It is no longer relevant to talk about the convergence between the world of information technologies and that of video production in the conventional style. The question it is no longer one of expectations: this convergence is a factor more in the market, a factor that made it possible for the NAB to this year a complete repertoire of options appeared that will allow, in the near future, that even operations Smaller news outlets abandon tapes forever video.
The immediate problem for the operators of our region it is the same as always: the manufacturers agree on the type of solutions that offer but the standardization of these new Solutions are far away and may never come.
Message for operations News: again the industry offers multiple standards. We will have to think about different platforms for production and for material exchange. Welcome to the future
Case 1: Recording in
hard drives
Record DV or HDV material on hard drives, connected
directly to a camcorder, does not represent greater
difficulty. Simply, it is about solving the mechanical aspects
of the assembly, generate a firmware that allows to emulate the
Camcorder recorder behavior and start
Get to work. At NAB 2007 there was an explosion of the supply of this
type of devices.
Some manufacturers of camcorders, as JVC, they have chosen to promote records manufactured by others signatures, such as Focus. Sony presents options of its own, but does not have no downside in providing manufacturers independent information needed to create this type of Devices. Firms as serious as Maxell and Hitachi work on this line, while dozens of garage companies integrate drawers with 2.5 IDE hard drives, which offer specifications in appearance identical to those of the large industry players, at ridiculously low prices.
The use of this type of devices is the obvious and easiest path to start a migration reasonable to tapeless operations. Who to believe in the midst of this confusion? Are we going to believe those who offer elements of high quality with the corresponding cost or to whom it proposes that hard drives should be handled as short-lived items, that can be repaired with store-bought drives from the corner? Difficult decision. It is a variant of the well-known confrontation between branded product and generic product.
The solution to this dilemma lies in a judicious analysis of cash flows and real needs of the operation. And perhaps in renouncing the hard drives to take another of the options in which the Industry has come to an agreement, such as recording in some kind of solid-state memory.
Case 2: Recording in
flash memory
It all started more than 20 years ago, when the
first video recording systems based on
RAM. First were the post-production systems of
NEC, then Toshiba's solid-state servers, caches
recorders of the production switchers of range
High and in 2004 appeared the Panasonic P2 system.
To do justice, it is necessary clarify that the P2 system is based directly on the tested compact flash technology, although it has been adapted to the needs of the industry in terms of robustness and performance. This year, other manufacturers announced that they will follow the same line.
Examples: Toshiba and Ikegami announced a partnership to promote a cartridge system high-capacity flash memory, called GigaFlash. In Principle is spoken of cartridges with capacities of 120 GB, and the Recording format is completely open in fact, there is talk of soft cameras. An interesting factor: Ikegami has been a partner of Avid for more than ten years, then is from expect GigaFlash products to be compatible with the Avid editing systems from the start.
Sony announced the next launch of XDCAM-EX, a recording system based on the ExpressCard standard, which begins to replace connections PCMCIA on state-of-the-art laptops. In In principle, Sony will offer 8 and 16 GB cards that will record MPEG-2 material with 4:2:2 sampling and up to 50 bandwidth Mbps. Initially, XDCAM-EX will be implemented on cameras of Pro type, but it is possible that in the near future let's see large cameras with a slot Additional XDECAM-EX.
Panasonic has concentrated on improve the capacity of P2 cards coming soon will reach 16 GB and make systems more efficient recording. Thanks to the use of the AVC-HD codec is possible to register on each card twice the material that could record using DVCPRO-HD, while retaining the advantages of the intraframe encoding. A loose fact: They have already begun to P2 card providers other than Panasonic appear
On the other hand, Panasonic launched a professional version of your home camcorders , that record material on SD memory cards. It is about the CAMCORDER AG-HSC1U, a toy with three 1/4 sensors that handles SD memory cards up to 4GB and costs just over US$2000.
And while other manufacturers do significant research and development efforts, JVC representatives simply say that with a device External recording that operates as a hard drive, your cameras HDV 720p will be able to control it without any difficulty. On the other Beside, let's not forget that by 1999, JVC was the first manufacturer in offering a camcorder with streaming functions Incorporated.
Case 3: Infinity
Finally, Infinity became a reality: the
Offices. The system of burning to removable hard drives
RevPro began to reach Thomson customers from
April. At NAB an increase in recording density was announced,
which will bring the recording capacity of the cartridges to 70 GB,
with transfer speeds of up to 110 Mbps; also
informally announced Thomson's intention to support
new recording systems according to the needs of your
Partners.
In principle, Infinity offers 25 Mbps SD recording to DV, HD recording using a codec based on JPEG-2000 and an option to record MPEG-2 streams 4:2:2 with HD signals up to 50 Mbps. The camcorders Infinity offer dual SD/HD operation, ethernet connectivity and support any storage system in the world of PCs. Obviously, Infinity is supported by solutions for Thomson/Canopus digital newsrooms, and we're on top of the waiting for the reactions of other manufacturers.
Case 4: XDCAM/XDCAM-HD
On the side of the recording on the blue discs, a
brief but substantial news: the ability to record
increases to 46 GB per cartridge more than three hours of DVCAM to
25 Mbps on each plate. Meanwhile, new ones appear.
Disk suppliers: Maxell and TDK, for example, started
offer your 23GB XDCAM cartridges, for now.
As for XDCAM-HD, things remain more or less the same: a kind of super-HDV is recorded at 35 Mbps with four audio channels. The drive built into the PDW-F330 supports a transfer rate of 70 Mbps and all seems to indicate that the cameras allow the update of codecs through firmware changes. Apparently, Sony has decided to keep an ace up his sleeve.
Case 5: Mobile Links
On the wireless link side, things are clear:
absolutely all radio system suppliers are
offering HD links, which can be mounted directly on
the tail of a camcorder. Some distribute hybrids of
transmission and storage. There are options with and without compression,
of all imaginable ranges and powers and there is no
clear agreement as to the frequencies at which these
systems must operate. Perhaps on this front it is better to wait for
that the regulatory bodies put some order.
As always, many of the NAB news are announcements of future events. Some products will succeed, others will not. Some will become actually, others don't. But the trend is clear: the industry he has agreed, and the videotape enters his straight final.
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