The RED camera has both HD-SDI and HDMI, my little Sony HDR-HC3 has HDMI and YpbPr outputs, my PMW-EX1 has YpbPr and HD-SDI, but my Ikan V8000HDMI has only HDMI and YpbPr. My JVC DT-V1910U and DT-V1710U have YpbPr and HD-SDI but no HDMI. Same with the Sony LMD-9050, HD-SDI and YpbPr, no HDMI. My Ikan HD8000 has only YpbPr. My Panasonic AG-HVX200A has YpbPr but no HD-SDI, but my AG-HPX170 has HD-SDI and YpbPr.
Gets a bit confusing. Especially if you are using two monitors, one for on-camera focus pulls and the other for a simultaneous director/producer monitoring. Camcorders with HD-SDI and YpbPr let you pick one or the other, not both. Other camcorders that have HDMI and YpbPr auto-select which defers to the HDMI preferentially.
I had and have no problem with HD-SDI. It gave me four channels of embedding audio just like HDMI (HDMI can carry 8 embedded audio channels but who cares), 1080P resolution, and best of all - I didn’t have to spend a hundred dollars on a 25ft. HDMI cable, just use a high grade BNC-BNC cable for $35 and the results are great. And cheaper. The HDMI connector just pushes into its mating side, no locking or latching. Over time and wear, will it stay put with a slight pressure? Still too new to know, but my good old BNC connector (Bayonet Nut Connector) has two small round posts that lock it to the connector. You could pull the connector off, but it won’t fall off once seated. It’s a reliability thing.
But it seems HD-SDI’s days are numbered. HDMI, while actually a consumer format, was designed for home video and theater systems and keeps showing up in “professional” gear. The first time I noticed it was on my JVC BR-HD50U HDV deck. Boom, there it was right on the rear jack panel. That was a few years ago, and at that time there were very little HDMI devices out there. HDMI was something I wasn’t really too aware of since I hang out on the pro side. Yea, I read the various articles and boned up on its spec’s and copyright protections, but generally gave it little other thought.
Now I think about it a great deal more. I have to. And so should you.
Not only are many professional devices beginning to use HDMI, but the current (and assumably) future DSLR’s are using it. DSLR’s like the Canon EOS D5MKII, Nikon D90 and Panasonic GH-1 have a “mini” HDMI connector to making it even more difficult to find compatible cables.
BNC cables for HD-SDI are well built, can roll-up easily, come in a billion colors, are thin enough and light enough for transport. HDMI cables are thicker, either black or gray (new colors are being added), don’t necessarily transport well and are, as mentioned earlier, really expensive.
On the flip side, HDMI cables have accessories that can make a professionals life a little easier, and even less expensive. For several rentals, customers have asked how to split the signal coming from the camcorder (I guess DSLR’s are camcorder’s now) into two signal branches. I shopped around and found a cool piece from IO Gear that will take the camcorder’s HDMI out and make it two. We now stock it in our rental department.
It cost about $100 dollars, far less than an HD-SDI signal splitter costs. Perhaps that’s the advantage of using consumer technologies – there are so many consumers versus professional users, consumer goods fall in price relatively fast due to sheer and overwhelming volume, where pro gear starts higher and tends to roll down pricing more slowly.
I don’t see HD-SDI going completely away soon, it’ll hang in there a bit longer, until pro manufacturers convert completely. There are a couple of HDMI-to-HD-SDI (and the reverse) converters being made to ease the transition, and are somewhat expensive, but until the change is complete, consider the transition of interfaces in your equipment purchase.
Sadly, there is no single cable interface solution between the two worlds.
Wouldn’t that have been nice.
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