Sony Announces EX PMW-500 2/3″ 4:2:2

[Craig Seeman]

[Rafael Amador] “For me the question of laying the camera on the shoulder is not just a matter of balancing well the camera, but of allowing to have the hands free to control the lens.”

There’s probably a shoulder mounted HDSL in your future. Let’s see which camera maker does that first.

[Ian Cook]

Hi Ron,

XDCAM Browser will support EX, XDCAM Optical and the ‘MXF on SxS’ feature on the new PMW500.

Will post additional details soon..

Cheers,

Ian

Ian Cook
Sony Broadcast and Professional Company

[Neil Rubenstein]

I’m looking at purchasing two of these cameras to standardize on the SxS format and also use the ki-pro’s. The issue with using Ki-pro’s on sony cameras is what comes out of the HD/SDI port is NOT what the camera frame rate is set to. I’ve had this problem with shooting 24fps on two of our 355’s XDCAM HD cameras. It doesn’t matter what the camera frame rate is set to the HD/SDI port won’t output 24. Sony obviously doesn’t want users to bypass the use of their optical disc or solid state recording media.

I’m getting a demo in the next month and will report back. Someone had commented about the large footprint of the these cameras. I’ve been shooting video for 30 years. In my opinion the smaller camera’s, even with outboard support are terrible for handheld. We have zacuto, the doo-hicky thing that you wear that comes over your head with a retractable cord and hooks to the hand grip, and a mono pod device that fits into a strap around your waist. For me and the guys that shoot with me, nothing is better than a full sized camera that is well balanced. Shooting handheld with the EX-3 is trying at best, maddening at worst. On sticks it’s a great, reasonably priced camera. Try putting a TK76 or one of the Ikee HL’s (if you can find one) on your shoulder and let me know what you think. These newer broadcast size camera are a breeze.

[Craig Seeman]

[Neil Rubenstein] “he issue with using Ki-pro’s on sony cameras is what comes out of the HD/SDI port is NOT what the camera frame rate is set to.”

I’m under the impression that that has been changed in recent firmware so your experience may be with EX cameras and older firmware. Maybe Ian can clear this up.

[Michael Palmer]

You won’t have issues with this camera outputting 24p via SDI. My EX3 outputs 24p via SDI.
You should look into the Nano Flash as the KiPro is ridiculously large. IMO Unless you are making a film you won’t ever know the difference between 8 and 10 bit color for the small screen.

Good Luck
Michael Palmer

[John Sharaf]

I beg to differ regarding the value of 10 bit mastering! I believe that while you are correct that on a small screen (most legacy displays are 8 bit) you will not be able to tell the difference, you will be able to tell the difference if you do any color correction of your project. 8-bit has only 256 shades of each color, 10-bit has 1024. Four times the color makes color correction much more subtle and transparent. When you color correct 8 bit it turns into “cartoon” color very quickly. Having this additional control allows you some room for error in your original photography both in color and exposure. I’ve sold my Nanoflashes (although I really loved them and found them bullet proof) and am replacing them with KiPro Minis.

Another important and future looking advantage to the 10 bit recoding is that if you use any of the log curves or even severe HyperGammas (on Sony) or Cine Gammas (on Panasonic) that require color correction, you will end up with a much larger and usable dynamic range which is really the “Holy Grail” in trying to imitate the look of film.

JMHO,

JS

[Ian Cook]

As far as EX cameras it was only the EX-1 with early firmware that pulled down the ‘live’ 23.98p output. EX-1s with 1.11 or higher as well as the EX-3 have a ’24p system’ menu item which allows you to select PSF or pulldown for the HD-SDI out while in camera mode. The PMW-350 and PMW-500 have this same option in the ‘input/output’ menu.

The F350/F355 XDCAM Optical cameras do pull down the 24p output. The deck models from this line up F70/F75) are switchable.

Ian

[Michael Palmer]

The Nano Flash can also remove the pulldown issue on the 355 to get you the 24fps digital files you want and allow you to wrap these files for immediate use in many EDL’s, (MXF or .mov)

Not sure if the AJA products have these features.

Good Luck
Michael Palmer