Convergent Designs Flash XDR

[Mike Schell]

Originally Posted by David Heath

I'd agree with all that. Trouble is, "best solution" can take on different meanings depending which side you look at a puzzle from! :-)

I suspect what you are advocating is the most practical solution, given available hardware at a realistic price. That said, the "ideal" (from the users side!) would be for the XDR to code directly to whatever the NLE is most happy with - ProRes or whatever - and then allow download and ready to edit at a fraction of real time, rather than 2-3x. But presumably the chips simply do not exist (yet) to do that?

Hi David-
You have to make a lot of trade-offs when designing a portable, low-power, high-quality HD recorder. Yes, it is possible to capture into an I-Frame CODEC such as ProRes, Cineform, or DNxHD but we would take a big hit on power consumption and the size of the box.

We can likely get closer by striping the 160 Mbps I-Frame across multiple cards. There is considerable merit to this idea, since the Transcend 32 GB card is $150, while high performance 32 GB cards are in the $400 to $500 range.

I-Frame only MPEG2 at 160 Mbps should be very close to ProRes in quality and playback performance.

[Stefan Sargent]

Originally Posted by Mike Schell

Hi Stefan-
Very cool idea! Yes, this is certainly possible, but would require some additional development work. We could go one of two routes: 1) Limit the playback to HD-SDI output only (no file transfer) or 2) Develop a program to stitch the files back together during transfer off the CF card.

Let me discuss with our engineers. But I do like the idea of using cheap 32GB CF cards to get better than HDCAM quality video. Excellent suggestion.

Hi Mike,

Here's a BLUE SKY THINKING question ... forgive my ad agency background.

Say I was shooting 3D Stereoscopic with two cameras, is there a way to multiplex both HD SDI signals into one - record at say 100 Mbps - and later, on playback, separate into two discrete 50 Mbps signals?

S

[Mike Schell]

Originally Posted by Stefan Sargent

Hi Mike,

Here's a BLUE SKY THINKING question ... forgive my ad agency background.

Say I was shooting 3D Stereoscopic with two cameras, is there a way to multiplex both HD SDI signals into one - record at say 100 Mbps - and later, on playback, separate into two discrete 50 Mbps signals?

S

Hi Stefan-
Any great idea, but no this is not technically possible. You can lock two of our boxes together and do the 3D captures.

[Stefan Sargent]

Originally Posted by Mike Schell

Hi Stefan-
Any great idea, but no this is not technically possible. You can lock two of our boxes together and do the 3D captures.

Do I get a discount?

S

[Peter Moretti]

Originally Posted by Mike Schell

Hi David-
You have to make a lot of trade-offs when designing a portable, low-power, high-quality HD recorder. Yes, it is possible to capture into an I-Frame CODEC such as ProRes, Cineform, or DNxHD but we would take a big hit on power consumption and the size of the box.

We can likely get closer by striping the 160 Mbps I-Frame across multiple cards. There is considerable merit to this idea, since the Transcend 32 GB card is $150, while high performance 32 GB cards are in the $400 to $500 range.

I-Frame only MPEG2 at 160 Mbps should be very close to ProRes in quality and playback performance.

Mike, I don't envy your position of offering an awesome product... only to be asked for MORE, LOL.

That said, the merit of being able to choose DNxHD, ProRes or Cineform is that the transcoding step for many would be eliminated. Vegas users would have Cineform, Avid users DNxHD and Apple users ProRes right out of the recorder.

But in addition to power and size issues, you'd now have to support three additional codecs with different quality settings and intermittent upgrade releases. That sounds like a RPITA.

[Mike Schell]

Originally Posted by Peter Moretti

Mike, I don't envy your position of offering an awesome product... only to be asked for MORE, LOL.

That said, the merit of being able to choose DNxHD, ProRes or Cineform is that the transcoding step for many would be eliminated. Vegas users would have Cineform, Avid users DNxHD and Apple users ProRes right out of the recorder.

But in addition to power and size issues, you'd now have to support three additional codecs with different quality settings and intermittent upgrade releases. That sounds like a RPITA.

Hi Peter-
I couldn't agree more. We would also never get this product out of engineering. We have to make compromises to meet size, weight, power and cost constraints.

Transcoding is always a possibility. We know it's not ideal, but until the world settles on one CODEC (which will never happen), this will always be a fact of life.

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Mike,

Any news on the EX1 mounting option (which many are interested in), and the PAGlock mounting option (which I am personally interested in)?

Also, any details on delivery date to those having preordered?

[Mike Schell]

Originally Posted by Piotr Wozniacki

Mike,

Any news on the EX1 mounting option (which many are interested in), and the PAGlock mounting option (which I am personally interested in)?

Also, any details on delivery date to those having preordered?

Hi Piotr-
We are looking at a couple of options for the EX1 and batteries, including mounting with the parallel rods found on some high-end cameras. But, to be honest, we'll be busy for another week or so working on the final details of the basic box.

We're doing a pre-production board build next week. The cabinet and rubber overmold are also due next week. We hope to go into production as soon as this proto is tested.

I promise to keep you posted.

[Stefan Sargent]

Congrats Mike

You've made the front cover of NAB Show Special DV Magazine!

http://www.dv.com/news/news_item.php...leId=196603897

S

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Peter Moretti

Mike, I don't envy your position of offering an awesome product... only to be asked for MORE, LOL.

That said, the merit of being able to choose DNxHD, ProRes or Cineform is that the transcoding step for many would be eliminated.

Ah Peter, but if more could be given, a desirable product becomes irresistable, and even more are sold..... :-) But in all seriousness, I do understand the constraints.

Different users will have different needs, and those of long term projects will be different from those of fast turn around. But for the latter, a potential appeal of solid state could be *ZERO* download time - shoot, insert into reader(s) and immediately edit directly off the card(s), consolidating the edit at the end. It's the cheapness of CF and it's readers relative to other solid state memory that makes such a workflow more viable.

[Mike Schell]

Originally Posted by Stefan Sargent

Congrats Mike

You've made the front cover of NAB Show Special DV Magazine!

http://www.dv.com/news/news_item.php...leId=196603897

S

Hi Stefan-
Excellent! That's better than being on the cover of the "Rolling Stones".

[Mike Schell]

Originally Posted by David Heath

Ah Peter, but if more could be given, a desirable product becomes irresistable, and even more are sold..... :-) But in all seriousness, I do understand the constraints.

Different users will have different needs, and those of long term projects will be different from those of fast turn around. But for the latter, a potential appeal of solid state could be *ZERO* download time - shoot, insert into reader(s) and immediately edit directly off the card(s), consolidating the edit at the end. It's the cheapness of CF and it's readers relative to other solid state memory that makes such a workflow more viable.

Hi David-
Agreed! If you are under a time-crunch, then editing in the native MPEG2 format is always an option. When ever increasing CPU power, this becomes a more reasonable option.

Using the Transcend 32GB card and shooting at 50 Mbps, your download speed on a Firewire-800 reader is 6X real time (ie 60 minutes of footage can be transferred in 10 minutes).

We had great results with th stackable Lexar Firewire-800 reader yesterday. Each card shows up as a separate drive on the desktop. You can perform an unattended transfer from up to four cards, by stacking four of these readers.

So our new "tape-deck" is four stacked Firewire-800 readers, which weight in total less than 1 lb, require no external power (other than the Fire-Wire bus), takes up less space than an external hard-drive, holds 4.5 hours of footage (at 50 Mbps), transfers video at 6X real-time, has essentially zero drop-outs or time-code breaks, and costs $250. Welcome to the world of solid-state recording on Compact Flash!

[Mike Schell]

Originally Posted by Mike Schell

Hi Stefan-
Excellent! That's better than being on the cover of the "Rolling Stones".

Sorry, I meant "Rolling Stone" as in the magazine, not the group.

[Stefan Sargent]

Originally Posted by Mike Schell

We had great results with th stackable Lexar Firewire-800 reader yesterday. .... and costs $250. Welcome to the world of solid-state recording on Compact Flash!

Calumet # IM20902
$69.99 - $35.00 Rebate
$34.99 Your final price after mail-in rebate

4 x 35 = $140 (not $250 - you was robbed)

Hurry offer ends this month
http://www.calumetphoto.com/pdfs/Lex...ebateApr08.pdf

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Mike Schell

If you are under a time-crunch, then editing in the native MPEG2 format is always an option.

Yes, agreed.

Using the Transcend 32GB card and shooting at 50 Mbps, your download speed on a Firewire-800 reader is 6X real time (ie 60 minutes of footage can be transferred in 10 minutes).

So our new "tape-deck" is four stacked Firewire-800 readers, ......... Welcome to the world of solid-state recording on Compact Flash!

But for real rush jobs you don't even need that 10 minute download. As example, the Firestore can be used for acquisition, then plugged in to an NLE as an external harddrive and editing start immediately - no download time at all. Useful under some circumstances, though it means it can't then be used for anything else until the edit is over, and requires constant powering.

Using your "tape deck" should enable the same "instant edit" capability but without powering issues, and the XDR can still be used for other filming - assuming enough CF cards.