If I had shown this to you yesterday (April fools day) you may have seen the photoshop work… EX-3 viewfinder and slots x 2. The main thing would have been the XDCAM EX logo… time was against me and I had to make the logo look convincing without spending time looking for it in my fonts collection so I decided to make the picture smaller. The camera as you will have noticed is in fact a PDW-700. Just after I put this up I emailed Philip Bloom who came in on it which had a remarkable effect, I wasn’t  prepared for Philip to then post this into two forums. Thats when the site went wild we even got posted in Japan so no doubt good old Sony got to see a new camera they weren’t expecting to see…!  If Sony would like to take my idea and produce such a camera I and many others would be delighted.

Finally it’s here just in time for NAB 2009 the all new Sony EX-7 here are a few specs from Sonys pre NAB press release…

The PMW-EX7 camcorder is equipped with three 1/2-inch CCDs – using newly developed “Power HAD™ FX” progressive CCD technology with 1920 x 1080 effective pixels. Breathtaking HD images can be captured by these high-resolution CCDs and the 14-bit A/D conversion and advanced digital signal processing incorporated into the PMW-EX-7.

The PMW-EX7 comes with 4 SxS slots (Please note. This camera will not take MxR or MxM cards) and records from 50Mb/s 4:2:2 through to DVCAM.

The superb picture quality of the PMW-EX7 will increase the appeal for applications such as documentary, European TV drama and mainstream entertainment programmes that require a high quality look. File-based acquisition, with thumbnail and proxy operation is also ideal for fast-turnaround news and live applications where speed of production is a critical requirement.

The suggested price will be around £8700

NEWS JUST IN…

A new deck the PDW-U75D will have 4 slots and a disc insert allowing you to archive from SxS onto 50Gb discs.  Recording onto Dual Layer discs (50GB) is a feature of a range of new Sony products, including the PDW-F335 XDCAM HD camcorders and full range of XDCAM EX camcorders. (Picture & price coming soon).

PLEASE NOTE…April fools day falls in the UK every 1st of April…one day only !

As Philip Bloom said “The irony is it’s what we all want !!” So if Sony are listening we have supported the hybrid look but a camcorder similar to the Panasonic 301 with 1/2″ Power HAD CCD etc. etc. will make you a fortune.

I bought this just after purchasing my Sony EX-1 to allow my clients to see what I was filming and to give me peace of mind that my colour balance was correct. It runs of a 12v power supply that slips onto the back using a V connection.

I bought two 14.4 volt Lion batteries and a charger which seem to run the monitor all day. It has various connections…  Composite (BNC), S-Video, component (3 x BNCs) and HD-SDI (BNC). I was a bit miffed at the 4:3 screen but if you are inserting footage into an older 4:3 edit you do have the option to view it. I have not filmed or edited 4:3 for over two years now and the screen shows 16:9 with the press of a button.

So why did I go for the 9050 when most cameramen plum for the 9030?  Practicality and better screen resolution; I needed to view the HD-SDI signal coming out of the camera.  Before I bought this monitor I used an LCD monitor using the cameras component-out lead and, take it from me, that’s a messy way to monitor your pictures. The camera takes an SDI lead out of the HD-SDI BNC into the HD-SDI input of the 9050 which is the only one of three models to have this input, the other reason was the screen resolution — 1024 x 768 — the 9030 being 640 x 480.

The top-of-the-line LMD-9050 further provides a variety of digital progressive SD and HD formats through its HD-SDI interface. These include 480/60P and 576/50P and high-definition 1080/60i, 1080/50i, 720/50P, 720/60P as well as 1080/24PsF. You can buy the Sony LMD-9050 from Preston Media for £2242 (Tell John the HD Warrior sent you and you will get a further discount) www.videokit.co.uk