HD is slowly gaining footholds in the rarefied feature film world, with high-profile, sky’s-the-limit projects like Collateral and the Star Wars movies showing just what’s possible with the new breed of digital cinematography cameras. But at lower altitudes, would-be early adopters are still experiencing sticker shock. So it was with some prescience that JVC introduced the first HDV camcorder at NAB two years ago. Announced at under $4000 and available on the street for quite a bit less, it was a trial balloon floated in an industry that needed to make HD compelling in the fiscal sense as well as the visual.

"It’s not going to replace HDCAM," says Jim DeFilippis who, as VP of television engineering at the Fox DTV lab, has some pressing concerns of his own where HD technology is concerned. "But it has some very good target uses in our company, perhaps as an entrà©e into HD news and certainly in reality TV programming." Fox has already used JVC’s JY-HD10U HDV camera on American Idol, and DeFilippis says that’s not remarkable in itself- many Fox shows end up shooting B-roll footage with prosumer equipment and then marrying it to higher-quality footage. What’s important to him is that HDV is, today, the most cost-effective way to get more pixels on the screen.

Yes, three-chip acquisition makes a world of difference. But if you think that MPEG-2 is, in itself, a deal-breaker for pro applications, consider the wide world of reality television as well as lucrative indie features like Open Water- shot on a PD150, polished up in After Effects, attached to a killer sound mix and released in theaters to the tune of $30 million- before dismissing it entirely. And at NAB, there will be even more reasons for DPs and VPs to take another look at HDV. Not only has Sony claimed its own stake in the format, releasing a pair of 1080i HDV camcorders that are already garnering their fair share of attention, but JVC is now firing back with ProHD, described by executives as "an expanded version" of HDV.

JVC’s new three-CCD ( 1 / 3 -inch) ProHD 720p camcorder is designed to plug the holes left by its previous HDV products. Specifically, JVC is taking shots at its competitor by declaring that the GY-HD100U will record "true 24p," generating progressive frames without the "Cineframe" pull-down scheme employed by the Sony products, which shoot at a native 1080i. In other words, you no longer have to choose between 24p and HD in this price range- only between 720p and 1080i. (Interestingly, this is not the same camera that JVC previewed at NAB last year, which would have used 2 / 3 -inch chips.)

The HD100U has two independently controlled XLR audio inputs and takes a standard Anton Bauer brick-style battery. As a bonus, the camera can output a live 60p signal without the HDV compression (to feed a truck, for example) but its clearly intended use is 24p acquisition. One intriguing option is a forthcoming Focus Enhancements module for direct-to-edit recording, potentially making the camera a sort of hybrid device- tape or disk, choose your poison. At some point, JVC is hinting, the camera might record to solid-state memory or even Blu-ray discs. (Additionally, Focus Enhancements is showing HD versions of its FireStore FS-4 direct-to-edit recorders that work with Sony’s HDV camcorders and decks and are slated to ship this summer.)

JVC is also showing the BR-HD50U, a ProHD deck designed as a go-between to get footage from the camera and into NLE systems. It plays DVCAM as well as recording and playing ProHD, HDV and DV. Pre-production models will be shown at NAB, where the price will also be announced. (ProHD needs to be basically competitive with the Sony HDV models, although the included 16x Servo Fujinon lens will keep prices up.) The camera is slated to ship by summertime, with the deck to come in June.

Where does this leave Panasonic? The company has spent the last two years trying to convince users that they don’t need tape in their workflow at all, pushing solid-state P2 cards as an elegant, cost-effective alternative to tape and optical disc acquisition. Staying on message, Panasonic now says it’s getting ready to release a handheld camcorder that can record all varieties of DVCPRO to P2 media, including 24p HD, for less than $10,000. Lest that read as so much pie in the sky, executives insist that it’s a real product that will be in users’ hands well before NAB 2006. If you really don’t like what MPEG-2 does to your HD footage, this is the low-end HD product worth waiting for. Before the show, Panasonic executives underscored the idea that recording to P2 rather than tape looses some of the restrictions on frame rates. (Time will tell whether Panasonic will offer any non-P2 recording options along the road to inexpensive HD nirvana.) Price and availability will be announced at NAB.

If you’re still trying to figure out when, where and how you’re going to get a chance to move footage off of your very expensive P2 cards while you’re out in the field, the new AJ-PCS060, a 60 GB hard disk with a P2 card slot may make the job less difficult, beginning in the third quarter. On the camera side, with 24p the key bullet point in any camera sales brochure, Panasonic has new software (due this month) that upgrades the AJ-SPX800 P2 cam to 24p via the SD card slot. Also new is a $1200 proxy video card option (coming in May) that records low-res MPEG-4 video at one of three quality settings onto an SD card. Finally, the DVD-R/RAM drive option is now available for the AJ-SPD850 P2 deck.

While Sony will be offering a tech demo of a forthcoming HD XDCAM at the show, its prime NAB message has more to do with offering TLC to existing DVCAM users who are still trying to figure out their HD strategies. For example, it’s introducing two $4500 HD upconverter boards for its DSR-series DVCAM studio VTRs, automatically generating 720p or 1080i output from SD DVCAM tapes. A new upgrade to the $39,000 HDW-S280 makes it the least expensive Sony deck to support 24p recording as well as upconversion from Betacam, BetaSP and Betacam SX. Sony is trying to make its commitment to DVCAM as conspicuous as possible- the booth will feature two new three-CCD DVCAM camcorders, the $10,800 DSR-400 and the $18,000 widescreen DSR-450WS. Also new in legacy technology are the $39,500 MSW-970 MPEG IMX and the $48,500 DVW-970 DigiBeta, both with 24p options.

For high-end users, Sony’s key product announcement is the $98,000 SRW-5500 deck, which is switchable between HDCAM and HDCAM SR formats and offers simultaneous HD and SD output. The 5500 is compatible with the same three option boards that are already available for the SRW-5000.

Elsewhere in the recording space, Avid’s DNxHD codec is starting to come into its own as an avenue for delivering HD directly to the editing station. Ikegami will highlight the Editcam HD camcorder, first seen last year, which outputs 1080/60i, 1080/24p and 720/60p in DNxHD at 140 Mbps. Where you can keep all that stuff in the short term? Try Ikegami’s new 120 GB FieldPak2 for more than an hour of HD recording on a hard disk or solid-state memory. Ikegami will have a raft of new cameras at the show, including the HDL-40HS, a CMOS-based high-speed camera that can shoot at 1080/60p as well as 720/120p.

Thomson comes to the show with a stated goal of reaching a broader range of broadcasters with HD, introducing the LDK 4000, a studio camera starting at $95,000 and available in 1080i and 720p versions. The system includes a camera head, base station, a triax or fiber-optic adapter and a two-inch or five-inch viewfinder. Despite all the technology, broadcasters are still transitioning to HD a lot slower than vendors would like. "I’m still a little apprehensive about that," says Fujinon Marketing Manager David Waddell. "Broadcasters don’t see a return on investment for HD news because the viewership is so small. You can take a good upconverted signal and put it out over an HD channel and, for news, who says it’s not good enough?"

What’s new in lenses? According to Waddell, you won’t see as many changes in the fundamentals at NAB this year, now that lens manufacturing techniques, glass formulations and coatings have generally caught up with the specific demands of HD photography. Instead, look for product tweaks aimed at reducing headaches for camera operators. Along those lines, Fujinon made a splash last year with its Precision Focus Assist system, then failed to deliver it. Look for a new version, improved by much spirited discussion with users over the past 12 months, to ship shortly after this year’s NAB.

Fujinon’s also busy trying to plug holes in the market, backfilling with a line of lenses and a pan/tilt system for the 1 / 2 -inch CCD HD camera Sony sprung on the market last year. Its big introduction this year will be the 6.2-pound HA25à—11.5BERD HD ENG-style telephoto lens, designed for shooters who need a long lens but don’t want to haul around a separate lens-support platform- or spend 70 grand on the heavy-duty stuff.

Finally, news on the digital cinematography front is most likely to break at the Digital Cinema Summit, taking place the weekend before the show, which will include presentations from Dalsa, Arri, Panavision and Kinetta. Dalsa should tout the recent opening of the Dalsa Digital Cinema Center in Woodland Hills, CA, which will serve as rental headquarters for the 4K Dalsa Origin camera after an open house the week of April 12. Panavision won’t be exhibiting on the show floor at all- and who knows what the makers of Kinetta have to say about that particular science project- so pencil in the Sunday-morning session on "high-end digital cameras" for a high-powered update on next-generation acquisition.