AUGUST 2013
SMPTE Show in Sydney There has to be a first time for everything and this was my first SMPTE trade show at Sydney’s Darling Harbour venue. The pros-pect of going to this show had never excited me but, with an “offer I couldn’t refuse” from Ray Sanders, I made the effort. Honestly, I had preconceptions of comparisons with NAB and IBC and this is a much smaller show but it’s nice. Many fewer Americans telling you how their products can “monitise your workflow” and lots more friendly faces. I actually had time to look around rather than my usual rushing from interview to interview to entertain you lot.
Vol 194
what they’re doing, what they’re selling, what’s working for them and for their customers in the Australian market, because that’s the most applicable market to us, which is great.
There were a few new products which we will cover and a new face or two but first, I’m just inside the door when I bump into Stuart Barnaby. Ed: Stuart, you’re here having a look around, you’ve been here a day and it’s not as big as NAB or IBC, but it’s comfy? Stuart: It’s fantastic actually. I’m very impressed with the quality of the stands – they’re smaller than what we have at NAB, but it’s great. What I particularly like about SMPTE is that we get to come over and talk to our colleagues, people like Lemac and Videocraft, Digistor, StormFX, who have all got stands at the SMPTE. They’re dealers in Australia like we’re dealers in New Zealand. It’s wonderful to be able to catch up with them, talk to those guys about
Ed: And they’re pretty open to that – I mean, with New Zealand’s rules about parallel importing, I would have thought that some of these guys would be eyeing New Zealand as a potential market? Stuart: I think the fact that they’re strong dealers in Australia and there’s a network of strong dealers in New Zealand as well stops that from happening … I don’t think any of them would be interested in coming
and setting up in our backyard because the competition’s too strong and it’s well established. I think that we’ve also had relationships with the guys from companies like Videocraft and Lemac and Digistor that go back over a decade. We’re really good colleagues and we’ll ask each other about certain product ranges and what we liked with this and what we don’t like with that. You know, we do talk collaboratively with suppliers as well, so that we can make sure that we’re getting our customers’ messages across strongly to the vendors, whether it’s product development or pricing or marketing, so it’s great, we all get on really well. It’s a great pleasure in our industry to have strong colleagues across the Tasman that we get on well with. Ed: There’s quite a few New Zealand customers here I see wandering around having a look. Is this because they can see things here that they can’t see in the showrooms in New Zealand? Stuart: Actually it’s a wonderful opportunity – the airfares across the Tasman aren’t much. You can have a good day here which is enough to get around all the stands, see the products, talk to the vendors about the various things … it’s a great opportunity to do so, so many New Zealanders take advantage of that to duck over and have a good look. Ed: Is there anything specific you’ve seen that you think “that’s something I need to focus a bit more on when I get back home”? Stuart: I think the key thing for us, like I mentioned before, is talking to the dealer network over here gives us a lot of ideas in terms of how we can work on around workflows because we already know the product ranges, but it’s how they’re being used, what customers are buying and how the customers are using them over here, that we quite often get ideas about. Ed:
And you enjoy being interviewed digitally now?
Stuart:
Ubba ubba ubba …
Ed: Yeah, yeah, enough digital static from you. Stuart was one of my fine carriers. He used to bring the tapes back for Miss Hellfinger to type up, but now Stuart, it’s flying through the Internet.
Stuart: Aaaah you know everything changes, so I guess you’ll give me the SD card to take back? Ed: Oh no, no, no, it’s all going over Wi-Fi, but we’ll still keep the paper coming out. People enjoy the paper print don’t they? Stuart: Oh absolutely. There’s nothing like a magazine arriving on your desk that you open with great anticipation and eagerness, as happens each month. Ed: Especially when you often find your photograph in it, and this month will be no exception! Stuart: It’s often said I have shares in the magazine, but I don’t seem to get any payback Grant. Ed:
Well I’m open to offers Stuart.
NZVN
Go www.finnzed.co.nz and follow the link to NZVN for more news.
STUFF FROM SMPTE. Page 3
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KTVU – San Francisco Bay Part 2
Just before getting into the SMPTE stories, we continue the KTVU story with Jim Wagner. Ed: Jim, were you here for the transition from standard def to high def? Jim: Yes, we all were! Ed: You’re still going through it? Jim: Well we’re the only station in San Francisco presently – we’re the No 1 station ratings wise – but we are the last station to convert all of our News gathering in the field to high def. Ed: What does that tell you? Jim: That you don’t have to be high def to be No 1! But just before we made the transition to high def, we bought new Panasonic P2 cameras that were switchable between 4x3 and 16x9 aspect ratio. Of course at that time, we were 4x3, so when we made the transition, we switched them to 16x9 and upconverted the footage. Ed: Are you using Ensemble products to do that upconverting? Jim: We have a mix of Miranda, Ensemble and Evertz. But we really like the Ensemble product believe me. If Ken and I had our way, that would be our primary source, but again corporate decisions are made way above our heads. Ed: Okay, just tell me a little bit more about your transition … you say it’s ongoing, what are some of the ongoing processes? Jim: Well they’re just assembling new field cameras, all the trucks have digital equipment in them now and we are currently starting to go digital from the trucks back to the station. As soon as that transition is done, then they’re going to flip the switch and start the cameras in high def. Right now they’re still standard def, but they’re coming back to us, in many cases, digitally – standard def 16x9 sure. So we’re not high def origination in the field … Ed: But your broadcast is? Jim: Yes, we upconvert them and then of course the studio cameras and all the graphics and everything are high def. Ed: Have there been any major problems along the way? Jim: No, no. We just didn’t have enough money to do it all at the same time. Ed: I understand that one of the biggest problems is the storage; you’ve got to increase your file storage capability quite a bit to handle the change? Jim: Yes, we’ve upgraded the storage a couple of times. We’re about to replace a nearline storage unit with double the space of the old one. Our News operation is Grass Valley hardware, EDIUS is the platform we edit on in the newsroom, but we also have Final Cut Pro and Avid. We’re not all one house. Some of the other Fox stations are all Avid platform, but we’ve always been a hybrid. Ed: No issues putting that to air? Jim: No, it keeps us on our toes. But we’re about to upgrade … well we just upgraded the Storage Area Network, the Grass Valley SAN. We have a deep archive system, it’s a Spectrologic Robotic System
Quite a lighting mix.
controlled by an SGL Archive Manager recording on DLT tapes, LTO-4 is I think what we’re at now. We’re going to convert to 6 eventually, it’s just the density of the storage. But we’ve got about 180 terabytes in the box; it will hold a petabyte which is a thousand terabytes, so we’re about three years into that process. Every single finished clip and story gets stored forever, so the database just keeps going – so now the data management system has to be upgraded in the next couple of months, since the servers are slowing down because the database has got so large. Ed: I think that’s a pretty common story. Jim: Growing pains, yes. The onboard motherboard RAM just keeps getting larger and larger. Ed: Now one of the parts of the other studio here is the green screen and it’s a good old, bog standard, chroma green with a Kino Flo Image 80 all over it. You went for this rather than for the green monitors … reason? Jim: If you get a chroma green screen correctly lit, you don’t get the rough edges and anything else. There’s one station in the Bay Area that’s not lit properly and you see a rotten terrible edge on the people who are doing the Weather. So it just takes the time to light it correctly. Ed: They have the monitors do they? Jim: No they have a green chroma screen too, it’s just lighting – you know, just take the time to light it correctly. Ken: I honestly don’t know if anyone in the Bay Area has the chromakey green monitors. The only thing I like about this is the keyers have got so good now, that when the meteorologist comes up to the wall and they throw a slight shadow, it still looks beautiful. I remember back in the days of old, spending a half hour tweaking on a 13 pot tub and Ultimatte unit to try to get the shadows right and transparent. That was Ultimatte blue. Ed: So I guess lighting it with a Kino Flo, that’s really part of the magic isn’t it? Jim: Yes, just having nice flat lighting on Weather. Ed: Tell us about your trucks – 17 News trucks I understand – and there’s a Google map here with the GPS locations?
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PRODUCTION | POST | VISUAL EFFECTS
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Jim: Two of the vehicles are satellite uplink capable. We have one truck that has a repeater, it has two microwaves on it and we take it up to the tall hills over the Bay Area. If we had to get into central California, we would then bounce it over the top of the mountains with a repeater at the top and now a satellite – with the Fox satellite timing, you’ve got an instant link. Ed: Otherwise if you don’t, you take all your shots, race to a mountain top and microwave it back to the station here? Jim: And another thing that we just started using last year is a backpack television unit called Live U and we were the first to use it in the Bay Area. Last year there was a riot in a BART station and we were the only broadcaster that was in the BART tunnel in the station getting live video and everybody else couldn’t figure out how we did it, because you’d have to drag cables down the escalators to get there. After that big event, everybody now in the Bay Area has Live U. The nice thing about it is that it’s got six cell phone antennas in the backpack, so as long as you’re in an area where there’s cell coverage, you can get a good signal out. You can go anywhere there’s cell coverage and get the signal back here. Our other Cox owned stations have Live U so if a reporter stationed up in Seattle has their Live U running and there’s a story we want, they simply change the IP address that they’re sending the story to and it shows up in our server; and we can do the same with them. We can change our send to address on the backpack, they can select a Seattle station and be sending the signal to another station.
Good use for a surfboard.
Ken: Send it on the iPhone with another little carrier sender. Ed: Now we’re in the real heart of the action, the ingest room where there are lots of lovely tapes? Jim: We’re in the ingest centre and everything’s ingested on obviously hard drives as files, but at the same time, they’re bringing data in, we’re still taking Betacam cassettes and recording the slugs, the feeds coming in from the field, on tape as a backup. We had a virus a couple of years ago, an outside contractor from one of our manufacturers, brought a virus in on his USB stick and it took us down for almost three days and we were literally back to doing tapes. We worked everything the old-fashioned way on decks and playing back manually like we did 15-20 years ago when I started here. Ed: Did you get phone calls from the public asking “what are you doing?” Jim: No actually we didn’t, but the first thing that I noticed was dropouts – we hadn’t seen dropouts for so long. Actual tape dropouts and wrinkles were going vertically across the screen as the tape played back. It was like “wow”. Ed: Nostalgia? Jim: Yes. It took us almost three days to flush … it was one of those viruses that kept replicating itself and every 15 minutes or 30 minutes it would replicate and you would have to go in and continually scan for it and clean it. It would hide. We actually hired some consultants to come in and help, because we had to get at different places in the system. Ed: Have you thought about keeping the tapes as backup in that sort of situation? Jim: Yep – that’s why they’re still here. The other thing about the virus is that a lot of our systems at that time didn’t have virus protection software on them, because a lot of the proprietary systems that you get, the manufacturers say “you know, it kind of slows our system down if you install that McAfee or that whatever …” I think we’re now using three different varieties of virus software – everything’s got virus software on it that can. Ed: Something else I’ve noticed is that you don’t have logos on your trucks? Jim: Many years ago, during some local protests, most of the trucks that had logos on them were damaged in a riot that they had here. And ours, the trucks that didn’t have logos on, were left alone.
Truck locations via GPS.
Ed: Page 6
You’re waiting for the next riot?
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Jim: This is for the building and it’s inline at all times. Ed: Do you have brown outs here? Jim: Well technically, the fuel cells have to shut down within milliseconds of the local power source going away, because they don’t want to reverse energise the local line. Because it goes through transformers and goes higher and higher voltage, you could kill somebody, a lineman. So these shut down immediately, but we have a standby generator and we also have UPS that runs all of the technical power. Now in the media prep room, we have Charles North. Ed: Right. Media prep – I guess with so much local material, this is a busy, busy place? Charles: Yes it is. We have several other TV stations and we prep directly for two of them. All the shows that come down via satellite or any method, have to be ingested onto a server and then prepped for
Jim holding a Betacam SP backup tape.
Jim: That’s right, there’s no need to put logos on them. Some of the other stations are rolling billboards. They put those full latex logos that have their pictures and stuff. They tend to also attract needless attention at the scene. You don’t need that, they’re a cause of traffic congestion and everything else. Ed: And in the parking lot here with the big logo “Bloom Energy” – what are these big grey boxes with wires coming out of them? Jim: There are four Bloom Energy boxes. Each box has four 25 kilowatt hydrogen fuel cells in each corner and there’s an inverter and other support equipment in the centre of these boxes. So each one is 100,000 Watt, 100 kilowatt, and on any average day, we are drawing about 600 kilowatt. When we first put in our new generator 10 years ago, we did a test to see how much load we could pull here. We turned on all the studio lights, turned on all the chillers ( it was a summer day ) and we were able to pull about 800. So this thing turns the meters backwards. We put power back into the Pacific Gas and Electric Network at night. So we run the meters backward at night. Ed: So this is to power your building, not the trucks?
Hydrogen power supply boxes.
air, which means excluding all the black holes, including the network commercials and making them for our local commercial content, and making sure it all times out on the playlist. Ed: You say it’s for more than one channel? Charles: Yes, we have KTVU, we have KICU, we also have our sister stations in Reno but we don’t prep for them, they have their own headquarters up there. What we directly ingest and prep here is for two stations, KTVU and KICU. Ed: Out of the 24 hours, how many hours would you be prepping material for? Charles: Everything except for our Newscast. Newscasts take about 7-7½ hours a day I believe and all the other hours a day would be content which had to be ingested and prepped for air. Some of it’s easy, some of it’s infomercials which are just half hour chunks, those take like a second to prep … Page 8
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Ken: They made a six year warranty if you buy it yes. If a card goes bad after 5½ years they will replace the card. Ed: And it’s good that they’re a local company? Ken: It’s great – made in America. You can’t say that much anymore you know. Ed: But it does the job and does it well? Ken: Yes it does it very well. Ed: I’ll see if I can get Cindy to send you one of their great cookbooks. Ken: Yes, do that.
Ed:
You don’t check them for truth do you?
Charles: No, we don’t have the time for that job. But we have 10 people upstairs who are responsible for them being somewhat factual – hopefully. Ed: And do you have tech issues – material coming in that’s not actually up to spec? Charles: Oh yes, not too often, but occasionally there’s stuff that comes on satellite, the weather will just break up, or there’s stuff that comes on tape or maybe it’s just not quite up to power and then we have to reject or float it by the “powers that be” upstairs and say “hey this doesn’t look like it’s up to spec, what do you want to do with it?” And depending on the time that it airs, if it’s like in the middle of the night maybe it will be let past. Ed: Has the CALM Act ( loudness level legislation in the USA ) had a big influence on what you do? Charles: Not directly in this job that I’m doing, but we’ve had to put a lot of time and effort into reaching compliance with that. We have one guy who has been put on task for that, an engineer, and he’s been on it for three months almost full time, working on getting everything up to code, up to spec. So it’s pretty seamless to us down here, hopefully, although we do keep a close eye on our meters to make sure everything is under the radar and good to go.
Well, we are not quite over with this interview because, chatting on the way to his car to take me back to my hotel, Jim tells me he’s got another job besides this one at KTVU and they’re quite happy about it. Jim: It’s a community television station near my home. It’s run by the wife of one of my co-workers here, so that’s how I got involved. They needed help with a broadcast studio. They run three community cable television channels, Livermore California, Dublin California and Pleasanton California; the three cities combined together and they foot the bill for this very nice facility. Ed: And the City Councils pay for this? Jim: Yes, the three cities share the cost, which makes it affordable, because a lot of these operations have gone under with the restrictions in funding, with the economy and all. They have a production van, they go out and cover all City Council meetings, school board meetings, parks and recreation meetings and special events like parades and community events. They do most of them live and then they replay them constantly because they have three channels to cover, and I think midnight to 6.00am, they have a logo loop. They’re on the cable system now so that you can actually tune in and find various programming. It used to just say “community programming” now it actually tells you what the shows are. Ed: Is this an expensive operation. What are we talking in sort of ballpark – hundreds of thousands? Jim: We’re talking about a rough budget of US$250,000. They have a permanent staff of probably
Ed: In terms of the spec, I know now you’re broadcasting out in high def, but I guess the material that’s coming in, that you’re prepping, you’ve got a mixture? Charles: Yes exactly and we upconvert as necessary to get it all to air … We are now in the master control room and there are 10 channels coming out of this and they’re all local stations within the northern California area. A final word from Ken. Ed: Ken, you’re pretty keen on the products you’ve got from Ensemble? Ken: Yes, it’s good stuff, they are one of the best companies for customer service. We have AFAs switchers Das, Mitto stuff, you know, things like that. They make great products. Ed: And you say it’s a six year warranty for new people?
Ken Dixon with some of the Ensemble product at KTVU. Page 10
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Gencom at SMPTE To begin the SMPTE story for Gencom, we have Noel Oakes with an ever expanding range of JVC cameras. Ed: Noel, it’s fair to say that, in the last couple of years, JVC has been producing the cameras that everyone should have a look at for the smaller production – the handhelds have really come of age in this recent time, and as we mentioned at NAB, big sale to the BBC and if the BBC News likes them, well why shouldn’t other people? Noel: Yes, very true and of course since NAB and the BBC’s news, we’ve had a lot more success globally with broadcasters using these cameras, ( the 650s in particular ) for the Wi-Fi and the streaming capability, and the fact that this allows them, for certain situations, to save a lot of money because instead of sending out ENG trucks and crews, they can use these cameras and stream live images back, so that’s a nice saving for them also. So they certainly have come of age in the last couple of years with these new models, that’s right. Ed: And they should be because they have all the technology including the CMOS sensors? Noel: The 600 series and the 650 series are now all CMOS sensor cameras, all one-third inch. That of course makes for very good low light capability. The plan going forward is that hopefully we’ll see the same technology incorporated into our next generation shoulder mount and studio cameras due for release next year. Ed:
Is there a standardised recording medium?
Noel: Basically, we’re recording to SDHC, SDXC cards. The operators have a choice of file formats. They can record MP4s, .MOV files, AVCHD, MXF and with the streaming cameras you’ve got the ability to record full res onto one of your cards in any of those file formats, and record proxy res or quarter res onto a second card if you just want to use that for, say, a quick webstream or indeed to be used for webstreaming sites for News organisations, etc. Ed: Some people might think that, these days, a camera is a camera and there’s been a lot of convergence in that smaller camera market, but in fact there are differences. JVC has some differences that people need to look at, such as the webstreaming capability, the standardised SD cards and, from what I’ve seen, absolutely beautiful viewfinders?
of advice, they’re not just buying the camera, they’re buying the other bits & pieces to go with it. So when are we going to see them being able to offer JVC as part of their range? Noel: Well it’s actually already underway and as of about two months ago. Bernie Huynen did a trip through New Zealand specifically with these cameras, as well as other JVC products, but these cameras were the main drive, and we’ve spoken to a number of dealer organisations in Auckland, Wellington etc, who have shown great interest in wanting to represent these cameras. So that’s underway now and I’m sure you’ll be getting a list of who is on board from Bernie shortly. Ed: Looking forward to it. And Noel’s been saving the best for last, a rather small one you’ve got in your hand? Noel: Yes it is rather small. JVC have also released these new cameras to get into the action market and the wearable camera market. It’s a product that’s very much a competitor to the GoPro cameras. The first generation’s in my hand at the moment, the ADIXXION 1, which is a full HD, SDHC, SDXC card record device that has inbuilt Wi-Fi connectivity and a number of different mounts that allow you to use them for anything from helmet cameras to putting on surfboards, to putting on bikes, dashcams etc. One of the advantages that JVC do have over the GoPros is the lenses on these are a much superior lens as far as quality is concerned; they also have a zoom capability and small LCD monitor. It’s been a fairly new product for us, but we’re getting a lot of interest in these from
Noel: Yes well I suppose, as you say, there has been a lot of convergence in the DSLR cameras being used for different applications; however those cameras are good for particular applications, so the JVC units, still being a traditional form factor, still having extremely good lenses from Fujinon, and the fact that you have the choice of not just multiple resolutions to shoot to, but multiple file formats, you know, are fairly unique and I think is a great advantage over perhaps some of the convergent products that are out there. Ed: Now Noel, what about getting these cameras into the dealers in New Zealand, because honestly, New Zealand television people like working with dealers, because they get a whole range Page 14
the commercial and professional markets, as little fill cameras, POV cameras for productions and obviously for the sports channels etc. Ed:
Is the microphone any good?
Noel: Yes it’s actually got a very good microphone, and another fact is that these units don’t need an external housing as you can use them in up to five metres of water as they are, so everything’s sealed on them now and the microphone is an external pickup. With some of the other models that are out there, once you put the external housing on them, then obviously the mic is covered by that, the pickup, so that’s one advantage on audio with these. Ed:
Well it must be very expensive?
Noel: Well no, actually the retail price on this first generation initially was AUS$499, but with the new ADIXXION 2 coming, as is always the case, the pricing drops to make way for the new model. These are actually now selling for AUD $249 including tax. These units are currently available; they have actually dropped in price quite significantly to help make way for the next unit. It’s a very good price. On rare occasions, I am allowed to interview the First Lady of Gencom, Nicki Brierton, and today is my lucky day. Ed: Now Nicki, I’ve received various emails that have got a web address on them from Gencom – there’s something special happening there? Nicki: Yes there is. We’ve just launched our eshop. We have listed some of the smaller products, in particular those just like the camera Noel has shown you; we’ve got Hualin which has tripods and batteries– basically all our accessory products and anything that falls under our distribution range. At this stage this facility is only offered to our Australian and New Zealand customers. Ed: But the good thing about it is that, unlike an overseas website where you’re buying stuff and it’s being shipped to you, this is coming from Gencom and it has that full Gencom backup? Nicki: Oh totally, and you know you’re going to get a good quality product when you buy off our e-shop and that the support is going to be there, as opposed to buying from another overseas site. Ed: But Noel, we’ve just said that you’re interested also in putting these cameras into dealers. Is this website going to undercut your dealers? Noel: No, because the pricing on our website is absolute to the customer, so they come in, they’ll see a site there that’s not a negotiable price and built into that there is a dealer discount underneath. So say a customer comes and sees the site and finds out well, Gencom is selling it for this much, they can still go to a dealer and a dealer still has enough margin to be able to match that pricing we’ve got on our site. So the dealer pricing and dealer business is factored in as well. Ed:
That’s a good way to service your customers?
Noel: Yes. It gives them the options, we get to promote the products and I think it helps the dealers – the fact that we’re promoting the products and making sure we get hits when people are searching on the Internet for products, that Gencom’s representative brands come up high on the search return. Ed: And to me, to also cement JVC as a serious camera maker, you actually do have a 4K offer. It’s a small one, but it is the start of 4K and I understand there is already a workflow for it?
Noel: Yes that’s right. So we have a camera called the GY-HMQ10 and it is a native 4K small compact camera. It records to four SDHC or XE cards. We’ve had that shipping now for close to a year – it was introduced at NAB, not the last one, the one before and with the push now for Ultra HD content, 4K projection, big 4K monitors, it’s a very cost effective way to get into the acquisition of 4K material. It will be a stepping stone for JVC to introduce larger 4K cameras over time as well. Ed:
Do we need to mention 3D?
Noel: Well there are plenty of 3D cameras in the JVC range still. It’s still an area that we get I guess more now specialist enquiries from; it’s not a huge push now from the market, but you’ve got to remember that for all of the major motion picture productions, the mandate is they must be still shot in 3D as well as 4K so that if they want to repurpose the content later or the delivery medium, they’ve got all those options. So it’s still a very viable format and still very much required for commercial apps. NZVN Also on the Gencom stand we find Mike O’Connell. Ed: here have Pixel say?
Now Mike, you work for Pixel Power, but you’re on the Gencom stand because Gencom actually a couple of solutions for a channel in a box and Power would be at the top end of that – fair to
Mike: That’s correct. Here we’ve got our ChannelMaster which is our channel in a box. This is a hardware based solution that has a master control
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switcher, video server and a CG all in one box. Ed: And I guess that’s the crux of it isn’t it – it’s a hardware version. Cheaper versions are software versions. What are the penalties for software versions? Mike: We designed this product on a reliable product platform which means it is faster and more consistent. Software systems tend to have issues allocating internal processor resources. Ed: So a hardware system tends to be faster? Mike: Yes definitely. Many other systems are using graphics GPUs on standard PC’s and the GPU is carrying out all the processing, including decoding the media files, source mixing, plus any graphics that may be played back. That’s a lot of functionality to ask of a GPU. We’re using the Sony XDCAM codec, specially designed to decode the media files; we’re also using dedicated hardware, designed by our engineers for the master control switcher and the character generator portion of ChannelMaster. The standard PC cards find that if they’re decoding a media file, having to render a graphic and do a mix and a dissolve, they tend to choke. Ed: Which is difficult if you’re actually doing this live? Mike: Correct. One of the other differentials apart from the hardware, is we actually have a hardware control panel, so the master control operator feels comfortable in the new domain; they’ve got a familiar interface. They can do mixes to live feeds, live satellite feeds, live studios and then do mixes into the media … Ed: … as opposed to a touchscreen panel? Mike: Correct. We do support touchscreen panels as well, so you can have the best of both worlds. Here I can show you, if this was a touchscreen you can actually drive it. Ed: I guess the hardware panel tends to be more precise? Mike: More precise yes. The biggest thing is that it makes the operator feel comfortable. Ed: And I guess you could hit it with a fairly pointy fingernail and it wouldn’t damage the screen? Mike: Yes, that’s correct. We’ve added intelligence to our panel, so all the graphics come up on the keyers. The operator can go there and actually select which graphic they want to come up on the button as well. Ed: So where would you sort of place this as opposed to one of the cheaper software versions, because they must have a market, but …? Mike: There is a market for all levels and we are towards the top end of that market with, for example, Miranda iTX and the Snell ICE system. Ed: And this is really something a broadcaster should have in a truck somewhere ready for when other things go belly up? Mike: Yes, channel in a box is fantastic for use in a DR situation, but the biggest application for this is as part of a studio in a TV station to actually output the final signal that goes to the transmitter or the satellite. So they’re normally permanently wired inside their facility and automation systems are driving them – which is another differential for us, as most of the other
channel in a box suppliers you have to buy their automation system. With us, we’ve got an open protocol that any automation vendor can actually write to and control ChannelMaster. Ed: So if a TV station, a large television station, wanted to extend their range of channels quickly, they could very easily set up a channel using this technology? Mike: Correct. With Pixel Power one of the key things we offer is an upgrade path through our entire range of 3RU chassis units. So for instance, you can take a Clarity or LogoVision and upgrade these into a BrandMaster or ChannelMaster. Once you have purchased our fully featured 3D hardware it’s all about licensing, which is great for playout facilities. As their customers come and go, they can actually tailor their offering and turn one system in to another for the new customer that’s come along. We’ve been very successful at playout facilities with that. Ed: And also for the smaller regional operator, this is something I guess if you set one of these up you can trust that it’s going to work 24/7? Mike: Yes, it’s been designed to do that. It’s been built on our master control switcher called BrandMaster that we released four years ago; now we have about 300 of those in service and fundamentally we’ve added a video server to that box. Ed: So for a little station in Coromandel to set up one of these systems, what’s sort of the minimum that you’d look at – ballpark in tens of thousands? Fifty, hundred? Mike: Yes, it would be around the hundred initially to set up, so the small station in Coromandel might not quite be the market for this. Ed: Mike:
Maybe Paeroa? Uuuum.
NZVN
To hear the software side of the “channel in a box” discussion, we have Iulian Ionescu from PlayBox Technology sold by Gencom in New Zealand. Ed: Now Iulain, we have seen some all in one box that’s all hardware based, and their point of difference. You’ve got software as a major component of your PlayBox technology … channel in a box too?
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Iulian: PlayBox has been developing channel in a box for the last seven years, so we were the pioneers for this type of “Channel in a Box” solution, turnkey solution. We are bundling the software with specific server hardware – and we offer this solution to our customers in different flavours. Being a software solution, we can adapt to the customer’s needs what he wants as an output, as a feature set or just a workflow operation scenario. So we can put different types of options like subtitles and other features which you can find as options in our solutions. The customer can go with the very basic solution and can increase the functionality of the system by just adding more modules to the system. In terms of input / outputs. HD, SD, ASI, HDI, IP – also providing multiple parallel outputs, as a new feature since last year, so as an example, our system is able to do HD output and in parallel have a secondary IP stream out. Ed: I guess the big question though is quality. If a solution is hardware based it tends, in other areas certainly, to be a better quality and I cite file rendering. If you want to render or transcode something, a hardware solution is generally faster and more reliable in quality than a software version. Is this also applicable in playout technology? Iulian: We have been offering playout software since 15 years ago, so we try to adapt with a really high spec’d server. As you may know, technology evolved rapidly, and due to this, our software was able to drive the latest hardware well and provide the best performance for all our clients, and quality is always proven to be there. Ed: I mean honestly, looking at this monitor here ( and it’s a very high tech monitor ), the picture is perfect; I’d say certainly better than what I get at home. It is your technology that’s coming out of that monitor isn’t it? Iulian: Yes, absolutely 100% directly from our playout server. Ed: Well I’m just checking. vapourware?
You know it could be
Iulian: No, we are just using our technology. However the output cards, it’s a standard output card, such as Blackmagic or DELTACAST, we use these cards mainly for I/O only. You can see the quality of them both … Blackmagic is known by the broadcast quality card in the market and DELTACAST can provide and support our modules with more features, such as Dolby Digital, encoding decoding, CC, etc. Ed: I guess that’s it, it’s the flexibility with software based solutions that you can mix and match? Iulian: We cannot rely on the hardware definitely, so we improve our software in order that we can change any type of hardware at any point. So the cost of the maintenance for our customers is even cheaper because they don’t need to change a card or hardware which is not available on the market. They can just go and buy another deck and put it inside and that’s it. Moreover, the development of our modules is not based purely on the current available hardware, therefore, should the market available hardware be further enhanced by its manufacturer, we will continue to drive the new hardware card with more powerful features.
For all this, the same client will just simply upgrade to the new hardware themselves, and will automatically get those features it was not possible to achieve in the old card. Ed: So what’s the sort of cost for a base system, in tens of thousands of dollars? Are we talking $50,000? Iulian: No, no we’re talking just for an SD start up channel maybe like $12-18,000 per channel. Ed:
Wow.
Iulian: anyway. Ed:
That’s the advantage of using software
And it’s of this quality?
Iulian:
Yes, as you can see now.
Ed: So pretty well anybody could set this up couldn’t they as a little channel in Te Awamutu even? Iulian: Yes. Usually our customers are setting up in a maximum of two days. Together with Gencom, we provide support and training as well … as you can see the interface is really easy to use, so a very comprehensive interface. Ed: Amazing. So this interface here, is this a basic Windows interface? Iulian: Yes, we have been using Windows as our main operating system for a long time. And since it is Windows based, maintenance and operation of the server will seem simple and familiar to many users. Moreover, we have tweaked Microsoft Windows in order to follow the broadcast quality output and stable operation. I think the R&D team is really genius; they did all this, it’s not my job to do it, but they have been very good at what they are doing for a long time. Ed:
Well you have to sell them don’t you?
Iulian: With this technology, most of the time, the client will introduce other clients to us, or some clients see their competitors are using it and they come to us, therefore, the market share is growth by itself. And even though we have around 13,000 customers all over the world, nevertheless, a partner like Gencom is important too, as they will be able to handle the after sales support and provide the complete end to end solutions that many clients look for. Ed:
It’s got to be good?
Iulian:
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Yes, it is.
NZVN
ARRI Cameras at SMPTE We have Stefan Sedlmeier from ARRI Australia. We’ve interviewed Stefan before about ARRI lighting for PLS and that certainly is a big part of the ARRI business, but today we’re here at SMPTE to talk about ARRI cameras. Ed: Now ARRI has had a long history with motion picture cameras, but of course, in those early days, they were film cameras, weren’t they Stefan? Stefan: Yes, this is correct. The company is going to be 100 years old very soon. They were very early adopters and manufacturers of film cameras for 16mm and 35mm. It all started more than 95 years ago, black and white, colour reversal, colour neg for News, 16mm, 35mm, there is also a 65mm camera from ARRI. It’s really a long history and a commitment to the film industry as a manufacturer for the cinematography market with motion picture cameras. Never forget that we do motion picture, which means it’s not stills, it’s up to 150 frames a second on the film cameras, 120 frames a second on a digital camera, and you record for long periods of time. Ed: Well we’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves here, because we’re getting into the digital domain and I think it’s fair to say that ARRI was a slow adopter of the digital recording method? Stefan: You could say it like that. We always had film processing equipment in our digital intermediate systems like the ARRISCAN film scanner and the ARRILASER film recorder. The film recorder does 4K and the ARRISCAN even does 6K and we did this for years – even before there were digital cameras that can do such kind of quality. We were probably late adopters – we don’t come from the video background like ENG or DSLR cameras; we come from the motion picture camera background. The predecessor of the ALEXA camera was the D-20, D-21. There are probably 140 D-21 in the world, some of them still shooting, but it was quite a large unit. It was basically an ARRIFLEX 435 with a digital back end. Then we developed the ALEXA family of cameras. There are now six different camera models and the signal processing, the colour fidelity is quite similar to our film processing equipment such as the ARRISCAN, so we have the knowledge and understanding of colorimetry and signal processing, and colour separation. A cameraman wants to achieve natural looking skin tones. For instance, in the movie making industry, it’s not just a car commercial, you want to have actors who have an accurate representation of their skin tone. It is also important that it looks authentic when you do this. This is why the ALEXA cameras look very filmic, or very natural without
exaggerating any contour or saturation. From the very beginning the camera was launched, customers loved it because it just looks natural, real. Ed: It’s like the ARRI film cameras they knew and loved, but now in the digital domain? Stefan: Correct. Also from a postproduction point of view, what many colourists tell us, it’s like in the past you had a well exposed neg, you put it onto a telecine, you start grading. Now if you have a cameraman, he exposes the image right, you load the ALEXA footage onto the postproduction tools, whatever they are, the pictures look great and the colourist can start grading, because the camera output is already well balanced in terms of colorimetry and exposure latitude and the colourists just love it because they have the whole freedom and latitude of the grading system to really do their creative work. They get that with the ALEXA footage. Ed: So I guess, all ARRI had to do was to change that film gate to a cinematography lens in front of a sensor and then process the captured images. So how did they go about that – did they develop their own or buy somebody else’s technology? Stefan: There are only some manufacturers worldwide who develop imaging sensors, in our case, CMOS sensors. We use a customised CMOS sensor. We do our own bonding and packaging and testing specification and, of course, the QC with the sensor manufacturer. Back to your initial question – it’s quite funny, because I sometimes explain it like that as well, that with an ALEXA digital camera system, the digitisation of the image happens on set, where when you shoot film, the digitisation happens in post. It’s a fact that, for example, the predecessor, the D-21, has exactly the same imaging sensor as the ARRISCAN – so a 3K by 2K chip and they use the same technology and similar signal processing. So in fact you are right … basically we exchange the scanner film gate with a lens mount, and digitise the light information on the camera
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rather than in post. developed.
This is how the ALEXA was
Ed: It’s a bit like recording on tape and then playing that tape and digitising it into your computer and editing from there rather than going straight to the file? Stefan: You always digitise on set, but never mind any imaging sensor is still an analogue device, be it a CCD or CMOS sensor, by the nature of a sensor, it’s still an analogue device, translating photons into a current, which is translated into a voltage which is digitised through an A to D converter and then the frame store builds together the picture because you read out red, green and blue information, and this makes the entire colour picture. Of course there is a little bit more to it than that, because you set exposure latitude, you set white balance, you have different frame rates between 0.75 and 120 frames, different shutter angles and there’s a lot of variety you can do. You can do shots at 1 frame a second, or use it like a stills camera or even do shots on the SD card while you’re rolling the camera just for a still for your storybook, for your documentation, like a TIFF or a JPEG while the camera is rolling, and customers use all these options. Ed: Obviously it has become a lot more flexible in the digital domain, but do you get the customers – the older customers perhaps – talking about the old days of film when they had that instant archive; that the film, after it was processed would be digitised and then it would go on the shelf so future generations could access that film. It wasn’t going to be lost in some massive server collapse?
Stefan: We’re still doing that, as we are still running the digital intermediate systems business which accommodates the ARRILASER film recorder as well. Sometimes it’s a requirement, even from a distributor, to have it re-recorded back on film for long-term archival, because film has two advantages still. First, it’s human readable without software … just by looking at the image you can see what’s on, so you can scan it … Ed: is?
Or just poke a bit of light through it and there it
Stefan: Correct … and second it’s long archival, so 100 years is not a problem at all … Ed:
time
There’s no more nitrate film then?
Stefan: No more nitrate film, this was a little bit explosive, tends to burn when you didn’t handle it carefully … but just think about 3½ inch floppy discs which happened to be around 15 years ago. You can hardly ever find a drive, nor can you find a driver to run such a format … Ed:
Oh, I’ve got a couple!
Stefan: So it’s always the mission to keep it humanly visible, or keep it in a status where you can retrieve the data. Obviously the current, most common format is LTO. Now we are up to LTO-6 which stores up to about 2.5 gigabytes per cartridge. This is used by most third party manufacturers as well, and it’s basically a data streamer and it’s like an industry standard and also internationally compatible, but it’s also tape based. High density, low priced storage for
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long-term, still tape has a certain advantage there. The data is instant, but you easily accumulate terabytes of data of RAW footage, so when you shoot a feature, it’s a 90 minute feature, with a shooting ratio of 40 to 1, with two cameras, you easily accommodate 60 to 70 terabytes of RAW footage, and then you do your grade and your editing, so sometimes customers misinterpret the savings in not using film stock, as they still have to pay somewhere to manage all the data, and the posthouse wants to know where to archive the data later on, or if they can delete it. Ed:
There’s no easy answer then?
Stefan: There is no easy answer. It’s part of our mission to do the education as to what happens behind the camera, how to work with Codex, with Avid, with Apple and Autodesk. We are flexible, we offer any format, any template, any codec. The camera can record ProRes, it can record DNxHD for Avid MXF, it can record ARRIRAW, which is an open format so you can get the ARRIRAW converter at no additional cost to debayer, process and to pre-grade the footage, so we look after all customers to really have the tools available to process any image footage they record on any ALEXA camera. Ed: Which is very good, mentioning customers, because how are customers in New Zealand going to get hold of one of these to have a look at it, to put their hands on it and see the images that come out of your ARRI cameras? Stefan: Currently, worldwide, we are close to 4,000 ALEXA cameras. We have about 125 in Australia / New Zealand now. I think we have around 25-30 ALEXAs in New Zealand and we can always help you to get your hands on one because we know roughly where these cameras are. Sometimes, customers like Panavision, they move them around between Australia and New Zealand, but then we know the local customers and we can also help you with demo cameras out of Sydney. Ed: So if somebody’s really interested in having a look at an ARRI in New Zealand, what should they do? Stefan: Firstly, call us in the Sydney office and then I want to find out whether they are in Wellington or Queenstown or Auckland, or where they are and then we can recommend a certain rental house or industry partner, whoever you prefer to deal with. Ed: Yes, we know all those stories, but that’s it – at this level of camera, it’s a very personal thing and it is a case of getting the base camera, but getting also the other bits and the tweaks that make it work for you?
Stefan: The lenses, the accessories, like a matte box, follow focus, batteries, a fluid head, a tripod … we try to help, because we are equipment manufacturers. I’m an engineer myself, I studied electrical engineering at University. I always try to make it work. I don’t believe in politics or people not working together; I want to work with people and I want to work with other manufacturers. So we also help Sony to have the right baseplate with their F65; we use Sony SxS cards in our ALEXA; we use third party batteries because we are not a battery manufacturer, so we recommend IDX or whoever manufactures good batteries for our camera equipment. We cooperate with Zeiss and Fujinon and also with Canon for lenses. Ed: Because that’s it – here today you’re on the Canon stand? Stefan: Correct. At SMPTE 2013, we have eight ALEXAs around the show floor, so you will find ALEXA cameras on the Canon booth where we are now; there’s one with Miller Tripod; one with Fujinon; one with Lemac; one with Cooke; one with Shotover Camera Systems and one more with … Ed: You’d better make sure you get eight at the end of the show? So that’s it, it’s not a specific endorsement of Canon you being here, it’s just Canon is one option that you can put on an ALEXA? Stefan: Yes we were invited by Canon to show a PL mount 35mm full frame chip on the Canon booth, aside with a C300, C500, a Sony camera and a camera which you would probably use more on a football application, like with a box lens, and we are quite happy to support the industry with our presence and it works both ways. Ed: Now ALEXA – is this the only camera that ARRI are making at present? Stefan: ALEXA is basically the name of the camera range to be precise. There is the ALEXA EV, the ALEXA EV Plus, the ALEXA XT, the ALEXA XT Plus, the ALEXA XT M and the XT Studio. So now there is a range of six different camera models under the ALEXA name. Ed:
You don’t like numbers?
Stefan: Ed:
Numbers … no, we like names.
It’s very personal Stefan, very personal?
Stefan: We believe in final products, and I also don’t believe in just throwing numbers around like 4K or 16 bit – it is about the final image. We are in the movie making industry and sometimes when I do workshops with DoPs, cinematography students or with customers and it’s all about 14 bit, 4K, 422, Log-C, at the end of the day, we have a look at a show reel; we want to see
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www.dvt.co.nz
Digital Video Technologies (NZ) Ltd
PRODUCTION | POST | VISUAL EFFECTS
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Phone: 09 525 0788
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Email: sales@dvt.co.nz
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45 Fairfax Avenue, Penrose, Auckland
Ed: This is really special for the industry, where you don’t have to go out and buy a new model, you can actually put improvements into your basic camera? Stefan: This is correct and at our facility in Sydney, we have all spare parts. You can even buy a single screw from a matte box if you lose a single screw, or a washer or a nut, or you want a certain matte box equipped with a new sunshade, because it’s cracked. We get you any spare part, we don’t oversell the product, we don’t sell you a new matte box, we get you the spare parts. We find you the accessories so your camera will look presentable; also if it’s already two years old, we can sell you all the bits and pieces individually and we help you so the camera is still presentable and in a current state, so you can still rent it out and it is well respected. Ed: I guess what a lot of us forward to now is that, one will come out with a range of the “professional level” to suit those of us in the market. A possibility do you think?
Melaney Yates showing the remote control option for the ALEXA.
real images, because at the end we are producing pictures and it’s right to understand how is the camera working. Yes we capture 14 bit, the camera’s latitude is close to 15 f stops, we output ARRIRAW, which is a 12 bit format, it’s a 3.4K camera chip, we output 2K debayered, the deliverable might be HD, it might be IPTV, it might be 35mm or digital projection for the big screen. James Bond’s Skyfall was shot on the ALEXA and was up-res’d to 4K for IMAX.
are looking day, ARRI cameras in that end of
Stefan: Likelihood, yes. Let’s see what the next trade shows will open up in terms of releases and announcements. Ed:
So there’s any kind of way you can do it, but you have to do it right and pixel count is one of many parameters, exposure latitude, colour fidelity, colour representation of skin tones, higher frame rates, camera sensitivity – have a good signal to noise ratio so you can use the camera in low light conditions where the scene is even only lit with a candle. This is as important as the pixel count, and this all makes the composition of the camera front end, the imaging sensor. Ed: We were talking about listening to customers and to illustrate that, there’s been a recent improvement in ARRI technology? Stefan: Yes, on the ALEXA XT series, we did some improvements on the handling on the camera, on the hardware on the accessories and this is based on customer feedback which we got from our existing base of ALEXA clients. All of these upgrades are also retrofittable to any ALEXA which is out there in the field, and there is the new two-rod viewfinder mounting bracket VMB-3. If you own a viewfinder mounting bracket VMB3, there is a new viewfinder extension bracket VEB-3 which is also more stable, it’s more persistent against torque, so you can bring the electronic viewfinder behind the camera and it will stay upright. Those of you who ever had a problem with the fan … the ALEXA’s fan is very quiet anyway, but now it is even more quiet a fan if you want. This is also upgradeable to any ALEXA; in-gate neutral density filters available as an upgrade for any ALEXA and of course the new on-board recorder, the so-called XR module, the extended recorder, accommodating codex drives for on-board ARRIRAW recording. All of these five upgrades are retro-fittable to any ALEXA in the market and standard fitted with any new ALEXA XT. Page 26
I’ll see you there.
NZVN
Syntec at SMPTE We are at Syntec and we have James Waldron, product manager. Ed: James, there is a new product here at SMPTE for Sennheiser and it’s a new radio microphone. It’s all cleared for Australia, but …? James: It operates in the region of 1800 MHz, which is cleared under new licence laws in Australia for wireless mic operation. In New Zealand, 1800 MHz is under a management right for one of the Telcos, so that means you can’t use 1800 MHz in New Zealand. Ed: And you’ve tried to contact the Telco concerned? James: We did. person yet.
We haven’t found the relevant
Ed: So you think there must be a relevant person somewhere? James: I’m sure there will be someone there who will be able to tell us whether they’re using it and what their plans are for that part of the spectrum. Ed: So in Australia is it all clear cut? Has the spectrum been set in stone so you know exactly what areas you’re allowed? James: Yes, we know exactly what the situation is in Australia. In the UHF area it’s very clear what’s going on and, in this new little piece of spectrum at 1800 MHz, it’s very clear what’s happening there. The new low interference potential devices licence has been ratified through parliament, it’s law now and everything’s very clear about what we can and can’t do. Operationally it’s more difficult in Australia, but legally it’s very clear. In New Zealand it’s not quite as clear cut … Ed: Because there are still negotiations going on I understand – or some spectrum that should be released
hasn’t yet been released? James: In New Zealand, we have from 510 MHz up to 698 MHz. This is where the TV broadcasters are and where wireless microphones will operate as well. Across most of New Zealand, digital television is re-stacking down below 622 MHz, so that area is pretty busy with television, but above 622 MHz is going to be pretty empty. The caveat there is that there are some legacy licences there that the owners … Ed:
They’re being a bit retentive?
James: The owners of those licences still have the licences; they don’t use them at present, but they may take up their rights to use them in the future … and if that happens then life will be a little more difficult for us all. Ed: I guess the reason that the broadcasters want that lower end is that’s a better range? James: There’s a little bit of that – I’m not sure that it makes a big difference, but it means that
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alternate channels in the markets can be the main transmitters and then you can use the other channels in that area for the in-fill and so on. So you might have the even numbers used for the main channels and the odd numbers for the in-fill. And it’s pretty much the same all across New Zealand, and then the top half from 622 MHz up to 698 MHz is virtually empty. If the companies who own those rights do actually take them up, then it gets busier above 622 MHz, but I’m not sure that they really will, because if you’re going to transmit television, you need to be increasing your profitability. Ed: No, we just need better channels, and I’m sure that’s the same in Australia? James: What’s that song … “57 channels and nothing on.” Ed: Well nothing worth watching. But of course, the politicians will say “well then, it’s up to you to come up with the technology that goes beyond or below this spectrum, and come up with a new way of doing it’’? James: Well we have – there’s 1800 MHz which is licensed throughout Europe and now in Australia, and there’s a move to licence that in other parts of the world like the Americas for example. In Germany, they’ve just announced 1.4 GHz called L-band; there’s a window in there that’s been opened up for wireless mics. But what about the rest of the world? Nothing’s happening there yet. There’s a lot of political momentum that needs to be rolled along somehow. Ed: Who’d be a wireless mic manufacturer? James: Well the facts of life are that the industry needs wireless microphones and so it’s a business that will continue; it just needs to find its home again. I think, realistically, it’s a time of transition now; it’s confusing and difficult, but we’ll come out of that period of transition and it will become clear and away we go.
Ed: Is it time for a wireless microphone pack that might have a removable and upgradeable part to it that is the bit that the band sort of fits in that you could take out a chip or something like a removable card and that would have some of the band information in it, so you could swap at a moment’s notice? James: With wireless designs, the lower the cost, the narrower the tuning range, and so the higher cost and more expensive products get a broader tuning range. If you make it tune right across the whole range then you can take it anywhere. If you start making a product with integratable, pull out removable bits, it becomes more expensive, so you might as well make a more expensive product with a broader tuning range, than try to make a low performance product that’s expensive to make. Ed:
Alright, I was just going for an easy answer.
James: Yes I know. There is a balance to be found, and the fulcrum point is different depending on whether your focus, as a user, is on performance or price. In broad terms, if you pay more you get more. Ed:
Well, we’ll keep everyone posted.
James: For me it’s pretty clear in New Zealand that if you’re above 622 MHz and below 698 – if you’re in that window, I reckon you’re in pretty good shape and that’s the message that Syntec and Sennheiser in New Zealand is moving forward with – this area you’re safe to buy. Ed:
Well we’ll hold you to that.
James: Go ahead. But make sure you have a look at the web site www.ddready.co.nz for a clear picture of NZVN the New Zealand Wireless Microphone situation.
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Panavision at SMPTE Just to confuse you perhaps, we are at John Barry and we have Tim Timlin. Ed: Tim, there’s no Panavision sign here, it’s all John Barry, why’s that? Tim: John Barry of course Panavision in Australia.
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Ed: So pretty well, for New Zealanders, John Barry and Panavision are synonymous, but in New Zealand it’s the Panavision name? Tim: Yes, in New Zealand we’re known as Panavision Sales, because we’ve been working with that title for a number of years, since the Film Facilities name went away. Ed: That was a while ago. I see there’s an awful lot of Manfrotto gear here and really that’s what you’re known for isn’t it? Tim: Very much so, yes, and displayed in this particular corner of the stand, but a very big part of the John Barry operation in Australia, is audio and Georgina Gelai is the person who is very well known here for that. We also have Ed Capp, Global Sales Director for Sound Devices here and Peter More of Lectrosonics will also be here. The other big section as you see is lighting and we have Richard Curtis who is an ex-gaffer looking after lighting who is based in Sydney. Ed: And you do the same or similar products in New Zealand? Tim: No, not in every case, because other people have some of these agencies in New Zealand, so obviously we have to be careful not to … Ed:
Step on others’ toes?
Tim: Step on others’ toes, yes. I mean it’s just etiquette and it’s a small market in New Zealand; we all know each other in the industry so there’s no point in trying to undermine other companies when we can be better off working with each other. But where there’s no conflict then certainly we look after John Barry product lines in New Zealand for customers who need it.
Ed: But there’s always the situation, people can buy online and they do that? Tim: Yes they do do that, and John Barry does supply a lot of people in New Zealand by web sales so there is that situation but, when they want to speak to a person in New Zealand, I’m that contact for John Barry. Ed: And the other area – there’s now more and more crossover with the photographic side? Tim: Yes a lot more in the motion picture, moving image side, where it comes together. “Convergence” I think they call it, where the technologies overlap. Ed: But that shouldn’t be strange to anybody coming into Panavision, because Panavision’s offered still photography supplies for quite a long time? Tim: Yes, that shouldn’t be a difficulty at all. That’s a very familiar ground for us. But in terms of Panavision, we do have a Panavision “Panavised’’ Sony F55 here, so Panavision has some representation on this stand. Just over your shoulder there is the full rig. Ed: Because that’s it, it’s the accessories isn’t it that really maketh the camera? Tim: Yes, Panavision has added items to strengthen the camera body and improved the electronic connections to make the F55 suitable for motion picture use. NZVN
The “Panavised” Sony F55. Page 30
Sony at SMPTE We’re here at the Sony stand with Nick Buchner. Ed: It is a much smaller stand than we are used to at NAB but there’s one major new item that will be available reasonably soon … the PMW-300? Nick: Yes, October.
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Ed: This is the successor to the PMW-EX3. In what ways is this an improvement Nick? Nick: We’ve been upgrading the XDCAM handheld range starting with the intro-duction of the PMW200 which replaced the ven-erable EX1, so it was really only a matter of time before the EX3 had a successor, and this is it, the PMW300. In common with the PMW200 it adds the 50Mbps codec, but also the ergonomics of the camera are quite different to the EX3. It maintains the shoulder style of operation, so there is a shoulder pad that pulls out from the back of the camera allowing it to be rested on the shoulder and also provides a mounting point for other equipment if you want to add radio microphones, external recorders, larger batteries etc. The PMW-300 preserves the interchangeable lens capability of the EX3 and will be available in two kit versions, one with a 14x zoom, the other with a 16x zoom. It has a new viewfinder, both from an ergonomic and electronic design, which is quite adjustable through a wide range of positions depending on how the operator wants to use it. In fact, it’s the same viewfinder panel and similar design to the DVF-L350 that was released with the F5 and F55. The other key thing that will be available in the future for the camera is an XAVC option. At the moment, it uses the XDCAM and XDCAM EX codecs, but it will be possible to fit the new XAVC codec in the future. Ed: As a firmware upgrade? Nick: Yes – this is the codec that was first introduced with the PMW-F5 and F55. As for other features, the PMW-300 maintains all the interconnectability of the EX3 such as – genlock, SDI outputs, remote control etc. It’s a very powerful but small package. Ed: It might be a small thing, but having two places for shoes on the top of the camera is something that I’ve certainly found on my Sony to be a very valuable addition. Nick: These give you the facility, for example, to put a light on the front shoe, and fit a radio mic receiver to the rear shoe. Or there may be times users want to fit a monitor or ancillary viewfinder on there. The shoes basically allow the flexibility of adding extra equipment. Ed: What’s the Sony position on the 50Mbps codec? I mean I know others have brought it out but there was always a question of its potential use, why would you want a 50 megabit per second codec? Nick: We established the 50Mbps codec and essentially won the codec war in New Zealand and Australia with the original XDCAM HD422 series shoulder mount cameras, in both disc and card-based models. When we first introduced XDCAM EX with the 35Mbps codec, that was very well accepted up to certain levels of production. However, as time has moved on, our competitors started introducing higher bit rate codecs in
smaller cameras and so we have adopted that trend as well. We didn’t have to invent a new codec, we already had the 50Mbps codec well established and implemented in higher level cameras, so we decided to bring that to the handheld range. Basically, the entire XDCAM range now supports it. We’ve also just upgraded the PMW-350 to the PMW-400. This also has the 50Mbps codec so the whole range now features the choice of codecs up to and including 50 megabit, and in the case of these two models, the 400 and the 300, the future possibility to work with XAVC. Ed: And I guess, for me, the other major point about this camera is that it shows Sony’s support of the traditional video format. It’s not all about large single sensor cameras and shallow depth of field? Nick: Well that’s true. As we’ve always said, the traditional smaller sensor camera, such as the PMW-300 with three ½ inch sensors, is still ideally suited to many styles of production. The look and requirements for operation with very shallow depth of focus is not for everyone. Certainly for run and gun type situations, the cine style may not be the best way to go because it can be pretty hard to follow focus, depending on the level of proficiency of the operator; and for a lot of documentary, actuality, reality – those types of shows – I’d question if shallow depth of focus is really required? For example, talking to current affairs TV programme makers, they’re quite happy to shoot sit down interviews with shallow depth of focus, throw the background out of focus, get a beautiful effect there, but it’s not necessarily the best suited for their running around shooting an action packed story. They actually want to integrate the two. There’s still an awful lot of scope for the smaller sensor. The large frame sensor hasn’t displaced it, it’s just that in certain segments of the market, this style of shooting has captured the limelight. I suppose you could say because of the new accessibility to large frame sensor cameras, it allows people to shoot in a cinematic style where they never had access to doing that at such a price level before. People who have been happy to shoot small sensor, and aspired to the large sensor look but couldn’t essentially afford to, now have access to equipment that allows them to make a promotional video or a commercial that looks very cinematic. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t a lot of types of production where smaller sensor cameras – with a much greater depth of focus available – are better suited.
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Ed: Now Nick, with all these codecs out there, it can be a bit confusing, but with the 50Mbps XDCAM codec being so ubiquitous amongst the Sony range, you can now mix in editing quite a range of cameras, including short depth of field and standard video? Nick: That’s true. We now offer the 50Mbps codec starting from our handheld XDCAM models, through to our shoulder mount XDCAM range at all levels from the PMW-400 right up to the PDW-700 and PDW-F800 discbased cameras. Then of course, in the large sensor world, we now have the PMW-F5 and F55, both of which also support the XDCAM 50Mbps codec. In fact, I’d have to say, it’s likely a good proportion of what’s being shot on those cameras to date is actually using that codec, because it’s what is well accepted for television reality and documentary production and the workflow is totally established and in place. XDCAM holds 80-90% of the market here, so that integrates beautifully. However a key point when you’re talking about those F series cameras, is yes, they can use the 50Mbps codec, but that’s only where they start. They offer other codecs that can be selected that take the cameras up to different levels of production, whereas some of the other large frame sensor cameras on the market might offer the 50Mbps codec, but that’s where they finish for internal recording. If you want to do anything better than that, you have to take an external output to an external recorder and cable that up, power it and have it mounted somewhere, whereas our F series cameras can do it and well beyond. “To infinity and beyond” as someone famous once said!
CLASSIFIED -
For Sale
SONY EX-3. Very Good Condition. Comes with SONY batteries, SxS cards and more ... One careful owner. $5000 + GST. Phone Auck (09) 3789-555 SONY PMW F3. Very Good Condition. Comes with SONY batteries, SxS cards and more ... One careful owner. $6500 + GST (ONO). Phone Auck (09) 3789-555 Ed: And that’s also attributable to the cards that you have in there – they’re not standard “off the counter” cards? Nick: There’s really no such thing as a standard off the counter SxS card. The new F series use the SxS media and we now have several different grades of SxS. When we’re talking about recording the 50Mbps codec, all of the cameras we’ve just talked about can use the same SxS cards. The new faster SxS Pro+ cards are needed for the higher level codecs such as XAVC and HDCAM SR. But when it comes to 50Mbps, you can use the same grade of card through the whole XDCAM range as well as the F series F55 and F5. Ed:
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Good to know.
NZVN
Finally. Editing Meets Effects.
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