NZVN November 2015

NOVEMBER 2015 Vol 219

We are at Sound Techniques in Auckland with Simon

Temple, cinematographer and Stephen Buckland,

dumpling aficionado.

Ed: Simon, we’ve asked you here because you are a

current and happy user of the Video Devices PIX-E5.

Could you begin by telling us some history as to what you

were using before the PIX-E5?

Simon: The history for me of mobile recordingdevices has been very short, because there have only

been a few onboard recorder/monitors of this type in the

market for short time. Before that, it was either

monitoring or an external recording device only. This is a

great combination of a full HD monitor in 5” with onboard

recording in 4K. I have also used the PIX-240 on a

number of jobs with good results.

Ed: And that was the first time you actually had adecent monitor and recorder in the one box?

Simon: Yes. For me it wasn’t just about recording a

proxy file, but creating copies and having the ability to

play back.

Ed: And why couldn’t that have been done in-camera?

Simon: Not many cameras recorded a proxy file, and

often there wasn’t the choice of codecs we have today.

The RED system which I have here today started with a

proxy file which was brilliant. Then they went away fromit to a RAW type file only and you had to do it through

software to get the back offline edit proxy or external

playback ability. These devices have opened up those

options again, speeding up our workflow, as well as

having another monitor option. Another good reason to

have a handheld type small monitor recorder is that the

director, 1st AC, or DIT can playback the last clip

independent of the camera system. If there’s a DIT then

Tales of Pix-e5 and Dragons

Simon and Stephen.

there’s most likely a DIT cart, but if

there’s not a DIT cart this is the next

best thing.

Ed: And DIT for the uninitiated is?

Simon: A Digital Imaging

Technician. Used to be the “data

wrangler” and before that the “ports to

camera assist.”

Ed: Right, so that’s an extra body on-

set?

Simon: It is an extra body on-set.

It’s a cart system which may not be ideal

for the location depending on the shoot.

There’s no doubt in my mind that they

(DIT) always play an integral role in

most productions, especially for multi-camera data wrangling, transcode,

playback, and monitor control. This

does not substitute any DIT require-

ments, but offers options to smaller

budgets.

Ed: And you can trust the image that you get from

the PIX screen that it’s actually true colour and the right

frame and everything?

Simon: Well the latest firmware has allowed us to

put LUTs on (look up tables) and for me, that’s

becoming an increasingly important part of the digital

imaging process. A DIT would traditionally do that for

you on a larger more colour accurate monitor. Without

a DIT, this allows me and the director to be able to

quickly judge the look that we’ve chosen and use. We

can switch between looks and monitor the native signal

coming in from the camera too.

Ed: Is that something you’ve found very valuable with

Video Devices’ product, as you say, the 240 and now

the E5, that you are getting good firmware support

from Video Devices?

Simon: Yes, firmware support is always welcome.

In fact, there’s a whole host of devices that come out

on the market before all of the functions are enabled.

The firmware updates come in and subsequent

functionality; or we’re just at the height of technology

and the little things that haven’t been invented are still

yet to come out. The PIX-E5 has come out with a whole

host of features at this time to upload support for

various things like LUTs and different camera support,

trigger cameras for HDMI, things like that. And the

great thing is that it is a great quality boost for legacy

cameras that can output a good signal.

Ed: So in this case, you can just change your camera

head and you continue with the recording system that’s

on the PIX?

Simon: That’s right. For me, the PIX’s form factor

is very appealing; a 5” full HD screen which can literally

go in the pocket is fantastic. If I have a lot of gear, it’s

easy to bring an additional tool like this.

P17 Atomise Auckland launch.

P21 What you need to know

… and more goodies from IBC 2015

DISPLAY & CLASSIFIED ADVERTBOOKINGS BY WED 2 DECEMBER

ADVERT COPY BY FRI 4 DECEMBERUP ON THE WEB BY FRI 11 DECEMBER

Go to https://sites.google.com/site/nzvideonews/ for more news.

Ed: But of course you’ve got to be able to trust it – it

might be small but in fact it does all the recording you

require?

Simon: Well the trust is a good question and the

reason I’ve chosen this particular system is because it’s

a company that has been around a long time in a

broadcast environment, especially with the audio

recorders alongside the Video Devices wing of thecompany. Sound Devices are a very strong, reputable

company, one of the most trusted portable audio

recording companies in the world. So when they come

out with a device, you know it’s going to handle the

knocks and can handle the environment. I trust that

it’s going to work every time I start it up. Of course,

they’re fairly new to video recording devices, so it was

interesting to see that they made some good choices interms of the codecs and resolution they support

currently.

Ed: But the support and trust that you get from

Sound Devices obviously has to be matched by the local

supplier. Do you have similar feelings towards him?

Simon: The great thing again is that Sound

Techniques have been around a while too, they have

solid brands and they’ve been able to come to my aid

when I needed the device as soon as possible.

Ed: Don’t hold back, but remember I’m the one

buying lunch …

Stephen: Oh, are you? Doesn’t that break your

journalistic code of practice?

Simon: The dealings with the team here at Sound

Techniques have been very professional. There are a

whole bunch of accessories coming out with this

recorder that haven’t come out yet, so I’ve been on

Stephen’s tail about those bits.

Ed: Yes, we’ll talk to Stephen soon, but before we talk

about what’s coming, just let’s go through the currently

available PIX-E5 because this is another step from the

240 and obviously a well appreciated step from what

I’ve heard. What, to you, would be the 3 top features

of the E5 that really make it stand out against the

opposition?

Simon: I would firstly say the appealing size is a

real advantage because again it allows me to fit it into a

small camera package. It can even go on the camera

as a main monitor/recording option as well as being a

decent aid for a focus puller. It makes for a very small

form factor 4K full frame camera system when you pair

it with the A7. So the size is very appealing.

The second thing is the build quality – It’s very rugged;

it feels to me like it could withstand a bit of abuse on

certain jobs. I put gear through its paces and it’s held

up to everything I’ve thrown at it.

Then thirdly, the recently firmware adds LUT support.

Other features are things like cross converting HDMI/

SDI signals so I can go from an HDMI camera to

another SDI monitor and vice versa. It will trigger from

both sources, and also allow you to choose from a

variety of ProRes options and resolution. And, one of

the best advantages is that it records 4K through HDMI,

which can often be a better file type than the camera

records internally, so it can be used as a master file if

required.

Ed: Now driving it … is this an easy product to learn

how to use, or are the menus as complicated as

programming a VCR?

Simon: No, not at all. I’ve found it surprisingly

easy to use – the main thing is, having the interface

with hard buttons and software control via touchscreen

monitoring, allows me to move rapidly between the

menu system and I haven’t found any glitches there at

all; it’s been very quick to use.

Ed: Do you have to keep reading the manual?

Simon: Not with this one. I’ve been to theirwebsite and it’s all there. They’re very up to date.

Ed: Or you can call Stephen?

Simon: Or I can call Stephen and harass him. He

did send me the last firmware so I give him credit for

that!

Ed: So for you Stephen, an easy product to support?

Stephen: Well it seems to be easy so far. Obviously

at Sound Techniques, video is not our natural field.That said, I do have to say the learning curve doesn’t

seem to have been as steep as I might have

anticipated. Also one of the things about the Video

Devices and Sound Devices’ gear is that all the menus

have a similar learning curve, so if you understand your

way around one, then the buttons you press are innate

– even if you’re not necessarily familiar with the menu

function that you’re changing. Even just playing around

with this in the last couple of weeks since we’ve had it,I’ve realised there’s a whole lot of subtlety, not so much

menus within menus, but pressing a button a little

harder suddenly brings up a whole lot of other options

which I think makes it very easy to understand.

Ed: Now we have found recently that there arerecording formats that the E5 doesn’t record, but reallyis this a huge issue or is it something that either thecinematographer can work around, or maybe they needto find a different recording system if they really wantthat particular recording format. Or they change theircamera?

Stephen: It’s hard to answer because when you tryto plug something into something else, made by twodifferent companies, I would say odds are that there’sgoing to be some incompatibility. What I will say aboutthe Video Devices gear, and one of the things that’simpressed me about it even as a naïve person is that,generally, it will accept any signal in and send anysignal out. That’s one of the reasons why a lot ofpeople are prepared to pay perhaps a little bit extrabecause of that versatility, and what you get out of thebox. In terms of the incompatibility, well we can onlysoldier on.

Ed: But the inconsistencies are minimal?

Stephen: The inconsistencies are minimal and assoon as Video Devices are alerted to them, they’vebeen on the case trying to figure out what they can doto sort them out. First of all, may I say they expressedsurprise as to how people might want to use the gear …

Ed: Oh look, we know cinematographers Stephen – ifit’s not in the manual they’ll ask “why not” and they’lltry to do it anyway?

Stephen: That would be true, okay, I can only agree.

Ed: Now Simon, you’ve been using this since it cameout. Have you found any situation where it doesn’t

record what you want to record … and you’re using a

range of cameras into it aren’t you?

Simon: Most cameras output a signal nowadays;

you don't always get what you want but they could

upgrade the options later on, or maybe there’s firmware

upgrades/support coming round the corner.

With all of these devices at the top of the technology

food chain, there’s always going to be a few issues that

need ironing out as the product gets rolled out. I’m

very happy so far; it hasn’t caused me any issues.

Ed: But in terms of inconsistency or incompatibility,

it’s not just the PIX-E5, it’s also the camera has to take

some responsibility there, that certain cameras don’t

output the recording system that you might want?

Simon: Yes, the RED DRAGON of course has the

same problem. The output as a proxy file is fine, but It

was probably never intended as a recording signal

output, mostly for monitoring. It would be great to

capture a higher resolution file from the camera body

without using a REDCAST module, say through the

HDMI output. It's interesting to see the new RED

WEAPON camera has recently reintroduced the onboard

proxy file.

If it's merely a proxy file you need from the camera,

this records a really decent ProRes proxy. Options

include ProRes 4444 one of the best compressed codec

options that holds up to colour grading. There will be

support for cameras with a log output into ProRes

4444HQ soon. But for now I’m quite happy where the

device is.

Ed: You must be very dedicated to keep working with

RED. A lot of people would give up and go to

something a bit more mainstream that actually does

things straight out of the box. You really must like

RED?

Simon: Well put it this way … they were a very

disruptive company that changed the industry and as a

result got a lot of criticism. It’s a lot to do withfirmware reliability of early builds. I actually take my

hat off to them for what they have achieved as pioneers

and industry leaders in quality affordability. They were

the new kid on the block with offering more in one

package than any other camera system. I work with

lots of other camera systems – the new RED DRAGON

camera is unbelievable. It is a very feature rich

camera. Interchangeable OLPFs, dramatically improvedcolour space and Dynamic range, form factor and

modularity, resolution, and interchangeability.

Consistent improvement through firmware releases and

beta testing has created a pretty stable platform now.

Also they have been offering onboard RAW high

resolution cameras for almost 10 years. Some smaller

productions don't like the RAW workflow and high data

rates. It's not uncommon to shoot a terabyte of rushes

for the day’s work in 6K with one camera! That ispossibly why they’ve brought the onboard proxy back

into the WEAPON. If you want to shoot detailed

composite work requiring high resolution, or if you need

a camera to reconfigure in multiple shooting modes,

and a great action camera, the DRAGON is a great

choice.

Ed: Okay, so just run through the cameras that you

are feeding into the E5?

Simon: Sure. Any camera with an HDMI or SDI

source! Again, I will use the E5 as a focus puller

monitor or a director’s monitor that can be used for

playback. Focus pullers often want to play stuff back to

check their sharps (focus). It won’t record ARRI RAW,

or Sony RAW but I’m not expecting it to do that. I seethis device being a perfect accompaniment to, say, the

C300 Mark II. That would be a brilliant camera/

recorder combination. It fits the form factor of the

camera well, it has support for 4K out of the camera.

The other thing that I was really interested in was a

field recorder that I could use in documentaries which I

love to shoot too. It’s a solid device suitable for the

quick pace of a documentary and the ability to take agood master file from lots of different camera sources.

Ed: So that’s where you’re using the recording

capability of the E5 as the final formal?

Simon: Yes. I’ll record both because it is great

backup too should anything happen to the camera, or if

anything happens to the recorder!

Ed: In what situation do you use the E5 as your main

recorder?

Simon: Probably for the Sony A7 range because forme that’s where the recorder really comes into its own.

It fits the form factor well, I can make a very

lightweight small system that doesn’t startle people!

We’re only getting 8 bit, 422 4K in the PIX-E. That

won't likely change in the future as the Sony A7 is what

the camera outputs. It is better than the internal codec

of the A7. I use the Sony A7 camera as a second

camera most often anyway; it can pair nicely with other

Sony cameras like the FS7, the F5, and the F55 if you

are not recording RAW.

Ed: But, going into the future, you’re looking to the

next product out of Video Devices?

Simon: The 7” monitor as a recorder is coming outsoon and other than more screen real estate, they add

another couple of SDI connections. Hopefully you’ll be

able to take a 4x3G-SDI feed which means I’ll be able

to record a native 4K feed from cameras with a 4xSDI

output. In fact, it would also be great to see support

for other RAW codecs too. But for now, even a ProRes

4444 is just as good as a master file. I see the 7” being

a system that works in tandem with the 5” as a goodmonitor solution for proxy and back up files.

Ed: Any other “add-ons” Stephen?

Stephen: Firstly, the full PIXE range includes the PIX-

E5 and PIXe5H (HDMI only) and the 5” models will

continue as an ongoing product because there are many

applications for a 5” monitor/recorder where 7” is too

much. As for add-ons, forthcoming will be 2 channel

professional audio input, which will work for both the E5

and the E7. That will, just like on the PIX-240, allow 2proper mic inputs. At the moment, you’ve only got a

mini-jack which will take unbalanced audio feed if you

want to feed in audio and record it.

Ed: So running through the cameras that you would

use and take the E5 recording as the master file, what

would they be?

Simon: Well I wouldn’t use it as a master file

unless it can record a better file than what the camera

can record. It really comes down to the productionthough … first question is “do we need a 4K file? a RAW

file?” If they want a RAW file, then the Sony, Canon,

and ARRI will do this internally, and the E5 can record a

proxy. There are other monitor/recording devices that

will record RAW for use as a master file; also, the ability

for the E5 to record ProRes 4444 XQ codec adequate for

most TV productions as a master.

Ed: Has recording on the E5 as a backup ever saved aclient’s bacon, where they’ve decided they want the

RAW footage but then in postproduction they can’t

actually handle it as they’d hoped?

Simon: It hasn’t been around long enough yet, so I

haven’t had that issue.

Ed: Can you see it coming?

Simon: I can see it coming where … well, that’s a

very hard question actually because …

Ed: None of your current clients of course. What I’malluding to is that I have heard, anecdotally, a number

of stories where producers have demanded a

cameraman record something at a certain codec, then

gone into postproduction and the house has said “you

want us to handle that? That’s not going to work”, or

“that’s going to take a long time and a lot of processing

power.”

Simon: Well that’s a communication issue that

comes up sometimes. I like to discuss it with editorsand post houses as well as the production team,

because often it’s down to them – the formats that

they’re going to use for their output, the ones that are

going to be best handled in the workflow chain. Again,

if you light it right, and you shoot it right and you leave

a little bit of headroom for grading, then the ProRes

4444 codec is perfect. If you have a RAW workflow

chain, and want to match other cameras together, then

going to a RAW file allows for a good conversion to

other file types, and most importantly the best route for

extensive colour grading.

For most productions, final output is HD. For a sharper

result, it's often better to oversample in 4K allowing forthings like reframing, and also more resolution for VFX

work. HD to 4K doesn't always have good results.

Ed: Well some broadcasters do it all the time?

Simon: That’s right yes, we won’t go there, but the

picture starts to fall apart pretty quick the more you

blow it up … put it that way.

Ed: Is there anything else you’ve bought from

Stephen over the years?

Simon: No really, because I’m not in the sound

side of things. I was excited by this new product and

the fact that you’ve got a provider who has been

offering good gear for a long time, which is fantastic. I

like the look of the PIX-270; it could be a great rack

mounted 4K recorder for a mobile suite.

Ed: And of course you’ll need some ADAM speakers to

go with it?

Simon: Yes, well there are all sorts of toys in here

it looks like!

Ed: Yes, but remember I’m the one buying lunch!

Hope you like dumplings? NZVN

Matthews AccessoriesWe are at Matthews for PLS and, sorry chaps and chap-ettes, we are not talking to Linda this time but toRobert Kulesh, the designer and overseer of thisparticular new Matthews product.

Ed: Now Robert, a super new product from Matthewssince NAB – obviously the developers have beenworking long and hard on this?

Robert: Very hard. This is our first real introductionto the product we call “the Wedge”. The reason I call itthe Wedge is I was at a very famous body surfing placein Newport Beach California called “The Wedge” and Isaw some videographers there trying to establish lowcamera shots, low PLVs and they were using blanketsand sandbags and stuff like that, and it was reallydifficult for them. I went back home and startedplaying around with a design and we came up with thisbeautiful triangular piece that you can put ball heads onto; you can put fluid heads, either 100 or 150mm fluidheads or flat plate fluid heads, and it gives you a verygood mobile camera base. It’s a lot easier to use thana big Octogon board and a Hi Hat and with two strapsyou can put it on a vehicle – it’s not a high speed carmount, but it’s a moderate speed car mount.

Ed: So why hasn’t anybody come up with this before?

Robert: It took a genius to come up with this Grant,you know that.

Ed: Yes … Linda’s having a coughing fit right now.

Robert: It was just an idea. We’re building 20 ofthem back at the factory and we brought it here tointroduce it to people. The folks at Canon loaned us avery nice camera to show it off on and the receptionhas been very good so far.

Ed: So it’s got three levelling screws with nice bigeasy to handle knobs on them?

Robert: Right, and self-levelling feet, so you canquickly set it up. And again, using a fluid head or a ballhead, you don’t have to play around with all thelevelling, but if you’re going to do like a time lapse andreally lock your camera down, I would suggest you levelthe plate and the camera and weight it down. This willgive you a very good stable platform for long-term timelapse work.

Ed: And all the holes in there, they’re all threaded Iguess?

Robert: Most of them are. The reason for that is,for example, if you’re going to do a car mount, I woulduse one of these quarter 20 holes and lock it off usingour MICROgrip so that it was very stable. Another

situation, if you’re out doing a time lapse, yourcamera’s going to be in the sun a long time, lock in oneof the three-eighths holes, put a grip head on it and anarm and flag the camera off so it’s out of the sun andnot baking. And again, we have some other blind holesthat are not tapped and those are ones that we wouldjust hook into to stabilise it on a vehicle. So there are alot of standard Matthews components in here.

Ed: My question would be how many new parts tothis? I would imagine it’s really only the plate andeverything else you’ve done before … these levellingfeet, you’ve done them before?

Robert: They’re actually the same levelling feet thatwe use on the Matthews slider right there. We just cut

them down a little bit, because we don’t needthat much range.

Ed: I see it’s good that you’ve already

predrilled this, because that’s quite a thick

piece of aluminium?

Robert: Yes, that’s T4 – very hard

aluminium aircraft grade, 6064 is the actual

composition of it.

Ed: It’s predrilled, so you don’t have to drill it

yourself?

Robert: Right. It’s all precision laser cut

and drilled and tapped in our shop. We’re a

good machine shop and we make good stuff.

We think it’s going to be a good product and

taking it to a show like this, first time out we’ll

learn.

Ed: Exactly – you’re not a dreamer Robert,

you’re a realist.

Robert and Linda.

NZVN

PhonePhonePhonePhone:::: 09090909 302 4100302 4100302 4100302 4100 Email: Email: Email: Email: [email protected]@[email protected]@kelpls.co.nz Website:Website:Website:Website: www.www.www.www.kelpls.co.nzkelpls.co.nzkelpls.co.nzkelpls.co.nz

The new Slider Stand from Matthews.

A strong, wide-based stand with a low working

height for those using camera Sliders, Monitors,

Speed Rail/Pipe Dolly etc.

• Working Height 61cm to 117cm

• Operating Capacity 36.3 kg

• Incredibly stable with dual adjustable legs

• Stylish Aerospace Inspired design

• Welded Junior (1-1/8") Receiver

• Stand Adapters can convert to; (sold separately)

o 5/8" baby pin (16mm)

o 3/8" Tripod Mount

o 5/8" Magic Finger

“Try this, you’ll like it, I guarantee it” Ed Philips, CEO Matthews.

Noga Arm • MICROgrip • GoPro Mount …now @ PLS

The Matthews innovative 3/8” - 1/4" 20 camera mount system.

Attach lights, monitors, iPads. Rig your DSLR / GoPro at any angle.

Works great with the big

lights and pairs well with

the new DIT Laptop tray

Clear-ComWe are at Clear-Com forGencom with Peter Giddings,the senior vice-president, andSimon Browne, director ofproduct management.

Ed: We’re going to start withyou Simon and I guess the bigquestion that everybody in theproduction industry in NewZealand wants to know – Clear-Com product, no trouble withthe spectrum, either causinginterference and incurring thewrath of the authorities, orbeing interfered with?

Simon: There’s certainly notrouble from us. Most of ourwireless products work in the2.4 GHz ISM band, and theFreeSpeak II™ that we’vereleased recently at NAB andare now showing for the firsttime at IBC, is working both inthe ISM 2.4 and in the DECT1.9 GHz, both of which are licence free bands.

Ed: So, to the uninitiated, this is the area that radiotelephones within a house use – that’s that band?

Simon: The cordless telephone band is there. Forsport arenas, the 1.9 gig is going to be quite open forthis kind of communication, so you’re probably notstepping in anybody else’s frequencies there; and if youare, these are digital devices, so they frequency hop.They look ahead and avoid, so generally speaking, mostdigital intelligent wireless devices these days tend toavoid each other, so you don’t get that kind of problem.

Ed: And a 19 millisecond delay with coms is notactually critical?

Simon: No. We try to keep the latency as low aspossible. We’re down somewhere between 25 to 35milliseconds, so it’s good enough for a lot of wirelesscommunication – even when you’re next to somebody,so it’s fine.

Ed: Now you mentioned a delay of around 30milliseconds, but I know radio microphone productsonly have a 19 millisecond delay. Why are you more?

Simon: Because we’re talking about a duplex sendand return. It’s the loop delay.

Ed: Okay, so it’s actually there and back?

Simon: Yes exactly. This is the challenge ofintercom really, it’s a talk and listenoperation rather than a single “send”, sothis is why.

Ed: Right, I’m advised – keep going.

Simon: The first of the two productsthat we’re showing here for the first timeis the FreeSpeak II. This is a digitallicence-free wireless system, a cellularsystem. So we have devices in both 2.4and 1.9, the point of that being that, insome countries around the world, theDECT 1.9 range is not generally availableand so the 2.4 can be substituted anddoes exactly the same thing. So wehave a 5 channel duplex belt pack,licence-free, working over cellulartransceiver array, both to either astandalone base station or to a matrixbased system.

Ed: So this means that you can take your systemfrom country to country and it should still work?

Simon: It will always work; it’s whether you’reallowed to use it, that’s the question.

Ed: Sometimes legality doesn’t come into it, butanyway …

Simon: Giving the customer the choice of beingable to use it and pick and mix between bands is idealand with certain large customers, like a largebroadcasting station for instance, where they want tobe covered totally by wireless systems, the fact thatyou have 90 of these duplex belt packs in the samespace is very, very appealing, because we can use up to50 with the 1.9, so add another 40 on top with the 2.4.So they share the geographical space, but have 2separate radio spaces in the same area. That’s veryhelpful.

Ed: That’s a lot of chatter?

Simon: Yes it is a lot of chatter, but it’s mostlypeople listening. They’re always free to talk at any timeand they’re all on multiple channels, so they’re not alllistening to the same party line for instance. Downfrom the cellular system, then we have the DX410.This is only a 2.4 GHz base system, but this is a moreof a “value” system – this is a base station and up to 15belt packs working on 2 channels. So this is again a

Simon and Peter.

Contact Gencom for more information on the range of Clear-Com productsTel 09 913 7500 / 04 939 7100 email [email protected] | www.gencom.com

FreeSpeak II (1.9GHz & 2.4GHz)

WIRELESS INTERCOM

DX Series (2.4GHz)

1.9GHz Beltpack2.4GHz Beltpack

Pro850 (UHF Analog)

WBS (UHF Analog)

Agent-IC

Clear-Com Concert®

IP INTERCOM OVER NETWORKS

Partyline Over IP

WIRED INTERCOM

Clear-Com Encore®

HelixNet®

EclipseHX

CONNECTIVITY SOLUTIONS

LQ & Concert for intercom connectivity

ProGrid & MUX-22 for signal transport

Clear-Com Gateway for interoperability

Linking People Together throughCommunication and Connectivity Solutions

frequency hopping spread spectrum system, with fullparty line interfacing and 4-wire interfacing so you canconnect up smaller wired systems on location to it, orconnect it to a larger matrix based system as well andhave those talking through.

We have 2 different types of user controls for theDX410 – we have one that you can connect the beltpack to a standard headset, and one that is an all-in-one headset which has the same features of the beltpack, worn around your head. It’s a completelystandalone wireless device. It’s very helpful. In fact,interestingly enough, our application engineers set upthis IBC booth using these all-in-ones. Our two guyshad to link up the equipment that was positioned atdifferent sides of the booth, so they had to be hands-free with the comms and remained in constantcommunication for hours. The DX410 differs from itspredecessor, the DX210 by having 7 kHz, what you’dprobably call HD audio. I mean, it’s not HD by sort ofradio broadcast, but it’s HD in terms of intercom. It’svoice-band rather than the telephone-band.

Ed: What sort of distances are we looking at in clearspace?

Simon: Around about 300 metre back to the baseand it’s the same also for FreeSpeak right away back tothe transceivers. Whereas the DX410 is a single base,single antenna operation, the FreeSpeak has multipletransceivers, so that’s why you get the roaming –where you need to put people, you can put extratransceivers so they can roam between transceivers.That’s how you get the distance there. But with theDX410, you put the base station where you need tohave people, and people basically work around it within300 metre.

Ed: Now I understand, if you are already a Clear-ComEclipse-HX Matrix user, you have an alternative systempossible?

Simon: Yes, we’re showing for the first time here atIBC what we call Agent-IC™. This is an Appleapplication, an app you can download and this talksover Wi-Fi or 3G or 4G networks to an IP frame cardthat’s in the host Matrix system. It allows up to 32users per IP card to roam a large site wirelessly, usingtheir Smartphone or an iPad to talk back to any user onthe Matrix: wired stations, wireless belt pack users, orother Agent-IC users. It’s a wireless solution for Matrix.

Ed: Do you have to be an Apple user, you can’t useAndroid?

Simon: We haven’t done Android yet. We’relooking to see how popular this turns out to be first ofall and if it certainly seems that IOS users are using thisand it’s getting more and more popular, I can imaginethat we will do Android eventually. Android’s a little bittougher for most people because there are a lot morechoices in terms of UI, whereas Apple is nice and self-contained, so we started there.

Ed: So the big thing with this system is that it’s notthe DECT system, it’s your 3G / 4G telephone systemand I suppose you will find areas where onetransmission system is better than the other?

Simon: Yes. When we were talking earlier aboutFreeSpeak II, we were talking about a wireless system– you’re setting up your own antennae network soyou’ve got a certain amount of distance there underyour control.

If you need to go much wider ranging than that, wheresomebody, for instance, in another city needs to talkback to your system, then you go over the establishednetworks like 4G and 3G. It gives you wider control.For example, we could be sitting here in Amsterdamand communicating with a Matrix system based in SanDiego, because we have that capability. That’s whatwe’re talking about here – it’s a much wider kind ofoperation.

Ed: And you’ve got more channels on it?

Simon: Yes there are more channels – on the iPad2we can get up to 15 buttons on it, so you can have a lotmore opportunity to listen to a number of mixes,whereas generally, our wireless solutions tend to besmaller – for instance, FreeSpeak II is 5 channels.

Ed: Right, and if you really want to push the boat outand go linking up around the country, you’ve gotsomething?

Simon: Yes, we have a unit called the LQ. LQ is anintercom to IP device, an interface. We have 2 physical

varieties – we have a throw-down boxand we have a rack based system – LQ-R. The smaller throw-down box is a 2channel IP interface, so you can imaginethat somebody with a wired party linesystem in a location would want toconnect their wired intercom back to thestudio intercom, so with a pair of theseboxes, you can link the intercom over IPback to another one and then come backout again in the analogue domain at thestudio centre. It not only transfers theanalogue audio, but it also transfers callsignals, so extending your party linesystem geographically through the LQsystem. Each LQ box can connect to 5others, so you can have a group of 6 andit makes a virtual party line of those 6boxes. With this you can have 6 independentcommunication systems connected together.

Ed: Right now Peter – I would imagine that you’venailed the communications area within a production. Itwould seem obvious to me that you would move intoradio microphones, especially in the DECT area,because instead of having the talk and the talkback,you’re only dealing with a one-way system, surely it’sgot to be easier and gosh, you could make it on aSunday morning. Are you going to?

Peter: Yes, easier indeed. In fact, the companythat owns us, HME, that’s how they started, with radiomicrophones. But we have so much to do in duplex.These days, of course, we’re in the intercom business,but more so, and I’m sure my colleague Simon wouldagree, we’re in the interface business, you know,

connecting to all of the different disciplines which weneed to – particularly in large scale events such as this.That’s our forte and we’re sticking to it.

Ed: And you can see even further development there– in terms of range or clarity or cost or …?

Peter: I think, looking forward, there are newplatforms to think about, whether perhaps in years tocome the hardware Matrix as we know it will change.Certainly IP is the direction to go in and of course, in anideal world, everybody wants to be free of that umbilicalcord and just go wireless.

But that’s easier said than done in these crowdedfrequency days.

Ed: And Telcos with big pockets buying up spectrum?

Peter: Correct. NZVN

ROLAND

–

www.rolandsystemsgroup.com

All in one AV mixers, HD, SD withWeb streaming

– Live Audio Production andMonitoring solutions

– Audio recording (V mixing)

Digital Consoles, Digital Snakes, PersonalMixers and Recording

“True Colour” Technology

Broadcast Cameras and MonitorsEnd to End Streaming Video Solutions

IKEGAMI

–

www.ikegami.com

Full digital HDTV camera systems toportable ENG cameras

– High resolution, multi-formatbroadcast monitors

– Digital recording format support

HAIVISION

–

www.haivision.com

Streaming for encoding, recording,managing, publishing & distributingsecure video content

– Delivers live or on demand videocontent over dedicated networks orinternet audience

– Wide range of streaming applications

AUTOSCRIPT

LUPO

–

www.autoscript.tv

Windows prompting solutions for�eld use

– Windows prompting solutions fornewsrooms

– Display systems for �eld andstudio use

– HMI Fresnels and LED FresnelsLightweight made of carbon �bre

– Fluorescents

– Special Multi Phosphorous lamps, eachhave duration of over 10,000 hours

www.lupo.it

Contact us at Gencom for more information on our

FOLLOW US ON

extensive range of products. Tel 09 913 7500 / 04 939 7100 email [email protected] www.gencom.com

Atomise is inAuckland …

officially!This is the “Welcome to the

Atomise Auckland Launch”.

Ed: Now we’re not actually

out on the harbour; it’s not

a real “launch” as in a

“nautical launch”, but it’s the

launch of – well, what is it

the launch of Richard,

because we’ve been to the

Auckland office already?

Richard: Well this is

really the first opportunity

we’ve had to put on a bit of

an event for our clients.

Obviously we’ve spent the

last couple of months

building up the Auckland

office and you met Theo.

Ed: Now Theo’s got a buddy?

Richard: Theo has got a buddy; Andy Wild has

joined our team. Andy is an extremely experienced

broadcast engineer, Avid instructor and Avid operator

and he just adds a fantastic new dimension to what we

do here in Auckland.

Ed: Is he only going to be training in Auckland so

people have to come to Auckland for training with

Andy?

Richard: We’ll have to work that out as we see the

demand, but I’m sure he will be doing onsite stuff here

in Auckland. I’d like to base him here in Auckland with

his family as much as possible. We’ll try and balance

the load a little because our main training room is in

Wellington so we’ll simply bring gear to Auckland as

clients require it. It’s not hard to ship stuff round the

country; it’s all nicely contained in a rack these days.

Ed: Are the Auckland people going to see you at all or

are you going to leave everything to Theo and Andy?

Richard: I’ll definitely be here supporting my guys

where they need it. When it comes to the commercial

aspects of the business in Auckland, I guess that’s

where I’ll continue to be front and centre but I’ve got

really good technical guys in terms of Theo and Andy

and I’m really hoping that they’ll be welcomed by our

clients. I really know these guys know their stuff and

I’m sure they’re going to do a great job.

Ed: Do you think we’ll ever see an Atomise retail

store?

Richard: I don’t think so.

Ed: Because you work from the backroom don’t you.

In reality, that’s how Atomise works – it’s behind the

scenes?

Richard: That’s right, very much behind the scenes.

We’re engineers first. We sell solutions, not just boxes

to the majority of our clients. We’re there to make the

stuff work and that’s what we really enjoy. We

understand the technical restrictions that people have

and the technical ambitions people have and we try and

make it all come together for them. It’s this focus that

allows us to have such a strong technical skills

emphasis in the team.

Ed: Having said that, you do have relationships with a

number of the major resellers in New Zealand of “boxed

product”, to make sure that when you’re offering a

solution to a client, the products they deal with can be

seamlessly added into the mix?

Richard: Absolutely, and I’m very proud of the

relationships we have with a lot of other resellers who,

in other situations, would be very strong competitors.

It’s great that we’ve got a group of small companies,

( because we are all small in the global market ), which

work together on some very large projects and play

very nicely together.

Ed: It’s always good to play nicely. And helping you

here today, I see you’ve got Nuno from MOG and Ren

from Avid Australia?

Richard: Yes, we’ve got quite a team here from Avid.

We also have a couple of other key vendors, Steve and

Wayne from Intraware who are doing Project Parking.

It’s great having Nuno all the way from MOG

Technologies in Portugal. He’s come out to do some

client visits in Australia and New Zealand and the timing

worked perfectly to have him along today. Obviously,

we’ve got MOG in at some of our key enterprise sites,

so it’s a really good relationship we’ve got building

there.

And the Avid guys … well I mean, that really is the core

of what we do. We have Ren who is head of sales for

Asia-Pacific here, we’ve got channel manager Dave …

it’s great to have them here supporting our event.

Obviously we work very closely with all these guys and

as you can see by the way everybody’s chatting around

you, it’s pretty friendly.

Ed: Great – let’s always keep it friendly. NZVN

Theo, Andy and Richard

Object MatrixWe are now at a new company forAtomise – Object Matrix with MarkAndrews to tell us what it is that you dothat makes you special.

Mark: We’re a software company,but we provide a disc based storagesolution for what we refer to as“nearline”. Nearline is typically whereit’s not a production layer in terms ofediting and performance, it’s where Iactually want to disc archive. Whatmakes us different to other disc archivesis the fact that, as a software company,we’ve added intelligence to make thesolution (a) very resilient; (b) veryscalable, so we can scale to petabyteswith no loss of performance; and (c) wehave the ability to add metadata, so thewhole system becomes searchable. Nowin terms of workflows, where we positionourselves it’s all video workflows, but typically, wemight be used as an ingest platform where you havelots of content coming into your facility, either SXS, P2,XDCAM or over the wire. Traditionally, people have putthat all on their production storage and fill it up veryquickly. So instead, they could put that onto a nearlinesuch as ourselves and then they could edit that into arough cut and pull back to their production storage onlythe scenes that they need. Obviously, the nearline ismore cost-effective and lower cost than the productionstorage and with our resilience as well, you don’t needto back the system up. We do multiple copies and, inthe event of any hardware failure – and hardware doesfail, it’s a fact of life – the point is, with us, itautomatically self-heals. So you have that highavailability to content – we’re providing 99.999%availability to content. In terms of workflows, you haveingest, but also this is an archive.

Traditionally, people will archive to tape but there is anissue with tape, it’s obviously slow. As nearline andbeing disc based, people can now find their contentmuch quicker; they can browse the content directlybecause we’re on a disc and see and restore it muchquicker than traditional tape methods. So in summary,disc based platform, very intelligent, very resilient, veryscalable, but with the integrations we’ve done withmany workflows as well all gone off the shelf, we knowit’s proven to work in many media workflows.

Ed: I can see 2 major benefits for a customer – one isthat it provides that security of the archive; butsecondly it actually reduces the amount of onlinestorage that they need for their projects?

Mark: Yes absolutely, you’re reducing the onlinestorage but without sacrificing performance as well. Soyou have the ability to search, find content and restoreit very quickly. It’s all about cost saving and TCO whichis quite a compelling message.

Ed: And you’re a UK company?

Mark: Yes – we’re based in Cardiff, Wales as asoftware company. We don’t manufacture the hardwareourselves, we use commodity off-the-shelf hardware,we put our software on the top and then we just ship itas an appliance.

Ed: So Richard, this is a new product that we’relooking at and something that obviously is going to begood for your customers. What value is it going to add?

Richard: One of the challenges that we’re starting tosee with some of our bigger customers is how much

RAW media data they’re generating, especially in 4K orhigher than HD camera workflows. They need anearline storage management system to keep all theircamera rushes on, as well as to have a very tightworkflow for having their editorial codec media andmanaging those two together, so when you come backto conform at the other end, you’ve got an easy way ofhandling it.

So we’ve been talking to Object Matrix who have somevery nice developments that are dedicated towards thevideo market. All these guys do is video and they’vegot a lot of experience with the storage side. One ofthe very nice things they do is an automated disasterrecovery or, if you think of it as off-site backup,automated through their system, so you can have yournode based storage inside your primary site and, by“node based”, what I mean is that it’s scalable, you justkeep on plugging in nodes. One of the very nice thingsabout this is that the expansion is immediate – youdon’t have to wait for the file system to expand, youplug in the node and away you go.

The next stage is you can have your series of nodes onanother site and the data is mirrored to the other site.That gives you two copies of the data at each site,which means in a massive system failure or if we’retalking about a feature film where you may only have avery limited timeframe and a limited number of digitalcopies of your media, it gives you really good high levelsecurity of your data.

Ed: Which is something that even the smaller usercould take note of?

Richard: Absolutely, and this solution scales up fromrelatively small size up to big multi-petabyte solutionsat a very cost-effective price point. While big storage isnot unique to these guys – there are quite a fewsolutions out there that can do the big storage – wherethese guys are really good is it is dedicated to the videomarket. That’s what they concentrate on and that’swhat they built the workflows for.

Ed: Do you have to be a major movie producer totake advantage of this or would this also be of benefitto a medium sized production company that’s doing alot of shooting?

Richard: This is probably a product for medium sizeup, so absolutely.

The moment you start looking into the hundreds ofterabytes of master storage requirement, this solutionreally starts coming into play. NZVN

Mark and friends.

Editing Solutions Experts

Atomise Limited is proud to supply and support the Post Solutions for leading NZ facilities including:

WingNut Films – Avid Media Composer | Avid ISIS 7000 | Apace VSTOR OctopaNatural History NZ – Avid Media Composer | Avid ISIS 5500

Unitec – Avid Media Composer | Avid ISIS 5500

The experts providing end–to–end editorial solutions to New Zealand’s film & television industry

Authorised Elite Reseller for the complete Avid Video, Interplay & Storage ranges.Official New Zealand Distributor for Avid Media Composer, Avid ISIS & JMR Storage.

We are proud to have been selected as one of Avid’s top 100 partners worldwide.

www.atomise.co.nz | [email protected]

Announcing Avid ISIS | 1000 Get the industry-proven performance and reliability of Avid ISIS 5500 and 7500 shared storage in a more affordable entry-level system designed for independent editors, audio post pros, and smaller post-production houses. No need to ditch your favorite editing and asset management tools to acceler-ate your workflow. ISIS | 1000 enables real-time editorial collaboration using what you have, whether you edit in Adobe Premiere, Apple Final Cut Pro, or Media Composer. To book our demo system for an on site test please give us a call.

Avid Certified Techical Training Courses

Atomise Limited is a certified Avid Learning Partner delivering Avid Certified Support Representative technical level training. Avid Certification helps professionals attain and demonstrate the skills and credentials they need to increase their value, competency, and efficiency in the highly competitive media industry.

Contact us for more info and to book a place on these courses. Prerequisite skills may be required for some courses.

Wellington - Head OfficeLevel 3, 127 Park Road

MiramarPh 04 380 5010

AucklandLevel 1, 59 Maurice Road PenrosePh 021 863 324

We now have a demo MOG SPEEDRAILmxf file and baseband ingest system available for demonstration. Contact us to find out more.

Caged Drones at IBCAs you can see, there was not a lot of excitement at the purpose built drone cage in the outdoor area – there wasmore interest at the DJI booth inside where you could fly one yourself in a mini cage. I can only imagine that thenext step will be to fit a 360 degree camera to one and visit your friends with the aid of a virtual reality headset.The final advancement would be strategically placed catheters and a skylight hatch so you won't need to get out ofbed ever again! Self containment perfection. Ed

NZVN ADVERTISING RATESNZ Video News is posted free to New Zealand video production professionals - if youknow someone in the business who would like NZVN too, tell them to write or phone us

Rates from April 2008 NZVN AD RATES: - EXCLUDING GST

Advertisement A6 (must be set portrait) $ 80A5 (must be set landscape) $140 for one $270 for two in the same issueA4 (must be set portrait) $260 for one $250 each for more than one in the same issueSpot colour - a supplement of $120 per A3

Full colour - a supplement of $420 per A3

Classified 40 words pre-paid cash $ 20 ($23 including GST)

Loose Inserts are accepted conditionally

AD COPY REQUIREMENTS: To qualify for listed rates, all copy and artwork must be submitted in photo copy readyform - black on white, as an Adobe PDF file - print optimised. Email to <[email protected]>

AD DEADLINES: SEE FRONT PAGE Pay by cheque or direct credit to ANZ # 010242-0160111-00

ARRI LightingMichael Wagner from ARRI

tells us about recent devel-

opments in lighting.

Ed: Michael we saw a

great range of product at

NAB earlier this year.

SkyPanel was obviously the

highlight, you had just

launched it. Well what have

you got to add now with

SkyPanel?

Michael: So far, we’ve

had an extremely good

reaction to SkyPanel. Our

customers are really excited

about it, having that full

range of products, the full

colour and the remote

phosphor, so we didn’t want

to stop there. We knew that

to really complement the

SkyPanel fixtures them-

selves, a full range of accessories is really required. At

IBC, we are announcing a slew of new accessories to go

with the SkyPanels and you can pick and choose the

ones that work for your application.

Ed: So these are not accessories that, if you’ve

already got a range of ARRI lights, you could use the

same accessories? Obviously, this is a totally different

form factor, so you need to add some new accessories?

Michael: Right. All the accessories are custom-made

for the S60 and the S30 SkyPanels and that’s because

of the unique light aperture size of the product. These

are specific to the SkyPanel, but that also has the

advantage of meaning that they are perfectly

engineered to work with that product. We have a full

range going from light control accessories, different

mounting options, light banks, and a bunch of different

panels that you can put in front of the light to change

the beam spread. We have battery options, options for

mounting space light silks to it, so we have a lot of

different products that we’re coming out with … we can

go through them one by one if you’d like to?

Ed: Yes, some of the key ones.

Michael: We have a group of different diffusions.

For the C model, we’re able to have a light diffusion, a

medium diffusion and a heavy diffusion. For the remote

phosphor version, we have a bunch of different remote

phosphor plates, so you can swap out the plates to 8

different colour temperatures. We have 2700, 3200,

4300, 5600, 6500 and 10,000 degrees. We also have a

chroma green panel as well. So the fully tuneable one,you could just change the colour with the knobs, but

with the remote phosphor, you have to change the

panels out to change the colour temperature.

Ed: Obviously there’s a cost difference in that,depending on whether you want to go for a full set ofphosphors which would be quite expensive. Is there adifference in the quality of light; is the adjustable onenot quite up to the perfection of the remote phosphor?

Michael: There is a slight difference. Both of them

are really excellent, really top notch. The remote

phosphor is about maybe, 1 or 2 points higher in terms

of colour rendition than the C version, so you do get a

little bit extra colour rendition, but most of the time it’s

not really even noticeable to a camera. But it is a little

bit better – you get a little bit of extra brightness from

the remote phosphor as well and it is less expensive

because you don’t have all of the complicated

electronics that you do in the fully tuneable version. If

you’re looking for versatility, the C model is the way to

go. If you’re just looking for something very basic, very

simple but still excellent colour quality, light quality, the

remote phosphor is also a good option.

Ed: And of course if the situation changes and you

suddenly have a need for a green screen, you can then

just get the phosphor panel and suddenly you have a

green screen light?

Michael: Right. Television studios maybe live in one

colour temperature their entire run and so the remote

phosphor is perfect for that. But then if the show

format changes and they need to go perhaps to

daylight, or they need to have some of them for green

screen, you can just purchase the phosphor panels as

accessories and slide them in and now you have a

completely different fixture basically.

Ed: Right, more accessories?

Michael: We also have intensifiers. These

intensifiers replace the diffusion panels. They actually

increase the light output by up to 50%. It does that by

taking the light that is going out to the sides and

refocusing it out forward. So if you’re looking to throw

the light a further distance, the intensifiers are a great

option for that. You’re taking a very broad source and

again, trying to control that light. The intensifier is

doing that by using a prismatic filter in order to refocus

the light. Kind of going in that same vein, with the

softlight, it’s important to control the light. The

softlight goes everywhere and sometimes you want to

have it just in one location or keep it from spilling some

place. In that way, we have barn doors of course; we

have four-leaf barn doors for both of the different sizes.

We have egg crates which are about 130 mm deep and

they have very large chambers.

Michael with SkyPanel and accessories.

Ed: That’s pretty thick fabric?

Michael: Well they’re made out of metal. The

reason why you go with that egg crate design is if you

wanted to have the ability to control the HPA ( the half

peak angle ) but not lose a significant amount of light,

you have a deeper egg crate with larger chambers.

Similarly, we also have honeycombs. The honeycombs

are much thinner – they are really only 14 mm thick,

but the chambers in the honeycomb structures are

much, much smaller. We have a 60 degree and a 30

degree honeycomb. You’re losing a little bit more light

with the honeycombs, but they take up a much smaller

footprint and they’re a much lighter weight. So you

have the option, you can pick which kind of one works

best for you. A lot of broadcast studios like the egg

crates; a lot of location people like the honeycombs

because of how light they are. In addition to that, we

also have snoots. They’re straight-wall snoots so that if

you wanted to stop spill light from coming out the sides,

the snoot is perfect for that.

The really cool thing about all these accessories is that

they’re actually stackable, so if you wanted to have a

snoot and then an egg crate, or a snoot and then a

honeycomb, you could do that. They’re all stackable –

we do recommend you don’t go above 2 or 3 of the

accessories, because it gets a little bit heavy, that’s our

recommendation. The last of these, in order to control

the light, is an additional diffusion slot. Of course,

every light comes with a diffusion slot inside that you

can slide the panels in and out of, but if you wanted to

double up the diffusion, you could do that with the extra

diffusion slot. If you wanted to move the diffusion

further away from the LEDs … as you know, if you move

diffusion further away from the source you get a softer

source, so you could therefore take the diffusion out of

the fixture itself, put a snoot in and then the extra

diffusion slot, and then move the diffusion further away

from the LEDs.

Ed: That’s very clever.

Michael: We’re also partnering with Chimera andDoPchoice and they’re manufacturing different productsspecifically for the SkyPanel. Chimera of course, isproducing light banks and they have two light banks forthe S60. They have a shallow light bank and astandard light bank. The great thing about those isthey’re custom-made for the Sky Panel, but they have astandard Chimera medium front. Then we also have aChimera for the S30 as well, which uses a standardsmall frame. The DoPchoice is a German company andthey make very similar products to Chimera althoughthey don’t use any frames for mounting hardware.They use elastic to go around the edge of the productand they hold on just by the elastic bands, so they’re allfabric and they fold away into very small bags. Inaddition to the light banks that DoPchoice are making,they’re also making what they call SNAPGRIDS andthese are basically like egg crates that are made out offabric that fold into a very small bag that is very easy tocarry around with you. That’s Chimera and DoPchoice.

Ed: So often it’s a case of choosing betweenfunctionality and ease of operation?

Michael: And mobility – again there are so manydifferent applications. If you’re going to be travellingaround the world with something like an S30, you wantsomething that’s maybe lightweight, easy to pack away,something that doesn’t take up a lot of space …DoPchoice might be there; the Chimera’s kind of aprofessional grade, really heavy duty product, very

popular in the States of course. Again, we want to offerall these accessories and then you pick the one that’sright for what you’re doing.

The next category that we have is different mountingoptions. Of course, the product comes with either amanual or a pole operated yoke, depending on whichone you purchase. We also have double yokes, soyou’re actually able to mount two SkyPanels one aboveeach other. If you’re in a studio that doesn’t have a lotof space and you need to take advantage of as muchspace as you can, stacking two of them on top of eachother might be a really good option. This one right infront of you is what we call the Centre Mount Yoke.This replaces the traditional yoke; it is a ball-in-socketmechanism that allows you to place the light verticallyor turn it 45 degrees or to whatever orientation youwant. If you really need to have complete control overthe orientation of the fixture, the Centre Mount Yoke isa great option. The last mounting option that we haveis what we call a Fixed Centre Mount Yoke. This is a 28mm pin that slides onto the back of the fixture and it’s afixed point. So if you wanted to, let’s say, create aceiling of SkyPanels that were just pointing straightdown, or if you wanted to create a wall of SkyPanelsthat just kind of connected straight to the pipe clamp …

Ed: That’s a salesman’s dream.

Michael: Well we have a lot of customers who arevery interested in those applications. In fact, there area couple of films that are spec’ing the SkyPanels – 200of them – and basically, filling an entire studio withthem to have complete control over the lighting. Sothose are the mounting options, and then we have

A strong yoke.

battery options as well. We have a V-mount adapterplate that slides onto the back of the fixture and takes 2V-mount batteries and plugs directly into the SkyPanel.We also have an Anton Bauer version of the same thing.

Ed: It looks very flexible with the way you’ve got the

back arranged so that you can obviously clamp a whole

series of things on there, including things that maybe

you haven’t even thought of at the moment?

Michael: Exactly. And the great thing too is that

they’re all using a quick release system, so you just

release a lever and you can slide it off, or slide

something on. The power supply uses a quick release

system so, if you wanted to remove it very quickly and

maybe put it on the floor or put it on the back of the

fixture, you could do that very easily. The great thing is

that, between NAB and here, we got a lot of feedback

and we tried to implement some of the things that we

heard – even from April.

Ed: Okay readers, so at this point you need to talk to

the PLS team to find out when you can get hold of your

SkyPanel and accessories. But another product that

you’ve developed in the intervening months is the new

high speed ballast I understand. And again, along with

many of ARRI’s products, this is backwards compatible,

so if you have an ARRI light that uses a ballast, you’ve

now got a chance to get a new high speed one which

means less flicker?

Michael: That’s right, yes. We have a new ballast

for the ARRIMAX which is an 18,000 Watt light or a

12,000 Watt light depending on which bulb you have in.

This is a high speed ballast which means that it works

at 1000 Hz, so if you wanted to go at a very high

framerate, like 2000 frames or 3000 frames per second,

you could use this ballast and minimise flicker greatly.

In addition, these ballasts have a new feature called

auto-scan which will actually automatically scan the

frequencies of the bulb and tell you which frequency is

best for that bulb so that you get the most minimum

flicker possible. That’s for the ARRIMAX 18K. We also

have the same kind of ballast for the M90, so a 6K, 9K

ballast as well and that has the auto-scan feature as

well as 1000 Hz flicker-free mode.

Ed: Wow, that’s a pretty exciting upgrade. Now just

to finish us off, in terms of innovation, ARRI is obviously

way, way up there. What do you see are the trends

happening in the industry – LED continues to grow, but

you still provide tungsten. What’s going on?

Michael: First of all it’s a very exciting time to be in

lighting I think because what’s happening is that the

tool bag continues to grow and you can pick the tool

that’s right for the job. So whether it be a small LED

fixture, or whether it be a tungsten fixture – and there

are still applications for tungsten fixtures – or whether it

be an HMI, you pick the right tool for the right job. I

think what we’re seeing is that there is a growing

acceptance of LED products. In the film location

business, the customers were very reticent to move to

LEDs because there are a lot of bad LED products out

there and it’s hard to know which ones are good and

which ones are bad. But I think what’s happening is

that everyone in our industry is starting to raise the

bar. With these products, as you can see, we’re trying

to raise the bar as high as we possibly can so that you

can really have an LED product like the SkyPanel that is

a true workhorse product, that is something that I could

use every day, day in and day out on a film set and

know that it’s going to hit the colour temperature that I

expect; that I know is going to make skin tones look

good on camera; that I know is going to be reliable.

And that’s the key thing. We started with the L-Series

and with the SkyPanel we really think that we’ve seen

everyone kind of turn a corner, ARRI included, where

this is a product that I could put in the hundreds in my

rental inventory and I know that it will go out. That’s

what we’re seeing our customers do, which is really

exciting for us. I think that the fear is starting to

subside a little bit with LED products as the quality level

is being forced to go higher, and in our industry we’re

benefiting from all the advances in the commercial

world.

Ed: And from consumer lighting?

Michael: Yes, so those quality standards are also

being pushed further and further and we only benefit

from that. I think that we are definitely seeing more

Space light silks hanging high.

The last accessory that we have is a space light silkmounting attachment. So for example, if you’re usingthe light as a space light, you can of course, use it justas it is with the standard diffusion pointed straightdown. It works just like a regular tungsten space lightwould work. Some people would like to use the silkwith the SkyPanel – you know, the cylindrical silk thatgoes on the tungsten space lights. We have a verysimple accessory that slides onto the pin of the yokeand has these aircraft cables with carabiners at the endwhich simply clip onto the silk and you’re good to go.So it’s very simple, lightweight, easy to throw this into amilk crate when you’re done with it … a very robustsystem.

LED products go-

ing, although we

are still selling

record amounts

of HMI products

as well, and our

tungsten sales

really haven’t de-

clined too much.

I think we’re just

seeing there’s

more production

happening, more

different types of

things. Again,

with an LED

product, the abil-

ity to go to

battery mode is a

huge advantage

and all of our

SkyPanels have a

battery input on

them. There are

also new ways of

shooting that these LED products are enabling. For

example, we were talking about space lights. Before, if

you were using a tungsten space light, first of all they

were 6000 Watt, they were one colour temperature. If

Showing the power supplyquick release.

you wanted to change the colour temperature you

would need to get a guy up on a lift and use a ton of

gels to change that colour temperature. It would take a

full day to do 200 of them or however many they had in

the studio.

With a SkyPanel, you can imagine having them up in

the rig and through DMX being able to change them

instantly to whatever colour temperature or whatever

vivid colour that you want. That’s a really powerful

thing and I think that we’re going to see customers light

differently because of these new abilities. This is really

something that I think is beginning to excite people,

when they start to see what they can really do with

these fixtures and the power behind then – not just in

output, but also in features.

Ed: There’s a change in the attitudes of people that

lighting now is not all about intensity, which it had to be

in the old days of film stock – these days it’s all about

creating an emotion … less light but better quality?

Michael: Right, it’s about nuance and a lot of our

customers say they use a lot of our LED lights at like 20

or 30%, but they still love the tune-ability because they

can match different cameras, or they can match other

fixtures in the room. A lot of it is about nuance, about

the low light levels and emotion, and the LEDs are

perfect for that because, if you need the output it’s

there, and if you don’t, it dims without changing the

colour temperature and you’re good to go. NZVN

NZVN November 2015

Documents

Transcript of NZVN November 2015