Preview: NEXTO DI’s NVS2500 portable media storage.

The big buzz surrounding the NVS2500 is all about three features built into this diminutive, battery operated media storage device:

• the fast SxS transfer to internal hard drive
• the ability to play back professional codecs like XDCAM EX
• the eSATA slot for fast transfer to a computer

I’ve performed some preliminary tests and have some numbers to report.

AJA io -or- PMW-EX30 dilemma.

Do I buy:

  A 17″ laptop ($3,000), eSATA ExpressCard adaptor ($100),
external hard drives ($400), and an AJA ioHD ($2,800) to record
a live switch 1920x1080i60 SDI feed to ProRes 422…

or

A Sony PMW-EX30 XDCAM EX deck ($4,000) to record
a 30 Mbps 1920x1080i60 VBR stream to flash media?

Incredible Sony Z7 information!

You may just want to learn French to really understand (correctly) all the information on this site. I’ve included a little bit of it here, and did my best to straighten out the rough automated translation– but all of this is just one section, of FOUR.

So without further hesitation, here’s the Sony HVR-Z7 as you’ve not yet seen it (in English):

CompactFlash Media Test Results.

We’ve worked with an early adopter of the Sony HVR-Z7U to test 10 different compact flash cards currently available. The test results of Marshall Levy, of Maverick Productions, will answer the following questions: Do you need to spend the extra money to get the absolutely fastest media available? What does the extra money actually buy? What kind of errors will we have by starting and stopping recording to compact flash over 100 times?
These are the questions we answer right now.

EXCAM EX hands-on video & more.

While there’s much ado with blogs (ahem) and other online resources telling you what we can about gear, technology and techniques, manufacturers have gotten wiser to the impact of online media and now release cool stuff directly that used to be limited to outlets like trade shows. Sony’s own web site has quite a bit of information about their new XDCAM camcorders.

Flip4Mac Does Grass Valley Infinity – REV or Compact Flash

Panasonic and Sony aren’t the only ones with flash media in their camcorders. Thompson / Grass Valley partnered with Iomega a couple years back to bring us non-tape recording that was far cheaper than comparative products. The Infinity line of camcorders was born.

Now, Flip4Mac brings us the tools (the glue) that lets you “stick” your Infinity footage into Final Cut Pro.

Sony PMW-EX1 vs Panasonic HVX-200? Easy Choice.

A Pair of Hands tested two pro flash media cameras side by side.

The $7000
Sony PMW-EX1,

The $5200
Panasonic HVX200.

.
I have already discussed the media.
But now we can compare image quality.
How do you think three 1920×1080 chips looked compared to three 960×540 chips?

FreshDV compares Sony HDR-FX1 to PMW-EX1: low light

It’s no secret that HDV camcorders have not been able to pull in as much light as their SD compatriots. (at least until the HVR-S270 & Z7 arrive)

Primarily this has to do with itty-bitty HD imaging chips squeezing in as many as 6x the number of pixels into the same physical space as SD chips. Each individual pixel has to be so much smaller that it can’t possibly gather the same amount of photons.

Well, FreshDV has a pair of very clean tiff images comparing Sony’s new PMW-EX1 to the HDR-FX1, what I’ll call Sony’s last CCD-based HDV camcorder. (or last CCD-based non-CineAlta HD camcorder.) We’ll see…

Sony PMW-EX1 answers revealed.

Regular commenter and HDV info maven Frank (of Franks Thoughts on HDV) asked many questions on my PMW-EX1 article back in September.

Even though e-mail responses to those questions never came, I managed to buttonhole Juan Martinez at the DV Expo to finally get the dirt IEBA Tech Thoughts readers have been waiting for…

Flash Hard Drives (SSD) are they worth it?

I’ve long opined that flash media in a camcorder isn’t really worth it because the video data you record will end up on a hard drive, so why not shoot it onto a hard drive. At the same time, flash media makers are realizing this dichotomy and are starting to build flash media based hard drives, solid state devices or solid state drives. (i.e. nothing moves) Engadget (author of the photo here) did a test of SSD vs. HDD (hard disk drive)…