by Richard Gacovino
Chief Operations Photographer, KVBC TelevisionLAS VEGASWhen we made the move to broadcasting our local news in high definition a year ago, the plan was to acquire HD in the field as well as in the studio.
We were very careful to select a camera that was easy to use, could hold up to the rigors of daily newsgathering, and would reliably acquire footage in the field that looked good on air. This took several months of evaluation and our choice was the Thomson Grass Valley Infinity Digital Media Camcorder. We now have 18 of them for our newsgathering photographers. We acquire in HD, but we're still awaiting upgrades to our microwave sites, so we're not doing live HD remotes just yet. So the Infinity is used for all standard- and high-definition news packages that are edited later.
PLENTY OF EXPERIENCEWe've liked the concept of the Infinity camcorder from the first time we heard about it. The station has been working with demo units of the Infinity for more than two years, and we've been very pleased with its progression. Today, the cameras are in full production, rock solid and give us a real advantage over our competitors.
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| The Thomson Grass Valley Infinity Digital Media Camcorder | |
Having the ability to choose from different resolutions, storage media and compression schemes with the same camera is a big plus and the camera looks and feels like the traditional ENG cameras I've been using for many years. That's important for getting up to speed quickly with a new camera. The Infinity took no time at all to learn.
The images generated with the Infinity, due to its Xensium CMOS chip, are much sharper, more accurate, and more colorful than from other cameras we looked at. The Infinity has a three 2/3-inch chipset for acquiring a full 1920x1080 image. And our audience can see the difference on their big new HD flat-screen displays.
One of the features we really like in the Infinity is the addition of a color flip-screen display along with the standard viewfinder.
INFINITY STORAGE SYSTEM IS BIG PLUSThere's also the removable recording media that's both affordable and designed so that you don't have to learn new techniques for transferring and storing in the field. It has the same workflow as videotape, but with all of the advantages of file-based production. As a veteran photographer, I really appreciate that, since this type of operation is truly the future.
The Infinity's storage system also brings us a lot of flexibility, as we often acquire in HD and SD (the SD material is upconverted) and work with both resolutions using the same REV PRO cartridge. If we need to change resolutions, it's just a quick flip of a switch. And when we come in from the field, the stored content is loaded into the edit workstations and the files are immediately recognized by our EDIUS nonlinear editing systems.
If we acquire in SD, we can edit directly from the REV PRO drive, without having to wait for the ingest—30 minutes of footage takes about 15 minutes to ingest. This makes it easy to get news on the air fast.
I'd recommend this camera to anyone. The Infinity really is a great tool and has brought an entirely new level of efficiency to the way we produce news.