I evaluated the first XDCAM Professional Disc camcorder almost three years ago. But last year, Sony announced XDCAM HD as part of its CineAlta line. I had to see the improvements for myself.

Sony provided a PDW-F350 camcorder ($25,800) with a Canon KH21ex5.7 IRSE lens ($26,000) for evaluation. Canon and Fujinon supply a range of native 1/2-inch HD lenses, so the total cost of your package will vary. (A less expensive PDW-F330 is available, but it has fewer features.)

Why Pay More?
With that kind of price tag, you should expect improved performance over, say, Sony's HVR-Z1U HDV workhorse. But is an F350 with lens really worth about 10 times the price?

The simple answer is yes, but allow me to qualify that answer--or, in this case, quantify it. The F350 features three 1/2-inch Super HAD CCDs with 1.56 million pixels per chip (1440x1080). The imaging chips are bigger than the 1/3-inch chips in the Z1, but that's not the whole story.

XDCAM HD's superior picture quality is also achieved through better compression. The primary difference between the compression used by the XDCAM HD cameras and the smaller HDV camcorders is that XDCAM HD uses 35Mb/s variable bit rate MPEG-2, while HDV uses 25Mb/s constant bit rate MPEG-2. This difference enables the XDCAM HD camcorders to capture moving objects with fewer compression artifacts.

Speaking of compression, the F350 records four channels of 16-bit, 48kHz uncompressed audio, as opposed to the Z1's two compressed audio channels. So it not only looks better, it sounds better.

Before I get too far into the camcorder, let me talk about the glass up front. The Canon KH21ex5.7 IRSE zoom lens (with 2x extender) has all the features a professional lens should have. The images are pristine whether shooting wide open at f/1.4 or closed down to f/16. Plus, the lens features a "display" button adjacent to a small screen, which displays a menu with user functions.

By the way, the F350's zoom servo switch has the multiple speeds that smaller HDV camcorders have but with a more accurate dial. Directly behind the lens are the three ND filters (1/4, 1/16 and 1/64) on a dial. The camcorder also sports an extremely sharp black-and-white viewfinder.

Start Shooting
The F350 is made of a strong polycarbonate material. After spending years working with smaller camcorders, it took me a while to get used to the heftier, full-size camcorder, though it's still lighter than the Betacams of old.

On the left side of the camcorder, a 3.5-inch, 16:9 flip-out color LCD is surrounded by the usual controls, including audio controls that reside behind a small door. The opposite side features the optical disc bay and BNC ports for video out, genlock and timecode. The supplied shotgun stereo microphone plugs into its own connection on this side instead of monopolizing one of the two rear connections.

The thin and lightweight BP-GL95 lithium-ion battery mounts to the rear of the camera. It has a battery level check button on the side; users may also activate a battery remaining time indicator on the camera's viewfinder or LCD screen. At $650, these slim batteries cost more than the ones used to power smaller HDV camcorders, but I got more than four hours of operation from one battery--with the LCD screen open the entire time.

The rest of the space on the back of the camcorder is devoted to labeled connectors covered with clear plastic protective caps. Here's where you'll find two XLR audio inputs, four-pin audio out for an intercom headset, HD-SDI BNC out and a FireWire connection.

You get a choice of recording options, including native 1080/60i. The F350 outputs 24p as 60i with 2:3 pull-down over HD-SDI. You can record more than an hour of HD at 35Mb/s (HQ mode), 85 minutes at 25Mb/s (SP mode or DVCAM) or 112 minutes at 18Mb/s (LP mode) on a single disc. Plus, because it records on a rewriteable Professional Disc, the camera delivers the advantages of a tapeless workflow with media that can be reused thousands of times.

My first test of a new camera is usually in an interview situation, which provides ample opportunity to test the camera's optics. I didn't notice any difference when shooting in HD if I changed the speeds--it all looked extremely sharp on the LCD monitor. Luckily, Sony provided me with three optical discs. (Once you record at a set frame rate, the entire disc must be devoted to that same format.)

Of the 10 pages of menus, the paint function contains the features for tweaking gammas and blacks, recalling scene files, changing record format, applying special effects, assigning functions to programmable buttons, accessing disc functions (formatting, deleting), specifying output, modifying viewfinder settings, adding markers--and there's a menu devoted entirely to skin detail.

Menus are great, but how does the camera work while shooting in the field? That may be summed up in one word: wow! The glass up front certainly makes the difference, whether you are shooting in HD or SD. Plus, as regular readers know, I'm thrilled with a true 24p option.

The time lapse feature is also fun to use. Select the recording rate (say one frame every 10 seconds), point the camera at your subject (I chose clouds) and fire away. I think this camcorder has a future in stock footage, among other applications in news and documentary production.