Overview Chapter 1

1-1Features

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 1) and DVCAM 1) streams. Users have the flexibility to select from these formats according to their picture-quality needs, or to match their editing- format requirements.

1) MPEG IMX and DVCAM are trademarks of Sony Corporation.

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.

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 SET button.

Scene selection

You can create and play back clip lists of selected clips from the disc, arranged in any order.

One disc can store up to 99 clip lists.

Clip lists make it simple to perform offline editing in the field for later use with full-scale nonlinear editing systems (XPRI 1), etc.).

1) XPRI is a trademark of Sony Corporation.

Proxy AV data

Proxy AV data is a low-resolution, MPEG-4 based version of a full-resolution MPEG IMX/DVCAM stream (a video bandwidth of 1.5 Mbps and an audio bandwidth of 64 kbps per channel). Whenever a recording is made, the unit automatically generates proxy AV data from the full- resolution data and records it on the Professional Disc. Proxy AV data is much smaller in size than the full- resolution IMX or DVCAM data. It can be transferred quickly over computer networks, easily edited in the field with laptop computers, and readily used in a wide variety of applications, such as content management on small- scale servers.

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-

Clip audio insert editing

You can perform insert editing on the audio tracks of a recorded clip, in the same way that you edit conventional VTR clips. You can also mix audio signals recorded on the disc with input audio.

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 +1 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 computer linked to the

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