For owners of the F5/55, Sony’s new SxS Pro+ C series cards may offer a hint that higher frame rates in 4K and HD will eventually be able to be recorded internally to your camera. The limitation to recording HFR material in 4K internally on the F5/55 has always been the write speed of the media. The SxS Pro+ C series cards can write at up to 2.8Gbps. The limitation may well be the 1.3Gbps minimum write speed. The previousSxS Pro+ cards could only do 1.5Gbps. With this big increase in performance it will be interesting to see what sort of frame rates are possible in 4K. To put the new cards in perspective the Sony AXS cards that are used in the R5 raw recorder can do 2.4Gb/s.

Panasonic has announced the availability of the new AJ-PG50 field recorder, the first to support the AVC-ULTRA codec. With microP2 card compatibility, a variety of professional interfaces and diverse networking abilities, the PG50 is an ideal solution for backup recording, monitoring, previewing, file copying and many other critical field uses. The recorder is equipped with two microP2 card slots, one standard P2 card slot and one SD card slot.

As anticipated Sony today released their latest version 1.1 firmware for the FS7. Hopefully this will improve the slow iris response that many users have complained about when using native E-mount lenses and also Canon EF lenses when used with the latest Speedbooster Ultra and Smart adapter MKIV. Another function that has confused users is which combinations of camera setting allow for LUTs to be applied to various outputs and which do not. This is apparently now simplified.

Sony released firmware version 5.0 for the F5/55. This enabled 4K XAVC internal recording on the F5 if you purchase the CBKZ-55FX optional license key. Unfortunately the optional license key isn’t yet available and won’t be until January. The CBKZ-55FX optional license key will be installable by the end user. The CBK-55PD ProRes/ DNxHD encoder board will also be available in January but that will require you to send your camera into a Sony Authorised Service Center.

Panasonic has announced upgrading schedule for VariCam 35 camcorder

Panasonic has announced upgrading schedule for VariCam HS camcorder

New SMART DVB offers an unparalleled view of MPEG2 & DVB Transport Streams to ensure integrity & drive competitive advantage

New Tiffen Dfx 4 now also supports digital intermediate workflows; adds historical photographic processes and motion picture film stocks to its collection of features and capabilities.

Apantac, provider of cost-effective multiviewers, video walls, extenders, and signal processing solutions will launch its new Multiviewer. The TAHOMA IP fully supports up 4 to 16 local or remote IP/ASI streams and accepts SD, HD, and 3G video formats for multi-image display on a single high resolution monitor. It offers superb video decoding technology with support for MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264 video compression formats, as well as MPEG-1 Layer 2 and AAC audio compression formats. Formats are supported at resolutions up to 1080P, 1920x1080P at 50/60 Hz.

General Media Group Moldova, Moldova's largest private broadcaster with three general channels plus a 24/7 news channel, has successfully gone HD across all channels, using Snell routing, infrastructure and production switching systems. The Snell equipment was supplied via regional partner, Romtek.