Gemini 444

Gemini 444

To quote our always eloquent Vice President, "this is a big fucking deal !"

Convergent Design's Gemini 444 Recorder - MSRP $5995

I'm going to indulge in a little speculation - Gemini 444 hasn't hit market and is totally untested so please take with a grain of salt. 

With a relatively low cost Uncompressed Solid State Recorder such as this and the potential for 10GB/sec data transfer with Thunderbolt, the era of uncompressed capture, playback, and realtime editing seems to be approaching fast. Uncompressed HD is fantastic stuff and until recently has been pretty much the exclusive domain of very expensive decks such as the OB-1 and Codex. The Cinedeck has been in the field for over a year now and is definitely a fully capable uncompressed recorder but the small size, low power draw, and price point on the Gemini 444 is what's really turning heads. If it proves to be issue-free and stable enough for the rigors of field use, I can't imagine any production that wanted to do uncompressed capture not utilizing this low cost deck. As far as HD video quality is concerned, there's no place to go beyond uncompressed. That's the creme de la creme of video so if these higher cost recorders can't offer anything more in terms of functionality/stability or compete with the price, then they seem to be at a bit of an impasse.

Sony has yet to drop their solid state HDCAM SR-R1 deck and compared to the Gemini it already has 2 problems - you can guarantee that both the deck and mags will be substantially more expensive AND it's compressed. Granted HDCAM SR is a superb compression scheme and has been the industry workhorse for years but it's still compression nonetheless whereas Gemini records the 1200 mbps 10 bit data stream that's coming directly off the camera before it hits the internal compression. There could be all kinds of issues with this product that could prevent its practical use but on paper, it's pretty phenomenal. 

Sony SR-R1, D.O.A.?

Now that the factory making HDCAM SR tape stock is underwater and will be "closed indefinitely", this just might just be the last nail in the coffin for tape based HD capture.

Got a RGB Log enabled Sony F3? Get a Gemini and in many ways, you've got a F35 with an OB-1 sitting on top for a tiny fraction of the price. 

If there's anything I take away from all this is that there's just no excuse anymore. The tools that were once the sole domain of deep pocketed productions have never been more accessible. If you can't make great looking images with this stuff then you're probably in the wrong business. 

Upcoming Sony Products: PMW-F3 & SR-R1 Deck

Upcoming Sony Products:  PMW-F3 & SR-R1 Deck 

I briefly checked out the PMW-F3 camcorder at a Sony demo at B&H the other day and I'm pretty blown away. Sony has crammed so much flexibility and high quality into such a small and relatively affordable package that I'm wondering if they may end up cannibalizing their higher end business. In a lot of ways, this is the camera I've been waiting for since I first got involved in video over 10 years ago. Needless to say after seeing it firsthand, the seed's been planted and I want one bad!. There's no point in going over specs here as that info is already on every frickin' blog out there. I've said it before here but I'll say it again - what really excites me most about this camera is RGB (444) output and S Log gamma (to be available at a later date via upgrades). This a master quality video signal we're talking about here and to be able to get it from a tiny $16,000 camcorder with a Super 35 sized sensor and PL mount is huge to say the least. The XDCAM EX workflow is already very well understood and the fact that you can easily do a higher quality external recording while simultaneously recording to SxS cards opens the door for this camera to vastly different productions of all ranges of budget. I personally think it's going to be a massive hit in the pro video world and cannot wait to start working with it.

The other product that was discussed is the upcoming Sony SR-R1 deck - "the SRW-1 of solid state recorders." I've been hearing about this thing for awhile now and it won't actually be officially announced until NAB this year. It records in the same bit rates as HDCAM SR tape, "virtually uncompressed" HQ 880 and SQ 440 mbps but now has a 220 mbps option as well. It can do dual and single stream, has a bevy of 3D recording and monitoring options, and supposedly will be priced for purchase by users and not just rental companies unlike the SRW-1. It records onto these neat solid state data packs as seen below. Love it. A perfect compliment to the F3.

The F3 will hit the street in 3 short weeks and the SR-R1 probably by the summer. NAB is always cool but this may be the year to put in some face time. If anyone out there is interested in collaborating on covering the event, let's talk.

I recommend reading Jon Fauer's article for more thorough information on these products.

http://www.fdtimes.com/articles/sony/FDTimes-SonyF3-HiRez.pdf

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Sony F3 - Love these features

Sony F3 - Love these features

Andy Shipsides at Abel Cine made this great video outlining the physical layout of the upcoming Sony PMW-F3. 

Give it a watch >>>

Without even getting into all the other features; between the small size, PL mount, and the potential for 444 RGB output over Dual Link; the F3 is going to be a heavy hitter for sure. One feature Andy's video pointed out that I wasn't aware of is this "Spare" Connector which will allow you to slave two F3's together and control them with one Paint Box. PERFECT for Stereoscopic 3D applications. Another feature that's fantastic is the ability to output S LOG over SDI to a recorder meanwhile recording normal, full contrast (linear with gamma) images to on-board SxS cards. With this functionality you can paint dailies right in the camera while simultaneously capturing the full, uncompressed sensor output externally. Awesome. Cannot wait to start working with these. 

Given that the lens mount can be adapted, one cool feature I'd like to see implemented would be some kind of sensor windowing. For S3D, selective focus through shallow depth of field isn't always desirable. Imagine being able to window this Super 35 sized sensor down to a 2/3" size and then adapting the lens mount to a B4. Now you can shoot 3D on a smaller imager with the correct lenses for the format. This would offer even more flexibility in one small package. I'd imagine something like this could be implemented with firmware at some point just like expansion of SDI output options will be. These days with motion picture cameras, it's all about adaptability and modularity and Sony seems to have embraced it.