A better title would be: Sony announces Super35mm Handycam with Interchangeable Lenses for under $2K.
This is a big deal. 
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/15 at 04:49 AM
that is some UGLY bokeh. It’s a good start by Sony, though - if only to help get the ball rollling. But much better options will come very soon.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/15 at 12:36 PM
Um, bokeh is caused by the lens, no the sensor. You can swap out the lens.I’m putting a PL adaptor and using it with my Cooke Panchro\i’s, and I’m sure the bokeh will be super creamy.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/15 at 12:40 PM
Totally agree about better options though (not cheaper, but better). Once the $19K Super35mm PL mount Sony with the next generation senor is out next spring, that’s what I’ll be buying.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/15 at 12:42 PM
I’ve shot quite a bit with the Sony Alpha 300mm and 85mm, and the bokeh looks rather delicious.
That 18-200mm stock lens is CLEARLY not what pros will want to use on money shots, it’s a slow, all-around chunk of glass with an incredible range for day to day use.
-MJ
Posted by Matt Jeppsen on 07/15 at 12:43 PM
I’ve set up a User Group for organizing discussion and collecting samples, links, etc.:
http://www.nexvg10.info
Posted by Zen Violence Films on 07/16 at 09:33 AM
Way to go Sony. This should also pressure other camcorder manufacturers to follow suit driving prices for even the pro models cheaper. Two thousand dollars for the prosumer level camcorder in this article is a great price point. heck i spent more than that for my Canon XL three years ago.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/16 at 07:11 PM
Hi guys.
We have some lens adaptors in the works already for PL and Nikon.
You can see the prototypes here.
http://www.lensadaptor.com/2010/07/17/sony-e-mount-lens-adaptors-coming-soon/
Posted by miketapa on 07/17 at 07:55 AM
I could understand if Sony went from 60i directly to 60p. But no 60p, no 30p and no 24p—no any sort of progressive—is idiotic.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/18 at 10:42 PM
@Burn-E: You’re simply mistaken. What gets recorded onto flash memory is, plain and simple, true progressive 30p. For those of us (an increasing majority) who think 24p is stupid, this is just fine.
What other camera even remotely in this league shoots true progressive 60p? Be specific.
Posted by Zen Violence Films on 07/18 at 11:03 PM
Well, I googled at last. Should have done it before posting So it is 30PsF. I don’t care between stylistic differences between 24p and 30p (I like 30p more), but most videographers striving for the film look crave 24p. Even Philip Bloom, who seems to be quite a reasonable man otherwise, converted 30p from his early 5D into 24p, not because he really needed to film out, but because it looked better to him. How dropped and blended frames can look good is beyond me, but the fact is: filmmakers and “filmmakers” want 24p. For these people this camera is pointless. At least it shoots 30p, so the result will look good on the Web.
As for 60p, Panasonic consumer “700” line (HS700, TM700, SD700) records 1080p60 at 28 Mbit/s. Looks spectacular. Price? Less than $750.
If Sony thinks that 24p is outdated than it should have gone from 60i directly to 60p, not to the in-between 30p format. 30p will not even look good on many TV sets simply because they cannot deinterlace 2-2 pulldown properly (because video is in 30PsF, not in 30p native).
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/19 at 10:54 AM
@ Burn-E, Of course the Panasonic consumer line you speak of does not offer an interchangeable lens system or selective focus without an adapter (800 to 1000+ dollars). The use of selective focus will make video look far more film like than the frame rate (24p).
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/19 at 12:23 PM
If 60p is possible on a sub-$1K camcorder, there is no reason it cannot be possible on a $2K camcorder. This has nothing to do with interchangeable lens or sensor size. Sony had no technical problems implementing 24p and 720p60 as it has these modes in its other products, but decided to cripple this camera. It is funny to see you justifying Sony’s offering.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/19 at 01:21 PM
So much as I dislike Apple Corporation (and as big as nasty as they’ve become), the similarity here is that I admire the refusal to support Adobe Flash owing to an understanding of the new media world.
24p is old media. Every single digital videomaker who shoots in 24p eventually shows their work to people via some display technology that never, ever, ever has a native 24fps refresh rate.
Posted by Zen Violence Films on 07/19 at 01:25 PM
DVD and Blu-ray do not support 30p natively. On the other hand, 24p can be easily recovered from 2-3 pulldown on DVD, 24p is native on Blu-ray. 24p can be easily converted to 25p, not so for 30p. Everyone seems to prefer to film out in 24p; not that everyone will be filming out of course.
Anyway, discussing 24p vs. 30p is pointless. In this day and age, offering multiple frame rates costs nothing, it is all in software, and it is all has already been created. Sony deliberately crippled this product. Boo. The HM100/HM700 with all scan rates possible, including world capability, is a revelation. This is how business should be done.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/19 at 03:37 PM
@Burn-E: While agreeing with some of the spirit of your comments, a nit point: Most DVDs are at 30p (i.e., 29.97 fps true progressive). Also: Anyone filming at 24p who doesn’t get their digital content printed onto film stock (99%!) will be re-converting to 30p display technologies anyway, whether via pulldown or redundant rendering.
Posted by Zen Violence Films on 07/19 at 03:41 PM
A nit point is this: while MPEG-2 can be true progressive, DVD-video is, in fact, interlaced. You can hear about 24p or 30p DVDs, but they are not. They may be encoded with 24fps progressive frame sequence, but the smallest piece of information in DVD-video is still a field, not a frame. So all 60 Hz DVDs are 29.97fps, but interlaced, not progressive. If you do not believe someone with a nickname taken from a cartoon, then ask Cineform’s David Newmann: http://cineform.blogspot.com/2008/12/mastering-24p-dvds-from-hd-using.html
Mastering and displaying true progressive video from a DVD requires a good encoder and a good decoder, and if you screw up with flags you need something like DVDO, Faroudja or HQV to recover those progressive frames. This can be done easier with 24p because of characteristic 2-3 cadence, than with 30p. 24p is not better than 30p per se, it is just better supported in this country (24p IVTC implemented in most players and TV sets) and overseas (native 24p playback or speeding up to 25p). http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/the-dvd-benchmark/177-dvd-benchmark-part-5-progressive-scan-dvd.html
Anyway, back to my original point: why limiting users to 30p? Why not offering a frame rate most filmmakers shoot in? Why not offering 60p that is as smooth as 60i but is easier to edit and watch, not requiring deinterlacing? The recording section of this camera seems to have been taken from a security cam.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/19 at 04:12 PM
@Burn-E: OK, enough - at some point people just don’t pay attention to the facts and you’ll clearly continue fighting no-matter-what. But once again, you refer to 60i here, and “requiring de-interlacing.” For the last time, the NEX-VG10 will shoot in true progressive 30p and save that content in a 60i container that the NLE will treat as true progressive 30p. There is nothing more to say than that.
Everyone gets it, you want more options. But you can’t silence the growing majority who believe that 24p is just plain dumb, nor can you substitute the similar judgment of NEX-VG10 users who will not give a care that the camera lacks 24p.
And as for what you linked to, you’re still stuck on the 24p issue (which again, the increasingly majority do not care for), whereas DVD videos generally are all mastered from progressive sources with progressive flags that effectively convey the source as a true progressive signal - something quite different that an interlaced source that was interlaced to begin with. In fact, the second article you linked to clearly explains this.
Posted by Zen Violence Films on 07/19 at 04:26 PM
An NLE will not treat 30PsF as progressive until you hint it that your clips are progressive, which means that it is not true progressive. This is mere semantics, but 30PsF has to be deinterlaced by weaving two fields together. Yes, this is one of deinterlacing methods. If you feed 30PsF directly to a TV, it might recognize progressive payload, or might simply show fields one by one, dropping resolution in half. The point is, you have no guarantee of how the end result will look like.
You got it, I want more options. Limiting the camera to 30PsF is either a stupidity, or Sony will have another camera to offer, with tons of manual controls and frame rates, for twice the price, as it usually does. I hate this divide et impera marketing.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/19 at 05:28 PM
We uploaded a new video from the nex-vg10 on vimeo!
http://www.vimeo.com/13483485
Greez from Switzerland
Posted by Videoacademy on 07/20 at 12:04 PM
Zen, Burn, I sincerely believe, like Mr. Jeppsen himself, that there will be a prosumer model of this camcorder before the year is out.
http://ieba.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/sonynexvg10/
OTOH, Canon really has a unique opportunity to best the competition with a true 35mm sized sensor by re-engineering the 5D into a video camera. Neither Sony nor Panny have proffered anything beyond APS-C, and, while sized similar to a 35mm movie frame, you don’t get the same funky DoF fun as you do with a full 35mm still sensor, and some really low f-stops.
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Posted by babayhakim on 07/22 at 01:50 AM
I could understand if Sony went from 60i directly to 60p. But no 60p, no 30p and no 24p-no any sort of forward
Posted by speciallens on 07/23 at 03:11 AM
Updated article to add a note about uncompressed HDMI output.
-MJ
Posted by Matt Jeppsen on 07/14 at 08:49 AM
—-I didn’t find any mention in your article about HDMI (maybe I need better glasses?) but I’d love to know if this HDMI spigot is uncompressed, if it’s true 1080 and I’d love to know if it would pair nicely with either a CINEDECK or NANOFLASH.
That might make this camera a bigger dog with a better bite!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/30 at 06:57 PM
Here’s the relevant section: “Another quick note: I also have it on good authority from a Sony contact that the mini-HDMI port output is pre-compression, so you also have the option of uncompressed recording when tethered to a card or capture device.”
Obviously that is unofficial info from an unofficial source, from a pre-production camera. So things may change, but based on what I heard from the guy I have hopes they got HDMI output right.
-MJ
Posted by Matt Jeppsen on 07/30 at 07:09 PM
I sure hope that they don’t.
If all remains as you say I will most likely try to be the first to tether it to a Cinedeck.
I think this could be a huge step.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/30 at 08:17 PM
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