JamieG Analysis

A while back I reported that we would soon see portable flash momory based, high quality recorders to strip onto an HD-SDI based camera available.

Well here is a great first attempt at this technology..

From http://www.convergent-design.com/ we have the Flash XDR (See some cool comments here)

This device makes any HD-SDI camera capable of recording better then HDCAM images at a fraction of the cost and with a tapeless work-flow.   This is a dream come true for a lot of film makers I have spoken to.

Still, the product did come in a little short with no H.265-Intra support.  But I expect it to support this in the next release as H.264 matures.   If it supported H.254-Intra (10 bit) like the new Panasonic solid state cameras did.  It would be perfect.  H.264-Intra is basically the same as an I-frame MPEG2, but with better performance.  (In general, H.264 IBP long gop is considered to be nearly twice as good as MPEG2  ie 4mbps MPEG2 is similar to 2mbps H.264.  Still we are talking i-frame only, so its not that much of an improvement, but is substantial.)  Still, going from 8bit as MPEG2 can only go up to, to a 10bit colour space is probably going to push 160mbit, the XDR max throughput.

We are talking about getting images similar in quality to a VIPER, Sony-F23/F35,or other top end cinema cameras with hi-end 10bit colour workflows.

The key here is that you can plug it into any camera you like.  From cheap cameras, to expensive ones.  From 1/3 CCD to full frame 35mil CCD.  Shooting a film is not always possible with the one camera.  They all have advantages and disadvantages.  This kind of tool gives you the room to move.  To hire inexpensive gear but get a A1 quality result from it.

This will be a hot product.  I hope the 10bit H.264-Intra support is capable in software upgrade…

NOTE for 20080422: The Maxell iVDRis a 10-bit 4:2:2 master- quality video and native full HD video soulder mounted cam corder was also announced..  google “Maxell iVD”.