NAB 2011 -Death of HDSLR part 1: Uncompressed recorder for $345

By: Sebastian Wöber

We didn’t think this would ever happen, but if you’re here at NAB 2011 and run around with open eyes and ears you’ll realize there’s a new low budget filmmaking tool right around the corner that will definitely kill the dominance of hdslr in the higher segment (speaking RED alternative) by summer this year.
Here’s the first one of several pieces to the puzzle. The Blackmagic HyperDeck Shuttle. Make sure you check back here as I’ll continue this story further on.
Let me just get some more interviews with Canon and Phantom here on the last day at NAB.

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NAB 2011 -Yet another affordable highspeed camera we can’t afford

By: Sebastian Wöber

I reported about the Megaspeed (wow I love that name) camera yesterday. But look: here’s another portable highspeed camera. The TS3Cine costs twice as much as the Megaspeed, that’s $30k. That’s not really my priceclass, but it still might be a bargain in rental since you don’t need a technician to operate it unlike it’s aunt the phantom.
If you’re into good design and marketing I’m sure this camera seems more appealing to you than the Megaspeed, but we’ll really have to wait and see what both of them have under the hood and whether this one is worth the additional 14k.

I found this very nice demo they put together and I noticed they also had some people that waved hdslrs around. I think I’m their target audience, drool…

I must say, if I had the funds I’d probably be sold just for the editing and choice of music they did on this one. Great job to whoever did that. If you care about the music, that was: The XX

Some of the specs on the cam itself:
- 1280 x 1024 pixel maximum
- 500 fps at 1280 x 1024, 720 fps at 720p resolution
- optional frame rates up to 20,000 at reduced resolutions
- BMP, TIFF, Cinema DNG (RAW), JPG, AVI
- C-Mount or F-Mount (Nikon), optional PL mount

I think I overheard him saying it’s a 1 inch sensor, but I’m not sure. Comes out late summer.

http://ts3cine.com/

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NAB 2011 – LCDVF-E: Let the Electronic Viewfinder wars begin!

By: Sebastian Wöber

Redrock, Zacuto, Cineroid, smallHD, everbody’s throwing electronic viewfinders at us. Tõnis might be the last to have a working model but I know he is a very dedicated engineer and has put a lot of effort into this one to make it a great product and still affordable. Right now I couldn’t say if he managed to get it right since all he got for NAB was a prototype version.
You might notice how Tõnis emphasizes the software side of the viewfinder. Indeed some manufacturers tend to overlook how important a feature packed and easy to use interface is on a device like this.
What we hear in this video sounds impressing, but we’ll have to wait until May to see if he can deliver. At $750 the specs are very promising. High res, great viewing angle, non reflective, hdmi loopthrough.
We really need a comparison of all the available evfs soon. I’ll try to get hold of all the available evf’s later this year to stress test them to the max cinema5D style.

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NAB 2011 – JAG35 blows me away – $900 LCS

By: Sebastian Wöber

One of the most intriguing booths I’ve seen at NAB so far was the Garcia brother’s corner. They’ve become famous in hdslr world with a company they call “JAG35″ and while they’ve started out with affordable and not so good quality products, they’ve managed to make affordable and amazingly awesome products by now. I’ve talked to Misa a lot and I’ve tried all their new stuff. Their philosophy: They constantly improve their products based on user feedback and get out new versions very quickly to serve great quality and usability at an affordable price.
I’ve never seen an LCS (lens control system) that’s so affordable and I’ve never guessed I’d ever see one that works so well at this price. You get the whole thing (complete version with two motors) for $900, it’s crazy.
The one downside I can see, or should I say “hear” is the noise the motors produce. You’ll be able to catch it in the video (keep in mind: some parts of the video have closeup shots that have no sound in them, please forgive the crappy editing on that part).
It’s a noise that has a rather small frequency throw, so it will probably be easy to cancel it out in post, but this will still be a downer for some people. Never the less, I’m already sold and I’m sure they’ll produce an encased version of the product in the future to kill the noise further.

Get their stuff on the Jag35 website.

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