Sony News Tidbits - SxS Deck Coming!

[Steve Gibbons]

Sorry if some of this has already been posted.

Here's a few Sony news tidbits...

- New SxS deck coming this July. Early details are 3.5" LCD display, 2 card slots, HD-SDI, i.Link, HDMI, USB. More info to come at NAB.

- 32GB SxS card pricing coming at NAB

- Avid support of 1920x1080 35mb/s HQ with drag&drop support directly out of EX browser - announcement at NAB.

- The PDW-U1 will have have Write functionality by summer: 25mb/s at first. Then as an option (at a cost), the EX browser will have a transcode option added later to convert 1920 35mb/s to either 1440 25mb/s OR 1920 50mb/s (4:2:2) for recording to the U1.

- Disc format change in December for XDCAM to allow for recording of regular data files for 22GB of storage single layer /48 dual layer.

SG

[Chris Hurd]

Please name your source specifically, otherwise this must go to the Area 51 rumor mill.

[Greg Boston]

Steve, our policy is that unless you have a credible source to cite, this has to go to the AREA 51 forum as a rumor.

thanks,

-gb-

[Andrew Wilson]

I did read an interview with a Sony exec who was talking about the EX1 and said there were some 'surprises planned for NAB'

It might have been an interview from Digital Production Buzz, can't remember.

[Wolfgang Winne]

<- New SxS deck coming this July. Early details are 3.5" LCD display, 2 card slots, HD-SDI, i.Link, HDMI, USB. More info to come at NAB.>

[Craig Seeman]

In an article in Digital Content Producer March 2008 NAB 2008 most of the info Steve posts is there, 32GB cards, SxS deck (no pics though). PDW-U1 being able to write I heard directly from Sony reps last year when asking about archival for EX1 to XDCAM disk.

[Steven Thomas]

Originally Posted by Steve Gibbons

- New SxS deck coming this July. Early details are 3.5" LCD display, 2 card slots, HD-SDI, i.Link, HDMI, USB. More info to come at NAB.

- 32GB SxS card pricing coming at NAB

I'm REAL interested in the 32GB SxS cards. Let's hope they are reasonable.

[Steve Gibbons]

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

Please name your source specifically, otherwise this must go to the Area 51 rumor mill.

The information was from a Sony representative. Although I feel it was absolutely credible, I understand the need to move the thread to your rumours board.

SG

[Mike Testin]

Why would anyone need the Deck? Unless it can record from the HD SDI, but then it is still limited to 8 bit 420 by the cards right?

[Craig Seeman]

What we need is SxS to PCIe reader for desktop so one can get the transfer speed one gets in a laptop.

There are facility workflow environments that certainly are helped by a deck though.

[Steve Gibbons]

Originally Posted by Mike Testin

Why would anyone need the Deck? Unless it can record from the HD SDI, but then it is still limited to 8 bit 420 by the cards right?

It will be able to record from HD-SDI but apparently without RS-422 control.

SG

[Mike Testin]

But won't it still be limited to the normal 8 bit 420 compression?

[Thomas Smet]

Originally Posted by Mike Testin

But won't it still be limited to the normal 8 bit 420 compression?

So?

The format from your Ex1 is already like this so I'm not sure what your point is. If you are thinking of backing up other material such as HDcam well then yes you may reduce the quality a bit but then again thsi device isn't really designed for that. It is designed for those who work with mostly XDCAM material so they are already used to the type of compression. One huge area this deck may cover is to give people the option of editing HD in RT and then instead of rendering out a mpeg2 master then can just dump to the cards through HD-SDI in RT to create their master. A 30 minute project wouldn't take hours to render but could be offloaded into a master file within 30 minutes. That is a pretty huge deal really. For years I used to do this with SD material. I would shoot and edit DV and then dump to BetaSP right from my timeline without ever rendering. It really helped out for a TV show I was producing at the time. And it allowed me to edit a few episodes every week and quickly dump them off. In fact I would dump a component signal to a BetaSP deck while dumping a S-video signal to my DSR-11 to record a DV tape for myself all at the same time.

[Mike Testin]

I guess you could use it like that but it seems very limited. You are then buying expensive SxS cards for storage? For an EX 1 owner, the deck doesn't seem to have a place. Or if it does, it hardly seems worth whatever price they're going to ask for it.

[Steve Gibbons]

Originally Posted by Mike Testin

I guess you could use it like that but it seems very limited. You are then buying expensive SxS cards for storage? For an EX 1 owner, the deck doesn't seem to have a place. Or if it does, it hardly seems worth whatever price they're going to ask for it.

I think it's more of a facility class device and I'm sure it will have a price to match - probably $5k. For us, it's perfect because it means we don't need to tie up a camera for our SxS to HDCAM dubs.

SG