This year's NAB shows has a slew of new products based around SSD Drives.
As memory costs come down we will for sure see more products based around these fast,
low power consumption devices that have a potential for hundreds of different uses.
First Up is Blackmagic Design's HyperDeck Shuttle, claiming to be the world's smallest
HDMI/SDI field recorder. It boasts a beautiful sleek aluminum design, with your control
buttons on one side and connections on the other. Starting at $345 US, plus media, this
will be shipping in May.
Black Magic also has a HyperDeck Studio 1U rackmount version coming out in July. This will have your familiar
VTR jog-dial and button control along with a little LCD for previewing your content live or playback.
It has two slots for SSD which allow for hot swapping of disks while recording. This allows you to potentially
"record forever" as Blackmagic put it. "You can just keep changing out drives".
Both devices record to an uncompressed 4:2:2 Quicktime. You can find out more at http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/hyperdeckstudio/
Next we have two devices from a company called ATOMOS.
Known as the The Ninja and Samurai, the only real difference is one does HDMI and the other HD/SDI.
What's interesting about these two devices is that they have a touch screen display and you can see what you are recording along with the controls. With swapable battery packs on the back, this easily mounts to your camera and can act not only as record but also 5" LCD screen.
Both devices record to Apple ProRes 422 HQ formats. I spoke to them about possibly supporting 444 but
they did not have this planned for the first release.
Starting Prices of ~$1,000 US for the HDMI (shipping soon) and ~$1,500US for the SDI, which will ship later on in the year.
You can read more about these two devices at http://www.atmos.com
Third up from AJA is the baby brother to the Ki Pro, the Ki Pro Mini. This device records to CF cards not SSD drives.
It has a nice ruggedized feel to it. With audio meters on the front and volume control. It sports similar
button look, feel and data display as its older bro. This also records to ProRes 422HQ.
Check out: http://www.aja.com/products/kipro/ki-pro-mini/ki-pro-mini-description.php