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HDV is becoming a ‘key format’ of the broadcast camera market

Jan 22, 2008 2:32 PM

    

Ali Ahmadi: That is limited by the weight capacity, and that is limited by the head. The FSB6 has a suggested maximum payload of 13lbs, but any 75mm head can be used.

HD Technology Update: When you look at developing a product like this, you must have a pretty good handle on the size of the HDV market. How would you characterize the HDV market?

Ali Ahmadi: It is very difficult to say because that category of cameras has various applications and various users. If you go into Best Buy as a dad who wants to shoot his son’s baseball practice, you are going to come across an HDV camera. They’re used for everything from that all the way up to cinematographers like David Lynch who decided to go with these kinds of formats because they will allow him a totally different kind of workflow. That opens up a whole new way of moviemaking to him.

That’s two people from opposite sides of the spectrum in the HDV market, and as a result, it is very hard to gauge that market. And, all the camera manufacturers are now pushing for solid-state memory to store the video. This offers great advantages in terms of workflow, so these cameras and the new workflows are getting more attractive by the hour.

HD Technology Update: In particular, what impact do you see HDV having on the broadcast and motion picture markets?

Ali Ahmadi: I think it’s having a huge impact because of two reasons. These cameras now are so closely tied to computers — the optical chips — and you take that in combination with the advances computers have made and the advances of chips in the last couple of years; just three years ago, it was inconceivable that anybody other than the highest professional photographer could have an 8-megapixel still camera.

Now, you go to the store and you get your daughter a little 8-megapixel point-and shoot, and it’s a throwaway. “Try not to drop it the first week you have it.”

Then you say, “My God, what kind of world are we living in?” These cameras live off these types of technological advancements, and the result is a generation of cameras that are extremely good at a much lower price. But, you have to upgrade more often, and between the upgrades, the feature sets increase by a lot as well. This is all growing at exponential rates.

Right now, we are all raving about the 4K Red camera. If we keep going at the speed we are going, in two years, the little cell phones will have 4K motion picture cameras.

What used to be a niche roll for a camera (for example, the victim camera for taping the demolition of a building) is turning into a key portion of the broadcast industry. It is not the biggest portion, but it is a key portion.

However, we must all remember one thing: Just because the camera is smaller and cheaper, just because we can save money and time by optimizing the workflow, it doesn’t mean that we can get sloppy with the camera work. There still has to be a highly skilled person behind that camera shooting the footage, and you need professional tools for that. We are in the business of helping them by providing the tools they need on location.

That is why we developed the SooM: to create a professional and multifunctional tool that will allow the professionals behind the camera to capture that perfect shoot – just the way they want, the way they need and the way they imagined.

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