Sony F350 XDCAM HD camcorder review & workflow

Introduction
It?s quite possible that this is the most comprehensive feature on Sony?s XDCAM HD ever written for the internet. This feature is an overview of XDCAM HD, what it is, who it is aimed at, who is using it, the advantages of an XDCAM HD workflow, editing with XDCAM HD, the discs, the future, with a full review of the great F350 XDCAM HD camcorder thrown in. If you want to know about XDCAM HD, you?ve come to the right place. If you want educating in XDCAM HD then this is a mini degree complete with photos, screen grabs and graphics to illustrate everything. By the time you get to the end of this feature/review you will be an XDCAM HD guru. But I warn you, it?s nearly 15,000 words long so go and grab a drink and sit back and enjoy the ride.

This lengthy piece is both a review of Sony?s F350 XDCAM HD camcorder, as well as an overview on the XDCAM HD format, who it?s aimed at, who?s using it and the many amazing advantages to its workflow. For the record, during the past 10 years I?ve shot on many different formats including standard Mini-DV and HDV, DVCAM, Betacam, Digibeta, P2 and even Super16 film. Out of all these formats and workflows, nothing has excited me anywhere near as much as XDCAM HD and once I?d spent a week with an F350 XDCAM HD camcorder and a bunch of PFD23 Professional Discs, well all I can say is this: Imagine what it would feel like if you had been blind for 10 years, then suddenly you get your sight back, and it is beyond 20/20, well that?s how I felt after working with XDCAM HD. I am quite simply blown away by both the amazing quality it produces as well as the brilliant workflow, which is by far the fastest I?ve ever encountered and by far the most stable and rock solid I?ve ever experienced.

I?m not blowing this XDCAM HD thing out of all proportion, it really is that good. When the van driver came to collect the Sony loan stock I?d been using for a week, I?ve never been so sad to see equipment leave, it was heart-breaking. One thing is for sure, my existing tape-based equipment will soon be finding itself on eBay as I move over into an XDCAM HD production workflow environment.

When I started writing up this article/review the working title was ?Pros and Cons of an XDCAM HD workflow?, but after using the equipment for a week for acquisition shooting and post-production it dawned on me that there were no cons to it, at least none that I could see or think of. So I didn?t leave it there, I phoned up a few guys who I know shoot on the XDCAM format and have been for a while now. After all, these guys have been using the format for considerably longer than a week so if there were any disadvantages to it they would know. After several phone conversations with XDCAM and XDCAM HD users, dealers who sell it, and many posts on various XDCAM forums it became very apparent that there are quite simply no disadvantages to XDCAM HD whatsoever, zero, diddly squat, jack, nothing; not at this price anyway. So my original working title had to be changed to the current ?Advantages of a Sony XDCAM HD workflow?.

The review part of this feature is based on the F350 XDCAM HD camcorder, but most will apply to the F330 too. There are a few differences, which I?ve listed below, apart from them the two camcorders are identical. The Prices are: PDW-F330L (no lens) ?9,650 inc vat, PDW-F350L (no lens) ?14,095 inc vat. You can buy the PDW-F330K (kit with Canon 19x lens) for ?12,350 inc VAT, but you have to buy the lens separately for the F350. However, a decent Canon SD lens would set you back ?1,000 or so, which will be fine until such a time that you want to upgrade to either a better SD lens or even a HD lens.

Lets answer the big question first. Is it tough enough? Ok it looks good and its disc system has got anti skip and rubber dampers, but even my home DVD player can jump every now and then, so how can we trust Sony's new DVD technology? Well for a start it's not a DVD. Yes it uses blue lasers but comparing Sony's Professional Disc system to DVD's is like comparing DigiBeta to VHS, they were both tape but thats about all they had in common. Sony's Professional Optical Disc system has more levels of error correction than you can shake a stick at, fact is, it simply won't skip; period.

The the bottom line is that Professional Disc is more rugged, more reliable and cheaper than tape. It's X-ray and Magnet proof. No more dropouts EVER and if you can make it skip then the chances are you just wrote off the camera by dropping it off the side of a building.

Main differences between F330 and F350 are:
F330 is silver in colour, 1.5? 4:3 viewfinder, Analogue Component out, 2 RCA audio out connectors, 1 switchable BNC timecode I/O connector.

F350 is black in colour, 2? 16:9 viewfinder, HD-SDI output, 5 pin XLR audio out connector, 2 BNC timecode I/O connectors. F350 also has Slow & Quick-Motion (Over & Under cranking).

Other than the above 5 differences the F330 and F350 are essentially the same. Also, there is only one F330 and F350 model for the entire global market, no separate PAL and NTSC versions, you simply switch the settings in the menu under COUNTRY for either 50Hz PAL or 60Hz NTSC depending on where you are globally positioned. You'll find UK PAL settings for 25p and 24p for progressive and 50i for interlaced. Switching into NTSC and you will find 24p and 30p for progressive and 60i interlaced. You can work in all these formats in both HD and DVCAM shooting modes. For both the F330 and F350, Sony likes to call it a 'one world, one camera model'. This also has the advantage of UK (PAL) users being able to switch into 60Hz to get that extra 60fps recording option. Because high definition is exactly the same resolution in all countries the region change makes no difference as far as resolution size goes. This gives you even more options for editing, providing your computer system can handle both standards of course.

Sony?s XDCAM HD has really started to pick up in recent months here in the UK. Professional retailers have noticed sales are really starting to pick up. I was recently speaking to John Preston of H Prestons of Malvern in Gloucestershire on the phone recently. John was telling me that he can?t believe how XDCAM HD sales have started to go through the roof, to his absolute delight. In the past Prestons have sold the standard definition XDCAM camcorders, but now the new XDCAM HD models are here e.g. the F330 and the F350, sales are soaring. John is also selling bucket loads of Sony XDCAM HD PFD23 Professional Discs, especially the TDK branded ones that Prestons sell for just ?17.95 each.

It?s for good reason, well many actually, that Sony?s XDCAM HD professional disc-based camcorders are really taking off; I?ll get to some of them in a minute. But first a little more about XDCAM HD, who it is aimed at and who?s using it already.

A little history
Sony first introduced the great XDCAM disc-based system onto the market in September 2003 with two standard definition camcorders, these were the PDW-510 and the PDW-530, which sold more than 10,000 units worldwide. Essentially these first SD XDCAM camcorders record in the DVCAM format at 25Mbps onto Sony?s PFD23 Professional Discs, you could record up to 85 minutes of high quality (HQ) footage onto one of these single 23 gigabyte discs. One of the biggest pros by far of the standard definition XDCAM range is their very high quality 50Mb IMX recording capability. This IMX quality rivals Digibeta and is far superior to DVCAM, this is one of the things that attracted many of the Australian and continental broadcasters to pick up XDCAM as a primary format. At first people were a little confused by the format and needed educating in it, but after a slow start, XDCAM soon started to gain momentum as people started to show more and more interest in it. In January 2006 Sony introduced two brand new models, the PDW-F330 and the PDW-F350. These new models are the high-def (HD) versions that record to exactly the same PFD23 Sony Professional Discs, which are 23 gigabytes in capacity. In HQ shooting mode you can shoot approximately 65 minutes of HD footage to a single disc. During mid 2006 the new F330 and F350 XDCAM HD camcorders suddenly started to really take off and sales started to skyrocket. Those who shied away from the standard-def variation now appear to have firmly given the new high-def versions their firm stamp of approval. More and more broadcast production companies as well as independent video producers are looking to this exciting new workflow as they start to understand the limitless advantages to it, not to mention the amazing image quality they produce. There is no doubt that XDCAM and XDCAM HD are well and truly established. Not only is it here to stay, but it could well lead the way in future acquisition formats. Because the discs are based on Blu-ray technology (only with much higher bit rate capabilities) they are cheap to produce and future- proof.

Sony is the main driving force behind the Blu-ray disc; if not the originator of the format. Before Blu-ray disc was adopted, Sony's Data Division had already introduced the Professional Disc system for Data. We now know that Professional Disc is based on Blu-ray disc technology, only it is housed in a tough polycarbonate cartridge. This is good because Blu-ray is expected to grow in leaps and bounds in the future, assuring that Sony's XDCAM HD Professional Disc product development benefits from future the consumer Blu-ray advancements. The current XDCAM HD discs have a maximum sustained write data rate of 72Mbps. Of the three XDCAM HD recording modes (18, 25 and 35Mbps), I favor the 35Mbps high quality HD mode, which I estimate will approach, if not match the CODEC quality of the more established intra-frame formats of Sony's own HDCAM and Panasonic's DVCPRO-HD.

What is XDCAM HD?
XDCAM HD is Sony?s Professional disc-based high definition professional camcorders; they are the F330 and the F350; both are full-size professional shoulder-mount models costing ?10,500 inc vat for F330 camera and lens package and the F350 and ?14,095 inc vat with no lens for the F350. Both camcorders record to Sony?s Professional Disc system. This disc system is similar to Blu-ray technology, but Sony?s professional disc system is housed in a tough polycarbonate housing (think of a larg Mini-Disc, only a lot tougher), but unlike Blu-ray that can only record/playback at 25 Mbps, Sony?s professional disc system can record at 35 Mbps variable (even higher will be available in the future). The PFD23 Professional Discs have a capacity of 23 GB, which can record up to 120 minutes of footage. See quality/record timetable later. I'll be going into these topics in a lot more detail throughout this feature.

Who is XDCAM HD aimed at?
XDCAM HD is aimed at those currently shooting on DVCAM or Digibeta, but who are looking to move from standard definition over to a professional high definition format. XDCAM HD is perfectly at home as an ENG camera, event and corporate camera, as well as making an ideal professional HD camera for music videos and independent feature films. In fact a few Hollywood film producers have been looking at XDCAM HD for use in upcoming feature films, so if it is good enough for Hollywood? I suspect Sony is seeing XDCAM HD as a replacement to the long-running Digibeta format; XDCAM HD is really a HD equivalent of the standard definition Digibeta format, which makes it a worthwhile replacement as well as being a superior quality format. Both the F330 and F350 XDCAM HD camcorders can shoot in native 1080i (interlaced) or 1080p (progressive) so corporate and event videographers and documentary filmmakers will feel right at home in 1080i whilst independent filmmakers and music video makers can switch into 1080p for that nice film look.

For those who are interested in what XDCAM actually stands for, here is the word-for-word explanation from Sony Broadcast & Professional Pacific Asia.

As a new breakthrough of workflow advantages, XDCAM? is attributed as follows: "X" represents unlimited and ultimate power. "D" represents disc, digital, dimension, definition.

Who?s currently using XDCAM HD?
Starting with the latter. BHP sports production company in the UK recently bought several F350 XDCAM HD camcorders to shoot the Land Rover G4 challenge series for Channel Four. Previously they always shot their sports productions on Digibeta. Joint managing director of BHP group Simon Fitzgerald says the benefits in quality and workflow over Digibeta are huge. Because of the disc-based file system of XDCAM HD, it is especially great for ENG or sports work that requires super fast turnaround times.

Down under in New Zealand virtually all of their broadcast sector are shooting on XDCAM. As for the rest of the world, XDCAM HD is already being used by broadcast production companies in the USA, as well as in Europe including organisations such as NRK (Norway), WDR (Germany), TVP (Poland), Endemol and M6 (France) and Aragon TV (Spain).

There is no denying that Sony?s XDCAM format struggled to get a hold on the market when it was first launched in 2004, but once people learned of the benefits in quality and workflow they slowly started to adopt the format. Now that XDCAM HD is here in the form of the F330 and the F350, they are spreading though the industry like wildfire.

What is CineAlta?
CineAlta is a brand name that Sony put on only their very best professional equipment that is capable of shooting in native 24p (23.98 to be exact) progressive scan mode, such as HDCAM for example. You won?t find the CineAlta badge on the budget V1 as it does not shoot in true 24p progressive mode, although it equates to a complete progressive frame it is not recorded this way, instead the V1 records the frame as two separate interlaced fields, only it records them at the same time, as opposed to the usual interlace method where the second field is recorded a 50th of a second after the first. XDCAM HD (and all Sony CineAlta badged camcorders) record in true progressive 24p mode by recording an entire frame at a time and not the mixed-interlaced method. Apart from this, there appears to be no particular logic to the CineAlta branding, but it is a nice marketing badge don?t you think. It is however reassuring that Sony has badged the F330 and F350 XDCAM HD camcorders with their CineAlta logo. Basically, CineAlta Sony camcorders are capable or recording in native 24p, the digital equivalent of the Hollywood film standard of 24fps, hence the 'Cine' part of the word. Alta comes from the Latin word Altus, which means High.

Advantages of an XDCAM HD workflow
So after a little history on XDCAM HD, who?s using it, who it is aimed at, how much it costs, here comes the good bit, did I just say good? good is too small a word for it, I meant to say, OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD, the advantages of its workflow and image quality.

Although I?ve only had an XDCAM HD camera (F350 model) on loan from Sony for 2 days, already I?m blown away with its amazing HD quality footage, not to mention the amazing workflow. Right, where do I start, I?ll just dive right in and see where I end up.

First a little about the format and its codec. XDCAM HD is not too dissimilar to the prosumer HDV format, but wait, don?t scoff, there is a lot more to it than that; a whole lot more. While XDCAM HD works on a similar MPEG2 compression format that uses GoPs (Groups of Pictures) to that of HDV, that is about where the similarities end. From here on in the quality only goes skywards. First up, HDV camcorders work on a constant 25 Mbps (megabits per second) data rate. XDCAM HD on the other hand has three quality settings, the highest being 35 Mbps, and to add to that it?s a variable bit rate, not fixed. This will yield results that are far superior to anything even the best DoP could hope to squeeze out of a Z1, and this is just for starters. The two other quality settings for XDCAM HD are Medium i.e. 25 Mbps constant bit rate (same as HDV) and Low, which is 18 Mbps variable. Set at its highest variable bit rate of 35 Mbps the quality is simply stunning, but to give you an idea of quality from the other settings. BHP production company recently shot the Land Rover G4 challenge for Channel Four, and they used the Medium setting of a constant 25 Mbps. At the time this was the only setting supported by Apple?s Final Cut Pro (Apple have since released an update that includes the remaining High and Low XDCAM HD quality settings). However, it was still good enough to be broadcast on Channel Four, and the XDCAM HD cameras were responsible for over 90% of the acquisition material used in this television series. So with the medium constant 25 Mbps how come it was that good and not just the same as what a Z1 can do with its same settings? There are a number of factors that made the XDCAM HD footage better than Z1 footage, even in its medium quality setting. The main factors are a professional ?-inch lens, ?- inch CCD blocks, professional circuitry housed inside a full-size professional shoulder-mounted camcorder, these are just a few of the reasons. So you can see that with an F350 of F330 set to its high-quality variable 35 Mbps, the quality is in a different league to a Z1. Sony see these XDCAM HD cameras as filling the gap between a prosumer HDV Z1 and a professional HDCAM. I?ve heard a few professionals say that the quality XDCAM HD produces is about half way between the two. From my experience of all the above formats I?d be inclined to say XDCAM HD was much closer to HDCAM than that; I?d put XCDAM HD about 2/3rds along the line from Z1 quality i.e. 1/3rd away from HDCAM quality. Make no mistake, XDCAM HD is a full-blown out-and-out professional broadcast camera. How can I say this with such confidence? Because all the hard work has already been done for me; allow me to explain. You?ve all heard of the Discovery Channel, well Discovery HD have incredibly high standards, probably more so than the BBC in the UK. Discovery HD have high standards for a number of reasons, one is that they want to retain the Wow! Factor. When people are channel-hopping at home, Discovery HD channel want them to suddenly stop flicking though the channels when they hit theirs, and the chances are they will, why? Because many other Sky channels are happy to broadcast programmes shot on DV and HDV formats, so when the channel-hopper suddenly catches a glimpse of some amazing HD footage, they are more likely to stay there and watch.

Discovery HD channel approved
When Discovery HD test a format for approval (or disapproval) they really push the envelope, no stone is left unturned and there is no fooling them, you can?t just send a representative from your company over to Discovery HD to give a sales pitch on how great a camera is and expect them to swallow it, no sir. Basically Discovery HD will take the camera in question, have a professional shoot footage on it, put it through an edit suite and cut a sequence together complete with audio tracks, send it up into space, bounce it off a satellite and then finally sent though a dish, some cables, circuit boards and finally a bloody expensive HD monitor that would cost me and you a year's wages. At the end of all this shooting, editing, compressing and de-compressing, checking monitors, waveforms and lord knows what else, they finally approve it, or not. Okay I?ve kept you waiting long enough; Discovery HD has approved Sony?s XDCAM HD as a FULL acquisition format. By Full I mean you can shoot a documentary for Discovery HD channel entirely on an XDCAM HD camcorder alone and it is up to their very high standards. Other formats/camcorders do not get the Full acquisition approval from Discovery HD, these include HDV camcorders like Sony?s own Z1, the Canon XL H1 and even Panasonic's P2-based HVX200 doesn?t make the grade. These cameras can only be used for 15% of the entire programmes duration and never more than 60 seconds shown at any one time i.e. the majority (85%) of the programme must be shot on a higher professional format such as XDCAM HD or HDCAM. So there it is, you simply can?t pass a higher, more qualified and fussy bunch of judges than the Discovery HD guys, if they approve it, it is a world-class camcorder that produces HD broadcast quality images.

To download the official Discovery HD channel technical specifications for acquisition and delivery you can download either a PDF document here or a Word document here

Another difference between XDCAM HD and the prosumer HDV lies in the audio. The Z1 has 2 channels of compressed audio, XDCAM HD on the other hand has 4 channels of uncompressed audio, the latter is another of the qualifiers for Discovery HD, compressed audio would simply be thrown out along with the camcorder. So with superior uncompressed audio, and 4 channels of it, XDCAM HD is also ideal for recording music videos, live concerts, solo musicians and the like straight to its professional disc system.

These two XDCAM HD camcorders record to Sony?s professional disc system. As I?ve already mentioned, it is not too dissimilar to Blu-ray, only it is housed in a tough polycarbonate case to protect it from dust, rain etc, and it is capable of recording at much higher data rates than the consumer Blu-ray discs. Sony?s professional discs are also made by third party manufacturers including TDK, Maxell and Fuji. Because the professional disc system is based on Blu-ray technology it is easy for third party companies like TDK to manufacture these professional discs relatively cheaply. Currently a Sony professional disc will set you back around ?25.00, whilst a TDK, Maxell and Fuji disc costs around ?19.95. The discs are 23 GB in capacity and are will record 65 minutes in high-quality mode, 90 minutes in medium quality mode and 120 minutes in low-quality mode. Actually it is possible to get 75 minutes onto a disc, even in high-quality mode if you choose to use just 2 channels of audio and not 4. Of course it also depends on the subject matter you are filming and how much movement is going on in the images. Also, there is a spare 500 MB that is not available for camera acquisition recording purposes, this extra 500 MB is set aside for post-production purposes; more on this later.

The advantages of recording to XCDAM HD?s professional disc system are many; here are a few to get you all wet and excited. Firstly the discs don?t suffer from drop-out like HDV tape formats do, so there will never be blockiness and other artefacts that are more common with tape-based formats; in fact Sony?s XDCAM HD product manager Phil Myers told me you can literally drop a PFD23 Professional Disc in water, take it out, shake the water off and put it into the camcorder and shoot away, there is no way on this earth that you could do such a thing with a tape.

Both the F330 and F350 XDCAM HD camcorders can also be used as a record/playback deck so there is no need to purchase a separate deck. What I mean by this is that you can use these camcorders to play back footage straight into a HD-ready TV or HD monitor. With the F350 this is done via the HD/SDI output, with HD television sets that only have component or HDMI inputs you need to purchase a device such as the Miranda HD-Bridge Dec+ or the cheaper Blackmagic HD-Link. These devices will convert the Sony F350s HD/SDI output to DVI or HDMI. The F330 does not have an HD/SDI output, instead it has component outputs, which go straight into a TV or monitor, so with the F330 there is no need for a Miranda HD-Bridge or Blackmagic HD-link. When it comes to using the camcorders as recording decks, what I mean by that is that you can export files or complete programmes from the timeline in programmes such as Final Cut Pro, Avid and Sony Vegas in FAM (File Access Mode) mode. For example, in Final Cut Pro once your project is complete you simply go to File/Export/XDCAM and hit Go, your programme will be exported back to disc inside the camcorder where it will appear as a thumbnail and can be than played back.

In a tape world, people shooting on DVCAM or Digibeta would buy a separate deck (DSR11 for DVCAM for example) to save wear and tear on the camcorder's heads. However, with XDCAM HD the servicing costs are much lower than Digibeta and there are no expensive heads or tape drive mechanisms to replace, which means no tape damage, no tape jams, no bent rollers, no head clogs and no head wear. With DVCAM and HDVCAM cameras Sony recommend changing the heads every 2,000 hours, with XDCAM HD the laser only needs replacing every 4,000 hours and what?s more it is an easy operation, in fact you could almost do it yourself; though most people would want a qualified Sony engineer to do it. When changing heads in a tape camera, not only do they have to replace the heads, which is the easy bit, they then have to align the heads and all the workings that go with it including capstans and transport mechanisms. This has to be accurate to micron measurements hence it takes a long time and the labour costs can be (and usually are) considerable. With XDCAM HD they simply unplug the old laser block and replace it with a brand new one, no aligning necessary, very quick, very easy, very cheap; about ?1,000 inc vat.

Tapeless worlflow
If your only experience of tapeless acquisition is a Focus Firestore, CitiDISK or DV Rack then prepare to be educated. There is a whole lot more to a tapeless workflow than a mere 'ready to use video file', not if you are talking about a serious workflow revolution anyway. There is so much more to a tapeless workflow than speed alone. Sure, speed is one very important issue, but you also have to take into account the entire workflow speed i.e. archiving and backing up time and the time it takes to log footage, not to mention the time it would take to re-build your timeline in the event of a computer crash.

Systems such as a Focus Firestore external camcorder hard drive or Panasonic's P2 card camcorders both use a method that allows the use of video files straight from the recording device. However, this is a tapeless workflow in its simplest and most primitive form. Sony's XDCAM HD also does this, and then some.

Sony's XDCAM HD workflow is truly tapeless from acquisition to DVD master. Unlike any other system, it records small Proxy files (low-res versions of the full-res HD clips) for off-line editing in the field, but this is just the beginning. With Sony's free PDZ-VX10 software (downloadable from www.sonybiz.net) you can edit with the Proxy clips, mark in/out points, create cliplists and clip groupings. You can dump the proxy files to your client's laptop (less than 5 minutes for a 65 minute HD disc), they can mark in/out points of interest within the clips, then email you this Metadata (not actual video/proxy files) via email, you can then take this data and apply it to the actual high-def clips in the timeline. And the best thing of all, if you change your NLE system to another, all this data is right there with your original footage. Say you had shot a long clip of about 10 minutes, you can transfer the proxy file to your computer and use Sony's PDZ-VX10 software to go though the clip and extract the bits you want marking in/out points, group them into a cliplist, then write this data back to the original acquisition disc for future reference, leaving the original footage unaffected; totally non-destructive.

Unlike other systems which leave you with a ton of disorganised files with no names, XDCAM HD keeps things nice and tidy and you can name your clips as you like. You can even name clips before you have shot them. For example, if you are shooting at different locations throughout the day, you can have the first set of clips named "InThePark0001.MXF", then "InsideHotel0001.MXF" and so on and so forth, the file names are then automatically named and incremented by the camera. And best of all, if you run out of disc, simply pop in another one and the camera will continue with the same file-naming as the previous disc, or you can re-start from 0001 if you like. This is just the beginning of the superb XDCAM HD workflow, I'm barely scratching the surface here. But one thing is for sure, as far as a tapeless workflow goes, it simply makes the competition look positively prehistoric. Basically, with other systems what you are getting is a tapeless recording system, not a proper tapeless workflow system. With XDCAM HD you get both.

The reliability of XDCAM HD discs is second to none. They are totally reliable in every way. Other systems such as hard drives (Firestore) are far from perfect, hard drives become unreliable as they are used, especially with the high demands of large video files, and of course a hard drive can simply die for no reason and without any notice. Solid state systems such as Panasonic's P2 and Compact Flash are also not trouble-free, they are very susceptible to hazards such as static. Static can kill a card off if you have been walking along a carpet in your socks and then touch the metal contact parts, or if these same contacts touch your woolly or nylon clothing, which contain static. It's no wonder that XDCAM is the most popular tapeless acquisition format in the world.

Shooting on XDCAM HD
Okay so I?ve banged on about everything but actually shooting footage on XDCAM HD with an F330 or F350. If you think the brief part I talked about on post-production was good, you ain?t heard nothing yet, get ready to relish in this XDCAM HD workflow heaven. First up the Sony professional discs can be used over and over again. It's possible to re-record over the same Sony disc more than 1,000 times (TDK claim 10,000 times with their discs). You can play back the footage recorded to the discs approximately 1,000,000 times without any quality loss whatsoever, this is light years ahead of tape technology. Archival shelf life of recorded discs is 50 years minimum.

So you can record on professional discs thousands of times, but what about the shelf life. A Sony professional disc has a shelf life of at least 50 years. It is not magnetic, like tape, so there is zero danger in that department, and also, unlike tape, you don?t have to take them off the shelf every 2 or 3 years to unpack the tape by fast-forwarding and rewinding them. The discs are not affected anywhere near as much as tape by temperatures either so there is no need to keep a controlled room temperature like with tapes.

The reason for the above explanation is because when you are shooting to these discs with XDCAM HD cameras you don?t have to retain every out-take like you do with tape. You know what a pain in the butt it can be when you have 20 tapes you have to spend weeks sifting though to find the decent 90 minutes of footage. With XDCAM HD if you didn?t like the last take you simply hit the "delete last clip" button. Don?t worry, you can?t do this accidentally, you have to hit the button, then confirm by pressing a different button on a different part of the camcorder, so the chances of you deleting the last take by accident are virtually none; you really have to try.

You can also view the thumbnail clips on the fold-out LDC screen, or via an external monitor connected to the XDCAM HD camera; again, you can delete the ones you don?t want. There are many advantages to this workflow, you save space on the disc, as you delete unwanted clips, you are getting back that disc space so you don?t have any old-fashioned shooting-ratios. Wildlife filmmakers often work to a 40/1 ratio i.e. for every 40 hours of footage recorded, just 1 hour is usable. Imagine the possibilities, with XDCAM HD you simply delete those clips at the shooting stage by using the delete last clip function or by scrolling through the thumbnails on the LDC screen and deleting them there. No more 40/1 ratios, XDCAM HD turns your workflow into a 1/1 ratio. Imagine coming home from a 5-day shoot with just 65 minutes of footage on one disc, only every single frame of those 65 minutes are world-class frames, every one of them a usable clip/take; not an outtake in sight. When it comes to editing, you know that every single clip you drag-and-drop onto your desktop is a usable one that will end up in the final programme; great!!

Now we all stop many times during a shoot to play back clips that we?ve just recorded, and we all know what a pain it is parking the playhead on the last frame recorded so you can continue recording without breaking the timecode, or worse still, recording over something important. With Sony Professional Discs those days are over, after you?ve previewed some of your recorded clips, it is simply a case of hitting the record button and your new footage will continue recording on the empty section of the disc, leaving your original footage untouched. If you?ve just shot a few scenes and want to take a look at them, it is the simplest thing in the world with XDCAM HD, unlike tape, there is no danger of causing any damage during playback or accidentally recording over previous footage, so there is no technical reason why playing back clips shouldn?t become a routine part of your shooting workflow.

Once you get into the XDCAM HD workflow you will find so many advantages that you will wonder how you ever managed with tape. I found the random access recording of the XDCAM HD format to be one such feature that I simply could not live without. Instead of recording footage to tape from start to finish, you record data files that can be linked together for linear playback. This recording system comes into its own when you need to compare looks or to check for continuity.

Now for one of my favourite features, this is simply out of this world and there is no way I could live without it now I?ve experienced it. I shoot a lot of corporate and SIVs (Special Interest Videos) that require a presenter to speak to camera, sometimes from Auto-Cue, sometimes from memory. Every time I work with a presenter I always experience losing a great sound bite because they started speaking before the camera was recording hence I sometimes miss the first word or two from their sentences at the beginning of a new take. If this has ever happened to you, you will know what a pain it is to do the take again. With the F330 and F350 XDCAM HD cameras there is a built in buffer system. As long as you have the buffer switched on, the moment you hit the record button, you capture everything that is going on at that moment, as well as everything that happened during the 12 seconds before you actually hit the record button, how cool and out of this world is that!! There is zero quality loss either, the buffer system records in the same quality as the one the camera is set to.

Using XDCAM HD during the acquisition stage of a production is pure bliss. The PFD23 Professional Discs are smaller and a lot thinner than Digibeta tapes for example, and in HQ (High Quality) 35 Mbps Variable shooting mode you can get 65 minutes onto a single PFD23 disc. When you first put a blank disc into an XDCAM HD camcorder, there is a short delay whilst the disc is formatted. I found this was over in hardly any time at all; around 15 seconds, it wouldn?t even hold up the most hurried of shooting situations. Of course this only has to be done once, next time you put in the same disc you can shoot after just a few short seconds from switching on the camera. Start up time is certainly quicker than standard tape formats.

One thing I just love about XDCAM HD is the fact that you don?t have to bother taking a disc out of the camcorder after wrapping for the day. Obviously if you do this with tape you risk the tape either sticking to the heads, or demagnetising and causing damage to that part of the tape, or possible damage to the head; it?s vital to remove tapes from camcorders when not in use. With XDCAM HD this problem simply does not exist, as it is a disc and once the camcorder is turned off there is no contact with the disc at all, the laser is switched off so absolutely nothing can happen. This is great news for lazy cameramen who leave tapes in the camcorder at the end of a day's shoot, or simply forget to remove them.

The XDCAM HD system will totally win over your corporate clients for a number of reasons, apart from all the ones I?ve mentioned so far, the Professional Discs look way more impressive to a client than a mere consumer Mini-DV tape. Also the price of the PFD23 Sony discs and TDK, Maxell and Fuji discs are incredibly cheap, which means your clients will be happy as the blank media section of the bill won't be very much at all. This low cost recording and archiving medium is just one of the reasons why many production companies have chosen to use XDCAM HD over rival systems.

The F330 and F350 XDCAM HD camcorders can also record in standard definition (SD) modes too, as well as being HD-native 16:9/4:3 switchable. In DVCAM mode at 25 Mbps you can record approximately 85 minutes of footage to a single disc, the quality in this mode is identical to what you would get out of a DSR400 when using DVCAM tapes. Standard definition recording is still going to be a big part of our production and television environments for some time to come, even longer in other EU countries outside the UK. The F330 and F350 also have built in down-conversion capabilities that allow your native HD recorded footage to be down-converted from the camera to DV signals that are output via the i.LINK port, this allows you to edit footage on a regular DV-based non-linear edit system, whilst keeping your original footage HD and future proof. So with an F330 or F350 all angles are nicely covered, thank you very much Sony.

So both HD and SD in various quality recording options are covered, what about the actual image quality of XDCAM HD. I spent a week with some loan equipment from Sony UK made up of an F350 XDCAM HD camcorder fitted with a Canon HDGC KH20x6.4 KRS SY14 high definition lens and a Sony high def 27? monitor complete with HD/SDI input, so I was able to feed from the F350?s HD/SDI output on the rear of the camcorder straight into the HD/SDI input on the high-def monitor.

So, armed with an F350 and three Sony Professional Discs I loaded the car and set off to do some filming around Cambridgeshire. One of my favourite spots for testing camcorders is a very picturesque river a few miles down the road from where I live, it was here that I made my first stop. The subjects I filmed included boats passing up and down the river, swans on the river, people fishing, people walking over bridges above the river, old buildings alongside the river and much more. These included locked-off shots of wide scenes taking in the river and its surroundings, gentle panning shots of boats and a bunch of close and extreme close shots of various subjects from signs on bridges, detail on boats, peoples faces, skateboards and the like. Basically I shot a nice range of footage that would give me plenty to go on when it came to viewing the quality later on.

The menus on the F350 are very extensive, there are loads of presets and you can go into the presets and adjust the parameters of the various levels within them, as well as creating your own from scratch. I found the Cine 4 setting with Hi-Sat produced a more pleasing look than the Standard settings that are set by default from the factory, I shot footage using standard settings and various Cine settings in both 1080i (Interlaced) as well as 1080p (Progressive). My guess is that anyone buying an F350 or F330 could spend ages tweaking around in the menus creating many different scene files, that can be stored on Sony?s Memory Sticks. I should point out that the XDCAM HD camcorders only take Sony?s Memory Sticks up to a maximum of 128 MB; larger capacities simply don?t work. It?s also advisable to buy the standard purple memory sticks and not the MagicGate variety.

The F350 is a very ergonomically friendly camera to work with. It balances nicely on the shoulder and the adjustable sliding shoulder pad means it is easy to get a nice balance no matter what size battery is on the back, or what lens is mounted on the front. All the switches, levers and dials are right where you would expect to find them and they all feel very solid and reliable, I got the impression that none of these levers or switches would break off anytime soon; nice and solid with a very positive feel about them. The same can be said of the entire camera, it is built to the same high standards of the rest of Sony's professional cameras such as DSR450 DVCAM, Digibeta and HDCAM models. Sony are well aware that professional broadcast cameramen around the world use their cameras on a daily basis in a wide variety of shooting situations, some more extreme than others, so they build their camcorders to withstand professional broadcast use day in day out.

The majority of footage I shot was from the safe position of a nice carbon Vinten Vision 8 tripod. This was a marriage made in heaven, the F350 balanced to perfection on the Vinten. The fold-out LCD screen on the F350 is on a par with most other fold-out LCD screens out there i.e. it is only really usable for composition, don't attempt to adjust your exposure or white-balance based on the built in LCD screen. I found the LCD screen bright enough so I could use it for composition purposes and panning shots i.e. following boats up and down the river, even though it was a bright sunny day. The viewfinder is incredibly sharp and is the preferred way of monitoring focus, in fact I had to turn the peaking down a little as the dial set in the middle on the front of the viewfinder was a bit overkill for me; I could see every pore on people's faces. The viewfinder is a 2? black and white CRT affair; the sort professionals are used to.

In operation the camera is silent, even with the camera shoulder mounted you don?t hear the disc spinning, and if you turn the camera around and put your ear up against the side of the camera where the disc is, even then you don?t hear it. In fact I?d say that it is much quieter than a tape-transport mechanism as the disc system uses less motors and moving components.

I was using the standard Sony mic that came with the camcorder with nothing more than the basic foam cover to shield it from wind noise. This standard mic is in fact a stereo one. This camera-mounted microphone plugs into the front balanced XLR socket, which is the 5-pin stereo variety, however, there are a further two standard 3-pin balanced XLR sockets on the back of the camera.

Although I did not test the camera in extreme weather/temperature conditions, the Sony XDCAM HD camcorders can withstand extreme weather temperatures and humidity far greater than that of tape; this is especially true of humidity that can cause problems with heads. Shooting on XDCAM HD in temperatures as low as -30 degrees should pose no problems whatsoever. The same can be said for shooting in a hot humid tropical rain forest.

Deleting clips and fragmentation
With XDCAM HD it is possible to delete the last recorded clip, random clips, or all the clips on the disc. All these clip-delete methods will of course free up extra space on the disc for you to then record on again. To delete the last recorded clip you must do it as soon as possible, because once you power down the camera you will lose the chance to delete the last clip. If you know the last clip was a bad take, delete it there and then. However, you can delete the last clip later on by using the random-clip-delete feature. It is also possible to delete randomly selected clips from the disc by highlighting the clip you want to delete and using the pull-down menu to delete it. To prevent fragmentation occurring on the disc, any clips under 30-seconds duration won't actually be deleted. What happens in this instance is you delete the clip in the usual way and it won't be there anymore. However, the media will remain on the disc hence it won't free up the space on the disc. The disc management system works this way to prevent lots of tiny empty spaces occurring across the disc, which could lead to fragmentation. So it is best to leave these shorter clips on the disc to prevent fragmentation. Having said that, if you were to also delete a neighboring clip that would bring the total duration to 31-seconds or more, then the space is freed up on the disc for you to record on again. For example if the first clip you deleted was just 9 seconds long, then you deleted a neighboring clip of 22-seconds (31 in total) it could combine that space and free it up again.

Image Quality
So after filming for 3 days straight with the F350 it was time to view some of that footage. I must admit that I was a bit nervous about actually viewing my material as up until now I had fallen in love with the F350 and the simplicity of the whole disc-based workflow; I simply could not get enough of it. I was resisting viewing the footage in case my fantasy was about to be shattered, I mean can you imagine how I would feel only to discover that the image quality was on a par with a Z1, Canon XL H1, JVC GY-HD111 or Panasonic HVX200 for example? But it had to be done and I would just have to accept the outcome, whatever it may be.

My prayers were answered; the images coming from the F350 were simply stunning. The first clip to play back was a gentle pan (1080p/25p mode) of a long-boat moving down the river. The detail was incredible and the overall image had an incredibly smooth and pleasing look. As for colour reproduction, it was like being there, the colours were exactly how they were when I was there, this camera brings nothing to the party in terms of added hues or colour casts or bad interpretations of colour. The F350 is bang on in the colour department almost to the point that it almost improves it over real life live viewing of the scene, well maybe not quite, but it is bloody amazing!

The F350 retains detail in distant subjects on wide shots incredibly well, better than anything else I?ve ever seen in this price range. Looking at the brickwork in distant buildings or reading logos on distant boats that are 300 yards away proved the F350's ability to retain distant details to amazing levels.

On one of the days I was filming there was a boat race, think Oxford/Cambridge here, but with less people per boat. They were really going for it, so I took this opportunity to shoot in both progressive and interlaced modes. In 1080p the motion of the rowers and the oars hitting the water was simply magical, I even tried out the Over-Cranking feature set to record at 50 fps (frames per second) instead of 25 fp. Although it recorded the scene at 50 fps, it plays it back at 25 fps hence you get lovely smooth slow-motion. This can be set anywhere between 25 and 50 fps. The over-cranking footage I shot of the boaters rowing away looked amazing, as the oars hit the water the droplets of water took on a whole new look. Anyone trying this for the first time should note that there is a lot more to shooting slow-motion than simply selecting the frame-rate you desire and hitting record. The shutter speed is a vital factor that needs to be taken into consideration, 1/50th can produce a smeary motion blur, whilst using 1/250th with 50fps will produce a more film-like slow motion that is perfectly clear. Generally, professionals would go with 50fps with either 1/100th or 1/125th shutter as this works best for achieving smooth and crisp motion with no motion blur or smear. I'd recommend experimenting here, and don't forget to re-set your shutter when you switch the slow motion function off or change frame-rates. Sony's adjustable frame-rate funcion is a much better way of doing it than in post, where your edit software simply duplicates every other frame to give the illusion that it is slow-motion, when in reality it is a bit fake. When you?ve seen the real thing i.e. Over-cranking and Under-cranking, you really know you?ve seen proper slow-motion. If you want that Keystone Cops look you can switch in the under-cranking and record less frames-per-second, then when it is played back at 25 fps everything is moving about super fast, again you can set the under-cranking to various speeds.

Even though it was a bright sunny day, the tiny silvery reflections off the waters surface looked perfectly natural. Looking in the dark shady areas under a large stone bridge over the river I was astonished by the level of detail in the blacks, the contrast ratio appeared to be pretty wide. In one of my shots there were some black coots on the water under the bridge in a heavily shaded area, but I could see every detail in their feathers. The same can be said of the white swan I filmed as it groomed itself on the water. The sun was beating down on its white feathers, but even in these bright and contrasted conditions the details of the white feathers overlapping each other was amazing, and the detail in the down on its neck and chest was breathtaking, these tiny feathers are bordering on microscopic, but I could clearly see the detail in them.

Panning across green grass is always a favourite of mine for showing a camera's detail capabilities and more importantly any codec compression artefacts. With some gentle pans as well as faster pans on both wide and close and shot in both interlaced and progressive modes in the highest quality setting of HQ 35Mbps variable there was absolutely nothing visible in the way of artefacts; compression, what compression?

When I viewed back the close-up footage of people their skin tones were reproduced beautifully, and I didn?t even have the skin-tone features switched in at all. The detail in the skin was remarkable, every pore in the skin was remarkably well defined whilst the overall look of people's faces was naturally warm and remarkably lifelike. In the past, with other camcorders, I?d have to use Warm Cards to get such lovely warm tones in an image, which brings me nicely onto white-balance. Usually with digital formats when you carry out a white-balance set-up using a standard white card, digital camcorders usually lean the hue towards blue ever so slightly, which means people tend to look a bit cold. In the past I?ve always used a Warm Card number 1 to white balance to, this way I get warmer more natural looking skin tones as opposed to the usual DV cold/grey skin-tone look. When viewing the footage of people it suddenly dawned on me that I never used any warm cards whatsoever during my F350 filming, yet I found myself saying, what beautifully natural looking skin colour. This is a massive credit to the F350 camera. I?ve never witnessed such warm natural looking colours and tones both on people and other subjects such as buildings. Even when shooting during the mid-day sun the brickwork on some of the bridges over the river and local Edwardian buildings were simply glowing with richness. In fact I'd go so far as saying that the F330 and F350 are way too good for camcorders at this price; their quality certainly suggests a higher price than they actually are.

Also, tests performed by Sony suggest that higher resolution and better image quality can be achieved at 1080p with the F350's 1/2-inch CCD-based camcorder than with a 2/3-inch CCD-based camcorders that must be up-converted from 720p to 1080p.

Audio
The F350 and F330 cameras both have two balanced XLR microphone inputs on the back of the cameras. However, what is not immediately apparent is that they both also have a front mounted 5-pin XLR input that is stereo. You might be forgiven for thinking that the microphone that comes with these cameras is in fact a mono one, but upon unplugging the XLR from the front you will in fact discover it is a 5-pin XLR, not the usual 3-pin type. I only found this out when I went to plug in a Sennheiser K6/ME66 medium rifle mic. The actual audio quality of the included Sony microphone is just amazing. Most people would immediately replace the standard mic that accompanies the camcorder with a better one. Well I can tell you that there is no need to do that with this mic. Not only does it record amazing sound, but it is stereo too. I plugged the Sennheiser into one of the rear XLR sockets and monitored the audio both via Sennheiser HD25 cans, as well as in post. To my ears (and I'm a classically trained pianist), the Sony mic produced sounds that were just as good, in fact I even preferred it as it was not quite as harsh as the Sennheiser. With this Sony mic being stereo, they have obviously built and designed it especially, it's totally new and it shows; or rather it sounds.

Whilst I'm on the subject of audio, these camcorders are also capable of recording 4 channels of uncompressed 16-bit audio. And for those who would want to shoot in standard-def DVCAM mode, you are now taken out of the usual DVCAM 12-bit world, with XDCAM HD shooting in SD DVCAM mode you also have the same 4 channels of uncompressed audio, and in 16-bit, not the usual 12-bit. Basically this means the quality of audio recorded to an XDCAM HD camcorder is probably better than DAT and it is certainly on a par with the likes of professional field audio recorders like the Fostex FR2.

Comparison to other camcorders image quality
I?m not going to get into all sorts of futile chart test comparisons with other camcorders during this short section. How people can stick a camcorder on a locked off tripod and point it at a poster-chart on the wall and check the image quality off the lens and blocks via a monitor, without even recording a frame is quite simply a joke to me; block & lens testing in this way is just the tip of the iceberg. The only way one can get a real idea of a camcorder's capabilities or any kind of true and realistic judgement of the camcorder's image quality is to actually record some footage with motion in the scene, otherwise all a bench test will tell you is how good the lens is, it certainly won?t tell you how good the camcorder's built-in compression codec is, or circuitry or image processor or any of the other million factors that all add up to the image quality produced by a camcorder. I personally agree 100% with Discovery HD channel's approach: record footage to the camcorder, edit and encode that footage to MPEG for digital broadcast, broadcast it and send it back to earth from satellite to monitor. Well I don't have the satellite set-up. This is the only way to find out how well the camera's codec can stand up to during editing, MPEG encoding and finally broadcasting. Also, you can play around with a camera all you like, but until you use it in anger you will never get the full story of a camera's capabilities; not even close.

As I said near the beginning of this feature, when Discovery HD channel test a camcorder, they record footage (it?s now been compressed), they then edit this footage (it?s now been de-compressed and compressed again), then they broadcast it by bouncing it off a satellite in the sky, which in turn sends the signal back down to their HD monitors (it?s now been compressed yet again), then what they see on the HD monitor is what they go by. They certainly don?t go by sticking a chart on the wall and pointing a camera at it, which is the most futile and pointless way of testing equipment since the chocolate fire poker. What I?m getting at here is that you have to go out and actually film moving footage to get a true representation of what a camera can do. I didn?t do the edit and bouncing off a satellite bit, but I did record footage which was compressed using the camcorder's built in codec hence I could see the camera's full capabilities with regard to image quality.

So I compared some XDCAM HD footage played back from the source F350 camcorder with some other footage shot on a JVC GY-HD111E, a Sony Z1 and a Panasonic HVX200 in DVCPROHD mode onto P2. Now you might be thinking that this is not a fair comparison, after all a Panasonic HVX200 costs just ?3,995, a JVC GY-HD111E costs just ?3,800 and Sony's own Z1 costs around ?3,500 as opposed to the F330 XDCAM HD camcorder which costs ?10,000 inc lens and vat or ?14,000 for the F350 body only. However, Panasonic claim their HVX200 is a professional camcorder, personally I don?t know how anyone can call a camcorder with a built in lens professional. JVC also claim that their ProHD series of camcorders are professional, the latter I"m more inclined to believe as they at least feel and work like professional cameras. Besides, this review/feature is aimed at those who are looking to upgrade from cameras such as the ?3,500 to ?4,000 models listed here. Which is why I decided to compare the F330 and F350 to these cheaper camcorders.

I used footage from JVC ProHD tapes via a GY-HD111E camera, footage from a Panasonic P2 card via a HVX200 camcorder and footage from a Sony Mini-DV tape via a Z1 camcorder. All this footage was shot in the same place under identical weather conditions. The JVC footage was shot in 720p/25p, Sony Z1 footage was shot in HDV 1080i and Panasonic footage was shot in DVCPROHD onto a P2 card using the HVX200.

The Sony F350 XDCAM HD camera was plugged into a large Sony HD monitor at all times via the camcorder's HD/SDI output, going into the monitor's HD/SDI input. I then alternated with the other cameras. Starting with the JVC wired up to the monitor via Component, as I A/B switched between the two it was immediately clear and blatantly obvious which was the better of the two. The F350 XDCAM HD was in a different league altogether, in fact it is a different sport entirely. In comparison to the F350 the JVC was very grainy with a hard gritty look, my partner described it as being horribly pixilated in comparison. Viewing footage from the JVC on its own is impressive enough, but it is only when you A/B switch between two different camcorders on the same HD monitor that you get the full story. The Sony F350 is far superior to the JVC in every single department: image detail, resolution, colour saturation and naturalness of colours, highlighted areas, dark areas, contrast ratio, the lot. I must admit, even I was totally shocked by this as I actually own a JVC GY-HD111E camcorder.

The next head on the chopping block was the Panasonic HVX200. I expected something more from the Panny, considering it was recorded in DVCPROHD mode to a P2 card with a lot less compression than the JVC?s HDV codec. Upon A/B switching between the HVX200 and the F350 it was again immediately obvious which was the superior image. The Panasonic had a different look to the JVC in certain areas and the picture was noticeably softer than the JVC. Like the JVC, the Panasonic HVX200 was not in the same league as the Sony F350; far from it. Although the Panasonic DVCPROHD codec and P2 format are okay in their own right, the prosumer HVX200 camcorder let it down miserably due to the limitations of the cheap built-in lens and consumer circuitry. 2-0 to the Sony F350

As I used to own 2 Sony Z1 camcorders and have a bunch of footage on tape from them shot in 1080i I thought it only fair to compare this budget Sony model with the professional F350. Only trouble is I had to pop out in the car to borrow my friend's Z1 to do it. Back home I plugged in the Z1 to compare its footage with the F350. I was not surprised in the least when I saw the results, as with the other camcorders I compared it with, the F350 leaves it standing in the dust in every department.

This isn't to say the JVC GY-HD111E, Panasonic HVX200 and Sony Z1 are bad cameras. To me they all produce similar image quality, but with their own 'look'. The F350 and F330 XDCAM HD camcorders are at least twice the price of these cheaper camcorders so you would expect a very noticeable difference. This difference is very noticeable and immediately evident. The F350 and F330 are simply head and shoulders above the cheaper ?3,700 to ?5,000 range of camcorders. Of course you would expect a camcorder costing about ?10,000 (?6,000 in the case of the cheaper F330) more to show an improvement in image quality, but like I said, this review/feature is for those who are looking to upgrade from these cheaper cameras, those who want to jump into professional waters and really make a name for themselves in the serious world of professional video production.

Comparing the F350 with other formats I?ve had recent experience with, I?d say it is far superior to the high end DVCAM formats such as the DSR450, but again, you?d expect this as the F350 is HD and the DSR450 is SD. Using the F350 in SD mode would produce images on an exact level with high-end DVCAM camcorders. I would also say that XDCAM HD is a worthwhile upgrade from Digibeta, again the main reason behind this statement is High-Definition. There is no doubt the F350 in HQ high-def mode produces better images than an SD Digibeta camcorder, even though the latter uses 2/3rd inch lenses as opposed to the F350s ? inch lenses.

Anyone thinking of upgrading to XDCAM HD will not regret it for one second. The image quality it produced was way beyond my expectations. I?m totally convinced about XDCAM HD, the workflow, the picture quality, the build quality, the back-up and after sales service, everything.

Other features of the F330 and F350
Both these camcorders also have a time-lapse facility, but you need to go for the higher-spec F350 if you want the under-cranking and over-cranking feature. Under-cranking and over-cranking are basically fast-motion and slow-motion using variable frame-rates. Panasonic first introduced this feature on its Varicam model, but now Sony has decided to get in on the act too, and why not, as this is a feature that more and more professionals are demanding. When the F350 is in 50Hz and in Standard mode, the user can choose any frame-rate from 1fps to 25fps as well as 50fps, in Extended mode the user can move in single frame increments from 25fps to 50fps. However, at the present time the variable frame rate settings are only possible in progressive shooting mode. Although speed-ramping is not possible, you can simply record at 50fps then carry out the frame-ramping in post-production, the mathematical algorithms of doing it in post are identical to how the camera would do it anyway, which is possibly why Sony did not implement the feature to start with.

Frame Accumulation
Frame accumulation is also known as Slow-Shutter, or SLS. SLS is a variable setting on the camcorder that lets you decide how many frames worth of light you want to accumulate before it is laid down to the disc. A maximum of 64 frames can be accumulated using the SLS function. What effect will this have and what advantages are there? When shooting in low-light levels, SLS produces sharp and clear images with no picture noise whatsoever, for scenes with minimum movement this is a great alternative to switching in the gain. When shooting video with any sort of motion it provides a very artsy and out of this world ghostlike image that simply has to be seen to be believed. This is an amazing effect for music videos or haunting images. This is quite hard to explain, it?s easier to understand if you see it in action, but once you?ve used it and seen it you will find yourself looking for scenes or even writing scenes just for this effect. SLS at 64 frames produces the most dramatic effect, coming down though 32 frame, 16 frame, 8 frame, 4 frame and 2 frame produces less and less of an effect. If you know anything about stills photography, think of a photo of a waterfall taken at ? a second exposure from a tripod. The water has a neat soft blur to it, well this effect is produced with the SLS function when shooting waterfalls also. The great thing about SLS is that you don?t have to dig into the menus to find it, simply flick the shutter lever on below the lens and flick it sideways a few times until SLS comes up on the screen, then it?s simply a case of turning the menu knob to select the SLS setting from 4 to 50.

Scene files
Scene files are another great feature of the F330 and F350. These are customizable sets of camera parameters that you can programme in and save in camera and/or to Sony Memory Stick. Settings include shutter speed and most of the settings within the paint menu. There are over 50 customizable parameters in the paint menus so you can create an infinite range of looks from a progressive cine look for making an independent short film to a warm interlaced look for shooting an indoor interview. This means you can set up a scene file of your making. Simply set the shutter speed, shooting mode and whatever colour characteristics, knees, black levels etc that you want to create your own look, then save it as a customised scene file. You can save up to 5 scene files in the camera itself and another 100 scene files on a Sony Memory Stick. These scene files can be transferred from one camera to another via Memory Stick, as well as being loadable onto a computer and emailed to other XDCAM HD users in remote locations. Switching between scene files is simply a case of choosing your pre-named customized scene file in the menu and entering it.

Assign buttons
Assign buttons are another great feature, 16 of the camera's functions are assignable to 4 assign buttons on these camcorders. This is a great timesaver as it means you can assign functions to the assign buttons, so you can just hit one of the assign buttons to quickly assign a function to the camcorder. Assignable features include: Marker for display markers in the viewfinder/lcd. Re-Take for deleting the last clip you recorded. ATW for auto-trace-white-balance. Lens Return for playback of the last 2 seconds of the last clip you recorded. Rec Switch to assign a start/stop function to an assign button. Turbo Switch to turn on the turbo gain button that can be set to any gain level including -3db. Freeze Mix which superimposes a previously recorded frame of footage over the live image in the viewfinder, this is fantastic as it allows you to adjust the camera's framing to match a previous scene.

Clip lists
The F330 and F350 allows you to create Clip Lists. This is a great function if you need to play back a customised sequence of clips. Basically it allows you to put together a rough edit in-camera by selecting clips and placing them on a mini timeline on the LCD screen, marking in/out points and saving the clip list as a short sequence. This doesn?t actually create extra clips on the disc, it merely references the original HD clips that are already there so no extra space it taken up. You can create up to 99 clip lists on a single disc and they will stay on the disc along with the footage indefinitely.

This function could come in handy in literally hundreds of situations, for example, you could create a clip list if you are shooting a sequence of shots and you want to quickly edit together a rough cut so you can check if the sequence is going to work. Or if you were shooting an ENG news story in the field and you only want to transmit the best B-roll or sound bites back to the station.

Both these cameras also have the ability for you to go from live on-air filming to a clip list, then cut back to your live on-air filming. Imagine you have a news presenter on location doing a piece to camera, you can instantly cut away to a clip list sequence that is relevant to what the presenter is talking about, then when the clip list has finished playing the camera reverts back to its live recording status. This all happens seamlessly and is like having your own master control room (MCR) right there in the camera.

Editing with XDCAM HD
XDCAM HD is a file-based workflow so you don?t have to play in tapes in dull old linear real time fashion; it?s more a drag and drop workflow. The XDCAM HD workflow allows instant random access to your footage through the camera's FireWire, or iLINK as Sony call it, which is both in/out.

With Sony's XDCAM HD file-based transfer tapeless workflow, you don't need any expensive RAID configurations or additional HD/SDI capture cards to get high quality High-Def footage onto your editing system. Of course you can capture to a RAID, or via an HD/SDI or SD/SDI capture card to a different codec, but bringing the files in via FireWire is by far the simplest method of ingest. This is just brilliant as it drastically lowers the cost of your infrastructure for high definition editing. So there are cost savings as well as time savings in the XDCAM HD workflow.

The XDCAM HD codec is so efficient that you can edit on a standard computer 7200RPM hard drive, be it a desktop computer or a basic laptop; both work great. The XDCAM HD codec is compressed, just like HDCAM, DVCPROHD and pretty much most other formats out there in the broadcast world. But, although the XDCAM HD codec is a lossy one, it is certainly not visually lossy, which is by far the most important thing. People get too hung up on compression codecs that are lossy when the fact is you really have to judge with your eyes. Try taking the Pepsi challenge with XDCAM HD, you won't see any evidence of a compressed codec.

The first major advantage of an XDCAM workflow during the editing stage is the fact that you no longer have to digitise your footage or bring it into your edit system in real-time via FireWire. Instead XDCAM is a file-based workflow, which basically means you plug your XDCAM camera or deck into your computer via FireWire, or Ethernet (on the recorder deck), then simply import the clips onto your hard drive at super-fast speeds. No more dropped frames during real-time tape import.

XDCAM HD works seamlessly with most of the popular industry standard edit software packages including Apple?s Final Cut Pro, Avid Xpress Pro (25Mbps only) and the higher end Avid packages (all XDCAM HD bit-rates i.e. 18, 25 & 35Mbps are supported in high end Avid suites), as well as Sony?s own Vegas editing software. It even works great with consumer software packages like Adobe Premiere with the Main Concept XDCAM plug-in.

Although XDCAM HD is a professional High Definition format, it doesn?t take up hundreds of gigabytes of space on your computer's hard drives and it doesn?t require the world's fastest computer either, in fact you could quite happily edit XDCAM HD footage on a laptop such as an Apple MacBook or Sony Viao.

I?ll give you a quick example of the editing workflow based around Apple?s Final Cut Pro, only because this is the edit system I use and am familiar with.

Once you?ve installed the Sony XDCAM HD software plug in for your edit software from either the CD that comes with the camera, or by visiting Sony?s web site for the latest driver for Mac or PC you are ready to rock. Simply plug in the camera via its FireWire socket and into your computer's FireWire socket, then launch Final Cut Pro and set up a new project or sequence using the same settings as those you actually filmed with i.e. 1080i or 1080p and whatever quality setting you recorded at. Final Cut Pro supports XDCAM HD 1080i/50, 1080i/60 1080p/24, 1080p/25, 1080p/30 for both PAL and NTSC in both 25Mbps constant as well as 35Mbps variable, the latter being the best XDCAM HD quality setting.

Once you?ve set up your sequence, go to File/Import and choose XDCAM? once you click on this the XDCAM Transfer window will open. Anyone used to using a Mac will just love this interface, as it is very similar to iPhoto. All your thumbnail clips appear in this window like still photo slides with the first frame of the clip displayed. As soon as the XDCAM Transfer window opens, the first thing that happens is that all the proxy files are automatically imported. Proxy files are very small low-res versions of your full high-def clips. These proxy clips can be used for off-line rough edits, and they are what you use in the XDCAM Transfer window to mark in/out points or to play back the clips right there in the XDCAM Transfer window, of course they can also be emailed to people as the file size is tiny.

The proxy files load up really fast, I found that my 30 or so clips of various durations from 20 seconds to 45 seconds took around a minute to load up. When this is done you can simply click on the clips you want by holding down the Command key, then click on the Import button at the bottom right of the window. The clips will then start to import into Final Cut Pro. This import process is NOT in real time, it is the equivalent to dragging and dropping files across onto your computer's hard drive. My footage equated to approximately 20 minutes and it all imported over onto my hard drive in about 5 minutes. This speed is simply amazing, and it also means your camera can get back out there in no time at all if you are working in the field in remote locations and editing on a laptop. Your camera will be out of action for no time at all while files are transferred across to the laptop.

Another amazing advantage to this workflow is that while files are being imported from the XDCAM Transfer window, you can click back into Final Cut Pro and carry on editing whilst the file transfer takes place. You?ll be happily editing away in Final Cut Pro when you?ll suddenly see the new clips appear in the clip bin with the rest of your clips. Of course you can?t actually be editing the clips whilst they are being imported, but at least you can be editing other stuff, as opposed to waiting for the log/capture window to finish importing tape in real time, which has always been a real drag and drawn out affair I?m sure you?ll agree.

From there you simply edit away as normal and finish your programme, then export via Compressor or straight to DVD Studio Pro (or whatever authoring programme you are using on a windows PC). You can also export your finished programme back to an actual Professional Disc in your XDCAM HD camcorder. To do this it is simply a case of going to File/Export/XDCAM and hitting the export button. Your finished programme will then be exported to the disc in your camcorder and will finally appear as a thumbnail along with all your original footage on the same disc.

Finally, there is a 500MB section on the Professional Discs that is not accessible during the recording stage. This space is reserved on the disc for post-production purposes. You can grab your project file and gather together all your edit decision lists (EDLs), scripts and other notes relevant to the production and any other graphics, pictures etc and drop them straight into this file. So you now have all your original footage, the completed programme, and everything else relevant on one disc; talk about space saving.

The XDCAM HD editing workflow is by far the sweetest I?ve ever used in my life. It is absolutely rock solid, by far the most reliable system out there. It is super fast and just so easy to use you?ll never want to go back to a tape-based editing workflow.

Stills photographs from your footage
Another fantastic advantage of XDCAM HD is the fact that its larger image resolution of 1920x1080 means if you create still images directly from the timeline and import them into a programme like Adobe Photoshop, you can re-scale them and print them out as still photos, or better still use them on your DVD cover designs.

Here's how it works. In Final Cut Pro, for example, you park the playhead over the frame you want to make a still from, then go to export/export as still image and choose whatever format you want i.e. PSD, JPEG etc. Then bring the still image into Photoshop.

The first thing you'll notice in Photoshop is that the still will be squashed into what looks like a 4:3 format, it is 1440x1080 at this stage. What you need to do is change the pixel dimensions to 1920x1080 so you get back your original format size, this is done by going to Image/Image size... Checking the Resample Image box and un-checking the Scale Styles and Constrain Proportions box; then click Okay. Then change the resolution from 72 dpi, which will currently be 50.8x38.1cm in size to the printable quality 300dpi. You need to check the Scale Styles and Constrain Proportions boxes, but un-check the Resample Image box. Then change resolution from 72dpi to 300 dpi.

When you have done this, the image will be a printable photo quality version with an actual print size of 16.26x9.14cm in size; about postcard size when printed. Finally, if you shot in progressive mode the image won't need any de-interlace filter as it is a perfect progressive frame. If you shot in interlace mode you will need to apply the De-Interlace filter in Photoshop. For the record you can fit 3 still images onto an A4 sheet of paper perfectly.

The 6 images below were saved as still images directly from the timeline in Final Cut Pro. The footage is clean and ungraded and the stills are totally untouched. The only thing I've done is change the format to high-resolution jpeg images so they are accessible to everyone on the web, so the quality will not be quite as perfect as the native files, but they will be close. Feel free to click on them to open the high-res jpeg versions in a separate window, then drag them to your desk top, open them in Photoshop and re-size them from 72dpi to 300dpi and print them out onto high quality gloss paper. This will give you an idea of the quality of this camera as well as proving that they could be used as photos on DVD covers and the like.

This is an amazing way of producing still photos from your footage. I've been doing this for years with standard definition camcorders, but HD formats are even better due to the larger resolution. Why people want a gimmicky stills photo feature in a camcorder is beyond me, as you can do it better and more effectively in post anyway.

Non-destructive workflow
What is a non-destructive workflow and a destructive workflow exactly? Sony?s XDCAM HD format is a non-destructive workflow from shooting to editing. Once you?ve recorded your footage to disc it stays there, unless of course you delete individual clips. You record footage to disc, then transfer the clips into your edit system e.g. onto your computer's hard drive, then edit away. In the meantime your original footage is still safe and sound archived away on the shelf on the Professional Disc it was originally recorded onto, hence it is non-destructive.

An example of a destructive workflow is with the Panasonic P2 system. An 8GB P2 card will only store 8 minutes of HD footage, so you are constantly erasing the P2 card and re-recording over it, again and again and again. When you?ve recorded your 8 minutes to a P2 card you have to then dump that 8 minutes onto a Panasonic P2 store, which is basically a 60 GB spinning hard drive with a P2 card slot on the front and a dump that dumps the footage from the card onto the hard drive whilst erasing the contents of the P2 card at the same time. Another option is to dump the cards onto a computers hard drive. If you are shooting in the field you would need to take with you a fast laptop with a very big hard drive. This way you can erase the 8 minutes of footage from the P2 card and use it again, meanwhile your original footage has been totally destroyed from the card during the auto-erase process, and the only place you have it is on the hard drive of the computer, and we all know how twitchy they can be, you could lose your footage forever if your hard drive suddenly died. This is a totally destructive workflow and I personally don?t like the idea of playing Russian Roulette with my precious and often priceless footage. What is ironic is that a lot of P2 users are actually backing up their footage to Blu-ray or massive hard drive raid configurations, which begs the question, why not just shoot to Sony Professional Disc with an XDCAM HD camcorder to start with?

The future
If you?ve never experienced it, this non-linear recording format might not sound like any big deal. But once you?ve used Sony?s XDCAM HD disc-based recording media with a package like the F330 of F350 camcorders, you will find it very hard, if not impossible, to go back to tape. Things like comparing clips instantly, working with proxy clips, sending video files over FireWire and adding important metadata are very nice features to have in a production workflow. But it is when you?ve worked like this for a while, then pop back over into the world of tape, that you realize that they are not just nice features, they are pure heaven, and features like these will put tape-based formats well and truly into the history books.

Sony?s XDCAM HD disc-based recording system is a major change from how we have always traditionally shot video, it is a major step forward and a very big step in the right direction. There is no doubt that tapeless video formats are the future for everything including ENG, corporates, SIVs, music videos and even Hollywood feature films.

Vinyl 12? records have not vanished from the face of the earth just because CDs are here, and neither will tape; not just yet anyway. However, I found that once I?d spent some time shooting with an F350 XDCAM HD camcorder and editing via this disc-based file-transfer system, it?s virtually impossible to go back to real-time linear tape.

I don?t see XDCAM HD as a stop-gap in technology for one second. Formats like this are the future; that?s a fact. Tape will eventually vanish and cameras like the F350 will become the norm. Sony's XDCAM HD format has proved so popular recently that it has led to big companies like TDK, Maxell and Fuji releasing their own XDCAM HD Professional discs, this move by these large companies is an endorsement as well as another very big stamp of approval to the XDCAM HD format. At present, the high-quality HD setting on XDCAM HD records at a variable 35Mbps, my guess is in a year's time that will be up to 50Mbps and it will continue to improve. Because of its Blu-ray based technology it will be future-proof for a very long time to come as this technology can only improve as mega-bits-per-second get faster and the disc storage capabilities get larger. Disc-based technology just seems to go on and on. First CDs came along in 1982, then DVDs came along in 1995, now Blu-ray is just kicking off as the next disc technology. If you think of how long CDs and DVDs have been around and the fact that they are still the leading formats today, I think it would be fair to assume both Blu-ray and Sony's professional disc system will be around for many many years to come; XDCAM HD is future-proof alright.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this somewhat lengthy feature/review. You should now be totally up to speed on Sony?s XDCAM HD format and the great future that lies ahead of it. If you have shied away form XDCAM HD or were a little scared of the format, don?t be, the water is lovely and warm so take the plunge and jump right in. Remember, it?s a Sony. Might I remind you that Sony are a very wealthy company (I wish I owned them) and they have been making professional camcorders for the consumer, semi-professional and broadcast professional markets longer than anyone else on the face of the planet. They know a thing or two about research and development and spend enough money in the process to eventually bring you the ultimate products in the world. Sony know exactly what they are doing with XDCAM and XDCAM HD, it has been a long time in research and development and finally to production, but now the HD versions are here and the world is starting to catch on fast, have you? XDCAM HD has planted itself firmly on the map now and one thing is for sure, it is here to stay.

?2006 Nigel Cooper