blue laser

[<ruffinit>]

Let's talk about blue laser. Anybody using it? I hear CNN may be.

[photogguy]

I don't even know what that is.

[2000lux]

What he's refering to is the Sony DVD camera that was unveiled at NAB this year.

I heard they might experiment with it but I doubt CNN will switch over to it right away. They're heavily invested in SX gear right now.

I think it looks prety cool. The advantage over the RAM cameras is that you can archive the raw footage if you want to, just like we do with tapes. With the Panasonic RAM camereas you'll have to download it to some thing else.

On the other hand, with the Panasonic, you don't have any moving parts. Ever had your CD player skip while you were moving around? Hrmmn.

-Brian

[imported_blank]

I have to agree with 2000lux on his above points..

I'd also like to point out that although the "SONY" blue laser system is on a DVD size disk, the material is not DVD compatible. The system is based on the IMX format and the DVcam format. The disks will NOT play or edit in normal computers or DVD players.

I am also not so sure about skipping in the field. A consumer CD needs very little anti=skip buffers due to the low bandwidth but IMX shoots 50Mbps - that's a mighty big buffer needed. We shall see.

The SONY blue laser system also incorporates new features for outputting to servers over the internet or mpeg-2 sat/micro streams using MXF. The disks also record low res proxies to be send out via low bandwidth for the producers to look over the footage or mark an EDL.

Also, BLUE LASER should not be confused with the consumer system called "Blu-ray Disc" to be used for "CONSUMER HDTV" disk recoding.

[<heylookatme>]

I got to demo the prototypes for the new Sony Optical format. Skipping is not an issue, we did several "shake" test while recording and never got a skip. CNN is getting the first delivery of the product sometime around November. I am sure Sony is also working on some type of Solid State technology to compare with the Panasonic release. I think the work flow of the future is going to be that we shoot on Solid State (RAM), Edit & Produce on Servers and Archive to Blue Laser.

[austinsatguy]

First on CNN and the SX format, I understand they have stoped buying SX gear (about a year ago). They have purchased some DVCAM. As for the Optical Disc, they will soon have evaluation cameras in house. I think they will go this route, they have to pick something, as much of the SX gear is 6 or more years old. The optical system also has seems to have the edge in the work flow area. Something they really want to take advantage of.