 | Debra Kaufman
Santa Monica California USA
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Hitachi Kokusai Electric America is showing three new cameras at NAB 2012. Of great interest to sports and mobile truck companies is the SK-HD1500, a new slow-motion HD camera. |
Hitachi Kokusai Electric America (Booth #C4309) is bringing three new cameras to this year's NAB: the slow-motion HD SK-HD1500 as well as the HV-HD33 compact 3-MOS sensor POV HD camera and the super-small KP-HD20A HD camera.
The SK-HD1500 is capable of capturing video at 2.5X and 3X the speed of standard frame rate cameras, uses standard 2/3-inch Bayonet mount lenses and is part of the existing Hitachi SK-series camera ecosystem. The camera has 1100 TVL of standard resolution.
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Hitachi Kokusai National Sales Manager Sean Moran
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Hitachi Kokusai Engineering Manager Emilio Aleman
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The SK-HD1500 is an ideal slow-mo camera for sports production," says Hitachi Kokusai National Sales Manager Sean Moran. "It was originally developed for some broadcasters in Europe and the Middle East and will just be made available at NAB." The SK-HD1500 records at speeds of 150 and 180 fps, and its outputs are digital HD/SD video at 1080i, 720p and 480i, all at 59.94 or 50Hz field rate.
Hitachi Kokusai Engineering Manager Emilio Aleman describes the SK-HD1500 as "top of the line." "We're positioning it as the last camera you'll need for slow-mo," he says. "The camera also records normal speed video. The reason we're targeting this camera for OB broadcasting is that traditionally you would have to dedicate slow-mo cameras to particular locations for the best angle, but that's no longer true. You can buy this one camera and put it anywhere where you need a slow-mo or regular camera."
"It can do both slow-mo and regular recording simultaneously," he adds. "It's a camera that serves two purposes whereas in the past you needed two separate cameras and had to think about where to put them in the stadium. This does both and doesn't cost much more than a regular production camera."
The SK-HD1500 has three 2.3 Mega-pixel 2/3-inch progressively scanned IT-CCDs, 16-bit RGB converters that improve dynamic range, signal-to-noise and color fidelity and is capable of 6Gbps transmission over SMPTE standard optical fiber. Hitachi further offers compatibility with most slow-motion servers capable of 3X SMPTE292M 1.5 Gbit/second HD-SDI links. The SK-HD1500 utilizes the control panels, viewfinders, studio build-up kits and accessories of the existing Hitachi SK series cameras.
According to Moran, the camera is "definitely one of the top performing cameras we have and will be very, very competitive as far as price and performance." The camera will be available at NAB and shipping within the month. No price has been released yet, but Saudi TV has already placed an order.
The two other new cameras are the Hitachi HV-HD33, designed for high sensitivity, low-noise, multi-standard signals and low-user intervention operation, such as in-studio use, point of view use, unmanned vehicles, robotic systems and remote observation. The camera has a low power consumption of 8W and weighs a mere 550 grams. The KP-HD20A offers HDTV video from a single 2.1 Megapixel, 1/3-inch color CMOS sensor and is a good substitution for existing SD observation cameras.
The SK-HD1500 HDTV high-speed HDTV Broadcast Field and Studio Production camera system. It is the company's flagship model with multi-standard & frame rate outputs of 180 or 150 frames per second at 1080 or 720 HD-SDI 50 & 60Hz. Please click image to zoom.
Other recently introduced cameras that will be in Hitachi's NAB 2012 booth include the SK-HD1200 native 1080/60p studio and EFP camera; SK-HD1000 dockable studio and field camera; SK-HD2000 native 1080/60i studio and field production camera; Z-HD5000 HDTV studio and field camera; and DK-H200, DK-H100 and DK-Z50 multi-purpose HDTV cameras.
Hitachi's dual purpose SK-HD1500 is the kind of efficiency demanded by today's broadcasters and producers. Although sports is the intended use and will probably be the focus of most customers who purchase it, a slow-motion/regular frame rate camera in one package will no doubt be appealing for other kinds of productions.
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Left, the Hitachi HV-HD33 Mutli-standard, compact, 3MOS HD camera. Right, the SK-HD1200 native 1080/60p studio and EFP camera; Please click on individual images to zoom.
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