CSI: Colorspace ICON - portable HD-SDI field recorder

[Adam Burtle]

We've been talking a bit in various threads on DVinfo, but for anyone who missed those threads, or the original press release about the ICON recorder.. well, click the links, haha.

To give a brief synopsis, and maybe save you some reading, Colorspace is producing a highly portable field recorder designed to live "on-board" a camera and improve its recording capability. Offering acquisition over HD-SDI, the ICON will allow much higher quality recording on "indie" cameras such as the Canon XL-H1 and JVC GY-HD250, as well as the Sony F900, Panasonic Varicam, etc.

Recording is accomplished to removable mediapacks that can be purchased in either harddisk or solidstate flavors. The recorder is battery powered, and recorder + media pack + battery can be easily held in one hand. This portability/weight means it can live on the back of the camera, in a backpack, on a steadicam sled, on a crane/jib, etc.

We're specifically looking to offer two tiers of options. First is a completely uncompressed recorder targeted at the digital cinema industry (Viper, F950, etc), and a complete package will come in around $30k. Second is a high bitrate compressed recorder, targeted at the indie cinema industry (XL-H1, HD250, etc), and a package will come in around (or hopefully, under) $10k.

If you guys have any questions, feel free to reply directly here.

[Zack Birlew]

Awesome for those who have compatible cameras already. I'd like to see more cameras come with HD-SDI to take advantage and drive prices down. Tape's nice and all, but it's gotta go sooner or later! =)

[Brad Abrahams]

I'd personally be sold if you added HDMI input for cameras like the Sony V1.

[Darrell Essex]

$10,000 for a system that records compressed>
I don't think so.
If red.com can build one that records lossless for $1,000, why can't these guys.

Darrell
FIRST CINEMA PICTURES

[Drew Harding]

Originally Posted by Darrell Essex

$10,000 for a system that records compressed>
I don't think so.
If red.com can build one that records lossless for $1,000, why can't these guys.

Darrell,

Although RED has said that their RED-Drives (recording media) will come in around the $1,000 price point, I know for a fact that those drives do not contain the logic or processing power to do compression. The Redcode compression is handled by a processor inside the camera and thus that cost is built into the $18K camera package, not the drive cost. The $1,000 Red-drive is simply a hard drive with some very minimal logic that records the Redcode (which is not lossless) signal.

Drew

[Adam Burtle]

Originally Posted by Brad Abrahams

I'd personally be sold if you added HDMI input for cameras like the Sony V1.

HDMI input is not terribly difficult to add, and we've already been strongly leaning in this direction. I'll probably start a thread in an appropriate forum sometime in the next day or two, polling how many are interested in the possibility of HDMI recording.

[Michael Struthers]

Is there any reason a portable HDMI drive has to cost more than $999.00???

[Pete Bauer]

Just a friendly reminder of my advice at the end of this post:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost....60&postcount=4

[Adam Burtle]

Originally Posted by Michael Struthers

Is there any reason a portable HDMI drive has to cost more than $999.00???

I suppose you need to be a little more specific for me to give a complete answer.

The ICON has the pricepoint it has because there is a lot of sophisticated logic inside, not to mention the touchscreen, multiple inputs and data ports, etc. If we were to design a small faceless recorder from the ground up, that only offered an HDMI input (and data would be downloaded to PC via HDMI as well), with one or two notebook drives permanently inside of it (i.e. no swappable media), we could probably get pretty close to that pricepoint.

What you're talking about sounds a lot like a FireStore, except of course the FS just records the native 25Mb/ps signal direct to harddrive. Even in a discreet little box that resembles the FS, if you're acquiring over HDMI, you're not talking about recording 25Mb/sec.. you're talking about recording 1000+Mb/sec.. which means you'll have to do some advanced form of compression, or defeat the whole purpose, which means again some sophisticated logic inside, etc. That drives the both the engineering and manufacture costs way up.

If I misunderstood your question, please let me know.

[Patrick Bower]

I imagine everyone with HDMI output on their HDV cameras is waiting for a portable recorder that would be the equivalent of:

1) Blackmagic intensity card to capture HDMI
2) Cineform HD to compress it
3) PC, including hard drive, with PCIe slot for the intensity card

It would be possible to buy a working, mains powered solution for less than $2,000. How much would it cost to make a battery powered, portable version?

Patrick

[Wayne Morellini]

Originally Posted by Patrick Bower

I imagine everyone with HDMI output on their HDV cameras is waiting for a portable recorder that would be the equivalent of:

1) Blackmagic intensity card to capture HDMI
2) Cineform HD to compress it
3) PC, including hard drive, with PCIe slot for the intensity card

It would be possible to buy a working, mains powered solution for less than $2,000. How much would it cost to make a battery powered, portable version?

Patrick

It can be done for $200, I have been trying to find somebody to make it (anybody interested message me). It does not use Intensity, an PC, or cineform though, but wavelet, or H264 intra. I guess cineform or another codec is possible if anybody has an FPGA design, or hard codec.

The market is quiet large if you add camera control, for examples recording directly to hard drive (or computer through USB etc):

Normal camera + POV + security cameras:
HDMI/component/video, sound + fire-wire/USB camera control/serial

Digital Stills:
HDMI/component/video, sound

As an universal Industrial USB/Fire-wire/GigE video recorder:
Camera interface (sound external)

Web-cams:
USB

As an Personal Video/HD video Recorder:
HDMI/component/video + sound +fire-wire for control

As an long line Link, put two together.

On top of this an micro-controller can control an external interface (to hook to external camera controls) and control buttons for an few dollars.

As you can see, the one basic design can have interfaces built around that allow it to service many different markets. Your market now goes to hundreds of thousands an year (considering that use as an long haul link for home theatre might not be much of the market).

[Anmol Mishra]

Hi! I am looking to do something similar - however I want to start with a S-video/Composite signal and record it with MJPEG / JPEG2K compression to either a SSD or HDD first in 4:2:2 color space. This way we bypass the 4:1:1 color space of DV and perhaps get better compression..
Just wondering what kind of a h/w solution you had in mind - perhaps we could work together on this..

[Wayne Morellini]

Ahh, this is the link you were asking about, best not to discuss here, colorspace thread. I probably didn't realise I was replying to color space thread when I posted, sorry, have so many threads open to look at, at once, sometimes you just go with the flow of posts in the thread at the time.

Have an look here, this is an good place for such discussion:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?p=733375

[David Cheok]

When is the Indi coming out and at what price point? I've been looking at alternatives to CD's Flash et al and researching the various offerings and reviews on the 422 non-HDV field recorders out there. Appreciate it if you could update me when you have anything happening.

[Michael Galvan]

Well it looks like the last time Adam Burtle posted was in June 2007.

Don't know what that means in terms of this product.