Sony V1U questions for David Newman
 

Hi David, thank you for any answers you might give.

We have been preparing for a new long-range children's production using the Sony V1U as our main cam and a little A1 (for Merlin shots). We are using Aspect at the present, but have some serious questions in relation to Aspect and the V1U.

We were very impressed with your tests of the V1U, using the Intensity card for HDMI 1920x1080i ingest, and your Cineform realtime conversion. The potential quality for preserving our productions and future-proofing as HD becomes more and more a reality is quite attractive.

However, since we are a non-profit and cost-benefit is also critical to us, we are a little confused as to what we would need to actually make that dream happen.

Question #1: Software. Would we need to buy the full-blown Prospect HD-INgest/Edit software version for $2500 to make that happen?

Question #2: In your opinion, if #1 is YES, would we gain enough using the V1U (from using that upgrade with the camera) to justify the final results? In other words, is the V1U's HDMI "uncompressed" output actually good enough to warrant the expensive (to us at least) upgrade to gain the up-rez from 1440x1080i to 1920x1080p?

To help you answer our questions, our final ouput will be down-rezed for regular DVD and internet streaming now, but quite possibly offered in the near future on HD-DVD/Blu-ray or even for broadcast on the new digital Brazilian TV as it comes online. Also, we would have the CPU power to use any one of these solutions. These are mostly outdoor presentations, using crane, dolly, Merlin, tripod and we will have some green screen material as well.

Only need Aspect HD for supporting the Sony V1U at 1440x1080p24 8-bit. Prospect HD Edit will give you 10-bit 1920x1080, which is nice, and of course a 32-bit float workflow in Premiere Pro. You only need Prospect HD Ingest if you are using HDSDI sources (not HDMI.)

Thanks for the info, David. I have one more question that I'm not clear about:

A good friend works in the high tech camera arena (military/gov/industry) and is studying making a "mule" for us for ingesting uncompressed HDMI from the V1 to an embedded/portable unit. He is now asking about the Cineform codec and licensing as we recommended it to him and would like to continue to use it.

Question: will we need to license the Cineform codec for this ingest only solution?

If you are interested or would prefer, contact me at:

stephen@armours.com

Basic ingest/encoding is what we license. Decoder for editing purposes is free. You can license the encoder directly from us you just purchase the off the shelf product which comes with the encoder license.

Connect HD/Aspect HD is licensed for 1440x1080 8-bit I/O 4:2:2
Prospect HD is licensed for 1920x1080 10-bit I/O 4:2:2
Prospect 2K (upcoming) is licensed for 2048x2048 12-bit I/O 4:4:4

If your volumes are reasonable direct licensing is more cost effective.

See us at NAB or arrange a call.