XDCAM HD

PMW-EX1R (2009). PMW-EX3, PMW-EX1 (2008).
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steve
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XDCAM HD

Post by steve »

Hi Kerr, Doughie, Adam et al. Thanks for the rebirth of the community, its great to see that the melting pot of knowledge will live on for the benfit of all.

This post is slightly off topic anywhere on the community as there isn't a forum for XDCAM HD. My FX1E is now over 5 years old and still going strong, but I am planning an update sometime soon, and the EX1R is within my sights. Will there be a forum specifically for the format if posts. I can see why we don't want to proliferate forums (fora?) for every model released as tended to happen on sonyhdvinfo, but as a format, XDCAM is a completely different kettle of fish.

Regards to all

Steve
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Doughie
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Re: XDCAM HD

Post by Doughie »

Hi Steve

Great to see you again! Glad you found our new website.

OK i would think the answer is 'for sure' to the XDCAM question. We have forums related to HDV and AVCHD codecs, so XDCAM - yes we should! This site is not about one codec - we've deliberately tried to appeal to a broad spectrum of HD camera owners and in so we're not codec-specific (sonyhdvinfo started out HDV only and then morphed somewhat during it's lifetime).
- we're still in our initial stages and changes to the forums are happening pretty frequently.

I too have an interest in the EX1R - its something I was considering if business opportunities went my way the next 12months, so i would be really personally interested in hearing about your experiences if /when you get one.

Ultimately this is Stephan's baby, he is Admin and has put in a lot of hard work putting this site together , but we all work closely together and i fully support your recommendation for an XDCAM forum.
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Doughie
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Re: XDCAM HD

Post by Doughie »

Steve - good news, a new XDCAM forum is approved and on it's way sir.

So now you HAVE to go place that order for your new EX1R... ;)
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Stephan
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Re: XDCAM HD

Post by Stephan »

Moved topic to the new XDCAM EX forum - I assumed you did mean EX ;-)
steve
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Re: XDCAM HD

Post by steve »

Thanks guys (and Stephan of course).

I need to get a bit more cash together to switch over to solid state media so I'm targeting the BV Expo in London early next year as the deadline, Prestons usually do some pretty good bundles there, that's where I got the FX1E in January 2005. It looks favorite, unless something else comes out before then that is comparable! Video is a hobby for me.

I'm still quite happy with the FX1E and the HC3E. I took both of them on holiday to Italy last week and it was great having a real camera as well as a more discreet small model to hand. But the mechanisms won't last forever and the CODEC artifacts sometimes gobble up the bandwidth when edited.

The EX1R seems a natural progression and its about the same size as the FX1E. For those on the forum not in the UK,material from the EX1 is now partially accepted by the BBC for broadcast HD programming now despite its bitrate being below 50Mb/s. That says something about the quality and robustness of XDCAM-EX for me.

Steve
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Doughie
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Re: XDCAM HD

Post by Doughie »

steve wrote: The EX1R seems a natural progression and its about the same size as the FX1E. For those on the forum not in the UK,material from the EX1 is now partially accepted by the BBC for broadcast HD programming now despite its bitrate being below 50Mb/s. That says something about the quality and robustness of XDCAM-EX for me.
I think it also, perhaps, says something about the BBC's somewhat out-of-touch specs for footage. They were probably written a few years ago, maybe most codecs were CBR, not VBR, and anyway i am sure the codecs were FAR less efficient back then. XDCAM EX and other modern codecs, especially VBR codecs, mean that you can get really high-quality footage using a far lower bitrate.

Being more cynical.... the BBC tech specs for submittable footage - it MAY just be (partially) a slightly clever tool to keep the volume of submissions down to a manageable level!
steve
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Re: XDCAM HD

Post by steve »

Doughie wrote: I think it also, perhaps, says something about the BBC's somewhat out-of-touch specs for footage. They were probably written a few years ago, maybe most codecs were CBR, not VBR, and anyway i am sure the codecs were FAR less efficient back then. XDCAM EX and other modern codecs, especially VBR codecs, mean that you can get really high-quality footage using a far lower bitrate.

Being more cynical.... the BBC tech specs for submittable footage - it MAY just be (partially) a slightly clever tool to keep the volume of submissions down to a manageable level!
Actually I think its a bit more genuine than that. The problem for broadcasters is that submitted material needs to survive multiple generations of processing and transcoding before it ends up in the transmitted stream. CODECs are optimised to work with a psyco-visual model of human vision. This includes both static and motion scenarios. When the first generation material is played back, there may be a level of artifacts present, but they are within the acceptable limits for the intended use. If the programme is then rendered again, these artifacts are included as wanted detail so they consume compression resources and are coded for subsequent viewing. If this process is repeated a few times, each generation's artifacts become more and more visible, and more of the available bandwidth is consumed preserving them. This is why some news items that use donated clips are usually billed as 'amateur video' and the quality often looks far worse than most amateurs would expect when they view it directly on their own TVs.

The BBC has a commissioning specification for HD programming that specifies minimum equipment and coding standards, typically:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/prod ... livery.pdf

You can see from this that no XDCAM-EX cameras are listed as approved for HD programming, and would be included as SD quality material, as their inter-frame coding bitrates are below 50Mb/s. But there are exceptions, notably news items and material that is not available from any other source.
This and other general requirements are listed here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/production/hd.shtml

I'm sure that other major broadcasters and production companies have similar commissioning standards, but they may differ in detail.

Steve
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