Technical Information: Sony HD System Cameras
V6.0 / 03-2014
50
5.2. Migration Path (from SD to HD)
Most of the customers looking for an affordable, entry level HD system camera still
produce their footage in SD quality. But the demand for HD productions is clearly
coming up and it is mandatory that such a long-term investment must feature HD
quality to be prepared for the future.
Sony has taken this customer request into consideration and has equipped the HXC-
D70 camera head with a high-quality down-converter. Thus it is possible to benefit
from the high frequency response of the HD camera head and generate a state-of-
the art SDTV signal.
Picture 33 illustrates the benefit of generating the SD signal from the high-quality HD
signal, as the frequency response of the HD signal is almost flat until 6MHz so that
only very few DTL correction on the SD signal is required (if any).
Picture 36: high quality SD signal generation by HXC-D70
Furthermore, Sony had a very close look to the SD systems (i.e. DXC-D55/-D50/-D35
and –D30) which are widely spread in the market for SDTV productions. Many of
these customers are currently using the multicore transmission system (DXC-camera
head in combination with CA-D50P and CCU-D50) and will be happy to hear that they
may continue using their CCU-D50 in combination with the new HXC-D70 camera.
Migration Step 1: in this case, the CCU-D50 outputs an SD-SDI signal whereas an
HD-SDI signal can directly be taken from the new HXC-D70 camera head. Thus, HD
as well as SD productions are possible by a minimum investment (only camera head
needs to be replaced by HXC-D70).
Migration Step 2: in a next step, the customer can then replace the CCU-D50 by the
new HXCU-D70 which provides 4 HD-SDI outputs from the CCU directly.
Picture 37 on the next page illustrates the SD to HD migration path.