Acquisition Formats: It’s Really About The Workflow

February 28, 2005

Changing acquisition formats isn’t about the format itself, it’s really about what efficiencies the format brings to your workflow. Whether you’re a small cable station or a national network, looking at the format itself is just the first step to doing your job faster and cheaper.

With NAB approaching, we asked the major digital format manufacturers to give us an idea of how they’ll be pushing their formats to you. While February may have been a bit early for manufacturers to brag about new product and technology offerings, this should give you a good idea of what to expect in Las Vegas.

Hitachi Goes To Hard Disc
www.hdal.com

With the proliferation of digital technology, camera manufacturers not having their own recording format have seized opportunities to free their customers from the traditional tape recorder.

At NAB2005 Hitachi plans to introduce and take orders for a truly affordable high-quality tapeless recorder for its professional camera models. The recorder will dock to its popular Z-series cameras and enable them to be liberated from their studio pedestals and tripods giving Hitachi customers the freedom to realize field productions with their best cameras. The digital recording codec will be switchable between DV25 and DV50. The file formats will be the popular AVI and MOV type now handled by a large majority of NLE suites on the market. The Hitachi ZDR-1 recorder has a removable media (HDD) available in capacities ranging from 20 to 100Gb providing as much as 5 hours recording time with DV25 and 2.5 hours with DV50. Prices range from $150 per drive to $350 depending on capacity. Bundled with the recorder is a bay, which allows installation into a PC or Mac NLE. The HDD simply goes from the camera to the NLE making the video ingest process almost absent. The NLE’s OS mounts the HDD and video editing can take place in the very same media that was used to acquire it. The Hitachi ZDR-1 will tentatively list for $5,000 and delivery starts as early as June 2005.

Hitachi, in collaboration with Blueline Technologies, will further demonstrate a solution for a larger networked news or production team where the drives from their new ZDR-1 will be mounted in a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device, managed by a file server and made available to collaborative editors on the same network as clips they can drag and drop into timelines directly from the file server.

Hitachi plans to promote the removable HDD media as the key benefit over the delicate optical disc and the expensive solid-state memory. Short-term plans include the use of AVC and working partnerships with established NLE companies to quickly bring economical, but high quality HDTV camera-recorders to market that skip the use of videotape as the new HDV format is once more imposing on the market.
Ikegami: Editcam3
www.ikegami.com

Ikegami’s Editcam is the only tapeless ENG/EFP solution with more than five years of real-world field use and the largest installed base of users. Developed in partnership with Avid Technology, Editcam3 provides instant editing on all Avid NLEs.

The new DNS-33W Editcam3 is a 520,000-pixel AIT CCD camcorder that gives users the choice of nonlinear recording on removable FieldPak2 media in either hard drive or solid-state versions. The 80GB FieldPak2 offers six hours of DV25 (25Mbps) digital video or three hours of DV50 (50Mbps).

Editcam3 includes such revolutionary features as Retroloop (so you never miss a shot), time lapse recording, and excellent low-light capabilities.
The DNS-33W Editcam3’s tapeless FieldPak2 provides for direct import of video and audio clips into Avid’s MC/NC Adrenaline, Xpress PRO, and Xpress DV nonlinear editing systems via an inexpensive adapter.

To date, customers have selected the cost-effective hard drive version of the FieldPak2; it’s anticipated they’ll migrate to the solid state FieldPak2 as the technology becomes more affordable.

At NAB2005, you’ll be able to see the DNS-33W Editcam3 along with the new HD Editcam utilizing Avid’s DNxHD compression and approximately one hour of full-resolution HD recording on today’s FieldPak 2 media.

JVC: HDV--More Than Just A Consumer Format
www.pro.jvc.com

Since its formal introduction July of 2003, the HDV format has followed the same logical development as the DV format. Both are consumer formats, yet both have prosumer gear counterparts.

For example, our JY-HD10 high definition camcorder is a perfect example of a prosumer version of the HDV format, just as JVC and other manufacturers have introduced professional DV camcorders.
The next step in this logical progression, and one that we have already seen with DV, is the full professionalization of the HDV format, as we did with the introduction of Professional DV.

This, then, is the next logical step for HDV--a professional version...one that overcomes the shortcomings of the consumer format without sacrificing the compatibility and momentum that JVC generated when we introduced the first HDV model. It’s our belief at JVC, that a professional HDV based system can offer features and performance that go well beyond the capabilities of consumer HDV, while taking advantage of the core technologies developed for mass market products. The HDV format is therefore a foundation upon which some very sophisticated professional models can be developed. The last thing the industry needs is another new format, especially when an existing format provides manufacturers with enough latitude to produce exceptional products for the broadcast and teleproduction professional.

Panasonic: P2--The No Media Solution
www.panasonic.com/broadcast

The Panasonic DVCPRO P2 solid-memory media system offers a faster, more efficient workflow for broadcasters and brings critical improvements in durability, speed, stability, and accessibility to newsgathering . In addition, DVCPRO P2 is HD-ready with a video transfer rate fast enough for high definition recording that’s compatible with existing systems.

In engineering the P2 series, Panasonic took full advantage of SD Memory card’s substantial storage capacity and high transfer rate. The P2 card incorporates four SD Memory cards. P2 cards can be re-used almost indefinitely, since a card can be re-written a minimum of 100,000 times without performance degradation and its reliable connector will last for a minimum of 30,000 insertion and removal cycles.

An intrinsic advantage of the P2 card is instant connection with the IT universe. For example, when inserted into the PC card slot of a laptop computer, the P2 card can instantly be recognized as a mounted virtual disk drive. This permits instant editing since there is no longer any need to digitize media prior to editing and the P2 card interface is fast enough to support complex editing.

Panasonic currently offers 4GB and 2GB capacity P2 cards; an 8GB P2 card is slated to be available this year; 16GB and 32GB capacities will be available as the core SD Memory card size increases.
Key benefits of DVCPRO P2 include:

Compatibility: DVCPRO P2 is fully compatible with DVCPRO, the industry’s standard for digital newsgathering, and with high-performance DVCPRO50 standard definition 4:2:2 recording, as well as providing a seamless migration path to DVCPRO HD.

Panasonic’s strategy of a seamlessly connected family of products and formats--25Mbps DVCPRO, 50Mbps DVCPRO50, and 100Mbps DVCPRO HD--is well accepted in the television industry.

Significant Workflow Improvements: The new P2 workflow includes high-speed file transfer, laptop field editing without requiring proxy videos, and compatibility with off-the-shelf data storage drives for archiving, while eliminating traditional digitizing and ingesting operations. DVCPRO P2 is a media-less system in which a television station’s budget for consumable media can be virtually eliminated. The station need not purchase consumable recording media except for archiving applications.

Low Maintenance: The elimination of transports or mechanisms results in significant maintenance cost savings because of the absence of any moving parts that can breakdown or wear out from repetitive use.
Environmental Stability: DVCPRO P2 is practically impervious to shock and vibration and offers outstanding resistance to environmental stresses.

Sony: XDCAM Professional Disc

With Sony’s XDCAM Professional Disc system, broadcast and video production professionals can not only realize significant reductions in operating costs, but the XDCAM system also offers new ways to shoot, edit, and distribute footage that were previously unimaginable with tape-based systems.

A key feature of the XDCAM system is its in-camera editing capabilities, which not only gives DPs and crew members the ability to review footage as thumbnails on the camcorder’s LCD screen but also eliminates the need to have a separate playback monitor available for field producers who want to review footage on-the-spot.

The XDCAM professional optical disc system achieves workflow innovation by recording a high-resolution original, as well as a lower-resolution, frame-accurate 2Mbps, MPEG-4 proxy version of the audio and video data. From the camcorder, or a battery- or AC-operated mobile deck, ENG and EFP teams will be able to transfer the proxy video and audio to laptop editors for in-field editing or back to the studio at up to 50x real time so producers can immediately begin assembling EDLs while the crew is still in the field.

At the center of the XDCAM system is Sony’s blue-laser technology based Professional Disc media, which offers unique benefits in terms of split-second random access to footage in the field or during the post process, multi-format flexibility and flexible record times, DVCAM (85 min.) or MPEG IMX 50Mbps (45 min.). The Professional Disc media has a maximum transfer rate of 144Mbps when using two optical heads, and the discs also offer increased portability and are packaged in specially designed durable cartridges resistant to dust, shock, and scratches.

The 12-cm (5-inch) single-sided, rewritable disc offers portability and is protected in a durable cartridge resistant to dust, shock, and environmental conditions. Reusable for as many as 10,000 erase/read/write cycles, Sony’s Professional Disc offers an estimated 50 years or more of archival life according to Sony’s accelerated testing.

The XDCAM system also includes several key workflow features, such as:

An optional 24PsF card, which enables the system’s camcorders to switch instantly from interlace to 24p.

An optional Ethernet adaptor, which makes any XDCAM camcorder capable of plugging directly into a 100-Base T network and log or edit directly from the camcorder.

i.LINK (FAM) File Access Mode, which allows an XDCAM camcorder or deck to appear as a drive under Microsoft Windows Explorer or an NLE’s file browser.

Essence Marks, so the operator can either manually or automatically mark a particular clip as a “good shot.” The camcorder can also be configured to automatically insert other essence marks when any of the following events occur while shooting: filter wheel changes, shutter speed changes, scene changes, and others.

Thumbnail Scene selection and search in the camcorder and decks makes finding desired clips easier, so just the clips selected by the operator can be played.

Picture Cache, so while in standby mode, the camcorder will continuously record 10 seconds of video, audio, and metadata in memory. When the “Rec” button is pushed, these previous 10 seconds and all associated data will be automatically recorded onto the Professional Disc media and the camcorder will continue recording in real time.