Updated Convergent Designs Flash XDR F.A.Q.

[Jeremiah Patton]

Since we're talking about color, a nice black seems to be the best to me...it would work in terms of color design with most of the cameras that you'd find using it, from the XLH1 to the xdcam units+
Looking forward to more news!

[Mike Schell]

Originally Posted by Jeremiah Patton

Since we're talking about color, a nice black seems to be the best to me...it would work in terms of color design with most of the cameras that you'd find using it, from the XLH1 to the xdcam units+
Looking forward to more news!

Hi Jeremiah-
Thanks for the input. I am at the Broadcast Live show this week in London. The XDR color is a major topic of discussion. We're still weighting in all the recommendations.

BTW, the Canon XL-H1 is our #1 camera for the XDR. We are working on several different mounting options.

Best-
Mike

[John Richard]

FWIW we'd vote for a matte black as well. Glad the H1 is a major target. Your invention will make the H1 and XHG1 long lived beauties...

Awesome lenses, output capabilities (with XDR), size and form factor, price level.

Should help increase Canon's unit sales of these models ... and maybe Canon will then come out with more options due to increased volume of H1 and X1 cams out there. Snowball.

[Carl Ny]

Looking Forward!

[Benjamin Richardson]

Matte Black is the way to go!

Will it be able to be mounted on back or side of an Anton Bauer battery?

[Tommy Schell]

Hi,

I'm looking for Sony XDCAM MXF files to analyze the MXF format for the
upcoming Flash XDR's support of MXF.
I need 720p60, 720p50, 1080p25 clips in XDCAM.
I also need clips of the new Sony 50 Mbit 4:2:2 in 1080i, 1080p and 720p (MXF) (though I wonder if anyone has such clips, as I don't think the camera
is on the market yet).
Does anyone have such clips which I could get a copy of?

Thanks, Tommy Schell
Convergent Design

[Paul Leung]

It would be really great if there will be a downgraded version with only HDMI and 1394 input/output for less than $2000. I am sure that it will sell like crazy. At least I will buy two units. The recorders will able us doing same-day-edit wedding highlight videos.

Too bad that the poll function in this forum is disabled. It would be interesting to see which functionalities most users are willing to pay for in a compact flash recorder.

[Ethan Cooper]

I agree, a HDMI only version is right up my alley as well. Heck, I don't need it to be half the price of the SDI version. A little cheaper would be nice since the industry standard seems to be that you pay more for a piece of gear that has SDI. As it stands currently, those of us with "cheaper" non-SDI gear have to pay more to use this device cause we'd have to buy a HDMI to SDI converter box which would chew through batteries faster as well.
Something tells me we'll see this HDMI only version, it just makes too much sense. Right?

To obtain the faster speeds needed for 10bit data rates you have to set the 4 cards to a raid-0 right? What happens if you have to remove the cards from the unit and reload with fresh cards to keep shooting? How is it that the first raid-0 set of cards doesn't become corrupt or unusable at this point?

[Mike Schell]

Originally Posted by Ethan Cooper

To obtain the faster speeds needed for 10bit data rates you have to set the 4 cards to a raid-0 right? What happens if you have to remove the cards from the unit and reload with fresh cards to keep shooting? How is it that the first raid-0 set of cards doesn't become corrupt or unusable at this point?

Hi Ethan-
When shooting in uncompressed mode you will need to keep all four cards as a set. If you fill up one set of cards, you can then reload a new set and keep shooting. The previously used cards won't loose the data or become corrupt. To playback the captured video you will need to reinsert the 4 cards and put Flash XDR in playback mode. You can then capture the video into an NLE via the HD-SDI output. We might consider a program in the future to allow file based transfer of the uncompressed video, but HD-SDI playback will still be the fastest way to transfer the uncompressed video out of Flash XDR.

[Ethan Cooper]

Originally Posted by Mike Schell

We might consider a program in the future to allow file based transfer of the uncompressed video, but HD-SDI playback will still be the fastest way to transfer the uncompressed video out of Flash XDR.

Mike - thanks for the quick answer. I could really see the benefit of having such a file based transfer workflow since right now we're talking about 17 minutes of record time in uncompressed. Four cards per 17 minutes of record time would add up in a hurry in the field even with a fairly tightly controlled production. I'm guessing that you'd recommend using the MPEG2 based workflows when possible, but the option of uncompressed is hard to pass up. I guess we'll know more when we can see some of these high bitrate MPEG2 files. Too bad I'm not heading to NAB this year. I'd like to see it for myself.
And let me vote again for the HDMI version. Can you vote twice here?

[Mike Schell]

Originally Posted by Paul Leung

It would be really great if there will be a downgraded version with only HDMI and 1394 input/output for less than $2000. I am sure that it will sell like crazy. At least I will buy two units. The recorders will able us doing same-day-edit wedding highlight videos.

Too bad that the poll function in this forum is disabled. It would be interesting to see which functionalities most users are willing to pay for in a compact flash recorder.

Hi Paul-
So are you primarily interested in 4:2:2 color and better image quality or the tapeless workflow? What sort of camera are you using now?

[Chris Hurd]

Originally Posted by Paul Leung

Too bad that the poll function in this forum is disabled.

It's not disabled. I can easily start one if there's enough interest, so if the proposal is made to conduct a poll then I would be happy to consider running one.

[Paul Leung]

Originally Posted by Mike Schell

Hi Paul-
So are you primarily interested in 4:2:2 color and better image quality or the tapeless workflow? What sort of camera are you using now?

I have a Canon XH-A1. My primary interest is the tapeless workflow. As a wedding videographer, my ideal DDR has the following functions:

- 1394 & HDMI input/output
- S-video or composite output
- RCA audio output
- 4 CF slots. Non-raid. Concurrent recording to 2 CF for backup would be great! This way, I won't even need tapes for backup.
- B&W backlit LCD display for menu, clip deletion, storage meter, etc. Color LCD for clip viewing is nice, however, I doubt that it's important to event videographers as we download everything to the PC anyway. I will opt for B&W for lower cost and longer battery life.
- records in avi, mov, mt2, cineform avi (may be)
- pre-recording 5 seconds of footage
- Time-lapse function
- 8-bit/HDV quality is good enough for me
- different power options: AA, 12V, Camcorder batteries, etc.
- good battery life, of course.
- can be mounted between the camera and the tripod.

I am sure that you can sell tonnes of these if you can sell them for less than $2000 per unit. I bet that we will see more camcorders with integrated CF recorder coming out after NAB. However, there are many of us who have invested heavily on older HDV/DV equipment and need third party DDR. There is definitely a big market there.

[Paul Leung]

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

It's not disabled. I can easily start one if there's enough interest, so if the proposal is made to conduct a poll then I would be happy to consider running one.

A poll is certainly great!

[Ethan Cooper]

Originally Posted by Paul Leung

- 8-bit/HDV quality is good enough for me

I'm a event guy too, and while I agree with most of the list Paul made, the point above I have to disagree with. After having used DVCProHD for about 3 years and then switching to HDV when I branched out on my own, I'd give my left arm to have better than HDV quality again. I'm not saying HDV isn't a technological marvel. It's amazing what they can squeeze out of 4:2:0 color space recorded at less than 25Mbps, but it's still lacking a bit. If it wasn't then your product wouldn't have a market now would it?

If I can use your (hopefully) vastly superior 50Mbps 4:2:2 codec over my HDV then I'd do it in a heartbeat. I'll take an image quality bump and the joys of tapeless any day of the week.
Thing is, once I add a $4000 box to my FX7 then I'd be dangerously close to the price range of the EX1 but with a smaller sensor that is worse in low light situations. At that point I might be better served going after the EX1. It would be a tough call.

I don't know if Paul had it in his list, but the ability to power this thing off smaller camcorder batteries would be nice too. It would definitely decrease the bulk a bit.