PDW-700 Owners – Please Read

[John Sharaf]

I’m sorry, After Effects. I’ve heard of people doing slomo conversions with this software.

JS

[Tim Gibbons]

Discovery’s decision to put XDCam HD into their “Silver” standard is based on the 1/2″ imager models such as the PDW-350. I would expect that once the PDW-700 is vetted by Discovery’s techs it will be placed in their “Gold” Tier. . . . unless you know something I don’t 😉

Tim

[Michael Palmer]

I would hope that the imager size of 1/2″ isn’t the reason, I hope they are rating it based on the resolution of the sensor, the recorded bit rate and color space. I wouldn’t see why a Sony EX series camera HD-SDI (10 bit) signal recorded with a Convergent Design HD-SDI Compact Flash recorder at even 50Mbps bit rate with 4:2:2 color space would not hit the Gold status.

Michael Palmer

[Steve Phillipps]

Ryan, The 700 does slomo just fine from 720/60P material. Transcode it to ProRes HQ then put it through Cinema Tools to conform it to 24/25P. There is no reason why it should be jittery, as you have 60 full frames, you’re not making anything up or interpolating missing frames.
As for Nat Geo not accepting Varicam, I’m sure it’d be on a case by case basis, and it’s not a case of “cameramen wanting to shoot Varicam” as the subject requiring it. For natural history 60fps is an absolute bare minimum for a quality look to flying birds etc.
The only other options as it stands are the F23/SRW1 rig (huge and expensive) or now the new SRW9000 (not yet available, not so huge, but probably almost as expensive). The SRW9000 will do 1080/60P 4:4:4 to HDCam SR, that’ll do the trick nicely if you’re a millionaire, otherwise it’s still Varicam for now (eg the new “Planet Earth” series from BBC called “Frozen Planet” is largley Varicam 2700). They also bought a Phantom HD, another expensive and less than straightforward option for 1080/1000P!
Steve

[Jan Crittenden livingston]

[Ryan Doyle] “Shooting for Nat Geo, cameramen are in a somewhat tough position if they want a variable frame rate camera. They can’t use the Panasonic 2700 because it doesn’t meet their strict standards for megapixel resolution of the camera’s sensors. Only the 3700 does, and that doesn’t do variable frame rates.”

Actually there will be a program released shortly on Nat Geo that was shot on the HPX2000(the brother to the 2700), HPX170 and the HVX200. I think that content is still the king at Nat Geo. This program is on the Grizzlies. And the HPX3700 does do VFR below 30P.

Best,

Jan

Jan Crittenden Livingston
Product Manager, HPX500, HVX200, DVX100
Panasonic Broadcast & TV Systems

[Fabrizio Fantini]

Hi tim,
Too ' Io I bought one from January 2009 XDCAM 700 rai because the sky and the UnIted States are using to productions
I am interested to understand what you mean to update the 700 to June…
I fully agree wIth your proposal, Because too ' Io I have this problem in a few months…:

– Create a program for trade-in so that 700 owners can upgrade to a 800 for a discounted rate, When they become available.

I send you my contact information and tell me how can I help:

Fabrizio jockeys
Contact @ ladamasognatrice.It
+39 3336719071
Italy

[Fabrizio Fantini]

Onk, What's Going On???!
I'm wait for good news…
What I can do with my 700 XDCAM???

Fabrizio

[Tim Gibbons]

Hello Fabrizio,

Unfortunately Sony is not planning on doing any kind of trade-in offer. A few retailers have tried to get Sony on board but the initial discussions resulted in tentative “deals” that were so disadvantageous to the customer that no rational PDW-700 owner would be interested. I even had one retailer offer me a $15,000 trade-in credit for my 700 – $16,000 if it had the 24p card. That’s a 45% depreciation in 5 months. Pretty ridiculous eh? Basically, Sony will never give us an offer that would be better than what we could get just by selling our cameras and then buying an 800 on our own.

All I can say to all you 700 owners out there is to keep in mind how Sony has treated us when it comes to your next camera purchase. With P2 card prices coming down the new Varicams are looking pretty attractive. There are plenty of other equally good options out there so considering how competitive the market is, Sony’s treatment of their current customers is pretty short-sighted.

Tim

[John Sharaf]

Tim,

I hate to gloat, but this is what I predicted last April (see other post in this thread) as well as delivery delayed past June. I received my 800 in August, and the v1.5 software upgrade at the end of July (not June either).

While I did hear of some secret offers of taking 2% per month depreciation on 700’s against purchase of new 800’s I don’t think any of these deals were actually consummated, probably because of lease complications.

What Sony did do however, which is better than nothing, and something I was able to take advantage of, was to offer a $2000 “loyalty rebate” for purchase of a 700 and an 800 within a certain timeframe.

All that being said, the 700 with the SD and 24p software is still a great camera and very functional at a better price than the 800. To me the main difference comes down to the duel filter wheel and some folks I’ve spoken with are willing to pay the $4-5k extra for just that feature, and actually more if they don’t need or want the SD capability (which they pay for anyway in the 800).

The best thing about these cameras is the media itself; at $20 for 45 minutes of archival quality it is impossible to beat. I think it will be a long time before P2 cards come that cheaply, and in my mind (granted I’m a prehistoric dinosaur) that’s what it will take for the P2 workflow to work. There is not enough time in the day, or money in the budget to afford to download (twice for archival protection) the cards for reuse.

Obviously the economy is having a greater effect than ever on format choices and workflow demands and has created a very difficult era for freelancers trying to please many diverse clients. That’s why I see the 700/800 cameras as truly an advantage because of their unique be-all and do-all nature, inexpensive archival media and inexpensive reader writer (PDW-U1). I think if we were in a “normal” economy, there would be a stampede to the HD XDCAM. As it is they have already sold close to 5000 units worldwide.

JMHO

JS

[Tim Gibbons]

Hey John,

Congrats on the 800. I agree with you about the XDCam HD format. I think it’s superior to P2 too but at the end of the day what we think as freelancers means very little. Just last week I had to rent a HDX900 for an HGTV show because the client wasn’t even aware of XDCam. In fact all they required was HD 24p. They said they’d take HDCam or DVCPro HD. I offered up XDCam at 24p but they passed saying they weren’t set-up for it. At the end of the day XDCam is still the new kid on the block. My goal is to wait and when and if it takes off, I’ll try and find a used or demo 800. A lot of post houses have spent beaucoup bucks on HDCam and DVCPro HD decks. They’re not likely to dump those formats anytime soon . .. especially considering that the Networks and Cable still require their deliverables sent in those formats. . . .

Tim