After evaluating some aspects of the image quality of Sony's new NEX-7 it's now time for a closer look at the video quality by comparing it to the current flagship of the MicroFourThirds (mFT) system cameras, the Panasonic Lumix GH2.
In order to compare it to a GH2 with current V1.1 firmware as well as to a GH2 with a patched V1.0 firmware, three cameras were taken to a side-by-side video shootout. As a movie speaks louder than words, let's quickly come to the video result and take some time for further explanations and a conclusion afterwards.
First an important note:
The Vimeo video that you find embedded here is NOT applicable to judge the quality of the ouput of these cameras due to the fact that the original FullHD 1080p video was rendered with 28 Mbps to 25 frames per second (fps) and the video that Vimeo streams is re-rendered by Vimeo at about 4.5 Mbps. As a result, you will see a video with less details and a lot more artifacts. So, to get a realistic impression, you will have to download the master file that was originally rendered and uploaded to Vimeo. If you are a registered Vimeo user, you find a download link on the Vimeo video page (please right click that link and select "Save to..." in order to download that file). This resolution and this high frame rate requires very powerful ressources from your playback equipment. Only systems that support hardware H.264 decoding on their graphics card will be able to play it without judder. The MediaPlayer included in Windows 7 supports many hardware accelerations of today's graphic cards, so chances are good with that player. VLC's support for H.264 hardware decoding are still experimental and must be explicitely activated in the VLC player's settings. If you have very powerful ressources you may try the 1080p 50 fps @ 32 Mbps version as well, that you find here: http://vimeo.com/35823620 (but please also download the source file, as the Vimeo rendering to 30 fps is awfully choppy with a lot of judder). For the sequences that were recorded initially in 25fps, the 25 fps version is fairly enough, only the 50 fps sequences loose some information accordingly.