NEX based video camera

[OneGuyKs]

Ok, that title maybe harsh but I have some email exchange with Reichmann

Hopefully he will revise that short preview (he is pretty clueless on progressive vs interlaced)

The APS sensor captures in progressive, but the camera is saving the footage into an interlaced container with a doubled framerate. Every NLE can "deal with it in post" without doing anything special -- you just have to tell it that the interlaced footage is actually
progressive. It's just saved in the industry-standard format.

Here is a quote from someone in dpr forum...

AVCHD is a capture, compression and storage specification NOT just
capture. Its specifies 3 formats for full HD STORAGE, 1080-60i,
1080-50i and 1080-24p and a number for lesser HD formats. Those are
the storage formats, how you come up with the content is upto you as
long as its 4:2:0, 1920x1080, etc. In the case of this particular
camera and sensor, they take a 1080p (yes thats progressive!) capture
at 25 or 30 fps and do split frame recording, i.e the captured
PROGRESSIVE frame is split by alternate lines and one field goes into
the first frame of the sequence and the other goes into the second.
This allows them to use the interlaced frame format to store
progressive capture. When you edit, you just tell the NLE to convert
to 25/30p output, merging the information from the two fields back
into a single frame with no interpolation and your done, back to the
full progressive you captured with no resolution loss. Where's the
problem???? - Actually it makes a bucketload of sense to do this if
you know anything about video codecs and frame interdependance. If
you lose a frame in storage, you've only actually lost one alternate
line field of the capture and the remaining field information in the
second frame can be used in the long GOP decode sequence without any
noticable effect on image quality. Its better than losing a whole
frame!

[twm47099]

So they made a Nex camcorder without ability to record raw stills, but its video is hopefully much better than with the Nex still cams.
And the Nex still cams can do a rather basic video that can be good only under some very limited conditions.

So for a full still&motion capture system one needs both still and video bodies and then some shared lenses.

Here's what I don't understand about this comment.

You say the NEX is designed primarily for stills (and has raw) with no real flash capability, but the camcorder has the alpha flash foot (and I assume can use the alpha still camera flashes which have no use in video) and an evf, but has no raw?

The biggest difference between NEX and the camcorder is size and price. For someone willing to spend $2000 for a hybrid camera why (yes I'll use the word) "cripple" the camera? Someone who wants a small camera will not choose the camcorder or care much about the alpha flash foot. But someone who doesn't care about size, but wants a dual purpose camera would want the camcorder. Now they have to compromise. And if they are going to compromise still capability, why add the a-mount flash shoe? Its almost as though Sony designs a camera for a full capability, then throws a dart to see what feature to remove so there will be a difference. I'm sure they could have removed something else to differentiate from the NEX without having a camera that can't seem to make up its mind.

The only thing I can see is they are trying to differentiate between the A7xx and the camcorder. Sony seems more fearful of competing against themselves, rather than making a product that would compete with other manufacturers. The camcorder could have been competition for entry and mid level video containing DSLRs from other brands. I don't believe that the camcorder would have been competition for the A7xx (maybe it would be for a 5xx), due to the extra features that were on the A700 (and hopefully will be on the A7xx). It really seems to me that Sony loves to remove a feature from one model rather than adding features to the other model for differentiation.

tom

[Javelin]

every manufacturer does pretty much the same thing. otherwise there would only be on model from each manufacturer to buy. which might not be a bad thing in a boring kind of way

[Dusty]

This is a great idea. Both a still and video system that share common Lenses (and DNA). This make it easier to lock people into the system - hey I already have 6 NEX video lenses, might as well by the NEX5. OF the opposite way - I have a NEX5 with several lenses, why not buy the NEX vid cam?

Those who are at least somewhat serious on both fronts can save some money and/or buy expanded lenses at less cost then buying such for 2 systems.

It will be interesting to see what all the NEX lens adapters do for the vidcam as well.

Dusty

[RubberDials]

So they made a Nex camcorder without ability to record raw stills, but its video is hopefully much better than with the Nex still cams.
And the Nex still cams can do a rather basic video that can be good only under some very limited conditions.

So for a full still&motion capture system one needs both still and video bodies and then some shared lenses.

Altogether, the complete Nex system of two dedicated bodies seems to make a lot of sense. If the video body had raw stills capture and at the same time the still body had more video controls, then some buyers would be tempted to stay with only one kind of body getting suboptimal ergonomics for the non-basic (still or video, respectively) function with that body...

Makes every bit of sense to me... with only one exception - they have decided it for me... But then again, it's just me...

Videographers record stills for montages and animation. A lot of people seem to be assuming that the VG10 is some sort of hybrid device designed to appeal to still shooters. It isn't. It's a camcorder for people who want to make movies. We're not at the cross-over stage yet. RAW isn't part of a videographers workflow and probably never will be.

That's one of the two mistakes that Reichmann makes in his very short article mentioned above - assuming that the needs of hobbyist photographers somehow drive the design of camcorders. Video is a new thing to stills camera, but stills are not new to video cameras! The other is not realising that the VG10 used PSF. I made that mistake about the NEX5 but it's obvious that the VG10 would not record in an interlaced format whatever it outputs.

[adam3544]

Recording Mode (AVCHD): FX (1920x1080i
Unfortunately, Sony didn't catch Panasonic HDC-TM700 which records at full HD 1920x1080p @60.
Progressive (not interlaced) at 27Mbps not 24Mbps. Make a search on YouTube or Vimeo and watch the ultra sharp and smooth videos.

Adam

[BrianSmith]

Adam,

You're comparing apples and oranges. The Panasonic HDC-TM700 has a 1/4" sensor while the NEX VG10 has APS sensor. The bigger chip not only handles high-ISO noise a lot better, but Just try to throw focus on a 1/4" chip.