Hdw-650

[SimonMW]

I notice that Sony are releasing a new HDCAM camera listing for around £26k. Looks like it uses the same/very similar body to the PDW-700 XD and the same chips.

http://www.creativevideo.co.uk/public/pdf/sony_hdw-650p_prelim.pdf

[Alan Roberts]

Yep, looks like a tape version of the PDW700. Beware though, HDCAM is 1440x1080, and 3:1:1, unlike XDCAM.

[SimonMW]

I'd love to know how they are achieving the sensitivity. This new camera and the 700 have better low light performance than the SD cameras by a good stop!

[Alan Roberts]

Ah, it's a trick.

The older HD cameras (HDW750, F900 etc) all have between 2 and 3 stops of overexposure range. The newer ones (HDWF900R, 790 etc) all have less than 1.5 stops overexposure range. This means that they've turned down the analogue head amp gains by 6-8dB, thuis moving 1 to 1.5 stops of headroom down into footroom, but lowering the noise floor. The problem is that the 8-bit recording formats (e.g. HDCAM) have a noise floor of about -54dB, so the noise profile isn't what you'd expect, and it was by measuring the noise of the F900R that I worked it all out :).

Plus, the PowerHAD sensors are backlit, and that gains getting on for a stop.

[SimonMW]

Ahhhhh right. That explains a lot.

When you did your tests on the 700, how did the head of this camera compare with the 900R? Any anomalies to look out for?

[Alan Roberts]

As far as I could tell, performance is the same as HDC1500, HDWF900R, HDW790, as far as most things are concerned. I couldn't measure noise accurately because the HDSDI capture system offered didn't work as expected, but subjectively the performance is between the HDW750 and HDW790. I suspect the front end is the same as all the other Sony 2"/3 fronts (F23, HDC, HDW) but the head amp gain is more like that of the 750, i.e. more overexposure possible and a bit more noise to go with it.

I've said, in the BBC settings doc, that I'd want a short retest when the full version's available for testing. That would test the 25p performance and get a proper measurement on noise. I don't expect anything else to be a problem.

[StevenBagley]

Surely this camera is going to eat into the 750P/790P market and effectively kills the 730P market?

Steven

[SimonMW]

I think it may well be a timely replacement for the 730. The 750 was supposed to have been replaced by the 790, but for some reason that camera doesn't appear to have been discontinued.