Will EX-1 be leaps and bounds better than HVX?

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amguy's post is great, as are many of them. I've said many times that yes I'm biased -- I'm biased towards what I like. We all are.

Is there more than one company that makes cameras? Obviously. I bought a JVC HD100, I placed an order for an XHA1 (but Pete at Abel changed it to a loaner/review version instead), and I bought an HV20. And prior to the DVX coming out I used nothing but Sony equipment exclusively (DSR300, DSR500, PD150, VX2000, TRV7, etc).

I think the only way to get past this perception is to produce training DVDs on every one of these camcorders. And I may do just that.

For the record, as I've said before, I expect the Sony to have the sharpest/best LCD ever offered on a camcorder and I expect its video to be noticeably crisper and sharper than the HVX, with less noise. Attendant with that I expect that it'll have all the rolling shutter issues that the V1U and HV20 have, and that its XDCAM-EX compression will show motion artifacting somewhere between HDV and XDCAM-HD. Also, the pre-production promises of cheaper memory cards were a lie, and the promises of using generic memory cards were a lie. It's SxS-only, and those cost identically to P2. There. That's what the EX1 *is*, regardless of what was promised or what people have built it up in their minds to be. Learn what it is and what it does, not what people say it does, and then decide intelligently whether it serves your purposes.
 
Steve Shovlar said:
Too much " I am in the Panasonic camp and will dis anything Sony produce" on here to get a fair balance on the EX1.
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Gotta love this -- did anyone notice the thread title here? :)

Be happy no matter what company brings out a camera if it is better than the opposition. It's all good for us.
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I've said that for years. That's exactly what we want.
 
Whooaa. First of all I apologise to Barry. Never meant to question his integrity at all. In fact I didn't know that this had come up before from others.

As I said in my original post, I don't expect the EX1 to get a fair trial here, so perhaps I shouldn't have made the post anyway.

I always read Barrys posts because they make a lot of sense and are educational, but I also noticed the bias on this occassion and mentioned it. Nothing malicious meant in it.

I am sure if the EX1 lives up to the hype Barry will be the first one to say so. ;)
 
But, this is the rollout for Sony and their SxS cards.
I certainly don't recall Panny offering 16GB P2 cards for $899.00 during their initial rollout with the HVX200. In fact, I also don't recall them offering 2 8GB P2 free with the camera. Sony's throwing one 8GB in the box and another 8GB via mail.

So, for 6,449.95 which includes TWO 8GB cards, not bad at all!

BTW, Barry you are well respected here and at other sites.
I have respect for that, after all, one should never sh*t where they eat.
:)
 
Stevet said:
But, this is the rollout for Sony and their SxS cards.
I certainly don't recall Panny offering 16GB P2 cards for $899.00 during their initial rollout with the HVX200. In fact, I also don't recall them offering 2 8GB P2 free with the camera. Sony's throwing one 8GB in the box and another 8GB via mail.
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Let me preface this by saying that I HATE the way Panasonic has handled the P2 rollout.

However....

To say you dont recall Panasonic offering XYZ.. is beyond absurd. Pany was first to roll out the "Solid State Media" aka P2 - they DID offer a Free Cards as an incentive and the economics has brought the price of the media WAY down.
So SONY can make these offers in hopes to *catch up * to Panasonic and P2.
Panasonic screwed up their roll-out of P2 and all SONY had to do was watch and not make the same mistake... I doubt Panny would make that same mistake twice.
Again I think the early rollout of P2 stank in some areas, but it clearly paved the way for the next generation of solid state cameras.
 
There wasn't a 16 gig card out yet. They had like 2's and 4's at the time. 8's followed shortly after, and then it was a while before the 16's. 16's have been out since earlier this year, and the 32's are due (in some quantity) any day now. And, Sony would be on that same pace and price point as Panny is. They are just joining the game a bit later than Panny. But, are coming in at the same price point in cost/gig.

And the first p2 cards were over 2 grand
 
Barry_Green said:
Also, the pre-production promises of cheaper memory cards were a lie, and the promises of using generic memory cards were a lie. It's SxS-only, and those cost identically to P2. There. That's what the EX1 *is*, ...........
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To be fair to Sony, I don't think they actually said very much about how much the cards would be prelaunch - though wild optimism started to abound - and the same about generic memory cards. In fact, that hasn't been 100% nailed one way or the other yet, has it? I'd understood one early user reported some success, another didn't, so maybe it will be found to work with some generic cards, not others.

I've also just looked at pricing, and a main dealer here now quotes £575 for P2, £517 for SxS 16GB cards (inc tax). Not identical, although not the difference that had been hoped for.

But....... I don't want to defend Sony too much here. My own feeling is that the EX would have been better suited by using Compact Flash, and SxS has been developed more for the high end future. And why not higher bitrate codecs? Or ideally a choice? Convergent Design have proved with the XDR that 50 and 100Mbs to cheap CF is OK, why not just do that internally within the EX?
 
harddrive said:
To be fair to Sony, I don't think they actually said very much about how much the cards would be prelaunch - though wild optimism started to abound - and the same about generic memory cards. In fact, that hasn't been 100% nailed one way or the other yet, has it?
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Yes, both the card prices, and the SxS compatibility mentioned by Barry Green are fact as officially told by Sony representatives at the IBC trade show back in September.

I (and others too) personally spent a long time, both testing the camera hands on, and interviewing multiple Sony representatives - both sales people, and actual engineers who where present. I also tested recording to generic media myself to be sure.

Of course the street prices will vary as always, but Sony's announced MSRPs for SxS cards match Panasonic's MSRPs for P2 almost exactly.
And no, the EX1 will NOT record to generic media. Period.


- Mikko
 
insanityfw said:
Man, one of my pet peeves is people that feel righteous enough to correct the spelling and grammar of people that they don't even know. If the grammar and spelling is so bad you don't understand what's being said; that's an issue. However, if you understand what's being said then shut the hell up or go spend your time on a spelling and grammar forum.

We're living in a world of fast-paced forum posting, which is a pretty casual deal and prone to many mistakes. This isn't like writing a thesis.

I'll stop now before I get heated up.
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WORD.
 
The EX-1 is heaps better than the HVX, well on paper at least.

The EX-1 has a bigger lens, it shoots 1920 x 1080, whereas the DVX uses 960x540 to achieve 720p, plus the EX-1 features a fully manual moving lens. HVX does have 4:2:2 colour to it's advantage, though. It's still a great camera though.

The thing about video cameras is that they are like computers. I could buy a camera tomorrow that shoots 3000p, and then six months later, something different replaces it. It's almost an impossible rabbit to chase. The best that you can do is focus on storytelling. As long as it's a 3CCD HD camera, you should be okay.
 
rc444 said:
The EX-1 is heaps better than the HVX, well on paper at least.
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Hi,

Ink has a tendency to be persuasive. New technology's lure certainly tugs at me.

The only distinction that I was underlining in the long thread was the lack of objective reporting. Sony isn't going to put the camera in unfriendly hands. Whoever has one now is clearly going to have nice things to say about it.

My guess is that it is a nice camera. It reads well. In a few weeks we'll see if those who buy it think it shoots well.
 
rc444 said:
The EX-1 is heaps better than the HVX, well on paper at least.

The EX-1 has a bigger lens, it shoots 1920 x 1080, whereas the DVX uses 960x540 to achieve 720p, plus the EX-1 features a fully manual moving lens. HVX does have 4:2:2 colour to it's advantage, though. It's still a great camera though.

The thing about video cameras is that they are like computers. I could buy a camera tomorrow that shoots 3000p, and then six months later, something different replaces it. It's almost an impossible rabbit to chase. The best that you can do is focus on storytelling. As long as it's a 3CCD HD camera, you should be okay.
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You statement about always waiting for the "latest & greatest" is 100% true.



Though I presume you are refering to the HVX, not the DVX.

"on paper" the DVCPRO has a better recorded picture (due to bandwdith) by a factor of 3 over XDCAM, or 4 over HDV) - and in color resolution, it clearly is too. (Why put in 2 full resolution chips and then throw away ½ the signal right off the bat during color compression anyway?). So even there the line isn't that clear cut.


Oh, and if it's a 3CCD camera you want; then you will be highly dissapointed by the EX1.


- Mikko
 
harddrive said:
To be fair to Sony, I don't think they actually said very much about how much the cards would be prelaunch
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Well, yes they did, and they said they'd be half the price of P2. Jiri Vrozina says he has the boss of Sony Australia (I believe) on video claiming that a 16GB card would cost $400, in a statement made at SMPTE Australia.

and the same about generic memory cards. In fact, that hasn't been 100% nailed one way or the other yet, has it? I'd understood one early user reported some success, another didn't, so maybe it will be found to work with some generic cards, not others.
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The manual makes it quite clear that it only works with SxS cards. And the SxS cards require a software driver before a computer can recognize them. Generic cards don't. So if I was to bet, I'd bet a hundred dollars cash money that the system will only work with SxS.
 
When you say (Why put in 2 full resolution chips and then throw away ½ the signal right off the bat during color compression anyway?), which camera do you mean?
 
The EX1.

It uses lots of small pixels to create a 4:4:4 image, but then the highest format you can get out of the camera for recording is 4:2:2 (and that only over HD-SDI), which has only 50% of the color information intact. Seems like a lot of wasted tightly crammed (small) pixels to me.


- Mikko
 
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