Sony PDW-1500 - Manual (Page 15)

15
1-1 Features of the PDW-1500
Chapter
1
Overview
1-1 Features of the PDW-
1500
The PDW-1500 Professional Disc Recorder is a half-rack
sized recorder optimized for use with nonlinear editing
systems. Despite its compact size, this unit offers high-
speed data transfers between compatible nonlinear
devices, creating a powerful editing tool for video
productions.
The features of the PDW-1500 include the following.
MPEG IMX/DVCAM recording
The PDW-1500 offers the capability to record and play
back both MPEG IMX and DVCAM streams. Users have
the flexibility to select from these formats according to
their picture-quality needs, or to match their editing-
format requirements.
High-speed file transfer
The PDW-1500 has two optical heads enabling high-speed
file transfer. For high-resolution (MPEG IMX and
DVCAM) material, the maximum transfer speed is at
about 5-times speed for DVCAM signals and about 2.5-
times speed for MPEG IMX signals. For low-resolution
proxy AV data, a transfer speed of up to 50 times faster
than real time is achieved.
Proxy video and audio data
The proxy AV data is a low-resolution, MPEG-4 based
version of the full-resolution MPEG IMX/DVCAM
stream. When a recording is made, a proxy AV stream that
is time code synchronized with the full-resolution stream,
is also recorded automatically on the disc. This proxy AV
data, which is smaller in size, is easier to work with and
can be transferred over common networks at much greater
speeds.
Thumbnail search operation
Simply press the THUMBNAIL button and the PDW-
1500 instantly displays thumbnails on a connected
monitor. You can easily cue up the desired scene by
guiding the cursor to the corresponding thumbnail and
confirming your selection with the appropriate button.
Quick picture search by jog and shuttle
dials
The PDW-1500 has jog and shuttle dials as a conventional
VTR to search picture in a clip. The jog dial is for frame-
by-frame search at –1 to +2 times normal speed and the
shuttle dial is for high-speed search at ±35 times normal
speed.
IT-friendly system
In the PDW-1500, clips are recorded as video and audio
data files
1)
. This file-based recording system also allows
material to be viewed directly on a PC linked to the unit via
an i.LINK (SBP2) connection—just as a PC reads files on
an external drive. The interfaces include the S400
(i.LINK) connector, supporting AV/C and SBP-2
protocols, and
(network) connector. The (network)
connector supports MXF file transfer capability to
exchange contents with other equipment supporting MXF.
1) A clip is created every time recording is stopped.
DVCAM output from MPEG IMX playback
When the PDW-1500 plays back an MPEG IMX stream, it
outputs a corresponding DVCAM stream at the same time
through its i.LINK(AV/C) port. This is very useful when
carrying out off-line editing with a popular non-linear
editor using DVCAM format.
Flexible metadata recording
1)
The PDW-1500 is also capable of recording a variety of
metadata such as a camera ID, disc number, scene number,