Anyone been tracking the Infinity Grass Valley Lately?
 

I'm not sure why people haven't been talking about the Grass Valley Infinity camera more. It looks like it going to be available before RED or Silicon Imaging gear. It true that it costs around $35K including Quality HD zoom.
see link below:

http://www.thomsongrassvalley.com/pr...ity/camcorder/

I would be interested to see if anyone is thinking about getting this unit?

Infinity Series products provide you a choice of compression
schemes and bit rates, giving you the option to select
what is best for your workflow today and for the future.
The Infinity Digital Media Camcorder supports DV25,
JPEG 2000, and MPEG-2* compression, assignable via the
camera’s user interface. The DV codec is 25 Mb/s 4:2:0
(PAL) or 4:1:1 (NTSC), making it ideal for immediate use
in your workflow today. JPEG 2000 is a next-generation
compression scheme that can be used for both SD
and HD acquisition. It provides low-cost, high-efficiency
compression, 10-bit 4:2:2 encoding, better image quality,
and is fully scalable by encoding once and decoding many
different resolutions as needed. Industry-standard MPEG-2
compression is also available on select camcorder models
and can be used for both SD and HD.

I believe the BBC are running trials on it over the next year or so.

I've always been a fan of the viper and its image, so I'm interested to see where this going.

Talked to the Florida Grass Valley Infinity Sales Rep
 

He said that they will get delivery schedules for the camera at the IBC show (Amsterdam 9/8/2006 - 9/12/2006). I'm already signed up to get hands on one of the demo units when they become available in South Florida area.

In 2006, for $35,000, at the very least I expect 24p & 30p. That's probably why there hasn't been much discusion.

Yes but you can shoot in 60p that should work good when you convert to 24p (2:3 pulldown) in post. I'm hoping the real benefit of this camera is Jpeg 2000 codec. I've heard this gives really incredible results.

I saw the Infinity at InfoCom in Orlando a few months back. The rep said that the camera will include 24P & 30P. They listened to the demands of the industry and they are delivering. However the rep went on to say that it will be a software acquired 24P, which makes sense, since the ccd's are interlaced. Also to add, the rep said the ccd's will be 1920x1080. No pixel shifting of any kind. This should be good!

Infinity 1080p and 24/30p
 

This will be great for live concert and performances in clubs! You'll be able to feed the HD SDI directly into the big 1080p monitors with no loss of resolution. I'm getting the new Panasonic 58" 1080p for my studio and will use blue ray to burn the HD DVD's.

Luckily I have 4GB/sec FC SAN Storage and native FC LTO-3 Tape library to handle moving large uncompressed HD files around and archiving them in a relatively quick manner.

I'm sure they may be a little worried about competing with their own 24p cameras, like the Viper. When I worked at an NBC station in West Palm Beach, FL, they had/have Grassvalley HD cameras on the floor of the studio. They look a lot like the Viper, except aren't. Same body, which is small, which a large "pipe" coming out the back for video transmission.

heath

I'd love to dedicate a forum to the GV cameras in our 1080p/2K/4K area, if there's enough interest in them.

Go for it. It sounds like a cool camera.

heath

GV Camera Area
 

Second the Motion sounds like a good idea!!

This, the Silicon Imaging camera or the XDCAM HD for me
 

I am probably going to buy one of these, as I've become spoiled by watching 1080 from my Westinghouse 42" 1080 x 1920 LCD, an HD-DVD player, the Dish HD DVR system, and of course the XBox 360.

The crucial issue for me is 1080P as a firmware upgrade in the not-too-distant future, and either free or not too expensive. I'm looking into that, but indications are that the upgrade is in the works.

I've already started selling my JVC HDV equipment, so far the wide lens is gone, camera soon. Maybe the deck, but it's nice to have a good DV deck around too, and the BR-D50 is that as well as HDV.

I've gotten some price quotes from TVMagic, the southern California GV dealer. The camera lists for $23,000, their price is $20,910. The VF is not included and their price is $2,728. Tripod adapter plate is $489. The lens I felt was my personal balance of cost and quality is the Canon Hh17ex7.6B IRSE -- list price $19,400, their price $14,330.

The contact there is David Land and the phone number is 858 650-3155 x251.

Hi Tip,

When did your GV dealer say the Infinity would start shipping? Those are some very good prices for sure. I don't know if you have ever held the camera before, but in case you have not, I do remember it was VERY HEAVY, as compared to any other 2/3" camera. The GV rep at InfoCom said they were trying to cut down the weight. Maybe they put it on a diet.

At 9.92 lbs for the camera it's heavier than a Sony DSR 570 at 7 lbs 11ozs. Hard to compare the other 2/3" cameras because their specs include lens, cassette and a battery (BP L60A) but the DSR 790 comes out at 15 lbs 7 ozs and 17 lbs 10 oz for the F 900. That's rather light on the F 900 because in practise it usually has a Miranda downconvertor fitted.

Sounds like the Infinity is around the weight of a Digibeta camera in an operational state.

Infinity...
 

As for the ETA, I've been told "sometime in October." The weight of the camera will be a relief to me, whatever it is, after my trusty old JVC KY-D29/BR-D40 combination!

My main area of concern is whether the CCDs are native progressive, which I was told by the factory techie or the distributor, can't recals. Next is if it fakes progressive output, does it to a seamless job like the XDCAM iHD is reputed to do?

Tip

Native Progressive Infinity
 

My Infinity sales rep (Dick Dienhart - florida area) said that the camera did provide progressive chips. I would have included my questions to Dick and my answers from him but that PC has crashed and we're trying to rebuild the two RAID sets now.

Great news if accurate...
 

That's great news. If those are progressive chips, then 1080P may really be only a firmware upgrade away. If so, I'm a buyer ready to lay down a deposit.

Tip

Correction on lens...
 

In my post above I read from the TVMagic quote the model number of a the Canon lens I like: Hh17ex7.6B IRSE. Having browsed the Canon web site I found what appeared to be this lens but it is called Hj17ex7.6B IRSE.

This would surprise me if they were indeed progressive. Since the addition of 24P & 30P were a decision that was reached just a few months ago. The Infinity camera that was operational at InfoCom (June 6, 2006) was a 1080i only camera. Unless they are throwing in some different progressive chips, I would think that Infinity would derive it's progressive frame rates from a smart software type of deinterlacing.

Xdcam Hd
 

...does progressive in software and supposedly it works great up to a certain frame rate or shutter speed, then the vertical resolution drops in half, I would perhaps pass on this camera if all it has is interlaced CCDs. Some sources are saying they've taken the last few months to upgrade the CCDs -- but that sounds more like a timeframe to write software, not rearchitect the imaging system.

I hope that it will not lose anything. The Sony XDCAMHD doesn't lose any resolution when in 30P or lower frame rate. However it does lose some of it's vertical resolution in any frame rate above 30P. So perhaps Infinity will retain all it's glory. I guess we will see soon enough. I do believe the Rep at InfoCom stated that the first generation of camera's will not offer progressive recording, but early adopters can receive a software update to progressive recording. The way the rep described this camera, it's looks as if Infinity is scalable with updates.

I wonder about 720 60P...
 

Strange that it already does 720 60P. That must be done in software, but the 720 30P back and forth with 1080 60i that the HDV cameras do can't provide the information for the 60P image, or can it?

I doubt if either of us is terribly concerned if the Infinity won't produce progressive at 1080 above 30 frames/second, and really I would be mostly concerned that it did 24. As long as there was no problem with shutter speed above 1/30 second, I'm okay with frame rate limitations but I do need 1/48 shutter speed and would like 1/60.

I'm going to get the southern California tech guy, who I believe is from the Philips mother country, to give me some answers.

Tip