Visual Impact review the HDW-790P

The technical team at Sony Specialist dealer Visual Impact technical team recently reviewed the latest HDCAM camcorder, the HDW-790P. We have their full report below:

The HDW-790P features an extremely compact and lightweight design, with a robust and reliable construction. It has two HD-SDI outputs, inputs for recording four channels of 20-bit AES/EBU digital audio and there’s a choice of either a colour or monochrome viewfinder.

Operational Features

There’s a familiar Sony layout for controls and menu. The HDW-790P is equipped with dual optical filter wheels and an option board (HKDW-905R) can be installed to add slow shutter capability (up to 64 frames) and image inversion. Additional features taken from the HDW-F900R include HyperGamma and a 12 bit A/D conversion.

In common with the HDW-750P, which the HDW-790P supersedes, there is no 24/30P or 60i capability.

Picture Quality

We put the camcorder side by side with an HDW-F900R in our test rooms in Teddington, selecting the same configuration menu set-ups, lenses, etc. shooting with standard test charts. First impressions were very favourable for the HDW-790P. Both cameras produced stunning pictures and it was impossible to tell them apart. The blacks exhibited low noise; shadow detail was good, wide latitude helped with depth of field giving the pictures a nice silky feel showing the extra processing power of the 12 bit A/D converter. This resulted in a more film-like image in contrast to the made-for-TV look you see from a lot of digital cameras. Resolution, latitude and depth of field performance from both camcorders were very similar both to the naked eye and on the test equipment.

Why change to an HDW-790P?

The HDW-750P has been out for over four years and continues to serve the industry well. The new HDW-790P, however, is a very different animal with the 12 bit processing and extended gamma functions. Sony has listened to the market and produced a workhorse camcorder which gives a more filmic look. This is the HD camcorder to choose, delivering excellent pictures at a very reasonable cost. It is certainly a worthy successor to the HDW-750P and has every chance of becoming the industry workhorse for HD TV drama production in the future.

22 August 2007

Visual Impact website