Sony NEX Launch – detailed transcription

Video
The camera is equipped with AVCHD, a first for Alpha. We have deliberately held off launching digital SLRs with video until we knew we could get in right. We are providing film-quality, AVCHD 1080 on the NEX-5. For NEX-3, subtle difference, it records 720p at MPEG4 compression. (A short video clip with music was shown). You press the movie button on the back of the camera to start and stop your movie recordings.
That brings Alpha now into the line-up with Handycam and Cybershot, equipped with AVCHD – full factor AVCHD, if you like, not the ‘lite’ version that we co-developed with Panasonic and they introduced in their models. Which means the compression isn’t as hard on the video, the audio channels and clearer, the picture has less artefacts to it. AVCHD requires a huge processing capacity. We wanted to get it right for the DSLR sensor. Quality, and usage really. It now means the whole family records to the same format, and we will continue to push forward on this with further product introductions in the future, so stay tuned on this. Video is now as important as taking stills.
For the consumer, they can go out of the house with one device. And they can record fantastic quality stills, and video when they want, where they want. They can take a still picture, but sometimes it’s moving pictures with audio that actually add an extra dimension and more enjoyment.
If you want even better audio quality, there is an accessory microphone that goes in to the Active Shoe on the top of the camera so that you can record – with the flick of a switch – either 90° coverage or 120° coverage. That is again powered from the main camera battery.
Playback is via HDMI to your Bravia TV. That brings Alpha into the family network of High Definition. You can record your movies to Blu-Ray for posterity, up to 50 gigabytes of data.
That’s really all the technical stuff. I’m now going to take you through how we are going to be packaging these products and sending them out to market, the kit formations, and the various accessories we have to complement these cameras.
Marketing matters
NEX-5, NEX-3 – we have spoken about the colour differences. The ‘Go Out With Me’ package is a 16mm lens f/2.8 pancake in the box with body, so it’s a one box, fixed lens combination. However, when the camera is fitted with a fixed lens, the menu system activates a digital zoom and it only works when it’s with the pancake 16mm. 10X digital, precision zoom enables you still to have some zoom just like a compact camera user would.
The ‘Snap Package’ is the standard 18-55mm lens in combination with either body. ‘Go Out With Me and Snap’ is a twin-lens kit, with the 16mm and the 18-55mm. The ‘Sports Travel’ package is only available with the NEX-5 camera, and is the 18-200mm lens in the box with the body.
Optical Steady Shots – the benefits are that it’s designed to match the performance of the lens, and the combination used, subject matter and suchlike, you do have a live stabilised view on the LCD, and it means the body is as small as possible. Obviously the disadvantage is that we need to stabilise each lens. We have to design the lenses with built-in stabilisation. But it really means that for those Alpha users that want to use their existing lenses with the lens mount adaptor, obviously there isn’t any form of stabilisation.
We think the twin lens kit is going to be the most popular combination. We are working on various cases, there is a luxury strap, a soft carry case, and a wrapping cloth. I really like these wrapping cloths! The Optical Viewfinder goes on top of the camera, and is matched to the 16mm pancake. The mount adaptor is manual focus only.
Lens adaption was popular with digital cameras before the lenses got so versatile, and it certainly is very popular still with Handycams. But it’s never been done in this configuration before with an interchangeable lens camera. So, two converters – a wide and a fisheye. The wide is 0.75X magnification, and the fisheye is 0.62X. It bayonets directly on to the front of the pancake. The most expensive part of buying the lens is the autofocus system, the aperture control and what have you. That makes the fisheye lens in the Alpha lineup (the 16mm f/2.8 full frame Minolta design now made by Sony – Ed.) £600, more than most people could justify when stepping up from a compact camera. But they like the creativity, the effect of a fisheye picture.
So let’s make it easier and cheaper for them – this adaptor, the fisheye lens, just bayonets on to the front of the 16mm lens. Brilliant! Likewise, the ultra-wide converter too.
Body accessories – spare battery, we are going to do a mains adaptor for it too. Obviously memory cards. We are going to do a screen protector, polycarbonate clip-on. And this is a great combination kit – the wrapping cloth, the luxury strap, spare battery and a lens-cap holder all in one box, great value for money.