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Reader SurveyNAB 2008
Mar 1, 2008 12:00 PM
Perspective on this year’s show.
The Sony BVM-L420 LCD monitor is among this year’s NAB releases.
And NAB 2008? I don't know about you, but I'm almost suffering from new camcorder fatigue. After this barrage, what more could Sony possibly have in store for us this April?
The EX1's S×S card presently ships in 8GB and 16GB sizes. However, ExpressCard/34 is a standard, and 32GB ExpressCard/34 cards appeared on the market a year ago. Expect a 32GB S×S card from Sony and SanDisk. An ultra-compact S×S deck from Sony will be in the cards too, so to speak.
The PDW-700, launched at IBC last September, will make its Stateside debut. It's Sony's first 2/3in. XDCAM camcorder, and while it's ENG in design, it bristles with high-end touches: a new 4:2:2 50Mbps MPEG format recorded to dual-layer XDCAM discs; a 3CCD 1920×1080 PowerHAD FX sensor block (reputedly the same as that of the F23); 1080/720 switchability with interlace and progressive (60/50p in 720, 30/25p but no 24p in 1080); and optional MPEG IMX or DVCAM recording. To accompany the PDW-700, Sony will introduce a half-size PDW-HD1500 MPEG HD422 disc deck.
Sony's pre-NAB announcements don't tell nearly the whole of what's going to be announced at the show. I think I can crystal-ball a few more items.
If memory serves, at last year's NAB there were intriguing hints of a prototype EX with a removable lens.
Here's another possibility. Ever seen one of those tiny 1.8in. hard drives made by Toshiba, 100GB or more, that balance on the end of your finger? You know them from iPods, but they're also at the heart of Apple's MacBook Air. (I don't know anyone who owns the solid-state drive version yet. Do you?) Compact plus capacious equals camcorder-perfect.
Lest you think I've forgotten that Sony makes bigger, more expensive cameras, I haven't. It's just that many think that the epochal digital-cinema camera is Jim Jannard's Red Digital Cinema Red One, and that other new, costly cameras exist in its shadow from now on.
Red's claim to fame rests with its use of a single 35mm-sized CMOS to generate 4K RAW files onto inexpensive hard drives using wavelet compression. The camera enables use of standard PL-mount cine lenses. Red's less-than-$20,000 price for the camera body smashed price barriers and raised eyebrows.
But when it comes to widespread practical application of CMOS — innovation in the hands of thousands of users every day — perhaps it's Sony that is running circles around Red.
What if I told you I had a small CMOS camcorder, less than 5lbs., that could record 2K (OK, 1920×1080) using common MPEG-2, which permitted full viewing and editing upon shooting — no debayering or other processing? No noisy fan either? Costs less than a used PL-mount lens? You might agree I had come up with something interesting. Particularly with interchangeable lenses. In other words, it's all how you look at it.
At last year's NAB, Sony introduced a Rolls Royce of a camera, not CMOS but 2/3in. 3CCD. At the time, I wrote about the F23, “The marriage of Zeiss' DigiPrimes and Sony's F23 [is] the high-water mark of progressive-scan 2/3in. B4-mount imaging. It's hard to see how the F23's 11-13-stop extended dynamic range, … S-shaped, film-like gamma curve, enlarged color space, variable 1fps-60fps, … and camera-assistant-friendly layout will be topped.”
Or its price, north of $200,000, including viewfinder and onboard SRW-1 HDCAM SR recorder, lenses not included. That was before rumors surfaced at the end of last year, since verified, of the existence in Japan of prototype Sony F35s, using the same body as the F23 but featuring a single-striped, 35mm-sized CCD, much like the Panavision Genesis (codesigned by Sony). With rumored price-tag inflation to match. Will NAB see such a fabled beast?
Why would Sony, with its growing CMOS prowess, not choose to out-Jannard Jannard?
If only Mr. Wizard could send us there. In the meantime, there's another NAB on the horizon.
