Hitachi_Kokusai_SK-HD1800
Hitachi Kokusai SK-HD1800 offers full HD progressive scan throughout the entire camera chain utilizing 2/3-inch CMOS Global Shutter image sensors.
When a church decides to shop for cameras, there are several schools of thought; finding a seven-day-a-week camera, focusing on the cinematic look for IMAG, or focusing on live production with studio controls. Each of these schools would lead to you a radically different camera. Personally, I like my live production to look live, so 59.94 studio style rigs are my preference, so I was excited to see the latest release from Hitachi was right in my sweet spot. The SK-HD1800 is Hitachi’s latest broadcast camera. Looking at the specs from this camera it becomes pretty obvious it was built with live production in mind, things like a global shutter, motorized filters, simultaneous SDR and HDR, and 4K ready make this camera right at home with current and future live production infrastructures.
Built For The Auditorium
Lighting in the church is a tough needle to thread. Often the church lighting designer is the servant of many masters, trying to create a scene that is mood appropriate while balancing the natural light in the room (if you have any) and the needs of the video team. When you add to this the increasing use of LED technology for lighting and video screens it becomes very easy to put the camera at odds with the rest of the room.
The SK-HD1800 has some options that can lighten the load of the video needs where lighting is concerned. By introducing a global shutter, LED lighting and LED screens aren’t a problem for this camera. Rolling shutter causes problems with the LED lights because for most LEDs they brighten and dim via PWM(Pulse Width Modulation) frequency modulation. Which is a fancy way of saying they change the rate at which the LEDs flicker. With a rolling shutter, the image is captured from left to right, top to bottom. Both the shutter and LEDs are really fast and it is possible for them to match phase, which causes banding. Typically this can be “fixed” by changing the shutter speed or changing the dimmer setting on the lights. However, neither of those “fix” the problem, they just hide it. A global shutter, by contrast, captures the entire image all at once. So PWM doesn’t affect the image. Since LED lighting has really just recently come into its own, I don’t foresee the lighting industry going to through a major shift in the near future, and if you haven’t seen it yet, LED panels are coming to a church near you. All of this just makes a stronger case that a global shutter is the way to go.
SDR/HDR
Also, Hitachi is notorious for producing really clean images, which means you can get more bang for your buck with your basic gain controls. This means your dim lighting scenes can be compensated for with just the gain control, without fear of destroying your image. Hitachi has capitalized on this for their dynamic range allowing this camera to output HDR and SDR. What I found really amazing about this camera is that it can produce both HDR and SDR simultaneously. John Humphrey, VP of business development at Hitachi, explained to me in great detail how the new SK-HD1800 accomplishes this, and it really is genius. I’m not going to give away trade secrets, but I will say I am not sure I would trust anyone but Hitachi with this technique. He did say both the HDR and SDR have independent basic gain controls. This means you don’t have worry about scenes that look great in HDR not being bright enough for your SDR workflow.
Flexibility
A large part of what makes this camera great for live production is the flexibility. One aspect of this is the CU HD 1300 CCU. This CCU can do it all, it’s a swiss army knife of video signals 1080,4k, 3G SDI, 12G SDI Fiber, Triax you name it and this can output to it. In fact, Hitachi is doing something with 4K which is just crazy, they can put it out over 4, 3G SDI connectors or 1, 12G SDI connector. However, if you don’t need 4K you can use those extra connectors as extra 1080p 60 spigots. Meaning your distribution problems could be solved right at the CCU.
While this should be enough for even a control freak like me, Hitachi didn’t stop there. This camera can also be controlled virtually via the Ross Dashboard software. So if you want to shade your camera with a Surface Pro from the comfort of the greenroom, that isn’t a problem. I don’t know how many Ross switchers live in churches all over the US, but I know the answer is “a bunch.” This is just a really smart play, by allowing churches to control their cameras from software that came with their switcher, Hitachi is telling the house of worship market, “We have your back. You don’t want to put unnecessary hardware in your infrastructure, just run our cameras with what you are already using.”
This just scratches the surface on what the SK-HD1800 is capable of, there are plenty of options and extras about this camera that I didn’t get into. We look forward to getting our hands on a review unit soon, but suffice to say this camera is built forward thinking with a huge nod to those not living on the bleeding edge. If you want to learn more about the SK HD-1800 which was named TV Technology’s best of show at NAB check it out at: https://www.hitachikokusai.us/BroadcastandProfessionalCameras/SK-HD1800.html
