Sea-Change In HD

Furthering the democratisation of High Definition, last night Black Magic announced the DeckLink HD; full 10-bit HD at a price of $2000.00 US. Grant Petty says it will deliver in three or four weeks and I’ve already ordered one. Works in all major HD formats and in both Apple G4’s and G5’s.

The circle is completing; low-cost acquisition with Varicam, low-cost HD post and effects with DeckLink, FCP, & Shake, and soon the new Panasonic decks that output 24p.

All we need now is to sell those color TV’s!

Interesting times indeed.

Best regards to all,
Leo Ticheli
Director/Cinematographer
Brimingham/Atlanta

>The circle is completing; low-cost acquisition with Varicam, low-cost HD >post and effects with DeckLink, FCP, & Shake, and soon the new >Panasonic decks that output 24p.

Panasonic seems to be making some smart moves and getting the industry to back them up quite well.

Walter Graff
Producer, Director, Creative Director, Cinematographer
HellGate Pictures, Inc.
www.film-and-video.com

We have ordered a DeckLink HD as well, what an amazing price! Grant Petty writes the drivers for the AJA Kona HD we use currently which has been working perfectly since December.

Dual G5 supposed to be shipping at the end of the month, single processors shipping now. Looking forward to the OSX Panther release which will include the Pixlet codec. HD viewing even on existing platforms without a HD card, this will be great for client screening, we will just send them a firewire drive for them to copy from instead of a tape!

The following is from Apples Web Site :

"Pixlet is the first studio-grade codec for filmmakers. Pixlet provides 20-25:1 compression, allowing a 75MB/sec series of frames to be delivered in a 3MB/sec movie, similar to DV data rates..........Pixlet lets high-end digital film frames play in real time with any Panther Mac, without investing in costly, proprietary playback hardware."

Pixlet and the OSX Panther release will run on G4s as well as G5s.

Jeff Blauvelt
HD Cinema
NY/NE (Westport, CT)
LA/West (Pacific Palisades, CA)

>The following is from Apples Web Site :

HD for the masses at reasonable prices. And the future looks even better with some other stuff that is coming out.

Walter Graff
Producer, Director, Creative Director, Cinematographer
HellGate Pictures, Inc.