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Filed under: Cameras •Hardware •

Preview: Sony HXR-NX5U 1/3” 3-CMOS AVCHD Camcorder

Performance and Features

Optics

The 20x G lens shows a fair amount of geometric distortion, but it’s a winner in sharpness, chromatic aberration, flare, and flatness of field.

The lens makes a crisp, sharp image throughout its zoom range. Its sweet spot is around f2.8; wider apertures show a very slight loss of high-frequency detail on the test charts, and below f4.4 resolution starts to fall off due to diffraction effects (as happens on all 1/3” HD cameras), but practically speaking, keeping the aperture at f4.8 or wider will give you pin-sharp pictures throughout the zoom’s range.


Fully wide the lens shows a bit of mustache distortion: barrel distortion on the center of the image, with some slight pincushioning towards the edges that partially corrects the barrelling. As the lens zooms in, the barrel distortion recedes such that it’s counteracted by the pincushion, so that straight lines at the edge of the picture are pretty much straight overall (if a bit wavy) around Z10 (on the zoom’s displayed scale of Z00-Z99; actual focal lengths aren’t shown). Zoom in more, and pincushion distortion predominates, being worst around Z30-Z50 and then diminishing to Z80, after which distortion isn’t noticeable.

But, folks, it’s a 20x lens—this isn’t bad given the zoom range. I see comparable distortions in cine zooms costing 10 times what this camera costs. The NX5U wouldn’t be my first choice for architectural videos, but in most other situations it should be fine.

The optional VCL-HG0872K 0.8x wide-angle adaptor‘s slight barrel distortion works against the pincushioning to almost perfectly correct the lens throughout most of its range on the HVR-Z5, and I would expect it to do the same on the NX5U, though I wasn’t able to test this.

The lens opens up to F1.6 aperture at full wide angle, and ramps smoothly down to a max aperture of 3.4 at full telephoto. Setting F3.4 on the iris preserves a flat exposure from Z00-Z89. I wasn’t able to see a constant exposure through the entire zoom range at any indicated iris setting; zooming into the final 10% of the range (Z89-Z99) always caused a loss of about half a stop regardless of f-stop, visible on a waveform monitor if not apparent in the picture. Of course, if the camera is auto-exposing, it’ll compensate automatically as you zoom; this is only an issue when shooting in fully manual exposure mode.

With FOCUS MACRO on, near focus (M.O.D.) is under an inch in front of the lens, or right where the lens hood’s shutter panels sit, at zoom settings from Z00 to Z81, ramping to 2.6 feet at Z99. With FOCUS MACRO off (you might turn it off to reduce autofocus hunting, or to prevent focus-shift surprises when zooming in), M.O.D. is a constant 2.6 feet or 0.8 meter.

There is no perceptible vignetting (an smooth and even falloff of illumination towards the edges of the image) or portholing (an obvious circle of brightness with a dark surrounding) anywhere in the zoom range, even with the aperture wide open. Furthermore, I wasn’t able to see any corner darkening from the optical stabilization no matter how I shook the camera. This is a great lens for greenscreen work.

Chromatic aberration is well controlled. Some lateral green/magenta fringing is just barely noticeable full wide, and is slightly more present from Z90-Z99, but in the broad middle of the zoom’s range it’s imperceptible. Prism-induced vertical green/magenta fringing on out-of-focus objects if there is you’re looking for it, but it’s not objectionable in real-life shooting.

Lens flare is minimal; there’s a single, greenish ghost opposite any bright light shining directly into the lens, but that’s pretty much it. There’s a slight bit of veiling haze or glare, mostly when the lens is wide open; it’s also greenish in character, but it’s no worse overall than on other lenses of this type.

Like many modern zooms, the optical center shifts as you zoom in: foreground object creep towards the center of the image just as if you were dollying the camera back as you zoomed in (sort of a “Vertigo” effect). It’s no worse than on an EX1 or an HVX200; it’s just something that caught my eye during testing.

Sony’s Steadyshot optical stabilization is present, of course, and it allows for three different strength levels, plus a setting for the optional wide-angle adaptor. The settings range from Soft, which only smooths things out a little, to Hard, which really tries to lock down the image, and reminds me of the more aggressive stabilization Canon uses on its high-end HDV camcorders. You can trade off fluidity against firmness as you see fit, or turn off Steadyshot completely for tripod work (or for that totally aggro shakycam look).

The NX5U adds “Active Steadyshot”, which uses a slight, 2% digital zoom-in and “trapezoid correction processing” (I’m not sure what that means; I think it’s a geometric correction for image distortions due to tilting the camera, but I could be wrong) that Sony claims yields vastly superior wide-angle stabilization. I found that it did indeed increase stability, both at the wide and telephoto ends, making the image sticky enough that often the only noticeable wobble was in the roll axis—though sometimes it’s so persistently stabilizing that there can be a visible “breakaway” effect in a pan or tilt, as the stabilization reaches the end of its range and the image suddenly “unsticks” from its apparent lockdown and the pan or tilt becomes apparent. There’s a very slight resolution loss with Active Steadyshot; it’s down to “only” about 800 TVl/ph.

Resolution and Detail

The NX5U, like the HVR-Z5U, Z7U and S270U before it, uses Sony’s 1/3” ClearVid CMOS sensors, employing a diagonally-arranged array of 1440x810 photosites (or, looking at them in a horizontal grid, 960x1080 with staggered columns. I’ve seen both sets of numbers used; it’s confusing, but just have a look at the pictures the camera makes and don’t worry too much about the numerology). When run through Sony’s Enhanced Image Processor (tm), these sensors yield both actual and interpolated image samples, the latter being synthesized from four surrounding photosite values. Combined with the “Exmor” technique of using a dedicated A/D converter on each readout column, the result is a picture that’s a sharper and quieter than would otherwise be expected from the basic sensor specs; see Sony’s writeup for details.

The NX5U’s images are virtually identical to those from the HVR-Z5U; they’re nearly as sharp as images from full-resolution 1920x1080 sensors. The only real giveaway is that there’s some slight stair-stepping or jaggies on fine detail and high-contrast edges, such as backlit window frames, specular highlights, and lighting fixtures.

On a DSC Labs Multiburst chart, the NX5U resolves 800+ TVl/ph both horizontally and vertically in 1080p mode. As one might expect from the sensor’s design, diagonals show the most obvious aliasing, as you can see from these pixel-for-pixel extracts from FX-mode (highest quality) recordings:

NX5U in 1080/60i mode, FX (21 Mbit/sec) AVCHD recording.

NX5U in 1080/24p mode, FX (21 Mbit/sec) AVCHD recording.

NX5U in 720/60p mode, FX (21 Mbit/sec) AVCHD recording.

Practically speaking, the HD images offer plenty of detail; aside from the occasional slightly steppy edge in high-contrast situations, there’s nothing in the pictures that indicates they’re made with anything less than full-resolution sensors. I found that I was happy running the camera with its detail setting turned down to -5, -6, or -7 (on a range of -7 to +7) because its images were pleasingly sharp without added enhancement.

However, that level of detail is compromised at high gain settings; as gain is increased above 9dB, resolution drops: at +21dB, it’s down to 600 TVl/ph. It isn’t just a build-up of image noise; the outer portions of the zone plate simply merge into undifferentiated gray areas as pixel-averaging appears to come into play to keep noise levels down.

I also grabbed some frames in SD; here’s a couple of pixel-for-pixel test charts blown up 2:1 using nearest-neigbor enlargement:

Left: 480i 4x3; right: 480p 16x9. HQ (9 Mbit/sec) MPEG-2 recording.

Downconverted live pix and SD recordings show a few more aliasing artifacts than the HD images do. The slight high-frequency aliasing visible in the resolution trumpets shows up in the real world as moiré on fine patterns and twinkling on thin lines. The NX5U is far better than an EX1 or EX3 when it comes to downconversion, but it’s slightly less well-suited to SD production than a dedicated SD camcorder is. The differences are minor, though; I certainly wouldn’t dismiss the NX5U as a standard-definition camcorder (though you may turn up your nose at the NX5U’s low-bitrate MPEG-2 SD recording).

The CMOS chips use a 1/60 second rolling shutter, so whip pans and very fast motions may show some tilt or distortion. Practically speaking, it takes a very fast move to show any noticeable tilt; it’s not an issue in most shooting.

Sensitivity, Noise, and Dynamic Range

I measured the NX5U at ISO 400, regardless of mode (interlaced or progressive). This makes it as sensitive as other 1/3” EXMOR CMOS Sonys. The NX5U equals the EX1 in 1080p mode, and is a third of a stop faster than the HVX200, a stop faster than the HVR-Z1, and two stops faster than the HVR-V1.

Some of this speed may be due to the chips, and some due to more amplification in processing. The cameras’ images are as noisy at 0dB as the EX1’s and the Z1’s at around +3dB to +6dB. If you want cleaner images, the NX5U offers both -3dB and -6dB gain settings.

Speed ratings on digital sensors are somewhat arbitrary; normally the rating is set such that 0dB corresponds to the slowest exposure that allows for full highlight detail without clipping (thus, the best dynamic range combined with the lowest noise). Applying negative gain with such a rating normally results in some clipping of extreme highlights, due to sensor saturation.

However, the negative gain settings on the NX5U do not result in any loss of detail in the highlights. It may be that Sony has simply rated these sensors a stop (6 dB) faster than they normally would to gain speed at the expense of noise. You can choose to shoot at -6dB (ISO 200) for quieter images without sacrificing highlights.

Going the other way, you can boost gain to +21dB, though I found that going much beyond +12dB was inadvisable due to both noise and resolution loss (I found that boosting gain after the fact in Final Cut Pro gave me comparable noise but with more resolution; a +9dB scene boosted to match a +18dB scene matched for overall noisiness, but held more detail). There’s also a hyper gain mode, assignable to a button, which is useful in incredibly dark situations when getting a picture—any picture—is more important than quality. Hyper gain boosts the image by over six stops, so it’s on the order of a +36dB to +42dB gain setting. You will see a lot of noise in hyper gain pictures, but it’s better than not getting the pictures at all.

Recording Modes and Quality

The NX5U offers several HD recording modes and an MPEG-2 option for SD.

HD recording uses AVCHD, a flavor of h.264 very similar to the compression used on Blu-ray discs. It’s a long-GOP format (typically, a half-second of video is compressed as a single group, using one standalone I-frame with the remaining frames stored as differences from the I-frame and from each other) with 8-bit sampling and 4:2:0 color encoding.

Four different bitrates are available, but in keeping with industry-standard practice, Sony ignores user-friendly numerical designations in favor of unintuitive, opaque two-letter codes:

• FX: 24 Mbit/sec maximum; 21 Mbit/sec average.
• FH: 17 Mbit/sec average.
• HQ: 9 Mbit/sec average.
• LP: 5 Mbit/sec average.

This is a fairly typical spread of bitrates for AVCHD, and it includes the maximum-allowed 24 Mbit/sec bitrate, which gives excellent quality (average numbers are for the video stream only; the maximum number includes AC-3 audio and metadata: some vendors quote maximums, other quote averages; Sony gives both numbers for their highest-quality mode).

The camera offers 1080-line HD in 60i, 30p, and 24p flavors, as well as 720/60p. 1080/60i is recordable at any of the four bitrates; all the progressive formats are recordable in FX and FH modes only. FX and FH are full-raster formats: 1920x1080 and 1280x720. HQ and LP record 1440x1080, the same spatial subsampling used in HDV and HDCAM. All frame rates are native; no pulldown is used.

In SD, the camera offers a single, 9 Mbit/sec bitrate using MPEG-2, also called HQ. The 480-line formats also offer 60i, 30p, and 24p frame rates in both 4x3 and 16x9, and all are recorded as 720x480/60i: 2:2 pulldown for 30p, and 2:3 pulldown for 24p.

Side note for FCP users: while the NX5U’s HD footage is easily read by Final Cut Pro’s Log And Transfer tool, the SD footage is assiduously ignored. You can drag ‘n’ drop the .MPG clips into FCP, but they’ll show up with incorrect pixel dimensions—640x480 for 4x3 and 720x404 for 16x9—and no audio. I used MPEG Streamclip to demux the program-stream files into something FCP understood; imported the resulting .M2V clips into FCP; then rendered out as ProRes422 which I re-imported to extract stills. (Converting to unscaled ProRes within MPEG Streamclip caused excessive aliasing and resolution loss; rather than faff about with debugging my settings I just went with “demux to unscaled” for expediency’s sake. Likewise, asking FCP to export a still frame from the .M2Vs directly resulted in all-white stills, hence the ProRes step.) At least for FCP users, the NX5U’s MPEG-2 format isn’t likely to displace DV any time soon—at least not by choice!

All the camera’s formats use 4:2:0 color subsampling, which is tolerable for progressive video but is fundamentally broken for interlaced. For small HD cameras, this is par for the course; AVCHD, HDV, and XDCAM EX all share this chroma format. For SD, 4:2:0 is used in 576-line DV and DVCAM, but 480-line DV and DVCAM (and all variants of DVCPRO25) use 4:1:1, which generally has superior multigeneration performance: chroma smears a bit more horizontally, but it doesn’t bleed as much vertically, nor does it show jagged sawtooth diagonals the way interlaced 4:2:0 does.

Overall, the NX5U’s FX (24 Mbit/sec) AVCHD looks very good; roughly comparable to 35 Mbit/sec XDCAM EX. With lower bitrates, lower quality: 17 Mbit FH looks a bit better than HDV, 9 Mbit HQ looks a bit worse, and 5 Mbit looks perfectly acceptable as long as there isn’t much motion!

Switching between 1080 and 720 frame sizes requires a reboot; switching between frame rates does not. Switching between SD and HD as a recording format doesn’t require a reboot because the SD signal is simply downsampled from the current HD format.

Selecting a frame rate and frame size is interesting, as there isn’t an HD/SD selection as such: you can choose between the various 1080- and 720-line options at will, and a corresponding SD selection is made in parallel.

The NX5U pairs an SD recording format with every HD format selection.

Instead, you choose where the NX5U records which format: HD to the card slots and SD to the external flash memory unit; SD to the slots and HD externally, or HD to both the slots and external FMU.

You can record to both the memory slots and the FMU in parallel, either recording two HD feeds for redundancy or one SD and one HD feed. You can also set up the two START/STOP buttons to control recording on one media type only.

The NX5U lets you trigger recording to cards and FMU together or separately.

For example, the top button could control the FMU while the handle button triggers recording to the memory slots. In this way, you could record an entire event to the FMU, and trigger the recording of selected shots to the memory slots, so you have selects immediately available for a quick edit without having to scrub through the entire show to find them.

The NX5U offers “relay recording” between its two memory slots; when a card in one slot fills up, recording will switch to the other slot automatically, so you can keep swapping cards without stopping. A 16 GB memory card will store between 85 minutes and 6.25 hours of footage depending on bitrate, so relay recording isn’t likely to be as critical with the AVCHD NX5U as it is with higher-bitrate cameras using XDCAM EX, AVC-Intra, or DVCPROHD formats.

Relay recording only works between memory slots, not between the slots and the FMU. Given that two 16 GB cards will give you from 3 to 12.5 hours of storage, while the FMU holds 11+ hours at highest quality and 51+ hours at the highest compression, it’s intimidating to consider the sort of shoot that would requite such a capability; you’re likely to need multiple camera operators before you’re likely to fill up the FMU and two memory cards.

The NX5U has the same “Smooth Slow Recording” feature seen on Sony’s HDV CMOS cams: it will shoot short bursts (3, 6, or 12 seconds) of low-resolution, high-speed footage (4x real time, or 120fps) to a memory buffer, then record it as a 1080/60i file using any of the four quality levels, or as a 480/60i file. It’s a useful trick for quick-and-dirty motion analysis or stylistic slo-mo, but the images are of poor enough quality that they won’t intercut with normal clips. The 3 & 6 second modes resolve a bit over 300 TVl/ph with minimal mosquito noise, while the 12 second mode drops to around 250 TVl/ph with substantial compression artifacts.

If you’re used to working with Smooth Slow Recording on Sony’s HDV cameras, you might be a bit stymied at first, as I was; SSR isn’t found anywhere in the menus. Instead, you use the Mode button to select Camera; then Smooth Slow Rec; then choose SD or HD recording to either a memory slot or the FMU; then pick the recording time. The camera puts you into SSR mode, whereupon you can grab SSR clip after SSR clip. You exit SSR by pressing the Mode button again.

If you’re used to working with single-frame or interval recording on Sony’s HDV cameras, you will be stymied for good: the NX5U doesn’t offer either one.

Displays

The EVF and LCD crop a couple of percent of the image laterally but show 100% of the picture vertically. The LCD panel is 1920x480, or 640 RGB triads x 480 lines, while the EVF is an RGB-sequential 852x480 LCOS panel (there’s some color shimmering during rapid eye movement, but the tradeoff is a superbly smooth and naturalistic image). Neither display shows any visible pixel gridding. Both are good for roughly 350 TVl/ph of resolution, which is detailed enough given the size of the screens.  Yes, I’d like bigger ones capable of showing even more detail: the LCD is 3.2” diagonally, yet its image seems far smaller than the picture on an EX1’s 3.5” LCD; the magnification of the EVF is similarly small compared to that of the EX1. Nonetheless, they are quite usable.

The NX5U’s LCD with data displays turned on.

Like other recent Sonys, the displays can be filled with well-designed data readouts, or decluttered at the push of a button. All exposure parameters can be shown even when they’re automatically set (in which case a small, inverse-video “A” appears beside them). A zebra settable from 70% to 100+% is available for keeping tabs on exposure, but the NX5U has no histogram display.

The InfoLithium battery keeps you apprised of its estimated remaining time in minutes. The zoom setting, if set to numerical readout, is always present; the focus reading only appears briefly while you’re focusing, and only in manual mode: in autofocus, there’s no way to see where the lens is set, even if you’re using the manual override to fix a bad focus setting.

The NX5U’s LCD showing separate STBY indicators for memory slots and external FMU.

You’ll get two STBY/REC indicators when you have memory cards and the FMU installed because they can be recorded on independently, and because even when using them simultaneously, one may run out of space before the other does.

Three levels of digital peaking are available, and peaking can be shown in white, yellow, or red. Expanded focus blows up the middle of the image by a factor of two for more precise focusing; fortunately it can be used even while recording, which is when you need it most! 

The EVF and LCD show clean, consistent color, though both displays showed a sepia/magenta cast on my prototype camera. The EVF, being sequentially illuminated with separate R, G, & B LEDs, doesn’t suffer from any angular color shift, and the LCD, while not perfect, is still good at holding both color and tonal scale values as your viewing angle changes.

The EVF can be set to monochrome mode; the battery gauge is still shown in blue and the STBY/REC indicator remains green and red, but the rest of the picture desaturates almost entirely, retaining just the barest hint of color. I found it advantageous to set the EVF to monochrome when using the digital peaking function, as the bright red (or yellow) peaking signal stands out clearly from the desaturated image.

The view through the EVF in monochrome mode with red digital peaking enabled.

The LCD is daylight viewable, though fingerprints on its touchscreen surface can be a bit distracting when most of the screen’s illumination is external rather than internal.

Audio

The NX5U is unique (so far) among AVCHD cameras in that it gives you the choice of Dolby Digital (AC-3) compressed audio, or linear PCM uncompressed audio. Both choices sample the signal at 16 bits and 48 kHz, but the PCM audio is free of compression artifacts.


The built-in stereo mikes record clear and vivid sound, as did the short shotgun. As is usually the case, the on-camera shockmount is barely adequate to isolate the mike from handling noises, though it’s slightly better at isolation than the built-in mikes are. I found that the built-ins tended to record more high-frequency handling noise, while the short shotgun caught more of the low grumble of the zoom motor and the rumble of moving the camera from hand to hand; the shotgun generally had a deeper bass response overall. Both mikes picked up zoom motor noise whether or not “speed zoom” was engaged. Really, if you want to avoid camera noise, get the mikes away from the camera—this isn’t specific to the NX5U at all.

The stereo mikes captured a realistic stereo soundscape. The short shotgun is mono, but more directional, with a tight cardioid pattern than did a good job of favoring frontal sounds over those from the sides and rear.

The camera’s wind noise filters roll off lower frequencies effectively. There are separate wind-cut settings for the XLRs and the internal mics, and you can set both auto and manual gain settings for the XLRs to be linked as a pair or separately controlled. You can adjust XLR input trims by +12 to -18dB in 6 dB steps; you can set the internal mikes to normal or high sensitivity.

Of course the physical switches and knobs on the left side of the cameras and on the rear of the XLR pod let you control mike/line selections, phantom power, and gain settings for both channels independently.

The headphone output is quite clean, and packs enough punch to make your ears bleed if you’re incautious with volume and gain.

Picture Profiles

The cameras offer six sets of custom presets, called Picture Profiles. These let you change the way the camera renders its images:

• Vary the master black level, along with R, G, and B black levels individually.
• Choose a gamma setting from Standard (like 709 gamma but with slightly compressed highlights), Cinematone 1, Cinematone 2, ITU709, ITU709 with a toe slope of 5 instead of 4.5 for increased shadow separation, PD to better match DCR-PD-series camcorders (slightly crushed, contrastier shadows), and x.v. for x.v.Color (wide gamut) recording (like 709 with slight black stretch). Cinematones have depressed midtones, as seen on other Cinematone-capable Sonys.
• Black gamma: change the shadow gamma range between low (below 15% brightness) / medium (up to 25%) / high ( up to 50%), and vary black stretching or compression over a 15-step range.
• Knee: Choose auto or manual knee; set the auto knee’s sensitivity and maximum allowed white level; set the manual knee’s setpoint and slope.
• Color mode: Choose between standard, 709, and two Cinematone matrices, and mix between the selected matrix and standard over an 8-step range. I found the standard matrix looked very much like 709 on other cameras, while 709 seemed oversaturated.
• Color level (saturation) and phase (hue).
• Color depth: for each of the six primary and secondary colors, vary the brightness of that color while keeping its saturation constant: the waveform monitor changes as you tweak a color, while the vectorscope doesn’t!
• WB Shift: vary the camera’s idea of white, either by warm/cool and green/magenta controls (thus giving you both “color temperature” and “tint” controls), or by R gain and B gain.
• Detail: vary the detail level over 15 steps; turn detail on or off; change H/V balance; positive-going/negative-going enhancement balance; black and white limits; crispening; and highlight detail setting. In sub-$15,000 cameras, only the EX1 and EX3 give you more control of the detail signal.
• Skintone detail: choose a color to undo or limit the effects of detail enhancement on.
• Name the profile; copy it to another profile setting, or reset it to defaults.

In short, it’s similar to the picture profiles on Sony’s HDV cameras, though it lacks the “color correction” function those cameras possess.

Playback

Pressing the MODE button lets you choose “Play”, which leads to the further choice of “Visual Index” or “Playlist”.

“Visual Index” displays a thumbnail screen, segregated by clip location (slot A, slot B, or external) and by type (HD or SD). You can point to a clip, using either the touchscreen or the navigation keys and/or thumbwheel, and see clip metadata below the thumbnails.

The NX5U’s Visual Index screen.

Touch the clip again, press the EXEC button, or click the thumbwheel inwards, and the clip plays.

Clip playback with controls and displays onscreen.

You can use the touchscreen to control playback; the controls remain onscreen at all times (even on the camera’s outputs, if you’ve enabled data display on them) unless you push the DISPLAY button to remove data overlays and show the image undisturbed. Simply touching the LCD re-displays the controls if you’ve hidden them. If you’re not the touchy-feely sort, the transport buttons on the camera’s top panel work perfectly well, too.

You can play a clip forward in slo-mo, real time, or a variety of fast scans; you can also play backwards in jumps of half a second at a variety of speeds. There is, alas, no single-frame capability, so pausing on a specific frame is a matter of luck and timing.

The “Playlist” option lets you see an almost identical screen, but one restricted to the clips you’ve placed into a playlist. Each storage medium has its own playlist, which you edit (not surprisingly) in the “Edit” mode. “Edit” also lets you protect clips, delete them, and divide long clips into smaller clips. You can also scroll through clips, extracting a still frame as a JPEG; quite handy, though once again the inability to single-step through a clip adds some frustration to the process (there is a “step” button, but it jumps half a second at a time, to the next GOP boundary).

Postproduction

The NX5U’s USB port makes the two memory slots available, one at a time, over USB. When connected to USB, the camera gives you the choice of slot A or slot B; unlike dual-slot SxS and P2 cameras, you can’t see both of the NX5U’s slots at the same time over USB.

The FMU isn’t visible over USB while attached to the camera; you have to remove it from the NX5U and plug it in via its own USB port.

Once mounted, both memory cards and the FMU look like standard storage devices to the computer. I transferred 32 GB of data (about three hours of video) from the FMU to my Mac mini’s 5400rpm hard drive in about 17 minutes.

Ingesting the NX5Us’s AVCHD directly from the FMU into Final Cut Pro, transcoding it to ProRes422 using the awesome power of the mini’s 2 GHz Core2Duo CPU, took 1.7x real time (17 minutes to transcode 10 minutes of 1080/24p footage).

The NX5U’s standard-def MPG clips weren’t directly discovered by FCP (and for reasons I discussed previously, this was probably a good thing!), but they were openable in FCP, QuickTime, and iMovie, as well as other tools like MPEG Streamclip.

Stills extracted from clips on the camera itself are stored in their own DCIM directory tree, just as on any digital still camera; on my Mac, Aperture opened up automatically and offered to transfer the stills to my library.

I didn’t explore Windows post, but Sony supplies a Content Management Utility on a CD-ROM; it runs on XP SP 3, Vista SP2, or Windows 7, and a 2.2 GHz Core2Duo CPU or better is recommended. The CMU lets you view and import stills and clips, and even reads GPS metadata embedded in clips to show you where the clip was shot using Google Maps.

Other Functions and Features

• You can set the smallest aperture used in auto-iris mode to any half-stop setting from f4 to f11, to avoid diffraction-related sharpness loss.
• You can vary the responsiveness/speed of auto-exposure and auto-white-balance tracking, and set the speed at which gain and white balance switch changes are performed, allowing smoother gain and color changes.
• You can enable x.v.Color mode, which overrides many of the image adjustments, to record in an expanded-gamut mode. The visual effect on a normal display is that saturation appears to drop slightly; on a wide-gamut display, the saturation range of colors is expanded.
• HD pictures can be downconverted to SD on all outputs in letterbox, squeeze, or edge-cut modes.
• SD can be recorded in 4:3 or 16:9 modes.
• Timecode is fully tweakable: Preset vs. Regen, DF vs. NDF, etc. Timecode is 30-frame TC in 60i, 60p, and 30p formats, and 24-frame non-drop in 24p formats. Timecode is available on the TC LINK jack and on the SDI output.
• Digital Extender magnifies the image about 1.5x at all times when it’s on; it’s not like the digital zoom on some cameras that only engages once the optical zoom is at its limit. The downside is that HD resolution drops to around 600 TVl/ph; the upside is that the zoom can be used throughout its range with no sudden changes in zoom speed or image quality, and that in SD recording there’s no resolution loss since 600 lines is still more than SD can record.
• Shutter speeds can be displayed as fractions of a second, or as degrees of shutter opening (film style).

There are a few other things worth mentioning.

720p is, to some extent, a second-class format on the NX5U. It only supports 60 fps, not 30 or 24; and some functions, like Smooth Slow Recording and Digital Extender, can’t be used in 720p.

The supplied battery charger / AC adapter looks similar to comparable Sony units, but in place of the informative LCD display that many of those other chargers use to convey state of charge and charge time remaining, the NX5U’s charger makes do with a single yellow LED, which goes out when the battery is charged.

The NX5U’s outputs mostly operate on an exclusive basis. When SDI is selected, SDI and HDMI are enabled; component and composite are disabled. When HDMI is selected, SDI is disabled and HDMI is output; if no HDMI cable is connected, then component is enabled; if no component cable is connected, then composite works. If you choose component, neither SDI nor HDMI works, but if you disconnect component, then composite works. If you select composite, it’s the only thing that works no matter what.

Within their limits, the outputs support 1080i, 720p, 480p, and/or 480i depending on menu selection. SDI doesn’t support 480p, and composite is (of course) 480i at all times, but component and HDMI support all four signal types.

Downconverted outputs can be edge-cropped; anamorphically squeezed, or letterboxed in your choice of 16x9, 15x9, 14x9, or 13x9 ratios (and edge-cropping is of course 12x9, a.k.a. 4x3). Don’t let it ever be said that Sony didn’t give you enough downconversion options.

In most ways, the HXR-NX5U is a cousin to the HVR-Z5u HDV camcorder, as it shares the same lens and sensors, and has a very similar set of features and image tweaks. Of course, the recording formats differ; aside from that rather large difference, the NX5U offers these operational advantages:

• Full-raster 1920x1080 recording.
• 720/60p recording.
• Linear PCM audio recording.
• HD-SDI output with audio and timecode.
• Standard RCA jacks for composite video and audio.
• TC LINK for jam-syncing timecode between cameras.
• Headphone channel selection (left, right, or both).
• Active Steadyshot.
• Built-in GPS.

However, the NX5U falls short of the HVR-Z5U in the following ways:

• No shot transitions. (programmable focus / zoom / exposure changes).
• No Extended Clear Scan (fractional shutter speeds for shooting flickery things).
• No Color Correction (pick a color, and change its hue and/or saturation).
• No interval recording.
• No single-frame recording.
• No still picture capability (though you can extract stills from clips).
• No exposure histogram.
• No record-review or index mark functions.
• Can’t automatically set timecode user bits to the date (you can still set it up manually).
• No i.LINK (1394, FireWire) connector—the camera doesn’t shoot any i.LINK-compatible format. Recording to an external deck requires one with SDI, HDMI, or component inputs.

Next: Conclusions

(Page 2 of 3 pages for this article  <  1 2 3 >)

Adam,

Wonderful camera review, as all of yours are!

You wrote that the NXCAM “Prime” is “Sony’s first professional AVCHD camera”. Since you yourself reviewed Sony’s HXR-MC1, I guess you didn’t consider it to be very professional (I wished the HXR-MC1 would have had progressive modes.)

You also wrote that NXCAM “Prime” is “The solid-state brother to the HVR-Z5”. Then later you called it a cousin. In English, the words “cousin” or “sibling” don’t indicate gender, although the words “brother” and “sister” do. Perhaps in some languages “camera” may be masculine, but in Castilian (“la cámara”), it is certainly feminine, so it would be a “sister”

Since you didn’t cover anything regarding the 25p/50i/50p in the 50Hz version… or in the WorldCam upgrade, anyone interested in those specs are welcome to check out them in my (much shorter) introduction to the NXCAM.

Posted by Allan Tépper  on  01/04  at  03:05 PM

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Does it have touch-sensitive screen? If so, does it has spot focus feature? I missed this from the article. This can partially replace shot transition.

Is it possible to record SD to the same card as HD? Seems like it is not, Sony probably wanted to preserve clean AVCHD file structure on a card. What about HD to one card and SD to another (not to the FMU)? Or two copies of HD onto both cards?

“you could record an entire event to the FMU, and trigger the recording of selected shots to the memory slots”—Does it keep timecode in sync to match those shots on the cards with the long shot on the FMU?

Ditching DV in favor of DVD-video SD is a big mistake, IMHO. I wish you expressed your opinion on this subject more loudly, not just as an observer. I think that DVD-video @ 9 Mbit/s has no benefits over DV besides bitrate, and progressive modes are still recorded with pulldown. This is not a consumer camera after all, Sony has to add DV recording option, especially considering that Panasonic’s HMC150 does not have SD recording option at all. I hope Sony fixes this issue before releasing the final product. Sony already has implemented tapeless DV recording in numerous products (XDCAM and tapeless HDV recorders), so it would cost nothing to reuse this technology on the Prime.

After Sony has come up with two HDV tapeless recorders (both with different directory structure and with different media), switching to AVCHD seems backwards to me. I rather expected something like “tapeless HDV” (on Memory Sticks or on Compact Flash) or a lower-grade XDCAM EX @ 25 Mbit/s. I think that Sony’s format policy is not thought out well, it lacks clean strategy for upgrading from one format/camera to another. For a DV user, the Prime is not an upgrade as it does not handle DV. For an HDV user, it is no upgrade either, because of different media and codec. For an XDCAM EX user, it is a side step, with different media and codec, but the cards at least can be reused in the EX via an adapter.

By the way, I’ve seen some MicroSD-to-MSPro adapters, they seem to work in still cameras, but do not work in Sony’s consumer AVCHD cameras. Apparently, Sony somehow locked them out. I wonder do they work in the Prime, I suppose that they don’t. At least the Prime does not require new “secure” batteries, so one can use no-name knockoffs.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  01/04  at  06:07 PM

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Lang: yes, there’s a macro mode, which bring near focus down to under an inch for 80% of the zoom range (I’ve added that info to the article). Otherwise, near focus is 2.6 feet.

The iris appears to be six blades with a slight curvature, like most pro-level handycam lenses use.

Allan: I’ve added a mention of the HXR-MC1 to address your point. And yes, in English a camera is of unspecified gender. Sony has not told me whether the Prime is a brother, a sister, a cousin, a son, or a daughter, so I picked two relationships and left it at that… maybe when the part number of the camera is made public, its gender will be, too!

Burn-E: There is no touch-to-focus mode.

You can record SD, HD, and extracted stills to the same card; all have their own, separate directory trees, so they don’t interfere or collide. 

I haven’t tried separate recording on two media, so I don’t know how timecode is handled. If I get a chance, I’ll try and let you know.

I agree that ditching DV is very unfortunate. If you want DV and HD, stay with the HDV/DV line from Sony or Canon, or get a Panasonic P2 camcorder.

As to HDV vs AVCHD, I was skeptical at first, but I’ve found that Canon, Panasonic, and Sony all can record AVCHD with considerably higher quality than HDV allows. 21/24 Mbit AVCHD is roughly equal to XDCAM EX HQ; I consider that a significant upgrade over HDV—at least if you have the CPU power to handle it.

Posted by Adam Wilt  on  01/04  at  10:20 PM

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“I consider that a significant upgrade over HDV—at least if you have the CPU power to handle it.”—Exactly. My first HD camera was AVCHD. The second one too. Then I sold one and bought the V1U. Yes, the quality may be worse, but HDV is so much easier to edit. I can edit HDV with live playback on my quad-core machine, while AVCHD overheats the CPU, bringing it almost to a halt. Considering that Sony already has the technology, I cannot understand why it does not offer DV, MPEG-2 HD and AVCHD in the same product letting the end user to make a choice.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  01/04  at  11:11 PM

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Great review.  Can’t wait to get my hands on one!  I’ll confess to being bummed about a few things, though.

For starters, it’s a bit of a bummer that the FMU must be removed to be emptied.  I’m generally a bit annoyed by any equipment that must be removed/reattached frequently.  That just implies wear and tear.  The battery is bad enough.

It’s also a bit of a bummer that 1440x1080 cannot also be provided at 24Mbps, it being much closer to the native resolution of the sensor.  When you’re bandwidth-constrained, why suck it up with a third more “fake” pixels?  That really seems senseless.  1440 is well-supported; even Blu-ray Disc supports it (in AVC modes, which is fortunately what we have here).

Cheers,
Aaron

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  01/05  at  01:55 PM

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Hi Adam, Thanks for this highly informative review.

I have a coupla questions:

1) I recall recently seeing somewhere that this cam outputs 10bit 4:2:2 video on the HDMI. Can you confirm that?

If so, I would naturally assume it also outputs same via SDI but maybe if it does it only does on the SDI.

2) The menue system: Sony seems to be all over the place on its menu nav system. Without referring back to your review of the forthcoming PMW-350, I believe it was you who said that Sony has implemented the menu system previously found only in their ‘real’ pro cams.

I’m not sure which of the newest cams Sony has released (EX1 or EX3) or the forthcoming NXCAM that they are positioning as a ‘suitable’ B-cam for use with the PMW-350.

If you talk to the most respected retailers in the industry they’ll readily suggest that the EX1/EX3s will be great B-cams. Maybe the NXCAM is an even better B-cam.

I think it’s a good question and I really hope to get to the definitive answer here and I understand that we need some realworld testing on the matter.

The lack of convergence on menu systems on these cams really makse me question how Sony can postion any cam as a B-cam to another.

Your review doesn’t mention it but I naturally assume that settings are transferrable between two or more NXCAMs via the memory cards, ala the EX1/EX3s.

More importantly we must be able to transfer settings between cams like the PMW-350 and the EX1/EX3s if such A-cam/B-cam compatibilty is realistic. We should at least have that much - even if the menu systems are different. 

“Workflow, Workflow, Workflow!” is my mantra to the consulting clients I make presentations to and recommend camera purchases. It certainly is for me personally, as I think it must be for the other habitues of this site.   

In my opinion Sony has no business hyping such positioning without addressing this issue (if indeed they are actually trying to do that to their dealers in the first place.) Are the masterminds at Sony in need of a dose of reality? Or is the retailers who are illegitimately hyping this aspect without the blessing of Sony?

Thanks again!

wsmith

Posted by wsmith  on  01/05  at  02:58 PM

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Nice review Adam Wilt!
This really describes a whole thing, as usual to other camcorders you reviewed too.

All is left is price, real on location production review, and a true NXCAM sample available for download, for personal judgements.

I wonder, what is the cheapest camcorder that has SDI outputs? Usually I found SDI-featured camcorder will be a bit higher price.

“but unlike the HVR-Z5’s ring, it can’t be set to control overall exposure.”
> Too bad this feature is removed, I hope they re-add this function again later on final product. In several run-and-gun situations, this feature is really helpful, where I don’t have to think too much for brightening the image.

Is there any Pre-record / Pre-roll mode available?

Will look forward for more info then…

Posted by Setiawan Kartawidjaja  on  01/05  at  11:27 PM

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I have been waiting to upgrade my FX1 and I am sure a camera in this family will be the one. I love my SR11 and XR500 and was waiting for a more capably unit from Sony with lots of the features of the XR500 and the FX1. This cam seems to have most but I too would like the spot focus feature, AE shift on a control, and don’t understand why Sony would not put the R sensor. I might just wait a little longer to see if this is going to be in one of the family as the difference between the SR11 and the XR500 is very significant.

Ron Evans

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  01/06  at  04:44 PM

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@RonEvans:  It’s not clear to me what Exmor R means to a three-sensor system where the pixels are so much larger than those in a consumer cam like the XR500.  These consumer cams have 1/3” or smaller sensors with 6+ Megapixels.  By contrast, in a three-sensor system like this cam, you’re talking about three 1/3” sensors with only just over 1 Megapixel.  The pixels are enormous next to the consumer cam.  Unless the electronics vary as a function of the physical pixel size, which I don’t believe is the case, then the degree to which they obstruct incoming light (what “R” was designed to avoid) is greatly reduced.  In short, I’m guessing “R” probably wouldn’t make much of a difference in a system like this, or else they’d be using it in their pro cams.  I don’t see a single pro cam using it, however, and that does say something.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  01/06  at  07:25 PM

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They are using it in their Pro cameras. The EX1R has just been announced and likely an EX3R to follow.

Ron Evans

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  01/06  at  07:36 PM

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Setiawan Kartawidjaja: Prices have been announced (and the article edited to include ‘em): $4950 for the camcorder, $800 for the FMU.

This may be the lowest-cost HD-SDI camcorder around, based on list price. There’s also the Panasonic POV combo, the AG-HMR10/AG-HCK10G, which lists for $4400, but it is a POV camcorder and not a conventional handheld form factor.

There is no preroll / pre-record on the NX5U.

Posted by Adam Wilt  on  01/06  at  07:43 PM

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@RonEvans:  Not to carry this on for too long, but according to what?  Unlike the consumer cams, the EX1R doesn’t have “Exmor R” anywhere in the product literature (that I can find) or printed on the side of the camera.  Also, consensus is that the “R” in “EX1R” is for “Revised” or “Redux” or something of that nature.  That it stands for “Exmor R” would certainly be a new one!

Cheers,
Aaron

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  01/06  at  11:38 PM

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Adam, I think there will be more good news.

I noticed on the SONY AX2000’s presentation page there are present some of the features you described as missing compared to Z5: Histogram, shot transition, marker.
It seems logical that all the functions will be present from the Z5 to the NX5U. I don’t see the point to remove the shot transition, color correction or Extended clear scan options.
So there is a strong possibility that we’ll see all the features present on the final product. Unfortunately NX5N page doesn’t show any details, neither an proper image of the camcorder, just the view from the right side. Probably there’s some details to be finished before the real launch of the product.
This is the AX2000 page: http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId;=-1&productId=8198552921666078180#features

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  01/07  at  03:20 AM

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Thanks for the input Aaron. Typical Sony confusion!!! I stand corrected.

Ron Evans

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  01/07  at  08:30 AM

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New 2010 consumer models can record to MemoryStick and to SDHC. The NX5 can record to MemoryStick and to SDHC. But the AX2000 can record to MemoryStick only. Huh? What they were smoking?

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  01/07  at  10:57 AM

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Cristi Olariu and Burn-E: There’s a lot of stuff on the AX2000 product page that contradicts what Sony has told me directly. My guess is that both the feature sets and the marketing communications for both cameras are still evolving, even at this late date.

Remember, I had a prototype camera (and a prototype operating manual), so what actually ships may differ from what I reviewed.

If, in fact, ECS and a histogram display were to make their appearance in the shipping NX5U, I’d be very happy indeed. But we’ll just have to wait and see what actually gets delivered, both for the NX5 and for the AX2000.

Posted by Adam Wilt  on  01/07  at  09:45 PM

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Adam, I am sorry for posting the same question/remark twice. Thanks for the reply, I hope the information you have is correct.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  01/07  at  10:24 PM

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Burn-E: you asked:

“you could record an entire event to the FMU, and trigger the recording of selected shots to the memory slots”—Does it keep timecode in sync to match those shots on the cards with the long shot on the FMU?

The timecode is in sync. The camera has one timecode generator; if you’re in REC RUN mode, it runs as long as either destination is recording. So even in REC RUN mode, the two media’s timecodes will be in perfect sync, though the started and stopped medium’s clips will not have continuous timecode across multiple clips. Since the normal post workflow for the NX5 involves ingesting and transcoding the clips as data files, not as a video stream, timecode breaks between clips is not as big a deal as it is in a tape-based workflow.

Posted by Adam Wilt  on  01/09  at  08:40 PM

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Adam, phenomenally detailed review. Quite nearly wanted to make me upgrade from my CCD based FX1. Yes, I still use it. A few thoughts:

iLink / FireWire. Why is the issue limited to “the camera shoots no iLink compatible formats? It’s a faster data connection than USB 2.0. You can also run TCP/IP over FireWire, so you’d gain functionality like the broadcast gear that offers ethernet ports.

The section on the sensitivity rating, versus, gain, negative gain, and such was a bit confusing. The sensor seems as sensitive as the EX1, but at a different gain level?

Can the camcorder record the same file to two media cards at the same time, mine and the client’s? Or the SSD & a media card? This would be great for concurrent backup, and for freelancers.

Lack of Clearscan is baffling, especially in the Pro model.

It would be nice if the SD was indeed fully DVD-ready and DVD authoring apps could just load it in as “ready to burn” media. Has this been tested?

Lastly, Sony needs to step up the game and keep the histogram, or include Waveform displays because it is becoming rather commonplace in professional gear (camcorders, LCD monitors, etc) and a bit of a surprise that this “Prime” model lacks it.

Does recording PCM audio instead of AC3 dramatically limit the data rate for video, or is the video rate capped at a set figure regardless? Using AC3 could be like the advantage shooting 24p gives the video at 24 Mbs versus 30p or 60i, maximum data rate available to each frame.

All in all, it finally seems like AVCHD is living up to its potential, and, as each of the formats before it, will get better as processors and systems learn to maximize its capability. Of course, editing it means we’ll all have to buy new computers.

Posted by IEBA  on  01/12  at  12:51 PM

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Reading on the AX2000 on sonystyle.com: “In addition to 1080/60i recording, the HDR-AX2000 offers a 1080/24p and 1080/30p Progressive Scan mode that enables shooting with film-like results. Signals scanned at 24p/30p are converted to 60i (using 2-3 pulldown for 24p) and recorded on MemoryStick PRO Duo™ media.”—Adam, so you are saying that Sony’s website is wrong on MemoryStick and both NX5 and AX2000 can use SDHC. Maybe the site is also wrong on 24p-in-60i? New consumer Canons have native 24p, the smaller HMC40 has native 24p/30p, it would be really unfortunate if the AX2000 used 60i wrapper for progressive footage. Or maybe Sony is going to update Vegas to handle 24p-in-60i as true 24p, just like it handles footage from the V1U?

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  01/12  at  02:15 PM

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IEBA: Using i.LINK as a non-isochronous transport (i.e, TCP/IP) is certainly possible, but it is rarely done in practice; I don’t see the non-geek contingent picking up on using FireWire for FTP any time soon. USB is considerably cheaper at the hardware level, and drivers are universally installed. I am pro-FireWire and anti-USB on general principles, and I dislike the trend to move away from 1394 towards the less-elegant USB, but I understand why Sony is going that way.

The sensor is rated at EX1 speeds, but I think that speed rating digital sensors is something of a free-for-all; you can base sensitivity on the clipping point (in which case the NX5 sensor may be a stop slower than the EX1), on the noise floor (however defined), or on some arbitrary point trading off speed against noise. My impression, given that the NX5 can be gained down to -6db with no loss of highlight headroom, is that it’s been rated a stop faster than it “normally” might be, to make it more competitive in the low-light arena. The larger photosites on the ClearVid diagonal sensor allow a lower noise floor than a true full-res sensor with smaller photosites, so this sort of gain-boosting can occur without as much noise increase.

The NX5 cannot record to two cards at the same time: only one card at a time simultaneously with the FMU.

I have not tested DVD compatibility of the raw files.

Recording PCM audio does not affect the video data rate, which stays the same: 21 Mbit/sec in highest quality mode. You just use up your storage a bit faster!

Burn-E: “Adam, so you are saying that Sony’s website is wrong on MemoryStick and both NX5 and AX2000 can use SDHC.”

Not exactly; the website says one thing, and my contacts at Sony say something else. I have no concrete proof of which one is actually correct. We’ll have to wait and see what the shipping cameras actually do before we can declare one source an unimpeachable purveyor of unparalleled veracity, and the other a scurrilous and untrustworthy prevaricator!

I don’t suspect any malign intent; rather, the official specs for the cameras were changing up to the last minute, and I simply think that one source isn’t as up-to-date as the other. Even in small companies, it can take quite a while to get everyone singing from the same sheet of music; in a giant company like Sony, where similar products are being released by two different divisions with different product management and marketing groups, I’m not the least bit surprised that there’s some disagreements about the features and functions of still-to-be-released cameras.

Posted by Adam Wilt  on  01/18  at  01:16 AM

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Adam,
As the new Sony NXCAM comes closely to Panasonic’s HMC150/151, which itself is in many ways similar to the HPX170, I was wondering if you could give some comparison thoughts between the two cameras as you have extensively reviewed them both.
I am not so much after the technical details and differences here but rather image quality. When I understood it correctly, both cameras are using image sensors, which are roughly half the size of 1920HD. Sony calls it ClearVid and Panasonic calls it Pixelshift in order to achieve the full HD resolution. So in theory both image results should be similar. From your image resolution charts it appears to me that the NXCAM has superior horizontal and vertical resolution. Is this because they have the better algorithm to “guestimate” the missing pixel?
Furthermore, it seems that the NXCAM records all frame rates as “native”. This sounds to me as a big plus over the Panasonic, which actually has only the 24P as native and all other formats are being converted from 60i (or 50i).
As I live in the UK, the 24p Panasonic camera is not available for me. So I would have to shoot in 25p to get a similar result. Whereas I do understand the theory of “pulldown”, I have actually no idea of the potential image degradation caused by this. In other words should the lack of the native recording mode for 25p in the Panasonic really bother me or is this more a theoretical discussion where differences can be seen only under lab conditions?
Your views and comments on this are greatly appreciated.
Many thanks

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  02/19  at  07:47 AM

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olav, about the Panasonic camcorder: In UK I think it’s available the AG-HMC151E model which is PAL/NTSC switchable from the menu, and has all the framerates: 24p, 25p, 30p.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  02/19  at  08:34 AM

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Cristi, thanks for the info. That was initially as well my state of info and I did indeed have a brochure which stated exactly that what you mentioned. The latest brochure on http://www.panasonic-broadcast.com/en/products/high-definition/avccam/AG-HMC151E.php does not mention anything about other recording formats except 25p and 50i.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  02/19  at  01:22 PM

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The operating manual of the AG-HMC151E says it has PAL/NTSC framerates and gives more details on how to work with them.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  02/19  at  04:07 PM

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Cristi, thanks for clarifying this.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  02/20  at  04:31 AM

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olav: The NX5’s sensor has a somewhat higher resolution than the HPX170/HMC150 sensor, and the NX5’s images are quite a bit sharper. Sony’s diagonal photosite array and pixel interpolation does a better job of synthesizing “missing” samples than simple H & V pixel shift on a non-diagonal array, though it’s not perfect; I’d rate it better a bit better than half the difference between 960x540 with pixel shift, and true 1920x1080 sensors.

The NX5 may also be a bit lower in noise, but it’s hard for me to say without doing a side-by-side. 

Aside from that, the “looks” of the cameras are different; it’s hard to characterize precisely, but in broadly subjective terms, Sonys have a punchier, more “Kodachrome” look, while Panasonics have a somewhat less saturated, more naturalistic look. Gammas differ as well; Panasonic ‘s Cine-like V gamma does an especially good job of handling highlights on skin tones, in my opinion.

Posted by Adam Wilt  on  02/20  at  02:04 PM

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Adam, thanks for the detailed info. Much appreciated.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  02/22  at  02:13 PM

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Adam, it is interesting that you regard the Panasonics as more naturalistic while the Sonys as more saturated. I thought that with default settings these cameras produce quite the opposite look: the Panasonics being more saturated and yellowish/reddish, while the Sonys being less saturated, more hard-contrast and with bluish “natural” look. Maybe I am off-base here.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  02/23  at  11:22 AM

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What’s naturalistic and what’s not is, of course, a subjective judgement! I agree on the contrast and the blue vs red bias; I guess I saw the saturation more in the blues & greens, and you see it more in the reds, and thus we differ in our feelings of which cameras are more saturated overall.

But that’s what makes it fun, eh?

Posted by Adam Wilt  on  02/23  at  02:17 PM

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I love technology.  Six months after I bought my PD170, Sony released the first of the HDV camcorders.  Last July I traded my venerable five year old PD170 for a Z5U rather than repair the headphone jack, feeling it was to switch to HDV.  And now the NXCAM.  I love technology.  I just can’t afford to keep up.  As always, excellent review.

Posted by Gerry Fraiberg  on  02/23  at  04:16 PM

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Hi Adam (and everyone!)

I’m just wondering if you would have any recommendations as to which camera would be best for TV production?

I realise, after reading this page, that the NXCAM is probably the most superior. But which cam has the best value in terms of quality of visuals?

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Posted by Xandria  on  03/02  at  05:36 AM

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Adam:
Im new to solid state cameras and considering buying one soon. My concern regarding this Sony HXR-NX5U 1/3” 3-CMOS AVCHD Camcorder is the following:  If I was to use this camera with the 128GB Recorder, how will the workflow with my nle editing system be?  I use a MacBookPro, OSX 10.4.11, 3GB RAM, 1TB Hard Drive, editing in Final Cut Pro 6.0.1
Will the transfer of files be possible? If yes, how fast or slow? Or will I have upgrade anything?
I appreciate your comments, thank you.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  03/03  at  06:36 PM

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“wondering if you would have any recommendations as to which camera would be best for TV production?”

I’d suggest the Panasonic AG-HPX3700, Sony SRW-9000, or perhaps the F23 or F35 depending on your shooting style. Or even 35mm film; it’s a bit old-school and expensive, but the pix sure look sweet (grin).

Once you start coming down below the $65,000 price point, though, it’s a question of tradeoffs, and I can’t make those tradeoffs for you. You have to look at your budget, your needs, and the look you’re going for, and make up your own mind.

“If I was to use this camera with the 128GB Recorder, how will the workflow with my nle editing system be?”

IF (and that’s a big IF) FCP 6.0.1 is able to interpret the NX5’s AVCHD, then the workflow is simple: power down the camera, detach FMU, plug FMU into MacBook Pro with a USB cable. FMU mounts on Desktop as a removable drive and appears as a clip source in Log & Transfer. Use the usual Log & Transfer workflow to ingest and transcode clips, and edit normally.

However, 6.0.1 may not work with NXCAM; I don’t know (I did my testing on FCP 7.). You may need to update to 6.0.3, or even to Final Cut Studio 3 / FCP 7.

Posted by Adam Wilt  on  03/03  at  07:03 PM

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Thanks Adam, I really appreciate it!

Posted by Xandria  on  03/04  at  06:04 AM

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“If I was to use this camera with the 128GB Recorder, how will the workflow with my nle editing system be?”—AFAIK, FCP needs complete AVCHD file tree to open the files. It will not open bare MTS files. With 128GB of data this is a challenge. You may want to transfer long video segments first with Sony utility, merging MTS files that belong to one video fragment. Then you would use something like MultiAVCHD to create AVCHD structure for those MTS files you are interested in. Alas, MultiAVCHD does not work on Mac.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  03/04  at  11:05 AM

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Thank you Adam and Burn-E for your comments,
Adam, in your article you state that “Pop the FMU off the camera, and plug it in to a Mac or PC via its mini-USB 2.0 port, and it mounts as a USB-powered drive, ready for use in the NLE of your choice.”  But Im I understanding then that NXCAM and AVCHD files are not then for every NLE system.  Therefore, Sony is not making this camera accessible for “use in the NLE of your choice”.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  03/04  at  12:24 PM

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Burn-E, Why is 128 GB related to a difficulty of opening bare MTS files? Maybe I’m missing your concern here, can you rephrase it?

jose, NXCAM and AVCHD are for “the NLE of your choice” as much as all the AVCHD video and still cameras already on the market are. It is a standard codec. It is up to the software makers to incorporate this functionality, just as it was for HDV. Which NLE are you concerned about?

Posted by IEBA  on  03/04  at  12:31 PM

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Hi IEBA,
Maybe I was missing a point but Im clear now I think.  Im working on FCP 6.0.1
I just checked Apple´s page and they say that on the Log and Transfer Window you can transcode the AVCHD clips with a few restrictions that maybe I can work around.  If you have any comments that will be of great help.  Thank you,

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  03/04  at  12:43 PM

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“Burn-E, Why is 128 GB related to a difficulty of opening bare MTS files? Maybe I’m missing your concern here, can you rephrase it?”—FCP needs the whole AVCHD file structure to open MTS files, it does not accept bare MTS files. If you work right off the 128GB module then fine. But if you want to clean the module then what? You have to copy all your data onto a computer, preserving full directory structure. Ok, with modern high capacity drives you can do that too, but what if you only need 5 clips out of 100? You cannot just copy them onto a computer, FCP will not open them.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  03/04  at  01:34 PM

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Okay, so it’s not an issue with the 128 GB of storage device. That’s what I took from your post.

Yes, the issue you raise is the same with all MXF “wrapped” files before they get wrapped. Sony offers an XDCAM import software package that wraps the files, but, like you say, it’s annoying to have to go through this step if you just want to quickly hand over a few files out of all of them.

In reality, FCP has an importer, and FCP handles files that have been properly imported fine, and it handles files in other codecs that don’t have MXF wrapping issues, so I don’t think it’s a FCP issue (exclusively) Yes, FCP could be made to play the MTS files alone. But I wouldn’t hold your breath.

Till then, probably best to be knowledgeable on how to re-create the colder structure on the destination drive (rehearse it on your own) for file handoffs, or bring along a tool that will wrap the files and make them more universally handleable.

Anthony Burokas
IEBA Communications.

Posted by IEBA  on  03/04  at  02:25 PM

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Nice article on a nice looking camera.  However I recently upgraded my workspace to a HP Quod core 64bit platform and I read that NXCAM5 doesn’t support or operate on 64bit platforms?  Interestingly Sony offers Sony Vegas Pro9 as a bundled item when purchasing the camera new.

Can you please enlighten me on the AVCHD codec used in the Sony NXCAM5 and its usability on a 64 bit platform like mine?

I recently asked a Sony outlet sales guy about this issue and he replied that he didn’t know.
cheers moza from OZ

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  03/16  at  07:44 PM

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I have a NX5U and edit with both Vegas Pro 9 that came with the camera here in Ottawa. Edius 5.12 will also edit native. My system is Q9450 Quad core, 8G RAM running Vista 64. AVCHD files can be edited in both Vegas Pro9 32 or 64 bit versions. Edius is only 32 bit.

Ron Evans

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  03/16  at  08:46 PM

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wannabe, where did you read that NXCAM doesn’t support 64bit?
NXCAM doesn’t have to support anything. It is about the Content Management Utility software, it doesn’t support Microsoft Windows XP SP3 64bit. Both Windows Vista and Seven 64bit are supported.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  03/17  at  03:35 AM

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Hi Cristi,

That info came directly from a pdf downloaded from Sony:
http://www.sony.com.au/product/hxr-nx5p
http://www.sony.com.au/product/resources/en_AU/images/Brochure/NX5P_web.pdf
Page 13 says:
Windows Vista sp2 and Windows 7
*64-bit editions and Starter (edition) are not supported.

Operation is not assured if above OS has been upgraded or in a multiboot environment (whatever that means)

So I’m a bit confused, and probably not understanding the specs right.  So could you please read and interpret for me?

cheers

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  03/17  at  10:01 PM

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Hi wannabe, almost surprised reading this.

Anyway, a copy-pasted from the brochure:
OS:
Microsoft Windows XP SP3*
Windows Vista SP2**, Windows 7
* 64-bit editions and Starter (Edition) are not supported
** Starter (Edition) is not supported.

The Content Management Software will not work in Win XP SP3 64 bit and starter edition. Also won’t work in Vista SP2 of Starter edition (the most basic version of Windows Vista).

There will be no problem on installing this software on 64-bit edition of, for instance, Vista Home Premium or Professional.

BTW, just asking, can I copy from memory media directly without the use of this software? will there by any issues? How about long recordings, where, the files is divided due to FAT32 2-GB limit? will there by any problems on putting them to timeline or loss of frame?

Posted by Setiawan Kartawidjaja  on  03/17  at  10:50 PM

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I have been editing AVCHD from my Sony SR11 and XR500 with Vista 64 Home Premium for several years now. Just got the NX5U and loaded the Content Manager software and it works just like the Motion Browser software for the other Sony’s. In fact the Motion Browser software will also transfer from the NX5U and stitch together the FAT32 files into a single clip too. All these programs run in a 32 bit form on the 64bit OS. I am not sure if it is possible to run 32 bit apps on the starter edition and this may be what the issue is in compatibility. Home Premium and Proffessional also have the capacity for more RAM etc.

Ron Evans

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  03/18  at  07:23 AM

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many thanks for the feedback re: 64 bit platform.
I’ll upgrade my Vista Home premium 64-bitedtion to Pro asap. and hopefully that’ll solve my compatibility issues.
HP Pav Elite m9500a Intel Core 2 Quad processor, 2.66GHz 8gig Ram, 2 T, drives, 5400rpm plus 2 Tig WD books. coupled with 2 22inch Hd Lg monitors. Logitech surround system.

SO I thank you for validating my system to be able to fully utilise the benefits of the Sony NX5.
This is a powerful forum.
Thanks for the enlightenment

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  03/18  at  02:39 PM

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Hi Adam, excelent report on the preproduction NX5U. I just received some footage shot with a NX5U in 108060i for use in a TV commercial that has to be downscaled to SD and sent in Betacam SP. My question is how do I go to convert to widescreen 480i ? I’m planning to edit the whole commercial in HD and then export final movie to HD file and then convert to SD; I’m using Premiere Pro CS4 in windows and in the past I had problems getting HD footage converted to SD, it always looks flat and soft, losing a lot of detail or simply looking bad. I had tried this with shots made with my Canon XH A1S HDV Clips and always shoot in DV if the final output is SD TV. When I first saw the NX5U I thought it will be perfect to replace my canon but I’m worried about converting from AVCHD to SD and getting the overall look and feel of the HD.

Thanks

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  04/05  at  09:26 PM

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Hi Adam
Thanks for the review and good to be in touch with you again after so many years (original DV list).
Two questions:
1: Why, if the sensor and lens system is the same as the HDV camcorder would the picture quality of the NX5U be better than that from the Z5U?

2: Many broadcasters (CBC in Canada for example and to some extent PBS) will not accept content that originated on HDV for their High Definition program streams. They insist on EX 35 meg at least. An advantage of the NXCAM is its light weight for traveling to remote locations for Doc work. Is there any word on acceptability of the NXCAM AVCHD to the broadcast world?

Cheers
David

Posted by dmowbray  on  04/28  at  08:07 AM

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dmowbray: Hello again!

The NX5U’s live image should be roughly the same as the Z5U’s, but the recorded image is better because (a) it’s a full 1920x1080 recording instead of 1440x1080 and (b) 24 Mbit/sec AVCHD is cleaner looking than 25 Mbit/sec HDV.

I have NO idea what the broadcasters are saying about the NXCAM… and each one will have its own take on the format and on the camera anyway! The NX5U’s high-bitrateAVCHD looks more like XDCAM EX than it does HDV, but close enough for the CBC? That’s something only they can say.

No more comments, sorry. PVC’s display engine can’t handle more than 52 comments per article, and this is the 52nd comment. That’s all, folks.

Posted by Adam Wilt  on  05/12  at  05:18 PM

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Does the HDX-NX5U have remote zoom LANC for comfortable live event tripod use?  I am researching tapeless video cam options for church use.

Interestingly the HDR-AX2000 does not have LANC though spec sheets says it does.  The PDF manual makes no mention of it and Sony tech support says it does not have LANC or a simple remote zoom controller.  The only option is the wireless remote and that has too many buttons for ‘in the dark’ use.

If not… any recommendations for decent low light live event video camera?  No stage lighting is available.  Camera is always at the back of a long room where a Canon GL-2 zoom is nearly maxed out.  Live video must be displayed with 4:3 aspect projectors onto screens.

Is the SD MPEG-2 file compatible with DVD without transcoding?

Thanks in advance
Howard

Posted by VidMan42  on  05/15  at  10:44 AM

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