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MillimeterNAB 2009 Journal
Jun 9, 2009 4:38 PM, By D. W. Leitner
Cameras, lenses, and flash recording on the cheap.
Boys with toys. The surreptitious Steadicam and Canon 5D at Sony booth.
Photo by D.W. Leitner
Convergent Design’s $4,800 Flash XDR (Xstream Data Recorder), on the other hand, was designed for high bit rates. Originally meant to piggyback on a camcorder and connect via HD-SDI, the four-slot CompactFlash (CF) card recorder, a mere 8”x6”x2.5” and 2.7lbs., won awards at last year’s NAB. It houses a Sony MPEG-2 codec that encodes to 50Mbps or 100Mbps long-GOP, or to 100Mbps or 160Mbps I-frame (your choice of Mac-friendly QuickTime or, as of NAB, MXF for the PC crowd). It also encodes to HDV and XDCAM EX formats, as well as two channels of analog audio to 24-bit, 48kHz uncompressed PCM (phantom power at the XLRs). Wonderfully, it permits redundant RAID 1 recording of the same stream to two CF cards. An option to capture uncompressed HD is promised.
With 32GB CF dropping below $100, Convergent Design returned to NAB this year with a smaller Nano Flash—functionally equivalent to Flash XDR but minus the XLR audio inputs and two of four CF card slots. Entirely new, however, is HDMI in/out. It’s $2,900 and available mid-year.
Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute introduced an even smaller HD-SDI CF card recorder designed to complement tiny crash and POV cameras such as its own MicroHDTV. Called microStorage, the 3.3”x3.3”x1.6”, 13.5oz. CF card recorder has one slot, touchscreen controls, and a mini-stereo jack for mic/line in. It encodes to 1080i60 or 1080p30 using H.264/MPEG-4 AVC Level 4, High Profile up to 20Mbps.
Then there’s Sony’s tiny HVR-MRC1 memory recording unit. This was introduced last year as a detachable module for Sony HVR-Z7U and HVR-Z5U HDV camcorders to enable them to dual-record to MiniDV tape and CompactFlash simultaneously. At NAB, Sony re-introduced the single-slot, 4oz., iPod-sized MRC-1 as a standalone unit that can record the FireWire output of any DV or HDV camcorder of any make. The MRC1’s street price of $820 gets you the MRC1 plus its docking cradle, which includes a 6-pin FireWire port to attach to the camcorder. Battery in this case is not included, but the MRC1 uses the same Sony InfoLithium L series battery as the Z7 and Z5. The draw is so small—2.2W—that the smallest, lightest L series battery lasts for hours.
With most camcorders—a Sony DSR-PD150, for instance—the MRC1 starts and stops with the camcorder. If this doesn’t work (you do need to test), there are start and stop buttons on the unit itself. Bottom line: An MRC1 with an $80 32GB CF card turns any camcorder outputting a FireWire signal, with or without tape, into a flash-memory camcorder with 2.4 hours of storage. (For more on the MRC1, go to millimeter.com/cameras/revfeat/video_sony_hvrzu.)
JVC introduced a single-slot SxS docking recorder, the KA-MR100G, for its new shoulder-mount GY-HM700. It’s similar in design sensibility to Sony’s MRC1, but bigger. Like Sony’s PMW-EX1 and EX3, the GY-HM700 generates 25Mbps or 35Mbps MPEG-2 files, which, unlike with the Sony EX camcorders, are initially recorded to SDHC cards. Using the KA-MR100G, the 700’s files can be dual-recorded to SDHC and SxS simultaneously. (Dual flash media—now that’s a first.) An adapter also permits the KA-MR100G to function with earlier GY-HD200 and GY-HD250 camcorders.
Speaking of SxS, Sony introduced a single-slot SxS card storage device at NAB. The compact PXU-MS240 mobile storage unit enables one-touch copying and verification of SxS cards at 10X realtime to a PXU-HC240 240GB removable hard-drive cartridge. It’s $2,000 combined and available September. The MS240 uses the same BP-U30 battery as do the EX1 and EX3.
AJA’s petite Ki (“key”) Pro, 8”x5.25”x3”, 3lbs., adopts another path: mimicking the familiar VTR. Control buttons, status display, headphone jack, and a pair of LED audio level meters are all where you would expect them. The front also features dual ExpressCard/34 slots (same form factor as SxS), and on top is a larger slot for a cartridge-mounted 2.5in. SATA drive (250GB or 500GB), which technically makes Ki Pro a digital disk recorder too. I/O includes HD-SDI, HDMI, analog, audio, and timecode. The $4,000 Ki’s claim to fame at NAB was its capture from virtually any camera direct to ExpressCard/34 or SATA drives in the form of Apple ProRes 422
QuickTime files—a significant shortcut that eliminates Log and Capture, Log and Transfer, and transcoding when importing to Final Cut Pro. Connected by its built-in FireWire 800 port, the SATA cartridge simply appears on the Mac OS X desktop, its ProRes files ready to go.
Continue the discussion on Crosstalk the Millimeter Forum.