About P vs PSF Frames, 3rd party SxS cards, EX1 Firmware - from Juan Martinez of Sony

This is direct quote from email I saw elsewhere.

Subject: RE: Does the PMW EX1 shoot 1080P or 1080PsF?
From: "Martinez, Juan (Park Ridge)"
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:03:00 +0100

Hello, this is Juan Martinez, I work for Sony.

Regarding the EX1 update firmware: Look for an official announcement in the next two or three weeks. In a nutshell, the new firmware enables the use of 32GB cards and PHU60K HDD recorder. Other enhancements are:
23.98PsF "progressive segmented frame", EE output via HDSDI, several additional shutter speeds, REC indication on the LCD/ EVF even if data display is set to OFF, Chinese language menus, enrichment of the "clip menu" and other minor changes. All of these are market driven. EX3 and all EX1 shipped by Sony on the send half of August have the latest firmware. Early EX1 require a firmware update to acquire the functionality described above.

I would like to elaborate on some points. EX cameras record true native progressive at 23.98, 25, 30, 50, & 60p. When the camera is in the progressive mode the imagers always run at 1920 x 1080p. So, when shooting at 720p at 50 or 60 fps the EX's imager and DSP front-end run at full raster 1920 x 1080 50p or 60p. The 1280x720 signal is derived from the 1920x1080p signal by an advanced filtering algorithm similar to what is in our $100K+ cameras. Oversampling has two major benefits over using a camera with native 1280x720 imagers:
1- Less aliasing (strong aliasing sets in at over 600TVLPH on 2/3-inch native 1280x720 imagers)
2- Better MTF.

EX progressive signal recordings are always stored to the SxS cards in its native progressive frame rate and resolution. Therefore, the data ingested by the NLE will also be native progressive

We added PsF to the EX3 and EX1 HDSDI EE output due to user requests.
This feature enables capturing the EX's clean, live camera10-bit 4:2:2 progressive signal directly by NLE. The NLE's capture utility recognizes the PsF payload as a true signal and stores it as such. PsF frees the user from having to apply reverse telecine such as Adobe After-Effects or Cinema Tools in post to remove pull down.

Please note that the PHU60K has an USB 2.0 interface, therefore, over or
under cranking is not possible. SxS cards have a PCI Express 2.5GB
interface type and transfer at 800Mbps. We looked into certifying non SxS cards for EX but the results were very poor; ranging from not meeting their own specs to taking a long while to do so....

Juan Martinez
Senior Manager Technology
Sony Electronics Inc.