Higher Storage And Performance Media For Camcorders

The Professional Disk for Data (PDD) format was created in 2003 by Sony to replace the current format of CD and DVD. Sony is the first manufacturer to develop a blue-violet laser scanner and has produced two identical formats and recorder/players. One is for the consumer, the very rich consumer I might add and the other is for the professional and very rich photographer. This development exceeds the amount and quality of video and audio store dramatically. The “Blue Ray disk” version double records data for over 25 gigabytes of information but at a slower rate than the professional version. It records and plays at a higher bit rate but stores only 23 gigabytes of information. Both similar disks cost approximately $70.00 each and the economical Blue Ray disk player is priced at above $6,000.



The XDCAM was developed by Sony in 2003 as well and uses the PDD disk to record non-linearly. It uses various compression formats to match its operational mode. It uses MPEG-2 for its IMX MPEG, the DV25 when using the DVCAM and MPEG-4 if it is functioning in Internet teleconferencing. This is the Sony's choice for the professional photographer and replacement for previous tape base camcorder systems.



P2 (Storage Media) or the DVCPRO P2 is a plug-in professional digital format which was developed by the Panasonic Corporation in 2004 specifically for the electronic news gathering market. This is the first non-tape based system using flash memory cartridges in series or parallel. The AG-HVX200 uses the P2 storage media and offers multiple recording rates plus a honeycombed storage facility. The P2 system is very much like the Transformer toys of the 1970s and 1980s whereby robots changed into cars, trucks and animals back and forth. The P2 system is incorporated into both the recorder/player as well as the information storage area.



Non-linear editing system is a process that edits and changes movies at any point without reference to a linear coordinate. Previously, during the analogue days of movie editing, a non-linear editing system was a cut and paste affair. It could cause severe and damaging results. The changes in the camcorder such as the XDCAM and the use of flash memory rather than tape have made this process easier. Earlier taped information would be transferred to a computer or a disk. There on the computer many software suites allowed non-linear editing. Using combinations of P2, various mulicapable camcorders and flash drives or memories the professional can edit these directly and swiftly.