Filmless film, tapeless video at NAB - Special Report

Post, May, 2003 by Ken McGorry

LAS VEGAS -- Competition is a good thing." That is what major video camera manufacturers had to be telling themselves at NAB as one after another came out with new or newly upgraded cameras bent on satisfying the industry's hunger for digital acquisition. But the trend took a new turn this year and produced some surprises both in ENG and in the high end, promising to put both TV news people and filmmakers just a heartbeat away from computerized post production. Panasonic (www.panasonic.com) came out with a tapeless camera that goes one better -- it's solid state and has "no moving parts." And a new player from Dalsa introduced a camera capable of recording 4K images to hard drives.

Meanwhile, Sony (www.sony.com) introduced innovations to its CineAlta line that address the needs of cinematographers while Thomson (www.thomson.net) showed upgrades to its Viper, a digital film camera that set a new standard last year by promising film-like, noncompressed acquisition.

JVC (www.jvcpro.com) also entered the higher-resolution-for-less fray with its low-cost hand-held HD camcorder, the JY-HD10U, which offers HD acquisition resolutions (including 720/30p) in 16:9 with MPEG2 compression and is switchable to standard def 4:3 recording with DV compression. Regardless, the recording medium is "common MiniDV tape," the company says, adding a note of I-told-you-so to those naysayers who once scoffed at the very idea of handheld HD acquisition.

Panasonic's "solid state memory-card" camera is an extension of its DVCPRO line and will support multiple digital formats, including HDTV. The camera is initially aimed at newsgatherers (who may still need some convincing to shoot 16:9). The camera, which has yet to adopt a Panasonic model number; will record onto memory cards that are compatible with a computer's PCMCIA slot and transfer at 640Mb/s thereby hastening a producer's entry into the digital post world. The new camera also promises lower costs and swifter workflows. Although it's not slated for delivery until spring of 2004, Panasonic did hold private demos at NAB, thereby quelling some show talk that the prototype on display was a little too, er, proto.

Sony's Larry Thorpe had plenty to say about Sony's increasing intimacy with the Hollywood cinematography crowd. "Following our two-and-a-half-years' experience with the first CineAlta, and the many projects we've been involved in, and the many debriefings we've had with directors of photography, we got many criticisms and many suggestions of things that filmmakers would like," he says. One obvious product of this intimacy is the new F-950 camera, which can record noncompressed images. "The F-950 camera is an RGB camera for those who want to do very high-end film work for miniatures, special effects and the highest performance. RGB comes digitally out of the camera, 3GB/s, on a fiber link that can go down to a camera control unit to the recording system or directly to the recording system [without the CCU] and do any manipulation later in post.

"We've developed what we call a Gamma Editor," Thorpe continues. "This is a PC-based software we developed in consultation with many filmmakers with a GUI that lets you look at the transfer characteristic of the camera from black all the way up to the maximum exposure of the camera." Thorpe's F-950, which is not cheap, gave its attention to something inanimate: a model war machine from George Lucas's next movie. Sony and Lucas are also working on a metadata transfer that will save such data onto tape along with imagery.

Thomson's Viper FilmStream camera caught everyone's eye at IBC last September with its noncompressed output to an OEM box called Director's Friend. Netherlands-based camera business unit manager Jan Eveleens was at NAB with his Viper and some upgrades. The camera captures raw data via three 9.2-million-pixel frame-transfer CCDs, which provide 10-bit, 4:4:4 RGB output Formats include 1080i, 1080p and 720p.

Thomson's Mark Chiolis asserts that the company has made strides in many areas where filmmakers had expressed concern and successfully demoed new solutions at NAB, many involving strategic partners. Working with Baytech and their on-board recorder; CineRAM, Thomson demonstrated Viper shooting on a SteadiCam, which will ease work in close quarters. As for recording devices, Companies such as Accom, DVS, Keisoku, Boxx and a few more were showing working disk products to record Viper's uncompressed signal.

Of course, Viper is made to connect to Thomson's Specter FS, but it also boasts new accessories such as BOB, a "break-out box" providing control between the camera and the recorder. Addressing the previously "green and flat" monitor image the camera had generated on set, a new HD-SDI "video tap" monitor-out provides a viewing signal that is closer to the true image. It also produces an NTSC composite signal, making it simpler to use with a SteadiCam.

4K

Dalsa (www.dalsa.com), a seeming neophyte from Waterloo, Ontario, made a splash with a camera, called Origin, proffering more pixels than some of us can swallow in one eyeful. What it can do was amply demonstrated in a series of Dalsa nature shots with a Canadian bent. Serene scenes, free of distractions like scanlines or flicker; flowed across the Dalsa monitors at the show. Dense forests of leafy tress with gently waving branches, icy waterfalls with rivulets flowing smoothly past snowy rocks, whether or not you believe that man can actually process all that digital information in his little brain.