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Millimeter Vanguard Awards 2007

Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Trevor Boyer

Our editors honor the best products of the year.

Vision Research Phantom HD and Phantom 65

For digital cinematography, the Red Digital Cinema Red One captures 4K at 24fps and 2K up to 60fps, but what about higher frame rates for slow motion? Fortunately, there's Vision Research Phantom HD and Phantom 65 camera systems, beautifully adapted from scientific to cine use by Abel Cine Tech. Like Red One, Phantom HD has a single 35mm-size CMOS sensor for 35mm depth-of-field and captures 2K (1.85 aspect ratio) at 1000fps to internal RAM, or at 351fps to onboard 256GB or 512GB Phantom CineMag flash memory drives. Phantom 65 has a giant CMOS sensor the size of 65mm film and captures 4K (1.85 aspect ratio) at 154fps to RAM or 88fps to CineMag. Images are stunning, according to Vanguards judge D. W. Leitner, and demand for these cameras has taken off.

Red Digital Cinema Red One

Its open-systems approach to camera technology and its low cost of entry ($18,500 for a 4K camera body) have made Red One a star of the digital-cinema world even before its true premiere on the general market. At press time, only the first 100 units have shipped, but marquee directors Peter Jackson and Steven Soderbergh have shot projects with prototypes of the CMOS-based camera, with very promising results. “Engineering delays in camera delivery and the growing realization that the price of early adoption is beta testing — willing or not — has failed to dampen the spirits of those who proclaim a revolution in production costs,” says Vanguards judge D. W. Leitner. “Time will tell, but Red has demonstrated it's here to stay.”

Silicon Imaging SI-2K and SI-2K Mini

With a handsome makeover by Munich's P+S Technik, the once ugly duckling Silicon Imaging SI-2K prototype emerged at NAB this year as a real production camera ($23,500, 7in. touchscreen LCD, no disk recorder). Both SI-2K and SI-2K Mini($14,500) — basically the SI-2K's severed head — feature a single 2/3in. 1920×1080 AltaSens CMOS sensor and the company's universal lens mount adapter for switching among PL-mount, C-mount, and an optical adapter for B4-mount lenses such as DigiPrimes. The full-size SI-2K embeds a version of Iridas SpeedGrade OnSet for nondestructive color correction and a 10-bit CineForm RAW codec for compressing RAW files to disk. With the introduction at IBC of an optical viewfinder for the SI-2K Mini and an OLED electronic viewfinder for both, it's easy to see why these new digital-cinema cameras have been taken up so readily in the field. By all reports, says Vanguards judge D. W. Leitner, they're reliable too.

Codex Digital Codex Portable

The recent string of digital-cinema cameras lacks one obvious feature: some kind of digital bucket for all those bits. The new Codex Digital Codex Portable is a 9lb. flash-memory recording appliance for HD, 2K, and 4K signals. Using what the company calls “virtually lossless compression” (i.e., wavelet-based JPEG 2000), the Codex Portable can record the simultaneous output of two 4:4:4 cameras — or four 4:2:2 cameras — locked together for stereoscopic projects or not. Its hot-swappable, shock-mounted RAID disk packs can hold up to 3 hours of continuous recording at highest quality. The unit features a screen for playback, and there's wireless connectivity for remote control and shot logging from a laptop on set. “Like a Nagra worn over the shoulder, its controls and touchscreen-based graphical user interface are on top, facing the operator,” says Vanguards judge D. W. Leitner. “Capturing HD, 2K, and 4K in the field no longer has to be an IT ordeal.”

Panavision SSR-1

The bantam SSR-1 weighs in at less than 6lbs., which is 7lbs. less than the portable Sony SRW-1 HDCAM-SR tape deck it supplants on top or at the back of a Panavision Genesis or Sony F23. Additional advantages to the 4:4:4 flash- memory recorder include instant start (no preroll), instant playback of takes (no cueing, shuttling), 40 percent more operational time than SRW-1 due to lower power draw, and no noisy cooling fans. A final practical advantage: The SSR-1 has a built-in downconverter for NTSC or PAL monitor output, even when the recorder is mounted on the camera. Recording times are 20 minutes for uncompressed 4:4:4 or 40 minutes for 4:2:2, at frame rates from 1fps to 30fps. “If there any downsides,” says Vanguards judge D. W. Leitner, “I can't find them.”

Apple Final Cut Studio 2, introducing Color

For a project that requires professional color correction — but not on the level that, say, a Da Vinci provides — the new Apple Color module should do quite nicely. That's simply amazing for a product that ships within a full postproduction software suite that retails for less than $2,000. In Final Cut Pro 6, the new open-format timeline allows editors to drop any codec on the timeline and keep editing, without conversion or rendering. That goes for the new Apple ProRes 422, a 4:2:2, 10-bit codec with target bit rates of 145Mbps and 220Mbps. Elsewhere in the package, there's a new version of Motion with true 3D cameras (possibly giving Adobe After Effects a run for its money), and a powerful new Soundtrack Pro 2 that focuses on ADR workflow and other audio-for-video tasks.

Panasonic AJ-HPX3000

The HPX3000 is the first camcorder capable of shooting Panasonic's 10-bit AVC-Intra codec as standard, an H.264 implementation that, at 100Mbps, is said to approach D-5 quality. The intraframe-only AVC-Intra codec captures a full 1920×1080 raster to five solid-state P2 cards. The camera itself has a host of features friendly to digital-cinema production, including a Scan Reverse function that allows the HPX3000 to use an ultra prime lens or an anamorphic lens adapter to create a 2.35:1 aspect image without image cropping. There's also a three-level Dynamic Range Stretch function that varies gamma correction to match the contrast within the image. The camera also incorporates Chromatic Aberration Compensation. “That's an essential capability nowadays for any HD shooter, given the increased pixel density of today's imagers and their concomitant ability to resolve greater and more egregious lens defects along with increased picture detail,” says Vanguards judge Barry Braverman. (See his full review)

© 2008 Penton Media, Inc.