Flip4Mac Does Grass Valley Infinity – REV or Compact Flash

Panasonic and Sony aren’t the only ones with flash media in their camcorders. Thompson / Grass Valley partnered with Iomega a couple years back to bring us non-tape recording that was far cheaper than comparative products. The Infinity line of camcorders was born.

Now, Flip4Mac brings us the tools (the glue) that lets you “stick” your Infinity footage into Final Cut Pro.

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What does the Flip4Mac Infinity MXF Component for Final Cut Pro do?

The Infinity Component is a QuickTime component and Final Cut Pro plug-in that allows users to move to a file-based media workflow – when ingesting from Thomson Grass Valley Infinity Series Digital Media Camcorders. File transfer over USB 2.0 connection. $495

Based on the Iomega REV removable storage system, Grass Valley REV PRO drives and disks are engineered for the demands of video professionals and offer good price/performance for non-tape based video recording, editing, delivery and archiving.

REV PRO disks deliver the portability and cost-effectiveness of a video tape with the speed, flexibility, and ease of use of nonlinear, random access media. REV PRO delivers realtime recording and playback with a minimum total sustained data rate of 110Mbps to support a single stream of high-definition (HD) video or two simultaneous streams of standard-definition (SD) video. With a storage capacity of 35GB per disk, REV PRO offers approximately 45 minutes of high-quality HD video or more than two hours of SD video. In addition, REV PRO features enhanced security, providing password protection of content.

Rev Pro disks can be had for $68 per 35g disk. That’s $1.94 a gig.
32g P2 is $48.44 a gig. ($1550 ÷ 32)
32g SxS is $54.69 a gig. ($1750 ÷ 32)
So RevPro is pretty damm affordable. The cameras are pretty good too:

• Three Xensium™ 2/3-inch CMOS imagers
• HD/SD multi-format support including 525i60, 625i50, 720p50/60, 1080i50/60
• Recording/playback to and from integrated REV PRO™ and CompactFlash media and external devices
• Metadata, video, and audio content written in an open, MXF-based wrapper
• Supports DV25, Infinity JPEG 2000, and MPEG-2 compression schemes
• Traditional and IT-based inputs/outputs
• HDMI viewfinder connector
• Gigabit Ethernet connectivity
• Remote control and file transfer over IP connections
• Configurable four-channel audio router with multiple selectable input sources
• Built-in PDA-type TFT touch screen
• Supports Grass Valley™ LCP 400 wireless control panel

Now Mac users can import MXF-based media from Thomson Grass Valley Infinity Camcorders directly to Apple Final Cut Pro – using the new Flip4Mac Infinity Component.

Flip4Mac Infinity Component imports MPEG-2 HD and DV25 SD media directly from Thomson Grass Valley REV PRO drives without transcoding the media file. Flip4Mac Infinity Import Component produces a .mov file that is placed right into your project bin. Simply drag and drop the clip on your timeline, and you are ready to edit.

With the Flip4Mac Infinity Component, Mac users can import and browse REV PRO drives for quick, easy access – without going to baseband video. This means a faster, more efficient, file-based workflow that provides greater efficiency and productivity for you.

Flip4Mac also has “glue” for Sony XDCAM optical media, Editcam hard drives and more.

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