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MillimeterNAB 2008
Mar 1, 2008 12:00 PM
Perspective on this year’s show.
Thomson Grass Valley’s John Naylor, director of the Infinity series.
In the minds of some independent producers, JVC is revered as a smaller but innovative manufacturer, credited with everything from pushing VHS to its (once) dominant role to making what some consider the first pro-spec'd HDV-based camcorder: the GY-HD100U, introduced at NAB 2005. That camcorder offered the first interchangeable lens on 1/3in. CCD camcorders.
Unlike some larger companies, JVC doesn't suffer from a prejudice against system components “not invented here.” The manufacturer is happy to collaborate with companies that hold special expertise, such as Telecast Fiber Systems. That company's CopperHead camera-mounted fiber-optic system was integrated with JVC's GY-HD250 HD camcorder early last year, delivering flexible long-distance connections for studio acquisition and remote applications alike.
But challenges lie ahead. Over the course of this next year, it will be interesting to see what JVC does now that Panasonic has divested itself of its longtime part ownership of the company. (In a January news report, Agence France-Presse noted the divestiture and stated that last July, “JVC agreed on a capital tie-up with fellow Japanese high-tech firm Kenwood Corp.,” in an attempt to energize its “ailing” operations. A release posted on the Panasonic corporate website last July stated, “JVC reported net losses for three consecutive fiscal years, including the fiscal year ended March 31, 2007, and its urgent task is to implement a fundamental management reform.”)
While JVC's financial security might give some buyers pause, last year, Steve Mullen gave the company's most recent camcorder technology — the GY-HD250 — a thumbs-up in his product review, saying, “Press releases call the GY-HD200 and GY-HD250 ‘revolutionary’ — an assessment I fully agree with. At last, we HDV shooters have the opportunity to shoot progressive video at 60fps. For the GY-HD250, I would add an additional word to ‘revolutionary.’ The word is ‘workhorse.’” (Read the full review at digitalcontentproducer.com/hdhdv/depth/jvc_gyhd.)
As local broadcasters, for example, move to HD, the features and flexibility of JVC's three base systems (GY-HD110U, GY-HD200U, GY-HD250) and its support gear are attracting new customers for the manufacturer. Over the past year, the Scripps Television Station Group purchased more than 150 GY-HD250 ProHD camcorders, 150 BR-HD50 ProHD recorder/players, and more than 300 DR-HD10060G HD hard-disk recorders for its move to the new format. The ability to gather local news — including remotes — in HD was key to the purchase, according to Scripps Vice President of Engineering Michael Doback. Happy with the camcorder-only base price of less than $20,000, Doback called the product mix “the right solution at the right time and at the right price.”
“The message from our very first ProHD camcorder was affordable HD, and we're expanding on that,” says Craig Yanagi, JVC's national marketing manager, creation products. “First, it was just about the camera, but now, it's about the workflow in its entirety. The 20Mbps payload of the [camcorder's] HDV 720 platform is relatively compact — only about one-fifth the size of DVCPRO HD, for example. That's enabled WXYZ, the Scripps Howard Station in Detroit, to cost-effectively build out its whole post infrastructure, with 720p QuickTime coming off of DR-HD10060G disk recorders and editing on [Apple] Final Cut Pro.”
Many broadcasters are looking to invest in complete packages as part of a move to file-based HD production. The relatively recent delivery of Thomson Grass Valley's Infinity Digital Media camcorders has allowed broadcasters such as KVBC TV in Las Vegas, a Sunbelt Communications Company subsidiary, to build full digital news acquisition systems around the file-based Infinity. In February, KVBC announced it had bought 18 of the camcorders to develop a news acquisition workflow that involves other Thomson Grass Valley products — including Rev Pro removable media, USB Rev Pro Digital Media drives, and Edius NLE workstations.
The Infinity features three newly developed Xensium CMOS 2/3in. imagers, which offer a full 1920×1080 active-pixel matrix, and a choice of compression schemes, including DV25, JPEG 2000, and MPEG-2.
“One of the biggest workflow benefits of Infinity is that it gives the user all the good things that they value from a modern, file-based workflow — fast and flexible interchange of media and the elimination of the familiar bottlenecks of ingest, log, and tape-out from the bad old days of tape-based operations,” says John Naylor, director of the Infinity series.
Expect to hear Thomson touting the price advantage, too. A 32GB Rev Pro drive costs about $68. While that's spinning media, not solid-state, current list prices are appreciably higher for comparable sizes of solid-state media such as Panasonic's P2 ($1,650 for 32GB) and Sony's S×S Pro Memory Card (final pricing isn't available yet, but it's expected to list at around $1,600 for 32GB at its September 2008 release).
