The Briefing Room

At NAB2008, Thomson (Euronext Paris: 18453; NYSE: TMS) delivered on its promise of expanded storage and increased performance for its Thomson Grass Valley™ REV PRO™ removable media cartridges and is now offering two new options: REV PRO XP and REV PRO ER.

Both versions of the robust, high-capacity magnetic media support this strategy by providing low-cost components that are readily available and significantly increase productivity. The new REV PRO disks are designed to work with the Thomson Grass Valley Infinity™ Digital Media Camcorder and the Digital Media Recorder as well as the Thomson Grass Valley Digital Media Drive, and are supported by a wide range of Thomson Grass Valley and third-party edit systems.

The new Thomson Grass Valley REV PRO disks add extra capacity (from 35 GB to 40 and 65 GB) to an already generous data storage format. REV PRO XP is tuned for high performance, while the REV PRO ER focuses on capacity.

New! REV PRO XP

REV PRO XP (eXtended Performance) offers dual-stream capability on a 40 GB disk, to enable a user to record and playback simultaneous 75 Mbps HD streams, as well as HD high performance ingest greater than 2x real-time with multi-stream support for in-the-field editing to and from the media without the need to ingest. This new disk features more capacity than the previous generation REV PRO disk and more headroom.

It also offers more than 50 minutes of HD recording at 75 Mbps and more than 40 minutes at 100 Mbps (using JPEG 2000 compression); and the ability to offload data from the disk at extremely high speed (capable of transferring DV25 encoded material at more than six times real time). This allows users to perform sophisticated editing direct from the REV PRO disk.

New! REV PRO ER

REV PRO ER (Extended Recording) focuses on providing greater recording capacity – with the best value-to-capture time of any broadcast quality removable media available in the camcorder market today. REV PRO ER allows documentary shooters and others who require longer record times to store more than 70 minutes of HD material at 100 Mbps, or 90 minutes at 75 Mbps, or more than four hours of SD capacity on a single 65 GB disk. It also supports dual-stream capability with the ability to facilitate two 65 Mbps streams simultaneously.

The REV PRO Advantage

Representing the freedom of choice, REV PRO is a low-cost consumable media that offers the price/performance required to cost-effectively archive that same media. And because it’s magnetic-based, REV PRO offers the longest reliable shelf life of any IT storage media–including optical discs–remaining stable for more than 30 years.

Solid-state options do not compare in terms of price or the ability to store the media long term. Solid-state costs about $8-15 per GB, while REV PRO is readily available at $1.25 per GB. Solid-state is also less reliable than REV PRO, because it leverages a journal file system (FAT 32) that is susceptible to data loss.

REV PRO Digital Media Drive

With XP/ER comes the next generation of REV PRO Digital Media Drive (DMD). This Digital Media Drive will write and read the existing REV PRO 35 media disks.

Pricing and Availability

The REV PRO XP 40 GB (gold) disk costs $69.99 while the REV PRO ER 65 GB (blue) disk costs $79.99. The REV PRO Digital Media Drive will list for $699.99. All will be available in Q2 2008. The existing REV PRO 35 GB (red) disk continues to be sold at various outlets and costs $67.50.