An EX-3 Review In Process

I’ve already made it clear that I am a Sony EX1/EX3 fan.  I think Sony may have hit the sweet spot that makes solid-state recording a usable technology for broadcasters, in conjunction with XDCam disc recording for archive and backups.

However, steering an entire broadcast station to a conclusion like that is a much harder process.  There are many more variables involved than “Hey, Bruce likes it!” (And truth be told, in many senses an endorsement from me is just noise on management’s radar.)  Our capital budgets are small and constrained by many competing priorities, not the least of which is and was the conversion to digital TV.  But the sea-change that the SxS recording system represents deserves a close examination.  To that end, I have secured a loaner EX3 camera from Sony, with the purpose of showing it and it’s workflow to all stakeholders in the production process.  This includes shooters, audio people, engineers, management, the media librarian and more.  Early reviews are quite positive.

At the same time, I have been starting to play with the bleeding edge of the SxS system - using adapters and SDHC media to lower the cost of recording. (I previously posted about this rather surprising turn of events here.)  The adapter and media of choice for this trick is currently the Kensington 33407 media reader card and the preferred media itself is the Sandisk 16Gb Ultra II card or the Transcend 16Gb class 6 card.  (Those last two links lead to Amazon pages.)  Check out the prices - the Transcend card is under $30!  For an HOUR of recording time!  Those are the kind of numbers that will make station management sit up and notice.  We currently pay about $25 per tape for half-hour HDCam stock.  That means SxS represents real savings in not just cash costs, but personnel as well.  I dumped an 8Gb SxS card into a Lenovo micro-laptop in about 4 minutes - SEVEN times realtime.  Long waits for digitizing could be a thing of the past.  It is not inconceivable that a switch from HDCam to SxS could pay for itself in less than six months.

So what am I seeing here?  Is this a real revolution, or just a mirage?  Am I being blinded by “gear lust?”  I sure hope not, because for less than $9000 the EX3 is an extremely impressive camera.  The fact that it could pay for itself with cost savings in very short order is icing on the cake - a very thick, creamy, flavorful icing.

Or am I nuts?

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