Paul Maroni from Sony Australia makes the first delivery of a PDW530 XDCAM in the country to freelance cameraman Mal Hamilton.

Broadcaster trials XDCAM Professional Disc system across sports, documentaries, dramas and news
Full Story go to: Sony Europe

Not long following the release of the XDCAM PDW cameras comes the release of the Kata 'CG9' Camera Glove. Camera crews in the industry are familiar with the Kata brand for their carry cases.
The Kata Camera Glove has all the tabs, tearaways clips and zips in all the right places. I found this to be the case when fitting it on the camera for the first time. It took about 2 minutes.

It may be timely to start a special area for XDCAM extremes.
Just look at this one from a German Broadcaster. The camera at -31 degrees Celsius. My only question is "arbeitet das Objektiv? ("did the lens still work"?)

The full story of the Sheryl Crow shoot can be found HERE.

Discovered: Hot thread on the Vegas editing DMN FORUMS

FROM: Timothy Duncan
DATE: May 05, 2004 6:47 am gmt

SUBJECT: Vegas rules at 30,000 feet

Today I had the pleasure of editing a Sheryl Crow video on a United Airlines flight from Chicago to LA. Not only did the editing take place on the plane, but the performance was recorded as well. This concert in the sky was shot on five Sony XDCam cameras then the discs were handed to me with less than an hour before landing. I was able to digitize five camera angles of almost five minutes each and do a multi-camera edit on my lap-top delivering a four and a half minute finished video on both DV and Hi-8 including showing the video to Sheryl for approval. Just after landing, the tape was uplinked via satellite as part of a huge press event for Sony Connect and United Airlines.
No one could believe that it could be done and delivered that quickly.

"In the next two or three years, we're going to duplicate every type of product we have for tape formats in XDCAM," says Alec Shapiro, senior vice president, marketing, Sony Broadcast and Production Systems.
From an article Broadcast & Cable 22/3/04.

19th April, 2004

Sony's new XDCAM Professional Disc System will be utilized in a pilot test program this spring by NBC News prior to the system's use for the network's coverage of the Summer Games in Athens.

Dave Mazza, NBC Olympics senior vice president of engineering, had also previously announced that Sony's optical disc technology will be used to create profiles of athletes and provide Games-related news from in and around Athens for NBC's coverage.

According to Stacy Brady, vice president of news field operations for NBC: "Sony's XDCAM optical disc system offers significant new workflow advantages over traditional tape-based formats. We are particularly excited by its interoperability with Avid NLE systems and believe both companies will provide a technically robust solution for tapeless recording, editing, storage and archival. As a result, we'll be able to shoot, review, edit and access material more quickly than ever before." Full Story http://www.mybroadcastbuyer.info/publish/article_2221.shtml

Israeli company Kata have introduced a new 'camera glove' for the PDW XDCAM series camera. A review of the glove will appear on these pages in a few weeks.
As part of their new video line they have a larger light weight carry bag (MCC2) reccomended for the PDW Cameras.
One of the unique features is a separate compartment for the base plate. There's also sufficient room to store a lens (vertically) in a partioned section of the bag. A generic raincover is also available.
Australian agents are tripod maker Miller based in Artarmon, Sydney. Videocraft in Melbourne.
More details www.kata-bags.com