From TVBE’s Acquisition Newsletter: Sony has extended its XDCAM range with the PMW-500, a 2/3-inch HD 4:2:2 shoulder-mounted camcorder, as well as three XDCAM media recorders. There’s also an affordable shoulder-mount AVCHD solid-state camera in the offing.
The PMW-500 is based on the same architecture as the disc-based PDW-700, but records to SxS cards (two slots). It has three 2/3-inch Power HAD FX CCD image sensors and can record both 1080 and 720 HD pictures at 50Mbps, and four channels of uncompressed 48 kHz digital audio.
“The PMW-500 represents the next step in the evolution of the XDCAM product range. Since 2003, XDCAM has become an industry standard with over 150,000 units sold worldwide.” Customers had requested a solid-state HD422 model to sit alongside the PDW-700, said Richard Brooking, XDCAM Product Manager, Sony Professional. The camcorders have already been ordered by RTL TVI in Belgium, WDR Germany and TVNZ.
Sony has also introduced a new higher capacity 64GB SxS card which can record two hours of material in HD422 50Mbps MXF mode and has an increased transfer speed of 1.2Gbps. The camera is switchable between MXF and MP4 for recording in XDCAM HD422, XDCAM HD and XDCAM EX modes. There is also an option to record MPEG IMX and DVCAM material for users migrating to HD.
On station
Sony has also announced XDCAM Station, a line of media recorders that handle SxS and Professional Disc. These will be useful for outside broadcast and SNG trucks, playout, archive, live production with slow motion, and ingest to non-linear editors.
There will be three models in the line-up: The XDS-1000 with an SxS card slot and internal HDD storage; the XDS-PD1000 with an SxS, a Professional Disc drive and HDD storage; and the XDS-PD2000 with SxS, Professional Disc and SSD storage.
The material can be accessed for editing or replayed under slow motion control. They have SDI I/O and network connections and can function as an MXF gateway linking XDCAM media, baseband video and networked operation. The Professional Disc models will support the new higher capacity 128GB four-layer disc media.
“We see applications within broadcast centres where customers can use XDCAM Station as an ingest gateway for their SxS memory card and Professional Disc media, and also on location for live applications and material sharing between camera operators and production staff,” said Brooking.
The XDS-1000 will be available from March 2011, while the other two will ship summer 2011 along with the 128GB discs.
Shouldering AVCHD
The upcoming Sony HXR-MC2000E is claimed to be “the first affordable, shoulder-mounted full HD camcorder” and is aimed at entry-level professional use, and will cost less than £1,500.
It will record AVCHD 24Mbps to 64GB of internal memory as well as memory stick Pro Duo or SD/SDHC cards.
It features: a 12x (29.8mm-357.6mm) G-Lens; 1/4-inch Exmor CMOS sensor with reasonable low light performance (3lux); Optical SteadyShot; a 2.7-inch 230k touch panel; an external microphone (stereo mini jack); and weighs 2.9kg including battery.
“The release of the HXR-MC2000E is further evidence of Sony’s desire to provide professional equipment suitable for every level of the market. This new camcorder comes complete with a great feature set and as well as being lightweight, is also highly affordable. Ideal for a range of customers from event videography though to corporate communications and educational training use, the MC2000E is bound to offer existing tape-based customers a clear migration path to solid-state acquisition,” said Bill Drummond, European Product Manager, Sony Professional.
Acquisition News is TVBEurope’s twice-monthly newsletter produced in association with the Guild of Television Cameramen. Focusing on the camera sector of the market, it delivers the very latest news and views on camera equipment, technologies and accessories to the European broadcast industry. Register for free here.
