Seems like Sony just likes to torment me. First came the PMW-EX1, a really cool looking semi-pro camera that records to solid-state SD cards. Part of the reason I like it – perhaps – is that it has the same basic camera shape as my HDR-FX!; just squashed down a bit. I’d really like to get away from tape, but at $6,000 the EX1 is out of my reach.
Well, now they’ve gone and announced the PMW-EX3 (what, no EX2?!) which is going to cost $13,000 and has interchangeable lenses. The body has also become more angular at the back, and I wonder if that will make it any better for shoulder shooting.
On the bright side, it makes the PMW-EX1 seem almost affordable. Or, you have until the third quarter of 2008 to save for the EX3.
Though I have a Panasonic VCR that has lasted for years, I haven’t had many dealings with their cameras. Maybe that should change as Panasonic went and announced the solid state HPX-170 which records 1080 HD and SD to P2 solid state memory cards, and the AG-HMC150, which is the highest bitrate AVCHD camcorder announced so far, recording at up to 24Mbps. Both cameras are similar is shape to the EX1, strangely enough.
But at $4,500 for the AG-HMC150 and god-knows for the HPX-170, I guess I won’t be checking those out soon.
In other news, Adobe has a new file format they want to push on to film makers (and later, every body else.) I can’t help thinking this is just part of an effort to kill Avid.
While CinemaDNG won’t have much impact on us this year, the addition of automatic transcription (voice recognition) to Soundbooth looks interesting. This could be particularly helpful to documentarians. In theory you load up your clip, have it transcribe the audio, and then you can search for places in the video based on the text.
Adobe also announced support for Sony's XDCAM EX tapeless video file format in its Creative Suite 3 video-editing tools, and that it’s adding H.264 encoding support to the Flash application (the player already supports H.264 playback.)
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