Sony XDCAM EX

Barry_Green said:
And yet, what happens when the images are in motion? What happens if rolling shutter artifacts come into play?
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The footage will be whatever it is and I don't know what that is yet. But I do know this - based on these stills it could be an HVX killer as far as new sales go in the coming months.

I think Brian V. brings up a good point. At iso 800 along with the low noise of this camera will be an awesome match for the RedRock adapter. Add the focus assist to that list. A lot of HVX guys are RedRock owners and they know what a pain it is to lose all that light. Anyone who's fallen in love with 35mm DOF but can't afford RED is going to have to test the EX.

There are a lot of reasons to capture in real 1080P if you can. Pull your keys there and then downsize to SD. Noise and edge blending issues shrink.

Another cool thing is this camera is so clean you can add a pass of noise over your composite. One of the points people keep making about RED is that it's so clean but nobody's complaining. Everyone knows you can add noise in post if you want a grittier image. Adding "clean" isn't as easy. I don't want in camera noise. Especially for VFX where you're going to add a noise pass on top of the composite anyhow.

That rolling shutter is going to have to be very, very bad to stop people from buying this camera. Somehow I'm pretty sure it won't be. You might as well argue that every RED owner should dump their REDs to avoid the rolling shutter nightmare. Pros are judging the IMAGES. Which is all I ever advise anyone to do.

Anyway - let's give it 2 or 3 weeks and see some more test footage.
 
Not sure what happened...Seemed kinda zany in the AE timeline. Frames jumping around and such. I exported the short sample and no weird frame issues. Sorry for the alarm.
 
TimurCivan said:
Wow the G1 really sticks it to the EX. ITs like 99% of the way there..... The hvx looks like the detial is on +7... Eww.

The EX's Image is beautiful. i love it.
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I hear you Tim. The G1 sure produces one nice 1080i image.
The EX1's 1080P in the best I've seen in a camera less than $10K.
 
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I agree that the low light performance is impressive. Playing with the camera in the Sony booth, I decided to turn up the gain to see how it looked and found that the gain was already up +12 db. :) I wouldn't hesitate to use the EX1's gain settings in anything but the most critical applications. I'm not sure if the EX1 gain can be cranked up any further than +12 because I feel like +18 would be very useable for run and gun stuff.
 
That footage (even the 25p) looks like it all was made with a slow shutter? Is that correct? I can hardly focus on anything when the camera is moving.
 
not every system is perfect..... Shoot look at the rez on the HVX..... But we still love it to death.
 
Focus on anything moving? First of all, in those conditions try quick pans with your camera set to capture 24P or 25P, freeze the image and post it here.
What would you expect to see? I'm thinking motion blur, this is not 50P aor 60P footage. Also look at the room an how it's lit. I'm guess with no extras and only the room's convertional. I'm blown away it was able to acheive much at all in that condition. Try that with a 1/3" CCD cam. Everyone knows shooting 24 or 25P invloves NOT using fast pans, especially at close objects. LOL...

Please capture a bitmap frame grab and post here on what you believe is mpeg artifacts. I'm stepping frame by frame and see nothing.
 
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Maybe I'm comparing too much with the HDCAM that I've been using the last couple of weeks. I'm buying my next cam now for use with my SGpro, and I was doubting between the XHA1 and the EX1 right now. But I kinda like the EX1 more now because of its theoretical qualities.
 
it would be worth it just for the Lowlight. Though now you have to buy the whole thing in one shot. SXS cards and all. Back in the day you could have bought the HVX shot on DV, so you can eventually make the trandsition to P2 later... with SXS youre stuck with it. Though i dont think anyone is buyin a SXS for SD work....... it doesnt even record it....

I hope they fix the Off speed no video out put problem.
 
myCharlie said:
Good information, Dxmetal. However, do you have similar information for Avid?
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MyCharlie, I dont use Avid, but found this info that might help you out.

http://ex.bolanski.com/

I happened to read the license agreement for Sony EX1 Clip Browser 1.1 and saw they use ffmpeg inside it. The source file that is shipped with Clip Browser is a snapshot from 070512 so any newer versions could do whatever Sony is using it for inside the Clip Browser software. My guess is they are using it to do the unwrapp to mxf thing.

http://ffdshow.faireal.net/mirror/ffmpeg/

Knowing this you can use ffmpeg as a stand alone solution for conversion. I use it for EX1.mp4 to DV25 direct conversions. And EX1.mp4 demuxing to Mpeg2 and wav and for a test we used it to make Avid DNxHD 36Mbit (Only 1080 and no sound support yet) and a wav file that makes is usable in Avid.

So there are ways of getting stuff into Avid allready.

EX1.mp4 to DV25 (no need to unwrap in Clip Browser).
ffmpeg –i inputfile.mp4 –f dv –s 720x576 output.dv

EX1.mp4 to Mpeg2 and wav.
ffmpeg -y -i inputfile.mp4 -vcodec copy -f mpeg2video outputfile.m2v -acodec pcm_s16le outputfile.wav

EX1.mp4 to DNxHD 36Mbit and wav.
ffmpeg -y -i inputfile.mp4 -vcodec dnxhd -b 36Mb -an outputfile.mov && ffmpeg -y -i inputfile.mp4 -vn -acodec pcm_s16le outputfile.wav
 
Aerialsfilm M* said:
Maybe I'm comparing too much with the HDCAM that I've been using the last couple of weeks.
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Aerialsfilm,
Life must be nice. It's great to get chance to work with a lot of different cameras.
This one sure way of knowing what you want.




TimurCivan said:
it would be worth it just for the Lowlight. Though now you have to buy the whole thing in one shot. SXS cards and all.
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I hear you. If I owned the HVX200 and had a lot invest in P2, it sure would be a hard decision to leave the format.
 
I see the tennis stuff is a bit over exposed. the highlights are gone on the girls, shoes and so on... and the tennis balls themselves.

Other than that, I liked the 1080 25P tennis stuff. This would of looked a lot better if the exposure was not so hot.

1080 25P HQ resized to 1112x634 (Don't ask... LOL)
EX1_1080_25P_HQ_Resized.bmp
 
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Stevet said:
Aerialsfilm,
Life must be nice. It's great to get chance to work with a lot of different cameras.
This one sure way of knowing what you want.
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The HDCAM was not my camera just to get things clear. :p I had to rent it for some assignment. What I meant is that this camera can be considered as a lower quality version of the XDCAMs and HDCAM or as a much better quality version of other camera's in the minus $10k class and it should be reviewed as a product in that class too, something I was not doing up till now.
 
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