The VG20 also has the same “display” button in the same positioning. Did you try pushing it?

The VG10 had adjustable contrast, sharpness and saturation for each of it’s picture profiles, which were exactly the same as the number provided for the NEX-5. The cine modes on the VG20 are, if my understanding of the informational literature provided by Sony is correct, specifically for the 24p mode and provided in addition to a full set of adjustable picture profiles. Perhaps this is what confused you.

The NEX5 suffered badly from overheating, especially in hot venues and it could be very problematic when filming events as you would suddenly have to turn the camera off after one 30 minute set of filming to allow it to cool down. Does the NEX-5n have the same problem?

You were unable to manually set the shutter speed on the NEX-5 in video mode, instead having to guestimate it visually and bump it around using the aperture and gain. Does the NEX-5n have the same problem?

For documentary shooting, event work, news gathering, verte or just hand held work, it can be key. For narrative work with long or complex moving shots it can be key.

I guess you mean BETWEEN shots not DURING.

I’m shocked you believe this.

It’s absolutely essential, people just work around the limitation, or don’t know better.

Yes it is true the body only is $1000 more than the 5N and you get manual audio. Most of my gripes about the VG20 are related to the usability and build of the form factor. I just really felt Sony could have done a much better job of manual controls and buttons on this thing, rather than putting so much on the touch screen, and it would have been nice to see the $300 OLED viewfinder in there, even if they had to charge $600 extra for it, which knowing Sony they would do!

Personally for me the power options and longer clip durations are not of use. They are more for the event videographer.

It is a shame Sony don’t have an ND filter on it either, ditto the FS100. Therefore I personally don’t see a benefit for my extra $1000 and cannot recommend it. Other people may do, always have faith in your own conviction when choosing your tool!

PS – the manual dial for important things. There’s one on the 5N as well and it works better.

Doing that is no easy task by any means, previous fast full scan cameras like the Casio EX-F1 did not have processing engines anywhere near fast enough to pull this off in realtime for video. They had to store the images in the buffer then process them over a long period. That we’re seeing this process now occurring on the fly and output to video in a consumer camera is a fantastic sign.

I’m basing all this on the assumption of the already released (in Japan) GC-PX1, which used a 10mp 1/2.3″ sensor. Sony’s fastest 10mp sensors from last year could not quite get to 60fps and that left me puzzled as to how the PX1 was getting to that speed without resorting to binning; after looking at the review on av.watch.impress it appears that it is performing a slight crop (about 3200 pixels across vs the full 3648) when in video mode (this is assuming Sony is manufacturing the sensor, a reasonable assumption given the fact that they did have a 10mp fast sensor last year and a 12mp one now). Whatever the case it looks like its 1080 video is coming from a 1:1 mode – not binning or skipping – off a Bayer sensor using an area more than 3000 pixels across, and the increase in sharpness over traditional video is certainly noticeable in good light.

This is something new and exciting (at least to me); the next step is to bring the process to larger sensors. This might be a while coming to APS-C due to issues with heat buildup but I don’t think seeing this in something closer to a 2/3 sensor (or – ahem – maybe even a 1″ sensor if we’re lucky) would be all that unreasonable in the near future