Finally, a great device for the indie filmmaker.

Focus Enhancements, Rosendahl, and Cineform have joined forces to produce a portable HDV recorder.

It accepts Component out from FX1/Z1 for uncompressed video.

It also features high quality XLR mic preamps with phantom power.

The device multiplexes both video and audio into Cineform's Aspect HD file at "large" setting. The file can be later transferred to a PC for editing via either Firewire or USB 2.0 (many times faster than real time.)

Thus, four issues are resolved:

1. Capturing HDV signal BEFORE mpeg compression by using cam's analog Component out. Helps eliminate all compression artifacts, espicially important for greenscreen and fast-moving scenes. Just plug Z1's Component plugs into the device's HD component In.

2. Professional quality audio no longer requires a double-system and later re-synching in post - just plug a boom mic into the device's XLR in. Line audio input is also accepted.

3. Long conversion times from m2t to avi are not a problem anymore - the device records on its internal HDD in Cineform Aspect HD format on-the-fly. After the shoot, simply drop the files onto your desktop HDD array for editing in PPro.

4. No longer do you have to worry about changing tapes or running out of the firewire cable's length - the device is worn on the belt, and its HDD and battery capacity is enough for 3-hr. continuous recording.

Did I tell you it sells for under $1,000?

...OK, time to wake up. There's no such device on the market. Can someone tell me why not?

You suck. ;o)

This would be worth well over $1,000, especially if it worked with the FX-1.

*sigh*

...OK, time to wake up. There's no such device on the market.
Heartbreaker!

***double post erased***

http://www.cineform.com/products/WafianHR1.htm?

It's luggable rather than portable, and HD-SDI rather than component, but it seems close to what you're after, isn't it?

YOU "LITTERALLY" SUCK!

You had me going there!!!

Dylan, at $15,000 it is not in my league. Plus, it records Prospect HD whereas I need Aspect HD. Plus, it's not portable - so then why not go for a PC with Decklink - it'll be 4 times cheaper than Wafian.

Alex, then you're asking the impossible, or the incredibly unlikely.

You want something, more complex, with more features, more highly engineered (i.e smaller) and cheaper.

Think economies of scale, if EVERYONE who owned an FX1, Z1 and HD100 bought such a device then maybe they could afford to make it for under $1000.

As it is you're asking for an HD A/D converter, a Cineform enabled compression circuit, and intelligent disc set up, (with some kind of on board OS) plus audio circuitry w/ phantom power, then the processor to mux it, how long are the batteries going to last?

Aja charge $1800 for a capture card that can handle Component HD in, Focus Enhancements another 2 grand for a souped up HD with a firewire socket in the side. Plus it'll need a hell of a RAM buffer to avoid skipping problems aty Cineform datarates.

And of course it's useless to anyone editing on Avid or FCP (a BIG big market you're missing out there).

I state what is needed to me, as indie filmmaker, and it seems to resonate with many other fellow HDVers - look at the comments ;)

Then let manufacturers think about economies of scale and alike.

Please note that such device is currently not available at all, never mind the price point - and it's a travesty.

The Wafian box does a lot more for it price point then the above suggests (including component analog capture.) People often suggest you can build their own for less, but currently you can't. The only less expensive solution is a Prospect HD system with a Xena LH card, which will be close to $10K self-configured, and will not have all the all flexibility the Wafian HR-1 adds to on-set acquistion. So today the HR-1 is the least expensive 10-bit full HD aquistion system that can capture a reasonable length of time.

That all said an 8-bit product aimed for the HDV market sounds very nice, what is missing is a few hundred dollar component sampler than could run off a bus like ExpressCard, then everything could fit into place. So find that sampler and I would consider a product like you describe above.

The Wafian box does a lot more for it price point then the above suggests (including component analog capture.) People often suggest you can build their own for less, but currently you can't. The only less expensive solution is a Prospect HD system with a Xena LH card, which will be close to $10K self-configured, and will not have all the all flexibility the Wafian HR-1 adds to on-set acquistion.

I know we've touched on this before, but what exactly does Wafian do which couldn't be done using Prospect HD Ingest ($3500), a component capture card ($500-1500), and about $2-3K worth of computer parts? The hard drives in the base model would cost about $600, a decent dual-core processor is around $300-400, and so on. Until the Wafian is fully portable in a form which can be worn by a camera operator, I don't see what it offers compared to a "DIY" solution -- which would also have the advantage of being able to serve as a complete editing workstation.

The AJA Xena LH is about $1700, not $500-$1500, no other card will work for component capture into Prospect HD. Cutting corners your completed system is still $9k (a great deal BTW.) The capture software for Prospect HD is integrated into Premiere, so it isn't ideal for on-set work (although many have used in for that.) The Wafian interface is setup of on-set capture and review, instant HD digital dailies. This is highly valued for moderate budget projects. There are many custom features currently in or planned for the HR-1, so much so I'm not keeping up. :)

I found the Xena LH on Froogle starting at $1519. Two 500 GB SATA drives is just over $600 (call it $625), and the rest of the components needed to build a decent editing computer start at around $1500 or so these days. Prospect HD is $3500, Premiere Pro 2.0 is $850 -- or $1200 with the Studio bundle. So "cutting corners" I can build a Prospect HD ingest workstation with editing software for around $8K on up, compared to $15K for the Wafian plus another $3K or so for an editing computer. Not that the Wafian isn't probably a fine product, but if I can build two ingest/edit workstations for the same price that's a tough sell.

So when can I expect your two Prospect HD orders? ;)

Ha, ya got me there! I'm not ready for something like this yet, but I like to understand what the current options are.

:-)

i think it must be possible if people who create such devices stop to think about video.
after all a component signal is made of 3 signals, so why not use 3 harddisks with 3 cheaps digitizer that delivers a 10 bit signal encoded to serial signal.
after all SATA is serial too , so it should be easy to clock 1920x1080x10 bits
(about 20mbit) compressed by some IT chip (should go well under 15mbit).
you put 3 converter like this into a box, no need for complex codec or OS, you just write raw bits to disk, and get them out the same way.
If you need to store some info about the clip, just add some memory (like a 4mb compact flash), so you get time/date/start/stop/length/any other parameter you like.
people in the telecom world excel at lossless compression of binary streams and dozen of chip exists , capable of handling gigabit of bandwith.
a 10 bit analog/digital converter is not uncommon either.
the cost of all of this hardware should probably not exceed 800$.

Forgetting uncompressed and looking at tapeless storage options. The thought had crossed my mind that if any of these kind of devices shipped with a Firewire port, you could use HDV Rack on this thing and with 800x480 resolution it could serve as your viewfinder as well since they definately seem small enough to mount on a camera. That might make Focus drop the prices on their firestore drives. If you have patience, the next 2-3 years are going to be pretty exciting for indie video/film production

http://news.zdnet.com/2300-9584_22-6047702-1.html

John, Toshiba makes a very small "laptop" PC - size of a small pocketbook. Very lightweight.

It is available *now*.

Aside from smallish keypad buttons and small screen (in absolute dimensions), it can easily be camera-mounted to capture HDV over firewire. $1600 street, last I checked.

And then of course we have Firestrore and Citidisk:

http://www.shining.com/products/totalsolution/citidisk_hdv/

But we need not just m2t, but quality mic inputs and real-time avi Cineform Aspect HD capture.

That's if we forget about green screen work and stay with cam's MPEG compressed output over firewire.

What are the software tools like at 'gaining' back the extra data that would have been in the uncompressed stream, getting rid of artifacts and boosting to 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 like the Nattress tools?

----------------------
www.inasinglemoment.com - Our premiere feature film

OK, so in the end I decided to forego mobility and ability to record in Aspect HD format, in favor of clean uncompressed video that allows easy greenscreen matte pull.

I built such system, see results and photo comparisons on my site: www.PrimeHD.com

Do you have a Varicam in NY/NNJ area? Please let me know - we may be able to do a uncompressed capture test. Should look excellent (but I'd rather see it in practice that theorize :)

Hi
Someone tell me please, can Wafian capture the pre-compression analog feed from Pal's FX1 camera in (1440x1080) 25i mode? Is this possible?

Technically it should be able to, as it can within Prospect HD Ingest, however Wafian hasn't listed that mode. Give them a call or email. www.wafian.com

Has anyone gotten a preview on this? Does it move us further along to a cost effective solution? especially the M version with hdmi support as this becomes more widespread???

Sharyn


Convergent Design


(Colorado Springs, CO, Sep.1, 2006) Convergent Design announces today two affordable products aimed at HDV, DV and AVCHD conversion to HD/SD-SDI. The first product, HD-Connect SI (derived from the successful HD-Connect LE) converts 1394 (HDV) stream and RS-422 deck-control inputs to HD/SD-SDI stream and 1394 deck-control outputs. The second converter, HD-Connect MI, retains the deck-control conversion and represents an entirely new class of stream conversion: HDMI to HD/SD-SDI.

HD-Connect SI, the HDV to HD/SD-SDI converter, works with all HDV devices from Sony, JVC and Canon, including 1080i24F and 720p24 formats. This powerful box decodes the compressed HDV stream (sent over 1394) and converts it to HD/SD-SDI. HD-Connect MI, on the other hand, takes the uncompressed HD/SD 4:2:2 video (and stereo audio) from HDMI, adds the time code from a 1394 connection, and multiplexes all this data into an HD/SD-SDI stream.

HD-Connect MI, the HDMI to HD/SD-SDI converter, operates with the JVC BR-HD50 and Sony HVR-M25U deck as well as the Sony HDR-HC3 HDV consumer camcorder and the upcoming AVCHD camcorders (with HDMI output). By making use of the decoding capability already inside the deck or camcorder, this small and versatile box can support HDV, DV and AVCHD formats.

HD-Connect MI users can enjoy significant cost savings, not only in the initial purchase of the box, but also by eliminating the need to purchase additional decks and converters. For example, when connected to the Sony M25U deck, users can play back DV tapes as well as 1080i and 720p tapes (except 1080i24F and 720p24). Conversely, using Firewire capture methods (Native HDV editing), users are forced to purchase a second deck (to support JVC tapes), as 720p HDV will not stream out the Firewire port of a 1080i deck. Users that need both 1080i and 720p support can potentially save 3x the cost of the HD-Connect MI box.

Both products feature RS-422 to 1394 deck control translation which has been extensively tested on Avid, Final Cut Pro, Premiere, Quantel and Media100 systems. This deck control translation allows offline / online batch capture to an NLE. Likewise, both converters provide 1080i ↔ 720p cross conversion and downscale to SD in anamorphic, letterbox or edge-crop modes.

HDV and AVCHD editors now have affordable tools to convert long-GOP compressed formats into easily editable I-Frame-based CODECs such as DVCProHD and DNxHD. These real-time conversions can eliminate all the headaches and long render times associated with native-format editing. Users no longer need to change their workflow: They just need to upgrade their connection. Additionally, tape dubs from HDV, DV or AVCHD to HDCAM, DVCProHD or DigiBeta entail only a single coax connection via the HD/SD-SDI cable that carries video, audio and time-code.

Both HD-Connect SI and HD-Connect MI carry an MSRP of $995 (USD). The SI will ship in September and the MI in October. You can see both products at the Convergent Design booth at IBC (Stand 7.703) or visit www.convergent-design.com

Sharyn,

That solution doesn't bypass the MPEG compression in camera, it useful for those who want to ingest with HDSDI from HDV, but there is no quality gained. The thread is discussing analog capture as that output (when capturing live) is pre-compression, elevating the camera's output quality.

HI David
At first that is what I THOUGHT also, but if you read the brochure carefully on the MI on their site there is an interesting feature, where it can take the HDMI output uncompressed from the camcorder and convert this to HD SDI.
All this of course assumes that the HDMI output can come before the information is compressed to be written to the tape in the camcorder.

Other alternative might be the hd10ad
http://www.computermodules.com/pdf/hd10ad.pdf


Sharyn

Sharyn, the only uncompressed output of Sony Z1U is analog component out.

So then would the AJA HD10ava work?

My thinking was that Possibly by moving the analog to HD SDI out of the pc/notebook, it might be possible to get a more portable system that would just be digital vs using an analog capture card. Maybe we are back to wanting pci docking stations ;-) with HD SDI cards

As crazy as it sounds someone could probably build a HD sdi to SATA interface, and get the speed and the connection.
Sharyn

Someone tell me please, can Wafian capture the pre-compression analog feed from Pal's FX1 camera in (1440x1080) 25i mode? Is this possible?

Hi Anton -

Yes, the Wafian HR-1 can record 1080 25i from the FX1's component feed.

Jeff