Sony PMW-500 solidifies XDCAM

Sony has extended its XDCAM range with the PMW-500, a 2/3-inch HD 4:2:2 solid-state shoulder-mounted camcorder shipping this month.

The PMW-500 is based on the same architecture as the disc-based PDW-700, but records to SxS cards (two slots). It has three 2/3-inch Power HAD FX CCD image sensors and can record both 1080 and 720 HD pictures at 50Mbps, and four channels of uncompressed 48 kHz digital audio.

“The PMW-500 represents the next step in the evolution of the XDCAM product range. Since 2003, XDCAM has become an industry standard with over 150,000 units sold worldwide." Customers had requested a solid-state HD422 model to sit alongside the PDW-700, said Richard Brooking, XDCAM Product Manager, Sony Professional. The camcorders have already been ordered by RTL TVI in Belgium, WDR Germany and TV New Zealand.

Sony has also introduced a new higher capacity 64GB SxS card which can record two hours of material in HD422 50Mbps MXF mode and has an increased transfer speed of 1.2Gbps. The camera is switchable between MXF and MP4 for recording in XDCAM HD422, XDCAM HD and XDCAM EX modes. There is also an option to record MPEG IMX and DVCAM material for users migrating to HD.

On station

Sony has also announced XDCAM Station, a line of media recorders that handle SxS and Professional Disc. These will be useful for outside broadcast and SNG trucks, playout, archive, live production with slow motion, and ingest to non-linear editors.

There will be three models in the line-up: The XDS-1000 with an SxS card slot and internal HDD storage; the XDS-PD1000 with an SxS, a Professional Disc drive and HDD storage; and the XDS-PD2000 with SxS, Professional Disc and SSD storage.

The material can be accessed for editing or replayed under slow motion control. They have SDI I/O and network connections and can function as an MXF gateway linking XDCAM media, baseband video and networked operation. The Professional Disc models will support the new higher capacity 128GB four-layer disc media.

“We see applications within broadcast centres where customers can use XDCAM Station as an ingest gateway for their SxS memory card and Professional Disc media, and also on location for live applications and material sharing between camera operators and production staff," said Brooking.

The XDS-1000 will be available from March 2011, while the other two will ship summer 2011 along with the 128GB discs.

By David Fox