How likely is the XDCAM EX to impact the HVX?

[Matt Dunn]

This is not intended as a troll...an honest question from a total beginner looking to budget funds for the future (i.e. end of this year) and who is interested in mostly doing narrative work with perhaps some documentary work thrown in as well.

Is the XDCAM EX likely to displace the HVX? I know that they are at slightly different price points (if the Sony rumors are to be believed), but other than that, what are the considerations that I should be looking at in making a decision? If you could afford either camera and money wasn't the issue, where would your dollars go?

Thanks, as always, in advance.

-Matt

[mikkowilson]

I think the XDCAM EX will sell mostly by name and brand recognition. Wheras the HVX I think will probabaly continue to sell just fine by it's features.

Sure the XDCAM EX will probabaly impact the HVX a little bit, as a logical next step for current Z1 etc.. users. But I doubt it will actually do that well. P2 is an extablished format, as is HDV.

My personal oppinion is the the majority will either be happy with HDV or then step up all the way to DVCPRO-HD. I can very easily see XDCAM EX as a flop. Though who knows, maybe with the backing of it's bigger brother XDCAM, it might find use in the field for light EFP.

- Mikko

[TimurCivan]

actually Mikko i kinda disagree. i think it will be the "HVX" of the sony lineup. the hvx was created to make a full pro HD format "small" camera to accent the Varicam/HPX2000/3000 DVCPROHD lineup.

The EX will be the XDcam equivalent for businesses and studios running XDcam Format cameras. its their broll / backup camera.

I predict it will be a big hit actually. A VERY big hit. the 35mbps will hold up VERY well, the expresscard/P2Metoo workflow, and the full integration into almost any HDV compatible system, PLUS hvx like 1080p/i and variable framerates supported from 4-60 fps. Then afactor in the 1/2 inch chips, and what i imagine to be a rather stellar picture, only because im practically positive they will be 1440x1080 progressive chips, hence why they went with a 1/2 inch chip, to make the lowlight useable. knowing sony it will be a quiet camera, smooth clean darks, and probably very sharp.

I mean, they dropped the ball with the V1. i think this is gonna be their prosumer flagship. I imagine it will be pretty awesome.

its on paper flaws, its still using HDV/XDcam

other than that it seems to on paper, rock pretty hard. i am excited for it.


Granted, it will probably still have a crappy "cinetone" cinne gamma rip off. And the colors will be the typical sony plastic washy mess. I could have bought a XLH1, if i wanted a sharper camera, but its the Flux Capasitor's Mojo, that keeps me coming back. i cant get over the picture, its so lush on the HVX....

I imagine panasonics next camera will reflect the best of the HVX, and hopefully bring the parts that are weaker up to be its strengths.

[Barry_Green]

There's lots of excitement about it, that's for sure. But the reality has yet to be seen.

It seems like every new camera goes through four phases:

1) The buzz of announcement: "ohmygoshcanyoubelieve it? This is the greatest thing ever, anyone who bought anything else is an idiot, this is the holy grail!"

... followed a couple of months after it's released by a string of threads complaining ...

2) "what the hell? What kind of piece of crap is this? It's got (take your pick: ) "noise", "wobble", "split screen", "terrible low light", "motion artifacts".

... then, after people learn how to use it, reality settles in ...

3) They're all tools, they're all compromises, there's no "magic bullet" that solves everything, they're all built to hit a certain price point.

... followed a couple of months later by...

4) "Wow, did you see the footage MacGregor got from that camera?"


Right now the XDCAM EX is in phase 1. People are jazzed by its proposed features and its marketing promises, but sooner or later it'll enter phase 2, where people run into the realities and limitations and get all disappointed. I predict the phase 2 for the XDCAM EX is going to involve some manner of disappointment along these lines:

1) it'll probably have CMOS, which means it'll have lousy sensitivity for a 1/2" camera. If it's 1440x1080 it should be a stop faster than the V1U or so, but probably no more sensitive than the 1/3" HD/HDV camcorders out now.

2) If instead of CMOS it's using CCD, it could be faster than the HVX if it uses interlaced chips. But interlaced means that it'll drop to half resolution when doing overcranking faster than 30fps, the same way the current XDCAM cams do.

3) if it has CMOS, it's almost certainly gonna wobble. The HV20 wobbles, the V1U wobbles, and if it uses CMOS the EX will probably wobble too (unless they somehow fix it, but I wouldn't expect it). The wobble can render certain types of shots unusable.

4) the combination of CMOS (if it's CMOS) and MPEG-2 is going to render some horrible nasty artifacts when shooting stuff like red-carpet events, and people will scream about that. They'll post shots like the V1 shots showing what happens. But then again it'll work perfectly fine for many other types of shots. Once again, it'll all come down to using the right tool for the job, recognizing the particular limitations, and not asking it to do something outside its capabilities.

Bottom line: it's a (reported) $8,000 product. It should have some more capabilities than the HVX does, because the HVX is a $6,000 product; you'd hope that the EX would give you more for the 33% price difference. For some it'll seem heaven sent, and for others it's a complete non-starter. It's still gonna be a long-GOP 4:2:0 system, and the rabidly hungry predictions about card prices and such still have to bear fruit. I think P2 and SxS are probably going to cost about the same once the 32's are out (either SxS will cost more than the rumors, or Panasonic'll drop prices to match, we'll see).

The big comparison is going to be: do you want 1/2" chips (that may wobble) with 4:2:0 MPEG-2 compression and Sony color & gamma (but which yields 3x as much footage per gigabyte), or do you want 1/3" pixel-shift chips with Panasonic color & gamma, using frame-discrete motion-artifact-proof compression that takes up 3x as much room on the cards?

IF it turns out that it can use cheap commoditized expresscard memory (which would be a substantial about-face for proprietary-happy Sony) then I can see the EX filling a market need that's really tough to accomplish with the HVX right now, and that could end up giving a substantial boost for memory-recording camcorders. It all depends on how true the things they're saying are. For example, they're saying "slow and quick motion" -- that's the same phrase they use for the V1U (which uses a somewhat bogus buffering technique) and also the same phrase they use for the existing XDCAM HD system (which uses a more HVX-like way of doing fast/slow mo). So which will it be? I guess we'll find out in October when it's supposed to be released.

[David Jimerson]

But the bottom line, of course, is that no one knows how it'll play out, and we won't until sometime next year.

[TimurCivan]

we shall find out.

sony promises should be taken with a grain of salt i think.....

[VenezuelanD]

Anyone's promises should be taken with a grain of salt.

Getting back to the OP one thing to consider as a potential buyer of this kind of equipment: early adopters pay more. Producers like work flows that are tried and true and proven.

P2 is just now beginning to get accepted as a proven work flow, and it still has some inroads to make in that regard. Some people still don't trust it. It may influence the kind of jobs you get.

Also you WILL pay more for the new cam. Early adopters of the HVX were stuck paying $900+ for 4gb p2 cards, waiting for the $1200 8gb cards to come out, and stuck paving the way as far as workflow issues for rest of the community.

So unless you know exactly what you are doing, and understand that you may encounter issues that the rest of the community has not solved yet, I would recommend against buying any camera the moment it comes out. Sony, Panny, JVC, Cannon or otherwise.

[Matt Dunn]

So unless you know exactly what you are doing, and understand that you may encounter issues that the rest of the community has not solved yet, I would recommend against buying any camera the moment it comes out. Sony, Panny, JVC, Cannon or otherwise.

That's a point well taken. Again, I am a beginner to all this so I don't understand all the technical ins and outs of codecs and gamma curves, etc., but I know what I like and what I don't like and even every time I see footage of a Sony camera, I always walk away with the impression that the colors are a bit muted. Perhaps its just the operator, but across a significant number of samples, it seems that the Panasonic possesses, on average, richer colors. That is something that is really important to me and what I like in photography, film, etc.

[Kholi]

Bottom line: it's a (reported) $8,000 product. It should have some more capabilities than the HVX does, because the HVX is a $6,000 product; you'd hope that the EX would give you more for the 33% price difference. F



And that's pretty much what the main factor is. If the HDcam EX is thirty-three percent better, or, two to three thousand dollars a better all-around package... sure.

[Tzedekh]

3) if it has CMOS, it's almost certainly gonna wobble. The HV20 wobbles, the V1U wobbles, and if it uses CMOS the EX will probably wobble too (unless they somehow fix it, but I wouldn't expect it). The wobble can render certain types of shots unusable.I thought the wobble was due to a rolling shutter and not to CMOS per se. Wouldn't a global shutter solve the problem?


4) the combination of CMOS (if it's CMOS) and MPEG-2 is going to render some horrible nasty artifacts when shooting stuff like red-carpet events, and people will scream about that.But nothing says that Sony couldn't implement 1080p 4:4:4 via HDMI 1.3a, or 2,560 x 1,440 progressive via a native Hydra-like implementation.

My point is, we really know very little about the camera. Sadly, it seems pretty certain that the XDCAM EX has a fixed lens. It would have been pretty cool if Sony had gone with a removable lens and offered an inexpensive DOF adapter (with a fast built-in relay lens) that could be easily mounted or removed and that resulted in less than a half-stop light loss.

[mrWr0ng]

But nothing says that Sony couldn't implement 1080p 4:4:4 via HDMI 1.3a, or 2,560 x 1,440 progressive via a native Hydra-like implementation.

My point is, we really know very little about the camera. Sadly, it seems pretty certain that the XDCAM EX has a fixed lens. It would have been pretty cool if Sony had gone with a removable lens and offered an inexpensive DOF adapter (with a fast built-in relay lens) that could be easily mounted or removed and that resulted in less than a half-stop light loss.

This is an $8,000 camera, Sony wouldn't do either of these because it would cannibalize their sales of higher-end cameras.

[Jg Marceaux BestBetter]

My personal oppinion is the the majority will either be happy with HDV or then step up all the way to DVCPRO-HD. I can very easily see XDCAM EX as a flop.

I personally see DVCPRO HD as end-of-the-road old technology. The future is MPEG-2/AVC interframe compression. The XDCAM format is HDV's natural successor and Sony is planning big things for its future. This format's spec will support 4:2:2, full raster 1920x1080 and 50mbps recording. EX is only the first step.

[David Saraceno]

The future is MPEG-2/AVC interframe compression.

color space is a big issue, and so is motion blur and artifacting with AVCHD footage.

Perhaps this will change as the spec supports higher data flow

[David Jimerson]

I personally see DVCPRO HD as end-of-the-road old technology. The future is MPEG-2/AVC interframe compression. The XDCAM format is HDV's natural successor and Sony is planning big things for its future. This format's spec will support 4:2:2, full raster 1920x1080 and 50mbps recording. EX is only the first step.

Why would interframe be the future? It's fine as a delivery format, but as an acquisition format? That makes no sense, given the viable intraframe alternatives.

AVC-Intra 100 looks . . . unbelievable.

[SPZ]

I'll wait and see after its release. I'm sure the V-1's criticism was taken care of by Sony.

But I'll probably evolve to an HPX-500 for my next camera. Already invested too much on P2, and can integrate my HVX200 as a B camera that intercuts well. The price difference is big, but its manageable.

And fortunatelly the DVCPRO HD codec for pal is 1440x1080 4:2:2, so, resolution wise, compared to 1920x1080, its not that much of a drop.

DVCPRO HD is a bliss for low budget editing...

[Tzedekh]

This is an $8,000 camera, Sony wouldn't do either of these because it would cannibalize their sales of higher-end cameras.I doubt it. A half-inch imager will never be as good as a two-thirds-inch, and neither will the respective lenses.

But even if Sony doesn't do it, someone else might. The point is, the added circuitry and ports shouldn't add that much to the cost.

[Jarek Zabczynski]

I personally see DVCPRO HD as end-of-the-road old technology. The future is MPEG-2/AVC interframe compression. The XDCAM format is HDV's natural successor and Sony is planning big things for its future. This format's spec will support 4:2:2, full raster 1920x1080 and 50mbps recording. EX is only the first step.

Bring on DVCPRO-200! :D

[Barry_Green]

I thought the wobble was due to a rolling shutter and not to CMOS per se. Wouldn't a global shutter solve the problem?
Exactly correct, yes a global shutter would solve it. No low-cost product is yet using a global shutter though. I think if it's gonna use CMOS, we can probably look to their existing CMOS lineup for clues, and the V1U uses rolling rather than global. But you're right, if they use global shutter it seems like all concerns about rolling shutter problems would disappear.


But nothing says that Sony couldn't implement 1080p 4:4:4 via HDMI 1.3a, or 2,560 x 1,440 progressive via a native Hydra-like implementation.
Anything's possible, yes. We should find out what the specifications are next month at IBC I would think.

[Justyn]

competition is good for all of us as it makes our chosen hammer get cheaper, faster, and better. I think it's a preference issue and for me, I've invested in one so it'd have to be really really kickass to jump ship from the P2. I like Sony's broadcast line of big toy cams.. but have been thoroughly disappointed with their low-end cams for as far back as I can remember, like the vx1000, trv900, pd150.. didn't like any of them but it's a personal choice.

[Barry_Green]

I personally see DVCPRO HD as end-of-the-road old technology. The future is MPEG-2/AVC interframe compression.
MPEG-2 is older than DVCPRO-HD.

The future is AVC, but interframe? No professional product has ever used interframe before... even when using MPEG-2, Sony used intra-frame only in MPEG-IMX, and when using MPEG-4 they used intra-frame only in HDCAM-SR. Interframe only came about because the recording media they're using has such limited bandwidth that they couldn't put the full signal on, so they had to resort to using an inter-frame format.


The XDCAM format is HDV's natural successor
? AVC-HD is HDV's natural successor, and has already been introduced by three manufacturers so far (Sony, Panasonic, and Canon) and is supported by Samsung and Sharp also. XDCAM is a Sony-proprietary format.


This format's spec will support 4:2:2, full raster 1920x1080 and 50mbps recording. EX is only the first step.
EX won't support that though, according to what they've said so far. EX is 1440x1080, 4:2:0, 35 megabits.

[Tzedekh]

Exactly correct, yes a global shutter would solve it. No low-cost product is yet using a global shutter though. I think if it's gonna use CMOS, we can probably look to their existing CMOS lineup for clues, and the V1U uses rolling rather than global.
At a purported $8,000, I would hope the EX is a little beyond prosumer and many of the compromises that HD at low prices entails. The Canon HV20 costs only a grand, and the V1U about half the expected price of the EX. It's nearest competition -- the HVX200 and XLH1 -- don't suffer from wobble, and the very people who might otherwise buy the EX would probably pass if there were a wobble. I hope that means Sony is smart enough to use global-shutter CMOS chips or else CCDs.

[Barry_Green]

So do I. If it's a rolling-shutter CMOS then I lose all interest.