Digital cameras with $40 hard drives...............................
tvbroadcast.com
Disk Cameras Continue To Improve
By Mark J. Pescatore
(June 25, 1999) Acquisiton: it's not just for tape anymore. Ushering the age of server-based video production, partners Avid Technologies and Ikegami, as well as NEC, have built acquisition systems that capture video and audio on disk.
Avid and Ikegami introduced massed-produced disk-based recording in 1995 with their CamCutter camcorder, which has been renamed Editcam. Since footage is recording on a hard drive, digitizing takes place as the user shoots, thereby eliminating the need to transfer the footage. "The main reason this technology exists is to eliminate the digitizing process," explained Jose Rosado, Editcam product specialist.
Editcam records images and sound with the FieldPak, a 4 GB hard drive that can record up to 40 minutes of footage. The sealed, shock-resistant hard drive is not affected by humidity or dirt, which eliminates head clogs and dew warning lights.
Rosado said the Editcam camera has been totally redesigned in response to customer requests. "We've had some success... but not what we envisioned. People were reluctant to buy into Editcam technology for a couple of reasons," he admitted.
He said customers complained the camera unit and FieldPak were too big, too heavy, and used too much power. The new Editcam, a prototype of which was on display at NAB in April, addresses the problems of the earlier model.
When the product was released four years ago, technology demanded the system use two drives. The new generation FieldPak uses only one drive, which has reduced its size and weight by nearly 80 percent (and the price to less than half) while maintaining the same record time. The camera has also been made more efficient, using far less power than the first models.
Once footage has been shot, Editcam automatically assigns each recorded scene a clip number. When a clip number is selected, the scene is played instantly--no more shuttling through footage on a VTR. Footage can then be trimmed and rearranged in the camera, essentially allowing the user to edit a package together before entering an edit suite. (It can also be cut through dedicated software on a Windows 95 PC or laptop.) The footage and playlist can then be loaded into an Avid MediaComposer for adding graphics and effects.
Other camera features include RetroLoop, which creates a time buffer that allows shooters to capture an event up to three minutes after it happened. The camera's "Intelligent Recording" prevents accidental recording-over of other footage. Time-lapse recording is also possible.
The Ikegami DNE-11 Editcam Station serves a direct replacement for VTRs, with video inputs and outputs that interface with existing equipment. The unit uses two FieldPaks, but can record directly into the MediaComposer Media Drive (or an array of drives) for longer recording applications. Fitting in a half-rack width, the DNE-11 can be used as a rack-mounted recorder in small production vans with limited space.
Rosado said the improved 4:3/16:9 switchable Editcams should be ready to ship in early fourth quarter. Units with additional improvements, including the ability to record in DV files and IEEE 1394 FireWire connectivity (which will allow the Editcam to quickly output files to a number of non-Avid servers and nonlinear editors), will be available in December. "Just judging by the real interest," he said, "I think Editcam is going to be a wild success this coming year."
Enter The Diskcam
NEC's Diskcam has moved out of prototype testing and is ready to provide video professionals with an alternative to tape. According to John Leahy, national sales manager, NEC did about 50 demos of the Diskcam after its NAB '98 appearance. Using customer feedback, the company implemented a "fairly major overhaul" of the system to reflect specific requests.
The new and improved Diskcam production units are a "plug-and-play replacement" for the BVV-5, which gives the Diskcam instantly compatibility with most cameras on the market. The Diskcam is also 16:9/4:3 switchable and is NTSC and PAL compatible.
"Linear sequential media like tape is not well suited to the random access world of nonlinear editing," said Leahy. He calls the Diskcam part of a "migration path to disk."
Diskcam features three "miracles in the box," according to Leahy. First, the format uses MPEG-2 compression and records at a rate of 25 Mbps with all "I" frames. ("I" frame, or intraframe, technology records the complete frame and all pixels are represented. In contrast, "P" and "B" frames use predictive information and record only differences in information, not the whole picture.)
Another miracle is the unit's sophisticated three-axis suspension, which allows the disk to "float" in the case and maintain recording even through the usual bumps and sudden motion in everyday ENG work.
The third miracle is the recording media itself--a phase change optical disk. It is a 4.1 GB removable hard drive that records four times faster than the hard drives in most computers and costs only about $40. The disk can hold up to 20 minutes of footage and can be reused more than 300,000 times.
Leahy sad there are many advantages to disk-based acquisition. "The whole thing is workflow-oriented," he explained. "It lends itself to people who shoot short-form projects."
Since the footage is already digitized and is in random access format, it can be used like a hard drive. That means no down time digitizing footage into a server. Shooters can literally bring in their disk, dump their data into the server, then go back into the field to shoot a new project.
Each disk stores information about each shot on the hub of the disk, while the metadata on each shot remains intact. A nonlinear editing system can communicate with the disk, capture its EDL, and find out where the cuts are on the disk. That means no more logging by hand.
At NAB, NEC announced partnerships with FAST, Vibrint Technologies, and ETC, who have developed editing software for Diskcam applications. The software allows Diskcam users to stay in MPEG technology throughout the acquisition and editing process. Leahy said different price points for editing solutions are based on feature sets. For more information, contact Ikegami at (201) 368-9171 or NEC at (888) 383-4DTV.
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