Like last year, a major theme among camera manufactures at NAB2006 will be affordable HD, with companies such as Sony, Panasonic and JVC leading the charge. But according to camco reps, high-end systems are poised to generate the biggest buzz at the upcoming Las Vegas show.

Sony’s NAB theme is ‘HD for All,’ according to Brian Young, strategic marketing manager at Sony Canada. The company is promoting HD systems for various applications, user levels and price ranges, but is putting a major push behind its XDCAM HD format, an upgrade of its standard-def XDCAM family. The new PDW-F330 and PDW-F350 cameras provide HD 1080 capability at multiple frame rates and are aimed at independent production, news and corporate applications.

‘We’ve launched them over the pre-NAB period and we’ve just started to ship to the first customers,’ says Young. ‘We feel these products fill the gap that was in our line between [lower-end] HDV and the higher end. We have products at every price point, with a wide range of feature sets to be able to fill a broad spectrum of needs.’

Sony’s booth – expected to once again be the largest on the floor – will be divided up among HD news, HD cinematography and storage, HD sports, and HD in business and broadband applications. For higher-end users, the company will showcase its new F900 model – the HDW-F900R, which has been made smaller and more environmentally friendly, but is essentially the same camera that has proven popular in earlier generations.

Sony will also roll out its first generation of 4K film projectors: the SRXR110 and SRXR105. The projected image is made up of 8.8 million pixels in a 4096 x 2160 format, making for superior quality to HD-standard 2K, and is especially useful for 3D pictures.

‘Everyone is trying to ramp up to 4K,’ Young says. ‘[The projector] is primarily for digital cinema applications. There are major deals being made across North America, so there will be thousands of theaters converting to digital cinema over the next 18 months.’

Waterloo, ON-based DALSA Corporation has been first out of the gate for 4K cameras with its Origin model, which is already on the market. According to spokesperson Patrick Myles, although DALSA will be booth-less at NAB, the Origin will have ‘a strong soft presence.’

‘You’ll probably see some other [similar] prototypes at NAB, but ours is renting right now,’ Myles says. ‘We are working with a number of third-party vendors, so you’ll see our footage in numerous vendor booths at NAB.’

Myles says that while HD has made the biggest noise at previous NAB shows, 4K-based products and applications will muscle their way to the forefront at this year’s confab.

‘Most people will find that the 4K post-production tools have moved ahead quite significantly,’ he says, pointing to new systems that will handle 4K editing, compositing and special effects.

According to Rob Sim, president of Toronto-headquartered equipment rental house Sim Video, the Thomson Grass Valley Viper FilmStream and Sony HDW-F950 are two of the high-end HD cameras that have performed best for his clients. He currently has Vipers shooting in China on the feature Son of the Dragon, and his shop’s F950s were employed on much of the upcoming video-game flick Silent Hill. Sim’s Panasonic VariCam HD Cinema Camera AJ-HDC27H and AJ-HDC27F models rent well, too, he says, having recently been used on the series 1-800 Missing.

But he is cautionary about buyers rolling the dice on lower-end HD devices in Vegas, imploring them to do their homework before investing.

‘Some cheaper HD options may not be what the industry considers to be HD,’ says Sim. ‘There is a lot of confusion in the market right now, and I think it is going to get worse before it gets better. And the workflow issues [with lower-end HD devices] are becoming awkward for us as a rental company.’

He says that because some lower-end models store footage onto memory cards, shooters spend much of their time loading footage onto hard drives and then backing them up several times out of fear of a system crash and loss of content.

Devices to better store memory card data are on the way, but Sim feels some camera companies ‘are introducing products so fast that the systems are not in place and the workflow issues have not been worked out.’

Panasonic will come to NAB to introduce its budget-conscious, lightweight AK-HC1500, touting it as the industry’s first 1080i/720p switchable HD camera. The camera also offers the variable frame rate functionality of the VariCam. The company will also be displaying its new AG-DVC20 shoulder-mount 3-CCD miniDV, marketed largely at entry-level videographers and digital filmmakers.

Thomson, manufacturer of the Viper – used on upcoming features Miami Vice and Zodiac – did not return calls regarding its NAB plans, but smart money is on the company’s continued pumping of its LDK 6000 WorldCam HD camera, which offers three 9.2 million-pixel HD-DPM CCDs. The company will have separate pavilions at the show for broadcast, content distribution, content security, and film and video.

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