ENG Innovations Coming Into Focus At NAB

The heart of any ENG operation is still the camcorder. But shooting is only part of a bigger picture, especially in an era where speed to air (and increasingly speed to Web) is essential for competitiveness.

Workflow — the video production process that occurs after acquisition of pictures and sound — is also critical and high on the agenda for vendors selling into ENG market at this year’s NAB Show.

Panasonic, maker of the widely used P2 recording format, is approaching workflow and cost-cutting on several fronts this year. First, the company lowered the price of its E Series P2 cards — solid-state camera memory in impact-proof housings — by about 20%.

The manufacturer also announced the AJ-PCD30 P2 drive, a new three-slot P2 device with a high-speed USB 3.0 interface that delivers what Panasonic calls the industry’s fastest offloads from a solid-state source. The new USB 3.0 standard transfers at rates of up to 4.8 Gbps, which achieves offloading AVC-Intra 100 footage at more than 15 times real-time. The device can handle three cards simultaneously.

Panasonic also introduced the AVCCAM Importer software, a QuickTime plug-in that eliminates the need to convert AVCHD files to ProRES422 files before editing in Final Cut Pro, a popular news editing system. This enables direct editing of AVCHD.mts files without conversion. Again this adds speed to the workflow by eliminating tedious steps.

On the archiving front, Panasonic introduced the AJ-SF110 Video Ingest software and AJ-SF100 Linear Open-Tape (LTO) Archive software to ease the secure storage and quicker retrieval of P2 content. The software is for archiving P2 files to LTO, Blu-ray or other storage devices.

It features proxy creation, metadata editing and works with database software (SQL server) functions. With AJ-SF100 software installed, the operator can quickly search content on the storage device with metadata and preview the proxy image to confirm.

When using an LTO storage device, the operator can play back P2 content on the LTO directly and retrieve partial images from it quickly and easily. In addition, the transferring speed of the LTO is up to six times faster than AVC-Intra 100 normal speed, when using LTO5.

At its pre-NAB press conference last month, Panasonic executives hinted that it would unveil at NAB new camcorders aimed at the station market, but declined to provide any details.

By contrast, JVC was eager to talk about its new ENG camcorder, the GY-HM750U ProHD. The compact shoulder-mount camcorder, the manufacturer says, offers the industry’s fastest shoot-to-edit workflow by recording native HD or SD footage in ready-to-edit file formats on SDHC memory cards.

Using the same three CCD imaging system found in the GY-HM790U, JVC’s ProHD top-of-the-line camcorder, the GY-HM750U delivers 1920×1080 pictures in a small, lightweight form factor. It records at selectable data rates up to 35 Mbps and can record HD footage in 720p, 1080p and 1080i, as well as SD footage (480i).

“High definition has not yet been standardized in many markets, and a vital segment of broadcasters don’t have the infrastructure to deliver HD from the field,” said Craig Yanagi, JVC’s national marketing manager. Use as a transition camera, he said, is the reason for offering the new model in both HD and SD formats.

The camcorder includes a dual card slot design that records to non-proprietary SDHC cards and/or an optional SxS recorder. It allows recording in ready-to-edit file formats for Apple Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere (.MOV), as well as other major NLE systems that are compatible with Sony XDCAM EX files (.MP4). For legacy SD applications, the camcorder can also record standard DV files (.AVI or .MOV).

The GY-HM750U is priced at $7,450, including a Canon 14:1 zoom lens, though it accommodates a variety of lenses with its 1/3-inch bayonet lens mount.

Also set for its formal debut at NAB is JVC’s KA-AS790G ASI module, which provides a compressed MPEG-2 output that is ideal for microwave transmission and long cable runs for OB vans. No additional encoding is required. The module attaches to the back of the GY-HM790U or GY-HM750U ProHD camera without external wiring or adapters.

Both HD video and audio are compressed using the camera’s built-in encoder (running at either 19.7 or 35 Mbps), which creates an MPEG-2 signal and then provides lossless transcoding to DVB-ASI. The module outputs the live signal from the camera, even while recording, via a standard BNC connector. When the camera automatically detects the presence of the KA-AS790G module, it switches to low-latency mode. It costs $3,500.

Sony hasn’t yet announced any new ENG products for NAB, but said it will highlight its NXCAM, a new type of E-mount interchangeable lens camcorder that is equipped with a Super-35mm equivalent large-format CMOS sensor. The company said the new camera will be available in the middle of the year.

Sony will adopt an interchangeable lens system that is identical to Sony’s “α” series NEX-5 and 3 still cameras and “Handycam” NEX-VG10 camcorder. The NXCAM recording format will be AVCHD, and the device will implement 1080p (60p/30p/24p or 50p/25p) recording modes. MPEG4-AVC/H.264 compression will also be used.

A potential twin game-changer for NAB may come from Apple. Last week, the company introduced a new line of Macbook Pro laptops using a new Intel-Apple technology called Thunderbolt. A transformational I/O innovation that provides a major leap in performance over current technologies, Thunderbolt provides 10 Gbps of full-duplex bandwidth per channel.

Not only are the new laptops twice as fast as previous models, but they allow the connection to multiple, high-performance, PCI Express and DisplayPort devices with a single physical connector. For field video editors, this means plug and play with video capture cards, RAID arrays and other peripherals that were once only available on larger computer hardware.

“Thunderbolt can support every important I/O standard, which is ideal for the new MacBook Pro,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s SVP of worldwide product marketing. Indeed, within a day, Thunderbolt accessories began appearing on the market.

Data transfers for backup, sharing and editing are dramatically faster with Thunderbolt technology, significantly reducing times to complete these tasks. Apple said Thunderbolt technology was specifically designed with video and audio applications in mind with inherently low latency and highly accurate time synchronization capabilities.

Though Apple has not yet announced it and won’t confirm it, there are numerous reports that the computer company will use NAB to announce a significant upgrade to Final Cut Pro, its popular edit suite used by many news organizations. Users who have seen the new version of the editor called it “a jaw-dropper.”

TechCrunch, the technology blog, said the upgrade represents “the biggest overhaul to Final Cut Pro since the original version was created over 10 years ago.” Combined with the new Apple laptops, the editing upgrade could move field editing far beyond currently available technology.

Avid, saying it was responding to customer requests to cut costs and improve workflows, announced a new version of its NewsCutter system, another popular field ENG editor. It’s now at version 9.5. The new version supports AJA Io Express, a popular low-cost video input and output interface.

In addition to opening several of its editor models to more third party hardware, its new systems allows users to search for a specific word or a phrase within a clip, making it much easier and faster to find the right footage for news reports. Avid PhraseFind taps into indexed audio material and can retrieve clips containing a word or phrase a user has typed into the system without relying on a script or transcript of the video material.

It’s still early in NAB season and many more products aimed at greasing TV newsgathering may be announced before and during the show in Las Vegas.