Leitner's Cinematography Corner

D.W. Leitner has more than 50 directing, producing, and cinematography credits in feature-length documentary and dramatic films produced in the U.S. and abroad.

Archive for November 27th, 2009

8: NX = Next Leap in Low-Cost Flash Recording

D.W. Leitner November 27th, 2009

11+ hours of 1920×1080 recording in my hand.
Photo by D.W. Leitner

Last week Sony announced its first professional AVCHD camcorder line, NXCAM, at InterBEE in Japan. Itâ€™s not Sonyâ€™s first brush with AVCHD.

In 2006 Sony and Panasonic jointly announced the Advanced Video Codec High Definition standard for consumer camcorders recording 8 cm MiniDVD discs. Remember them? So three years ago!

Then, in late 2008, Sony introduced a professional POV camera system, HXR-MC1, adapted from a consumer AVCHD camcorder. (Read my review. My experiments mounting an MC1 camera head at the end of a K-Tek audio boom pole led to K-Tekâ€™s design of an adapter for the MC1, demonstrated at NAB 2009.)

Before we go further, what exactly is AVCHD? Why another low-end HD format? more

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Leitner's Cinematography Corner is a new destination for reviews, blogs, notes, and opinions from longtime millimeter Contributing Editor David Leitner, who also happens to be an award-winning director, producer, and cinematographer of independent films showcased at film festivals like Sundance and Berlin. Leitner argues that since everything's now digital outside of cameras and projectors that shuttle celluloid, "digital" has lost its cachet. Leitner's Cinematography Corner will instead frame innovations in production gear as the latest advances in the long march of motion-picture technology, well over a century old. And never lose sight of the fact that technology is a means to an end, not an end in itself.