Archive of the HD/HDV Category

JVC Professional Products Company is introducing a high-efficiency Full HD microwave equipped camera system that, for the first time, brings affordable HD microwave capabilities to the ENG/EFP market. The ProHD Libre system provides native 60P HD capture, recording and transmission through a compact, onboard camera-back transmitter developed for JVC by Broadcast Microwave Services (BMS). A fully equipped system, complete with camera, lens, microwave transmitter and receiver can be configured for under $30,000. Previous systems with this capability began at more than $100,000. Read on at The Briefing Room: 2007 NAB Newslink

Ciprico, a leading storage solutions provider for content creation, management and delivery applications, will demonstrate a new class of Direct Attached Storage (DAS) using the new PCI Express external cabling standard at the National Association of Broadcasters show in Las Vegas, April 16-19, 2007.

The new system, based on Ciprico‘s RAIDCore software RAID stack, allows end users to seamlessly add storage in a high-performance switched-DAS-like environment within a single storage cell, creating an extremely high performance storage pod of up to 64 TB based on current hard drive storage capacities. Read on at The Briefing Room: 2007 NAB Newslink

This afternoon I saw a lot of the camera support gear in the Central Hall of the LVCC. Anton/Bauer introduced a trio of camera accessories last year — its Elipz system. That involves a battery pack that mounts on the bottom of handheld camcorders (the Elipz itself), a pair of handles that can help the shooter steady the camera support it on his/her forearm (Egripz), and a 6oz. fill light that mounts to the top of the camera.

This year Anton/Bauer brought out Hubz and Spokez, which build on the Elipz system to accommodate additional accessories such as hard-drive recording units and audio receivers. Hubz is a polycarbonate base that mounts to the camera base or the Elipz battery, and it has two holes that each hold posable arms with mount plates on the ends (forming the Spokez). more

Once you shoot in high definition, you hate to go back to SD, even for family or casual business shots. Of course, carrying around a football sized camera while on vacation has absolutely no appeal. Canon‘s new HV20 bridges this gap in a half-hoagie sized form factor with pixel for pixel HDV video.

The unit is powered by a 1920×1080 CMOS chip, with 10X optical zoom and optical image stabilization. The HV20 can shoot in 1080i or “true” 24p, which has a number of interesting applications. more

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

Key things here: the new Libre package for the HD250. Just under $30K gets you “liberated” from wires–the camera internally encodes ProHD and through a partnership with BMS does wireless microwave up to about 2.5 miles, JVC says.

The booth centerpiece is the new WXYZ HD truck–the actual truck–tricked out with GYHD250 camcorders and all the infrastructure. JVC‘s national manager for marketing and communications J. Lee Thompson reminds me that sold units of ProHD camcorders crossed the 16,000 threshold long ago (last fall) and these versatile camcorders are finding users in both news and digital cinematography. more

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

Shining Technology manufactures the CitiDisk HD and CitiDisk HDV, hard disk on-camera recording units that record up to 120GB of DVCPRO HD and HDV/DV, respectively. In the next month or so, they’re announcing at NAB, CitiDisk HD will get a new firmware update that will allow the unit to record video as MXF , which is key to full support for the HVX200.

On a related front, the company is planning to introduce an analog-to-digital converter by the end of the year. This will be designed with legacy Betacam camcorders in mind, and it’ll take the analog signal and convert it so that it can be recorded by a CitiDisk recorder as DV50 or DV25. The recorders typically add a QuickTime wrapper or record as AVI so that there’s direct support from most editing systems.

I still have Sunday on my mind. So much innovation to absorb. From Samsung, Apple, Panasonic, Sony… for instance Sony‘s sensational F23 digital cinema camera, or XDCAM EX flash memory Handycam (at right, promised this fall), or the replacement to their outstanding BVM-A series of HD CRT monitors, the sure-to-be-award-winning 22.5-inch, 1920 x 1080, LED-backlit LCD BVM-L230 — 1080/60p and digital cinema 2K (plus every lesser format) with waveform and audio level displays!

(When it comes to flash memory recording and professional LCD monitors with waveforms, it‘s only fair to credit Panasonic with starting these balls rolling at previous NABs.)

It was only yesterday that HD itself was precious and exotic. But Sony‘s NAB mantra this year is “HD for All.” Apple, in turn, boasts of its ongoing effort to “democratize” professional video and HD. (Popularization and professionalization are wildly clashing ideals Apple seems to enjoy juggling like a watermelon and an egg.) Both echo JVC‘s proletarian 2003 NAB motto, “HD for the Masses.” This got me to thinking about the roles of language and marketing at NAB. more

If you haven’t felt sympathy for lens manufacturers lately, then clearly you weren’t at Canon‘s dinner last night.

Larry Thorpe gave a stunning PowerPoint presentation (I should copyright that phrase, as it’s never been used before) about lens technology, aiming to explain why HD lenses haven’t come down in price in line with HD camcorders. Larry’s short explanation: Moore’s law doesn’t apply to glass. more