NOVEMBER 2015
Tales of Pix-e5 and Dragons We are at Sound Techniques in Auckland with Simon Temple, cinematographer and Stephen Buckland, dumpling aficionado. Ed: Simon, we’ve asked you here because you are a current and happy user of the Video Devices PIX-E5. Could you begin by telling us some history as to what you were using before the PIX-E5? Simon: The history for me of mobile recording devices has been very short, because there have only been a few onboard recorder/monitors of this type in the market for short time. Before that, it was either monitoring or an external recording device only. This is a great combination of a full HD monitor in 5” with onboard recording in 4K. I have also used the PIX-240 on a number of jobs with good results. Ed: And that was the first time you actually had a decent monitor and recorder in the one box? Simon: Yes. For me it wasn’t just about recording a proxy file, but creating copies and having the ability to play back. Ed:
And why couldn’t that have been done in-camera?
Simon: Not many cameras recorded a proxy file, and often there wasn’t the choice of codecs we have today. The RED system which I have here today started with a proxy file which was brilliant. Then they went away from it to a RAW type file only and you had to do it through software to get the back offline edit proxy or external playback ability. These devices have opened up those options again, speeding up our workflow, as well as having another monitor option. Another good reason to have a handheld type small monitor recorder is that the director, 1st AC, or DIT can playback the last clip independent of the camera system. If there’s a DIT then
Simon and Stephen.
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there’s most likely a DIT cart, but if there’s not a DIT cart this is the next best thing. Ed:
And DIT for the uninitiated is?
Simon: A Digital Imaging Technician. Used to be the “data wrangler” and before that the “ports to camera assist.” Ed: set?
Right, so that’s an extra body on-
Simon: It is an extra body on-set. It’s a cart system which may not be ideal for the location depending on the shoot. There’s no doubt in my mind that they (DIT) always play an integral role in most productions, especially for multicamera data wrangling, transcode, playback, and monitor control. This does not substitute any DIT requirements, but offers options to smaller budgets. Ed: And you can trust the image that you get from the PIX screen that it’s actually true colour and the right frame and everything? Simon: Well the latest firmware has allowed us to put LUTs on (look up tables) and for me, that’s becoming an increasingly important part of the digital imaging process. A DIT would traditionally do that for you on a larger more colour accurate monitor. Without a DIT, this allows me and the director to be able to quickly judge the look that we’ve chosen and use. We can switch between looks and monitor the native signal coming in from the camera too. Ed: Is that something you’ve found very valuable with Video Devices’ product, as you say, the 240 and now the E5, that you are getting good firmware support from Video Devices? Simon: Yes, firmware support is always welcome. In fact, there’s a whole host of devices that come out on the market before all of the functions are enabled. The firmware updates come in and subsequent functionality; or we’re just at the height of technology and the little things that haven’t been invented are still yet to come out. The PIX-E5 has come out with a whole host of features at this time to upload support for various things like LUTs and different camera support, trigger cameras for HDMI, things like that. And the great thing is that it is a great quality boost for legacy cameras that can output a good signal. Ed: So in this case, you can just change your camera head and you continue with the recording system that’s on the PIX? Simon: That’s right. For me, the PIX’s form factor is very appealing; a 5” full HD screen which can literally go in the pocket is fantastic. If I have a lot of gear, it’s easy to bring an additional tool like this.
Ed: But of course you’ve got to be able to trust it – it might be small but in fact it does all the recording you require? Simon: Well the trust is a good question and the reason I’ve chosen this particular system is because it’s a company that has been around a long time in a broadcast environment, especially with the audio recorders alongside the Video Devices wing of the company. Sound Devices are a very strong, reputable company, one of the most trusted portable audio recording companies in the world. So when they come out with a device, you know it’s going to handle the knocks and can handle the environment. I trust that it’s going to work every time I start it up. Of course, they’re fairly new to video recording devices, so it was interesting to see that they made some good choices in terms of the codecs and resolution they support currently. Ed: But the support and trust that you get from Sound Devices obviously has to be matched by the local supplier. Do you have similar feelings towards him? Simon: The great thing again is that Sound Techniques have been around a while too, they have solid brands and they’ve been able to come to my aid when I needed the device as soon as possible. Ed: Don’t hold back, but remember I’m the one buying lunch … Stephen: Oh, are you? Doesn’t that break your journalistic code of practice? Simon: The dealings with the team here at Sound Techniques have been very professional. There are a whole bunch of accessories coming out with this recorder that haven’t come out yet, so I’ve been on Stephen’s tail about those bits. Ed: Yes, we’ll talk to Stephen soon, but before we talk about what’s coming, just let’s go through the currently
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available PIX-E5 because this is another step from the 240 and obviously a well appreciated step from what I’ve heard. What, to you, would be the 3 top features of the E5 that really make it stand out against the opposition? Simon: I would firstly say the appealing size is a real advantage because again it allows me to fit it into a small camera package. It can even go on the camera as a main monitor/recording option as well as being a decent aid for a focus puller. It makes for a very small form factor 4K full frame camera system when you pair it with the A7. So the size is very appealing. The second thing is the build quality – It’s very rugged; it feels to me like it could withstand a bit of abuse on certain jobs. I put gear through its paces and it’s held up to everything I’ve thrown at it. Then thirdly, the recently firmware adds LUT support. Other features are things like cross converting HDMI/ SDI signals so I can go from an HDMI camera to another SDI monitor and vice versa. It will trigger from both sources, and also allow you to choose from a variety of ProRes options and resolution. And, one of the best advantages is that it records 4K through HDMI, which can often be a better file type than the camera records internally, so it can be used as a master file if required. Ed: Now driving it … is this an easy product to learn how to use, or are the menus as complicated as programming a VCR?
Simon: No, not at all. I’ve found it surprisingly easy to use – the main thing is, having the interface with hard buttons and software control via touchscreen monitoring, allows me to move rapidly between the menu system and I haven’t found any glitches there at all; it’s been very quick to use. Ed:
Do you have to keep reading the manual?
Simon: Not with this one. I’ve been to their website and it’s all there. They’re very up to date. Ed:
Or you can call Stephen?
Simon: Or I can call Stephen and harass him. He did send me the last firmware so I give him credit for that! Ed:
So for you Stephen, an easy product to support?
Stephen: Well it seems to be easy so far. Obviously at Sound Techniques, video is not our natural field. That said, I do have to say the learning curve doesn’t seem to have been as steep as I might have anticipated. Also one of the things about the Video Devices and Sound Devices’ gear is that all the menus have a similar learning curve, so if you understand your way around one, then the buttons you press are innate – even if you’re not necessarily familiar with the menu function that you’re changing. Even just playing around with this in the last couple of weeks since we’ve had it, I’ve realised there’s a whole lot of subtlety, not so much menus within menus, but pressing a button a little harder suddenly brings up a whole lot of other options which I think makes it very easy to understand.
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Ed: Now we have found recently that there are recording formats that the E5 doesn’t record, but really is this a huge issue or is it something that either the cinematographer can work around, or maybe they need to find a different recording system if they really want that particular recording format. Or they change their camera? Stephen: It’s hard to answer because when you try to plug something into something else, made by two different companies, I would say odds are that there’s going to be some incompatibility. What I will say about the Video Devices gear, and one of the things that’s impressed me about it even as a naïve person is that, generally, it will accept any signal in and send any signal out. That’s one of the reasons why a lot of people are prepared to pay perhaps a little bit extra because of that versatility, and what you get out of the box. In terms of the incompatibility, well we can only soldier on. Ed:
But the inconsistencies are minimal?
Stephen: The inconsistencies are minimal and as soon as Video Devices are alerted to them, they’ve been on the case trying to figure out what they can do to sort them out. First of all, may I say they expressed surprise as to how people might want to use the gear … Ed: Oh look, we know cinematographers Stephen – if it’s not in the manual they’ll ask “why not” and they’ll try to do it anyway? Stephen: Ed: out.
That would be true, okay, I can only agree.
Now Simon, you’ve been using this since it came Have you found any situation where it doesn’t
record what you want to record … and you’re using a range of cameras into it aren’t you? Simon: Most cameras output a signal nowadays; you don't always get what you want but they could upgrade the options later on, or maybe there’s firmware upgrades/support coming round the corner. With all of these devices at the top of the technology food chain, there’s always going to be a few issues that need ironing out as the product gets rolled out. I’m very happy so far; it hasn’t caused me any issues. Ed: But in terms of inconsistency or incompatibility, it’s not just the PIX-E5, it’s also the camera has to take some responsibility there, that certain cameras don’t output the recording system that you might want? Simon: Yes, the RED DRAGON of course has the same problem. The output as a proxy file is fine, but It was probably never intended as a recording signal output, mostly for monitoring. It would be great to capture a higher resolution file from the camera body without using a REDCAST module, say through the HDMI output. It's interesting to see the new RED WEAPON camera has recently reintroduced the onboard proxy file. If it's merely a proxy file you need from the camera, this records a really decent ProRes proxy. Options include ProRes 4444 one of the best compressed codec options that holds up to colour grading. There will be support for cameras with a log output into ProRes 4444HQ soon. But for now I’m quite happy where the device is.
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Ed: You must be very dedicated to keep working with RED. A lot of people would give up and go to something a bit more mainstream that actually does things straight out of the box. You really must like RED? Simon: Well put it this way … they were a very disruptive company that changed the industry and as a result got a lot of criticism. It’s a lot to do with firmware reliability of early builds. I actually take my hat off to them for what they have achieved as pioneers and industry leaders in quality affordability. They were the new kid on the block with offering more in one package than any other camera system. I work with lots of other camera systems – the new RED DRAGON camera is unbelievable. It is a very feature rich camera. Interchangeable OLPFs, dramatically improved colour space and Dynamic range, form factor and modularity, resolution, and interchangeability. Consistent improvement through firmware releases and beta testing has created a pretty stable platform now. Also they have been offering onboard RAW high resolution cameras for almost 10 years. Some smaller productions don't like the RAW workflow and high data rates. It's not uncommon to shoot a terabyte of rushes for the day’s work in 6K with one camera! That is possibly why they’ve brought the onboard proxy back into the WEAPON. If you want to shoot detailed composite work requiring high resolution, or if you need a camera to reconfigure in multiple shooting modes, and a great action camera, the DRAGON is a great choice.
Ed: Okay, so just run through the cameras that you are feeding into the E5? Simon: Sure. Any camera with an HDMI or SDI source! Again, I will use the E5 as a focus puller monitor or a director’s monitor that can be used for playback. Focus pullers often want to play stuff back to check their sharps (focus). It won’t record ARRI RAW, or Sony RAW but I’m not expecting it to do that. I see this device being a perfect accompaniment to, say, the C300 Mark II. That would be a brilliant camera/ recorder combination. It fits the form factor of the camera well, it has support for 4K out of the camera. The other thing that I was really interested in was a field recorder that I could use in documentaries which I love to shoot too. It’s a solid device suitable for the quick pace of a documentary and the ability to take a good master file from lots of different camera sources. Ed: So that’s where you’re using the recording capability of the E5 as the final formal? Simon: Yes. I’ll record both because it is great backup too should anything happen to the camera, or if anything happens to the recorder! Ed: In what situation do you use the E5 as your main recorder? Simon: Probably for the Sony A7 range because for me that’s where the recorder really comes into its own. It fits the form factor well, I can make a very lightweight small system that doesn’t startle people! We’re only getting 8 bit, 422 4K in the PIX-E. That won't likely change in the future as the Sony A7 is what
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the camera outputs. It is better than the internal codec of the A7. I use the Sony A7 camera as a second camera most often anyway; it can pair nicely with other Sony cameras like the FS7, the F5, and the F55 if you are not recording RAW. Ed: But, going into the future, you’re looking to the next product out of Video Devices? Simon: The 7” monitor as a recorder is coming out soon and other than more screen real estate, they add another couple of SDI connections. Hopefully you’ll be able to take a 4x3G-SDI feed which means I’ll be able to record a native 4K feed from cameras with a 4xSDI output. In fact, it would also be great to see support for other RAW codecs too. But for now, even a ProRes 4444 is just as good as a master file. I see the 7” being a system that works in tandem with the 5” as a good monitor solution for proxy and back up files. Ed:
Any other “add-ons” Stephen?
Stephen: Firstly, the full PIXE range includes the PIXE5 and PIXe5H (HDMI only) and the 5” models will continue as an ongoing product because there are many applications for a 5” monitor/recorder where 7” is too much. As for add-ons, forthcoming will be 2 channel professional audio input, which will work for both the E5 and the E7. That will, just like on the PIX-240, allow 2 proper mic inputs. At the moment, you’ve only got a mini-jack which will take unbalanced audio feed if you want to feed in audio and record it. Ed: So running through the cameras that you would use and take the E5 recording as the master file, what would they be?
a little bit of headroom for grading, then the ProRes 4444 codec is perfect. If you have a RAW workflow chain, and want to match other cameras together, then going to a RAW file allows for a good conversion to other file types, and most importantly the best route for extensive colour grading. For most productions, final output is HD. For a sharper result, it's often better to oversample in 4K allowing for things like reframing, and also more resolution for VFX work. HD to 4K doesn't always have good results. Ed:
Simon: That’s right yes, we won’t go there, but the picture starts to fall apart pretty quick the more you blow it up … put it that way. Ed: Is there anything Stephen over the years?
else
you’ve
bought
from
Simon: No really, because I’m not in the sound side of things. I was excited by this new product and the fact that you’ve got a provider who has been offering good gear for a long time, which is fantastic. I like the look of the PIX-270; it could be a great rack mounted 4K recorder for a mobile suite. Ed: And of course you’ll need some ADAM speakers to go with it? Simon: Yes, well there are all sorts of toys in here it looks like! Ed: Yes, but remember I’m the one buying lunch! Hope you like dumplings? NZVN
Simon: Well I wouldn’t use it as a master file unless it can record a better file than what the camera can record. It really comes down to the production though … first question is “do we need a 4K file? a RAW file?” If they want a RAW file, then the Sony, Canon, and ARRI will do this internally, and the E5 can record a proxy. There are other monitor/recording devices that will record RAW for use as a master file; also, the ability for the E5 to record ProRes 4444 XQ codec adequate for most TV productions as a master. Ed: Has recording on the E5 as a backup ever saved a client’s bacon, where they’ve decided they want the RAW footage but then in postproduction they can’t actually handle it as they’d hoped? Simon: It hasn’t been around long enough yet, so I haven’t had that issue. Ed:
Well some broadcasters do it all the time?
Can you see it coming?
Simon: I can see it coming where … well, that’s a very hard question actually because … Ed: None of your current clients of course. What I’m alluding to is that I have heard, anecdotally, a number of stories where producers have demanded a cameraman record something at a certain codec, then gone into postproduction and the house has said “you want us to handle that? That’s not going to work”, or “that’s going to take a long time and a lot of processing power.” Simon: Well that’s a communication issue that comes up sometimes. I like to discuss it with editors and post houses as well as the production team, because often it’s down to them – the formats that they’re going to use for their output, the ones that are going to be best handled in the workflow chain. Again, if you light it right, and you shoot it right and you leave Page 6
Matthews Accessories We are at Matthews for PLS and, sorry chaps and chapettes, we are not talking to Linda this time but to Robert Kulesh, the designer and overseer of this particular new Matthews product. Ed: Now Robert, a super new product from Matthews since NAB – obviously the developers have been working long and hard on this? Robert: Very hard. This is our first real introduction to the product we call “the Wedge”. The reason I call it the Wedge is I was at a very famous body surfing place in Newport Beach California called “The Wedge” and I saw some videographers there trying to establish low camera shots, low PLVs and they were using blankets and sandbags and stuff like that, and it was really difficult for them. I went back home and started playing around with a design and we came up with this beautiful triangular piece that you can put ball heads on to; you can put fluid heads, either 100 or 150mm fluid heads or flat plate fluid heads, and it gives you a very good mobile camera base. It’s a lot easier to use than a big Octogon board and a Hi Hat and with two straps you can put it on a vehicle – it’s not a high speed car mount, but it’s a moderate speed car mount. Ed: So why hasn’t anybody come up with this before? Robert: It took a genius to come up with this Grant, you know that. Ed: Yes … Linda’s having a coughing fit right now. Robert: It was just an idea. We’re building 20 of them back at the factory and we brought it here to introduce it to people. The folks at Canon loaned us a very nice camera to show it off on and the reception has been very good so far. Ed: So it’s got three levelling screws with nice big easy to handle knobs on them? Robert: Right, and self-levelling feet, so you can quickly set it up. And again, using a fluid head or a ball head, you don’t have to play around with all the levelling, but if you’re going to do like a time lapse and really lock your camera down, I would suggest you level the plate and the camera and weight it down. This will give you a very good stable platform for long-term time lapse work. Ed: And all the holes in there, they’re all threaded I guess? Robert: Most of them are. The reason for that is, for example, if you’re going to do a car mount, I would use one of these quarter 20 holes and lock it off using our MICROgrip so that it was very stable. Another
Robert and Linda.
situation, if you’re out doing a time lapse, your camera’s going to be in the sun a long time, lock in one of the three-eighths holes, put a grip head on it and an arm and flag the camera off so it’s out of the sun and not baking. And again, we have some other blind holes that are not tapped and those are ones that we would just hook into to stabilise it on a vehicle. So there are a lot of standard Matthews components in here. Ed: My question would be how many new parts to this? I would imagine it’s really only the plate and everything else you’ve done before … these levelling feet, you’ve done them before? Robert: They’re actually the same levelling feet that we use on the Matthews slider right there. We just cut them down a little bit, because we don’t need that much range. Ed: I see it’s good that you’ve already predrilled this, because that’s quite a thick piece of aluminium? Robert: Yes, that’s T4 – very hard aluminium aircraft grade, 6064 is the actual composition of it. Ed: It’s predrilled, so you don’t have to drill it yourself? Robert: Right. It’s all precision laser cut and drilled and tapped in our shop. We’re a good machine shop and we make good stuff. We think it’s going to be a good product and taking it to a show like this, first time out we’ll learn. Ed: Exactly – you’re not a dreamer Robert, you’re a realist. NZVN
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Clear-Com We are at Clear-Com for Gencom with Peter Giddings, the senior vice-president, and Simon Browne, director of product management. Ed: We’re going to start with you Simon and I guess the big question that everybody in the production industry in New Zealand wants to know – ClearCom product, no trouble with the spectrum, either causing interference and incurring the wrath of the authorities, or being interfered with? Simon: There’s certainly no trouble from us. Most of our wireless products work in the 2.4 GHz ISM band, and the FreeSpeak II™ that we’ve released recently at NAB and are now showing for the first time at IBC, is working both in the ISM 2.4 and in the DECT 1.9 GHz, both of which are licence free bands.
Simon and Peter.
Ed: So, to the uninitiated, this is the area that radio telephones within a house use – that’s that band? Simon: The cordless telephone band is there. For sport arenas, the 1.9 gig is going to be quite open for this kind of communication, so you’re probably not stepping in anybody else’s frequencies there; and if you are, these are digital devices, so they frequency hop. They look ahead and avoid, so generally speaking, most digital intelligent wireless devices these days tend to avoid each other, so you don’t get that kind of problem. Ed: And a 19 millisecond delay with coms is not actually critical? Simon: No. We try to keep the latency as low as possible. We’re down somewhere between 25 to 35 milliseconds, so it’s good enough for a lot of wireless communication – even when you’re next to somebody, so it’s fine. Ed: Now you mentioned a delay of around 30 milliseconds, but I know radio microphone products only have a 19 millisecond delay. Why are you more? Simon: Because we’re talking about a duplex send and return. It’s the loop delay. Ed:
Okay, so it’s actually there and back?
Simon: Yes exactly. This is the challenge of intercom really, it’s a talk and listen operation rather than a single “send”, so this is why. Ed:
Ed: So this means that you can take your system from country to country and it should still work? Simon: It will always work; it’s whether you’re allowed to use it, that’s the question. Ed: Sometimes legality doesn’t come into it, but anyway … Simon: Giving the customer the choice of being able to use it and pick and mix between bands is ideal and with certain large customers, like a large broadcasting station for instance, where they want to be covered totally by wireless systems, the fact that you have 90 of these duplex belt packs in the same space is very, very appealing, because we can use up to 50 with the 1.9, so add another 40 on top with the 2.4. So they share the geographical space, but have 2 separate radio spaces in the same area. That’s very helpful. Ed:
That’s a lot of chatter?
Simon: Yes it is a lot of chatter, but it’s mostly people listening. They’re always free to talk at any time and they’re all on multiple channels, so they’re not all listening to the same party line for instance. Down from the cellular system, then we have the DX410. This is only a 2.4 GHz base system, but this is a more of a “value” system – this is a base station and up to 15 belt packs working on 2 channels. So this is again a
Right, I’m advised – keep going.
Simon: The first of the two products that we’re showing here for the first time is the FreeSpeak II. This is a digital licence-free wireless system, a cellular system. So we have devices in both 2.4 and 1.9, the point of that being that, in some countries around the world, the DECT 1.9 range is not generally available and so the 2.4 can be substituted and does exactly the same thing. So we have a 5 channel duplex belt pack, licence-free, working over cellular transceiver array, both to either a standalone base station or to a matrix based system. Page 10
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frequency hopping spread spectrum system, with full party line interfacing and 4-wire interfacing so you can connect up smaller wired systems on location to it, or connect it to a larger matrix based system as well and have those talking through. We have 2 different types of user controls for the DX410 – we have one that you can connect the belt pack to a standard headset, and one that is an all-inone headset which has the same features of the belt pack, worn around your head. It’s a completely standalone wireless device. It’s very helpful. In fact, interestingly enough, our application engineers set up this IBC booth using these all-in-ones. Our two guys had to link up the equipment that was positioned at different sides of the booth, so they had to be handsfree with the comms and remained in constant communication for hours. The DX410 differs from its predecessor, the DX210 by having 7 kHz, what you’d probably call HD audio. I mean, it’s not HD by sort of radio broadcast, but it’s HD in terms of intercom. It’s voice-band rather than the telephone-band. Ed: What sort of distances are we looking at in clear space? Simon: Around about 300 metre back to the base and it’s the same also for FreeSpeak right away back to the transceivers. Whereas the DX410 is a single base, single antenna operation, the FreeSpeak has multiple transceivers, so that’s why you get the roaming – where you need to put people, you can put extra transceivers so they can roam between transceivers. That’s how you get the distance there. But with the DX410, you put the base station where you need to have people, and people basically work around it within 300 metre.
Ed: Now I understand, if you are already a Clear-Com Eclipse-HX Matrix user, you have an alternative system possible? Simon: Yes, we’re showing for the first time here at IBC what we call Agent-IC™. This is an Apple application, an app you can download and this talks over Wi-Fi or 3G or 4G networks to an IP frame card that’s in the host Matrix system. It allows up to 32 users per IP card to roam a large site wirelessly, using their Smartphone or an iPad to talk back to any user on the Matrix: wired stations, wireless belt pack users, or other Agent-IC users. It’s a wireless solution for Matrix. Ed: Do you have to be an Apple user, you can’t use Android? Simon: We haven’t done Android yet. We’re looking to see how popular this turns out to be first of all and if it certainly seems that IOS users are using this and it’s getting more and more popular, I can imagine that we will do Android eventually. Android’s a little bit tougher for most people because there are a lot more choices in terms of UI, whereas Apple is nice and selfcontained, so we started there. Ed: So the big thing with this system is that it’s not the DECT system, it’s your 3G / 4G telephone system and I suppose you will find areas where one transmission system is better than the other? Simon: Yes. When we were talking earlier about FreeSpeak II, we were talking about a wireless system – you’re setting up your own antennae network so you’ve got a certain amount of distance there under your control. If you need to go much wider ranging than that, where somebody, for instance, in another city needs to talk back to your system, then you go over the established networks like 4G and 3G. It gives you wider control. For example, we could be sitting here in Amsterdam and communicating with a Matrix system based in San Diego, because we have that capability. That’s what we’re talking about here – it’s a much wider kind of operation. Ed:
And you’ve got more channels on it?
Simon: Yes there are more channels – on the iPad2 we can get up to 15 buttons on it, so you can have a lot more opportunity to listen to a number of mixes, whereas generally, our wireless solutions tend to be smaller – for instance, FreeSpeak II is 5 channels. Ed: Right, and if you really want to push the boat out and go linking up around the country, you’ve got something? Simon: Yes, we have a unit called the LQ. LQ is an intercom to IP device, an interface. We have 2 physical Page 12
varieties – we have a throw-down box and we have a rack based system – LQR. The smaller throw-down box is a 2 channel IP interface, so you can imagine that somebody with a wired party line system in a location would want to connect their wired intercom back to the studio intercom, so with a pair of these boxes, you can link the intercom over IP back to another one and then come back out again in the analogue domain at the studio centre. It not only transfers the analogue audio, but it also transfers call signals, so extending your party line system geographically through the LQ system. Each LQ box can connect to 5 others, so you can have a group of 6 and it makes a virtual party line of those 6 boxes. With this you can have 6 independent communication systems connected together. Ed: Right now Peter – I would imagine that you’ve nailed the communications area within a production. It would seem obvious to me that you would move into radio microphones, especially in the DECT area, because instead of having the talk and the talkback, you’re only dealing with a one-way system, surely it’s got to be easier and gosh, you could make it on a Sunday morning. Are you going to? Peter: Yes, easier indeed. In fact, the company that owns us, HME, that’s how they started, with radio microphones. But we have so much to do in duplex. These days, of course, we’re in the intercom business, but more so, and I’m sure my colleague Simon would agree, we’re in the interface business, you know,
connecting to all of the different disciplines which we need to – particularly in large scale events such as this. That’s our forte and we’re sticking to it. Ed: And you can see even further development there – in terms of range or clarity or cost or …? Peter: I think, looking forward, there are new platforms to think about, whether perhaps in years to come the hardware Matrix as we know it will change. Certainly IP is the direction to go in and of course, in an ideal world, everybody wants to be free of that umbilical cord and just go wireless. But that’s easier said than done in these crowded frequency days. Ed: And Telcos with big pockets buying up spectrum? NZVN Peter: Correct.
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Atomise is in Auckland … officially! This is the “Welcome to the Atomise Auckland Launch”. Ed: Now we’re not actually out on the harbour; it’s not a real “launch” as in a “nautical launch”, but it’s the launch of – well, what is it the launch of Richard, because we’ve been to the Auckland office already? Richard: Well this is really the first opportunity we’ve had to put on a bit of an event for our clients. Obviously we’ve spent the last couple of months building up the Auckland office and you met Theo. Ed:
Theo, Andy and Richard
Now Theo’s got a buddy?
Richard: Theo has got a buddy; Andy Wild has joined our team. Andy is an extremely experienced broadcast engineer, Avid instructor and Avid operator and he just adds a fantastic new dimension to what we do here in Auckland. Ed: Is he only going to be training in Auckland so people have to come to Auckland for training with Andy? Richard: We’ll have to work that out as we see the demand, but I’m sure he will be doing onsite stuff here in Auckland. I’d like to base him here in Auckland with his family as much as possible. We’ll try and balance the load a little because our main training room is in Wellington so we’ll simply bring gear to Auckland as clients require it. It’s not hard to ship stuff round the country; it’s all nicely contained in a rack these days. Ed: Are the Auckland people going to see you at all or are you going to leave everything to Theo and Andy? Richard: I’ll definitely be here supporting my guys where they need it. When it comes to the commercial aspects of the business in Auckland, I guess that’s where I’ll continue to be front and centre but I’ve got really good technical guys in terms of Theo and Andy and I’m really hoping that they’ll be welcomed by our clients. I really know these guys know their stuff and I’m sure they’re going to do a great job. Ed: Do you think we’ll ever see an Atomise retail store? Richard:
I don’t think so.
Ed: Because you work from the backroom don’t you. In reality, that’s how Atomise works – it’s behind the scenes? Richard: That’s right, very much behind the scenes. We’re engineers first. We sell solutions, not just boxes to the majority of our clients. We’re there to make the stuff work and that’s what we really enjoy. We
understand the technical restrictions that people have and the technical ambitions people have and we try and make it all come together for them. It’s this focus that allows us to have such a strong technical skills emphasis in the team. Ed: Having said that, you do have relationships with a number of the major resellers in New Zealand of “boxed product”, to make sure that when you’re offering a solution to a client, the products they deal with can be seamlessly added into the mix? Richard: Absolutely, and I’m very proud of the relationships we have with a lot of other resellers who, in other situations, would be very strong competitors. It’s great that we’ve got a group of small companies, ( because we are all small in the global market ), which work together on some very large projects and play very nicely together. Ed: It’s always good to play nicely. And helping you here today, I see you’ve got Nuno from MOG and Ren from Avid Australia? Richard: Yes, we’ve got quite a team here from Avid. We also have a couple of other key vendors, Steve and Wayne from Intraware who are doing Project Parking. It’s great having Nuno all the way from MOG Technologies in Portugal. He’s come out to do some client visits in Australia and New Zealand and the timing worked perfectly to have him along today. Obviously, we’ve got MOG in at some of our key enterprise sites, so it’s a really good relationship we’ve got building there. And the Avid guys … well I mean, that really is the core of what we do. We have Ren who is head of sales for Asia-Pacific here, we’ve got channel manager Dave … it’s great to have them here supporting our event. Obviously we work very closely with all these guys and as you can see by the way everybody’s chatting around you, it’s pretty friendly. Ed:
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Great – let’s always keep it friendly.
NZVN
Object Matrix We are now at a new company for Atomise – Object Matrix with Mark Andrews to tell us what it is that you do that makes you special. Mark: We’re a software company, but we provide a disc based storage solution for what we refer to as “nearline”. Nearline is typically where it’s not a production layer in terms of editing and performance, it’s where I actually want to disc archive. What makes us different to other disc archives is the fact that, as a software company, we’ve added intelligence to make the solution (a) very resilient; (b) very scalable, so we can scale to petabytes with no loss of performance; and (c) we have the ability to add metadata, so the whole system becomes searchable. Now in terms of workflows, where we position ourselves it’s all video workflows, but typically, we might be used as an ingest platform where you have lots of content coming into your facility, either SXS, P2, XDCAM or over the wire. Traditionally, people have put that all on their production storage and fill it up very quickly. So instead, they could put that onto a nearline such as ourselves and then they could edit that into a rough cut and pull back to their production storage only the scenes that they need. Obviously, the nearline is more cost-effective and lower cost than the production storage and with our resilience as well, you don’t need to back the system up. We do multiple copies and, in the event of any hardware failure – and hardware does fail, it’s a fact of life – the point is, with us, it automatically self-heals. So you have that high availability to content – we’re providing 99.999% availability to content. In terms of workflows, you have ingest, but also this is an archive. Traditionally, people will archive to tape but there is an issue with tape, it’s obviously slow. As nearline and being disc based, people can now find their content much quicker; they can browse the content directly because we’re on a disc and see and restore it much quicker than traditional tape methods. So in summary, disc based platform, very intelligent, very resilient, very scalable, but with the integrations we’ve done with many workflows as well all gone off the shelf, we know it’s proven to work in many media workflows. Ed: I can see 2 major benefits for a customer – one is that it provides that security of the archive; but secondly it actually reduces the amount of online storage that they need for their projects? Mark: Yes absolutely, you’re reducing the online storage but without sacrificing performance as well. So you have the ability to search, find content and restore it very quickly. It’s all about cost saving and TCO which is quite a compelling message. Ed:
And you’re a UK company?
Mark: Yes – we’re based in Cardiff, Wales as a software company. We don’t manufacture the hardware ourselves, we use commodity off-the-shelf hardware, we put our software on the top and then we just ship it as an appliance. Ed: So Richard, this is a new product that we’re looking at and something that obviously is going to be good for your customers. What value is it going to add? Richard: One of the challenges that we’re starting to see with some of our bigger customers is how much
Mark and friends.
RAW media data they’re generating, especially in 4K or higher than HD camera workflows. They need a nearline storage management system to keep all their camera rushes on, as well as to have a very tight workflow for having their editorial codec media and managing those two together, so when you come back to conform at the other end, you’ve got an easy way of handling it. So we’ve been talking to Object Matrix who have some very nice developments that are dedicated towards the video market. All these guys do is video and they’ve got a lot of experience with the storage side. One of the very nice things they do is an automated disaster recovery or, if you think of it as off-site backup, automated through their system, so you can have your node based storage inside your primary site and, by “node based”, what I mean is that it’s scalable, you just keep on plugging in nodes. One of the very nice things about this is that the expansion is immediate – you don’t have to wait for the file system to expand, you plug in the node and away you go. The next stage is you can have your series of nodes on another site and the data is mirrored to the other site. That gives you two copies of the data at each site, which means in a massive system failure or if we’re talking about a feature film where you may only have a very limited timeframe and a limited number of digital copies of your media, it gives you really good high level security of your data. Ed: Which is something that even the smaller user could take note of? Richard: Absolutely, and this solution scales up from relatively small size up to big multi-petabyte solutions at a very cost-effective price point. While big storage is not unique to these guys – there are quite a few solutions out there that can do the big storage – where these guys are really good is it is dedicated to the video market. That’s what they concentrate on and that’s what they built the workflows for. Ed: Do you have to be a major movie producer to take advantage of this or would this also be of benefit to a medium sized production company that’s doing a lot of shooting? Richard: This is probably a product for medium size up, so absolutely. The moment you start looking into the hundreds of terabytes of master storage requirement, this solution really starts coming into play. NZVN
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Caged Drones at IBC As you can see, there was not a lot of excitement at the purpose built drone cage in the outdoor area – there was more interest at the DJI booth inside where you could fly one yourself in a mini cage. I can only imagine that the next step will be to fit a 360 degree camera to one and visit your friends with the aid of a virtual reality headset. The final advancement would be strategically placed catheters and a skylight hatch so you won't need to get out of bed ever again! Self containment perfection. Ed
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ARRI Lighting Michael Wagner from ARRI tells us about recent developments in lighting. Ed: Michael we saw a great range of product at NAB earlier this year. SkyPanel was obviously the highlight, you had just launched it. Well what have you got to add now with SkyPanel? Michael: So far, we’ve had an extremely good reaction to SkyPanel. Our customers are really excited about it, having that full range of products, the full colour and the remote phosphor, so we didn’t want to stop there. We knew that to really complement the Michael with SkyPanel and accessories. SkyPanel fixtures themselves, a full range of accessories is really required. At of colour rendition than the C version, so you do get a IBC, we are announcing a slew of new accessories to go little bit extra colour rendition, but most of the time it’s with the SkyPanels and you can pick and choose the not really even noticeable to a camera. But it is a little ones that work for your application. bit better – you get a little bit of extra brightness from the remote phosphor as well and it is less expensive Ed: So these are not accessories that, if you’ve because you don’t have all of the complicated already got a range of ARRI lights, you could use the electronics that you do in the fully tuneable version. If same accessories? Obviously, this is a totally different you’re looking for versatility, the C model is the way to form factor, so you need to add some new accessories? go. If you’re just looking for something very basic, very Michael: Right. All the accessories are custom-made simple but still excellent colour quality, light quality, the for the S60 and the S30 SkyPanels and that’s because remote phosphor is also a good option. of the unique light aperture size of the product. These Ed: And of course if the situation changes and you are specific to the SkyPanel, but that also has the suddenly have a need for a green screen, you can then advantage of meaning that they are perfectly just get the phosphor panel and suddenly you have a engineered to work with that product. We have a full green screen light? range going from light control accessories, different mounting options, light banks, and a bunch of different panels that you can put in front of the light to change the beam spread. We have battery options, options for mounting space light silks to it, so we have a lot of different products that we’re coming out with … we can go through them one by one if you’d like to? Ed:
Yes, some of the key ones.
Michael: We have a group of different diffusions. For the C model, we’re able to have a light diffusion, a medium diffusion and a heavy diffusion. For the remote phosphor version, we have a bunch of different remote phosphor plates, so you can swap out the plates to 8 different colour temperatures. We have 2700, 3200, 4300, 5600, 6500 and 10,000 degrees. We also have a chroma green panel as well. So the fully tuneable one, you could just change the colour with the knobs, but with the remote phosphor, you have to change the panels out to change the colour temperature. Ed: Obviously there’s a cost difference in that, depending on whether you want to go for a full set of phosphors which would be quite expensive. Is there a difference in the quality of light; is the adjustable one not quite up to the perfection of the remote phosphor? Michael: There is a slight difference. Both of them are really excellent, really top notch. The remote phosphor is about maybe, 1 or 2 points higher in terms
Michael: Right. Television studios maybe live in one colour temperature their entire run and so the remote phosphor is perfect for that. But then if the show format changes and they need to go perhaps to daylight, or they need to have some of them for green screen, you can just purchase the phosphor panels as accessories and slide them in and now you have a completely different fixture basically. Ed:
Right, more accessories?
Michael: We also have intensifiers. These intensifiers replace the diffusion panels. They actually increase the light output by up to 50%. It does that by taking the light that is going out to the sides and refocusing it out forward. So if you’re looking to throw the light a further distance, the intensifiers are a great option for that. You’re taking a very broad source and again, trying to control that light. The intensifier is doing that by using a prismatic filter in order to refocus the light. Kind of going in that same vein, with the softlight, it’s important to control the light. The softlight goes everywhere and sometimes you want to have it just in one location or keep it from spilling some place. In that way, we have barn doors of course; we have four-leaf barn doors for both of the different sizes. We have egg crates which are about 130 mm deep and they have very large chambers.
Page 23
Ed:
That’s pretty thick fabric?
Michael: Well they’re made out of metal. The reason why you go with that egg crate design is if you wanted to have the ability to control the HPA ( the half peak angle ) but not lose a significant amount of light, you have a deeper egg crate with larger chambers. Similarly, we also have honeycombs. The honeycombs are much thinner – they are really only 14 mm thick, but the chambers in the honeycomb structures are much, much smaller. We have a 60 degree and a 30 degree honeycomb. You’re losing a little bit more light with the honeycombs, but they take up a much smaller footprint and they’re a much lighter weight. So you have the option, you can pick which kind of one works best for you. A lot of broadcast studios like the egg crates; a lot of location people like the honeycombs because of how light they are. In addition to that, we also have snoots. They’re straight-wall snoots so that if you wanted to stop spill light from coming out the sides, the snoot is perfect for that. The really cool thing about all these accessories is that they’re actually stackable, so if you wanted to have a snoot and then an egg crate, or a snoot and then a honeycomb, you could do that. They’re all stackable – we do recommend you don’t go above 2 or 3 of the accessories, because it gets a little bit heavy, that’s our recommendation. The last of these, in order to control the light, is an additional diffusion slot. Of course, every light comes with a diffusion slot inside that you can slide the panels in and out of, but if you wanted to double up the diffusion, you could do that with the extra diffusion slot. If you wanted to move the diffusion further away from the LEDs … as you know, if you move diffusion further away from the source you get a softer source, so you could therefore take the diffusion out of the fixture itself, put a snoot in and then the extra diffusion slot, and then move the diffusion further away from the LEDs. Ed:
That’s very clever.
Michael: We’re also partnering with Chimera and DoPchoice and they’re manufacturing different products specifically for the SkyPanel. Chimera of course, is producing light banks and they have two light banks for the S60. They have a shallow light bank and a standard light bank. The great thing about those is they’re custom-made for the Sky Panel, but they have a standard Chimera medium front. Then we also have a Chimera for the S30 as well, which uses a standard small frame. The DoPchoice is a German company and they make very similar products to Chimera although they don’t use any frames for mounting hardware. They use elastic to go around the edge of the product and they hold on just by the elastic bands, so they’re all fabric and they fold away into very small bags. In addition to the light banks that DoPchoice are making, they’re also making what they call SNAPGRIDS and these are basically like egg crates that are made out of fabric that fold into a very small bag that is very easy to carry around with you. That’s Chimera and DoPchoice. Ed: So often it’s a case of choosing functionality and ease of operation?
between
Michael: And mobility – again there are so many different applications. If you’re going to be travelling around the world with something like an S30, you want something that’s maybe lightweight, easy to pack away, something that doesn’t take up a lot of space … DoPchoice might be there; the Chimera’s kind of a professional grade, really heavy duty product, very
A strong yoke.
popular in the States of course. Again, we want to offer all these accessories and then you pick the one that’s right for what you’re doing. The next category that we have is different mounting options. Of course, the product comes with either a manual or a pole operated yoke, depending on which one you purchase. We also have double yokes, so you’re actually able to mount two SkyPanels one above each other. If you’re in a studio that doesn’t have a lot of space and you need to take advantage of as much space as you can, stacking two of them on top of each other might be a really good option. This one right in front of you is what we call the Centre Mount Yoke. This replaces the traditional yoke; it is a ball-in-socket mechanism that allows you to place the light vertically or turn it 45 degrees or to whatever orientation you want. If you really need to have complete control over the orientation of the fixture, the Centre Mount Yoke is a great option. The last mounting option that we have is what we call a Fixed Centre Mount Yoke. This is a 28 mm pin that slides onto the back of the fixture and it’s a fixed point. So if you wanted to, let’s say, create a ceiling of SkyPanels that were just pointing straight down, or if you wanted to create a wall of SkyPanels that just kind of connected straight to the pipe clamp … Ed:
That’s a salesman’s dream.
Michael: Well we have a lot of customers who are very interested in those applications. In fact, there are a couple of films that are spec’ing the SkyPanels – 200 of them – and basically, filling an entire studio with them to have complete control over the lighting. So those are the mounting options, and then we have
Page 24
battery options as well. We have a V-mount adapter plate that slides onto the back of the fixture and takes 2 V-mount batteries and plugs directly into the SkyPanel. We also have an Anton Bauer version of the same thing. Ed: It looks very flexible with the way you’ve got the back arranged so that you can obviously clamp a whole series of things on there, including things that maybe you haven’t even thought of at the moment? Michael: Exactly. And the great thing too is that they’re all using a quick release system, so you just release a lever and you can slide it off, or slide something on. The power supply uses a quick release system so, if you wanted to remove it very quickly and maybe put it on the floor or put it on the back of the fixture, you could do that very easily. The great thing is that, between NAB and here, we got a lot of feedback and we tried to implement some of the things that we heard – even from April.
Ed: Okay readers, so at this point you need to talk to the PLS team to find out when you can get hold of your SkyPanel and accessories. But another product that you’ve developed in the intervening months is the new high speed ballast I understand. And again, along with many of ARRI’s products, this is backwards compatible, so if you have an ARRI light that uses a ballast, you’ve now got a chance to get a new high speed one which means less flicker? Michael: That’s right, yes. We have a new ballast for the ARRIMAX which is an 18,000 Watt light or a 12,000 Watt light depending on which bulb you have in. This is a high speed ballast which means that it works at 1000 Hz, so if you wanted to go at a very high framerate, like 2000 frames or 3000 frames per second, you could use this ballast and minimise flicker greatly. In addition, these ballasts have a new feature called auto-scan which will actually automatically scan the frequencies of the bulb and tell you which frequency is best for that bulb so that you get the most minimum flicker possible. That’s for the ARRIMAX 18K. We also have the same kind of ballast for the M90, so a 6K, 9K ballast as well and that has the auto-scan feature as well as 1000 Hz flicker-free mode. Ed: Wow, that’s a pretty exciting upgrade. Now just to finish us off, in terms of innovation, ARRI is obviously way, way up there. What do you see are the trends happening in the industry – LED continues to grow, but you still provide tungsten. What’s going on?
Space light silks hanging high.
The last accessory that we have is a space light silk mounting attachment. So for example, if you’re using the light as a space light, you can of course, use it just as it is with the standard diffusion pointed straight down. It works just like a regular tungsten space light would work. Some people would like to use the silk with the SkyPanel – you know, the cylindrical silk that goes on the tungsten space lights. We have a very simple accessory that slides onto the pin of the yoke and has these aircraft cables with carabiners at the end which simply clip onto the silk and you’re good to go. So it’s very simple, lightweight, easy to throw this into a milk crate when you’re done with it … a very robust system.
Michael: First of all it’s a very exciting time to be in lighting I think because what’s happening is that the tool bag continues to grow and you can pick the tool that’s right for the job. So whether it be a small LED fixture, or whether it be a tungsten fixture – and there are still applications for tungsten fixtures – or whether it be an HMI, you pick the right tool for the right job. I think what we’re seeing is that there is a growing acceptance of LED products. In the film location business, the customers were very reticent to move to LEDs because there are a lot of bad LED products out there and it’s hard to know which ones are good and which ones are bad. But I think what’s happening is that everyone in our industry is starting to raise the bar. With these products, as you can see, we’re trying to raise the bar as high as we possibly can so that you can really have an LED product like the SkyPanel that is a true workhorse product, that is something that I could use every day, day in and day out on a film set and know that it’s going to hit the colour temperature that I expect; that I know is going to make skin tones look good on camera; that I know is going to be reliable. And that’s the key thing. We started with the L-Series and with the SkyPanel we really think that we’ve seen everyone kind of turn a corner, ARRI included, where this is a product that I could put in the hundreds in my rental inventory and I know that it will go out. That’s what we’re seeing our customers do, which is really exciting for us. I think that the fear is starting to subside a little bit with LED products as the quality level is being forced to go higher, and in our industry we’re benefiting from all the advances in the commercial world. Ed:
And from consumer lighting?
Michael: Yes, so those quality standards are also being pushed further and further and we only benefit from that. I think that we are definitely seeing more Page 26
LED products going, although we are still selling record amounts of HMI products as well, and our tungsten sales really haven’t declined too much. I think we’re just seeing there’s more production happening, more different types of things. Again, with an LED product, the ability to go to battery mode is a huge advantage and all of our SkyPanels have a battery input on Showing the power supply them. There are quick release. also new ways of shooting that these LED products are enabling. For example, we were talking about space lights. Before, if you were using a tungsten space light, first of all they were 6000 Watt, they were one colour temperature. If
you wanted to change the colour temperature you would need to get a guy up on a lift and use a ton of gels to change that colour temperature. It would take a full day to do 200 of them or however many they had in the studio. With a SkyPanel, you can imagine having them up in the rig and through DMX being able to change them instantly to whatever colour temperature or whatever vivid colour that you want. That’s a really powerful thing and I think that we’re going to see customers light differently because of these new abilities. This is really something that I think is beginning to excite people, when they start to see what they can really do with these fixtures and the power behind then – not just in output, but also in features. Ed: There’s a change in the attitudes of people that lighting now is not all about intensity, which it had to be in the old days of film stock – these days it’s all about creating an emotion … less light but better quality? Michael: Right, it’s about nuance and a lot of our customers say they use a lot of our LED lights at like 20 or 30%, but they still love the tune-ability because they can match different cameras, or they can match other fixtures in the room. A lot of it is about nuance, about the low light levels and emotion, and the LEDs are perfect for that because, if you need the output it’s there, and if you don’t, it dims without changing the colour temperature and you’re good to go. NZVN
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