A Nanoquestion
Nano- was once the prefix for really small. It means one billionth.
Not any more. It seem almost compulsory for every modern industry to have a nano-something, and the screen production industry is no exception.
For us it is the nanoFlash, complete with corny capital F in the middle of a lower case name.
Convergent Design, the company who make the thing, recognised the seemly obvious.
The biggest weakness in entry level professional video cameras is the compression codec and the recording block. That’s where your picture gets the juice pressed out of it.
Luckily, on many smaller professional cameras these days, there is a 4:2:2 HD-SDI or HDMI output. These take an uncompressed feed before the video signal gets to the recording block of the camera – before the squeezing begins.
The nanoFlash simply takes that feed and records it to a higher quality, less compressed codec than the camera itself is capable of.
The hyperbole about nano-size comes in because the nanoFlash is small enough to velcro onto the camera, making it a pretty practical proposition.
It records to two compact flash cards using Sony’s XDCAM HD422 codec in long GOP or I-Frame mode, using selectable data rates from 50 Mbps to 280 Mbps.
One 32 GB card offers 40 minutes record time at 100 Mbps and selecting a FAT32 file structure allows the Compact Flash media to be easily used on both Macs and PCs, although it limits the max clip size to 4 GB.
But how can you use those kind of high bit rates in your edit suite?
According to Convergent, most NLE’s place a 50 Mbps label on high bit rate files, but nevertheless accept the high bit rate files natively. The actual bit rate of a file can be seen in Quicktime Player by using Windows Movie Inspector or for MXF files, the bit rate can be seen in the XDCAM Viewer.
Out the Door
Recently, Auckland’s Rocket Rentals took delivery of a couple of nanoFlash units and general manager Scott Webster says they went straight out the door.
He chose the nanoFlash over AJA’s Ki Pro Portable Digital Disk Recorder because that unit is bigger and only records Apple ProRes 422 codec – although he concedes that is less of a compatibility issues these days with the latest NLE plug-ins.
According to Webster the nanoFlash/Sony EX PMW350 combination rents for about 20% less than say a Sony XDCAM PDW700. Greater savings come from the nanoFlash/Sony EX3 combination.
Webster generally finds people choose a cheaper camera because it is appropriate for the job so the nanoFlash is reserved for particular situations.
“The majority of projects shot on EX cameras don’t have to worry about extra colour info that they would gain,” he says.
Even though pairing a nanoFlash with an entry level camera can make a big difference to the result, it doesn’t replace high end cameras.
At least one DP who has used the Sony EX3/nanoFlash combination privately fumes because it raised the production expectations. They foudn the reality was quite different as they ran smack into other limitations inherent in a camera and lens designed for the professional entry level market.
But Webster sees other opportunities.
“It is really good for PDW700 or 800 owners because they can shoot to cards and archive to disc at the same time,” he says. “They can go to edit very quickly by using the Compact Flash cards out of a nanoFlash.
“It’s quite a clever solution for getting more out of the Sony F900R too. You are not limited by the tape compression. On HDCAM tape you go down to 1440 x 1080 and 3:1:1 but with nanoFlash you get to use the full sensor with 4:2:2 compression and once again you get a tape archive and your solid state workflows. For cameras like that, if you’ve clever you can utilise it well.”
The Guy
The Convergent website has a Quicktime where Mike Schell (I guess he is the guy) proudly holds up a nanoFlash circuit board.
“This is exactly the same circuitry found in the high end PDW700 and PDW850 cameras,” he enthuses.
“The real difference is that is instead of limiting the bit rate to only 50 Mbit 4:2:2 we’ve un-throttled the codec so now you can go up to 100, 160, 220 and all the way up to 280 Mbit (I-frame only).”
This leaves a big elephant in the room.
If a smallish company in Colorado Springs can so conveniently and dramatically improve the results out of camera like the EX3 or an HDX900, why don’t the big boys do it themselves?
Perhaps the final question could be addressed to one of the Big Boys?