Archive for the ‘SDI’ Category

Sony EX3 Noise & Bits-Resolution & Green-Screen

Sunday, November 4th, 2012

It has been said ( I believe by Alister Chapman ) that there are only marginal benefits from recording XDCAM-EX to more than 8 bits, due to the relatively high noise of this camera, as compared to more typical broadcast cameras.

In my experience, while it was a wonderful step-up from my Z1, certainly it’s recordings are noisier than I’d like, leading me to pretty-process certain footage (using Neat Video denoising plugin to my NLE).  And as a recent project with reasonably well-lit green-screen illustrated, it’s noise in shadows can be a particularly nuisance (much time in post experimenting to work around this).

So I wondered:

  • Even if marginal, to what extent is 10-bit beneficial to EX3 recording?
  • For the EX3, when recording 10-bit, it is also 4:2:2, surely a benefit to chroma keying and resizing (reframing, stabilising/deshaking/tracking).
  • Could the benefit depend on editing workflow?  For example:
    • What if subsequently de-noising (like I mentioned)?
    • Some NLE’s do bits-dithering, hiding the quantisation/banding that would otherwise be apparent from having only 8 bits.

I need to do my own experiments, but for now, here (below) are some results from web-searching…

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Sony XDCAM-EX Hard Disk Recorder

Thursday, September 1st, 2011

I am interested in a new PHU-60 hard disk for my Sony XDCAM-EX video camera.  So what’s around, and what’s the cost?  While I’m at it, what other options are there, e.g. for recording off HD-SDI ?  From my web-research today, the answers seem to be:

  • PHU-60 is no longer supplied or supported by Sony, or hence their authorised service centres.
  • PHU-120 is however available, at just under £1K.
  • At that price I’m willing to consider alternatives… Depending on price and capacity of course.
    • Mend it?
    • Record to a standard hard disk?
    • Go instead for SxS etc., e.g. the cheaper alternatives.
    • Think bigger – go for a HD-SDI recorder, get better quality and more gradeable recordings!  But at what price?
  • (To be completed)

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