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This is part two of Mike Jones review of Sony's XDCAM EX 1 review. You can read part one here .
As you would expect, the EX1 attempts to match its visual features with its audio ones. A top/front mounted audio unit provides two balanced XLR inputs with phantom power and a bracket above is ready for mounting a shotgun mic.
Another element that separates XDCAM from HDV is the audio recording specs. Whereas HDV uses compressed MPEG layer 2 audio, the EX1 lays down 2 channels of audio in 48k 16bit uncompressed PCM.
One of the subtle but enormously functional benefits of solid-state recording over tape-based systems is the speed of recording response. When you push the REC button you are immediately laying video data. Tape systems often suffer from a lag to both start and stop as the tape is shifted on the heads. With solid-state the response is virtually immediate.
The major draw card that Panasonic tapped into with its HVX P2 camera was the capability to record in a multitude of formats and, particularly, frame rates. The EX1 follows suit and greatly extends it, offering the most format flexible camera on the market. Moreover, rather than the usual practice by most manufacturers of building and releasing separate PAL and NTSC-based camera models offering different region specific options, the EX1 is universal, offering all possible shooting modes in a single model. The EX1 is HD only, with no standard definition support, but does offer all possible flavors of HD; 720 in 24p, 30p, 60i and 60p - 1080 in 24p, 25p, 50i and 50p.
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| Dark sky detail. Click for full view. |
Taking this further, the EX1 offers over and under cranking for slow-mo and speed-up shooting. The rate depends on the shooting format with maximum over/under cranking available in 720 shooting modes, owing to its lower bandwidth requirements than 1080: Up to 60fps can be shot in 1280x720p mode. This array of options certainly makes the EX1 arguably the most flexible and adaptable camera on the market.
Beyond utilizing a high-quality, high-efficiency acquisition codec, the XDCAM format also offers significant benefits for workflow and media management. XDCAM uses the open standard Material Xchange Format (MXF) which encompasses not just the video stream itself (known as an 'Essence') but also metadata in the form of 'Essence Markers.' These markers are embedded into the video stream and if you're using an NLE with full support for MXF and XDCAM essence markers, such as Sony's own Vegas Pro, the essence markers will appear as named flag markers in the clip as it is laid up on the NLE timeline.
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| Depth of field. Click for full view. |
While the EX1 Essence Markers can obviously be set with the XDCAM browser software during transfer, they can also be set in the camera itself. The EX1 employs a very functional clip browsing system that works from the fold-out LCD screen. The LCD on the EX1 itself is without question one of the sharpest and brightest screens ever seen on a digital camera and this makes the non-linear access to the clips all the better.
A small joystick knob on the EX1's control panel allows for very easy navigation of clips on the SxS memory card and from here also essence markers can be added to clips. Clips can be marked OK, IN and OUT points specified and even the displayed thumbnail changed to better reflect the clip's content. These simple markers can go a long way toward streamlining an edit session and making the process of media asset management in post-production much more efficient.
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| Detail. Click for full view |
Sony has a long history of small-form pro camcorder design; from the seminal DCR VX1000, through PD150 and 170 and on into the very popular Z1 and V1 HDV models. While inside the EX1 is absolutely out of the high-end Cine alta line, outside, its body design is in touch with the HDV market. But it?s also here that we start to see some ergonomic and design issues. While the LCD is superb and its forward placement superbly functional, the camera as a whole feels very unbalanced and awkwardly weighted. In its defense much of the nose-heavy nature of the EX1 is due to the significantly more bulky Fujinon HD lens and for most it is a small trade-off for the outstanding quality of the lens.
The EX1 really can't be considered a one-hand operable camera. The weight of the lens and the rather protruding hand grip shifts the weight too far to the left. However, for two-handed operation the EX1 has some features that do make it very comfortable and, in particular, very stable. Most notable is the hand grip that can be rotated forward 100 degrees, which positions the thumb-record button on top rather than the usual behind position. This position for your right hand is remarkably comfortable for shooting at chest height and combined with a very snub flat back of the camera and reasonable 3kg weight to the camera makes it a very, very stable camera for hand-held shooting.
In a strange move however, the connections for USB and AV are positioned directly under the rotating handgrip and are near impossible to reach, let alone plug anything into without rotating the grip out of the way. Even then the access to the sockets is very, very awkward. Even just a cursory glance over the camera reveals half a dozen locations on the chassis that would be more suitable for the location of these connection points and it really stands out as a very poor choice.
The On/Off switch for the EX1 also shows some strangely ill-conceived thought. The switch has three positions; Left for ON, Right for Media (reviewing clips) and Center for OFF. The problem with the switch is that the knob itself is so small and recessed as well as so stiff with a very short space between positions that it?s extremely fiddly and many times it took me several attempts to get the switch to Stop in the center rather than flick straight through to the other side. Moreover it?s actually rather difficult to tell at a glance what position the switch is in?
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| Focus in motion. Click for full view. |
This criticism might seem a touch petty in the grand scheme of things but it actually points toward one of more significant issues with the EX1 which is simply that some of its core functionality is not designed with the working, in-the-field, operator in mind. All the buttons are rather too small and too fiddly; their placement on the camera chassis is logical and functional enough but the buttons seem all together smaller than they should or indeed need to be. Despite being a small-form camera there is actually plenty of real-estate on the EX1 but Sony really hasn?t taken advantage of it or considered carefully enough the needs of camera operators working fast and on the fly, not wanting to be bogged down by tedious controls much smaller than their finger tips.
All that said, there is no denying the large progressive stride the EX1 represents. Yet while most attention in this regard is pointed at the EX1's solid-state recording, the truth is that it is not its' tapeless status that is the most interesting or revolutionary element of the EX1.
SxS memory card recording is, in effect, just Sony's answer to Panasonic's reasonably well established P2 and naturally, as a more recent technology, has some advantages. By the same token SxS also has the same pitfalls and workflow issues possessed by all recording that doesn't have an easily shelfable master and thus an innate need for a separate archiving process.
There is also the codec wars that fit into this analysis - Panasonic asserts that MPEG long GOP compression used by XDCAM is bad for post-production and Sony claim that IntraFrame compression (AVCIntra and DVCProHD) used for P2 is wasteful and without tangible benefit. Neither format is revolutionary or without issues.
What really stamps the EX1 as a significant shift in production technology is not the codec or recording format but the fact that on the outside it's a handheld, small-form camcorder, while inside is a fully-featured, professional ENG, XDCAM camera. We shouldn't forget that what the EX1 offers (3x1/2" sensors, servo driven lens and iris, native 1920x1080 HD recoding with variable frame rates and shooting all flavors of HD) just last year was simply not available on the market for less than $20,000...!
Solid-state recording will continue to gain popularity just as it continues to draw criticism. Its final position to be decided sometime in the future. But the EX1's position as a camera that presents a new perspective on what a low cost, fully professional featured, camera can deliver and indeed, what a professional ENG camera looks like, is very hard to disparage.
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Mike Jones is a digital media producer, author, educator from Sydney, Australia. He has a diverse background across all areas of media production including film, video, TV, journalism, photography, music and on-line projects. Mike is the author of three books and more than 200 published essays, articles and reviews covering all aspects of cinematic form, technology and culture. Mike is currently Head of Technological Arts at the International Film School Sydney (www.ifss.edu.au), has an online home at www.mikejones.net and can be found profusely blogging for DMN at www.digitalbasin.net
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