Sony PMW-200 XDCAM camcorder

Many fans of Sony’s venerable PMW-EX1R looked at the introduction of the 50Mbps single-sensor PMW-100 and wondered when Sony would bring 50Mbps recording to their camera. Well, now it has… mostly. The new PMW-200 does have three half-inch Exmor CMOS sensors and full HD 4:2:2 5 50Mbps recording (as required by pretty much every broadcaster as the minimum bitrate for HD), but the form factor familiar to EX1 users has changed slightly. The PMW-200 is a somewhat more compact body, similar to the PMW-100, so it could take a little time to get used to new ergonomics.

Sony has taken a long time to offer 50Mbps in a decent lower-budget camera. Canon’s XF300/XF305 and Panasonic’s AG-HPX250 have had the field to themselves for a long time. It has meant that EX1 users have had to fit external recorders if they were shooting for broadcast. However, both the XF300/XF305 and the HPX250 use 1/3-inch sensors, but some broadcasters, such as Sky, believe half-inch chips are the minimum standard for HD (they often also ask for 100Mbps recording, so it may not be the end for all external recorders). The half-inch sensors should also deliver better low-light performance than their smaller rivals. Of course, if you already own an EX1R and an external recorder, the PMW-200 is not so much an improvement as a potential B-camera.

The XF range is currently the most popular for low-budget broadcast work, not just because it meets most broadcasters’ requirements, but also due to it using low-cost Compact Flash cards. The HPX250 uses Panasonic’s more expensive P2 cards, while the PMW-200 will primarily use SxS cards, which are only slightly cheaper than P2 – although at least the PMW-200 offers the option of using lower-cost SD, Memory Stick and XQD cards using an adaptor.

Besides 50Mbps, Sony covers all the legacy formats it is famous for, including 35Mbps MXF, 35Mbps/25Mbps MP4 and DVCAM. So if you still occasionally have to work in a Standard Definition environment and can’t edit in HD before outputting SD, then you are covered. Unfortunately, this flexibility uncovers one of the bugbears we’ve found using the PMW-100 – having to choose to format the cards using either UDF or FAT. Unhelpfully, the PMW-100 manual didn’t explain why you’d want to do that, so we had to work it out. If you want to record in 50Mbps (HD422) or 35Mbps (HQ), you have to choose UDF. You can’t record 50Mbps in FAT, but you can record 35Mbps (HQ) or 25Mbps (SP). It’s something you shouldn’t have to think about, but you do….

There is a slip-ring on the lens to switch between 

auto-focus (AF/MF - above) and full manual focus (below) 

Zoom lens: While the PMW-100 has a not-particularly-wide 10x zoom lens, the PMW-200 has a much better Fujinon 14x zoom, that goes from a very-nearly-wide 31.5mm to 440mm (35mm equivalent). You’ll still probably want a wide-angle adaptor for it, but you’ll probably only really need it in confined spaces.

The lens has three independent rings for zoom, focus and iris adjustment, plus greater precision through indications of ring positions on the 3.5-inch (852x480) LCD screen.

Recording: It has some frame rate flexibility with its Slow and Quick motion function which goes from one to 30 frames per second in 1080p, or 1fps to 60fps in 720p mode (but only if recording to an SxS Pro or SxS-1 card – and you can immediately play it back without using an external converter or processing on your editing system.

Most new professional camcorders now have cache record, which continually buffers what you are pointing at in its memory, but the PMW-200’s is longer than most at 15 seconds, which it will then write to your card once the record button is pressed, which is great for news or reality programmes – although it does assume you have the camera switched on eating battery power…

Other features: genlock and timecode interfaces for multi-camera operations; four-channel 24-bit Linear PCM 48kHz audio; dual XLR audio inputs; dual card slots; two ND filters (1/8ND and 1/64ND); optical SteadyShot; shutter angle as well as shutter speed settings; HD/SD-SDI, HDMI USB and iLink (IEEE1394 – HDV and DV) interfaces; five assign buttons.

Price/Availability: The PMW-200 weighs about 2.3kg (plus battery and cards, etc) and should be available from mid-September. There was no price in the press release, but CVP had it for pre-order at £5,160.00 + VAT (€6,580 or under $8,000 - essentially the same list prices as the EX1R is now).

There will also be a WiFi remote control from an iPad, iPhone or Android device (adaptor CBK-WA01 required), which is scheduled to be available by December with a free firmware upgrade (workflow above), including the ability to add metadata as used in Sony's successful XMPilot workflow.

“With the new PMW-200, we are putting one of the most versatile handheld camcorders we’ve ever developed onto the market,” said Bill Drummond, Strategic Marketing Manager, Professional Solutions, Sony Europe.

“The PMW-200 combines exceptional picture quality, seamless HD422 50Mbps workflow and a whole host of other useful features, with an ergonomic form factor. The result for users is an agile, lightweight solution that meets their varied needs and is the perfect partner for shoulder camcorders such as the popular PMW-500. It is also the ideal A-camera in its own right for HD broadcast production.”

Freelance cameraman, Alister Chapman, has done a good video overview of the PMW-200 and runs through the new features and how they can be used:


By David Fox

Maxell FireWire media recorder

Maxell Europe has introduced a new rugged field capture recorder. The pocket-sized iVDR VC102 records on to a removable iVDR disc cartridges (up to 500GB), and supports DV, DVCAM, DVCPRO, DVCPRO 50, DVCPRO HD & HDV, QuickTime and AVI. It is based on Shining Technology's CitiDISK tapeless video recorder, but using Maxell's removable media, and captures via FireWire.

Features include: loop recording, hot-swappable cartridges, and plug-and-play use with non-linear editors.

Maxell has also expanded its range of recordable media, offering: new XD Cam discs (single layer 23GB and dual layer 50GB); P2 E series media cards; and LTO5 Data Tape for archiving, with capacities up to 3TB.

By David Fox

Canon's codec choice

As the last of the major camcorder manufacturers to introduce tapeless professional camcorders, Canon has had a little longer to make its choice of recording codec, and it seems to have been listening to broadcasters as it will adopt MPEG-2 4:2:2 at 50Mbps and MXF for its upcoming professional file-based camcorders.

This has been the minimum requirement for full HD recording put forward by several European broadcasters, such as the BBC, so will be a welcome addition for what will almost certainly be a budget camcorder (probably in the £4,000 to £8,000 bracket). Rival camcorders from Sony and JVC typically record at 35Mbps, while Panasonic's most recent small camcorders have used 24Mbps AVCHD (the 10-bit 4:2:2 HPX301 is a larger, shoulder-mounted P2 camcorder).

Canon's current line-up of professional camcorders, the XL H1, XH G1s and XH A1s, are all HDV models, so the new model will record at twice the data rate, and with double the colour data, and will record full HD (1920x1080) instead of 1440x1080.

Canon showed a mock-up of the proposed camera under glass, which looks to be between the XL H1 and XH G1s in size (with 1/3-inch sensors and two XLR audio sockets), although the eventual form factor may be different.

Instead of choosing a more efficient codec like MPEG-4 or a wavelet-based codec (such as JPEG 2000), "MPEG-2 was chosen because it is widely compatible with current IT technology and workflow environments and therefore more beneficial to our customers. Furthermore, the MXF wrapper is the industry standard, with well structured metadata that is easy to search," explained a Canon Europe spokesperson.

There isn't a lot more information on the camera yet, but it will have two card slots (although the specific media hasn't been announced), and Canon is working with Adobe, Apple, Avid and Grass Valley "to ensure compatibility" with their software.

Canon took part in the recent Final Cut Pro Supermeet at Macworld Expo, and MacVideo's Rick Young recorded its announcement of the new codec (and, first up, the new DSLR plug-in for FCP). He also shot an interview with Joe Bogacz, of Product Marketing, Canon USA, which includes shots of the mock-up camcorder (pictured above).

[UPDATE: The cameras, the XF300 and XF305 have been launched - more at Canon fires out first 4:2:2 file-based camcorders ]

By David Fox

Sony in Std Def camcorder shock…

At a time when all new camcorders are presumed to be High Definition, if not even higher definition, Sony has gone all 2003 on us and released what must surely be the last ever standard definition camcorder, the new DSR-PD175P – a direct replacement for the popular PD170.

It records to DV tape, for those of you who want something to sit on a shelf gathering dust and to probably still work in 50 years time ("But YouTube is my archive, why would I want anything else?"), and is aimed at "emerging markets", including Russia, Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East where the demand for SD is apparently still high.

Sony's PD170 was beloved by many, especially people shooting weddings, because of its abilities in low light, recording down to 1 lux. Its successor isn't quite as effective in the dark, although it isn't far off at 1.5 lux.

The PD175 does have the advantage of being 16:9 native and uses three of the same 1/3-inch Exmor ClearVid CMOS sensors found in the rather nice Z5.

The camera has a fixed 20x Sony G lens (with a wide angle of 29.5mm), three ND filters (1/4, 1/16, 1/64) and independent focus, zoom and iris rings. It also has an improved high resolution LCD panel and viewfinder. To aid migration from the PD170, the PD175 also uses L series batteries, removing the need to buy new battery systems (unlike most of Sony's HDV cameras).

It can also record to Compact Flash, by plugging in the HVR-MRC1K solid state recorder (using an i.LINK/FireWire connector), and adds a 25p progressive scan mode for a more filmic look. The 25p image is recorded as an interlaced signal in two fields, for compatibility with editing and monitoring equipment that accept interlaced signals (and, more important, compatibility with the DVCAM standard), but can be recombined into a 25p image during the edit.

Its Smooth Slow Record function enables smooth slow-motion playback by capturing images four times faster than normal (200 fields per second). In this mode, quad-speed images are captured for six seconds, stored in the built-in buffer memory, and then recorded to tape (in either DVCAM or DV format) as slow-motion pictures lasting 24 seconds.

It should cost about the same as the PD170, although the HDV-equipped HVR-V1E only costs about 20% more.

David Fox