AudioMedia - July 2008 - (Page 58)

video guide A Sound Pro’s Guide To Video HD Acquisition: Part 2 As the field of HD cameras widens, KEVIN HILTON takes a look at the contenders in the field: the HDW F900, CineAlta, FilmStream, and the Viper. A s with so much in modern life, the future for cameras is seen in the digital domain. The shift has already happened with still cameras, to the extent where some manufacturers have ceased making film models now that single lens reflex models based on digits are widely available, as well as reasonably priced, and the compact equivalents have just about seen off their celluloid rivals. SOUND PRO'S VIDEO GLOSSARY Anamorphic Cinematography The widescreen picture has been an integral part of cinema since the s. Defined as any image shown in an aspect ratio that is broader than : (the almost square old-fashioned TV screen shape) or . : , widescreen gives films a greater scope and sweep. The technique is now well established in television, partly for that reason, but also because the wider image is closer to how the human eye sees the world. Some widescreen techniques involve shooting on one film stock and projecting from another, but others, including Cinemascope, use an anamorphic lens to compress the width of an image to half its size to fit the film frame. A corresponding lens is fitted to the projector to blow the picture up to its full size. The term comes from the Greek word anamorphosis for ‘transformation’, created from ana, meaning ‘back’ or ‘again’ and mophosis, for ‘shaping’. While photography has made the single bound from film to digital media, cinema and television have had the viable interim option of videotape. Few filmmakers have taken the tape-based route, either analogue or digital, but TV since the late s has been more and more built on the videocassette. Videotape was touted as the successor to film in both fields, and now digital means of capture are seen as replacements for both, although, realistically, the younger medium is more at risk than the venerable technology it was intended to replace. Solid state and disk recording are already established for camcorders, but there is arguably an even more radical shift in the offing with digital cinema cameras making inroads into filmmaking. These look similar to film cameras, with the same options for lenses and filters to be attached. The difference is that they shoot not onto film or even videotape, but data media, most commonly computer-style hard drives. Lots O f Little Steps Sony has promoted its high-end HDCAM camcorder, the HDW F , as a viable alternative to film cameras. It is part of the manufacturer’s CineAlta line of digital cinema products, the aim of which is to create a data chain from shooting, through post-production, to the delivery of finished features, to cinemas for display, using the latest digit-based projectors. This concept was given validity by George Lucas who announced in 2000 that the second episode of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, which became The Attack Of The Clones, would be produced entirely in the digital domain, with the shoot using a 24p F900 jointly developed by Sony and Panavision. The third in the not-so-loved-asthe-original trio, Revenge Of The Sith, was shot on a Sony HDC-950, that boasts higher resolution and improved reproduction of colour. The Hard R adical Petersburg to be captured in a single take. Among the objections to HDCAM and the other emerging HD camcorders in the early days of the technology was the use of compression technology to get the massive amounts of picture information onto tape. Thomson Grass Valley went its own way with a completely uncompressed signal path within its camera, effectively a : : sub-sampling approach to give full RGB. Because of this higher resolution the Viper was marketed as a truer substitute for existing film cameras and endeared itself more to directors of photography from a cinema background. Due to the technique used, a huge amount of data is produced from the back of the camera and has to be carried to the chosen recording medium over two BNC RF coaxial cables. Because of this output, Thomson branded the system, and the Viper, as FilmStream. By its nature no videotape would be able to accommodate FilmStream, so recording has to be onto either a server or a hard disk array recorder. When the Viper first appeared, not many such units were available, and those that were tended to be cumbersome and expensive. CineAlta cameras also give the option of recording on hard disk drives, as was done for the film Russkiy Kovcheg (Russian Ark). This Russian production was shot in uncompressed high definition using an F connected to a hard disk recorder with a capacity of minutes. This made possible the film’s -minute continuous moving Steadicam shot around the State Hermitage Museum in St D riving The Force FilmStream is a dual HD-SDI (high definition serial digital interface) data stream in which RGB information is represented by a -bit logarithm working in real time. This logarithmic signal is produced from a binary digital feed produced by a conversion unit using the output of the CCD image section. This approach was chosen partly because both the human eye and film deal with light logarithmically, so the intention of the developers was for viewers of Viper pictures to respond to them as they > A Light Issue 58 AUDIO MEDIA JULY 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of AudioMedia - July 2008

AudioMedia - July 2008 Contents Recording Post Broadcast What's Up UK Geofocus: France For the Record Special Report: Develop Preview SE Electronics 4400 Sennheiser MKH800 Twin Tubetech Club Final Cut: Wanted Smart AV Tango Doctor Who Made in America DSP Roundup Product Sampler: Summer Hits Edirol R44 Video Guide AMSR Fame - Le Musical Waves MaxxBCL Yamaha AD8HR Special Supplement

AudioMedia - July 2008

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