Alexander, you are imposing your workflows and preferences on others. Thomas, David and I have already stated that there are facilities, workflows and other reasons for having a dedicated deck, instead of using the camera or a laptop. We don't know the specs or the price of this unit, so why don't we just leave it for the moment and return to this discussion when we all know more, eh? :-)

Alexander, I am guessing you have never worked in a large (or even medium sized) post house or in a broadcast setting.

Some people are going to be in positions where they do not want to transfer the footage to a laptop and then turn around and transfer that to their raid. They may be in a facility where they just want to walk in pop the card in and do the transfer, and possibly transfer the cards directly to a tape source to hand to the client (without tying up the NLE or Camera doing it, yes there still are those clients who want to preview the footage on tape).

Remember CNN has already ordered a bunch of EX's. This is exactly the type of thing you would expect to see in a setting like that. It gives one the ability to walk in pop the card into the machine and send the contents wherever they want.

Remember just because you can do something form the time line doesn't mean it is the most effective use of the NLE. Especially in a news setting a preview station that doesn't use the camera or NLE can be a very useful thing. Pop the card in, preview, and rout the files you want where you want them. That can be more effective in certain settings than transferring to one hard drive, previewing, and then making the transfer from one hard drive to another.

There are many different work flows and I am sure Sony didn't just whip this up because they thought it looked cool.

K

Kyle's right. Sony has to address many needs and workflows if they're going head to head with P2. P2 already has a headstart and is entrenched into several post houses and news outlets.

Of course if they wanted it to be cool they would sell it in a wide choice of colors! Just kidding...

Like Jiri said, we'll see what it can do when it comes out. In the meantime it would be great if someone would snap a still shot of the back of the unit if they happen to see it at a product show. That way we can see what I/O's this puppy has.

Cheers...

Fully agreed, and until that can happen, we're pretty much at a stand-still here. I believe Jiri Bakala is right; this is basically the same idea as a P2 field recorder. At the very least it seems to be an NLE ingest deck, a highly useful item all on its own. Obviously this product serves the ENG / EFP market... the person who says "you could just do it with a laptop," is perhaps not familiar with the fast-paced working demands of a professional news-gathering environment. This is a robust NLE feeder with a VTR interface and who knows what sort of I/O connectivity; this is what the field editor needs and frankly I wouldn't be surprised if Sony also introduces a similar item with a laptop form factor similar to their AnyCast work stations.

Horses for courses... the right tool for the right job. While I appreciate the good intentions behind the ultra-cheap "just use a laptop" mentality; that's really not what we're about here. While we tend to attract a lot of one-man bands and dirt-cheap kludges; this site is also all about discussing the *real* tools of the trade, and this deck certainly qualifies.

I'll re-open this thread for further discussion as soon as we know more about the deck (especially the back side of it). Somebody please let me know when that happens. Special thanks to Jiri, Kyle Self, Thomas Smet and David Parks -- much appreciated as always,