For all of you who are technically inclined or are curious as to our technical capabilities, this section is for you. It outlines our production camera models as well lighting, audio and production equipment we utilise on location or in the studio when recording our corporate productions.

Of course, video recording the project is only part of the process, so the editing facilities are also outlined in this page. In fact a discussion covering all of the technical aspects from software to hardware, from location recording to the final master and your DVD copies follow.

As you may have already read on other pages of this web site, we video record all projects in pristine quality, full raster, 1920×1080 High Definition or HD for short. Perhaps you have seen some HD programs that are widely broadcast here in Australia. The Free To Air (FTA) networks and Foxtel broadcast many HD programs
on dedicated HD channels.

Although the HD picture quality can vary from program to program, a well-recorded one will look natural – not too sharp and not too soft, but certainly much sharper than Standard Definition or SD format that has been the norm for decades. There are a number of HD recording formats to suit a wide variety of users and budgets. They include the entry level HDV format, which primarily uses minidv tapes. Even within the HDV format, quality can vary depending on the image sensor size.

Here at Edit 1 Video Productions, we record onto Sony high speed flash memory cards called SxS Pro. No moving parts in the recorder, eliminating damaging or jamming of videotapes and image dropouts. In fact, we dual record onto 2 types of memory cards recording true HD broadcast, offering outstanding picture quality and sound. The SxS Pro as just mentioned and the nanoFlash, an MPEG2 Long GOP recorder, records 4:2:2 QuickTime files onto high-speed Compact Flash cards directly from the never compressed HDSDI output. At 100Mbps and above, the nanoFlash recordings are classed as Master Quality. The majority of our projects are recorded at this rate or higher. Naturally, we use the nanoFlash recordings as our primary source for editing, with SxS recordings as backup.

Our main camera, the Sony XDCAM-EX format PMW-350 has been custom built, incorporating the Fujinon ZA17×7.6BRM-M58H HD broadcast zoom lens, a solidly built full size shoulder mounting camera that clips the camera into the Sony VCT-14 quick release plate. The highly sensitive Sony on camera stereo microphone is teamed with a windshield. The nanoFlash recorder that records onto Compact Flash cards clips onto a bracket that is mounted to the back of the camera. The camera sits atop a strong yet lightweight Miller Solo 2 stage, carbon fibre tripod teamed with a
Miller Compass 20 fluid head. With fully adjustable friction tension, this combination offers perfect balance of the camera with very smooth pans and tilts.

We also have a UHF Sony broadcast radio microphone system that operates around the 800MHz carrier frequency for clean, clear sound. The WRR-855S receiver is mounted in a purpose built slot in the camera. Our range of in house microphones includes the world standard Sennheiser 416 shotgun microphone, protected by wind cover of course. Our lighting kit consists of 4 Arri 800W floodable/spottable tungsten heads & stands. For close work to fill faces, we use our Sony on camera LED light. Should a production require additional audio & lighting components, freelance
associates are employed.

The Sony PMW-350 XDCAM-EX camcorder utilises 3 x 2/3 inch full raster HD CMOS image sensors. One for each primary light colour being red, green & blue. The HD image size is 1920 pixels wide and 1080 pixels high. The Sony PMW-350 camera records in this native size. Most other HD cameras record with a reduced width of 1440 pixels. The image is then stretched out to 1920 pixels. As one would reasonably expect, the image quality is not as high as that recorded by the PMW-350. There are of course many other advantages of a full raster camera. With 2 x 32Gb SxS Pro cards in the camera slots, almost 4 hours of continuous recording is possible at the very highest HQ recording rate. When the first SxS Pro card has reached recording capacity, the 2nd card is automatically activated to
continue the recording from the very next picture frame. Once the first card has stopped recording it can safely be removed from the camera and an empty SxS Pro card can be inserted, ready to record after the 2nd card has filled. Provided the camera has continuous power, the camera can keep on recording until all the cards
are filled.

Similarly with the nanoFlash, we can record onto 2 Compact Flash (CF) cards before they are replaced with freshly formatted cards. No risk of overwriting the recorded files on either SxS Pro or the CF cards. Furthermore, on long or multiple day recordings, we take our MacBook Pro laptop & 2 external hard drives and transfer the SxS & CF recordings onto the hard drives, thus freeing up the cards, which can be used again many thousands of times. Moving on to postproduction editing, our edit suite consists of the most up to date hardware and software technology. Based on a top of the range 8 core Apple Macintosh computer, our preferred editing system is the Media 100. We have been using this hardware/software editing system since 1997. Periodic software upgrades ensure that Edit 1 Video has the latest Media 100 version, which is always at the forefront of high end HD & SD video editing. Coupled with the fastest array of 7 hard drives in their own tower, the Media 100 editing system is capable of editing 10 bit uncompressed HD effortlessly. Caldigit manufactures the hard drive array and the drives have been set up in RAID 5. This means that if one of the drives fails, there is no loss of data, the failed drive can be removed and replaced with a new drive and the system then rebuilds the data in the background whilst editing continues. Special visual effects are created in 64 bit, high speed Adobe After Effects & Photoshop. Our second edit suite uses Apple’s Final Cut Studio. Our very versatile AJA FS1 converter will convert SD to HD and if deemed appropriate for the project, aspect ratio convert as well. The FS1 can, amongst a host of other applications, convert from HD to SD as well.

As pretty much all of our projects end up on DVD, we have the most current technology to create pristine quality DVDs, even though DVD is a Standard Definition (SD) format. Once the final master program is edited and client approved, we utilise Compressor, Apple’s specialised software to encode the m2v or MPEG2 video and Dolby Digital audio. The video is subjected to a 2 pass encoding and down conversion from HD to SD. The first pass analyses each video frame and the second pass is when the actual encoding and down converting takes place. The video & audio files are then imported into DVD Studio Pro, Apples DVD encoding software ready for authoring. It is here that we can create DVDs with sophisticated operations and a wide variety of interactivity to suit client requirements. The final stages in the process from a technical viewpoint is duplicating and printing the DVDs. From the single original DVD, we can duplicate one to countless thousands of DVDs, each one having the same picture and sound quality as the first original DVD. As the DVD holds specially created digital files, they are then copied onto dedicated hard drives in our DVD duplication towers, checked and verified against the original DVD. All copies’ data comes off the hard drive and the newly duplicated DVDs are checked against the files on the hard drive. The results are DVD duplicates that have the same picture and sound quality as that first original DVD.

So now that we have our DVDs ready to distribute, we need to label and package the discs. Our dedicated Primera DVD printers can print simple text to full colour images onto the inkjet printable DVD surface. We always have print samples to hand. The DVDs can be packaged in a wide variety of sleeves & cases, depending on your specific requirement.

I trust that you enjoyed reading this technical page and although the technical information can extend to multiple pages, I have offered a general overview of our facilities from a technical viewpoint. This page will be updated from time to time but if you want more or specific information, please contact me. Additionally, you may find my Blog entries helpful.