HXR-NX5e - Tech. Information

[Joao Araujo]

Hello everyone!!!

This is my first post here as I have some questions regarding the SONY HX-NX5e (aka Sony NX5).

This will be the first time that I’ll be using this camera for a documentary to be shot in three days time.

I have some technical questions that I would like you to help me with. First of all, what do you think are the main handicaps of the camera? What are its weakest points?

2) I couldn’t find any information about this, but does it have time-code? We will be recording sound with an external sound recorder, so it would be good if the camera had time-code…

3) What colour profile should we use?... We were thinking about having the image that comes out of the camera as flat as possible, so that we’ll have space to do an effective colour correction in post… do you think this is a good strategy? Then, what colour profile would you recommend?

4) Some of the shots we’ll be filming, are to be presented in slow motion. The camera has a feauture called Smooth Slow Rec that allows you to record slow motion straight away, but we would prefer to shot it normally and then do the slow motion in post… So what shutter speed would you recommend us to shoot the footage that will later be put in slow motion?

5) We’re based in Englad, so we’ll be shooting in PAL. We’ve been receiving a lot of suggestions regarding the recording quality: some people say that we should record 1920 x 1080 – 25 fps - Shutter Speed: 50 and others say that we could go for 1280 x 720 – 50p. What do you think will be the best?... We would like to go for progressive as it has a more filmic look… what do you think?...

If you could help me, it would be much appreciated.

Thank you so much! ;-)

[acgold7]

Let me see if I can help out a little. I don't use the NX5, but I have a group of Z5s, which are essentially the same camera with a few minor differences.

I don't know of any major drawbacks to the NX5 as such. It's one of the best all-around cams in its class. I think the Z5 is hands down the best cam I've ever owned and in my opinion is the pinnacle of the Sony HDV tape cam. The NX5 is essentially the same cam but card based, with a few firmware tweaks. The lens, codec, chips, body and ergonomics are essentially the same.

2) Yes, all digital video cams do, but not the same type as sound recorders do, and this type of cam cannot take external time code (and likely your sound recorder doesn't either). You will likely match the sound up in post using the waveforms. Or as they do in Hollywood, using a clapperboard.

3) You will have to experiment, but right out of the box the cam should be fairly neutral. You could try some of the Cinematone Gamma settings to see what you like.

4) Smooth Slow Rec will reduce your resolution. Even though they have improved it in recent years, I still wouldn't use it because you are locked into it if you shoot this way. I would do the slo-mo in post.

5) And since you will want to do slo-mo, I would shoot 720/50p. After you do whatever slo-mo you want, you can render the whole export as 25p if you want a more filmic look, but as you probably know this is the least of what constitutes the "film look."

[Doughie]

4) Smooth Slow Rec will reduce your resolution. Even though they have improved it in recent years, I still wouldn't use it because you are locked into it if you shoot this way. I would do the slo-mo in post.

I would add my view too to *not* use Smooth Slow Record. It not only is down-rezzed but it is heavily compressed. Camera writes to a RAM buffer for the 3seconds or 6seconds of SSR recording and then writes to storage. Since NX5 is flash memory storage it may just write it direct. But the image will have compression artefacting all over it. I warned someone else about this on a little project 6months ago, the dangers of SSR recording for commercial use, and said not to use it, but just use 1920 x 1090 at 30fps as normal and they ignored my advice, used SSR, and the client was very unhappy with the output results due to the low image quality in SSR mode.

Advice : Use Twixtor to interpolate frames if you really want smooth Hi-frame rate stuff. Twixtor CAN also have artefacting and its not always suited to every type of image content BUT it is far far far far preferable to SSR mode. And as acgold said, it may well be that just shooting at 50fps in 720res is sufficient in post, once thats slowed down to 25fps. Twixtor is really just needed if you want to simulate very high frame rates. its very clever software.

My final comment would be.... that....i dont think it's an ideal situation that you are shooting a documentary in 3 days with a camera you have never used before. There are bound to be things you learn / find out / oddities of the camera that you would perhaps have liked to have found out before. If you can at least spend 24hours with it before and go through EVERYTHING on the camera that would at least be better than nothing.

[acgold7]

And as I'm sure Doughie would agree, even before you get your hands on the cam, you should spend a few hours with the manual and read it from cover to cover, so you know everything the cam can and cannot do.

If you Google "Frank's Thoughts on HDV" you will find virtually every HDV/AVCHD cam manual ever, available for free download.

[Doughie]

If you Google "Frank's Thoughts on HDV" ........

speaking of which ... Whatever happened to Frank?

Earth calling Frank....come in Frank.....