Sony has announced a portable XDCam HD deck that records in the new 4:2:2 XDcamHD format, the PDW-HR1. The 422 format first debuted on the PDW-700, which I gather has found fans in a variety of fields, from ENG to dramatic feature content.
Having a compact portable deck that records 4:2:2 is great, even if your workflow isn’t XDCam-centric. This would be great paired with something like an XDcam EX1 – you could feed HD-SDI into the deck without having too much to haul around.
Now we just need to see HD422 pushed to the EX product line. That would a pretty huge deal.
Hey Colin-
I thought the EX3 -DID- have 4:2:2 output via HD-SDI? Or is it just that the output is 10-bit?
It does over HD-SDI, but not to SXS. HD422 is actually a sony codec in the xdcam family – I was just saying I wanted an EX product that recorded the HD422 codec to SXS cards.