The Differences Between CCD and CMOS

CCD and CMOS technology have differences. In CCD, the sensor is scanned all at once, whilst in the CMOS , the sensor is scanned from top to bottom. Because of this nature, the picture made by CMOS sensor might "skew" when there's fast action being recorded and the frame rates or shutter speed is too low to neutralize the effect. This system of scanning also results in the "rolling shutter" effect where a camera flash will only be seen in part of the frame. Matching the subject matter and the shooting mode becomes very important with CMOS cameras, even those camera with the red thing on it.

CMOS creates a little noisier picture and is less sensitive in low light but from personal experience I find less noise and more light sensitivity than comparable CCD cameras, probably because the CMOS sensors and the signal processing in the EX cameras is state of the art compared to CCD cameras that have come to market within the last 5 or so years. CMOS is not affected by "vertical smear", takes less battery power and runs cooler than comparable CCD cameras.

The EX series cameras only output an HD SDI 4:2:2 signal. This effectively bypasses the Long GOP compression stage and takes the stream directly off the camera head. A few companies have taken advantage of this and can record directly to data cards at very low compression. Their recorder will even do 4:4:4 recording but the EX picture will not benefit from the increased color space because you can't "invent" more color information that wasn't there to begin with.