How XDCAM HD Compares to Solid-State

A 30-year veteran of documentaries, TV news, and the entertainment business, Eldred recently used a Sony XDCAM HD optical disc camera with a Fujinon (16×4.5 lens with extender) wide-angle lens as D.P. for a new prime time pilot called Dash 4 Cash, directed by Betty Thomas (Hill Street Blues).
The single-camera-style, scripted comedy spoofs competitive reality television shows and chronicles a collection of dysfunctional characters who team up and race across America for cash prizes. Two other camera operators also used XDCAM HD camcorders for the production, which shot for a week in remote locations around L.A. CBS and Paramount Television are producing the show, which is now being considered for a fall debut on the CW network.

An Emmy Award-winning cameraman and DGA Best Director Nominee-as well as a longtime Sony customer (he owns five different models/formats)-Eldred helped Sony give a presentation on the XDCAM HD system to reality TV king Mark Burnett and other CBS production executives in January. The company is looking to produce its entire prime time schedule in 1080i HD, and Dash 4 Cash is the first production on the CW network to get the green light for HD using the XDCAM HD system.

He’s now traveling to Ethiopia, Africa to shoot a documentary with an XDCAM HD camera. Eldred said he feels optical media is the true replacement format for Betacam SP, and it’s showing up on more high-end TV productions all the time (the field has been dominated by Sony’s F900 and F950 HDCAM cameras, if not 35mm film).

Q: How does optical disc compare to a tape-based production?
A: There are so many advantages that it’s hard to list them all. The camera is relatively inexpensive, lightweight and the format allows me to post-produce things so much quicker. I can do true time-lapse and slow motion, as opposed to flagging frames, in full 1080 resolution. You can’t say that about previous HD cameras. And it is easily the most robust and toughest camera system I have ever seen, which is vital to my work.

Convenience is a key. I was in Spain last year shooting and directing a documentary. Every day I would transfer that day’s footage from the camera to my Apple MacBook Pro laptop via Firewire. I was then able to online edit the 24p footage on the plane home, in HD resolution (1440×1080). By the time I got back to L.A., I had a near final cut that was almost ready for finishing. That’s insane.

Q: How do the XDCAM HD images compare to those you acquire with your F900 camera?
A: The images I get with 35 Mbps HD acquisition are very comparable to my F900 camera. I shot three other productions in which I used footage shot with both the F900 and the XDCAM camera and they match up extremely well. Also, for editing, I need less storage space to store my 35 Mbps footage as compared with the HDCAM format’s 140 Mbps data rate.

I’ve had DPs who saw my XDCAM HD demo in the big theater at the DGA who told me they couldn’t see the difference. I know there’s a difference: 4:2:0 [XDCAM] versus 4:2:2 [HDCAM] and the size of the imagers is different, but when I’m editing I can rarely tell the difference. And even after seeing it projected on a 30-foot screen, most people would not be able to either.

My F900R is still top-of-the-food-chain for high-end production, but I can honestly say that the XDCAM HD camera has hurt my business some for that camera, which is no longer the only game in town. That’s the way technology is going and I’m embracing it.

Q: Is the 23 GB capacity of the professional XDCAM HD disc enough for a typical day’s shoot?
A: Most definitely. I can get 70 minutes of HD record time at 35 Mbps. That’s more than two Betacam tapes’ worth on a single disc. And I’ve never had a problem with the discs. If you get them wet, you dry them off and they work perfectly. Humidity, dust, and freezing cold don’t affect them. I’ve shot more than 200 XDCAM discs and have never lost a frame.

Q: How does optical disc compare to solid-state recording technology?
A: [Solid-state] certainly looks to be the way of the future, just because it’s faster and easier than other systems and there’s literally no moving parts. However, the form factor is a bit too small for me. For a guy who’s been shooting for a long time, I can’t write on the little card to label what’s on there. It’s a bit of a challenge to manage your information. The optical discs are big enough to write on and be easily read by an editor. And of course optical discs are prefect for archiving, which cards are not.

Plus the disc holds 70 minutes at highest quality, but an 8 GB P2 card, for example, only holds 7 minutes each. Solid-state won’t be practical for someone like me until the record times come way, way up (and price way, way down) to what we’re used to with videotape. I need at least 30 minutes on a single piece of media or it’s a waste of my time. I really look forward to the new XDCAM EX. It’s a new world out there.