Report by Doug Braddock
A couple of weeks ago Sony announced that XDCAM HD will be shipping in March / April this year. I believe this will be a serious contender in the mid budget HD production world; it certainly has a lot of nice features. However I also think that it should be considered as a first generation release and I predict that within 12 months there will be new XD HD versions with more features, capacity, and quality.
There are two cameras PDW-F330, PDW-F350 (it appears that the 350 includes variable frame rate record and replay), retail price is suggested as US$26K plus lens for the F350.
There are also two players in the line up (PDW-F30 and PDW-F70), it’s not clear yet what the difference between the players is, though the F30 will cost 40% less, and may be released a month or two later than the 70 (which will apparently retail for US$16K).
Positive points
Interval recording is possible on the cameras (I understand this to mean time-lapse recording).
Undercrank and over-crank recording is possible from 4 fps up to 60fps in 1 frame increments. This is a big plus (Panasonic Varicam HD has offered it for a while, but not yet in 1080 resolution). It’s also possible to play back variable speed material without external processing boxes or non-linear software (something the Panasonic system needed) – this is no doubt possible because the content is playing off a disk rather than a tape. The cameras can record at 18, 25, or 35 Mbps (which is 40% more data and less compression than current Sony HDV cameras).
It’s my suspicion that XDCAM will prove to be more robust and reliable than tape. (I have heard horror stories of HD recordings made on DV cassettes have drop-outs that last for 15 or more frames due to the long-GOP sequence. That kind of duration is impossible to fix in post!)
The player decks promise high-speed data transfer between compatible nonlinear devices, and allow real time up-convert of XDCAM 25Mb/s SD content to 1080i HD output. They can also down convert HD material to SD in anamorphic, letterboxed or 4:3 format (this will be a very handy feature – I can think of numerous times I could have made use of this on projects).
Points to be wary of
Current SD XD cameras can record at a highest quality of 50Mbps IMX data rate which I’ve compared with digital betacam on a grade 1 monitor and consider to be basically indistinguishable in quality. It’s interesting that the HD XDCAM doesn’t record at a 50Mbps data rate in SD or HD (though no doubt 35Mbps long-GOP compression is more efficient than IMX which may compensate somewhat).
The literature hasn’t confirmed whether progressive recording is available at all frame rates, or whether 1080 interlaced is the only option available (as it is on HDV).
It’s not clear whether the players will play back 50MB/s IMX SD (which is the way most SD XDCAM camerapeople record now), I’d be insisting on this before placing an order myself, in order to keep compatibility with the many other users out there.Proxy recording isn’t mentioned (hopefully it will be included with the new cameras). This has been a potentially helpful part of SD XDCAM technology, avoiding the need for VHS dubbs and speeding logging and paper editing. I expect it to take some time for Final Cut Pro and Avid edit systems to be able to make efficient-as-possible use of the File Access Mode that HD XDCAM will offer (this is a method whereby the edit system ‘sucks’ the media it needs straight of the XDCAM player as if it were a computer disk drive, rather than having to digitise at normal play speed treating the player like a conventional video tape machine).
I’ve been disappointed by the slowness with which Avid have supported the SD version of XDCAM. (Currently you get reasonable capabilities if you buy an Adrenaline system. However in my mind I’d like to see the proxy pictures recorded on XDCAM able to be transferred via File Access Mode into an Xpress system for offline, at 15:1s resolution. If need be the Xpress would transcode the picture into 15:1s, but it ought to be a faster than real time process. I’d also like the high-quality original sound to transfer across at the same time, enabling a programme to be offlined on an Xpress, and OMF audio tracklay exported for sound post directly from the Xpress, and then the programme onlined on an Adrenaline – this follows a workflow that many of our clients are already using. Sadly Avid haven’t offered the necessary capabilities for the Xpress).
Looking to the future
The HD XDCAM system has been given the CineAlta badge by Sony, associating it at the lower end of the same range of products as HDCAM and HD SR.
I’m predicting that within 12 months there will be a new version of Blue-Ray disk recording that offers 46GB per disk (current disks are 23GB). Around the same time I suspect that Sony will release a higher-end camera head with 2/3rd inch CCDs and a higher data recording rate that uses Long GOP compression to achieve a result that is in between HDCAM and HD SR in quality.
In terms of replay decks – I’m predicting that the time will come when non-linear editing programmes will be able to make much better use of the File Access Mode method of transferring data on and off Blue-Ray disks. Around the same stage I expect an XDCAM writer to be released that fits into your computer much like a DVD-ROM unit does currently, with a cost of only a few thousand dollars. When that happens I’d suggest that XDCAM will become a serious delivery format in its own right, and that Digital Betacam machines will gradually become legacy equipment.
