Ikegami GFCAM Makes Solid-State Strides

By Ken Kerschbaumer

Ikegami’s GFCAM solid-state recording system hits NAB with a number of new enhancements, including an ENG camera featuring high-quality specs and the demonstration of a still-to-be-released Bluetooth-based system that will allow a producer or assistant to use a laptop to wirelessly watch content as it is recorded on the GFCAM media from up to 300 ft. away and attach metadata and mark clips.

“The imagers and video processing in the ENG camera is the same that can be found in one of our high-end studio cameras,” says Bob Molczan, engineering specialist, tapeless products. The HDS-V10 camera costs $28,500 and has ⅔-in. Advanced Interline CCDs that can record either 720p or 1080i signals and also delivers signal-to-noise ratio of only 58 dBs at f11.

Molczan says the camera can record media on GFCAM packs that hold 16, 32, 64, and, this summer, 128 GB of data (pricing is $700, $950, and $1,800, respectively, with pricing on the 128-GB system to be determined). The 64-GB pack can record up to two hours of material at 50 Mbps.

The HFCAM pack can be connected to an editing system via USB 2.0 for transfers at 400 Mbps or serial ATA interface for transfer speeds of 1.5 Gbps. One advantage of the system is an LCD display on the cartridge that allows the user to see how much storage capacity is still available on the pack without having to insert it into a camera or deck. The camera can also record on off-the-shelf Compact Flash cards via $200 adapter.