Filed under: Cameras •Production •

review: Sony PMW-EX1 1/2” 3-CMOS HD Camcorder

Performance

Optics

The 14x Fujinon lens runs from 5.8mm to 81.2mm, or 31.4mm to 439mm in 35mm still camera terms. That’s just a bit wider than the HVX200’s 13x, and just slightly more telephoto, but not significantly so at either extreme.

The maximum aperture of f/1.9 holds until about 10mm, then ramps gradually down to f/2.8 at full tele. This ramping is not shown in the camera’s displays; it thinks it’s still at f/1.9 (maybe it is still at f/1.9; the transmitted light, however, decreases by a stop, and at full tele the iris can be turned between wide open and f/2.8 with no change in the levels). If you’re shooting wide open, bear this in mind.

The wide end of the lens shows the typical amount of barrel distortion for the wide angles of this class of camera, with a bit of moustache distortion present (the center of the image is barreled, while the corners seem rectilinear). Midway between 5.8mm and 10mm, the barreling is gone, though a bit of moustache remains, giving straight lines near picture edges a slightly wavy look. By 10mm and onwards the lens is quite rectilinear.

Full wide angle; this is as bad as the EX1’s distortion gets. It’s noticeable in images with this sort of rectilinear background, but without that cue, the distortion doesn’t draw attention to itself.

Sharpness is very good overall, even with the iris wide open, though stopping down to f/2.8 improves it a bit.

Chromatic aberration is insignificant through 45mm or so; either the camera uses chromatic aberration correction, or the lens is far better corrected than it has any right to be at the price. Only in the long telephoto positions from 45mm onwards does some red/green lateral fringing appear, and it’s minimal even then.

Bokeh is pleasing, a nicely soft defocus with no oddball artifacts. Vertical green/magenta fringing, the bane of defocused images on prism cameras, is present but subdued.

Flare is about average for lenses in this class of camera.

Vignetting of various sorts has been a controversial issue for the EX1; in my first look at the prototype camera, a mispositioned lens element caused severe vignetting at a variety of focal lengths. Fortunately, the pre-production camera shows no such problems. Portholing at full telephoto is only about half a stop; it’s visible on the ‘scope if you’re looking for it, but it’s very hard to see in the picture. Stopping down to f/4 eliminates it.

Some units from early builds had off-center lenses, causing sharp corner vignetting around the 10mm-15mm range. I find that with this unit, there’s the tiniest bit of corner darkening on three out of four corners around 8mm-15mm, mostly in the lower left corner. Vigorous shaking of the camera with Steady Shot on can make the corners crop in slightly more as Steady Shot steers the light. However, this cropping only affects the outermost 3% of the image at worst; it never even gets close to the 90% safe action area marker. In normal use it’s insignificant in both size and effect; it’s not noticeable enough for me to worry about (other cameras at this price point show similar corner darkening; my HVR-Z1 has it just as much as this EX1 does).

Manual zooming is as smooth as your hand can make it; the zoom ring is nicely damped with minimal backlash. Power zooming runs the gamut from two seconds to 30 or more depending on how carefully you mash the rocker. Focus and iris rings similarly “feel right” and offer fine control.

One nice feature: even with the iris in manual mode, the camera closes it when you shut power off—and it opens it back up to its last setting when you turn the camera on.

Resolution

The 1/2” Exmore CMOS chips have an honest-to-goodness 1920x1080 resolution, and handle interlaced and progressive scanning with equal aplomb. There is no pixel-shifting, nor does the image coarsen when using shutters in progressive mode. Sony claims 1000 TVl/ph (TV lines per picture height) resolution, and I see that on the test charts. There’s a bit of aliasing past that point, but not so much as to be problematic. Picking an optical low-pass filter for a sensor is always a tradeoff: ensure attenuation at the sampling frequency and you risk losing too much high-frequency information; keep that sharpness and risk distracting aliasing and moiré. Sony seems to have split the difference finely; if I boost the detail setting the aliasing becomes apparent, but at the default setting (detail 0), or with detail off (roughly equivalent to detail -30) it’s hardly visible on the test charts—and in the real world it simply isn’t a problem.

This is one sharp camera. There’s nothing sharper in its class. Heck, there’s nothing equal to it in its class.

In 1080p, that 1000 lines is visible in both H & V directions. In interlace, vertical detail drops to “only” 800 lines, since dual-row summation is used to avoid frame-rate twitter (a distracting flicker of thin lines that appear in only one field). In 720p modes, resolution drops to roughly 700 TVl/ph in both H & V, as it should. Sony’s downsampling to 720p effectively squashes any aliasing at the smaller frame size.

DSC Labs Chroma DuMonde resolution trumpets in 1080p and 720p (actual size)

DSC Multiburst SquareWave details at 1080p (actual size; horizontal scale moved up to fit, but otherwise the image is unmodified)

Sharpness only drops off with high gain settings, down to about 800 TVl/ph at +18dB. It may be that Sony is employing spatial noise reduction at higher gains and that fine detail suffers as a result, or it could simply be that the gain noise is swamping fine detail.

Sensitivity

To measure sensitivity, I set the exposure of an 18% gray card at 50% on the waveform monitor with the camera in its default Standard Gamma 3. I metered the card with a Gossen Starlite and incident light with a Spectra Pro IV, and varied the ISO settings until the shutter speeds and apertures matched the camera (both meters agreed within 1/10 stop). I determined the sensitivity of the camera to be:
• ISO 400 in 1080p modes
• ISO 800 in 1080i modes (just as you’d expect: with dual-row summation, you get twice the sensitivity), and
• ISO 500 in 720p modes.
Apparently Sony is picking up some gain during downsampling to 720p, analogous to what happens in dual-row summation.

The camera can run at –3dB, useful if you want the lowest noise possible. The highest gain, +18dB, is noisy but not unusable; it’s comparable to the Z1 at +18dB or the HVX200 at +12dB. The noise is best characterized as colorful, fine grain: it’s perhaps a bit more colorful than noise from some other Sonys, but not annoyingly so.

CMOS Characteristics

CMOS chips use a “rolling shutter” readout, in which lines are captured sequentially, instead of the entire image being grabbed into a transport buffer simultaneously as occurs with CCDs. With fast-moving subjects, or high-frequency camera vibration, image distortion may occur, as the image moves across the face of the sensors between the times the top and bottom of the picture are grabbed.

I measured the delay between reading out the top of the image and the bottom at about 1/60 sec in 60Hz mode, and 1/50 in 50Hz mode, regardless of frame rate. Thus 25p frames suffer a 1/50 sec top-to-bottom delay, and 24p frames take 1/60 sec. Thus “rolling shutter” artifacts are no worse at film frame rates than at the maximum frame rate for the camera’s “country” mode.

Practically speaking, it’s not much of an issue. Very fast moving subjects show slight “tilt” in freeze frames, though in playback they pass by so quickly they can hardly be seen.  I mounted the camera in my car using my oldest and flimsiest still-camera tripod and turned Steady Shot off, to get the most wiggle possible as the car bounced along the road. Frame-by-frame, there’s a bit of the “Jellocam” effect, where car bodies wobble like a cube of Jello, but it’s not apparent unless you’re actively looking for it. I have yet to shoot anything with the EX1 where “Jellocam” is a noticeable problem.

Bursts of light from strobes, photographic flashes, and emergency vehicle light bars may be split across frames instead of appearing entirely in one frame. If your work is heavily involved with such things, you’ll want to test this out, whether you’re using the Canon HV20, the EX1, or the RED ONE cine camera—all use CMOS sensors.

CMOS chips don’t suffer from vertical smear, the faint vertical line appearing at points of extreme overexposure on IT and FIT CCDs (the CCDs used by most camera companies other than Thomson/GVG). You can aim the EX1 at a bright light and no smear will appear.

Latitude

I shot a backlit Stouffer TLF4110 transmission wedge (http://www.stouffer.net ) to measure the camera’s dynamic range.  I’ve done this with other sub-$10,000 cameras and, for the most part, obtained values of around 8.0 to 9.3 stops between shadows lost in the noise and white clipping. The 9+ stop readings all involve a fair bit of shadow stretching and wishful thinking; realistically, figure on 8.5 stops.

The EX1 gives me 10 stops of latitude on the chart, and that corresponds to what I see in real-world pictures.

Ten stops.

Y’know, maybe this CMOS stuff ain’t so bad after all.

Gamma

The EX1 offers four STD gammas and four CINE gammas. STD3 is the default and is the basis for my comparisons; I list the brightness for the middle gray on a chip chart in each gamma for the same exposure setting, with 50% being the default. The descriptions in quotes are my own characterizations of the gammas. In all except CINE2, whites peak at 109%.

• STD1 – “bright and contrasty”. Blacks slightly crushed, whites slightly crushed, increased contrast, midgray at 55%.
• STD2 – “deep blacks”. Blacks slightly crushed, rest of tonal scale stretched downward; midgray at 48%.
• STD3 – “standard video”. Normal, midgray at 50%.
• STD4 – “black stretch”. Blacks slightly stretched, increased shadow detail, midgray at 55%.
• CINE1 – “deep cine”. Compression starts around 80%; midgray at 37%.
• CINE2 – “broadcast safe cine”. CINE1 rescaled with whites limited to 100%.
• CINE3 – “brighter cine”. Compression starts around 65%; midgray at 45%.
• CINE4 – “video-bright cine”. Compression starts around 65%; midgray at 50%.

The std gammas are all fairly standard video gammas, while the cine gammas are something special. Instead of running linearly up the tonal scale and using the knee system to handle highlights, cine gammas apply increasingly more compression the brighter a highlight gets. Sony’s Juan Martinez says the cine gammas are directly descended from the HyperGamma settings of the F900/R and F23 cameras; David Leitner reports that these are the same HyperGammas used in the PDW series XDCAM HD camcorders.

In essence, cine gammas have a S-curve in the highlights, similar in effect to the soft shoulder of film’s DlogE curve. Highlights don’t clip as harshly as in the standard gammas, they roll off much more smoothly, with gradual desaturation instead of sudden hue shifts in color.

In the sub-$10,000 camera market, the closest comparison is with the HVX200’s Cinelike V gamma. The EX1, however, takes the Panasonic’s naturalistic highlight handling further. While the overall look is quite similar, side-by-side, I can see at least a stop more into the Sony’s highlights, possibly two, and specular reflections don’t block up as quickly.

I’ve switched entirely to the cine gammas on the EX1. I’d use standard gammas only when I want a “contrasty video punch” in the highlights as a special effect.

Once you’ve picked an overall gamma setting, the EX1 lets you fine-tune it with a level control. It varies standard gamma midtones by up to 20% (moving 50% gray between 40% and 60% brightness), but has a more muted effect on cine gammas.

A Black gamma control, similar to black stretch/compress on other cameras, affects the lower half of the tonal scale, letting you tweak shadow reproduction for more contrast of more transparency.

Knee

When using standard gammas, a tweakable knee is available. It defaults to auto, which varies the knee point based on picture content, but you can also switch it to manual for finer control and shot-to-shot consistency, or disable it entirely. You can control the knee point from 50% to 109%, adjust its slope over a broad range, and vary the saturation of colors in the knee region—this last control making its first appearance in this price segment.

I’ve found that the EX1’s knee does a fine job except when highlights are strongly colored. Saturated highlights show more hue shift and harsh clipping than I’d like. I’m exploring this further out of curiosity, but even if the knees were perfect I would still shoot with cine gammas, because I prefer the progressive compression to the look of a traditional knee.

Detail

The EX1 provides the most comprehensive detail control in its market.

The level control spans the range from super-sharpened at +99 through neutral (-30 is about the same as turning the knee off) to considerable blurring at –99.

A crispening control (similar to coring on other cameras ) lets you adjust the sensitivity of the detail circuit, trading off increased enhancement against increased visual noise. An H/V ratio control gives you varying enhancement vertically vs. horizontally. You can choose whether to derive detail from the luma signal, a non-additive mix of G and R, G alone, or G+R.

You control the detail frequency with equal finesse: +99 gives you a subtle, pixel-thin enhancement, while –99 is coarse enough to look like a crayoned outline, great for parodying the over-enhanced look of much TV news and sports. The EX1 also gives you white and black detail limiters: these limit the excursions of the detail signal, for control over the harsh contrast of the enhancement.  With these controls you can tame the “electrified”, cartoonish look of high enhancement, and decrease the thick black outlines you might otherwise see around specular highlights. As with detail frequency, these tweaks let you run the gamut from garish to subtle with ridiculous ease. All cameras should offer these three controls.

You can also set the amount of detail applied to the knee portion of the signal, another aid in controlling black outlines around highlights, with the Knee APT Level control—so called because another term for sharpening or detail enhancement is “aperture correction”.

Of course, you can also turn the detail off entirely.

I encountered an odd bug: when Detail Level is set greater than +95, moving to a different Picture Profile and then back again loses the setting. It’s still shown in the menu, but it doesn’t affect the image. I had to run the setting down to +95, at which the detail jumped back up again. Settings from –99 through +95 were properly remembered and recalled, but settings from +96 through +99 were “forgotten” when the profile was switched away from and then returned to. I did some scattershot testing of other settings in various menus, and didn’t find any that had the same forgetfulness—but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one lurking somewhere.  If you’re doing a critical shoot with non-default settings, you might want to test your settings for this “forgetfulness” before plunging into battle.

Color

The EX1 offers four standard matrices, as well as the usual saturation and phase adjustments.  The presence of Linear Matrix parameters makes it possible to further fine-tune color response. I looked at the stock matrices on the vectorscope while shooting a DSC ChromaDuMonde chart, and here’s what I saw:
• Standard – the camera’s default color matrix.
• High SAT – boosts all colors by about 15%-20%.
• FL Light – boosts the red-cyan axis by 15%.
• Cinema – shrinks the red-cyan axis by 20%.

There’s no consistency between manufacturers when it comes to matrix definitions. On the HVX200, for example, the Cine-like matrix boosts all colors by roughly 25%. Look at pictures, don’t rely on names!

SxS recording

The EX1 uses SxS cards: ExpressCard34 memory cards using the faster (and more expensive) PCIe interface instead of the USB2 interface used by many commodity memory cards.

There’s not much to say here. They seem to work. I haven’t had a corrupted or lost clip yet, but I haven’t tried running an SxS card through the laundry, or driven over one with a truck, or dropped one into a fresh cup of tea. There’s an entire discussion of the desirability of solid-state vs. tape recording—are you going to hand a client your SxS card at the end of the day?—but that’s a topic for a different day.

The camera can be connected to a Mac (or PC) via USB 2.0. I found I could plug in the USB cable at any time, whether the EX1 was in CAMERA or MEDIA mode, and I’d get a prompt in the finder to enable the USB connection. The SxS card mounts as a drive on the Mac Desktop, and I can have my way with it. When I’m done, I can “eject” the camera and unplug it, and it returns to normal operation without having to be power-cycled.

Plugging the SxS card directly into the MacBook Pro requires Sony’s SxS Pro Device Driver, with which the card also appears as a removable drive. (The SxS driver is not compatible with the Duel Systems Adapter for P2 cards; you’ll need to uninstall the Sony driver before using the Duel Adapter. Fortunately the driver includes an uninstaller.)

To read SxS data on a Mac and wrap it in QuickTime for FCP, I used Sony’s XDCAM Transfer version 2.1, on a 2.33 MHz MacBook Pro running OS X 10.4.11 and Final Cut Pro 6.0.2. The EX1 ships with a CD containing the SxS device drivers for Mac and Windows, and Mac and Windows versions of the XDCAM EX Clip Browser application, but not XDCAM Transfer. I wasn’t able to find links to XDCAM Transfer on either Apple’s or Sony’s US websites, but Google pointed me to Sony’s UK website.

Via USB, a 35Mbit/sec HQ clip transfers at 1.7x real time speeds (that is, almost twice as fast as real time playback). When I plug the SxS card directly into the MBP, transfers occur at 6.8x real time speeds (nearly seven times faster than real time). 25 Mbit/sec SP clips transfer even faster, of course. These times include both transferring the essence, wrapping it in QuickTime, and handing it off to FCP—clips appear in FCP’s bin as soon as they’re transferred, because XDCAM Transfer notifies FCP of their availability.

Sony also has a USB 2.0 SxS card reader, which is supposed to be faster than the camera at USB transfers, but I haven’t tested it.

Codec Quality

XDCAM EX is an extension of XDCAM HD. Its SP mode is an HDV-compatible, 25 Mbit/sec constant-bit-rate stream using long-GOP MPEG-2: 15 frames are compressed in a single Group Of Pictures. HQ mode is a 35 Mbit/sec variable-bit-rate stream, also using long-GOP MPEG-2. Both modes record 8-bit data, and use 4:2:0 color sampling.

Long-GOP recording works because, for the most part, one frame is very much like the last. The first image in a GOP is compressed on its own; subsequent images are compressed with reference to adjacent images, and eventually to that first frame. If a scene is static, long-GOP is very efficient: many bits can be devoted to that all-important first frame, with the data for the following frames mostly being “no changes here”.

However, if there are a lot of cuts between dissimilar images, or if adjacent images have a lot of fine detail all moving in different directions (foliage blowing in the wind; extreme shakycam with zooms and dutch tilts; random noise; flashes and strobes), then more bits have to be allocated to recording the differences between frames, and less to the all-important first frame. As a result, the compression quality obtained with long-GOP MPEG at a given bit rate is highly dependent on the subject material.

At its best, SP looks very good, and HQ even better. Close examination of EX1 clips shows minor amounts of mosquito noise around sharp, contrasty edges, but the images are very usable. As spatial and temporal complexity increase, the EX1’s images can show posterization in gradients, coarse diagonals, and blockiness in areas of fine detail. These are, of course, common artifacts in highly compressed MPEG-2. I’m not singling out the EX1, I’m just saying that it’s not immune to these artifacts.

Seen in single-frame mode, these defects are apparent on close examination, but in normal playback they blend together and appear for the most part as a slight increase in overall image noise. Only when shaking the camera around violently, like a rat in the jaws of an angry dog, was I able to generate blocking or mosaic artifacts that were noticeable in normal playback.  In regular use—POV driving footage, nature photography, run ‘n’ gun docco, and greenscreen tests—the resulting images were entirely unobjectionable.

Compared to other HDV and XDCAM HD tests I’ve done, the EX1 looks better than it should for the bit rate. Sony has obviously improved their codec quality.

After initial testing, I put the camera in HQ mode and didn’t look back. SP lets me record 1080i at 1440x1080, with 24p handled using 2:3 pulldown. HQ records interlaced or progressive, at native frame rates (no pulldown needed), and at full resolution: 1920x1080, or 1280x720.

This is a big deal: the EX1 captures and records a true, square-pixel 1920x1080 image, with no single-sensor (Bayer mask) artifacts. There are two other camcorders that can make the same claim: the $48,000 Panasonic HPX3000, and the $180,000 Sony F23. True, both of those camcorders offer better lens options, less compression, 10-bit recording, and 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 color sampling, but they do cost a wee bit more than the $7790 (list price) EX1, and besides, the EX1 comes with a lens at no additional cost.

But 4:2:0 isn’t bad, at least not in progressive mode. Compare these three images, all 2x enlargements:

24p captured via SDI to a 4:2:2 file using Apple ProRes422 HQ.

24p captured using 4:2:0 XDCAM EX HQ.

60i captured using 4:2:0 XDCAM EX HQ. The focus is slightly off, but the important bit is the edge of the red circle.

All 4:2:0 does in progressive mode is equalize the color subsampling on H & V directions (as we’ve seen with JVC’s 720p HDV cameras). It’s not much worse looking than 4:2:2. In Interlace, though, where the vertical subsampling happens on a field bases, watch out for those 4:2:0 “sawtooth edges”!

Playback

The EX1 happily plays clips regardless of format or frame rate. You don’t have to be in 1080p24 HQ mode to play back a 1080p24 clip, or a 720p60 clip, or anything else; there may be a brief disruption in the image when the format changes, but you aren’t locked out from playing a clip because it was shot in a different format than the one currently selected.

Clips can be paused, played at normal speed, and at 4x or 15x forward or reverse. You can jump to the previous and next clips. You can control playback with the joystick, the regular transport control buttons, or with the IR remote—if you’re remembered to enable it in the menus, that is.

There is no frame advance and no slow-motion playback. I have these on the HVX200 and I was surprised by how much I missed them on the EX1. With the HVX, I do a lot of detailed shot review on the LCD; on the EX1, I wind up waiting until I’ve transferred the clips to the computer.  Yes, it’s harder to perform single-step and slo-mo with long-GOP MPEG-2 recording than with DVCPROHD, but it’s not impossible… perhaps they’ll be implemented on the EX2?

While there is SD downconversion available during playback (or during live monitoring), I found the quality to be poor. Analog component still showed 800+ lines of horizontal resolution—in standard definition! SDI showed vigorous aliasing setting in at about 400 lines, and composite showed both aliasing and tremendous amounts of cross-color. Clearly the HD signal is being downconverted without the resampling and low-pass filtering needed to keep the picture within SD bandwidth limits. I’d recommend leaving the camera’s outputs in HD mode, ignoring the composite output entirely, and doing all downconversions externally.

Audio

In my informal tests, audio is quite good, even with the built in mics (where the biggest problem is picking up handling noise and lens-motor noise), Reader Mark Weiss ran a formal analysis with interesting results.

Sticky: Traveling with batteries, Pro Apps Updaters, etc.

Adam Wilt | 02/24- 04:21 PM

Stuff to watch out for; tips ‘n’ tricks

• FAA rules on lithium battery transport
•

Calibrated Codecs

Adam Wilt | 12/04- 05:08 PM

Use MXF media natively in FCP and on Windows; use FCP media on Windows and non-FCP Macs.

Need to use MXF media (P2 DVCPRO/50/HD and AVC-I, IMX, XDCAM) natively in Final Cut Pro, or in Windows NLEs? Need to play FCP-captured or FCP-generated Quicktimes with HDV, DVCPRO50/HD, or XDCAM/HD/EX content on Windows machines, or on Macs without Final Cut Studio? Check out http://www.calibratedsoftware.com/welcome.html.…

How to Edit Canon 5D Footage in FCP

Matt Jeppsen | 11/28- 05:46 PM

Using freeware tools to prep Mark II HD footage for FCP

Canon’s new 5D Mark II DSLR with 1080p video mojo has been showing up in…

> It may be a pain to handhold and some of its controls and connectors could use
> some improvement, but the PMW-EX1 has raw resolution, latitude, highlight
> handling, flexibility, and tweakability unmatched by anything else under
> $10,000.

I’d probably say under $20,000.

You don’t’ say what resolution the red chip was shot at 1080 or 720.

Optical performance: what the metal beam bent or is the barrel distortion uneven?

Given that the HVX-200 resolves beyond it’s chips, is there a way to test the EX1 for resolution beyond 1000 lines?

> Thus 25p frames suffer a 1/50 sec top-to-bottom delay, and 24p frames take
> 1/60 sec.

Can you elaborate on how 1/24 images are taken at 1/60 a second? You mentioned the camcorder has a blade angle adjustment, which would change the length of time the light is collected, also a “slow shutter.” How do these play into a default 1/60 second shutter? I ask because your description:

> At 24p, no shutter is 1/24. Speeds: 1/32, 1/48, 1/50, 1/60… SLS frames
> accumulated: 2-8.

Would imply that there is nothing between 1/32 and two complete frames on top of each other. Not one long frame of 1/15, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, etc.

Posted by Anthony  on  02/01  at  06:42 PM

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Marco: “Jellocam” is a trademark of AJW’s Cameralogical Neologisms, Inc. Use it again and you’ll owe me licensing fees. <grin>.

Leo: yes, the battery drains after 2 or 3 days.

Anthony:
• The round red thing was shot in 1080-line mode (there is no 60i in 720, only 60p).
• The metal beam is straight (it carries 3- and 10-ton cranes, so it had better be straight!); that’s the “moustache distortion” to which I refer.
• The HVX200’s lens resolves past its chips, which is why it aliases so vigorously; the EX1 does, too, just not so much.
• A 1/24th-second image isn’t captured in 1/60 second, it’s just that the bottom line’s 1/24th second happens 1/60 second delayed compared to the top line of the image. Like a tube camera, there’s a sequential readout of the image, as opposed to a CCD’s frame-at-a-time simultaneous capture.
• When I say “no shutter is 1/24”, I mean “shutter OFF is 1/24”, sorry for the confusion. As to no intermediate speeds: use ECS for fractional speeds from 1/31.98 on up. For slow speeds, use SLS: slow shutters from 2-8 frames in duration. But AFAIK there’s nothing between 2 frames and 1/24, and between 1/24 and 1/31.98.

Posted by Adam Wilt  on  02/01  at  08:45 PM

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So now what do I do if I own two, count ‘em… two XHA1’s?  This is why being in this business can be so damned expensive!

Posted by  on  02/01  at  10:11 PM

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UPDATE: At 24fps, 2 frames is 1/12 sec, 3 frames is 1/8 sec, 4 frames is 1/6 sec,… 8 frames is 1/3 sec. So yes, all those slow speeds are there; they’re just given in frame durations instead of time. Sorry for not seeing this bloody obvious fact last night (note to self: never comment when you’re too tired to think straight).

Scott: two XH A1s? Be on the leading edge and shoot 3D. 3D is the Next Big Thing… again…

But seriously, XH A1s are still very fine cameras; in the sub-$10k arena I think they are second only to the EX1 when it comes to 1080i image quality, and they’re much easier to use handheld than the EX1. They perform today every bit as well as they did a few days ago, they do some things (like tape recording and standard definition) the EX1 can’t, and they’re already paid for. The ecosystem is a bit more crowded now, but the XH A1s still have their niche.

Posted by Adam Wilt  on  02/02  at  08:15 AM

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The overcrank in 25p mode actually goes up to 60p not 50p, just don’t use it when using artificial lighting or you will get flicker like i have!

Posted by Philip Bloom  on  02/02  at  12:13 PM

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oh, and you can play back overcranked in playback in the camera,
But GREAT review, very fair! Nice one.

Posted by Philip Bloom  on  02/02  at  12:15 PM

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As always a great and detailed review. Thank you Adam. The only bit missing IMHO is that you do not talk about the audio side of this extraordinary (for its price) EX1. Could you post further details. I am a shoot-and-run cameraman and normally am not able to have the luxury of an accompanying sound man, so on-board mics and sound are important considerations for me.
Many thanks in advance, John

Posted by  on  02/03  at  04:35 AM

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I have shot a lot one man band with it and it’s worked great. The built in mic is OK, I stick a nicer one on top and use that as my main camera mic. I mount a radio mic receiver on the hot shot. All works great.

Posted by Philip Bloom  on  02/03  at  04:44 AM

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A stunning review, Adam. Thank you.

Do you have similar sensitivity numbers for the Z1? How does the EX1 compare? I have seen reports of a half stop more sensitive (a disappointment) to almost 3 stops better (too good to be true?). How do the 2 cameras’ noise levels compare with increased gain, say at +6, +12 & +18db?

Chuck

Posted by Chuck Savadelis  on  02/03  at  06:04 AM

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Adam,

Great review.

I am very surprised by 10 stops of dynamic range.

Using the same criteria, how does that compare to other cameras you have tested?

I am particularly interested in the HVX, RED, F23 and Kodak film.

Posted by Eric Pascarelli  on  02/03  at  08:33 AM

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Philip: 60fps in 25p? Great!
John: audio sounds “pretty good” but I haven’t done a formal evaluation yet. Check back in a couple of weeks when I have another EX1 to work with.
Chuck & Eric: Z1: ISO 160, HVX: ISO 320: http://www.adamwilt.com/HD/4cams-part1.html
I was surprised by the 10 stop latitude, myself. The HVX has about 8-9.3 depending on how you measure (http://www.dv.com/columns/columns_item.php?articleId=193001363). In a RED test last September I initially saw a bit over 8 stops with an early version of RedAlert; with a recent version of RedCine I’m seeing over 9 stops in the same footage, and RED has improved their latitude in later builds of the camera. When I have one to test for real, you’ll see the results here at PVC. F23 is said to be very, very good in this regard, and I’ve been impressed with the pix, but I haven’t tested it formally. As to Kodak film, I don’t recall what they’re claiming for Vision 2 emulsions, something like 11-12 stops? More? The Expression 500T, especially: it makes a gorgeous picture, and the sensitometric curve certainly implies 12 stops: http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products/negative/tech5218.jhtml?id=0.1.4.6.10.12.4&lc=en

Posted by Adam Wilt  on  02/03  at  02:11 PM

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I heard someone complaining recently about not being able to erase SxS card A while B was still recording. Is this true? In other words, the maximum amount of continuous record time would be the total of your two cards--no on the fly offloading and reusing of cards.

Posted by Jason Prisk  on  02/03  at  06:29 PM

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yep. just like the p2. How could you erase in cameras whilst recording? That doesn’t make sense.

If you are doing on the fly offloading and reusing, you erase your card in your pc/mac after dumping then put it back in.

Posted by Philip Bloom  on  02/03  at  09:48 PM

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Excellent review, as always, Adam.
All of the footage I’ve seen so far is a strong selling point for the EX1.

One concern though is that some users have reported battery drainage when the camera is supposed to be off. Due to the fact that there’s a backup lithium button cell in the base of the camera for maintaining date and time info, one would think that there is no need to have the camera always powered on at some hibernation level, hence no need to drain the battery that powers the camera.

Of concern to some is how to edit this footage. Some are claiming CineForm works for them. I have also found that MainConcept’s MPEG Pro HD3 gives Premiere CS3 the ability to work with XDCam footage, just as transparently as HDV footage, minus the ability to play back on a second monitor with a dual-head graphics card. Sound is there, as with video and the MainConcept CODEC appears to bring all the functionality for .MXF files. So the workflow is XDCam -> Sony Clip Browser -> Export to MXF -> import to Premiere Pro CS3.

I have been testing with downloaded clips, but in a few hours UPS will be delivering my first PMW-EX1, and I will be doing some serious testing then. Hopefully Sony has fixed all the earlier problems with vignetting, battery drain, etc.

Posted by Mark Weiss  on  02/04  at  08:25 PM

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Thanks for the review, Adam. I plan to order one, but I have a serious concern about how to remotely operate and monitor the camera while on a crane.

I’ve been googling it for weeks and still can’t find a solution. It seems that Sony moved away from their standard LANC connection on this camera. So, there may not be a way to control iris/focus/zoom remotely. I did see the remote zooms available, but nothing else.

Also, with monitoring, is there a way to use a standard crane/camera-mounted LCD monitor with this camera, or do I have to buy some high-priced solution?

Thanks for your help, in advance.

Posted by Daniel Brienza  on  02/06  at  09:03 PM

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To update, I received my PMW-EX1, s/n 102161, on Feb 5th.
I tested the audio, and it is DAT-quality.
In all other respects, camera performed as well or better than I expected, based on all the reading I’d done on it.

However, there is bad news… after 5-1/2 hours of use, the next day, I attempted to used the camera and seeing the weather was nice that day, I stepped outside and attempted to shoot some daylight scenery. I first deleted the images on the SxS card, as it was nearly full, and attempted to zoom in on a particular piece of foliage. The camera was wildly out of focus. I checked to see if I was on manual, but it was indeed set to auto.
The other thing was that the picture was wildly overexposed and the iris was at f1.9, instead of closing down with the bright light of the outdoors. I could not get a response from the auto iris. I could manually adjust it, but auto was just not working.
I then discovered that the menus and picture profiles were not responding when their respective buttons pressed. The camera had locked up and lost it’s ‘mind’.
I turned off the power, but the camera would not power down, either, after a couple of tries. I removed the battery and then powered back up, thinking it may be the odd random lockup. But the camera only displayed “XDCAM EX” in the viewfinder and would not power down when switched off. Five minutes later, the display appended “E-15030” to its logo. Obviously, some critical error. I can find nothing on the problem on Google.
I called B&H;, and after some troubleshooting, they offered to exchange the camera.
I have owned five other Sony cameras, and all have been reliable with no failures. I am hoping the XDCam EX1 is not being manufactured in a ‘cost-saving’ process that results in shortened component lifespan. I really hope this is a rare fluke.
Two days have passed and I am still waiting for the store to send me the prepaid return shipping label so I can get the exchange process moving. Until then, I have a $7000 brick on my hands.

Posted by Mark Weiss  on  02/07  at  11:06 AM

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Mark,

Your story’s inspired me to remember to get mine insured. Digital items react that way, and there’s no exception to a EX1, which is basically all computerized. My iPhone froze once, and I almost had heart failure. I’d really lose it if my EX1 did that out of warranty.

Posted by  on  02/07  at  01:01 PM

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I used to by ‘extended service contracts’ but by and large, I find that most of the time you don’t use them and they become a bad investment. If you have one repair done over the life of the camera, that pretty much equals the cost of a 3 year contract in typical cases. So unless the camera breaks several times, requiring several trips back to the repair facility, a service contract may be wasted money.

UPS finally e-mailed me the shipping label, around 7PM, so it will have to go out tomorrow. So it looks like mid-week next week before I see a replacement. Meanwhile the 15-day trial on the CineForm that I am testing ticks away, with no camera to test with.

Posted by Mark Weiss  on  02/07  at  04:35 PM

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Daniel: the lens remote port allegedly has zoom and start/stop functionality, but that’s it. You could possibly run a fiber-optic conduit between the camera’s IR receiver and the IR remote’s LED for limited additional functionality (e.g., push-to-focus). Your best bet would be to use external motors driving the toothed rings for iris and zoom, and add a clamp-on toothed ring for focus (the matte box / follow-focus folks will be making these); I’ll probably wind up doing that myself as I expect to fly an EX1 from a jib. As to monitoring, you have composite, component, and SDI to choose from, but see my comments about downconversion quality.

Mark: Sorry about your dead camera! Electronics tend to follow a “bathtub curve” for problems: lots of infant mortality, then years of long running, then lots of failures towards end of life (the “bathtub curve “ describes the shape of the plot of frequency of failures vs. time). I’ve only had two infant mortality failures: an HVR-M10 that developed a scrambled display after fifteen minutes (!) of operation, which B&H;replaced with no bother or fuss; and an Apple TiBook 800 which stopped working on battery power after two weeks, which Apple fixed for free on a two-day turnaround. Both the fixed TiBook and the replacement HVR-M10 are working as I write this. In all likelihood your replacement EX1 will work properly for years--but still, what a disappointment when a shiny new camera goes totally mad and has to be swapped out!

Posted by Adam Wilt  on  02/07  at  10:59 PM

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Any issues with rolling shutter artifacts?

Posted by Rich Reilly  on  02/08  at  06:51 AM

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Adam, indeed, that is the nature of most solid state electronics. My wife works in semiconductor manufacture, and she says all it takes is one microscopic impurity on a photomask to cause later problems with the ICs. Some grow “whiskers” across connections and fail internally.
The other new failure mode we get to look forward to is RohS compliant (lead-free) soldering, which has a whisker growth problem, causing short circuits on fine-pitch surface mount components after a few months of operation. Lead in solder used to inhibit this growth, but the new lead-free soldering has issues that have yet to be worked out. That’s why the military electronics is exempt from RohS compliance.
I sincerely hope that is not a contributing factor with the XDCam!
I finally got my shipping label from B&H;/UPS last night, and I dropped off the camera at UPS today. So maybe by Tuesday or Wednesday I should have a replacement in-hand. Hopefully, a perfect replacement with no other problems that this one didn’t have!

Posted by Mark Weiss  on  02/08  at  11:18 AM

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Hmmm..found this regarding rolling shutter and less than ideal fuorescent conditions:

http://dvxuser.com/jason/CMOS-CCD/

Wouldn’t this type of thing make documentary style problemmatic? Not likek there’s always time or ability to remove offending fixtures.

Posted by  on  02/08  at  01:55 PM

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Rich,

You can easily shoot “slow” fluorescents with the EX1 by making sure that your shutter is set to 1/24, 1/30, 1/40 1/60 or 1/120 in 60Hz countries or 1/25, 1/50, 1/100 in 50Hz countries - Just like a film camera!  And no need to remove offending fixtures unless the are really flickering, like when Godzilla walks by.

Posted by Eric Pascarelli  on  02/08  at  03:03 PM

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Rich: I haven’t seen anything like the flickery fluorescent clip, and I shot a lot under magnetically-ballasted line-rate fluorescents. My guess from looking at the clip is that a higher-than normal shutter speed was used; that would easily explain the banding (the color of fluorescent light varies during each part of the AC cycle), however I cannot guarantee that’s the situation Barry had in his test clip.

If you shoot with a shutter speed that’s a multiple of the half-wave duration (1/100 in 50Hz countries; 1/120 in 60 Hz countries), then every scanline in the image should be able to integrate the color changes over time in the same way. and this sort of banding should not occur. And obviously if the driving frequency of the fluorescents is neither 50Hz nor 60Hz some fine-tuning with ECS will be needed to fix the pix.

The good news is that this sort of thing is immediately visible in the LCD so you can play with shutter speeds to reduce or eliminate it.

Posted by Adam Wilt  on  02/08  at  03:10 PM

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Is 35 Mbps VBR peak or average rate? In case it is peak rate, it only improves storage efficiency, but not quality respect an hypotetic 35 Mbps CBR, and only 35/25=1.4 (40%) more than the HDV 25 Mbps CBR mode. And having in account that 1920/1440=1.333, you only have 1.4-1.333=0.067 (6.7%) more information per pixel in the hi mode. Unless I miss something about the algorithms that rule the 35 Mbps codec respect the ordinary 25 Mbps HDV codec.

Posted by Jose Ignacio Simon  on  02/08  at  11:52 PM

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Adam great review, keep them coming!

Posted by  on  02/09  at  03:36 PM

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Can the EX1 output a 1394 DV down-converted signal in DV NTSC from the sxs card media.  I am looking for an easy way to deliver on DV for those customers that need to walk with a tape at day end or next day fed ex, and I am very interested in the EX1 as I have used it with impressive results several times, but never tried to do a DV down convert.  My now sold, HVR-Z1u would do and most HDV cameras I have used will do. If not is there a High quality, quick, way to get xdcam EX out to DV with a DV camera or deck without SDI.
I have an 8 core Mac Final cut 6 workstation and a MacBook pro laptop available, but initial test seem like long renders to get proper quality DV without nasty aliasing & jittery artifacts.

Posted by Anthony Miles  on  02/10  at  08:46 AM

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Here’s a link to a few 8-pin Fujinon lens controllers at B&H;. I assume that one of those would work with the EX1?

Matt Jeppsen
http://www.FreshDV.com

Posted by Matt Jeppsen  on  02/10  at  03:46 PM

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Jose: I think the 35Mbps is the average rate. And yes, while the aggregate bits-per-sample rate is much the same between SP and HQ modes, recall that HQ is frame-rate-native, so no bits are wasted on repeated fields or frames. Also, even the 25Mbps SP mode seems cleaner on the EX1 than on my old Z1; Sony has improved the codec in general.

Anthony: No, there’s no DV downconversion. Sometimes the older cameras do things the newer cameras can’t. We live in a mixed-up SD/HD world and the EX1 is a pure HD camera—nice if you work entirely in HD, otherwise the EX1 may be a step too far into the future. See also http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/awilt/story/whither_the_hvx200/.

Matt: I haven’t tried any of these, but my understanding from various sources is that standard Fujinon controllers shouldn’t work on the EX1. I’d be very happy to be proven wrong, though.

Posted by Adam Wilt  on  02/10  at  08:39 PM

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I find that I don’t need to edit and master in SD anymore, as it’s just as efficient to edit in HD as SD, and with the added advantage that you can output either format from a decent NLE. In the very beginning of my transition to HD, it was nice to have the ability to record HD and capture SD, but our new editing system can handle HD with equal applom, so there is no longer any reason to edit in SD. I don’t miss the SD conversion and in fact, that leaves more room for a better HD camera with fewer design compromises.

I’m also glad to hear the 25mb/S CODEC is cleaner than earlier HDV CODECs. Are the SQ clips fully compatible for drag and drop into Premiere, like HDV? If they are, that would make a good transition format to shoot in until MainConcept and CineForm get their Premiere compatibility issues worked out.

Posted by Mark Weiss  on  02/10  at  10:17 PM

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Great Review! When it was first released, there were issues with editing the footage in Apple Final Cut Pro. I was just wondering if anyone knows if this has been resolved yet or has had any personal experience with this camera and final cut pro? Thanks!

Posted by  on  02/11  at  10:19 AM

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In terms of Archiving / Delivery, what are the thoughts out there about archiving and or delivering footage on DVD or Blue Ray DVD? In other words, dump the footage from the SXS onto an external hard drive using the Mac Book Pro and then burn a DVD / Blue Ray (using a fire wire blue ray drive). The client could walk away at the end of the day with a DVD instead of a tape. The shooter would keep a backup on the external drive. The real question here, is how easy is it to covert the XDCam footage into regular quicktime files, before putting them onto the disk?

Posted by  on  02/11  at  10:45 AM

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Only trouble with reviews such as yours is that it makes me want to buy a camera that’s unnecessarily good for my needs.  I’m a wedding and events man and buying the Z1 a few years ago seemed overkill in some ways. Of course now I see it wasn’t, and now I see the EX1 breathes deep where the Z1 struggles in asthmatic confusion.

We sat side-by-side on the ‘Experts Q & A group’ at the 2007 Video Forum in Earls Court, London, Adam.  Remember?

tom.

Posted by  on  02/12  at  08:55 AM

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Hi Adam,

Thanks for a great review of the camera!  I’m planning to purchase one shortly after NAB this year.  I want to first figure out what additional accessories that I want to get with it so I can do one large bulk purchase all at once.  I saw that Varicam might have a remote zoom & soon to be announced remote focus controller for the EX1.
Oh, and I just got my latest copy of DV Magazine - On the cover it mentiones a DV.Com exclusive of ‘Real-World Testing: Sony’s PMW-EX1’.  Is your article located here that DV.COM exclusive?  (Which has no links to here that I could find on the DV.COM site, but quickly observed on hvxuser.com?) Just curious - Oh, and if you’re at NAB I’ll try to say hello.

~Jonathan Tanner

Posted by  on  02/12  at  10:29 PM

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Hello Adam and all,

Thank you for the great review Adam. I’ve been a long time reader of your articles and am always appriciate your thoughts.

Question regarding using the EX1 to deliver a Standard Definition DVD. I have found some serious compression artifacts in my final DVD.

My process is (and I will try to be ridiculously detailed):

1)Shoot 1080 30P and import using XDCAM transfer software.

2)Bring clips into FCP. When I lay them into the timeline, FCP asks to change the sequence settings to match my footage - I say “yes”

3) Change my render option to ProRes 422.

4) Edit . . . wow it looks great on the screen.

5) Output using compressors 90 min DVD best settings.

6) Lay that puppy into DVD Studio and burn.

7) Watch it on tv. At this point there are artifacts and it seems almost jittery . . like its had too much coffee.

Any thought from anyone on how you are getting the best picture onto a DVD?

I’ve gone through numerous tests . . . probably 15-20?? This is the best I can find and I’m still not thrilled.

Thank you for your thoughts and ideas.

Eero
http://www.videoonestudio.com

Posted by Eero Johnson  on  02/13  at  04:48 PM

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Mark: while the SP essence is supposed to be HDV compatible, the wrapper format is MP4, so drag’n’drop into Premiere may not work; I don’t have Premiere so I can’t say for certain. Try Googling “EX1” and “Premiere”; someone is likely to have an answer somewhere--just not here!

Adrian: with the current software versions (as described) there are no issues I’ve encountered with FCP editing (with the possible exception of doubly-listed clips in the browser, which I’m still trying to track down the cause of; doesn’t happen all the time).  On Mac, XDCAM Transfer creates QuickTimes, so that part’s easy. Archiving on various flavors of DVD is too big a topic for the comments section; try the EX1 section of the forums: http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/forums/viewforum/4/

Tom: unless you invest heavily in SxS cards, the Z1 may remain the better bet for weddings… those L-O-N-G ceremonies, y’know. Yes, I remember seeing you at Video Forum--great show! Almost a mini-IBC, and certainly worth attending if you’re in the greater London area.

Jonathan: the only DV.com article I’ve written on the EX1 is at http://www.dv.com/reviews/reviews_item.php?articleId=196603659. I don’t have the latest print issue yet so I don’t know what they’re referring to, sorry.

Eero: solving DVD creation problems is too big a topic for the comments section of a camera review (!); best start a thread in the forums: http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/forums/. All I can suggest (and all I’ll say here) is that you probably need to filter the high detail frequencies, especially vertically, to get the picture to look clean and quiescent on a standard-def interlaced display; HD downscaled to SD without prefiltering can alias severely, cause cross-color on composite feeds, and twitter insanely on CRTs.

Everyone: thanks for the great comments, but this conversation is getting too long and involved for a mere comments section! There’s an EX1 forum at http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/forums/viewforum/4/, so please continue the conversation there.  We are literally going to run up against the max-comments limit if we keep posting here.

Also, I’m going to prune a couple of off-topic comments (who was at VideoForum, and when); no disrespect intended, I just want to keep the signal-to-noise ratio high. On CML we’d say “take it to chat!’, so if you want to, set up a “chat” topic at http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/forums/ and hold forth at length as you see fit there.

Posted by Adam Wilt  on  02/13  at  05:56 PM

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4:2:0 MPEG recording.

Posted by Bill Nelson  on  02/14  at  02:03 PM

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I was planing on capure on several camaras (sonys hzr z1u, a canon hxal(pLUS TELO)AND USE and a newer handheld like the new sony Hdr Sr 12. Question , new sony ex1 captures in 4:2:0. WERE i WAS GOING FOR 4;2;2 or 4;4;4 BLACKMAGIC ON CAPTURE?EDITING. Can I still capure my other camaras at 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 TO AND EDIT TOGETHER FINAL PRODUCT THAT LOOKS GOOD. which edit software? Thanks Robert

Posted by  on  02/15  at  02:13 PM

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I saw a demo in Milwaukee last Wed. Seems there is no iris check button on the lens. This button is tandard on broadcast setups..guess it’s not part of the non-bayonet crowd.

Posted by Rich Reilly  on  02/18  at  09:00 PM

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Greetings from Oz!

Adam: About Warranty on the very expensive SxS cards. How many “uses” should one provide before it gives up? 100? 500? Shouldn’t they come with a FIVE year warranty, not ONE?

I’m yet another invested in weddings (yes, yes, I know...), often two, sometimes three a weekend. Not a huge fan on the thought of getting home at midnight on a Saturday, down-loading the day’s footage, doing a back-up, checking the whole lot thoroughly before (nervously and hesitantly) erasing the footage on the two SxS’s - then try and get a good night’s sleep in preparation for Sunday’s job.

Just won’t do, seems a little dodgy. So I’ll need at least FOUR 2-hour cards when they become available. But over here, 2-hour cards will be initially sold for in excess of $2000 EACH! Love the thought of going tapeless, even do a little culling as I tuck into the salmon at the reception to keep busy. But, hmmm…

As to camera options: Have been using for some time a DSR-250 with a 16:9 lens adaptor (shock, horror I know - fiddly, but better in low-light than Z1’s and the like; and with a 3-hour recording time). I’m well aware I need decent widescreen images that look sharper on those ever-improving displays… Unfortunately also, my 250’s replacement, the 270 (the camera I’ve really been waiting for!), is 2 kilos heavier! Ten-hour wedding days! Oh my back!

In short, need: Wide-screen; 2 lux or better low-light; long recording time; not-too-heavy; cheap, achival back-up (I still re-use 184DVCAM tapes after ten years!); great on-board sound; with acceptable standard DVD product at the end (for 90%+ couples and their parents, Blueray and HD-DVD ain’t gonna happen), even though they look a little crappy on OK plasmas and LCDs.

Asking too much?

Posted by  on  02/19  at  02:42 PM

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Hi Adam,
With reference to my post here on Feb 2nd, I wonder if you have had an opinion to test in depth the audio side of the EX1. Sofar all info in this area has been a bit vague and a serious hands-on opinion would be very useful to low budget free-lancers like myself. With much thanks in advance. John

Posted by  on  02/21  at  06:55 AM

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Hi John,
I think I can answer that question, as I too am very critical of camera audio.

I tested it and it is DAT-quality.

Here’s the results charts:

http://www.basspig.com/Sony%20PMW-EX1%20Line%20In%20Audio%20Test%202.htm

Posted by Mark Weiss  on  02/21  at  09:22 AM

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Why we won’t be getting the EX1.

The folks at Snader were kind enough to loan me the EX1 for a day, and I ran a number tests to compare it to the Z1s we are currently using. I shot identical scenes with both cameras. First, all the accolades concerning the image quality of the EX1 are well deserved. In my judgement, it’s a little more than a stop faster (at 1080i), with a greater dynamic range. In SP mode (the mode we are most likely to use), it was visibly sharper than the Z1 (but not hugely sharper). I found the knee settings to greatly enhance the image quality in the high-contrast, uncontrollable lighting situations we often encounter. Despite all of this, we will not be buying EX1s (and we would have bought 3).

Our shooting days typically run 10-16 hours and seventy percent of our work is handheld. I shot the EX1 handheld for about an hour and my hand was sore for two days, especially the inner side of the thumb knuckle. My hands are not large (9” span) and I was constantly stretching and adjusting my grip to keep in contact with the record button. What was worse, my partner (female), with smaller hands, could not reach the record button at all (at least not with any sort of non-contortionist grip). For us, this camera is unusable. The much ballyhooed grip is an ergonomic disaster. I find myself wondering “What was Sony THINKING?”!

Posted by Chuck Savadelis  on  02/22  at  07:01 PM

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Does anyone know if the EX1 demo footage DVD sent out by Sony was shot entirely with the EX1? I mean, were the testimonial interviews done with the EX?
If you haven’t seen it, get one. It’s worth a few minutes to check out the test pilot ftg shot from the interior.

Posted by Rich Reilly  on  02/27  at  04:04 PM

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Hi Adam , great review, just bought the ex1 and immediately fly out to bolivia and brazil for a documentary, ive been noticing a jittery effect on pans and motion shots, shooting at hq 1080 24 p . i dont have an hd monitor , only review clips on a sony laptop in the clip browers. is this a correctable problem, any suggestions, change the frame rate etc....it would a disater if this is what the pan and motion clips would look like.

Posted by  on  03/04  at  04:15 PM

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Eero was asking about Outputting Standard Definition in FCP from the Sony XDCam EX1
Looks like Rick Young has figured out the ideal work flow:

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/ex1_sd_output_young.html

Posted by  on  03/15  at  09:05 PM

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Do the same HD tpo SD issues/workflows apply to other editing systems? For instance, Vegas?

Posted by  on  03/16  at  12:49 AM

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I would like to thank Adam for his unstinting efforts to move Pro Video Camera reviewing out of the hands of the manufacturers.
They approach what I consider to be the current gold standard for reviews although they are for still cameras at http://www.dpreview.com/.
Thanks for all the effort.
If you’re ever in Atlanta I owe you I Belgian ale.
David Hudson

PS Now all we need are cracked case reviews so we can see what they’re really up to.

Posted by davhud  on  03/20  at  05:54 AM

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Great review Adam. Thanks for your unstinting efforts to take the reviews of Pro and Semi pro video cameras to the next level.
Now all we need are cracked case reviews so we can compare build quality between manufacturers.
My personal gold standard for camera reviews is currently dpreview.com. It’s for still cameras but the amount of detail and testing is staggering.
If you’re ever in Atlanta I owe you a Belgian Ale!
Thanks

Posted by David Hudson  on  03/20  at  08:03 AM

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I have verified that the EX1’s HD-SDI output is 10 bits, and that the live signal from the camera uses all 10 bits.

I haven’t seen any unusual jitteriness on pans and motion shots.

Posted by Adam Wilt  on  03/22  at  10:01 PM

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