by Arthur Yeap

For many years, Thomson cameras have been the most stylish looking. Today, the Thomson line is not only chic, but affordable… and growing. Philips Broadcast has now been merged into Thomson Broadcast. For those who want a studio triax camera, give this product a close look.

The Thomson 1707 has three 2/3-inch IT CCD’s with 1020x505 pixels. This camera has true 16:9/4:3 switchable formats and like many professional cameras, 12-bit A/D converters. We received the 1707 WIDE LS S/N 93902 with the 5-inch viewfinder and tripod plate, Canon J15ax8B4 IRS Lens, DT500 Digital Triax CCU, operational control panel with a ribbon cable and 50m of 0.35-inch diameter triax cable with Kings Connector. Large bound instruction manuals were included in English and in French!

We’ll start with some camera features. The first thing you notice is despite the rather large size, this camera is really well balanced and feels lighter than it looks. Much may be due to its ergonomic styling with flowing curves and soft moldings. Other than the filter, Iitercom along with some audio controls, all switches one normally sees is replaced by two menu rocker switches with prompts in the viewfinder. Besides monitor, prompter and return BNC’s and the triax connector, the camera is simply clean looking.

The DT500 is a ½-width, three-rack-space CCU with plug-in cards. Adjustments for SC and H Phase are accessable along with a host of status LED’s including lock and triax continuity. Multiple SDI (serial digital interface) outputs are available along with analog monitor outputs.

A word about Digital Triax: Instead of conventional Analog Triax where the signals are modulated onto an FM Carrier, Thomson’s Digital Triax is actually Component Digital running down the cable. Thus, even compensation needed for normal Triax is eliminated.

The Operational Control Panel is a cleanly laid-out studio unit with a green alpha LCD Display. Besides the four memory settings, functions are LED push-buttons or use a “soft menu” on the display along with a rotary encoder knob. Standard studio functions such as gain, filter, detail, black, color, knee, shutter, gamma, skin detail, RGB gain and black are immediately available while items like H/V detail, coring are through the “soft menu”.

After reading through some of the comprehensive manuals, operation became straightforward. Like the other cameras in our test, we first ran the SDI signal into a Thomson Alteo 9200 SDI Switcher. Interface to the analog world was through our reference Aja Video R20CE SDI to component/composite converters and R20D composite to SDI decoders loaded into a FR1 frame. Viewing was through “typical” Sony PVM-14M4 Monitors.

The picture from the 1707 was indeed very pleasant. Noise at the +6dB setting was quite low, important when shooting typical low-light settings in many churches. The various controls affecting detail and black were changed easily from default and allowed a nice crisp picture. Resolution past 700 lines was hard to evaluate with our charts and monitor. At maximum gain of +21dB, enough detail remained for a quite usable picture.

The balance, feel and user-friendliness of the 1707 was quite endearing. In addition, personal experience allows me to speak highly of their support and training. These cameras are found in studios all over the world, so at a list price of under $50,000, this SDI studio triax system offers much and delivers quality pictures. For churches seeking a broadcast triax system, this may be just the ticket.

by Arthur Yeap

For more than 20 years, Hitachi Denshi America had built products that consistently offered good price and performance. With the newest “Z” models, Hitachi has another lower-cost camera that churches should seriously consider.

The Hitachi Z3000W has 2/3-inch IT-CCD’s, 10-bit A/D conversion and 13-bit DSP Processing. The “W” indicates the camera has switchable 4:3/16:9 aspect ratios. One feature usually unavailable in other cameras is use of the hi-res 1270 x 503-pixel Matsushita CCD’s. With the f11 sensitivity, this allows hi-resolution pictures in low light.

For this review article, we received a unit with the GM-9 1.5-inch 16:9/4:3 viewfinder, CA-Z32 26-pin adapter, Canon YJ18x9B4 KRS lens, TA-Z3 tripod plate, and an instruction booklet with a comprehensive instructional video. Along with this ENG (electronic news gathering) package was the RU-Z2 CCU with 50 meters of 0.47-inch diameter multicore cable and a RC-Z21A camera control panel with C-102RH 4-pin cable.

In terms of main features, the Z3000W is a dark-grey unit with the “standard” list of toggle switches including Auto White Balance, Gain, Filter, Zebra, Shutter Speed, and White Presets. Some uncommon features include DNR (noise reduction), Flesh Tone painting, +12 dB Ultra Gain, complete menu and four selectable Scene Files or “memories” using compact flash cards for storage. The viewfinder has good freedom of movement. Video, Genlock and Monitor are available along with the 26-pin connector.

The 2U (two rack space) RU-Z2A Camera Control Unit has adjustments for cable compensation, SC and H Phase and incorporates the power supply. Outputs include RGB, composite, audio, intercom and ability to use two separate control panels.

The RC-Z21A Control Panel uses a simple 4-pin cable up to 650 feet to link the CCU or the camera itself. With full-functionality, churches could find this an economical way to control their cameras without a CCU, and with a CA-ZD1 SDI (serial digital input/output) adapter. Besides the standard gain, white, detail, iris, and scene files, the panel also has adjustable gain and black. As a matter of fact, practically all parameters can be stored including gamma, detail, masking, knee, shading, clip, hue and saturation, which are accessed through cursor buttons.

Once we watched the instructional video tape, setting and changing parameters was fairly easy. For evaluating the camera, we used a test system consisting of a Thomson Alteo 9200 SDI Switcher and AJA Video R20D Decoders to SDI and R20CE Converters from SDI with the Sony PVM14M4 Monitor. We were not able to resolve past 700 lines on our monitor and charts reliably, but the camera was still very sharp. One noticeable feature of the Z3000W was the low-noise at normal light levels. Only at +9dB did our waveform monitor begin to show more noise…an important issue for most “light-starved” church situations. The Black Stretch was effective to toning down contrast …another “feature” of many churches. We could adjust detail very well without making the picture too noisy or hard. We did not measure light sensitivity with the Ultra Gain on since we couldn’t see the need to shoot in levels where noise might be an issue.

We were very impressed with the Z3000W and its very clean performance. The List Price of the Z3000W Camera in multicore studio configuration with 5-inch viewfinder, 20x lens, CCU and CP is $ 24,571. For remote pan/tilt use, the Z3000W Camera with SDI Out and CP Lists for $ 20,235 without the remote focus lens. Warranty is one year parts and labor with overnight replacement. The Optical Block warranty is two years, including dead pixels.

Churches starting out or upgrading to a multicore or a simple SDI system would do well to evaluate this product. Hitachi’s good support along with price and performance is quite persuasive.