Archive of the Field Production Category

Following up on Cynthia’s note about the JVC booth: I just left the JVC Press Luncheon, where the HD250 Libre package mentioned by Cynthia was prominently promoted. As Cynthia stated, JVC has added a BMS wireless microwave transmitter to the camera to offer what the company says is wireless HD transmission capabilities well suited for live remote broadcast ENG work.

I was struck by the irony of the fact that, just over a year ago I wrote stories for Millimeter on the limited use of Wireless RF technology at the Winter Olympics and other events, and noted how the transmission of wireless HD signals was a big deal back then. JVC, and others, now say that wireless ENG work with true HD cameras is eminently feasible these days. That’s a 12-month turnaround from difficult to feasible. Typical of how our industry is evolving, as those of us at NAB right now are seeing first-hand.

–MG

Extreme slow motion capture has remained something film does best. Until NAB 2007, the few hi-res video systems available were too limited, with either a not-so-impressively-fast frame rate or having poor (read murky) image quality.

At the show, I-Movix offered one of the first truly usable systems; its SprintCam not only captures extreme slo-mo–up to 5000 frames per second–but it looks good doing it via canny uprezing technology by the Belgium-based company. more

CNN will use Sony‘s XDCAM HD Professional Disc system for studio production and field newsgathering, as part of an expected network-wide commitment to the optical technology.

Sony Electronics understands that the network will begin using the XDCAM HD camcorders and decks for high-definition ENG and news production applications, and will roll-out the XDCAM HD system to its global newsgathering operation. Read on at The Briefing Room: 2007 NAB Newslink

At the National Association of Broadcasters convention here this week, Sony is delivering on its theme of “HD for All: Real Systems, Right Now.” The company is demonstrating a range of systems capabilities that make full use of MPEG-2 video compression technology, and announcing several new applications and installations of its high-definition XDCAM HD optical disc technology.

In addition to demonstrations of future planned technologies, Sony is also announcing the formation of a new sales and marketing organization designed to help customers tackle the issues associated with upgrading to HD production. Read on at The Briefing Room: 2007 NAB Newslink

To tell you the truth, I never really “got” the Matrox MXO. Why would anyone pay close to $1,000 just to get flicker free PowerPoint slides from a Mac? With features added in version 2.0, and a comprehensive demo in the Matrox booth, the nickel finally dropped.

First, the MXO lets you preview HD footage on an LCD monitor, so you don‘t need to spend a fortune on a high def broadcast monitor. The unit sits between your graphics card and second LCD monitor, and works in YUV, rather than RGB space, so it avoids color aberrations caused by the YUV to RGB conversion. more

As Ikegami’s 60th anniversary approached in 2007, things didn’t look all that good for the one-time leading light of video camera technology. Once the maker of coveted high-end cameras that featured electronic circuitry delivering what many felt were the best video images going, by the late 1990s the company lost the lead, as Panasonic and Sony prevailed. Unlike Ikegami, those two industrial giants could also deliver the integrated tape mechanisms necessary to get a rig out of the studio.

Ikegami fought back with its innovative Editcam, launched in 1995. Designed in part with input from Avid, Editcam was the first mainstream camcorder to use ruggedized hard drives to replace tape in the field. more

If you work on color correcting in post, or have to match cameras in the field, it‘s easy to rue the passing of CRT technology. While that analog technology had its limits, moving to LCD monitors meant losing track of colors such as emerald green and dark red, since backlighting the screen with fluorescent tubes greatly limits color fidelity.
At their Sunday press conference, Sony provided a solution with its BVM-L230 LCD video reference monitor; the 22.5-inch HD monitor employs a newly developed LED backlight system and display engine capable of producing 1,024 levels of gray scale. (The ability to render a greater number of luminance values directly influences color reproduction fidelity.)
Sony claims the new LCD panel is the industry’s first with to offer a 10-bit driver, replacing 8-bit technology, which is capable of only 256 levels of gray scale. more

Among the slew of cinematographers attending the Digital Cinema Summit today was Robert Primes, ASC. Today was the second time in a week I bumped into Bob. He was among the ASC members who attend a special event at Dalsa‘s Woodland Hills, CA, headquarters last week to offer a look at a prototype of the new Evolution 4k Camera (billed by Dalsa as the “smaller, lighter version of its big brother, the Origin II,” not available until 2008). At the invitation of company president Rob Hummel, Primes and the other DP’s were urged to “think outside the box” and offer Dalsa their criticisms and suggestions for the technology’s direction. Most of the DP’s that evening, including Primes, seemed satisfied with the image quality and creative potential of Dalsa’s cameras, and were instead focused on an ongoing issue–size and ergonomics. Primes was among those who grilled Hummel and his colleagues hard that night. more