sony dedicated homepage (those shot in brazil), I found them very ugly, with a strange yellow look...I dunno if it's caused by the crappy web compression...I'm still in love with panasonic colorimetry (in particular skin color)...and waiting to choice the right camera for me...I really hope that someone that already has Xdcam Hd post some inspiring footage and grabs soon, so we can have some idea how the EX will be...

[Alex Leith]

The XDCAM HD colour is very tweakable and there are plenty of scene files available to download that give a whole range of different looks.

My (subjective) opinion is that the F330 and F350 give a more natural colour-neutral look, whilst Panasonic camcorders tend to have richer reds.

Both are valid - and I love Panasonic's colorometry - but I've never had a problem achieving a look I wanted working with XDCAM HD.

[Carlo Sigismondi]

Thanks Alex, I'm trying to convince myself about the "potential tweakable colorometry on almost evr'y camera on the market", maybe it's a sort of ineducate feeling but I believe that evr'y company puts in its camera a sort of ideal of beauty (it's easy point out the 4:2:2 vs 4:2:0 as main factor, Sony could have understood that it's not so fundamental in progressive schemes...), we can consider that it's not very professional, and neutral colorometry it's preferable, but I've the impression that Sony puts more efforts into the workflow and talk to journalist and freelance, about how simple is work with it. Evr'y guy I've seen in professional videos hosted by Sony, have done some comparison to Varicam in terms of workflow, I believe they are more happy to use Sony blueray disk than varicam tapes (considering also the price) in those terms they're honest...but I've perceived someone of this guys as they are a little censoring their emotions doing such comparison, I perceived this watching those videos.
It's more something to do with their face, and their expression...
I never worked with Varicam or Sony Xdcam ...and if I'll buy one of their little sister (Hvx200 or Xdcam Ex), the chosen one will be my "first camera", I've only watched for almost 3 years videos from all cameras on the market almost evr'yday (!!!) (last year I touched a little a Varicam, and one Hdcam in a sort of "NAB" in Rome) reading evr'y article I can...maybe I'm just a victim of the Panasonic marketing!
Do you remember Tosh Bilowski? ;)

[Simon Wyndham]

I found them very ugly, with a strange yellow look

Its slightly odd for people to judge the colorimetry of a camera by watching web video or video from some of the demo DVDs such as the Land Rover Challenge etc. Anything from filters to creative colour grading may have been used on a production thereby drastically affecting the look.

For the record the HPX500, the XDCAM HD's direct competitor, doesn't have any colour matrix controls on it at all (I'm sat here with a 500 next to me right now). So tweakabilty is very limited on that camera (though it does have a very nice out of the box look).

[Carlo Sigismondi]

Originally Posted by Simon Wyndham

Its slightly odd for people to judge the colorimetry of a camera by watching web video or video from some of the demo DVDs such as the Land Rover Challenge etc. Anything from filters to creative colour grading may have been used on a production thereby drastically affecting the look.

Simon, I think that most of questions we have here are showing the lack of footage and screen grabs from Xdcam Hd despite it's already a year available. Considering current Xdcam models, their price are very high and much of operators that actually use Xdcam HD and have invested money on them, probably work for some company to write off their investement, so they don't have time to upload hundred of videos and stills as we can see with popular Hvx200 and Canon Xha1.
If I'd have some money or work for a company I'll do some test with them to have some idea...but I can't.
I hope someone will do some comparison between hpx500 and xdcam to give some concrete idea, it would be interesting to see how their footage can be mixed together, I'd really appreciate if someone that has the two cameras can do this test. Personally I'm still waiting the famous day in july (anyone knows more?) when Sony will tell us more about Ex...

[Alex Leith]

Originally Posted by Simon Wyndham

For the record the HPX500, the XDCAM HD's direct competitor, doesn't have any colour matrix controls on it at all (I'm sat here with a 500 next to me right now). So tweakabilty is very limited on that camera (though it does have a very nice out of the box look).

Ooo, Simon! In terms of your personal preference, how would you compare the HPX500 to the F330/350? I'm not looking for technical comparison, but having not yet had a chance to play with an HPX500 I wondered how generally it stacks up against the Sonys.

Thanks.