HD For Indies

UPDATED Friday afternoon - I'm breaking out the IO HD vs V3HD to its own post here.

AJA & Blackmagic, make room, as there's a new HD gunslinger in town, and his name is MOTU.

I'm working on some client stuff today, so I had Andy the intern dig through the specs on this VERY interesting new device from MOTU (Mark of the Unicorn), a well known & respected name in the audio world, this is AFAIK their first video based product, and WOW, the specs on this are pretty killer.

Short version: It is called the V3HD, and it will ingest SD or HD (including 23.98), do up/down conversion, has simultaneous SD & HD digital and analog outputs, convert analog or digital HD to DVCPRO HD, all KINDS of good stuff.

Think of it as very, very similar to the recently announced AJA IO HD, but with Windows support as well, and DVCPRO HD as the codec of choice instead of ProRes.

Works with Final Cut and Premiere Pro, so presumably Mac Premiere Pro later this year as well.

Here's what Andy had to say about it:

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Almost all the inputs and outputs you'll need in one box. That's what MOTU claims with the V3HD. This SD/HD production hub plugs in via a single FireWire cable to either a Mac or PC with support for Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere Pro, respectively.

Check out all the ins and outs here.

You can use it on the go with a laptop, or even as a stand-alone converter for SD to HD, HD to SD, or pull down insertion/removal. On the high end, the V3HD supports uncompressed 10-bit SD formats and can handle DVCProHD. There's an HMDI out (with optional DVI support) for monitoring or any of the other HD-SDI, SD-SDI, Component, Composite, and yes...S-Video options for monitoring. Speaking of monitoring, the V3HD features a big, bright LED timecode display with support for TC sync and device control.

Video I/O specs from MOTU:

• 1 x HD-SDI in and out (4:2:2 10-bit) on independent BNC connectors
• 1 x SD-SDI in and out (4:2:2 10-bit) on independent BNC connectors
• 1 x extra HD-SDI output connector
• 1 x extra SD-SDI output connector
• 1 x HDMI output (4:2:2 10-bit, YCbCr or RGB)
• Support for DVI output with HDMI-to-DVI adapter (sold separately)
• 1 x HD component in and out (10-bit, YPbPr or RGB) on independent BNCs
• 1 x SD component in and out (10-bit, YPbPr or RGB) on independent BNCs
• 1 x composite in and out (10-bit)
• 1 x S-video in and out (10-bit)
• 1 x 400 Mbit (1394) FireWire A
• 2 x 800 Mbit (1394b) FireWire B

Video isn't the only thing the V3HD has going for it; with 32 channels of simultaneous audio at 192kHz and support for digital AES/EDU or SDI/HDMI embedded audio, the V3HD could stand as an audio-only interface if need be.

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end Andy notes

See all the company's product details here: MOTU V3HD - Overview

Mike's Comments: This sounds VERY interesting. The biggies I don't know are:

a.) what it costs, and
b.) when it ships.

I'm pleased to see that it can do (via breakout cable) enough channels of analog audio to do 5.1 surround sound - excellent!. This looks extremely similar to the AJA IO HD, and they will obviously be compared to one another.

Had this come out a year or two ago, I'd have promptly declared it Sliced Bread 2.0. But announcing this two months after AJA announced IO HD, which uses the frankly superior ProRes codec, puts a dent in the unique value they offer. But the unique value this has is that it offers Windows support as well (IO HD is strictly Mac and likely to stay that way, as it hinges on Apple's unlikely to be shared on Windows ProRes codec). It also has plenty of simultaneous outputs, which AJA doesn't match (EDIT TO CLARIFY): AJA has tons of simultaneous outputs as well, but the V3HD seems to go a little further.

I'm curious to see how well the software works to control it, I'm curious to see how smoothly it integrates into the other programs. AJA and Blackmagic have been making drivers and integrating with Final Cut Pro for a long time (Premiere Pro too), so how smoothly will this new entrant with 1.0 software work?

I've emailed the company to find out more, but it looks EXTREMELY interesting.

I'm sure I'll have more to say on this over time, but this (depending on price) could be a BIG deal, both in terms of this specific product, as well as the fact that there is now a third signifcant player in town making HD related I/O gear for NLEs. What might they do next?

CHANGE - IO HD compared to V3HD moved to a new post here if you're curious for an INITIAL comparison just based on published specs.

UPDATE SATURDAY MORNING

A FEW MORE TIDBITS: Matthew Jeppsen at FreshDV learned a bit more: "Motu informed me that they are looking into the possibility of a ProRes codec addition, and the V3HD does include a USB port for firmware updates. Expect the product to be available sometime in Q3 2007, "

If they could do ProRes, that would be impressive. To paraphrase & augment what I had said in the Comments for this article:

Andy had mentioned the possibility of a firmware update to handle ProRes in his original notes, but I excised it, because I see two potential issues:

1.) It takes a LOT of horsepower to encode on the fly - Apple is saying it takes Xeon power to transcode to ProRes without dropping frames, my Quad G5 isn't officially supported for it - so does the box have the juevos to pull it off?

2.) Political - I don't know either way, but I'd be surprised if AJA didn't have some kind of exclusivity window with Apple on ProRes as they'd worked on it together. Even if they didn't, Apple might not want to let that genie out of the bottle beyond a well trusted friend like AJA. (EDIT - MOTU has been an Apple developer for a long time as well, so that point isn't so much...)

And if they did, and MOTU wanted it cross platform, I'd guess Apple ostensibly doesn't want to enable Windows to use ProRes, they made ProRes to sell more FCP to sell more Macs! I perceive Final Cut Studio as a potential loss leader to sell more Apple hardware - not just Macbook Pros and Mac Pro towers, but XServe RAIDs, xSAN, etc. We all benefit from that low price.

My $0.02.

So IF it has the processing performance to do it, and IF Apple would let them, AND AJA didn't have some kind of exclusivity clause, with or without a time limit, it would probably be Mac only is my guess. That's all speculation and conjecture though. BUT if they could pull it off, that'd be a damn nice feature and make for an even nicer product.

I also apparently glossed over the fact that the V3HD can do DVCPRO and DVCPRO50 for standard def work, as makes sense.
-mike

Labels: hardware, post equipment