EX1/3, no brainer if you're shooting concerts, my EX1 sucks in photons like nothing before it.
Workflow is pretty smooth in V8, just need to rewrap with the clip browser.
Cards hold WAY more than P2 cards and they're around the same price per GB.
Long GOP is irrelevant to multicam. With EX3 you can genlock if you've got the gear and can run the cables or if you have the money do it wirelessly.

With any cam you can make the colours as rich as you want in post. The more important issues are noise, resolution, sensitivity and latitude.

You also do realise with the EX1/3 you get 10bit HD SDI. Add Flash XDR from COnvergent Design to record that to CF cards and you're really flying.

All that said the EX1/3 isn't perfect. There's a couple of annoyances like fiddly switches and you might need to add an IR cut filter on the front of the lens. Still it is the first camera I've bought apart from a D8 I picked up around 8 years ago.

Bob.

I have an HVX200 which I also use for everything. Got it before the EX series was available and I love it. It might not have the sharpness of the sonys, but it does take a fantastic picture, very cinematic.
The workflow for Vegas is not very bad at all. Raylight comes with a pluging that you can edit P2 files directly, but I prefer to re-wrap in Raylight AVIs. Raylight ultra is still upcoming, and that should bring 4 channels of audio and metadata support.
A little of subject, but I have read all the posts by Spot, Barry Green, Marcus at DVFilm and a Panasonic rep, and I don't think Panasonic ever specifically said that Vegas would never support P2. Raylight and the other editors (Avid, Adobe, Apple, Edius, Media 100) all developed their own P2 support.
I think the close relationship and great integration between Vegas and Raylight might also have something to do with it-why would Sony Creative want to mess with a good thing? The price of Raylight and Vegas is still cheaper than most other stand alone solutions.
Just my 2 cents
kairosmatt

A little of subject, but I have read all the posts by Spot, Barry Green, Marcus at DVFilm and a Panasonic rep, and I don't think Panasonic ever specifically said that Vegas would never support P2. Raylight nd the other editors

I don't have time to go digging, but perhaps you missed the exchange between Dave Hill (VP of Technology @ SCS) and Jan Crittendon of Panasonic. Panasonic flatly refuses to provide Sony the same access to the SDK (required to develop support for P2).
The time isn't available right now to search it out, but it's there....
That said, I feel Marcus has done a terrific job with Raylight, and as I mentioned in my first post, I prefer to re-wrap as well.

im sorry, but the 2 cant be compared...
the EX is superior IMO, the only downside being its compression.
CMOS is forgivable 99% of the time..

Sometimes I wonder if Jan works for Panasonic's Sales Prevention Department.

Years ago I was at NAB shopping for a broadcast camera.

I spent some time with Jan to understand the SDX900, but soon found out that "I was not worthy."

I then walked over to Sony, and got treated courteously and professionally. Did some serious digging, helped by the still increased blood pressure from meeting with Jan, and got very good answers from Sony on all post-sales concerns I had, and bought their then top-of-the-line DXC-D50 camera.

I haven't bought any Panny gear since, and would have strong reservations about dealing with the arrogance I have seen repeatedly from certain parts of their U.S. organization.

Panasonic used to have a lot of goodwill with me (since Panny Japan was my customer), but it's amazing how quickly these things can evaporate with just a few people involved.

A small note on the HVX200 960x540 imager vs. the EX1/3 1920x1080 imager. If you need to zoom in on a clip in post to fix a problem or just choose a better framing, which do you think will look infinitely better afterwards?

It is true that the HVX200 picture looks better out of the box.

This is much like Canon Rebel DSLRs being designed to give a pleasing image immediately, for snapshot takers who don't feel inclined to work on each image, they just want to press Print.

Already Canon's next step up, the D10/20/30/40, is designed for more advanced shooters, rendering a lower contrast image that doesn't look as hot immediately, but has much more latitude to get you any look you want in post work.

Just my 20 millibucks.

(Prolost had a very good article not long ago about setting up a camera not to look good right away but to give maximum latitude for post work.)

Sometimes I wonder if Jan works for Panasonic's Sales Prevention Department.
:-)

Nice summary about Jan, Coursedesign.