HD For Indies

Adam Wilt, who joins me as another of the founders in the new Pro Video Coalition, does his usual bang up job reviewing the hot new Sony XDCAM EX camera, the PMW-EX1. He leads off his 6 page, in depth review with this:

The US$6500 (street price) Sony PMW-EX1 is a six-pound, high definition Handycam with three 1/2” CMOS chips. It resolves a true 1920x1080 image; shoots both interlaced and progressive; records 1920x1080, 1440x1080 (HDV-compatible), and 1280x720 formats; and offers variable frame rates from 1 fps to 30 fps (1080p) or 60fps (720p). The camera records using long-GOP MPEG-2 on dual SxS solid-state memory cards, and provides an SDI output with embedded audio and timecode. It is awkward to handhold, some controls are hard to use, and it lacks SD recording, but its excellent pictures, comprehensive image tweaks, and pin-sharp LCD make it a compelling HD camcorder.


Read on for all the nitty gritty details of what I think is shaping up to be my favorite new camera under $10K.

-mike

Labels: cameras, EX1

WELCOME | High Definition magazine

More on the technical aspects of cameras selected and used on Cloverfield. Don't forget to check out the video interview with Nick Theodorakis, the DIT on Cloverfield - link at the bottom of the article.

FreshDV has a nice round-up article as well.

To answer my earlier question about how they ran around, reader Chris sent in this snippet from Variety on Jan 4:

For the widescreen scenes with visual effects, which require higher resolution, a cameraman dressed like Hud sports the much-heavier hi-res Sony F23 or Thomson . The cameraman was creating the illusion that huge cameras are very light," says Reeves. "It was grueling. People fell."

-mike

Labels: cameras, F23, moviemaking

B-Scene Films: The Redrock M2 Cine-lens adapter report Part 2 - Review

Mike Flynn, frequent commenter on HD for Indies, does his own review of the Redrock M2 adaptor over on his own blog, B-Scene Films.

Labels: cameras

Matthew Jeppsen of FreshDV has been busy with a Sony XDCAM EX camera, the PMW-EX1. He has articles up with:

-samples on the Final Cut Pro workflow (soon to be updated with some email stuff we talked about - bypassing FCP misses some metadata that may or may not be useful to you)

-Resolution Charts

-Rolling shutter artifact samples - from the CMOS sensor

...and a bunch of other interesting articles to boot- check it out.

MONDAY UPDATE - MORE FreshDV EX1 coverage linked to here

-mike

Labels: camera charts, cameras, EX1

Panasonic Announces Deliveries of 32GB P2 Memory Card | Studio Daily: "Panasonic has announced the availability of the 32GB P2 solid-state memory card (model AJ-P2C032RG) for its popular P2 HD and P2 product line. Available at a suggested list price of $1,650,"

32GB? Rock!

$1650....oh.

-mike

Labels: cameras, P2

pictured here - Rodney Charters, DoP for the series 24, hefts some of Panavision's new gear

Panavision usually releases products at the large conferences like NAB, but apparently, on October 11, they couldn't wait any longer.

Held in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, Panavision released a number of new and upgraded products for their film and Genesis camera lines, including a sweet little accessory to the Genesis, the SSR-1 solid state recorder.

Introduced at Panafest, the SSR-1 hooks up to the Genesis, and can record in 4:4:4 or 4:2:2. It works on its own or with the sony F-23 as well, and integrates into workflows based on the SRW-1 HDCAM SR recorder. It records 21 minutes in 23.98 fps 4:4:4 SP mode and 43 minutes in 23.98 fps 4:2:2 LP mode. It consumes little power by only using its full power requirements when recording.

New prime and zoom lenses were announced at the event:
- the new G Series Primes, in 35, 40, 50, 60, 75, and 100mm

-two new zooms:

- the wide-angle AWZ2:
40-80mm T2.8
focuses down to 3 1/4 feet

- the telephoto ATZ:
70-200 T3.5.
focuses down too 5 1/2 feet.

Also announced was the new PCZ compact zoom lens:
19mm to 90mm
-extremely light weight
-high image quality.

Panavision announced Panalux, a unified branding of Panavision's acquisition of AFM and Panavision-owned LEE Lighting. This new brand is currently being used on the set of Batman- Dark Knight, and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

Along with the Genesis Panavision now has available for rental at some locations the Sony F-23 and Panasonic AJ-HPX3000 cameras.

On the film side, the XL2 film camera has components that give it a variable frame rate of 3- 50 fps and help it work better than its predecessors in cold weather. It also has a new "video assist" feature that enables it to be much better in low light. It can quickly convert from studio, to handheld, and steadicam modes. As an accessory, Panavision recently developed a mounting bracket for on-board batteries, which is a production of a response to a client request.

Mike Flynn of B-Side Films posted a great article on the event. Check it out for in-depth converage.

You can check out a couple of vid streams from the event here, and the official product documents here.

Panavision has a page up of the highlights up at their website.

Labels: cameras, high end, lenses, Panavision

FreshDV Reviews Five Follow Focus Systems at FreshDV

Headline says it all. Well, almost - 5 reviews in video format. Flash and QT formats both available.

Topics included:

Introduction and Chrosziel DV Follow Focus Review [8:57m]:
Cinetech Titanium SL Follow Focus Review [5:32m]:
Redrock Micro Follow Focus Review [5:33m]:
Petroff Mini Follow Focus Review [7:27m]:
Indifocus Follow Focus Review [9:51m]:
Follow Focus Accessories [2:16m]:

I'll not hot link out of respect for his site - go to his page and you can click on the links there.

-mike

Labels: cameras, hardware

Regretfully I'll still be out of the country and won't be able to make it (more on that later), but Panavision sent me this invite to share with the community:


The men and women of Panavision invite the members of cinematography.com to join us for “Panafest,” a special event in our history, on October 13, 2007 in Los Angeles.

We’ll be showcasing a significant number of new and innovative products for both our film and digital cameras, as well as products from Remote Systems, Efilm, Deluxe and Lee Filters. It will be a day-long event combining great product introductions, good food and drink, and a terrific party all in one. Complementary valet parking will be available.

The particulars:
Date: Saturday, October 13, 2007
Time: 12 noon to 7:00pm
Place: Panavision world headquarters
6219 De Soto Avenue.
Woodland Hills, CA 91367

RSVP: Via Internet

If you miss the live event, we’ll be posting a complete record a few days later on the Internet of the day’s events as well as party coverage. If you don’t see the website here, then please visit our Panavision site (www.panavision.com). The link will be on our front page.


Should be an interesting event, note how much more they do and have than just film cameras - the Genesis, the Efilm & Deluxe labs, etc.

-mike

Labels: cameras, high end, Panavision

Matthew over at FreshDV.com just posted the last in his 3 part seres on pulling focus - especially relevant in the age of digital cameras with 35mm depth of field:

Part 1 - Interview and Q&A

Part 2 - Interview and Q&A

Part 3 - Hands on demonstration and instruction

Enjoy!

Labels: cameras

Apple CEO Jabs HD Camera Makers || The Mac Observer

Steve Jobs picks on consumer HD camcorder makers for not making true, full, high definition images. A fair complaint, but considering there are cameras costing many tens of thousands of dollars that don't resolve full 1920x1080, it isn't exactly picking on a kid your own size.

Or is this also justification for the half res mode in the new iMovie? Were they finding consumer pushback due to long render times at full res, and with 1/4 as many pixels to push around at 960x540, most folks couldn't tell the difference?

Conveniently/interestingly, AppleTV does 960x540 as well - but that is the maximum resolution supported for a 30p or 60i image. It will do 1280x720, but only up to 24p.

So would it not be fair to complain AppleTV can only make less than full res video from 1920x1080 sources?

-mike

Labels: Apple, AppleTV, cameras, hardware

My intern Geoff Frost has an HVX200 he got a few months ago, and after a recent frustrating experience (while working on his John Woo film contest short, some P2 footage was lost), I encouraged him to write up some thoughts on P2 and HVX workflow from his own perspective as indie filmmaker. I kept leaning over his shoulder and pestering him to add this and that, and it grew into the article below. Here's Geoff's take on the HVX, as a 22 year old recent film school grad doing his own projects, with my own interjections:

=================

(I dedicate this post to all the HVX users waiting on their free P2 cards)

Anyone who owns an HVX can feel timid with the first experience with their camera. Yes, I am one of the many who purchased the camera back in March thinking I would be shooting and editing projects in the weeks to come. Wrong.

Up until March 31st, Panasonic had a great offer: buy the camera, and you receive a free 8gig P2 card. Estimated delivery time: 4-6 weeks. It's been ten weeks and counting and still no P2 card. I received a letter from them explaining that the 8gig cards reached full production and they would be replacing them with 16gig cards. AWESOME! Right? Wrong.

As the 11th week has approached, I've completed two projects, both of which have not been shot on my own personal P2 card. I've had to rent P2 cards numerous times (4gig = $25/day, 8gig = $60/day from local vendors... it adds up) and have been lucky enough to have a friend lend me his 4gig card for the longer shoot.

I browse the forums at dvxuser.com and see numerous people complaining on why they haven't received their cards yet. I'm a pretty patient person, but going on three months is pretty long. Imagine if PEZ had a shortage of candy and all you could do was click the head back and forth all day long.

I have a $5000 camera and am always anxious to shoot HD, but wait, I could shoot DVCPRO 50 with the same color sampling and lesser compression without the P2 card. Wait, no I can't... you can only shoot DVCPRO 50 on the P2 card. So that leaves me with a mini DV tape shooting SD for the last three months on a $5000 camera. NOT COOL!

-----------------

Prepping the HVX for a 16gig card

If you have an HVX and are planning on getting a 16gig P2 card, you must download the proper firmware update from Panasonic. Here are the links to the Firmware Update and the .pdf instructions to update your camera.

Firmware Update


Note: You also need a SD Card (64MB or higher) to upload the update on it. You can buy a USB Adapter for the SD Card to put the files from your computer to the card. You then put the SD Card back into the HVX and follow the instructions on the .pdf.

Also, if you have a PCMCIA slot on your computer, such as a Powerbook, you need to download this driver to update your computer so it can read the card:

Panasonic Support page


You definitely need more than one P2 card when you're shooting. There's a reason for two P2 card slots on the camera, so take full advantage of them. One 4gig just doesn't cut it. I bet an 8 gig would be great, 16gig would be awesome, but here are the downsides...

On a 4gig card, you can shoot about 8 minutes of 720p/24pN (Native mode~literally 24 progressive frames/sec). It sounds like a lot, but when you're shooting it goes by in a flash... The positive side is that after you copy the contents of the P2 card onto your laptop/hard drive/etc... you need to have someone archiving the folder on a DVD using a DVD burner. It's really the only way I feel safe with my footage- I have a physical form of footage rather than just data on a computer.

-----------------

15" and 17" Powerbooks

These are the only two Mac laptops that can read the P2 cards directly from the PCMCIA slot.

First thing learned: ALWAYS HAVE A PERSON ON SET TO DUMP THE P2 FOOTAGE... a.k.a. P2 WRANGLER. I can't stress this enough.

The drives on the 15" and 17" Powerbooks are either a combo-drive or super-drive. The super-drives can only single-layer burners, so if working with 8gig cards you would need to purchase an external dual-layer DVD burner (Mike note - a quick search didn't indicate that Apple made a G4 based Powerbook with a dual layer burner - are we wrong? Was there one?). The downside to the 16gig P2 card is that you can't fit its entire contents on a single DVD (mikenote - thus losing the 1-to-1, P2-to-burned-disc ratio which keeps life simpler). So how do you transfer/back-up your footage?

UPDATE - Mike here - we forgot to include the Duel Systems Adapters - an ExpressCard to PCMCIA adaptor that lets you use MacBook Pro computers (MacBooks can't because they have NO expansion slots of any sort). They worked OK with 10.4.8, ther were issues with 10.4.9 that may not be fully addressed yet, dunno about 10.4.10 - somebody who knows please comment or email me so I can update this. Around $100 though, not bad.

-----------------

5 Options to transfer/archive P2 Footage

A) Have a dedicated hard drive to store your footage via a direct data dump from camera to drive, no computer necessary. By dedicated, I mean buy a hard drive and don't use it for anything else. ONCE YOU CONNECT THE CAMERA VIA FIREWIRE TO THE HARD DRIVE, THE CAMERA FORMATS THE DRIVE AND CREATES FAT32 PARTITIONS FOR EACH TIME YOU DUMP THE P2 CARD CONTENTS. (mikenote-thus obliterating anything you had on there before!) The size of your P2 card determines the  of size each partition it will create. Meaning if you only have 2 gigs of footage on a 4GB card and dump the card to the hard drive, it will create a 4 gig partition instead of only 2.5 gigs. There are a maximum of 15 partitions that can be made on the hard drive, so that means you can only dump the card contents 15 times on the hard drive, which turns out to be ~ 60 gigs. (mikenote - or 120GB if dumping 8GB cards, or 240 GB if dumping 16GB cards...a 250 GB drive probably isn't QUITE big enough to dump 15 full 16GB cards to - formats to 232GB usable.) Advice: don't buy a dedicated hard drive over 150 gigs (if shooting with 8gig cards) and nothing over 80gigs if shooting with 4gig cards. The hard drive must be bus powered, meaning the camera cannot power the hard drive directly - thus the hard drive needs power from somewhere else.

Or...

B) Dump the P2 card directly through the PCMCIA slot (note: MACBOOK PROS CAN'T READ THE CARDS, ONLY 15" AND 17" POWERBOOKS CAN). If you own a Powerbook, I advise you to make sure the PCMCIA slot is clean and dust-free. The card will show up as a disk image with NO NAME as the label. *****************CREATE A NEW FOLDER ON THE DESKTOP/HARD DRIVE AND COPY THE FULL CONTENTS OF THE CARD: THE "CONTENTS" FOLDER AND THE "lastclip.txt" FILE.************* If you don't coy the text file then FCP won't be able to read your folder.

Or...

C) Connect the HVX directly to the laptop via firewire cable, the camera should show up as a drive labeled "NO NAME" just like the P2 card. Again, COPY THE ENTIRE CONTENTS OF THE FOLDER, same as above. LABEL YOUR FOLDERS ACCORDING TO P2 DUMP # AND ITS CONTENTS... FOR EXAMPLE: "p2_01_beach", "p2_02_beach", "p2_03_beach" etc... There is no alternate solution for changing the "NO NAME" label when the P2 card shows up.

Or...

D) Use a USB2 Hard Drive that has the USB "On-the-go" protocol. Connect the camera via USB 2.0 and in the camera menu choose OTHER FUNCTIONS>PC MODE so the camera will operate as a USB device. Switch to dubbing mode on the camera and press the "copy" button on the hard drive and it will copy the contents of the P2 card on the first slot it sees.

Or...

E) Open FCP 5.1.4 and click File>Import>Panasonic P2 (On FCP 6 it's File>Log and Transfer, and it has some enhancements over FCP 5.1.x). The P2 import window should pop up. Before you do that, you should create a logging bin to dump the P2 card contents. With the P2 import window open, click the add button and just choose the whole P2 folder you want to dump, don't toggle the contents folder, etc... Click open and the clips will show up in the viewer. This is a great way to log/label/note all your clips before importing. I do not recommend this option...

Here is a little video tutorial on how to import p2 cards to your hard drive/computer/FCP:

FCP 5.1.4 P2 Import Tutorial

-----------------

P2 Alternatives/Accessories/Hardware

FS-100 Portable DTE Recorder (Firestore)

"Weighing about one pound and only 1.5 inches thick, the FireStore FS-100 is an HD recorder designed to work with the new Panasonic AG-HVX200 P2 camera, supporting DVCPRO HD, DVCPRO 50, and DVCPRO/DV recording formats. The FS-100 provides long recording times and improves workflow with Direct To Edit® technology. It can also be used with other Panasonic DVCPRO/DVCPRO 50 and DVCPRO HD devices that have a FireWire port."

Here are the new features they just came out with:

- The ability to record native 720/24p, 25p and 30p in the MXF pN format; Allows users to only record the required frames in a DVCPRO HD stream, eliminating the need to remove advanced pulldown or duplicate frames during import to the edit system.

- QuickTime support for native frame rates as well as other 720p and 1080i DVCPRO HD record modes for DTE workflow within Apple Final Cut Pro; Allows DV, DVCPRO 50 and DVCPRO HD clips to import directly into the FCP timeline.
- Extended record time; Native frame rate recording allows users to double the record time from 100 minutes to over 200 minutes

- New included accessories such as a high-capacity 180 minute battery, a cradle to mount FS-100 onto all shoulder-mount camcorders with an Anton Bauer adapter, and a new 4-pin right-angle FireWire cable for an extra secure connection to the camera.

- The ability to easily bring non-P2 Panasonic cameras into a DTE workflow; Any DV, DVCPRO 50 or DVCPRO HD camera with 1394 can take advantage of IT workflow.

Visit Focus Enhancement's Official Website for more information.

AJ-PCD20 P2 Drive

"The AJ-PCD20 P2 solid-state memory drive answers the need of today's video professional for faster, easier file transfers on the desktop or in the field. This flexible, time-saving internal/external drive allows users to mount five 8GB P2 cards simultaneously for instant access and continuous editing of all recorded content in sequence. The P2 drive now offers an IEEE1394b interface (in addition to USB 2.0) for high-speed transfers of DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, or DVCPRO HD content into nonlinear editing systems and servers. Compatible with Windows 2000, XP and MAC OS X, the AJ-PCD20 can be installed directly into a standard PC 5.25" bay drive enclosure or connected to a computer and local area network (LAN) via its USB 2.0 or IEEE1394b interfaces. The flexible AJ-PCD20 also serves as a stand-alone external drive when connected with laptops for in-the-field use."

Visit Panasonic's Official page

AJ-PCS060G P2 Store

P2 Store is a 60gig hard drive and is battery powered, so no computer necessary. it serves as a great buffer when working in the field. It can then be used as an external hard drive to link to a computer via USB 2.0.

Visit Panasonic's Official Page

-----------------

And now a very important message from the trenches, aka "See this scar here? That's why I don't that anymore."

If you want to view the contents of a P2 folder while you are on set, do so from the archived DVD. BURN THE DATA DVD FIRST, THEN REVIEW THE FOOTAGE IN FCP. This way your files are FOR SURE safe and won't be deleted.

I was toying around importing P2 footage with FCP 5.1.4. When importing footage, DO NOT delete the video files from the P2 log window. They will be deleted forever... you will end up with a P2 folder with all it's sub-folders but no contents within the sub-folders.


Let's set up the rules of P2:

1. Always have a person on set to dump the P2 footage... a.k.a. P2 Wrangler.
2. Always have a person on set to dump the P2 footage... a.k.a. P2 Wrangler.
3. Have at least 2 or 3 places to store your p2 folders. You never know when that day will come when your computer/hard drive crashes.
4. Burn data DVD's if possible and asap.
5. If dumping directly to a hard drive, use it strictly for P2 dumps and nothing else. remember it makes FAT32 partitions on the hard drive.
6. Always copy the entire contents of the card, including the "LAST CLIP" text file. if you don't, you're S.O.L.
7. If importing with FCP, do not delete the clips from the P2 import window, just leave them be. I REPEAT, leave them be.
8. Format the P2 card within the camera, not from the computer. it makes things much easier.
9. Label your folders according to P2 dump # and its contents. For example: "p2_01_beach", "p2_02_beach", "p2_03_beach" etc...
10. If you are on set and want to reviwew the P2 contents safely, view them from the archived DVD and not the Hard Drivesource footage

-----------------

Panasonic really put a lot of effort into the P2 workflow, which in turn spoils the shooter to never want to revert back to tape. But there's something that doesn't feel right when you're shooting and dumping, almost like you never feel reassured that your footage is safe. with tape, you can hold it in your hand and say to yourself "I control you and I decide if I want to get rid of you." You should do the same with P2 to data DVDs.

Keep the P2 folders on multiple hard drives and back them up on DVD's if they are less than 4 gigs. Hopefully within a year, BLU-RAY/HD DVD burners will be affordable and you can back up 16gig/32gig cards on the discs for just a few bucks. Hopefully that day will come sooner than we think.

If you don't own a Powerbook and want an easy workflow in the field without tying up tha camera, a good choice would be the P2 Store. the downside if you have a 16gig card you can only dump it 3 times, but up to 15 dumps if you have 4gig cards. working with multi-P2 camera shoots, the P2 Drive would be a great option. If both of these choices are out of your price range, another option would be to buy a modestly priced PC laptop with a PCMCIA slot. Even ANOTHER option could be to somehow get your hands on a 15" or 17" refurbished Powerbook for a pretty modest price.

-Geoff

Mike's Comments: First off, thanks to Geoff for spending all the time to put this together.

As you can see, there are a BUNCH of options for how to deal with your P2 footage. One way not mentioned, because it isn't very budget/indie viable, is to just have a stack of P2 cards. With the recent price drop, the 16GB cards are awfully compelling, as their GB/$ ratio is MUCH better than the 8GB cards. Geoff did some spot market research and found that 8GB cards were going for around $675, and 16GB cards were going for about $900 on the street - so why NOT get the 16GB ones if you're on a budget? The "fits on a disc" is the only reason I can think of to even consider not doing so.

The P2 Store gets points for being small, battery powered, and simple to use - load and go with a a readout. The downside is the price. The other good thing about it is that the camera isn't tied up while you're using it. So if small size, portability, and immediately freeing up the camera is your goal, P2 Store makes some sense (or multiple ones).

Keeping track of which cards have been dumped and are ready to wipe and recycle from those that haven't is KEY if you have multiple cards.

The P2 Gear is good for better funded field work as you can review on it - think of it as an HVX with the lens and sensor sawed off.

The direct to drive option is nice, but makes me slightly nervous in terms of being sure you've got the footage- I'd want to plug it into a laptop right away.

The FS-100 is still kinda big and bulky, and P2 cards are finally starting to catch up with it. But for shooting a lot of footage in one go, it is a good answer for that.

The P2 economy/ecology is growing and advancing, and you have lots of choices as you can see. If you have budget for it, and/or need to be sure you can keep shooting, having a pair of cards to shoot with, the pair of cards you're backing up, and a spare pair keeps you guaranteed rolling.

Carefully analyze the needs of your shoot, see if you can spare staff to wrangle P2 cards, see if you need to keep the camera free to shoot, or if it won't be a problem to have it tied up offloading in down time. Standing around waiting for the P2 cards to download while everyone impatiently taps their feet as the good light is fading is definitely not a situation you want to put yourself into.

OK, happy shooting!

And keep multiple backups of that footage!

-mike

Labels: cameras, Final Cut, FS-100, HVX200, NLE, P2, post, workflow

ProLost: Redrock Gets It

"Redrock Micro, maker of the popular M2 35mm lens adapter, is showing a new compact handheld rig at Cinegear Expo in LA today and tomorrow. Unless you snapped a photo of it at the show and put it on your blog today, the above is the first publicly shown image of the thing."

UPDATE: a reader sent in these pics so I wouldn't feel left out. Click each for larger view.

Labels: cameras, Production

JVC's 4k Camera - The Digital Video Information Network

"The camera was in a white metal 'box' style industrial enclosure, with a custom made zoom lens on the front. The footage was being displayed live on an HD monitor. There was also a 4k projection demo including 10 or 15 seconds of live footage from the camera, plus another 1-2 minutes of demo footage shot in Japan. The demo footage all looked good. Before the demo footage, as they were showing off the capabilities of the projector, they also projected some 4096x2400 DSLR captures, which looked very nice as well."

Labels: acquisition, cameras

Reader and long time emailer/contributor Bruce Allen went to the LA based Cinegear Expo this weekend, and submitted this detailed report. he also sent in a big bunch of photos as well. As someone who knows how much time it takes to do this kind of documentation, BIG THANKS to Bruce for taking the time. If anyone else went and has something good to add, please let me know.

You might also be interested in reading Mark Allen's report from the Red presentation at Cinegear as well.

UPDATE - John Ott also posted his own thoughts on CineGear at Making the Movie: CineGear Expo 2007

Below is Bruce's report:

==========

Codex digital recorder - pictures included. Light, small, nice, takes standard Anton Bauer battery power. The "mag" seems to be 2.5" notebook hard drives - they confirmed it was running RAID-3. Cost is supposedly competitive with a HDCAM SR deck. It has optical in and will be able to take RAW data from the Red, do very light JPEG2000 compression (lighter than REDCODE) and store it. It has tons of cool options - ethernet output, H264 proxies, etc. But you get the idea. Cool high-end recorder. They also had huge big uncompressed boxes, fancy workflow solutions, etc. But as far as indies go, I can see us renting a Codex for a day, offloading via Ethernet to our PC at night (their software can output all usual formats - dpx, Quicktime, etc), then returning it the next day. Pricing not set yet - I heard $60,000? Don't quote me.

Mike note - Matthew Jeppsen over at FreshDV has some more on this new device as well, and I regretfully only folded my own coverage into the Friday Blogwad.

Wafian - I saw the HR1 and HR2 boxen. Big fellas, but nicely packaged - fine for a studio or greenscreen shoot. They are renting them - they quoted me something like $500 (per 3-day week?) for the HR1 or $800 for the HR2 (not sure, need to confirm that). They also had a prototype smaller box (picture included). It will run off DC power (yaay). The final one will have a larger screen, be more compact, etc. August. Basically, they are the indie equivalent of the Codex. And friendly too.

Phantom HD camera - I played with the Phantom HD camera (you know, the 1000fps 2k one) at Photo-Sonics (just one of the places that had it). Very very nice, very compact, etc. Records to built-in RAM - can store 4.5 seconds worth of 1000fps 2k x 1k frames. RAM upgrade coming soon. You can review the footage on camera, scrolling through it with a little scroll wheel, etc. It shows you how far you are through it, how much space is used, etc. Connect it via ethernet to dump frames to computer. Rental quote from someone was $2500 per day including lens (a nice 20:1 Cooke, I think) and laptop, I think. Claimed ASA is approx 600 - they were shooting footage live at the show (mix of sunlight & shade) at 1000fps and were at around a 5.6 and 2/3.

Dalsa - remember there are 2 branches - the 4k cine camera, plus the rental department. First off, the cine camera - they had footage playing. It looked incredible. Latitude, etc was nice, shots were very clean, no fixed pattern noise, etc. They had one shot that was available light at night. Wow. Some noise of course but just looked like a slightly high speed film stock. Advantages of this camera over Red are claimed higher latitude, plus definite lack of CMOS motion warping and better sensor alignment for 2:35 (theirs sensor is 2:1 aspect ratio I think?). Next, the rental dept - for a start, yes they are renting Reds.

MIKE UPDATE Tuesday afternoon - Dalsa contacted me to say this is not the case. "We have no plans to rent Red cameras at our facility in LA." according to their spokesman. Apologies for any inaccuracies....or are they? See other update end of article. End update, resuming Bruce's coverage...

I asked them whether you could do something mostly on Red and then switch to their 4k camera for a few days. They obviously felt that their camera's image quality was higher but said yes, as long as you were not cutting directly from one to the other, it'd probably work. Finally, lenses - they had their slightly-anamorphic lenses on display - I played with a 50mm 1.4 one attached to their camera. It was very nice and had that nice oval bokeh that we love out of anamorphics. On a side note - ah man - love that optical viewfinder. Anyway... they are aiming at a set of 6, all under T2.0. Yes, they are PL mount, yes they are for rent. Yes, you could use them on a Red - if you were shooting a 2.35 feature that might be a very good idea because it gets you more usable pixels. They also had a beautiful set of non-anamorphic PL mount primes - mostly Leica glass, plus Canons for the extreme zooms. They feel that the Leica glass is superior to Zeiss and Cooke for 4k acquisition. Again, no reason you can't rent those for your Red.

What else? Lots of Vipers running around - they are small and cute. Wish I'd had time to play with them. The amazing TechnoDolly thing was there again (like a motion controlled Technocrane). Lots of people with Modula HD mini-cameras. Didn't see Silicon Imaging. Red Rock was there with a prototype matte-box ($500, will have swing-away now and 3 rotating filter stages, designed to work with the Red). They also had a HV20 rig similar to what I am building. Many cool follow focus devices running from the Preston to the Bartech, but I didn't see the Red Rock one there (no time!).

I Saw a 18K HMI - it was successfully illuminating the underside of a tree 20 feet away in broad daylight. I played with the always-impressive weatherproof and dual-voltage Kobold HMIs and the O'Connor 1030HD. Looked around at the other LCD monitors - still nothing that competes with mine, yaay. I stopped by Schneider and talked to them about their DigiCon - you know, the latitude improving filter. The thing seems cheap for what you get. I'm going to have to rent some different grades and test.

Also checked out a crazy rotating iris gizmo that gives a supposedly "3D" effect (www.inv3.com) - believe it or not, it actually worked, although it was weird as shit. Basically, the rotating iris thing gives a still shot a tiny bit of parallax motion by, uh, going round and round. It's kinda like the stupidest thing you've ever seen and the cleverest thing you've ever seen at the same time. I'm not sure if I'll be using it on my next shoot, but it did get me thinking a lot about how humans perceive depth - those little movements of the head that we do are important - and also why the gradual dolly shoot has the psychological effect of sucking you into the picture. The human visual system is a fascinating thing...

Otherwise, played with the Petroff follow focus and matte box, the Vocas matte box (very nice, very light and very pro), Innovision's little "bird's eye" camera support tower (not much to rent - was something like $250 per day?), lots of LED lighting systems, the usual impressive Steadicam rigs. P+S technik were doing a demonstration of their Skater-Dolly hooked up to a simple motion control system - it seemed cheap but effective. But I didn't notice their 35mm adapters being talked about much. Abelcine did have the competing Movietube ST. But my tests with the SGpro have really satisfied me - I really don't think you can get much higher quality without going up to a Red or something like that. Otherwise, I saw and photographed a S.two but didn't have time to check it out properly. I had bought a whole bunch of Zacuto stuff on their 25%-off show special for my HV20 rig (yep, I'm going with that whole shoulder-mounted 35mm adapter thing) and was weighed down at that point...

ADDENDUM: he sent this in later:

Finally, the Wafian people were demonstrating the Cineform beta codec on a Mac laptop. So they are trying to get it working with the Mac world. I don't think it was playing full framerate at full res yet (something to do with the codec not being multi-core aware yet).

=========

Mike's Comments - first off, BIG UPS to longtime reader/contributor Bruce Allen for taking the time to write all this up and submit annotated pictures - I welcome and invite well credentialled/qualified/informed submissions from readers.

Dalsa's new smaller form factor camera (as further detailed in the for-pay NAB Premium report) improves their package size and shootability, and if you can team that up with the new much smaller Codex recorder that can do 4K, that's a substantially new package.

The Wafian stuff looks very interesting for an HD-SDI based, Windows keyed green screen shoot (and other usages). I still have a bunch of Phantom HD footage to process sitting around on a hard drive somewhere, it is a very attractive prospect for high speed, high resolution digital cinematography (not to pimp it too much, but the NAB 2007 Premium report includes further info and a long interview with Mitch Gross about the camera's improvements).

Viper with a Wafian (for tethered) or Codex recorder is a very interesting new option as well.

This is definitely an exciting time to watch the progress in digital cameras and recording options. Of course, how reliable and cost effective all this new gear is in the field is a whole other level of analysis to be done.

: )

-mike

UPDATE WEDNESDAY - Then there is this quote on Reduser.net from someone else visiting Dalsa's NAB booth:

I asked the Dalsa rep if they purchased any Reds for the rental department, and he says 'No. We're waiting until they produce a final camera so we can do a comprehensive evaluation. But we're not at any rental disadvantage, because we've already got several reservation holders who've agreed to 'consign' their cameras for rentals as soon it ships.'

So it sounds like they've been keeping their options open (or were at NAB), and have been (or were) considering renting Reds definitely, but may not have publicly committed to doing so. Bruce left CineGear with the impression from the booth reps that they were definitely going to rent them. So MAYBE the rental reps and the PR folks aren't on the same page.

-mike

Labels: acquisition, cameras, Cineform, hardware, Production

I'm bringing back the concept of the Blogwad - everything that I either didn't have time to properly address during the week, or that didn't merit it's own post, or that came in on Friday and therefore gets lumped in with the rest of the blogwad.

I've at least broken it down into categories - post software, post hardware, acquisition, cameras, general...and iPhone, since there's so much going on with that.

POST SOFTWARE

IRIDAS Extends DualStream Stereoscopic Technology across Product Line | Studio Daily - very niche, but good to know

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Click-thru Tutorial: Magic Bullet Looks | Studio Daily

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Click-thru Tutorial: GenArts Sapphire | Studio Daily

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Interview with Automatic Duck's Wes Plate

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Getting Intimate with CineForm Intermediate Part 2 (I trust you can follow the links to part 1)

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Creating Node Trees in Color and the special case of interlaced video (Final Cut Studio 2) -good Ken Stone tutorial, thanks to a sharp eyed reader for sending this in.



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POST HARDWARE

MacNN | MacBook Pro 17" Hi-res: Best LCD yet

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MacNN | Overnight 200GB, 250GB laptop drive upgrades - if you don't want to do it yourself...but what about data backup and data integrity and security?

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Matrox MXO 2.0 review

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ACQUISITION

Codex Digital Announces Portable Field Recorder | Studio Daily

9 pounds, carbon fiber, rubber weather seals, HD to 4K, size of a lunch box, powered by standard batteries, can do dual link 4:4:4, has Infiniband, Ethernet data connections, can do 10 gigabit optical I/O, 8 channels of audio, wireless MP4 video output, Red One RAW output (!!!), this sounds incredibly cool, useful, and improved - I should write more on this later...

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short version - 4K capable S.two to be shown at CineGear

Press release:


S.two Corporation’s DFR4K™ Digital Field Recorder announced at NAB 2007 will premier at Cine Gear Expo 2007.

New 4K capable portable recorder will feature in movie making workflow demonstration with the Dalsa Origin 4K camera.

Reno, NV—June 22nd 2007— S.two announces it will demonstrate for the first time its new 4K recording solution at this week’s Cine Gear Expo. The new DFR4K™ features full integration with Dalsa Origin 4K cameras using InfiniBand Fibre connections. The coupled systems will be shown on the S.two stand #T4 at the Wadsworth Theatre and Grounds June 22-23, 2007.

The DFR4K plays Dalsa 4K images in real time up to the maximum supported frame rate of the Dalsa camera. This closely coupled integration with Dalsa Origin cameras adds all the capabilities of the camera plus all the on set convenience, productivity, efficiency and robustness that S.two has shown on many completed feature films, the most noted of late being David Fincher’s ‘Zodiac’.

An Industry “first”, the 24V DC powered DFR4K™ production units allow the camera to be free of location logistics so that true ‘run and gun’ style movie making can be done in 4K resolution.

This debut showing of the DFR4K™ prototype heralds a complete set of DFR4K™ products for all extended resolution cameras and projects allowing a full choice of palettes for the discerning filmmaker. S.two extended definition workflow will be fully adapted for 4K movie making including offline, archiving and post integration. The DFR4K™ extended definition workflow is added to S.two’s HD, HD RGB, 2K and 3K products supporting other leading cameras.

“As the leading uncompressed digital film recording company, S.two is pleased to be able to provide our field portable, field proven, compact DC powered recording solutions to higher resolution users, bringing our un-rivaled on set experience and reliability to an emerging 4K market” states Steve Roach, Vice President, S.two. “The DFR4K™ provides 4K users a proven end to end workflow with the same benefits S.two has supplied on multiple movie projects around the world.”


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CAMERAS

Ikegami and Toshiba Provide Details of Advanced New Tapeless ENG Camera, Editing and Production System | Studio Daily

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Press release:

DALSA and the Digital Cinema Society (http://www.digitalcinemasociety.com/) are co-hosting a 4K presentation at the Cine Gear Expo, the industry's premiere film, video and digital media expo. The event which takes place on Saturday, June 23rd will explore 4K for production, post, and projection. Various samples acquired in 4K RAW with the DALSA Origin camera, edited in HD with Apple's Final Cut Pro, then conformed using EDL into the final project for color correction and creation of the DCP will be projected in 4K via the Sony SXRD Projector.

Following the screening, James Mathers, President and Co-founder of the Digital Cinema Society, will moderate a panel made up of Cinematographer David Stump, ASC; DALSA's Rob Hummel; Sony's Andrew Stucker; Denis Leconte of Pacific Title, as well as Directors Anurag Mehta and Joe DiGennaro.  The presentation is a great opportunity to find out the benefits and challenges of Digital Filmmaking at 4K resolution.

The time slot is 10-10:45 AM on Saturday, the 23rd at the Wadsworth Theatre at Cinegear.  Note:  You must be registered for the Cine Gear Expo - Free of Charge Until June 15: For more information on Cinegear, visit http://www.cinegearexpo.com



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Zacuto to offer turnkey HD camera packages with Redrock M2 adaptors

Press Release:

Zacuto and Redrock Micro today announced Zacuto will begin offering turnkey digital camera solutions equipped with the Redrock M2 adapter.

"We've had great success providing camera packages setup for the Redrock M2 and have gotten to know it very well," said Steve Weiss, Marketing Director at Zacuto. "Offering our customers complete packages including Redrock's M2 made perfect sense to us. We are thrilled to be teaming up with another US manufacturer."

"Zacuto is putting together fantastic camera packages for digital cinematographers," added James Hurd, Chief Revolutionary for Redrock. "We're delighted to be working with a company that maintains a strong reputation for quality, expertise, and customer service."

Zacuto targets their cinema bundles to customers requiring a complete camera package and have a budget ranging from $20,000-$30,000. The Zacuto cinema solution bundles will include a Zacuto-branded Redrock adapter kit, Panasonic HVX-200 camera, Zeiss Nikon-mount lenses, tripod, Zacuto support system, fitted Zacuto case, and other needed accessories.

Redrock's M2 35mm lens adapter is always available directly from Redrock's website, available with other Redrock accessories including the award-winning microFollowFocus, microMattebox, and microRemote. Redrock pricing starts at $995 for complete SD solutions, and $1,295 for HD solutions.

Redrock and Zacuto will both be at Cinegear Expo 2007 in Los Angeles June 22nd and 23rd. Redrock will be in Booth 30 (located near Panasonic and JVC booths). Zacuto will be located at Booth 77.


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GENERAL INFO

Proposed Amendment Would Ban All DVD Copying - News and Analysis by PC Magazine

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Cinematical Seven: Tips for the Indie Filmmaker - Cinematical

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Shooting Animation Verit-Style for Surf's Up | Studio Daily

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HD DVD Production - white paper details on HD DVD structure/setup

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Apple`s Safari for Windows offers simple interface, good performance but not essential

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MacNN | Apple patent: power adapters for security

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Mac OS X 10.4.10 Released

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YouTube to Test Software To Ease Licensing Fights - WSJ.com

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CinemaTech: Could new RealPlayer spark legal action?

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SoftRAID 3.6 doesn't work under 10.4.10 - so don't upgrade yet!:

"SoftRaid 3.6 does not recognize 10.4.10, and will not allow access to preferences for changes or statistics. The only option is to close the software. To paraphrase the error message, it says that I don't have the proper OS installed and that I should install 10.4.X.

I sent an inquiry to SoftRaid, LLC about this and I received an answer back in under 5 minutes as follows:
'Either go back to 10.4.9, wait until 3.6.2 is out, or ask to be on the beta list for 3.6.2. This is caused by Apples hack to make a 10.4.10 possible, which violates their naming standards.'"


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IPHONE

iPhone data plans to surface before launch day - Engadget
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AppleInsider | New iMac, iPhone hints turn up in Apple software update

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AppleInsider | AT&T exec: iPhone data plans to be announced June 29th [Updated]

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AppleInsider | Apple retail stores to close, re-open ahead of iPhone

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AppleInsider | AT&T recommending "Crowd Control Devices" for iPhone launch

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AppleInsider | Apple gets new EU extension; iPhone dock; 7.6 percent Mac share

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Apple - iPhone - A Guided Tour - new on Apple's site.

EDIT 9:45PM - I'm watching this right now on my HDTV via my AppleTV (the file is Apple TV compatible, natch). My garage got burgled today - my trusty mountain bike (Bridgestone MB-1, heavily modified over last 16 years) got stolen, and my car pilfered. Drat it - so much for my comfy neighborhood vibe - alarm to be used EVERY time I leave the house from now on. But anyway, feel better sitting home tonight and locking all the windows, etc. Back on topic - the iPhone has more little features I hadn't noticed before, so that's good. A silent ringer dedicated button. Speaker and microphone both on bottom (odd!). Another speaker up by your ear. Sleep/wake button is nice - can still receive calls and listen to music, but the big screen is off to save battery. The speaker on the bottom is for speakerphone mode - nice! Conference calling is nice and easy - I could never figure it out on any other phone system before without going to the manual. Lots of subtle quality UI touches. The cost is starting to not matter as much seeing all this - this is how it ought to work. If they released a phone with no video, no audio, and just the UI in a smaller form factor..it'd sell just fine. can surf multiple simultaneous pages - keep'em open. Email on iPhone can read/view JPEG, PDF, Word, Excel, RTF, HTML, etc. The keyboard is "smart" they say as it catches typos, etc. They suggest starting with your index finger and then advancing to thumbing - "in about a week you'll be typing faster on the iPhone than on any other phone" - so get ready for a learning curve. Still only being demo'd in vertical keyboard only mode - I've always been wondering when they'd get a wide mode keyboard mode - I have fat thumbs (and all that...oh never mind). Stock widget is exactly like the OS X widget. Google Maps - it doesn't seem to be self-aware of where you are as some has hoped - you have to tell it where you are. Traffic updates can be live - nice! YouTube - yeah, gotta be on WiFi from what they seem to be saying. Has an airplane mode - no WiFi, Bluetooth, or cell signals come out of it in this mode (well thought out!). Set your ringtone - they don't mention loading your own, but part of me wants to use this one (NSFW).

Whew!

That'll hold us for a bit...

-mike

Labels: Apple, blogwad, cameras, Cineform, codec, Color, disk based recording, Final Cut Studio 2, hardware, high end, iPhone, Kirsner, Mac, NLE, plugin, post, post equipment, tutorial, workflow

EETimes.com - Tech advances zoom in on camera sensitivity, size

Kodak's color filter patterns address another problem that has long dogged the digital imaging industry: trade-offs between resolution and sensitivity.

Kodak claims its color filter patterns are designed to more than double the light sensitivity of the CMOS or charge-coupled device (CCD) image sensors used in camera phones or digital still cameras.

The color filter patterns build on Kodak's widely used Bayer pattern--an arrangement of red, green and blue pixels--by adding a fourth pixel to the current RGB arrangement on the sensor. The fourth pixel "has no pigment on top," said Michael DeLuca, the market segment manager responsible for image sensor solutions at Kodak. Such "transparent" pixels, which are sensitive to all visible wavelengths, are designed to absorb light.

DeLuca called the invention "the next milestone" in digital photography. He likened its significance to ISO 400 color films, introduced in the mid-1980s, which have enabled consumers to take pictures under low-light conditions.

Under the new approach, the fourth pixel, called a panchromatic pixel, allows a black-and-white image "to be detected with high sensitivity," according to Kodak. The RGB pixels present on the sensor are then used to collect color information, which is combined with the information from the panchromatic pixel to generate the final image.


Observers described the panchromatic-pixel concept as both simple and elegant. "The technique is admirably simple--open the window to let in more light. It's almost inconceivable that nobody else thought of or acted on this idea until now," said Tony Henning, editor of The Mobile Imaging Report for Future Image Inc.


There's also a nice image of the new pattern in the article.

Since this is a CMOS modified Bayer pattern, could it not be incorporated into video cameras? The arrangement does seem to dilute the color resolution - sacrificing color resolution for better monochrome sensitivity. But since the human eye is more sensitive to luminance than chrominance, why not do it this way?

-mike

Labels: cameras, CMOS, hardware, sensor

Delay news... sort of. - Reduser.net

Missed this one Friday as I was out of town at a wedding - Jim said he'd have an update by the 15th, and as he put it "Delay news...sort of."

Basically, they need a touch more time to nail down what's up. He intends to have an announcement by this Friday (the 22nd) which may well coincide with their CineGear presentation. So relax, another few days and we'll know more.

Also announced is the fact that a small number of limited functionality beta cameras are going onto major motion picture sets. This means they'll get beat on and used in the most demanding possible environments by highly experienced folks, and as Jarred said, they'll learn more from a few days on set than they would in a month back in the warehouse - all this only accelerating the point in time when you and I can get our hands on a more fully featured camera. As Jim said,

These projects will give us the most thorough and comprehensive field testing a camera has ever been subjected to.

Nice. That's the kind of testing I want my camera to have gone through (I've got a reservation for one myself). Plus, it scores extra checkboxes along the way - by being on the sets of major features, it also scores in the categories of PR, industry acceptance, and hopefully building demand - "Hey, they shot that major Warners (or Disney or Universal or whatever) feature on it, I want it too!" As someone who is looking to rent out my camera, that's all good news to me.

Jim also gave a vague box for production timeframes, definitely before the end of this year, but we'll have to wait and see Friday for more details.

25 pages of comments ensue from that, but that's the big news above.

All the above does imply, however, that those beta cameras will be on set, be used and tested for an unknown length of time, and then feedback given. For that feedback to be useful/meaningful changes might have to be made, hopefully only to software/firmware but possibly to physical components of the camera - maybe a board change, maybe a casing change, etc. Those changes would need to be designed, tested, incorporated, manufactured, etc. All this to say I personally would be surprised to see Red Ones going into mass production in July (my blind, uninformed guess) - this process will take some time. How much more? We'll find out more Friday.

My friend Mark from OffHollywood summarizes his stance nicely, and I concur.

-mike

Labels: cameras, Red

I've been letting messages and tidbits on the SI-2K & Mini stack up for a bit, time for a status update.

Message from Silicon Imaging:

Greetings,

We have another video tutorial online in our SiliconDVR training series, this time going over the workflow integration between SpeedGrade OnSet and our camera software environment, as well as some introductory information on 3D LUT's and their use in a color-managed camera-to-post workflow.

You can download the video at http://www.si-2k.com/Workflows.html or http://www.siliconimaging.com/DigitalCinema/Workflows.html

We hope you enjoy these videos and appreciate your feedback and support.

I haven't had a chance to look yet, this found by Andy the Intern.

In theory this sounds very useful and interesting and closed-loop synergistic to have an an option (not a requirement) for on-set production issues.

Anybody who has looked, please do Comment using link below and Share Teh Luv.


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I also emailed Ari Pressler to see what else was new, he sent me this:

Mike,

We are shipping SI-2K Mini's and SI-2Ks are shipping in the next few weeks.

We have incorporated a few last minute enhancements to the SI-2K based on the feedback from NAB including:

Field removal of the DVR module from the rear of the enclosure for upgrade or service
Improved 2K Mini insertion and removal mechanism
New 15mm Rod insert and locking mechanism
Recessed and angled connector side panel to allow cables to sit parallel to panel
Added 12-Pin Hirose on front panel for HD Zoom lens power
Two 4-pin power output connections each with +5VDC,+12VDC Regulated and Battery Voltage
New 3.5" drive bay for mounting the USB removable drive cartridge system
Intermediate mounts to either 16mm or 35mm film camera bridge plates (option)
Added Low-mode steadicam flat handle bar (option)
Electronic Viewfinder and mounting mechanism (option)

A few notes of interest for the Indies:

- "Magnus”, the first feature shot on the Silicon Imaging SI-2K Digital Cinema Camera to complete filmout, was selected by the 2007 Cannes Film Festival for the prestigious Un Certain Regard competition. It was applauded at the showings at the Debussy cinema, according to Annika Pham from Cineuropa and recognized as “visually delightful” and “a profound emotional experience” by Variety’s Russell Edwards.

- A new feature film called “Adopt a Sailor” starring Bebe Neuwirth, Luke Perry and Ethan Peck has started production using Silicon Imaging cameras with Director of Photography Ulf Soderqvist. “Adopt a Sailor,” written and directed by Charles Evered, tells the story of a sophisticated New York couple (Neuwirth and Perry), who inadvertently “Adopt a Sailor,” (Peck), during Fleet Week--- and in the course of one evening, these three very different people become a kind of surrogate family and change each others lives forever.

- Visit our Workflows section for a new series of video tutorials featuring various aspects of the Silicon Imaging camera systems.


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Jason from Cineform and SI sent this to me when I asked about what was new

I would run through David Newman's blog over at http://cineform.blogspot.com and see what you've missed.

Another very important announcement is NEO 2K and NEO Player. The big news about NEO Player is that it's a *free* decoder available now for single-stream real-time playback of RAW files, or other CineForm codec files. It is cross-platform, although the Mac version is in Beta right now. So for all those people saying that CineForm costs so much money just to read the files, that's not the case anymore. You can edit even with NEO Player, but what you're missing is the ability to encode back to CineForm. So you can read but can't write. But that should work for most people just wanting to edit or convert footage, and not be messing around with mastering or encoding back to CineForm.

It would be a problem though if you plan on moving between apps, but again, the point is that you can read the files, you just have to pay for the ability to write the files. NEO 2K, which is the encoder portion, sells for $799.

You can read more at http://www.cineform.com/products/default.htm

Finally, we now in our gallery have RAW footage available for download from our camera, and users can download NEO Player to mess around with the footage, play with .look files, etc. There's a readme with the files to get people started.

http://www.si-2k.com/gallery_footage.html

Thanks,
Jason


==========

-mike

Labels: cameras, SI-2K, workflow

Two things:

1.) I'm thinking about going to CineGear next weekend - it is a shooting gear centric event for production quality film & video stuff. Exhibitors of interest (to me) include:

Abel Cine Tech with Phantom high speed digital cameras
Big Vision showing the Iconix itty bitty HD cameras
Cinemoves with Scorpio stabilized heads & crane
Cooke Optics with their /i lenses (which Red will support)
Doggicam with Mini Sparrow Head and Power Slide systems
Filmtools with camera support gear
Fujifilm with new film stocks for DI and IN/IP stuff
GVS with their field recorder
JVC with their PL mount adaptor
P+S Technik with Mini35, PRO35, SKATER and other stuff
Spacecam with the Snakehead gyro stabilized mounts for planes
VideoAssisTech with their video assist software
Wafian with their HR-2 DDR capable of 10 bit, 4:4:4 recording to Cineform's codec

So first off, it is coming, get ready for it. It runs next weekend:

Film Series June 21-23 (Thurs to Sat)
Master Class Seminars June 24 (Sunday)
Expo (part I'm most interested in) June 22-23 (Fri/Sat)

It is being held at the Wadsworth Theatre and Grounds.
Address: 11301 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90073-1003

Red will be showing their Crossing The Line in a presentation on Friday as well, and giving a history of the Red One's development and talking about features etc.

2.) The catch is it isn't QUITE something I'd otherwise do - just to poll the readership, who'd be interested in seeing me cover the event? More specifically, who'd be interested in paying approximately $10 for a report from the event? You could even give me some questions to ask (within reason) - consider me your proxy there to a limited extent. Would you buy lunch for your friend who went to pick his brain on it? Maybe think of it like that. : )

If that is of serious interest to you, please add a Comment or email me directly about it. If enough folks express interest, I might be hopping on a plane next week if I can cover my expenses.

Update - Geez, folks - I talk about Cinegear coming up, and all the cool stuff that'll be there, then I have a paragraph to float an idea on how I could finance the trip. THAT concept didn't go over well - check the comments. OK then - so I'm not going to CineGEAR. To paraphrase The Soup Guy from Seinfeld:

"No coverage for you!"

-mike

Labels: cameras

I found it here first: 16GB P2 Cards are Shipping at FreshDV

and that links to the press release on Studio Daily:


Panasonic Ships 16GB P2 Card | Studio Daily

which reports:
-16GB cards are indeed shipping
-$900 from Panasonic (perhaps a touch less from others? -mike)

Handy stats to know:

With a five-slot AJ-HPX2000 P2 HD camcorder, professionals can record up to 200 minutes at native 720/24pN in DVCPRO HD, 80 minutes in 1080i/720p in DVCPRO HD, and 160 minutes in DVCPRO 50 using five 16 GB P2 cards. With the newly-available, four-slot AG-HPX500 interchangeable lens P2 HD camcorder, users can record up to 160 minutes at native 720/24pN in DVCPRO HD, 128 minutes at 720P/30pN in DVCPRO HD, 64 minutes in 720p/60 in DVCPRO HD,128 minutes in DVCPRO 50 and 256 minutes in DVCPRO on four 16GB P2 cards. Users of the compact AG-HVX200 P2 HD handheld, which has two P2 card slots, can also enjoy extended recording with 32 minutes in DVCPRO HD, 64 minutes in DVCPRO 50 and 128 minutes in DVCPRO.


(bold mine)

In case you hadn't noticed, I kinda like the HVX200's flexibility and tapeless workflow, but the lack of an easy master copy (no disc/tape to stick on shelf) and PAINFULLY HIGH cost and relatively low record times of the resuable media have been my biggest complaints (after soft image quality and low sensor resolution). But I do likes me that HVX200, and this new price point (with 32 GB cards expected by year end for $1800 list.

DO READ the full Studio Daily article for important limitations - 16GB P2 card ONLY work in HPX500 and HVX200 cameras and AJ-PCD20 readers with serial numbers above a certain point - check for details w/Studio Daily's page, link above.

-mike

UPDATE

Commenter JTL left this useful advice in the comments:

My company had an HVX-200 and we just sprung for a second. I found a little place in Boston called the Camera Company that had 2 16GB cards a week and a half ago, and I snapped 'em up as fast as I could. Just wanted to mention that they haven't released the new serial numbered HVX-200s yet, so even the second camera I just bought needed a firmware upgrade. SD card upgrade. 10 minutes for each camera. No problem.

The AJ-PCS060 (P2 Store) on the other hand was a little tough with a mac. You need to update the P2 Manager software (which was PC only when I got the 1st camera) in order to update the P2 Store firmware. Once done, however, everything's been going fine. The 16GB card, I think, still copies onto the P2 Store in 2 8GB partitions... Oh, well.


....so probably everybody needs a firmware update.

Labels: cameras, P2

Showreel was nice enough to send me the last couple of issues of their magazine, and there's a lot of good stuff. While it looks like a handful of folks write most of the content, there's a nice range of stuff that is of interest to the HD for Indies crowd.

march/april 07:

p.6 - talking to Fincher's folks about Zodiac and Benjamin Button - all Viper/S.two, all the time

p. 22 - Geoff Boyle talks about lies, damn lies, and manufacturer's specs - talkin' bout HD, pixels, and what is meaningful information

p.24 - how to get the best out of Red Rock Micro M2 adaptor

p.32 - Geoff Boyle talks about why the F900R is better than its predecessors

p.36 - Geoff Boyle talks about look management tools from Kodak, Assimilate, Iridas, and others - a very useful read for the all digital set!

p.36 - a longtime Avid editor uses FCP for the first time, shares his thoughts

...plus more useful stuff, these were the ones that jumped out at me

from the May/June 2007 issue:

p.6 - how the look of 300 was achieved, shot on film, but LOTS of heavy digital manipulation (like almost all backgrounds)

p.13 - using Google Earth to do previz for 24

p.20 - nice in depth article on the new Sony F23 - and it sounds very promising (if pricey!)

p.25 - how to get the most out of the P+S Technik Mini35 and Pro35 - nice companion piece to the M2 article from the previous issue

p.28 - Phil Rhodes second article on working with a budget disk recorder (his is Windows based, mine were Mac based for the 6 we had running simultaneously at Texas HD Shootout. But as John Wayne once said, "It ain't braggin' if its true."

p.34 - a look at the integrated workflow Silicon Imaging is working out with their partners to handle non-destructive LUTs and metadata all the way from camera to onset LUT'd monitoring to grading etc. - a pretty slick setup.

p.50 - more info on S.two's Take 2 (improved version of their DDR recorder)

p.52 - David Stump on working with the Origin - I have met and have tremendous respect for David, when he talks, perk up your ears

p.56 - DVCPRO HD workflow with Avid, but they (the production company that wrote the article) make a lot of statements about their workflow I find alarming, so I personally don't feel like signing off on this as golden info until I test the workflow myself.

As with the other issue, there are many other articles, these were the ones that made my radar go "Ping!" as I sat on the beach reading them, deep frying my Computer Dude flesh. Didn't you notice I was on vacation? Wasn't there some sand at the bottom of the page? There should be, I've got sand everywhere else...

I had a great 5 days at the beach with my extended family (folks, sister & her kids), and I'm looking forward to getting back into Schtuff once I get home (I'm sitting on the plane about to head back as I write this). Best Lesson Learned - no matter how easy the 9 year old makes it look, Do Not try to use his little skim board designed for a person 1/4 your weight. Much Pain (& humor...for bystanders) will ensue. But it was fun trying.

All good stuff - and if you don't want/can't find the hard copies, $20 gets you access to the online articles - go to Showreel's website to get the deets.

-mike

Labels: cameras, NLE, workflow

I started writing this one in November 2004 and never finished it. While digging for something else I stumbled across it and decided to make a quickie run over it (as in with a car) to get it out there as well. I've fixed a few glaring errors, if anybody else spots something wrong please let me know. Keep in mind, MOST of this info is two and a half years old except for a few things I've updated. I thought it was of enough interest to go ahead and get it out there (finally). The info presented is NOT all inclusive - so if something isn't listed doesn't mean it doesn't do it.

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UPDATE: Randy from Band Pro caught a big mix up in the HDCAM SR part - I was talkin' HDCAM not SR. Apologies. That's what I get for publishing a 2 year old draft...

So, at long last, here is the second part of my coverage on What's Wrong with Videotape Formats.

In the last installment, I talked about DV, DVCPRO 50, Digibeta, and HDV. Now I'll be getting into the professional HD standards: DVCPRO HD, HDCAM, D-5, HDCAM SR (4:2:2 and optionally 4:4:4), SRW-1 double rate 4:4:4 RGB.

HDCAM

Sony claims anything over 1500 pixels of resolution on F900 is only going to be capturing noise. OK, if you take that at face value that merely implies Sony's CCDs aren't resolving the full detail capability of HD. Fine. Things will improve over time.

HOWEVER from what I hear back from DoPs in the field, they like the color better on the Panasonic Varicam cameras. Is it a function of the higher color sampling, or the CineGamma, or just better "stuff" in the camera? "Um, whatever, it just looks better when we're done." was the response.
"A 10-bit, 1920x1080i image makes a 1.5Gb/s data stream -- a healthy payload. Sony deals with this by converting the 10-bit data to 8-bit, bringing the stream down to 996Mb/s. Now for the controversial part: Sony "pre-filters," or down-samples, the data, reducing it to 662Mb/s. At this point, the Y sampling is technically 55.68MHz (vs. the ATSC 74.25MHz). The sampling ratio becomes 17:6:6 (vs. the ATSC 22:11:11), which calculates to 1440:480:480 pixels.

If you just look at the numbers, you'd say HDCAM is inferior, as D5 is the full 1920:960:960 and D7 is 1280:640:640. Some even describe HDCAM as a 3:1:1 system. (If 1920:960:960 were represented by the numbers 4:2:2, then mathematically 1440:480:480 would equate to 3:1:1). You might be thinking, "Hey, 3:1:1 is worse than a prosumer DV camcorder, which has 4:1:1." But keep in mind that the first number of the compression ratio represents something different in the HD and SD worlds. Comparing SD 4:1:1 to HD 3:1:1 is like comparing grapes to grapefruit. The ratio to use is 17:6:6 compared to the full 22:11:11."

I don't recall where I got the above, apologies.

Input resolution: 10 bit 4:2:2 1920x1080, 29.97 interlaced frames per second (NTSC) or 23.976 psf, or 24.0 psf (progressive segmented frames), 29.97p, 30.0p
Output resolution: 8 bit 4:2:2 1440x1080, @ 25 or 29.97 interlaced frames per second, or 23.976/24.0/29.97/30.0p, compressed
Compression type & amount: compression is about 7:1 (the jump from 10 bit 4:2:2 down to the recorded 22.5 MB/sec)

Panasonic D-5

"Panasonic's D5 HD machines, because they are based on the D5 format, work in the full bandwidth 10 bit domain (there's no prefiltering or postfiltering of the signal as is done with the Sony HDCAM. Also the HDCAM works only in the 8 bit mode.) Panasonic's D5-HD is also switchable to an 8 bit mode. While in that mode it uses a 4:1 intraframe compression. In its 10 bit mode, it uses a 5:1 intraframe compression.
The VCR is switchable between 59.94 fps and 60 fps, and also handles 23.976 and 24.0 fps, and also handls 720p with flag framing for 24p work (by padding out to 720p60 and flagging the "good" 24 frames - thanks to commenter for pointing out my dangerously ambiguous prior phrasing).

One thing setting the D5-HD apart from other formats is that it records a true 1920 pixels by 1080i image (Panasonic's DVCPROHD records only 1280 pixels and Sony's HDCAM records only 1440 pixels). It is also switchable to 1035i and 720p. One reason why the D5-HD machines can record such a detailed picture is that they're throwing 235 megabits per second onto the tape, (as opposed to DVCPRO-HD's 100 megabits per second, D9-HD's 100 megabits per second, and HDCAM's 140 megabits per second).

EDIT MAY 2007 - I heard tell of a mod to do DCI Spec 2K - 2048x1080 on it, but I don't recall the full details. Since at HD resolutions it was only 4:2:2 and single link, I'm thinking the 2K would be 4:2:2 as well, but I don't know that for a fact (anybody with a link to prove one way or the other please use comments). IF only 4:2:2, that is just "Umm...feh." in terms of what i desirable - 2K work is generally 10 bit log RGB 4:4:4 color space/sampling, not Y'CbCr 4:2:2.

It's compatible with native 720p and 1080i full-bandwidth 22:11:11." Oh, and it is 10 bit

I don't know where I got the above, I'm quoting from...somebody. I wrote this over a year ago, and I apologize for not citing my source - if anybody knows, tell me and I'll be happy to link to it.

HDCAM SR -

EDIT MAY 2007:

HDCAM SR is generally considered the highest quality HD tape format (sorry, Panasonic). With the ability to handle 720p, 1080i, as well as 1080p at FULL raster (fully 1920 pixels wide recorded, not 1440 or 1280), and is 10 bits not 8 bits of bit depth (1024 steps black to white not 255...actual numbers are even less for both).

Modes are:

10 bit full raster 4:2:2
10 bit full raster 4:4:4, if has the 4:4:4 board in it
normally 440mbit, but SRW-1 and 5800 can also do 880mbit (does the 5500 as well? Can't recall - anybody? Bueller?)

I've learned a bit more since then. There's the Sony 5000 (HDCAM SR only), 5500 (HDCAM as well), HDCAM SR (HDCAM and I think Digibeta too optionally). The 5800 is the only one AFAIK that can handle the double data rate of the SRW-1 for 880mbit (the super high quality mode), and also for 1080p60 work with the HDC-1500, F23, and other new cameras from Sony.

And AH, here's the scoop:

SRW-5000 deck - plays/records HDCAM SR up to 440mbit, can do 4:4:4 with addl. board. Plays back HDCAM as well, but doesn't record to it.

SRW-5500 deck - plays AND records HDCAM SR (up to 440mbit, not 880 mbit) AS WELL AS HDCAM. Plays back and upconverts Digibeta as well (but doesn't record to). RGB 4:4:4 capable with optional card.

SRW-5800 - plays/records HDCAM SR (up to 880mbit, up to 1080p60), playback only on HDCAM & Digibeta. The big difference here is support for 880mbit HDCAM SR from the SRW-1 (which does 440 or 880, but James Cameron sez you can't tell the diff even for keys), as well as for 1080p50 or 1080p60 footage from the new high end cameras (F23 & HDC-1500 & others). 1080p50/60 is handy for making a "world master" - can make excellent, uncompromised 720p50/60 or 1080i50/60 (those are the broadcast standards) from 1080p50/60 footage. If you convert 720p60 to or from 1080i60, there's a quality/resolution compromise - not so if starting from 1080p50/60.

IN SUMMARY: The point of all this was to show how much information you're throwing away when you record that you can never get back. When people talk about capturing uncompressed in post, they often make it sound like they have the best possible image. Well, not quite - they have the best possible image given the compromises on the TAPE. The point of this exercise was to show that all, All, ALL HD tape formats involve some compression, involving throwing away some portion of the source imagery. Unless you're using a Codex or S.two or RaveHD or homebrew AJA/BMD setup over single/dual link HD-SDI to uncompressed files...you're compromising your image quality to some degree. Shooting 4:4:4 880mbit HDCAM SR? You probably can't tell a meaningful difference through normal post processes between that and uncompressed. Shooting HDV? Hell yeah - can spot it in any still.

Consider this: 1080i60, if you recorded RGB 4:4:4 at 10 bits, would be a 240 MB/sec datastream. LOTS of information. HDCAM SR pulls that down to a max of 110 MB/sec - and just naked eyeballing the two side by side, you'd probably never tell the difference, nor if you'd done a "reasonable" amount of color grading or other work on it. Keys? Ehhh...mebbee...I can't say for sure.

Then consider HDV - that 240 MB/sec gets keerunched down to 3.5 MB/sec - that's about 70:1. Yeah - you're losing some goodies in there - you've dropped from 1920x1080 to 1440x1080, you've dropped from 10 bits to 8 bits, you've dropped from 4:4:4 down to 4:2:0 color sampling, you've dropped from negligibly noticeable to significantly noticable compression artifacts. You can tell. And your audience certainly will, on either a 2 foot especially on a 60 foot screen.

Various notes/flotsam

READ THIS ARTICLE; http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HFE/is_2000_Jan/ai_58629718

D-5 is 4:2:2 10 bit (FROM THEIR OWN WEB PAGE)

4:2:2 vs 4:4:4 defined on BlackMagic website: http://www.blackmagic-design.com/site/3support.htm

luma vs. chroma sampling, downsampling, DCT, interframe compression, intraframe compression, etc.

DV
DVCPRO50
IMX
Digibeta
HDV 720 (JVC) vs. HDV 1080i (Sony)
DVCPRO HD
HDCAM
D-5
HDCAM SR


DVCPRO HD

720p23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 59.94, 60, or any other progressive framerate between 4 and 60 in 1 fps increments
off camera (Varicam): 10 bit 4:2:2 1280x720
to/from tape: 8 bit 960x720

1080i: 59.94 or 50
to/from tape: 1280x1080 8 bit

HDCAM
1080p23.98, 24, 25, (possibly 29.97 and 30? Can't recall)
off camera (Sony F900