HyperDeck Shuttle from Blackmagic Design

[Daniel Weber]

I looked at this device at NAB this week and it is impressive. It will not work with any of the Canon HD-DSLR's because of the lack of a clean signal coming out via HDMI. I believe that it could be used on the Panasonic GH2. I see the real market for the Hyperdrive being Sony EX1's and EX3's or other smaller chip cameras that have SDI out.

Impressive device.

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Felix van Oost

At first glance the Hyperdeck Shuttle was what I've been waiting for and more, but there do seem to be some issues with it. Although it's only $345, you have to factor in the cost of an SSD (a 256GB SSD will give you around 35 mins of recording time and cost upwards of $400)

By my reckoning that makes it only a little cheaper to run than a camera using Panasonic P2 cards the price of which everyone seems to bitch about:-)

[Nigel Barker]

An impressive device at a good price but expensive to run as a 256GB SSD is only good for recording around 30 minutes of video.

[Andrew Allsbury]

If you shoot weddings/events, should this be your weapon of choice? Probably not. But from a commercial production and advertising perspective I can tell you this thing is a godsend...as long as it functions as advertised.

[Thomas Smet]

Personally I'm a bit disappointed with the BW thunderbolt device. It looks very nice but a bit pricey compared to other desktop based capture devices. Not everybody needs SDI and other fancy formats such as 3D. I was really hoping they would just make an Intensity Shuttle version with Thunderbolt instead of USB3. Just a basic HDMI device for a low cost.

Oh well, I'm kind of glad I bought a 17 MBP recently. Now at least I can consider getting a Matrox MXO2mini that uses the express card slot. It costs bit more then an Intensity device but much cheaper then $1000.00. I guess this way I can really free up the Thunderbolt port for storage.

[Caleb Reynolds]

So someone help me out...

We have a panasonic with P2 cards...unless the cost of cards comes down ALOT, this may be worth a purchase for us. Right

Yes, An E series 64gig P2 card is $500-$600

and this is $345 + $229.00 (Corsair 120gig SSD from Newegg)

This is a WAY better deal!

[Paul Cascio]

Does it only work with SSD? Are regular hard disks not fast enough?

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Caleb Reynolds

So someone help me out...

We have a panasonic with P2 cards...unless the cost of cards comes down ALOT, this may be worth a purchase for us. Right

Yes, An E series 64gig P2 card is $500-$600

and this is $345 + $229.00 (Corsair 120gig SSD from Newegg)

This is a WAY better deal!

That 120GB SSD will only record about 15 minutes of uncompressed video which is a less than one quarter of the capacity of the 64GB P2 card. A 512MB SSD that will record for over an hour runs out well over $1000. It turns out that P2 cards aren't that expensive after all:-)

[Caleb Reynolds]

apparently I don't understand how an SSD would store less than a P2 card. boo

[Nick Hiltgen]

whats being written on the p2 card is compressed, so more footage can be written to it. the blackmagic does not compress the footage so less can be written to the same amount of storage.

[Ben Denham]

Spot on Nigel, and thanks for tracking down that info (I was trying to work it out yesterday). The fact that it only records uncompressed really makes this device a strange little beast. Perhaps it helps to keep the price down because the thing doesn't have to do any encoding. But until SDD (and other storage for that matter) comes down in price it seems to me to be a niche product with a mass market price-tag.

On the other hand this could be a really smart play by Black Magic in the near future. Once we get a clean HDMI out from HDSLRs this device could be great for short narrative work. But for documentary or longer form stuff it seems like overkill. Also I think for most uses I would actually want to transcode this uncompressed file to a high quality intermediate (prores or cineform), to help make the media a little more managable.

[Sanjin Svajger]

P2 cards are a great reliable media! I can't seem to bring my self around to trusting SD cards...

[Thomas Smet]

DVCPROHD which is typically recorded on P2 cards takes about a little over 12 MB/S. It is actually highly compressed video. Not compressed as much as HDV or AVCHD but still highly compressed.

Uncompressed takes 120 MB/S for 8 bit video. That is 10x larger.

Typically in the past if somebody wanted to record live uncompressed they would have to be tied to a desktop computer with a HD-SDI capture card. Eventually we had portable capture devices but these recorded other compressed formats such as mpeg2, prores422 or DVCPROHD. This helped a lot but some people still prefer the level of quality of uncompressed video. It is no different then with desktop live capture when people had the choice between capturing uncompressed or capturing to a lesser format. Some people had to use uncompressed.

Now BW has a way to capture uncompressed in the field without the need of a computer. This is huge but it isn't for everybody. It is for those who need uncompressed and nothing less. Now personally I find Prores422 or equal formats more then good enough for almost everything. For for me this new BM device is a waste since I really don't need uncompressed.

Think of it like on the PC side BM users typically have two choices to capture to. Their own mjpeg format and uncompressed. For many people the mjpeg format is great and beats the pants off of native camera formats. To some however the quality is not as good as it could be. Any form of compression takes something away from an uncompressed source. That how it is recorded at a much smaller size. Something must be thrown out. Some compression formats do better then others.

[Steve Maller]

This is something that Canon (and others) may or may not choose to address. An example of how Canon feel about this can be found in their new-ish like of pro camcorders. Their XF100 and XF300 (approximately $3000 and $6500) models are available in an '05' version (XF105 and XF305) which primarily add uncompressed output, and add $1000 to the price tag. If this was an option for the DSLRs, I think some folks (myself included) would pay for it. But from what I hear, Canon internally have had a bit of an issue with the pro video side of the house at war with the DSLR side of the house, which might explain the current appearance of two completely different sets of technologies, hardware and product directions.

I am hopeful someday for a "best of both worlds" solution because once we have a DSLR with the flexibility of a 5D Mark II and the level of control of the XF305, that is going to be one hell of a rig. That's pretty much what RED wants to do with Scarlet, but who knows if that'll ever happen.

[Jon Fairhurst]

Originally Posted by Sanjin Svajger

P2 cards are a great reliable media! I can't seem to bring my self around to trusting SD cards...

Hoodman showed new ruggedized SD cards at NAB. They're potted and include a steel plate.