Silicon Imaging says it will ship its 2K Digital Cinema camera system in January. The SI-2K camera with its single 2/3-inch CMOS chip is designed to work with Adobe's Premiere HD NLE software and captures directly to disk at either 1920x1080P HD or 2048×1152 cinema resolutions. It features 10-bit CineForm RAW and 12-bit uncompressed 2K direct-to-disk recording, an over 10 f-stop dynamic range, and a touch-screen interface.

The SI-2K streams images as uncompressed raw "digital negatives" over a gigabit Ethernet connection. These digital negatives and "look" metadata are simultaneously recorded to a 2.5-inch hard drive using the CineForm RAW codec. Up to four hours of continuous footage is captured on a 160 GB drive.

The camera runs on integrated motherboards or on laptops powered by Intel's Core 2 Duo processors that can be tethered up to 300 feet away. It also includes color management technology from Iridas and an integrated frame store that allows users to create instant in-camera reference composites and overlays for precise camera alignment and shot visualization.

CineForm's Prospect 2K software-which can be bundled as an option with the SI-2K camera-offers real-time, multi-stream editing of CineForm RAW files with look metadata using Adobe Production Studio. It supports both Windows AVI and Apple QuickTime formats. Details on a Mac OS workflow that includes Final Cut Pro HD will be announced soon.

Set to ship in January, the SI-2K with an embedded Intel Core 2 Duo processor and hot-swap drive cartridge system plus the removable MINI camera head costs $20,000, or $22,000 bundled with Prospect-2K. The SI-2K MINI version will be available in December for $12,500.

For more information, visit siliconimaging.com and www.cineform.com