Sony’s legacy of creating industry leading content creation tools took the next step today with the announcement of an HDCAM SR camcorder platform and upgrade roadmap that raises the price / performance standard for broadcast and Digital Cinema production. The new platform will exist in both 2/3” and 35mm formats and will work in seamless concert with both tape and memory based media for “full cycle” workflow and archival capability.

The first iteration of the new platform is the recently introduced SRW-9000, which is now available. This 2/3” triple CCD camera writes to a built-in HDCAM SR recorder for a combination of high performance and operational portability. Some key features of the SRW-9000 are 1080/60P “overcrank” recording in 4:4:4; and 14-bit A/D conversion, which translates to a dynamic range of over 12 stops.

…continue reading Sony Details SRW-9000 Future Proof Roadmap

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We first saw the SRW-9000 back in April at NAB. It made a real impression in our booth and had us all excited about a shoulder mounted HDCAM SR camcorder. Sony promised the camera would be out in December ‘09, and they delivered. Abel will have the SRW-9000 available for both sale and rental within days. There are a number of reasons to be excited about this camera. It has the same proven chipset as the F23, and it records to the visually lossless HDCAM SR format. It shoots in 720p at up to 60 FPS, and 1080P at up to 60FPS as well. It records in 4:2:2: and 4:4:4 modes, offering the ultimate in quality for broadcast and Digital Cinema – and all of these features come in a shoulder-mounted form factor.

The big news today, though, is that Sony has upped the ante on the SRW-9000. They have announced that the SRW-9000 can be upgraded in the future. The 2/3″ block can be switched with a 35mm size sensor, the same as found in the F35. Sony will perform the upgrades to switch the sensor and add a PL mount. This is a serious option for owner-operators and rental houses everywhere. Additionally, they will offer an option to switch out the HDCAM SR tape-record mechanism for an SR Memory recorder. The memory recorder will record in HDCAM SR compression (Mpeg4 Simple Studio Profile) to extremely high-speed and large capacity memory cards. This technology is still in the works but promises to be the recording media of future Sony cameras. Lastly, they have announced a new deck, the SRW-5800/2, and an upgrade to their SRW-5800 deck, which will enable MXF file download in the Simple Studio Profile (SStP). This means that HDCAM SR video can be downloaded off a tape as data files. These are the first steps in making HDCAM SR a full data format. Needless to say this is a serious announcement that lays out Sony’s longer term vision.

Lucky for us, Jesse and I got our hands on the SRW-9000 and did some testing. We spent an afternoon with it, shot some charts and walked out to the water to get some footage. Here is a quick overview of what we found.

…continue reading Hands On With the SRW-9000

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Over the past three years, there have been numerous high profile projects shot with Phantom HD digital high-speed cameras. Hollywood features like Sherlock Holmes and Zombieland, wildlife documentaries from National Geographic and Discovery, sporting events from the NFL, NASCAR and the Olympics, as well as high end commercials for Acura and Xbox 360 – these are just a few examples. But if ever there was an important individual to shoot with the Phantom HD Gold, it would be none other than President Barack Obama

NFL’s Play60 teamed up with President Obama’s United We Serve initiative for this Thanksgiving campaign to encourage physical activity and combat childhood obesity. The President, along with NFL players DeMarcus Ware, Drew Brees and Troy Polamalu, were all stars in this PSA, which was filmed on the lawns of the White House in early November 2009. I served as the Phantom specialist on this project.

…continue reading NFL and Obama Encourage Kids to Play60

This week Convergent Design will be releasing a new firmware for their nanoFlash recorder (version 1.1.131), which contains some significant improvements. They have bumped up the data rate options once again to 180 Mbps LongGOP and 280 Mbps I-Frame. This is great for really pushing the premium video quality. But the new feature that excites me is not a new data rate, but a small change that makes the MXF files generated by the nanoFlash compatible with those on the XDCAM ProDisc. The nanoFlash utilizes the same Sony codec found in the PDW-700 and PDWF800, just at many different data rates. So CD and Sony worked together to make the two MXF files compatible. This means that material recorded in the nanoFlash at 50 Mbps LongGOP (the highest quality currently supported by the disc) can be put on a XDCAM ProDisc and played back on an XDCAM deck. This is a great option because, not only is the XDCAM disc a terrific format, but many television networks require it as a deliverable. On top of that, it makes for an excellent archiving solution. I decided to test out this new feature by combining the PMWEX1, nanoFlash, and PDW-U1 (inexpensive ProDisc reader/writer). Keep reading to see my process.

…continue reading How to Put nanoFlash Video on an XDCAM Disc

If Indiana Jones were a cameraman his name would be Scott Duncan. An eight time Emmy award winner, Scott is known for his artistry as well as his sense of adventure. Scott has filmed inside war zones, on top of mountains and under raging rivers. Last month he used the new Aaton Penelope camera to shoot one of Manhattan’s most menacing marauders – Donald Trump.

The project was the opening of a brand new season of Celebrity Apprentice with The Donald and a gaggle of…celebrities (who we can’t name right now – you’ll know them when you see them). It proved an excellent opportunity for Scott to become acquainted with Penelope.

…continue reading Scott Duncan: First Impressions of Penelope

Sony recently released a new version of their XDCAM EX Clip Browser with a couple of great new features. If you aren’t familiar with the software, it is Sony’s free tool for working with XDCAM EX clips. It allows users to download, subclip and add metadata to clips. It’s the best tool out there for working with EX material…and it’s free.

In this latest release, Sony added a Flash Band correction function. This will scan your clips and look for banding created by flashes. It is very similar to what the Panasonic HPX300 does in-camera. This is an important function for anyone shooting live events, or anywhere where there’s flash photography.

…continue reading New Features in Sony’s EX Clip Browser 2.6

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Last night, Abel NY hosted a lighting seminar presented by Dedo Weigert, inventor of Dedolights.

Traveling to America exclusively for this event, Dedo drew a packed crowd of filmmakers, many of whom continued to talk with Dedo long after the formal end of the event. Keeping the audience engrossed with anecdotes culled from his years as a Munich-based cinematographer, he provided a glimpse into the genesis of his line of Dedolights. He emphasized that his lights weren’t meant to compete with any other manufacturers’, but—like the different paint brushes in an artist’s kit—each had its purpose. He then proceeded to demonstrate a number of his products, discussing the particular lighting situations in which each would shine. During a 15-minute break, attendees got a chance to get their hands on all the lights and accessories that Dedo demonstrated during his presentation.

…continue reading An Evening with Dedo and His Lights