CineForm HDMI Recorder Concept Posted

[Hernan Vilchez]

Originally Posted by James Huenergardt

I think $2,000 for what they are offering is a deal.
Even if it doesn't come with Prospect. If it did, it would be a STEAL!

Just my 2-cents.

Please guys dont ask to pay more... not all the world lives in the USA... here in Europe things change, it costs everything almost 40% more... lets dont talk about SouthAmerica or Africa

And let CIneform support a little bit the poor independent filmmakers... we re a lot and good prices make us buy

Just my 2 euros...

[Stephen Armour]

Here's the new batteries that should power it too:

http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2007_12/pr1101.htm

They start shipping in March, 2008

[Matt Moses]

$999.00 and I am in!

As a consumer, that price point makes the most sense for me..... although I wonder if it could be done profitably for Cineform? I really like the pricing on their encoder apps. Made me an adopter.

$2k or $1999.00 puts it as another "Gee, I wish I had one of those" extras.

I shoot non pro stuff, but I want it to look totally pro... so I am eating the cost of cam and accessories just to have that luxury... and another $2k... it will always be a luxury.

[Carl Middleton]

Originally Posted by Matt Moses

I shoot non pro stuff, but I want it to look totally pro...

Really, that's what it comes down to. The pricing of the parts, which I do not know, is immaterial. This gadget will dramatically increase the quality you can achieve using a small consumer/prosumer camera. The price point is well under any other 'gadget' that can make that much of a drastic improvment on your quality, except for maybe lighting gear if you're currently using lamps from around the house. :)

Carl

[Michael Young]

Originally Posted by James Huenergardt

I think $2,000 for what they are offering is a deal.

Look at the HVR-DR60, it's almost $1,500 and all it does is record highly compressed DV/HDV.

For a device that allows you to record visually lossless video at 10-bits 4:2:2 for under $2,000 is AMAZING. Especially something that portable.

Even if it doesn't come with Prospect. If it did, it would be a STEAL!

Just my 2-cents.

LOL, you are comparing the most over priced HDD to justify the price? Personally I also do think the magic number for this device is 1K, but since companies always over charge, 1500 is reasonably too much. 2K is stretching.

At 2K, you start going out of the group of independent film makers into the “big” professional levels, but there they already have powerful systems to handle the larger sizes of professional media. I have worked on many movie productions and something like this would have a difficult time finding its place, at least in the beginning.

I say “big” because most of us here are professional, but do not always have professional budgets. We are talking about HDMI. Why shoot with a RED and only record HDMI which is less than 2k and really less than 4k? Proxies? Red Alert auto makes them! I have played with it, and when FCP supports RED, this proxy idea will be silly.

Let this be what it is, an HDMI recorder that makes great HD recordings, but more than likely targets the independent/documentary crowd who would benefit the most (As well as some others that can see the value in HD like the TV crowd, not the big movie maker crowd.) This is where 2k starts to hurt.

Also, without XLR ports, CineForm is really not convincing the biased pro crowd that the devices shortcoming is acceptable or that on camera audio is good, so you are back to the prosumer or low level pro. I believe that they would consider this too much. Just looking at how many people here in this thread are shocked at the price/value of the device.

Sure you can get an AJA IO HD at 3K, but look at what you get for 1/3 more. (Comparing the overall value, not if 1K is to a lot of money.)

I am interested in the product (even with the CineFrom codec), but the price is the biggest pain.
M

[Alex Raskin]

HDMI version priced between $900 and $1200 would make me a buyer.

[David Newman]

Before you get your hopes up, there are hard costs to consider. Once we ship many thousands of units, prices may come down, but we do require far more hardware than the equivalent Firewire only DDR, which is only a battery operated disk controller. We are adding bidirectional compression, pulldown filtering, image re-orientation, field upgradable, preview and shot review screen, and a compression format more flexible and higher quality than any previous offering. So we are not going to be cheaper than a Sony HVR-DR60, that market has been addressed $1500, and we intended to much more, and much more than an AJA Io HD, as we trying to get away from tethered only capture, which CineForm already does very well.

[Steven Thomas]

David, I'm really looking forward to these portable Cineform recorders.

My understanding is that Cineform plans on releasing an HDMI version before offering an SDI version. Does this still stand as true?

If so, would it be possible to add a +5V tap to have existing BM HDLINK users use the SDI>HDMI adaptors? I'm not sure of the HDLINK current demands, but I'm a bit concerned since it does get warm.

This would really make one heck of a portable Cineform soultion for us Sony PMW-EX1 users! Will unit will be able to offer pulldown off the 1080 60i stream?
So will using the SDI>HDLINK>HDMI, will I be able to capture to the portable Cineform recorder 1920x1080 23.976P?

[Michael Young]

Most would agree that Sony is much more expensive because of Sony's name. So comparing prices with Sony is silly.

Focus which makes a "similar" product is 800 bucks. Sure it goes up to 1800 bucks by only increasing the HDD. Since you are not including that (Smartly) then there is no reason for that silly market mentality. Like a 100GB HDD cost 1k! Geez

So I can understand with all "extra hardware" you can ask 1500, even though that is high.

However, if it at least had professional audio in, like XLRs, then it would be acceptable to me.

I am confused by this statement on your website: "even Sony doesn't use the FW port on their hard disk recorder (HVR-DR60) for START/STOP control." So how is Sony doing start and stop? I only have a firewire port connected to my DR60 and my camera and start and stop works great through the firewire. (Same as my Firestore.) It would make great sense for your device to start and stop in the same fashion. Otherwise it would be a drastic shortcoming. Imagine having to handhold your camera working the zoom and focus and use your third surgically attached third hand to start and stop.

P.S. The new drawing is way better! (See I am not all hardball!)
M

[Richard Leadbetter]

Considering the technology being mooted here, $2,000 is the bargain of the decade - I'm really struggling to see the resistance here to that price point. If you don't want the best, there are cheaper alternatives. Comparisons with Sony pricing aren't relevant - entirely different technologies plus with all the good will in the world, one small California-based company isn't going to have the low raw costs of one of the world's largest CE manufacturers.

With regards the earlier comment about things costing 40 per cent more in Europe, the phenomenally weak value of the $USD makes this even more of a bargain. Being a computer-style device, the only duties you are likely to attract will be VAT (mileage may vary depending on where in Europe you live).

[Bill Ravens]

You can count me in at $2K. It is a bargain. It's amazing Cineform can sell even at that price. Some competitors(which shall remain anonymous) want $5k for their unit.

Glad to read that Cineform has a sense of NRE costs. Don't see how a business can be profitable without understanding that.

[James Huenergardt]

"At 2K, you start going out of the group of independent film makers into the “big” professional levels..."

As an independent "pro" (I charge for my services) I would NOT consider myself BIG as I can't afford a RED camera or a Sony F900. Those are BIG items to me.

I just dropped some change for a new Sony EX1 and 2 16gig SxS cards and would rather have spent $2,000 on the Cineform box which would have given me better footage, but alas, it's not out yet.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think of myself as a 'BIG' pro with a BIG budget.

We can't expect Cineform to give these things away. There are hard costs involved in the development and they have to make it work for their bottom line.

Anytime you miniaturize something, it's not going to be cheap.

I can't wait to place my order.

[Marty Baggen]

Amortizing those NRE costs is sort of a balancing act based on profit and number of units. Smaller profit would presumably increase units sold. If Cineform manages to license their product for high end hometheatre HD recording, then you could see NRE become a microscopic percentage.

It's a huge undertaking when a company like Cineform has to cater to such a niche' market (us), but the market is never wrong. If Cineform MSRP ends up being "too high", then you'd probably see other value bundled with it, or a price reduction.

And so far as being "big"... do I qualify as a "big" producer when I purchase my $2,000th dollar on tape? It's innovations like this that allow small fry like me to compete with the bigger houses.... I love it.

The value of this new device will be tangible when we see those unMPEG'd images... which by the way, does anyone know if there have been any charts shot comparing the pre and post MPEG output from a Sony Z1 or other HDV unit?

[E.J. Sadler]

Here are the things I would like to see -

1 - XLRs over RCAs for all the reasons mentioned before.

2 - DC input voltage range that will be able to take a wide range of voltage, at least 15V, but ideally up to 30V

3 - HD-SDI.

I think the market niche you're looking at is a lot smaller than you think it is. I'm betting you're going to hear a lot of 'If it was was $600 maybe, but $2k?! That's more than my camera!'. Although I know there are a lot of serious indies that need to use HDMI cameras for budget reasons, I think there are just as many indies using HD-SDI(EX-1/XL-H1) cameras.

I think the other reason to roll out SDI is to offer this unit as a media replacement for other cameras. CF cards are practically free compared to SxS and P2 cards, and the price gap is only going to get larger in the next year. The unit would pay for itself with saved media cost alone, even without any improvement in the codec. I would own one of these units to go tapeless when shooting a Varicam, or to be able to leave the studio with enough CF media to not have to download/format P2 cards during the day. The media security of not re-using the P2 card in the field would be worth the price alone.

With SDI you'd sell one of these to every steadicam op in the world, just so they could have personal reel material.

I think the pro-sumer market and professional media replacement market will be much bigger than targeting the HDMI market. Besides, The HV20 guys can still add a HDMI->HD-SDI converter and still be in the game for cheap.

[Zack Birlew]

You know, I thought going with an HDMI-to-HD-SDI converter would work too but the only one I've been able to find needs to be plugged into a power outlet. If someone could point to one that doesn't need to be plugged in, then I'd be with a lot of you on an HD-SDI version first.

Still, as I've said before somewhere around in here, I think the smartest thing to do is make different versions of the recorder instead of making an all-in-one or one or the other.