Send video files directly from location to the edit suite with Sony's C3 Portal

Sony has announced its Camera-Connect-Cloud Portal, allowing users to send video files directly from their cameras on location straight to the edit suite using a mobile phone app.

Sony has debuted its new cloud service, called Cloud-Camera-Connect Portal, or C3 Portal for short. The new system allows users of Sony cameras to directly upload their footage straight to the edit suite from any location. As long as you have a mobile signal, you can connect to the service.

Metadata can be added to footage before upload, and the system is compatible with both iOS and Android systems.

C3 Portal features

Sony's press release lists the following features for the system.

• Quick and easy connection of camera to cloud by the dedicated mobile application: The camera operator can follow intuitive steps that require a simple log-in to the application and scan of a QR code found on the cameras (PXW-FX9 and PXW-Z280).
• Fast and stable transfer using mobile network: Users can connect cameras to their smartphone via USB and securely transfer files to cloud by the latest 5G network, popular LTE network, and wireless network.  It is also possible to combine multiple cellular networks to accelerate the transfer speed.
• Chunk File Transfer: This enables users to send files to the facility while shooting, to reduce time to edit on the production floor.
• End-to-end metadata workflow for efficient production: When camera operators, reporters or directors set up the planning metadata, including staff names or video topics for example, and send it to smartphones and cameras through the C3 Portal prior to a shoot, that metadata is automatically assigned to files sent to the cloud. In parallel, camera operators can add comments and essence marks as metadata when previewing XAVC proxy files which are sent to the smartphone. This metadata workflow is useful to speed up editing videos rapidly after the shoot.
• Offering speech-to-text capability and voice recognition: These functions help post-production integrate with Sony’s cloud-based AI service, Media Analytics Portal.

The Sony FX9 with the C3 Portal App running on Android. Image: Sony.

The system will initially work with the following cameras, the PXW-FX9, ILME-FX6, PXW-Z280, PXW-Z750, PXW-Z450, PXW-X400, PXW-X500. Sony states that it plans direct integration of the system with NLEs, potentially making footage ingest at the end of the working day a thing of the past for some.

Such a system will of course use vast amounts of data bandwidth, but it is extremely easy to see the attraction of a system like this for broadcasters, who are constantly up against increasingly tighter deadlines. If you've sent a crew abroad or to a breaking story, the ability to send the footage to the editors without even needing to return to a hotel room has a clear advantage.

Sony says that version 1.0 of the portal will be up and running for users by the end of November 2021