the Sony S270 - the return of HDV?

Plenty has been done in the past year by both Panasonic and the consumer video-camcorder industry to play down HDV. Although Sony is still a big player in the HDV scene, they have been pushing XDCAM and especially XDCAM EX in their marketing. A lot of people seem look beyond the fact that both XDCAM and HDV use the same 4:2:0 color space and Long-GOP MPEG2 recording. (HDV maxes out at 25Mb/s and XDCAM EX maxes at 35Mb/s). The main technical advantage XDCAM EX really had over HDV was tapeless recording....

However, back around February/March Sony quietly released the Sony Z7U and the S270, which are HDV cameras that have on-board Compact Flash Recorders. The immediate advantage to this is the ability to create an archive while you are shooting your tapeless footage. After your shoot, put the (small or large size) HDV tape on your shelf, hook up your non-proprietary Compact Flash card reader up your NLE and go to work. All the advantages of Tape acquisition as well as the conveniences of tapeless. This cam could also satisfy the tapeless shooter who has a client who requires a hard copy tape of the footage.

Other notable features on the 270 are: - 4 Discreet Audio Channels with 4 XLR inputs, HD/SD-SDI output, interchangeable 1/3' lenses, non-proprietary, inexpensive recoding media (a 16GB Compact Flash card is going for about $35 vs $850 for an 16GB SxS Card), also industry standard shoulder mount design with V-mount battery mount with D-Tap power for accessories.

As for NLE Compatibility, besides 1080i 60/30 shooting modes, the Camera has two ways to record 24P. It can do the 1080i/24P (which is the way the Sony V1U operates), and it can also record a true progressive 1080/24P recording. Over Compact Flash File Transfer the footage from both 24P modes is instantly viewable within Avid Media Composer 3.x, Premiere Pro CS4 and it works with FCP Log & Transfer via a transcode to Pro Res. If you're a FCP user, then you'll need to download this Sony provided plug-in first.

Alternatively, if you dont want to transcode to Pro Res, (presumably to save a bit of time), you could "wrap" the M2T Files into QT files with ClipWrap

So if you're out there hunting for a new Sony camera, before jumping on the EX bandwagon, you might want to check out the S270.