Here at FreshDV we’ve written and talked at length about the Sony XDCAM EX1 and XDCAM EX3. It’s an absolutely brilliant HD camcorder series, well suited to use stock, with a 35mm lens adapter system, and now with interchangeable lenses on the EX3. However, one common complaint about these cameras is the cost of the SxS solid-state media. This complaint is the same one that has always dogged the Panasonic HVX200 and other P2 cameras. Solid-state media simply isn’t cheap, and no real generic, non-oem solutions have been available. Until now…

Guy Barwood has been researching this issue for a while now, and recently wrote at length about a new SxS media alternative. You see, SxS cards are really just high-performance Express Card 34 (SSD) media. However, two variants of this standard exist, USB and PCI Express internal interfaces. USB is cheaper to make, and therefore most generic SSD cards use it. Sony happens to use the PCI Express variety, and the shipping EX1 firmware didn’t support the USB SSDs. However, with the recent release of the EX3 and Sony’s EX1 1.11 firmware update, these cameras now accept both USB and PCI E media, with some exceptions:

“So not long ago someone tried to test the Lexar cards again. Low and behold, with the EX3 (from day 1) and EX1 with firmware 1.11 the cameras suddenly recognise the media. This seemed pretty amazing as these cards are really low cost compared to SxS. Unfortunately their write performance did prove to be their undoing. While they work most of the time in SP (25Mbps), in HQ (35Mbps) they don’t fair too well with media errors happening from a few sec to a few minutes of recording :-(

So then the quest for other options continued. People started testing other Express Card card readers. CF cards are actually wider than Express Cards so that was never going to work well (CF cards would be hanging out), so other card reader were tried. I tried the Sandisk Express card reader without success (unrecognised media) however others found an one obscure card to be showing promise. This card is the Kensington 7 in 1 Express Card reader (credit goes to Alister Chapman for first testing this adaptor). No other reader has been found to either work, or work as well.”

Guy goes on to list the unique reader+card options that seem to work best. The reader is the Kensington 7-in-1 ExpressCard Media Reader ($40), and test-proven cards include the Class 4 Sandisk Ultra II SDHC cards ($25-$75) and Sandisk Extreme III 30MB/s Edition SDHC cards ($48-$120). Technically speaking, all Class 6 SDHC cards should be fast enough to handle the EX1’s 35mbps bitrate…however, like hard drives it is the sustained write speed that matters. So I suggest you consult Guy’s article for notes on Transcend and other card compatibility besides the ones just mentioned. There are also some issues with overcranking, etc. So caveat emptor.

It’s overstating it a little, but bear in mind that a 16GB SxS card will set you back $850. A 32GB SxS is $1500. A 16GB SDHD card and reader is under $115! That is an amazing disparity, and may be well worth it for you to deal with the above-noted limitations. Beyond price, the beauty of this DIY solution is that you don’t have to own multiple readers, just bring a wad of SD cards with you when you shoot. In fact, you can leave the card reader in the camcorder media slot and just swap cards in and out (this does not work with two readers installed, you must be using one SxS card in the other slot to enable KxS hotswap). You’ll want a safe storage case for your smaller media now, consider something like the Pelican Memory Card case.

Back at NAB 2007 when Sony announced they would be supporting an open solid-state media standard, we cheered them on. It’s great to see that promise finally coming to fruition. And now that the EX1 and EX3 camcorders offer increased media compatibility, I fully expect third-party companies to start coming out with better-integrated SxS media alternatives. It’s a good time to be an indie filmmaker!

(Via Bruce Johnson)

Amex Digital has announced an external Blu-ray burner for Windows and Mac computers. The drive is USB bus-powered and can burn 1x and 2x BD media, as well as functioning as a standard DVD burner. MSRP is $289 for the player-only version, and $389.00 for the burner. (Thanks for the correction, Joel!)

(via Engadget)

Bruce Johnson has reviewed the Vantec Nexstar Nst-D100Su Hard Drive dock over at PVC. This is a sweet little solution that allows you to quickly and easily mount and unmount bare hard drives for use with editing and backups. Even before I read Bruce’s review, another editor friend recommended it. The D100Su sounds like handy little solution, and with both USB2 and eSATA connections available, what’s not to like? Amazon has it for $41.13 with free shipping.

Last month at the IBC show in Amsterdam, a small Swedish company named Ikonoskop launched an exciting new digital cinema camera called the A-Cam dII. The dII offers nearly 2K resolution from a 16mm-sized CCD imager, records uncompressed DNG sequences to high-speed solid-state media, and can be overcranked up to 60fps. With a number of lens mount options that include PL, C-mount, and still image lenses (via the IMS mount), the dII has a lot to offer to those with an existing lens investment. Perhaps one of the greatest attractions of the dII is it’s compact, integrated design that thoughtfully includes a viewfinder tucked into the side of the body.

I wrote 1200 words on this new camera shortly after it was announced, comparing it to the Red One and Red Scarlet. You can read that article over at ProVideoCoalition. It’s an intriguing offering from both a price and performance standpoint, and since the announcement I’ve heard more speculation and questions about the dII than answers. So we got in touch with the Ikonoskop crew to try to get some of these burning questions answered.

The following 30-minute podcast is a frank and open discussion about the dII that should clear the air about what it does, and doesn’t offer. If you’ve got questions about this new camera, we hope this interview will answer them. Listen to the podcast by subscribing to our podcast feed.

 Ikonoskop A-cam dII Interview [30:21m]: Download

Imagine Products, makers of ShotPut Express for SxS media management, announced ShotPut Red Edition, a tool that automates and simplifies the offloading and transfer of CF and RED Raid media on a production set. Here’s a few key features:

* Fast Copying: Perform copies at top speed without the overhead of Finder or Explorer.
* Automatic or Manual Copies: Manually select one or more drives to copy. Or use the auto offload mode to sequentially copy RED volumes or cards upon insertion.
* Easy Folder Naming: Save time and improve consistency and organization by auto-naming the copy folders.
*Improve Workflow: ShotPut’s multi-threading technology makes up to 3 simultaneous copies at the same time.
* Reformat Cards: After offloading is finished, automatically reformat the CF card so it’s ready to return to the camera.
* Security: Verify byte-to-byte comparisons of your media copies to ensure integrity of the files.
* Verification Report: Create a record of file transfer activity, how the copies were named, time, date, etc. Save complete details for project organization and billable time.
* Print Offload Log: Offload results are presented in a text file, printable with the click of a button.
* Session Error Checking: Prevents overwriting of existing folders and duplicate offloading of the same media volume.
* Progress Bar: Displays overall percent completion and file-by-file progress during the copy process.
* Copy Cards or Disks: The contents of any mountable volume (drive) can be copied including CF cards, RED Raids, etc.
* Compatible with Your Camera: ShotPut RED works with Build 15 and Build 16 file formats. Copies any volume containing R3D files.

The software is available on Mac and Windows, a single license will set you back $49.00. More info here.

HDFilmTools has an interview with Jeff Youel, President of Wafian Corporation. They discuss the Wafian HR-F1 Direct-to-Disk field recorder, a portable unit that records from HD-SDI in 10-bit 4:2:2 Cineform Intermediate Codec. The HR-F1 can capture up to 10 hours of 24p footage utilizing Cineform.

Panasonic solid-state shooters have had a fantastic tool called P2 Genie for quite some time now. The software simplifies and automates the process of dumping P2 cards to disk so they can be re-used in a shoot. I’ve used it, and it works beautifully. So I was delighted today to see a similar application for Sony SxS shooters, ShotPut EXpress. It’s cross-platform for PC and Intel-Mac users, and at just $49 it looks like a worthy investment. Here’s the scoop:

ShotPut EXpress features Single card (manual) and Multiple card (auto) modes. Simply insert the SxS card into a PowerBook or Notebook’s ExpressCard slot and ShotPut EXpress makes secure, verified copies of the SxS card’s video contents (the BPAV folder) in up to three (3) locations. ShotPut EXpress makes a printable activities report log of all the file transfer activities. This text file shows all the details including names of cards and files, the copy destination names, file sizes, duration of each transfer and aggregate transfer time, date, etc. A great way to document and organize your project and billable time.

Fast Copying: Perform copies at top speed without the overhead of Finder or Explorer.
Automatic or Manual Copies: Manually select one or more drives to copy. Or use the auto offload mode to sequentially copy SxS cards upon insertion.
Easy Folder Naming: Save time and improve consistency and organization by auto-naming the copy folders.
Improve Workflow: Make up to 3 simultaneous SxS card copies at the same time.
Reformat Cards: After offloading is finished, automatically Erase the BPAV folder contents and Rename the card so it’s ready to return to the camera.
Security: Verify byte-to-byte comparisons of your media copies to ensure integrity of the files.
Verification Report: Create a record of file transfer activity, how the copies were named, time, date, etc. Save complete details for project organization and billable time.
Print Offload Log: Offload results are presented in a text file, printable with the click of a button.
Session Error Checking: Prevents overwriting of existing folders and duplicate offloading of the same card.
Progress Bar: Displays overall percent completion and file-by-file progress during the copy process.
Copy Cards or Disks: The BPAV contents of any mountable volume (drive) can be copied.

You can purchase ShotPut EXpress for Mac or Windows via Imagine Products.

Via Digital Basin comes this link to a handy utility called HFSExplorer that allows PC users to access HFS+ formatted hard disks and external drives. When Fat32 doesn’t give you enough space to transfer large files (2GB limitation), you can use the tool to copy from the Mac disk to NTFS. Likewise, NTFS drives can be read (and written) on Mac systems with MacFuse.

TechThoughts and shooter Marshall Levy have teamed up to test a variety of different CF media cards for reliability and speed with the new Sony Z7U HDV camcorder with the CF card recorder option. What they discovered is that there is definitely a difference in media quality between brands and cards. In testing, about half the cards showed sync issues with the tape recordings (starting up to 3.5 seconds later), and some showed dropout artifacts. This is very interesting data.

Final Cut User has the news on Apple’s Xsan 2 announcement, as well as the possibility that they are dropping Xserve RAID in favor of a 3rd party solution. Read all about it here.

Following the news of Blockbuster, Best Buy, Netflix and Warner Brothers backing Blu-Ray, it appears that the blue-laser has won the HD disc format war. According to multiple sources, Toshiba is pulling the plug on HD-DVD manufacturing and marketing. All that’s left is an official announcement from the consortium of HD-DVD backers. While this development is bad for early adopters who chose HD-DVD, it is a Good Thing for the industry and consumers in general. Regardless of the differing features they offered, having two formats to choose from has stalled adoption of the high-definition discs. I personally know a number of production companies that have been waiting for a clear winner before going ahead with plans to deliver HD content to clients. I, for one, welcome our new Blu disc overlords.

After Effects users are encouraged NOT to get the Quicktime 7.4 Software Update for Mac. After users update to QT7.4, renders in AE report the following error: “you do not have permissions to open this file (-54) (44::53).” I have not read if this also affects PC AE users. There is a lot of discussion on this issue at the Apple Support Forums, also some links to external AE forums from there. So this is just a quick reminder to tread carefully with updates if you have a rock-solid system.

UPDATE FROM KENDAL:
I recently had to downgrade QT to 7.3 to get AE CS3 to run correctly. When I downgraded everything ran fine, on 7.4 AE crashed on launch every time. Downgrading is a major pitb. Wish Matt had posted this a few days earlier :(

Update #2:
Mike Curtis is all over this as well, and mentions some issues with DRM or permissions that limits playback of movies you created, spotty reports of Sorensen conflicts, and even an Adobe engineer that mentions issues with Premiere Pro. There’s also the workaround if you’ve already hosed your After Effects install with the 7.4 update (read Mike’s post comments).

Update #3:
Kendal located a very detailed tutorial on how to revert from Quicktime 7.4 if you’ve inadvertently hosed your system with the update. Excellent info.

You know you want it. It’s Western Digital’s new 2.5″ notebook hard drive with a whopping 320GB of space, priced at a cool $200. Yeah, it only rotates at 5400 RPM, but what do you expect? It’s only 2007 after all! And they’ll have a 7200 RPM option out before you can say “Dang. I just upgraded my system with the 5400 RPM version and now I hate my life.” Here’s how to swap the drive in your Macbook or Macbook Pro with this new drive (or any other 2.5″ drive) using Leopard’s Time Machine.

Fuji will introduce fully-licensed and compatible P2 cards for Panasonic cameras in Spring 2008. I seriously doubt they will be come at a significant price break, but perhaps it will help with demand (which would indirectly affect pricing). The other solid state format that is spreading it’s wings is CompactFlash…CF cards are being used by Red camera shooters, and can be used in the forthcoming HVR-Z7U and HVR-S270U HDV cameras from Sony. And if you’re concerned that CF isn’t suited for the rigors of production, here’s a interesting anecdote that may set your mind at ease…it seems that a lost CF card was recovered after two years exposure to the outdoor elements, and it remained functional. If only the hard drives that will ultimately hold your footage were as hardy.

This is offtopic, but worth noting since Mac editors move so much data around on a regular basis. Two major data-loss concerns exist that Apple users should be aware of. The first issue is a bug in the new OS X 10.5 Leopard Finder…there is potential for data loss if a drive/volume becomes unavailable during a file move operation. To the best of my knowledge this issue has not been publically addressed by Apple, though developers are already testing a OS X 10.5.1 update. One would assume the workaround is to copy files, and check the transfer was successful before deleting from the source volume.

The second issue relates to certain 2.5-inch Seagate SATA hard drives in Macbook and Macbook Pro notebooks. On specific models the read/write heads of the drive can physically detach from their arm and gouge the magnetic disk platter. This is obviously a Bad Thing and generally results in a drive beyond repair (and lost data).

The problem is reportedly prevalent with Seagate 2.5-inch SATA drives that are manufactured in China and loaded with firmware Version 7.01. Model numbers affected include ST96812AS and ST98823AS. Clark advises users to go to their System Profile, and under Serial ATA look for the “revision number.” “If it is firmware Version 7.01, then you have to panic,” he said. “Apple is being utterly irresponsible and should launch a product recall.”

So there you have it. An excellent reminder to Backup Your Mac.