Sound Devices PIX-E Monitor/Recorders - First Look

Newsshooter at NAB 2015: Sound Devices PIX-E Monitor/Recorders

Sound Devices were showcasing their new range of PIX-E 4K recorder/monitors at NAB. There are 3 models in the PIX-E line up- the PIX-E5, PIX-E7 and PIX-E5H. The PIX-E5 and E5H both feature a 5" 1920x1080 441 ppi display. The PIX-E5H can record up to ProRes HQ and only via am HDMI input, while the PIX-E5 has both HDMI and SDI inputs and outputs and can record up to ProRes 4444 XQ. The 7" PIX-E7 has a 1920x1080 IPS display and can record up to ProRes 4444 XQ.

The Sound Devices PIX-E5 and E7 are the only recorders on the market currently capable of recording ProRes 4444 XQ.

All of the PIX-E series offer both touchscreen and button functionality all within the one unit. Features such as waveform, histogram, tap zoom, peaking, zebras, false colour, frame markers and LUT's are also included.

The PIX-E records to fast SpeedDrive, an industry standard mSATA drive contained within a custom-designed enclosure. The SpeedDrive, which plugs directly into the PIX-E, doubles as a USB 3.0 thumb drive for high speed offload to any computer without the need for a special cable or drive docking station.

Two SpeedDrive options are available, a 240 GB SpeedDrive and an Enclosure-Only version that allows the user to choose and easily fit any size of mSATA drive. mSATA drives are available in sizes ranging from 128 GB to 1 TB.

[runandgunproductionteam]

A quick tip for those, as we are, still shooting on the wonderful PIX-E5(H):

Proprietary speeddrives with mSATA ssd's inside or even empty enclosures are quite expensive and wouldn't it be nice to shoot on plain old ssd drives? Just any old drive which is way cheaper than a mSATA drive plus speeddrive enclosure and you might have lying around gathering dust.

You can! We ordered a cheap (15 euro) SATA to mSATA adapter from amazon, connected a SATA cable to an old ssd and soldered a SATA power cable (red and black wires) to a usb connector which went into a 4 euro powerbank. Only thing left is to get a angled SATA data cable and dremel a little rectangle out of the speeddrive's housing to feed the cable through.

As I type this one of our GH5's is happily outputting DCI 4K to the PIX and its filling op that old ssd wihout complaining. For a fast workflow you can buy a ssd docking station to transfer files to your editing machine, plug in a new empty ssd to the speeddrive adapter and keep on shooting without breaking the bank for more speeddrives.

If any of the viewers with 3D printer experience is planning to create a ssd enclosure for this please contact us to share your 3D files.

[EvanAvtal]

this looks terrific, to bad its out of my price range