Compact solid-state recorder gains momentum even before it’s officially available
The highly anticipated Flash XDR HD recorder/player from Colorado Springs, CO-based Convergent Design has begun hitting the street (at least in the hands of select “alpha” customers).

Independent feature productions using small-format HD cameras are anxious to get their hands on it because it provides native QuickTime files that don’t have to be transcoded before working in Final Cut Studio. This will save significant time in post.

WJLA, a local TV station in Washington, DC, is now testing the unit (and transmitting data directly from it) in the field and another user, Mark Magin of Onboard Images, recently took one up in his ultra-light plane during the Oshkosh Air Show (in Oshkosh, WI) with POV cameras and, even at 12 Gs of force, it never dropped a frame. In total he logged 6 one-hour flights with the XDR capturing 1080i 4:2:2 at 50 Mbps. [You can view the video shot by Magin at: www.airventure.org. Hover over Multimedia, then select Videos. Select the 2008 (All) tab, then Play the following Videos: "In-Cockpit: Mike Goulian Airshow Performance" (may turn your stomach) and "View of the Flightline from the Breezy"]

Others are dying to get their hands on these things.

“This workflow will save me a lot of money and the hassle of working with tape,” said Michael Palmer, an independent shooter and one of the first users. “It also allows me to own the camera at a very affordable price, sync time code of multiple cameras, shade the image on set (via a DIT using a video village setup) and capture a 1920x1080 signal straight back to a low-compression, low-price recording device.”

Palmer is about to shoot the second season of Faithful Friends on Animal Planet in September with three Sony XDCAM EX-3 cameras. Through his Heads & Tails Productions in Bon Fall, CA, he will record to a Flash XDR box on each camera and back up to SxS cards.

“The [Flash XDR HD recorder] allows you to choose the compression level you want, regardless of what the manufacturer dictates,” he added. “That’s very empowering.”

Thanks to a new licensing agreement with Apple, a firmware upgrade for the Flash XDR enables QuickTime files to be written directly to the Compact Flash cards. Users will also be able play and edit clips directly from the CF cards via a FireWire 800 reader.

The compact unit (2.7 lbs without battery) offers record and playback of 50 Mbps 4:2:2 in 1080i60/50 as well as 720p60/50. Other features—like 24p removal, 1080p formats, and higher bit-rate acquisition—will be enabled in the coming weeks via additional firmware updates. These upgrades can be accessed via a coded download from the company website. [A special Flash XDR Forum has been set up: www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?f=60.]

Including four compact flash slots, the unit features an aluminum enclosure with rubberized protective jacket for greater shock and vibration resistance. Card capacity levels are displayed on the LCD screen, and metadata is stored in XML file format. Users can also transfer MXF data files into NLE-compatible formats like AVI.

HD ASI file support (used by news crews to transmit files directly from the box via microwave) will be available sometime in early September, according to the company, and will include selectable bit rates from 17.5 to 100 Mbps in 4:2:0 and 4:2:2 formats.

The company has recognized pre-registered customers’ impatience with the delayed delivery schedule (the unit was introduced in January with deliveries expected in the first quarter of this year). In an email, Convergent Design founder Michael Schell said, “We understand that, for some applications, Flash XDR may be the only viable tool to record high-def video. We are trying our best to ramp production quickly to meet your schedules.”

Priced at under $5,000, the unit can be mounted specifically on the Canon XL H1 and G1 as well as the Sony XDCAM EX cameras. Other models will follow.

Convergent Design is also planning an uncompressed version of its solid-state recorder, which will necessitate large capacity (and expensive) high-speed CF cards that must be striped together via RAID-0 to protect the data. The price for the firmware upgrade is $995, and it should be delivered in October.

For more information, visit www.convergent-design.com.