Sony announces the newest additon to their robust PXW line. 

Sometimes you want an all-in-one news style ENG camera and Sony makes some of the best in the world. Now Sony just announced the newest addition to their PXW line: The PXW-400. The PXW-400 ticks a few boxes for news shooters to be happy: improved weight balance, wireless capability and pool feed functions. 

“This new camcorder combines all the capabilities pro shooters need – connectivity, ergonomics and high performance – into a true production workhorse,” said Alex Rossi, marketing manager, content creation systems, Sony Electronics. 

News shooting in the heat of a big story relies on back up plans and systems at times. When the wireless LAN connection is unstable or unavailable, like situations with large crowds, the new camcorder’s Ethernet Interface enables direct connection to a network for file transfer, live streaming and control from a web browser. Does this mean cables to-and-from Live trucks or Sat trucks are a thing of the past?  Not really, the “near-field” communications capability gives users a one-touch link between camera and a mobile device. The content browser mobile application means users can preview or remotely control camera settings. The pool field function allows the camera to record an external signal to the internal SxS cards. 

The PXW-400’s “ONLINE button” does just that by letting users auto-uploading of proxy files to cloud service and FTP servers. To me, that sees like a pretty cool function if it works properly.

 The camera comes in three versions to be released February 2016.

PXW-X400                           $16,500

PXW-X400KF                      $20,600

PXW-X400KC                      $21,100