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A camera can only be as good as the recording made from it. In the past year or so we’ve seen some interesting new portable recording devices such as the AJA Ki Pro and the Convergent Design nanoFlash. Now comes the Cinedeck Extreme, which is not only an excellent recorder but also doubles as a full-featured on-camera monitor. The Cinedeck Extreme can input HD-SDI in 4:2:2 or 4:4:4, as well as HDMI, and record it to the wavelet-based Cineform codec. Coming soon (with a firmware upgrade) will be Avid DNxHD, as well as Uncompressed HD. That’s right — an Uncompressed 12-bit RGB HD recorder for under $12K that sits right on top of your camera. Recording media are consumer 2.5″ SSD drives designed for laptops.

The Cinedeck’s monitor offers functions such as waveform, vectorscope, false-color exposure meter, audio meters, pixel-to-pixel zoom for focus, grid and frameline overlays, etc. All this in a package about the same size of a standard on-board LCD.

Watch the video for more on the Cinedeck Extreme and to see it mounted to the new ARRI ALEXA Digital Cinema camera.

New firmware for the Nexto Video Storage Pro (NVS2500) was recently released, which adds several new features to the product. These updates include preview support of AVCHD clips, preview support of the new Canon XF300/305 video format, and greatly improved data protection and backup options. One of the new backup options includes the ability to copy data back to Compact Flash and SDHC cards. It may seem a bit odd to backup video footage shot on one memory card to another, but there are some advantages. Compact Flash and SDHC memory are relatively inexpensive, easy to find, and fast to download. So if you are working with P2 or SxS cards, the Nexto can copy them to its internal drive, and then to another card for delivery or storage. Or if you are working with CF or SDHC, the Nexto can be used to make a copy. Why walk away from set with one memory card when you can walk away with two? Because the Nexto is not capturing video in real time, you could even utilize cheaper cards with slower read/write speeds as backups. Download the latest firmware here, and make sure to read Nexto’s workflow document to learn about their new data protection and recovery options.

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DSC Labs recently introduced the RED CamBook, which is designed for the RED One and other future RED cameras. It has three pages of framing charts, exposure aids and color alignment scales. Watch the video to see all the features of this useful tool.

Many cinematographers use warm and cool cards, like the DSCLabs White N’ Warm cards, to create a look in camera. By white balancing your camera on a card with warm (red) color the camera will produce a cooler (blue) balance. The opposite is also true; a cool (blue) card will give a warm (red) white balance. If you white balance off the same card in different lighting environments, then you can consistently achieve the same warm or cool look. What many people don’t know is that this same method can also be achieved in camera through white balance offsets. This option is available in many pro cameras and is simple to set. Depending on the camera, an offset can be applied to the preset, A or B white balance settings. The offset works simply by adjusting the white balance to be cooler or warmer. Just like using the same warm/cool card, the offset will be applied to any white balance that you run. The advantage to using the offset over using the cards is that you can white balance off any white surface and still get the look you are after (of course a nice white card is still advised, if available). Here are a couple examples of how this is set in different cameras.

…continue reading Using White Balance Offsets to Create a Look

Sony recently announced the SRW-5800/2, an HDCAM SR studio recorder that builds on the quality and flexibility of the original SRW-5800 VTR. The SRW-5800/2 uses the latest version of the HDCAM SR MPEG4 Simple Studio Profile codec ASIC, which provides support for higher sampling resolutions, including 2K. Support for RGB 4:4:4 SQ comes standard, meaning the additional HKSR-5803SQ board is no longer necessary.

Other features include:

– MXF SStP file transfer
– SR-Lite MXF file support
– Double speed record & playback for 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 SQ modes
– RGB 3D record & playback for 4:4:4 SQ mode
– Real-time 2K formats: (2048×1080 RGB 10 bit, 2048×1080 XYZ 12 bit)
– Support for 96 KHz audio sampling

An optional upgrade kit (HKSR-58UK) will be available so that the SRW-5800/1 can be made into a 5800/2. Older SRW-5800 decks that have not been upgraded to /1 can also use the HKSR-58UK, but will require an additional HIF-56 board.

Singular Software has announced DualEyes, a stand-alone program for those of you recording dual-system sound. Similar to the popular PluralEyes, DualEyes can actually replace the audio track on your video files with the audio from an external recorder, such as the Zoom H4N. This should make editing much easier, since you can now drag and drop your clips from your bin to your sequence without having to make a separate “PluralEyes” sequence.

Singular has posted a video tutorial online, which you can find here. A free beta of DualEyes is available (currently Windows only) and can be downloaded here.

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One of the most frequently asked questions that I receive about the XDCAM EX cameras is how to adjust back focus. Like all ENG style lenses, the lenses that come with these cameras can sometimes develop back focus issues over time. The cameras all have a method for adjusting this, and luckily the PMW350, PMW320, EX3, EX1R, and EX1 all follow a similar procedure. Watch this video to learn when and how to adjust the back focus on your EX camera.

DSCLabs has some great charts for checking back focus, they also offer a couple free ones that you can print yourself – here.

Note: To access the hidden menu on the EX1 / EX1R, hold the Menu, Scroll Wheel, and Cancel button at the same time. DO NOT adjust anything else in this menu.