With the advent of tapeless acquisition from many camera manufacturers, Hitachi advances past its competition with new hard disk and solid-state digital video recording products that eliminate time-consuming steps in the video production workflow. At NAB2006, Hitachi will introduce the availability of four, eight and 16GB solid-state Mediapac cartridges and will demonstrate 160GB hard disk storage for its Z-DR1 dockable digital recorder.
The Z-DR1 recorder, first introduced at NAB2005, was developed in partnership with nNovia, http://www.nnovia.com/ and Audavi, www.hardtape.com corporations to provide a truly unique and affordable field acquisition system. The Z-DR1 employs ‘Mediapacs,’ which are aluminum-encased Hitachi hard disks, ranging between 40GB and 120GB capacity. This translates to as much as nine hours of recording time per Mediapac, surpassing competitors with similar codecs. An optional accessory for Mediapacs incorporates hardware encryption for secure content transport from camera to the intended destination.
“Just as tape migrated from proprietary to standard formats, no one wants to go back to the days of proprietary formats just because the medium is changing to hard drive recording,” said Mike Bergkamp, CEO, Audavi Corporation. “The ZDR-1 represents the change taking place from tape to tapeless acquisition. The Hitachi system allows you to seamlessly use hard drive based Mediapacs for high capacity, cost effective recording or solid state media when the conditions (temperature extremes, high vibration, etc.) dictate. Mediapac and SolidTape cartridges can be inserted directly into the ZDR-1.”
A number of other manufacturers are now incorporating devices that allow users to transfer content from the camera directly to the editing stations, but most require moving the entire recording device or a hard drive, which is proprietary to the camera manufacturer. By using the MediaPAC design, the customer moves only the data.
“The Z-DR1 takes full advantage of today’s hard drive technology and is designed to accommodate the capacity and speed improvements projected in the future,” said Larry Aubry, CEO, nNovia. “Among its advantages, the Z-DR1 cartridge holds and protects the hard drive when not in use. It has a very high shock protection, and it is not limited to a single vendor or industry application.”
“The practical approach we’ve taken with the Z-DR1 tapeless products assures our customers the best blend of current technology with maximum ROI and full compatibility with today’s popular NLE systems,” said Emilio Aleman, Product Manager, Broadcast & Professional, Hitachi Kokusai Electric America, Ltd. “Tapeless acquisition encompasses several technology disciplines that manufacturers need to consider before rushing to the market with incomplete and partial products. Having experience with tape and optical recording, Hitachi decided that the digital storage medium is the key to future digital video storage. Moving past optical recording, the logical storage medium is hard disks thanks to their massive capacities, fast data transfer rates, and ever-decreasing costs.
Hitachi’s Z-DR1 dockable digital recorder and tapeless accessories are currently available and will be shown at this year’s NAB in various working configurations to accommodate field production and news video recording scenarios.
Sections: Business Technology
Topics: Press Release City
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