Videoguys Note: FSH-200 now under $1,000!!!

PVC by Bruce Johnson

Isn’t tape dead yet?  The tenacity of the recording medium that first recorded video in the mid-1950’s is pretty impressive,
especially lately.  Almost a dozen hard-drive and solid-state recording devices have come to life since the turn of the
century.  The assets these formats bring to the table are formidable – most have no or many fewer moving parts than a tape
drive, and all offer almost instantaneous access to footage.  However, all of these challengers to the crown share one huge
negative attribute – they are, on a minute-by-minute basis, from a dozen to a hundred times more expensive than recording on
a tape.  And how do you archive with them?  A field tape is its own archiving solution.  Still, the appeal of the upsides of
non-tape recording are pushing more and more production companies into hard-drive and solid-state recording.

Focus Enhancements has been on the leading edge of this revolution for almost a decade.  As hard discs simultaneously became larger in capacity, smaller in physical size and much more affordable, their products have tracked that Moore’s Law-powered curve.  The FS-3 came standard with a 40 gigabyte removable drive in an enclosure that measured 5”x 4”x 6” and required external power.  The FS-4 added HDV capability, jacked capacity up to 80Gb, reduced size to 1.5” x 6” x 4” and includes a battery.  The FS-5 took all that capability and added a 100Gb hard drive, packed it into a little black slab reminiscent of the Monolith in “2001 – A Space Odyssey” sized at 1.5” x 3” x 5” and added an internal (removable) battery and WiFi-powered remote metadata collection.  A later software revision added video preview on the LCD display.  What could they possibly come up with for an encore?  read more...