Pepper invest in Sony HDCAM SR for post work

Pepper, the leading drama and feature film post production facility in Covent Garden, London, has become the first post house in the UK to invest in the latest Sony SRW-5500 HDCAM SR recorder.
Unveiled at NAB 2005 in Las Vegas last week, the SRW-5500 offers the same unequalled HDCAM SR performance of the SRW-5000 but adds the convenience of HDCAM recording as well. While HDCAM is the world's favourite HD format for mainstream productions, HDCAM SR is now well known at the high end of the market with multi-format 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 recording, along with 12 audio channels.
Head of Operations at Pepper, Jethro Harris, said: “We’re doing more and more feature film DI (Digital Intermediate) work and feel that HDCAM SR, with it’s low compression rate, is the ideal format to enable us to offer our clients the best quality results. It enables us to provide a fully integrated 4:4:4 RGB workflow between our Spirit DataCine / Da Vinci 2K+ suite and DS Nitris edit suites.
“HDCAM SR is a lot more manageable than working with 2K data files on hard drives and working in HD allows us to make real time grading decisions, rather than waiting for lengthy renders. Also, the film lab we use for recording back to film, Digital Film Lab in Copenhagen, also uses HDCAM SR and this allows us to offer a high quality result all the way through to the film out. Additionally, we are seeing a considerable number of our Television Drama clients shooting and or mastering on HDCAM and the SRW-5500’s ability to record to HDCAM gives us the best of both worlds.
"The SRW-5500 also has a built-in down-converter and frame rate converter, which allows us to master at 24P but produce additional HD masters at 25P or make PAL or NTSC masters, which gives better results than a standards converter.”
The first feature film using the SRW-5500 at Pepper is 'The Adventures of Greyfriars Bobby' for Piccadilly Pictures. Shot on Super 35mm, the film is to be transferred to HDCAM SR for post work.
Chris Elson, Strategic Account Manager, Media, Sony Professional Solutions Europe, said: “Pepper’s investment in the new SRW-5500 further establishes HDCAM SR as the preferred post and mastering format for film and TV production."
(SP/GB)