Tilts?

Bob, what on earth could cause that?

The specs say the camera has a "1-MegaPixel LCD screen."

Somehow I find that very hard to believe. It would seem to be more likely that it has a 330,000 pixel screen with 1 million subpixels (red, green, and blue), as is common when specing small LCDs.

If so, it is sad that Sony would sink to the depth of the cheapest suppliers of portable DVD players and such.

Hey Bob, samsung have a spiffy new LCD at JB HI FI at 5k which poo'd on everything ive ever seen and i was REALLY surprised it came from them.. Panasonic also have a 1080p plasma which came close as well.. both of these were 5k.. the Sony Bravia we saw hits around the 6 to 7k mark and definately NOT worth the money..

As for the cam, i certainly dont think its worth 2x A1's...(il explain my meaning)
I actually had my $20k for new gear sitting here getting warm in my wallet and decided to get an A1 while I waited for the EX to show its lovely head.
I neede teh A1 to actually get back onto the HD wagon as i flogged off my Z1s as they didnt come close to the colour i need in low light.
I spent more time tweaking the bastard in post than actually shooting from it.

In any case, both the EX and A1 are stupidly tweakable and it would have been a no brainer to match the 2

Sadly, i was less than impressed with teh EX considering cost.
If it was 7grand, i would have walked out with one.. (well u know what i mean....)

Yes its a different medium, its a different camera, its a differnt mentality to the way i already work, and im all good for that, but in a bu$ine$$ mentality, it certainly does not equate to the profit possibilites of 2xA1's

For me, it was s decision on "how much money will make with 2x A1's" vs "how much MORE money would i make with 1x EX"
The answer was none. As teh clients would barely notice the difference. In addition, for my kind of work, my shooting and editign is what sells my work, not the camera i use. Hell, ive got clients booking me to this day on 4:3 stuff shot with a DVX..
It doesnt matter what you use, its HOW you use it..
So those who bought A1's and the like, dont regret the fact that you bought one. Coz i sure as hell dont regret buying an A1 while i bide my time with HD delivery options..

In the end, It didnt add up, so the investment for an EX, for what i predominately do, didnt add up compared to the potential profit possibilites of having 2 or even 3 a1's for roundaboutthe same price as fully loaded EX with 2 or 3 extra cards...

If it was 7k, i woudnt think about it, but its not 7k AUD, its 10k AUD, prolly 9k street if ur lucky.. Maybe in a year or two, it will come under 7k, and i would actually be expecting this....

As it satndas, i love the camera, focus peaking sucks dogs balls, but you can adjust the level of "detail" (or shoudl that be static? LOL , its damn bloody heavy... handheld work WILL strain you... its back heavy, which is more than i an say for the Z1 which is excessively top heavy to a point of not balancing..

Yes its a good cam, and if i was doing more than a dozen corporate jobs a year and at least 10 SDE's of teh 60 odd weddings i do each year, then id definately consider it, but as it stands, its only worth 10k if you have an immediate use for it.
Overcranking was as good as could be expected. Sadly the shooter hadnt considered shutter speeds and iris settings to compensate the differential in exposure when cranking, but the effect could be seen.
720 was confirmed to be encoded in long gop as well.. i honestly havent even thought about the implications of this compared to the JVC250 short gop... in any case its there and thats how it is..
I asked about custom white balance dialing in and they couldnt give me a straight answer
They were also trying to sell people the idea of archiving to XDCam Pro disc system, but they failed to mention that to edit with this system (which is what youd want to do) youd be compromising res as the Prodisc system doesnt support 1920 until April next year..when teh XDCam422 is released... then, you stuck with transfering your footage up to 50mbps 422, from a 35mbps 420 source... which then menas your taking upo more space than you actually need.. then again, they might implement an EX format which leaves the MXF's native.. who knows what theyre gonna do.. But from what they said, it looks like the transcode to 422 50mbps will be needed to use the new Prodisc format... i could be wrong.. and i hope i am.. i hope they DO allow the Prodisc to suport 35mbps 1920 mxf... then we can just edit off the optical disc directly..

i think i upset them when i let that cat out of the bag though.. then again, i dont think half the poeple in the auditorium knew what i was babbling on about....

Now, on the flipside, the fact that its nigh on being a handheld version of an F350 is pretty friggin incredible. Res is kick ass, but honestly, in the real world, clients wont really notice the difference.

Gain at 18+ was super clean running through SDI to an LCD now THAT impressed me but its to be expected. My old DSR570 (RIP... o ok i sold it) at 36+ was stupidly clean.. i dont ever remember having to use lights when i haaad that bugger on my shoulder.. not for weddings anyway..
But with all these "wow" elements, most of those who are harping on about them who seem to overly impressed obviously havent used an ENG 1/2 or even 2/3 cam before.

In any case, with any investment, people should toss up the financial investment to the profits gained from that investment.
Then decide from there..
For me, i can make the same $$ with an A1 as i can with an EX.
I can make MORE $$ with 2 A1's though... and id still be under the EX spend need...

DJ you make a good point. Will two cameras make you more money than a
better single camera???

Shooting multiple angles with PD170s for a commercial costs less than
using a single more expensive Digibeta or XDCAM. Still waiting for requests
for HD commercial shoots.

DJ,
sent you an email, if you didn't get it send me one, address is in my profile. Let's just say I can get you an EX1 (or two) at a pretty good price.

Why would you need to archive to XDCAM discs and edit off that?
You can archive to regular BD disks now and ingest off them or ingest immediately to HDD and back that up to BD or LTO 3 tapes. The blisteringly fast ingest has got to save a lot of time and that's money.
Sure I agree for many it all comes down to ROI and if the clients don't notice then what does it matter. But I'm not so certain they will not, the low light performance and the dynamic range blows anything else at around that price point out of the water and if a shallower DOF is in your creative orbit you've got that as well. However I guess the wedding business is a bit different, no one does a A/B comparison of wedding videos.

Two things that impressed me:

1) Runs on 14.4V batteries. I plan to run mine off the big AB or Sony bricks. Makes running a Zylight a breeze. Zacuto rods and Chrozy matte box. Don't know about FF yet, Sony might have something funky in the offing.

2) The auto assisted manual focus. Get the thing close to focus on what you want and push the button and the AF pulls it right into focus.

As we'll hopefully have a couple of Convergent Design XDR recorders I can record 4:2:2 @ 50Mb/sec or even 100Mb/sec from the HD SDI for studio shoots.

Lastly we'll be able to put together a relatively cheap HD mini OB system.

Getting back to your financial comments, only a few days ago a rather timely training pocket guide from the BBC turned up in our shop. I liked the bit about 'You'll get the same budget to shoot HD as SD'. The implied 'and if you don't shoot HD you don't get to shoot' was rather obvious. And that's the rub. Sure there's not a huge imperative for it even yet, one clients used a Z1 for a cinema ad, some still use our Z1s in 4:3 SD, good grief! But on the other side of the coin Sony are finally starting to advertise their BD players down here.

Bob.

Tilts = vertical pans. Did I use the wrong term there?

I wasn't referring to the camera's LCD, it's simply stunning.
I was referring to some of the footage on the latest Bravias. These things run at 100Hz and do a lot of dynamic processing. Apart from the horrid judder when the camera was panned up I also noticed some staircasing on things like the curved top of the Harbour Bridge. I think this display still has problems with 25PsF, it's trying to de-interlace it.

I should mention horizontal pans looked fine on the Bravia.

Bob.

No, tilt is OK, I was just baffled to hear about the problem. If it is related to some encoding issue, I'd be worried, but that seems very unlikely though.

Pardon my ignorance, but what is 25 PsF?

24 PsF is field mixing between frames to fit 24P into 60i, so what is 25PsF in PAL country? Sending alternate fields from progressive frames in some odd way?

While I've got you one the line, um, screen, can you tell me if there is a "Foyle's War Series 5" available in Australia? We have only had the first 4 seasons here, with no word about the future, other than some overseas rumor I can't find. The reason I'm asking is that I think this is the most competent drama series on TV of all time, and I'd love to get my grubby hands on Series 5 if it exists.

Im yet to have a client purchase HD...theyre all interested and think its a great idea, but they dont want to pay for it....yet

thing is, they HAVE these HD panels which could take advantage of the added visuals.. but then sit back and watch TV on it. They dont have HDDVD or BD players or PS3's But theyve got a 6k panel in their house.. connected to a dvd player through composite...

Theyve got the money for HD upgrades.. hell, they just spent 2grand on a cake which will be exceted the very next day.. and after hearing this webcast about weddings in the US, one particular bride spent 48grand.. (YES.. 48thousand dollars) for flowers alone...
Now thats more than what some people make in a year...
Mney is NOT the issue.. despite what anyone says
Its a concern BEFORE the wedding, but after the wedding is where we need to be.. And ill get to that..

The point im trying to make, is that despite what you might do to push your product and educate your client, if they dont want it, they WONT buy it... not imediately anyway..

If they feel that they can save afew hundred bux by not upgrading, they wont upgrade. its that simple. If it means tehy have to decide on a package upgrade with you vs afew extra hours with the photog, then you WILL lose out...

So what we as producers need to do, is change the way the client considers this. Change the way our clients see and cosnider what we do. Change teh way they APPRECIATE what we do.

Ive taken a leaf out of photographers books. They offer a basic package with a basic album on the outset and we do the same right...
album or DVD same difference.

Now when a client comes in, theyre just so enthralled and emotionally driven that theyre happy to blow thousands more on top of what theyve already paid. Dont believe me? Just ask over 85% of brides whove blown their own budgets simply to add afew pages to their albums..

Now if as an example we shot a wedding in HD, and showed it to them in SD, theyre all happy right. They havent seen anything different.. they cant compare

Now though, like a photographer offering additional pages, we offer a HD version of their edit... AFTER the wedding... AFTER theyve seen the SD version

Can you see where im getting at?

Something which they wouldnt consider prior to the wedding is now being looked at as a longterm investment.

Theyre going to love the edit regardless of how good an editor you are.
The fact is its THEM and thats all they care about
With HD, much like an album, its just an addon ot the existing package.. until it becmes standard, but i dont think that will happen for at least 5 years..

By selling HD in this fashion, as oposed to pushing it upfront WITH the package, your chances of a HD sale increase. The client is already emotionally charged and once they see the work, it will be difficult for them to say no.. especially if youve already done it and show them the difference

If they come into the game with a clear black and white idea as to what they want, anything over that threshold wont even be considered.
Do NOT doubt that.

The reason photogs are so successful in charging what they charge is purely due to timing.
Before the wedding the only thing on a brides mind is the budget. After the wedding, recovery is there, but so is the honeymoon period.
They loathe to spend but theyre still hyped so they WILL spend

I know brides whove paid upwards of 10 to 15k for the additional pages on their albums (from packages starting at 3-4k) and IMO, the work is pretty mediocre.
The fact however remains that there is a market and the fundamental way in which THAT market can be targetted or tapped for HD should be along the same lines as a photographer.

One reason Videographers are looked down upon is for the simple fact that alot of companies undercharge for their services. We spend upwards of 20 to 60 hours on a longform edit, while a photo no more than 20.. whos working smarter here?

HD is one element we can use to change this.

Hd can also add value to the product itself, such as stills as well as the fact that by selling HD upgrades AFTER the wedding, youre tapping into the same mindset in which photographers have been tapping for over 50yrs.

This is why photography is where it is. Not becuase its more of an art, or that a photo is something u can hang on a wall. Its for the pure fact that the photogs target brides for upsales when she is at her most vulnerable.
OK, that might sound unscrupulous, but this all comes down to choice. The bride has a choice. And after the wedding, she has MORE of a choice as you now have this additional content at your disposal.

If at first they thought video was just an addon, as are most cases, once they SEE the work, they wont see it as such anymore.

THAT THERE is the turning point and THAT is when additional elements should be offered as its at THAT moment that the bride will say yes to almost anything.

Its not pressure sales, its not unfair, its not putting a client at any disadvantage. All your doing is taking a leaf out of a photogs book and offering her more, for a price... at a time when she wants it becuase she didnt know any better before the fact.

At teh end of the day, were in business, and if we look at successful business models youll see most of them are based on either pure numbers (ie multiple bookings with basic edits) or carefully managed sales pitches at the right time.

Now i see video companies rolling over 200 to 300k a year. Theyve got 5 shooters and work the edits like Maccas conveyer
Then i see a single solo photographer, working from home, alone with no help and working less hours and making the same money.
Whos model do you think i will analyse?

25PsF = 25 Progressive Segmented Frames.
So yes, the progressive frame is split into two fields. That's how all film is broadcast in PAL. The 25PsF is used to differentiate this from 25p, which is pure frames. Reason for the splitting is so it can be carried the same as 50i.

What's supposed to happen is the material is flagged as progressive and the display device / NLE does a simple field merge. NLEs seem to get it right, at least with HDV from the V1P but most HDTVs think it's interlaced and proceed to de-interlace it using bob. Problem is the component connections don't carry the P flag it seems, they only support 720p. A big mess can set in if the footage has high vertical resolution.

We've got a couple of original V series Bravias and they are the most damn woefull display device I have ever seen. Feed them 720p and they're not too bad. Feed them SD from a PD170 and they look like major crud. Feed them from digibeta, down the same composite connection and they looks OK. SOmething about what comes out of the trusty old PD170 drives the scaler NUTS, there's ringing on every edge, introduced blobs of noise and in general an unwatchable image.

The new X series with their 1080 panels do looks way better although I haven't seen them doing SD yet. But yeah, the wierdness with the tilts really through me for six. Thankfully not to many of them in most footage.

Bob.

I agree 100% in regard to the cameras grunt. The EX is what weve been waiting for for a VERY long time.
DoF is paramount to differentiationg the styls of work I offer.
For some videogs, DoF is a non conisderation, asis pure cinematography.
This idea of a "doco" style shoot is really misleading becuase im sittign here thinking of BBC type docos but in reality, for weddings, its fly on the wall stuff. ALOT if not most of the videogs here in aus work this way.
I guess they had to adapt the edits as Aussies are an impatient bunch..

Good clean footage is all the client wants though.

As for the cinematic work, then its a different ballgame, and this is where the EX will really shine.
Im lucky in a sense where not many can pull this off the same way we do in weddings, and i guess this is how the smaller ccd cameras became so popular as DoF and lens performance really wasnt somethign that was considered for weddings back then.
The fac that we dotn have to zoom all teh bloody way through to get a slight blur is a godsend. the bigger chip offers a crazy shallow DoF and even at ful wide, its still punchy enough to give you a good balance of focal plane

In anycase the EX is an F350 in a shoebox.. everything about the camera kicks ass, BUT the issue is profit margin version investment.

I mentioned about 2 yrs ago that the only way to get the kind of SD lowl ight perforamnce from HD is with increased sensor sizes, and it seems this will be the begining of a new trend

I can also see Panasonic hammering away at their new AVCHD PRO50 codec in the new HVX. I dont doubt that this HD war will go on at the delivery AND acquisition stage.

Farss, ive replied to your email mate
thx for taht

Lowest legitimate price, so far: $6,495USD @

http://www.armatosvideo.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=480

EX1 for $6,495, this camera just keeps getting better and better! Panasonic and Canon must be losing a lot of sleep over the EX1.

DJPAdre wrote:

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I can also see Panasonic hammering away at their new AVCHD PRO50 codec in the new HVX. I dont doubt that this HD war will go on at the delivery AND acquisition stage.
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Are you referring to the AVCHD-I found in the HPX2000/3000, or is there an updated HVX200 tomming out with a new codec?