[Craig Seeman]

[ken hon] “If you hit the the menu select roller without hitting menu, it lets you toggle the OIS on and off right on the LCD screen (along with a couple of other things you can adjust). Anyway, you can get to the OIS really fast that way.
“

I know. I’ve done that. I find it awkward. I want to hit a button and toggle on/off as needed. When doing run and gun and need to chase something, dealing with either the scroll in the menu or joystick on the LCD screen to move it over the right function etc. takes too long.

As to white balance, one can set up a 5600

[Craig Seeman]

[Emre Tufekci] “XDCAM EX: Should provide similar workflows as the P2 “

I’m surprised no one mentioned the EX1 SxS field workflow options.

EX1 with SxS is a different beast than P2 (and the codecs on them). Bring a laptop with Express slot to the shoot.

SxS offload can be 10x real time. Copy 50 minutes of video from a 16GB card in 5 minutes give or take.

Burn burn clips on to DVD-DL along with Sony’s free Clip Browser and any client with a reasonable computer can playback the master clips. No deck or special playback device needed. BTW I’ve found that VLC, a free player that works on Mac Windows and many forms of Unix
https://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Can playback the files too. This is leagues ahead of dealing with tape/deck/variant compatibility issue.

Change the .mp4 extension of the file to .ts and burn right on to a Blu-ray disc and the client can playback those clips on their Blu-ray player or PS3 to their HDTV. $300-$400 Blu-ray player to HDTV rather than an expensive deck or NLE with the correct codec. You’ll need to bring an external Blu-ray burner to the shoot though.

On location 10x ingest than burn to optical disc. With an assistant the client can walk away with the disc after that last disc is burned. Even without an assistant, depending on the logistics, you can ingest and start the burn and get right back to shooting.

Oh and buy the way the client walks with the disc and you have another copy on your hard drive . . . or burn another set of discs as protections.

[Craig Seeman]

Make absolutely sure you don’t have any ground issues or hum showing up in strange places.

Set up a Mac in your home. You won’t regret it. Or maybe get a MacBookPro you can take home (and out on shoots with the camera).

What are you doing specifically in designing an IT workflow given that’s the workflow for the EX1.

Are you handling access to the files through a server of some sort for example?

How are you handling data archival?

[Craig Seeman]

[Philip Johnston] “1. The power switch is a joke, many times I have switched from camera to recorder missing out the middle off position, it’s a very un-positive switch.”
Me too on this one. I’d rather that though than one of those switches where you accidently power down while shooting!

[Philip Johnston] “you need to use AF if you are going to use macro”
Actually there’s AF/MF and Full Manual Focus. AF/MF is servo controlled. Actually you can use the macro under servo control. You do not need to have the AF switch engaged.

[Philip Johnston] “The auto focus is back to the bad old days of zooming in on a well lit subject only for it to loose focus, “
You use auto focus? Generally I’m on servo manual and use push auto. Sometimes it works better than others and I’ve been playing around to see what confuses it.

[Philip Johnston] “3. I like most users suffer the mid lens vignetting to the top right side of the camera fortunately it is only seen with underscan so as yet does not present a problem but I have read some where that Sony can fix this, can anyone confirm this. I first saw this at the IOV show last year and was told by Sony that it was a bug with the image stabilizer and would not occur in the production models. “
Yes, it’s a bug and Sony will fix it free of charge. Contact them and they should send you a free shipping label.

<[Philip Johnston] “you can on occasions hit one of the stupidly placed touch sensitive switches that lie right under the handle”
Kind of like playing a musical instrument you learn where to place and move your fingers. I was able to stop doing that after a few hours of playing/retraining my brain.

[Philip Johnston] “a permanently connected power lead…!!!”
This is the “freebe” throw in. I don’t doubt they’ll be a better more expensive version that will part you from your spare change. I suspect this is a Sony trademark.

[Philip Johnston] “I had a dilemma when 1st using the camera as to what HD mode to shoot in”
I will never shoot interlace again unless a project forces me to. It’s nice to have so many choices isn’t it.

My own beefs and tofu.
I want to have both a 3200

[Craig Seeman]

[Mick Haensler] “‘m assuming by Sony transfer utility you mean the clip browsing software that came with the camera”

Nope. There’s an XDCAM Transfer Utility that one downloads from the Sony site for Final Cut Pro. It works with the EX1 as well as XDCAM disc cameras.

The Clip Browser also works on (Intel) Macs but that’s not an FCP ingest plugin. If you’re using the Clip Browser on Windows I understand there’s already been an update to that version.

I haven’t played with the Clip Browser enough yet but my understanding is that one might use that on a MacBookPro (Mac version of Clip Browser of course) to copy files from SxS to something to get it off the card whereas the XDCAM Transfer Utility is specifically to rewrap both .mp4 and .mxf (from XDCAM discs) to .mov. It can be used as a stand alone app or as a plugin in FCP.

My understanding is that about the only NLE easier to use with these clips than FCP is Sony Vegas (of course given it’s a Sony NLE).

[Craig Seeman]

[Don Greening] “I was a little disappointed that there was no Craig playing on the carousel while someone else pushed the record button. “

That remote that comes with camera is designed for ENG style use. Reporter controls while standing in front of the camera.

So now I have to test that out too. So I should aim the remote and hit record from a moving carousel. Sounds like an amusement park game for video professionals.

[Craig Seeman]

[James Carroccio] ” i have experience with corporate video work, so ill prob be doing that once i graduate.”

Given the increasing number of corporate presentation rooms with HDTV, the EX1 should really impress them.

[James Carroccio] “i would love 2 pursue commercial work. (advertisement, music video’s…) “

Lots of local cable spots are still standard def as many station still ask for SD spot delivery. You can certainly down rez for that. You’ll have an edge though if your client wants to advertise on an HD capable channel. Or, like me, have had clients that wanted the spots to run in local movie theaters.

This camera is GREAT for Music Videos. Make sure you’re not taken advantage of financially though. Far too many bands don’t have the budget.

[James Carroccio] “an one burn hd footage on a regular dvd (i know it would prob be compressed)? “

Depends on what you mean by that.

If you just want to do a standard def DVD-Video you’d compress like any other source . . . but this should look better.

If you want the client to screen Master quality video you can burn on to DVD-DL (or DVD-R) and include the free Sony Clip Browser software. No more worries about HDV deck ownership or compatibility for the client. No compression needed here but they’ll need a fast computer to playback the files.

If the client has a Blu-ray Player or PS3, you can change the .mp4 to .ts and burn it to disc. No compression needed here. The player at $300-$400 currently is FAR LESS EXPENSIVE than an HDV deck. You’d need a Blu-ray burner (around $600).

[James Carroccio] “i just need to know before i buy this camera that the workflow will be fluid and that the pmw will work with my imac 2.33 ghz intel core 2 duo processor.
“

It’ll probably work faster than my G5. That’s for sure. You’ll want an external firewire drive to playback the files from when editing.

[Craig Seeman]

[Mick Haensler] “I
don’t really understand the difference between viewing from the FCP timeline and “QT as a standalone app”. Could you elaborate??”

When using the Sony XDCAM transfer utility it rewraps the .mp4 files with .mov. There’s NO encoding at all going on. It’s simply rewraps the file at full resolution (no loss at all).

FCP is capable of playing the files in browser, viewer (timeline) and in Cinema mode at full frame rates. I’m sure it’s doing some internal scaling to make sure that happens.

If I take the same .mov that the Sony XDCAM transfer tool makes and play that in Quicktime 7.3.1 at full frame size and frame rate, it drops frames at a constant rate.

Mind you this is on my nearly 3 year old Dual 2.3 GHz G5. This would NOT be the case on a current Intel Mac Quad.

[Craig Seeman]

EX1 shots XDCAM HD 35mbps VBR. It also can shoot HDV compatible 25mbps CBR with PCM audio (HDV cameras are using mpeg comrpessed audio).

XDCAM is a MUCH BETTER codec. Shots that would break the HDV codec look great in XDCAM. I can see VERY FEW situations where I’d shoot HDV over XDCAM. Maybe shooting a long seminar (only talking heads) where the extra record time on the cards might help and there’s no risk of breaking the codec.

[Craig Seeman]

[Mick Haensler] “So if I understand you, your not getting full playback on your system?? “

Editing is smooth as silk. Playback in Final Cut Pro is good. FCP is obviously scaling for optimal playback (as it should). Even using full screen Cinema Display from FCP handles full frame rate.

Quicktime, independent of FCP, can’t handle playback though. Thus I’d need to play from within FCP for me (and clients) to see the video at full frame rate.

Of course I plan on getting a MacPro as well as MacBookPro but Macworld may bring some announcements.

As an interesting test I might check on my Intel Mac Mini. I have a hunch the Intels will handle this much better than my aging Dual 2.3GHz G5.