What about Grass Valley and the Infinity?

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Deadzone

Active member
Obviously, the big news at NAB this year was the RED camera. There was also some buzz about the new Silicon Imaging camera, the HDX900, and the Phantom (which I think is too freakin' expensive for any average Joe). However, I haven't heard much about the Infinity by Grass Valley. The idea of having robust hard disk cartridges intrigued me, and it is suppose to boast a 2/3 sensor under 20K.

Did they end up not having a booth this year. I was hoping to see some footage out of this bad boy. Has the Infinity gotten lost amongst all the hype about Red and the Silicon Imaging camera?
 
I looked at the Infinity, and the media that you record on to, and all I can say is "been a long time coming" they seperated a 2.5 in. HDD the platters go in the cartrige the heads in the player or recorder. They have a video of them putting the disk in the oven, in the freezer, running over it with a car, dropping it on concrete and it still runs. The stand alone drive is bus powered USB or FireWire and they are expecting disks up to 120 gb in the future.
 
That's actually really good news to hear. One of the concerns I had was that the cartridges would fail, but it sounds like they are pretty solid. They are also not too expensive and it is nice to have a backup of your footage as opposed to the P2 method where everything needs to be erased. Still have to look at the footage, though.
 
Me too forgot about the Grass Valley - complaining about the HDX900: "oldscool". But suddenly I remembered that Cam that seems to live well hidden in the shadow of the RED. But there are some questions, I could´nt find the definitive answer nor on the Thompson-homepage nor by a google-search:

is it already available? And if not, when?

Any shots one can look at?

The cam grabs 60p and 50p. But seemingly lacks of 24p. So do I have to make a 3:2:2 pulldown in post? And if so, does that work fine?

The quite enticing price of under 20K: is it with or without viewfinder? (I take it for granted that it is without lens)

JPEG2000 seems to work fine with FCP but could´nt find any details.
 
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I think the camera is targeted primarily at "broadcasters" as opposed to "digital filmmakers", (yes, I know, a fairly arbitrary division) and as such there is less interest in such as 24p than other matters. Red is the other way round, and since these forums are more popular with "digital filmmakers" then I suspect this is one reason why Red gets more interest here than Infinity.

But I believe many broadcasters are keeping a very interested eye on Infinity, since it seems to offer most of the solid state advantages of P2, whilst still being able to use media cheap enough to be considered consumable. It seems particularly well suited to the ENG/documentary type of work, and there have been rumours of a 1/3" version to follow.

So far, I've only seen a non functional prototype, but understand Grass Valley were promising working cameras for NAB, and deliveries from around June. The concept, and what I saw, impressed me, though it's obviously very early days. My main reservations were about how reliable the Rev Pro drives would be, but I am starting to hear very good things, similar to what ChrisForbes says.
 
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