Tim Gibbons
Forum Replies Created
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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
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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
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Wow Curt,
You put infomercial hosts to shame with that zeal of yours. I’m sad to hear that at the end of the day you think Sony has no interest in supporting the concerns of it’s loyal customers – that my concerns are misguided and belie an uncreative, pessimistic mind. It’s interesting that you think it’s a cameramen’s job to convince clients what cameras they need, not to provide them with the cameras they want. If it’s okay with you, I’m going to still beat my drum and see if I can get Sony to do the right thing with those of us that bought the 700 thinking they had purchased a soon-to-be popular production camera not just an ENG rig.
Finally, Curt I want to thank you for explaining that it’s actually raining. I wasn’t quite sure what that was running down my neck. . . . .
Tim
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Curt,
If you do any freelance work with the networks at all then you know that which camera models are accepted and which are not, are determined by a nebulous “powers-that-be”. The production coordinators and production managers are given their marching orders and told to find a crew with a certain camera model. This is the main reason why people bought the F900 over the 750 despite the added cost. Production companies want the F900 even if they shoot plain old 60i footage. There’s no rational reason for it, it’s just what is demanded and no 28 year-old production coordinator is going to ask their superiors if it’s okay to use another model camera because a crew out of Salt Lake City swears it’s almost the same camera. Your idea of “marketing yourself” to say; “oh, you know, my 700 does almost everything an 800 does”, may work for corporate clients but it’s not going to fly at the Network level.
Back in the BetaSP days, production companies would demand a BVW-D600 over an HL-V55. They recorded onto the exact same format at the exact same resolution and yet some people got it into their heads that one was better than another. It was my sensitivity to this potential, irrational preference that influenced me to buy the 600 over a V55.
As for your assertion that Sony has positioned the 700 as the “news camera” and the 800 as the “production camera”, this really does make me wonder who you work for because it is straight out of the Sony brochure . . . well at least the brochure that came out in MID-APRIL, just before NAB. Previous to that date no one was talking about the 700 as a lower-end 800 because the 800 never existed. In fact Sony promoted a 24P upgrade rebate to anyone who purchased a 700 before 02/2009. Before April, Sony was marketing the 700 towards people who were interested in 24p (i.e. – production people not news people). Now they are actively marketing against the 700 as a production camera and branding it a lowly “news camera”. Do you think that Nat Geo and Discovery are interested in hiring a news crew to shoot their shows???? Do you think that anyone who shoots for the higher-end networks would be interested in a “news camera”?
The plain fact is that Sony actively marketed the PDW-700 as the latest and greatest flavor of “production camera” they had to offer. They reassured potential buyers that the 700 would be upgradeable to 24p along with all the other features that a freelance cameraman could wish for. Then at NAB, they all but dumped the model in favor of the 800. Today they are actively marketing against the 700, painting it out to be a low-rent version of the 800 and thanks to this marketing, unless you shoot exclusively for the news networks, in 6 months, the 700 will be useless in the freelance market.
You can argue against that assessment all you like. but you and I know exactly how this really went down and if you spent $27,500 on a camera body that Sony now markets as a cheap, stripped down, “news camera”, I guarantee you you’d be singing a different song.
In the end Curt I’m not looking to get anything for free here. I’m not trying to paint Sony out to be a big bad money grubbing monster. I am hoping that someone at Sony will do the right thing and allow previous 700 owners a reasonable path to upgrade their cameras to 800 capabilities and designation and/or offer a trade-in program for a new 800.
Tim
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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
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Thanks Don.
Tim
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Arnie, both PCs are using QuickTime 7.6
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Thanks Jeremey,
I’ll try that. Arnie, Both PCs are using QuickTime 7.6
Tim
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I’m glad to hear you’re looking to purchase them. It was your recommendation that led me to the purchase in the first place. It’s interesting that the 2:1 resolution doesn’t bother you as much as it bothers me. When I received the TVLogic, I was so disappointed with the resolution of SD material I bought a used Sony PVM-20M4U 20″ CRT. Now I use both . . . . and as you mentioned, the color rendition of the TVLogic is every bit as good as the Sony CRT.
Tim
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Hey Walter,
I just bought your Color tutorial! I’m sure 2:1 is just fine for grading SD footage but the resolution isn’t up to snuff compared to a CRT. I have to admit that after slapping down a sizable chunk of change to buy the thing I was a bit dismayed by it’s “resolution” performance with SD. Still, from what I can tell all LCD HD Monitors have this issue because they’re designed for 1920×1080 HD work and so 720×486 pixels is just inherently small. . . . Come to think of it though my 32″ Samsung HDTV does a great job with DVDs . . . Hmmm . .
Any choice toys out there Walter or are you keeping them for one of your articles?
Tim