Sony Affordable SxS-1 cards & Low-Cost Memory Stick Adapter for XDCAM EX Cameras

Sony’s innovative XDCAM EX professional product range is specifically designed to exploit the ultimate high speed performance and reliability of SxS PRO and SxS-1 media. However, SxS media is a professional format and not available from retail outlets, so in situations in the field where additional media is required or for cost-conscious users, where this ultimate performance is less important, Sony have developed the MEAD-MS01 adaptor to enable the use of consumer Memory Stick media.

The MEAD-MS01 adaptor is the same shape as SxS memory cards so as to fit within the media slots on XDCAM EX camcorders, with no protrusions, allowing the media cover to be in place during shooting. The adaptor can accept one high speed Memory Stick which simply slots inside.

PMW350K XDCAM EX Shoulder-mount Camcorder

The XDCAM EX PMW-350 is the first Sony memory shoulder-mount camcorder, equipped with the cutting edge imaging technology of three 2/3 inch-type Exmor™ full HD CMOS sensors. These sensors, each with an effective pixel count of 1920 (H) x 1080 (V), give the camcorder an excellent sensitivity of F12 and a remarkable signal-to-noise ratio of 59 dB. Additionally, the large 2/3 inch–type sensors can capture images with a shallower depth of field, giving users more freedom of creative expression. The PMW-350 is studio-configurable, with timecode in/out, genlock in, HD/SD SDI and HDMI out, and also features a DVCAM recording option.

Designed to be compact and ergonomically well-balanced, the PMW-350, with a main body weight of just over seven pounds, provides a high level of mobility and comfort in a wide variety of shooting situations. In addition, it has a low center of gravity, ensuring outstanding stability on the shoulder; and the PMW-350 is designed to be environmentally friendly thanks to its low power consumption of just 18 watts (while recording with supplied VF, lens, shotgun mic and one (1) SxS card). The PMW-350K model offers customers a Lens Package, equipped with an HD lens with 16x zoom and a standard 2/3-inch bayonet lens mount. The full Sony XDCAM EX line-up provides stunning HD picture quality and efficient nonlinear operation, expanding the creative possibilities in every type of HD video production.

Also available with Matrox MAX technology for lightning fast H.264 HD encoding

Matrox® Video Products Group today announced Windows 7 support for Matrox MXO2 LE, MXO2 and MXO2 Rack.  The Matrox MXO2 family of I/O devices streamlines editing with Adobe CS4 Production Premium. These devices provide all the features of an I/O card in a sturdy breakout box with professional audio and video connectivity. The Matrox MXO2 devices are also available with Matrox MAX technology for accelerated H.264 file creation using Adobe Media Encoder.

“The entire Matrox MXO2 product line is now cross platform – PC and Mac – as well as laptop and desktop, and can easily be moved among the editing stations in a facility or taken on the road,” said Alberto Cieri, Matrox senior sales and marketing director. “Not only do these products meet the needs of content creators for input, output, and monitoring, they also speed up delivery to today’s digital formats. Creating Blu-ray discs and video for the web and mobile devices is much faster than ever before with Matrox MAX H.264 encoding technology.”

Sony’s press conference at Inter BEE 2009 just kicked off in Tokyo reveals new professional camcorder that features Sony’s market-leading G-lens, Exmor sensor and AVCHD recording…

Announced on November 18th, Sony’s new NXCAM™ family brand offers class-leading, professional performance for AVCHD™ technology.

“Sony has gained great momentum in the broadcast file-based camcorder market with the XDCAM EX range complementing developments with the existing HDV range migrating to a hybrid file-based/tape format,” said Bill Drummond, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Sony Europe. “Building on this success, now is the right time to productise an entry-level memory based camcorder utilizing the latest AVCHD technology with low-cost consumer memory cards. Coupled with the latest innovations in lens and sensor design, this will offer outstanding picture performance to professional markets such as event videography or corporate video production.”

Sony is expanding its line of solid state camcorders with the new models HXR-NX5 to broaden the shooting capabilities for professionals. This is Sony’s is first professional camcorder that implements the AVCHD format, the HXR-NX5U.

The professional HXR-NX5U is part of Sony’s NXCAM family of video products for professionals. It features Sony’s Exmor™ CMOS sensor with ClearVid™ array, to deliver full high-definition resolution and low light sensitivity with low noise. The camcorder will record AVCHD up to 24Mbps, delivering 1920×1080 high definition images with both interlace and progressive modes along with native 1080/24P, 720/60p and MPEG-2 standard definition recording. The NX5U camcorder will also include both HD-SDI and HDMI™ outputs, as well as two-channel linear PCM audio capabilities.  Other unique features for the professional NX5U camcorder include  the ability to record in DV or  DVCAM for  720/60P standard definition recording, SMPTE Time Code I/O and an upgrade option for 60i/50i switchable.

Advanced Video Codec High Definition (AVCHD) technology was jointly developed by Sony and Panasonic and has been widely adopted in consumer camcorders.

According to Sony, AVCHD is a highly efficient long-GOP codec based on MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 Long-GOP image compression, a member of the MPEG family of codecs. This approach is consistent with Sony’s current line-up of MPEG professional camcorders, including the HDV™, XDCAM® HD optical and XDCAM EX™ series.

The new NXCAM model also shares the 20x optical zoom G lens used in Sony’s HVR-Z5U professional camcorder. The camcorder uses two types of consumer media along with an optional HXR-FMU128 128GB Flash Memory Unit for more than 11 hours of recording time at 24 Mbps. The HXR-FMU128 unit can be easily removed and simply powered through a computer’s USB connection, to make file downloading or editing easier and faster. Besides the Memory Stick PRO Duo™ media, users are also able to record HD content on class 4 or higher SDHC cards.

For High-end Prosumers

With the HXR-NX5U camcorders, professionals videographers can achieve a deep cinematic look with film-like movie quality and advanced color settings.

The model uses three 1/3″ Exmor™ CMOS Sensors with Exmor derived technology to improve the color reproduction of video recordings and capture sharp, detailed images even in less than perfect lighting situations. Noise reduction is accomplished via the unique column-parallel analog-to-digital conversion technique and grid arrangement of the photo diodes, which are designed to provide high sensitivity, deep resolution, high-speed reading, and a wider dynamic range. The Exmor technologies combine to allow the new camcorders to perform significantly better in low-light environments with sensitivity of 1.5 lux.

The EIP processor is able to rapidly process the vast amounts of pixel data read from the three 1/3” Exmor CMOS Sensors, and record beautiful HD and colorful video. The Exmor CMOS Sensors were developed using some of the most advanced technologies in the semiconductor industry. They handle video data in 1920 x 1080p and 4:2:2 color space for high-quality signal processing before recording it to the dual Memory Stick PRO Duo media. Together, the EIP and Exmor CMOS Sensors imaging system the  HXR-NX5U camcorder to provide extremely high image quality with smooth gradation and detailed image reproduction.

The new camcorder uses Sony’s 3.2” (16:9) (measured diagonally) Xtra Fine LCD™ screen (921K) and Xtra Fine LCD electronic viewfinder (0.45-inch, 1,227,000 dots) for high-resolution and high-contrast images with remarkable color reproduction.

Equipped with a refined level of optical performance, HXR-NX5U has a 29.5mm Wide-Angle to 590mm Telephoto G-Lens, extra-low dispersion glass and 20x optical zoom. The fixed lens is optimized to perfectly complement the cameras’ advanced image sensor and image-processing technology.

Optical SteadyShot™ image stabilization with Active Mode improves on existing Optical SteadyShot image stabilization by allowing the camera lens to shift over a greater range of motion allowing the camera to compensate for greater degrees of camera shake and deliver a stunning level of image smoothness.

To recap: with the Sony Exmor sensor and a 20x G Lens along with the use of both MS PRO Duo cards and SDHC this is definitely a camcorder to be reckoned with.

Reviews by: Fred Meek – ShotOnHD.com

For more info go to: ZVS-media.com

Nikon finally adds some new much-needed and desired FX wideangle lenses to their lineup, to complement the FX body cameras. The new Nikon 24mm f/1.4 AF-S should be excellent for indoor news, events (weddings, parties, festivals), and concerts/performance photography. Constant zooms at f/2.8 tend to be very heavy. The new Nikon 16-35/4 VR is a lighter addition and may become just as popular a lens choice as the current 17-35/2.8 AF-S lens. Also worth noting is that this is a first wideangle Nikon zoom with VR. Take a look at the full preview of Nikon’s Two New FX Wideangle Lenses .

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Nikon announces 2 new FX wideangle lenses: 16-35/4 VR and 24/1.4G

This is big news, for all those people struggling with the 500D/ T1i and it’s 20fps 1080p or 720 30fps with lack of manual control and can’t afford a 7D then this camera is for you. It’s retailing for just $800 body only! 1080p: 1920 x 1080 pixels at 30fps (actually 29.97fps) 1080p: 1920 x 1080 pixels at 25fps 1080p: 1920 x 1080 pixels at 24fps (actually 23.976fps) 720p: 1280 x 720 pixels at 60fps (actually 59.94fps) 720p: 1280 x 720 pixels at 50fps SD: 640 x 480 pixels at 60fps (actually 59.94fps) SD: 640 x 480 pixels at 50fps It also has a 3.5mm microphone jack, but unlikely to have manual controls for that. It also has a new feature called movie crop which takes the centre of the image, and gives you a digitally zoomed in SD picture so you can get more out of your lenses if you are not worried about losing HD. I can’t see a use for this myself or in a professional situation as it is just a digital zoom but consumers may find this useful. It shoots up to 6400 ISO too. Interestingly it seems the LCD is slightly higher resolution than the 7D too… The camera is a massive step up from the previous model and really challenges the 7D, certainly in movie mode. Be very interesting to do a side by side of these cameras! You don’t have a number of features of the 7D, like dual processor, faster still FPS, weatherproofing and many of the top notch still features that the 7D offers but for video users, especially students, hobbyists and people dipping a tentative toe into the HD-DSLR market this looks to be sure bet. The key thing is it has full manual exposure control from the get go. This is from the official press release in the video section… I love the way Canon still calls people who buy this camera all photographers, there needs to be a new word for the hybrid users! “Photographers can also take manual control over exposure settings, changing the depth of field and degree of motion blur to shoot more creatively” Here are the main features including it’s still capture capabilities: 18 Megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor DIGIC 4 processor with ISO 100-6400 (Expansion to 12800) Continuous shooting at 3.7fps Full HD movie recording with manual control and selectable frame rates 7.7cm (3.0”) 3:2 Clear View LCD with 1,040k dots iFCL metering System with 63-zone Dual-layer Metering Sensor Quick Control screen to change shooting settings Exposure compensation +/-5 stops. Select maximum value for Auto ISO External Microphone socket Movie crop function  

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The new Canon 550D/ T2i…VERY powerful entry level HD-DSLR

With Apple’s announcement of the iPad there’s been tons of articles, tweets and blog posts about this upcoming piece of hardware. There’s also been tons of ink spilled about just how this little device could be useful in the filmmaking process as well, some right here on this site. I had decided not to write anything at all about the iPad since pretty much everything had already been said. But I got to thinking how this device might integrate more with the post-production side of the filmmaking process while on a flight the other day … so I made some notes.

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Ideas for the Apple iPad in post-production