OT: Another PMW-EX1 hands-on review

farss wrote on 9/15/2007, 10:03 PM

I was convinced at NAB.

Bob.

EX1 #357

apit34356 wrote on 9/15/2007, 10:32 PM

The camera looks better each time! Now, Sony's a little price drop and it will rule, at least my wallet!

FrigidNDEditing wrote on 9/15/2007, 11:20 PM

on another forum there is report of this camera being priced at or below the 7K price tag with 2 8GB cards (though that seems awfully low from what we first heard back at NAB, that being below 8K). Not that I would be disappointed :), but here's the link to the article they are referring to.

B&H had it up for 7499 but pulled that price and changed it to a TBA available in November, so I'm really quite excited to see this kind of thing. If I can see this puppy come out at around 7K with some enhanced cards, I'd be as giddy as a school girl, but we'll have to see how things flow (may see if I can watch the cost drop a bit on the cards in a few months and pull the whole deal up for less still wouldn't that be amazing :) ).

EXciting EXciting :)

Dave

SimonW wrote on 9/16/2007, 2:04 AM

My take.
http://www.simonwyndham.co.uk/xdcam-pmw-ex1.html

megabit wrote on 9/16/2007, 3:38 AM

Guys (Simon, Alister, Nigel);
Can you post somewhere a couple-of-seconds, 1920x1080 35Mbps clip (best if mxf already) from the EX1, so that we could try it with Vegas Pro 8? Thanks!

Grazie wrote on 9/16/2007, 3:57 AM

Played with it at IBC.

Get the price right, Sony, and the Canon A1 is going to hit the boards . . . with a shudder!!!

Grazie

richard-courtney wrote on 9/16/2007, 5:49 AM

It gets my vote.

The initial price is what is going to persuade the company's bean
counters.

At least it is not an on the shoulder.

mark2929 wrote on 9/16/2007, 6:14 AM

http://www.creativevideo.co.uk/public/view_item_cat.php?catalogue_number=sony_pmw-ex1

List price: £4,510.00 + VAT
£3,995.00 + VAT
£4,694.13 inc. VAT

farss wrote on 9/16/2007, 6:52 AM

That's pretty close to the price down here doing a straight currency conversion allowing for your price inc VAT and ours inc GST but at the moment all prices seem kind of rubbery plus the various Sonys are still working out the deals like 2x 8G cards inc.

Bob.

BrianStanding wrote on 9/16/2007, 7:02 AM

Whatever the price is, don't forget to add another $1200 (US) or so for a decent, high capacity, archival backup system -- lest all your beautiful 1920x1080 footage vanish into electronic dust.

I was disappointed to see that preliminary pricing of the new SxS cards from SanDisk are around $900 (US) for the 16gb cards. See:
http://www.sandisk.com/Corporate/PressRoom/PressReleases/PressRelease.aspx?ID=3983

I like the specs of this camera a lot, but I fear, that with all the added extras and workflow changes, it may price itself out of my range. Hopefully, street prices for cards, batteries, etc. will drop after it is introduced.

I'd also like to hear some more comments about the ergonomics as a handheld camera, as it appears to be quite heavy. I was glad to see that Sony re-engineered the battery placement from the original prototypes. On the early photos, it looked like the battery would hit you right in the teeth if you tried to look through the viewfinder.

megabit wrote on 9/16/2007, 7:37 AM

"On the early photos, it looked like the battery would hit you right in the teeth if you tried to look through the viewfinder. "

I'm afraid that the bigger battery is still protruding quite a bit.

Cheesehole wrote on 9/16/2007, 11:19 AM

>I was disappointed to see that preliminary pricing of the new SxS cards from SanDisk are around $900 (US) for the 16gb cards. See:
www.sandisk.com/Corporate/PressRoom/PressReleases/PressRelease.aspx?ID=3983

You can fit 70 minutes at full quality on 16GB so you only need a couple 8GB cards to start out. You can offload them onto a laptop as you shoot if you need more time than that. Being able to delete bad takes on the fly can save a lot of space when you are out on a shoot.

Yes it is expensive compared to other cameras but cheaper than I would have thought possible. Nothing else compares under $10K.

Serena wrote on 9/17/2007, 4:12 AM

I note that VideoGuys have a A$12,000 price on the camera; not encouraging.

farss wrote on 9/17/2007, 7:36 AM

It was a lot more last week from memory.
Get youself signed up for the roadshow, Sony are giving them away.
Should mention also that Sony Oz do not have a price as yet also, so that could be an ambit claim by Videoguys.

Bob.

FuTz wrote on 9/17/2007, 8:26 AM

...a little OT into this already OT :
is there a way, as of now, to download these memory cards right into the notebook and on an external hard drive at the same time, ie in one operation ?

Cheesehole wrote on 9/17/2007, 11:08 PM

Has anyone posted footage? I would love to try out a clip in Vegas 8!

farss wrote on 9/17/2007, 11:43 PM

I have a suspicion that the reviewers might have been asked not to. These are preproduction cameras being reviewed.
Also the HQ mode files would be kind of large and compressing them would kind of defeat the purpose of the exercise.
Not that I'm not hanging out to see something too.

Bob.

Serena wrote on 9/18/2007, 10:15 PM

US$7K is more encouraging http://www.sportsvideo.org/portal/artman/publish/article_7288.shtmldefinitely better[/link]

Jay Gladwell wrote on 9/19/2007, 4:43 AM

"The PMW-EX1 camcorder is expected to be available in November at a suggested price of less than $8,000." (Sony News Room)

Read more here: http://news.sel.sony.com/en/press_room/b2b/broadcast_production/content_create_edit/release/31586.html

Serena wrote on 9/19/2007, 5:40 AM

Actually $7K is less than $8K!
I daresay that initial prices won't be low because there are a lot of people hankering after a camera of the stated specs. Being patient for 12 months will be sensible.

FrigidNDEditing wrote on 9/19/2007, 6:27 AM

Unless I win one or get one free (that would make my year), I'll probably be waiting till at least middle of next year to buy (want to see the cards come down and maybe even a small price drop on the cam (I'll have to see).

Dave

farss wrote on 9/19/2007, 6:36 AM

You really also need to factor in the cost of at least one, preferably two batteries and a charger. Something tells me these new batteries will not be overly cheap either.

One thing missing on this camera is a 4 pin XLR power connector, maybe they just ran out of space.

megabit wrote on 9/19/2007, 6:45 AM

OK, so in Europe (www.creativevideo.co.uk) the prices are as follows:

- the big BP-U60 battery GBP 159.00
- the SBP16 16GB SxS card GBP 470.00

The charger is included in the EX1 price (GBP 3.995); and a 4 pin XLR power connector - I'm afraid there isn't any (unless I didn't get you right, Bob). All prices without VAT - just ordered mine!

farss wrote on 9/19/2007, 7:16 AM

That's what I meant, no XLR power connector!
In general the XLR connectors let you run the camera off unregulated DC, anything from around 10.5 to 15Volts. The external DC connector that is on the camera will require a regulated DC supply, so no running off cheap SLA batteries like we do with several Sony cameras.

We've mostly found the chargers that Sony include with the cameras and charging the batteries on the camera to not perform as well as the more expensive chargers that Sony make. Worse still I find some of the chargers confusing, it's harder to tell if the battery is really charged. The expensive ones with the LCD displays seem the best but perhaps this will be different but I wouldn't be surprised to see Sony come out with a better charger.

The price for extra batteries does seem reasonable, given that there's more cells and more watt hours in these batteries.

Bob.