Millimeter Vanguard Awards 2007

In attempting to list the most groundbreaking products released in the calendar year 2007, millimeter's editors faced an abundance of choices. So much outstanding gear was introduced this year that our judges' biggest challenge was choosing the correct products to honor. Which cameras, camera accessories, and postproduction software hold the most promise for directors, DPs, editors, and effects artists?

We now have more established and promising digital-cinema cameras on the market than ever. Certain models are sure to gain prominence over others that will eventually fall by the wayside, but it looks as if the industry is at a unique position at the moment. Our awards reflect this unique convergence of technological and market factors, and they honor very different digital-cinema cameras and the appliances that capture their gushing streams of data.

With all that action in the digital realm, film technology — established as it is — continues to improve. For many directors and cinematographers, shooting film is an aesthetic choice that they will fight for. Can a film-based workflow remain viable this year and into the future? Some of this year's Vanguard winners will help keep filmmakers working in film.

Then, of course, there's the postproduction side of the equation, and the winners in that area will be familiar even to video hobbyists. But although the era of the million-dollar Henry suite is over, million-dollar talent is always in demand. Affordable postproduction software suites now allow editors and effects artists to apply those talents to just about any task imaginable. Without further ado, here are millimeter's 14 Vanguard Award winners for 2007.

Vision Research Phantom 65

For digital cinematography, the Red Digital Cinema Red One captures 4K at 24fps and 2K up to 60fps, but what about higher frame rates for slow motion? Fortunately, there's Vision Research Phantom HD and Phantom 65 camera systems, beautifully adapted from scientific to cine use by Abel Cine Tech. Like Red One, Phantom HD has a single 35mm-size CMOS sensor for 35mm depth-of-field and captures 2K (1.85 aspect ratio) at 1000fps to internal RAM, or at 351fps to onboard 256GB or 512GB Phantom CineMag flash memory drives. Phantom 65 has a giant CMOS sensor the size of 65mm film and captures 4K (1.85 aspect ratio) at 154fps to RAM or 88fps to CineMag. Images are stunning, according to Vanguards judge D. W. Leitner, and demand for these cameras has taken off.

Its open-systems approach to camera technology and its low cost of entry ($18,500 for a 4K camera body) have made Red One a star of the digital-cinema world even before its true premiere on the general market. At press time, only the first 100 units have shipped, but marquee directors Peter Jackson and Steven Soderbergh have shot projects with prototypes of the CMOS-based camera, with very promising results. “Engineering delays in camera delivery and the growing realization that the price of early adoption is beta testing — willing or not — has failed to dampen the spirits of those who proclaim a revolution in production costs,” says Vanguards judge D. W. Leitner. “Time will tell, but Red has demonstrated it's here to stay.”

With a handsome makeover by Munich's P+S Technik, the once ugly duckling Silicon Imaging SI-2K prototype emerged at NAB this year as a real production camera ($23,500, 7in. touchscreen LCD, no disk recorder). Both SI-2K and SI-2K Mini($14,500) — basically the SI-2K's severed head — feature a single 2/3in. 1920×1080 AltaSens CMOS sensor and the company's universal lens mount adapter for switching among PL-mount, C-mount, and an optical adapter for B4-mount lenses such as DigiPrimes. The full-size SI-2K embeds a version of Iridas SpeedGrade OnSet for nondestructive color correction and a 10-bit CineForm RAW codec for compressing RAW files to disk. With the introduction at IBC of an optical viewfinder for the SI-2K Mini and an OLED electronic viewfinder for both, it's easy to see why these new digital-cinema cameras have been taken up so readily in the field. By all reports, says Vanguards judge D. W. Leitner, they're reliable too.

Codex Digital Codex Portable

The recent string of digital-cinema cameras lacks one obvious feature: some kind of digital bucket for all those bits. The new Codex Digital Codex Portable is a 9lb. flash-memory recording appliance for HD, 2K, and 4K signals. Using what the company calls “virtually lossless compression” (i.e., wavelet-based JPEG 2000), the Codex Portable can record the simultaneous output of two 4:4:4 cameras — or four 4:2:2 cameras — locked together for stereoscopic projects or not. Its hot-swappable, shock-mounted RAID disk packs can hold up to 3 hours of continuous recording at highest quality. The unit features a screen for playback, and there's wireless connectivity for remote control and shot logging from a laptop on set. “Like a Nagra worn over the shoulder, its controls and touchscreen-based graphical user interface are on top, facing the operator,” says Vanguards judge D. W. Leitner. “Capturing HD, 2K, and 4K in the field no longer has to be an IT ordeal.”

The bantam SSR-1 weighs in at less than 6lbs., which is 7lbs. less than the portable Sony SRW-1 HDCAM-SR tape deck it supplants on top or at the back of a Panavision Genesis or Sony F23. Additional advantages to the 4:4:4 flash- memory recorder include instant start (no preroll), instant playback of takes (no cueing, shuttling), 40 percent more operational time than SRW-1 due to lower power draw, and no noisy cooling fans. A final practical advantage: The SSR-1 has a built-in downconverter for NTSC or PAL monitor output, even when the recorder is mounted on the camera. Recording times are 20 minutes for uncompressed 4:4:4 or 40 minutes for 4:2:2, at frame rates from 1fps to 30fps. “If there any downsides,” says Vanguards judge D. W. Leitner, “I can't find them.”

For a project that requires professional color correction — but not on the level that, say, a Da Vinci provides — the new Apple Color module should do quite nicely. That's simply amazing for a product that ships within a full postproduction software suite that retails for less than $2,000. In Final Cut Pro 6, the new open-format timeline allows editors to drop any codec on the timeline and keep editing, without conversion or rendering. That goes for the new Apple ProRes 422, a 4:2:2, 10-bit codec with target bit rates of 145Mbps and 220Mbps. Elsewhere in the package, there's a new version of Motion with true 3D cameras (possibly giving Adobe After Effects a run for its money), and a powerful new Soundtrack Pro 2 that focuses on ADR workflow and other audio-for-video tasks.

The HPX3000 is the first camcorder capable of shooting Panasonic's 10-bit AVC-Intra codec as standard, an H.264 implementation that, at 100Mbps, is said to approach D-5 quality. The intraframe-only AVC-Intra codec captures a full 1920×1080 raster to five solid-state P2 cards. The camera itself has a host of features friendly to digital-cinema production, including a Scan Reverse function that allows the HPX3000 to use an ultra prime lens or an anamorphic lens adapter to create a 2.35:1 aspect image without image cropping. There's also a three-level Dynamic Range Stretch function that varies gamma correction to match the contrast within the image. The camera also incorporates Chromatic Aberration Compensation. “That's an essential capability nowadays for any HD shooter, given the increased pixel density of today's imagers and their concomitant ability to resolve greater and more egregious lens defects along with increased picture detail,” says Vanguards judge Barry Braverman. (See his full review)

Sony PMW-EX1

For the first time, Sony has affixed a CineAlta badge to a handheld camcorder, as the company enters the arena of solid-state recording with the PMW-EX1. The camera records 25Mbps and 35Mbps high-definition MPEG-2 video (in an MP4 wrapper) to SxS cards, co-developed with SanDisk, that use the familiar ExpressCard/34 standard. That's the slot found on new MacBook Pro and PC laptops. The 4lb., 13oz. PMW-EX1 has three full-raster 1920×18080 1/2in. CMOS chips, a built-in 14X Fujinon zoom lens, two SxS card slots, HD-SDI outputs, and a 921,600-pixel LCD screen that does 2X magnification for true 1:1 pixel matching. “With XDCAM EX,” says Vanguards judge D. W. Leitner, “Sony is staking the argument that palm-held HD camcorders, no longer second-class citizens, merit professional specs — including larger, full-count HD sensors made possible by adoption of cooler, power-efficient CMOS technology.”

Reference monitors represent CRT technology's last, bulky stand, as every studio knows. You simply can't judge color accurately on a flatpanel. Well, at NAB, Sony seems to have finally upended that piece of conventional wisdom with the introduction of its BVM-L230. The LCD reference monitor is a 22.5in., 1920×1200 screen for 2K, 1080p60, and SD formats. It has an LED backlight that supports a wider color gamut and a 10-bit driver, and it incorporates Sony's new TriMaster technologies, which include a new wide-color-gamut panel, high grayscale gradation (1,024 levels), and color calibration. But how does it look? “Floor comparisons at NAB between a BVM-L230 and BVM-A series HD CRT confirmed that onscreen results were functionally equivalent,” says Vanguards judge D. W. Leitner.

The 10,000-lumen Panasonic PT-DW10000 projector is about as good as it gets before you make the substantial leap to 4K projection. The three-chip DLP model features 5000:1 contrast, 120VAC operation (unique among projectors at this brightness level), 10-bit processing, and a robotic filter cleaning system that, Panasonic claims, enables about 2,000 hours of use without filter maintenance. The relatively small (71lbs.) DW10000 even accepts an optional HD/SD-SDI input board. “Outstanding image, exemplary layout of controls and inputs, lightweight and compact, 120V,” says Vanguards judge D. W. Leitner. “What more could you ask for in a full 1920×1080 theater projector?”

Ciprico MediaVault 5100 series

Ciprico has been a leader in providing high-end video storage for some time now, but with its first-out-the-door implementation of the new direct-connect PCIe bus architecture standard, the company has come up with a real winner. “Ciprico's MediaVault 5100 series storage array harvests the enormous bandwidth and low-latency benefits of your computer's PCIe bus, stepping around the protocol conversion overhead of Fibre Channel, InfiniBand, and Ethernet cards,” says Vanguards judge Dan Ochiva. This adds up to a raw line speed of 20Gbps, far beyond that of pricier 4Gbps Fibre Channel setups. Although the standard arrays have either eight or 16 drives, there's support for controller-level spanning of several MV5100 series boxes to create single arrays of up to 32 disk drives.

Panavision demonstrates its confidence in the future of film by building new lightweight 35mm Millennium XL2 Panaflex camera bodies, but it also refurbishes and updates older camera systems with the latest electronics. Out of this practice has come the new Panavision 2-perf camera, basically a 20-year-old Platinum body with a new 2-perf pulldown. Magazines double their running times, cameras are quieter, film stock costs are halved, and what you get is native 2.40 widescreen without the hassles and inefficiencies of anamorphic lenses. Using fast spherical lenses, tight-grained stocks such as Kodak's Vision2 5218 (or the just-announced Vision3), and today's DI process for creating anamorphic-squeezed negatives, a new era of low-budget widescreen filmmaking is poised to take off. “Panavision's 2-perf model represents a major step forward in efficiency and economy,” says Vanguards judge Barry Braverman, “offering filmmakers the option now of shooting 35mm at roughly the price of 16mm.”

Premiere Pro has definitely earned a second look. Especially considering the level of firepower that now surrounds it in Adobe's recent CS3 release of the Production Premium suite. (And, of course, for Apple editors, Premiere Pro is now once again available for the Mac.) There are new versions of After Effects, Encore, Flash, and a new basic audio editor (Soundbooth) that focuses on audio-for-video tasks. Integration among the various parts of the suite gets a boost with improved Dynamic Link technology. This means users can work on a Premiere project in After Effects and see the changes reflected in the Premiere Pro timeline, no rendering necessary. Flash is becoming an essential part of web deployment, and the new version of the former Macromedia program can now import Photoshop layers directly. “If you need to do a mix of design, animation, and editing, this might be the suite for you,” says Vanguards judge Dan Ochiva.

These compact, lightweight anamorphic prime lenses are designed for the first time to meet the needs of handheld and Steadicam work. There are six primes in the series — 35mm, 40mm, 50mm, 60mm, 75mm, and 100mm, all T2.6 with close focus less than 3ft. According to the company, the G-series primes are comparable to Panavision E-series anamorphic primes in performance and size, but their lightweight, compact format is similar to Panavision C-series primes. Panavision has also recently released two lightweight anamorphic zooms. The first zoom, the wide-angle AWZ2 — 40mm to 80mm, T3.5 — was introduced in 2006 and is now joined by the new telephoto ATZ — 70mm to 200mm, T3.5. Panavision says these are the first modern zoom lenses with an anamorphic element in the front.