Convergent Design introduced a 3-D version of its nanoFlash, a compact professional HD portable recorder/player. The new nano3D combines two nanoFlash recorders/players for fully synchronized, stereoscopic recording and playback.

The compact size (3in x 4.2in x 3.8in), lightweight (2lbs) and low power (12W) makes nano3D well-suited for many 3-D camera rigs. It uses the full-raster Sony 4:2:2 MPEG-2 codec, but extends the bit rate up to 280Mb/s for high-quality video. Compressed video and audio are stored on affordable Compact Flash media (now available at up to 64GB) in QuickTime or MXF file format, providing universal NLE support.

As a recorder, nano3D features dual HD-SDI inputs as well as an LTC input for time code. It supports a wide range of video formats, including 1080i60/50, 1080p30/25/24 and 720p60/50/30/25/24. I-frame-only recording (up to 280Mb/s) guarantees that both the left and right frames are processed identically. Also, up to eight channels of embedded audio per HD-SDI stream can be recorded in uncompressed, 24-bit, 48kHz format, enabling full HD 5.1 or 7.1 program creation.

As a playback device, nano3D offers the standard dual-stream, synchronized HD-SDI output. A built-in combiner function merges the left and right video into one of the popular 3-D formats such as side by side, top and bottom or line by line. The merged video is output over a single HD-SDI cable for display on professional 3-D monitors. Also, the addition of a low-cost HD-SDI-to-HDMI converter enables the 3-D HD-SDI stream to be displayed on consumer 3-D TVs