The creative choices and price points offered by emerging lower-cost HD camera and desktop editing tools have made independent filmmaking an important market for HD technology. So it is no surprise that on the production front, HD was a big story at the recent Sundance Film Festival.
There, Sony, with U.S. headquarters in Park Ridge, N.J., took the opportunity to launch its new IT-based XDCAM HD system–a line of high-definition optical camcorders and decks that offer a tapeless creative environment.
For its media, the Sony system uses the same Professional Disc media used in the standard definition version of the XDCAM system (launched in ’04). Based on blue-laser technology, the media offers random access to footage in the field or during post, as well as multiformat flexibility and flexible record times (approximately 120 minutes of HD content).
The Sony Professional Disc media is re-usable up to 1,000 read/write cycles and up to 10,000 read/write cycles in ideal conditions, based on Sony’s own testing, Sony reported. This means that a production crew would be able to re-use it without experiencing degradation after multiple uses of the media.
The first products in the XDCAM HD are scheduled for availability in March. They include the PDW-F350 camcorder ($25,800), PDW-F330 camcorder ($16,800) and PDW-F70 deck ($15,990). The PDW-F30 deck is planned to be available in June, with a suggested list price of $9,500. The PFD-23 Professional Disc media is available for approximately $30 per disc, with a capacity of 23.3 GB per disc.
The two XDCAM HD camcorders–the PDW-F330 and PDW-F350–both offer 24p recording in SD or HD, interval recording, and slow shutter. The F350 also offers variable frame rate recording capabilities, commonly known as “over-cranking” and “under-cranking” or “slow-motion/fast motion” functionality.
“This is a much-desired and often critical feature for cinematographers and directors of photography who need the flexibility of changing frame rates to create unique ‘looks’ for their productions or to create special effects,” said Robert Ott, VP of optical and network systems for Sony Electronics. “For digital cinematographers, shooting at slower or faster frame rates than playback gives them the great motion effects often seen in film cinema.”
This new technology extends Sony’s Cine Alta product line and, according to Sony, fills a niche between entry-level and high-end formats.
Sony’s most affordable HD option is the HDV line that offers HD capabilities at a prosumer price point. HDCAM is its established high-end tape-based format that has the most lens options (it accepts any 2/3-inch HD lenses), uses a high data rate to record the images, and is today supported at many high-end post houses.
Sitting between HDV and HDCAM is XDCAM. Ott related that XDCAM’s benefits includes true 24p capabilities in a tapeless format that can be ingested into a Mac or PC-based desktop editing system and could offer a fast, random access workflow.
Looking at the big picture, it’s fitting that Sony would land in “HD Essentials” during its first month of publication. One of the goals of this new column is HD education, and Sony has demonstrated its belief in that goal with its “Dreams” program, which was launched roughly four years ago to put HD technologies in the hands of the advertising community, which has used the tools to experiment and to create a series of shorts. Leading commercial directors such as Bob Giraldi and Sam Bayer have been among the participants.
When asked about “Dreams” Ott said Sony may produce another Dreams DVD that would incorporate its expanded CineAlta family–both the HDCAM and new XDCAM HD lineSáof camera technologies. He added that his hope is to also produce a “Dreams” project on Blu-ray DVD technology. Players for the Blu-Ray next generation of DVD technology that supports HD are expected to begin to become available in late ’06.
SHOOT senior editor, technology and postproduction, Carolyn Giardina, can be reached at 310-822-0211 or at cgiardina@shootonline.com.
