HD For Indies

Macworld: News: HDMI 'extreme' extender uses cat 5 cables

"Gefen's new HDMI CAT-5 MS Extreme enables users to put up to 300 feet between a high definition video source and its display, using industry-standard category 5 network cabling. It costs $549 and is now available for pre-order."


Run HDMI over Cat 5 for long distances? Sweet.

Labels: hardware, post, post equipment

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

I had this in another article a moment ago, and decided it was worth breaking out to be its own post.

I was discussing the new MOTU V3HD, and realized how similar it was in concept and functionality to the AJA IO HD.

OK, since it'll come up, here's my first, non-conclusive nor comprehensive, top-of-my-head differentiation between the two just based on the specs available. There are small, refinement differences, but these are the ones I think are significant. This is an ever evolving document, so don't take it as gospel - I keep adding pieces to it, and you're welcome to chime in with your thoughts as well in the Comments (link after end of article).

Major Similarities between V3HD and IO HD:

-SDI & HD-SDI based capture & output
-analog component/s-video/composite capture & output
-up/downconversion
-can transcode to a high quality codec in hardware
-FireWire800 based connection to host computer
-can function as standalone converter
-reference loopthrough
-RS-422 deck control
-other myriad audio/video features
-both can output simultaneous HD & SD over SDI taps
-both can output two SDI or two HD-SDI
-both have 4 channel analog audio I/O via XLR connectors
-both will work as standalone format converters - we're winners either way, this is very, very useful

Potential Advantages of V3HD over IO HD

-DVCPRO HD is an industry standard, ProRes is not (but AJA does support DVCPRO HD editing via FCP)
-Mac and Windows (IO HD is Mac only)
-EDIT to clarify - simultaneous output of standard and high defintion analog simultaneously - IO HD can't do that, as it only has a single component output set.
-optical audio in/out
-at least 8 analog in/out - which allows for affordable 5.1 surround output (hey, it is MOTU, audio is what they DO)
-FW400 as well as FW800
-generally more audio goodness, as that is MOTU's specialty
-in general a few more discrete outputs - SDI and HD-SDI are separate instead of combo, as are the component outputs (HD & SD component outputs, not a single switchable set) - but wait, see below....

Potential Advantages of IO HD over V3HD:

-uses ProRes, which is markedly higher quality than DVCPRO HD (but not industry standard, and Mac FCP 6 specific). This is a biggie. ProRes is full raster and 10 bit in HQ mode, DVCPRO HD is...not.
-HDMI in as well as out (V3 HD is HDMI out only)
-IO HD has cross convert capabilities that V3HD doesn't appear to have (if it did they'd probably say so)
-RCA stereo pair for simple monitoring
-a single set of cables for connecting to monitors..again see below

One other aspect that's a little fuzzier to quantify, but AJA has been making Mac/PC video specific hardware for a long time and has a very strong track record in that specific category. Their hardware and software are a known quantity (and known to be high quality). They partnered with Apple on this, the same way they did on the prior Io SD device - lends confidence it'll work very smoothly - the usual AJA way.

MOTU, on the other hand, has been around for a long time and is similarly well regarded in the audio industry, also has strong ties to Apple, BUT...AFAIK this is their first major video product, with all the implied Version 1.0 potential issues of a new product in a new market sector for them - their strong track record is audio, not video.

In the "different not necessarily better" * category:

-V3HD is intended as rackmount or desktop gear, while IO HD has a handle for easy transport and is meant to sit on a desktop.
-IO HD uses BNC connectors for AES/EBU audio I/O, V3HD uses a dense 25 pin type connector that you'd need a breakout cable for
-V3HD has separate sets of component connections for connection standard and high def. If you have two, separate monitors, this is great. If you have a single multi-mode monitor (like my JVC VT-1910CG), this is a pain, as you'd have to switch cables around to do standard and high def. On the other hand, the IO HD has a single set that are software switchable (no recabling required) so if you have a multi-mode monitor like mine, just leave it hooked up and you're good to go. BUT...if you want to drive two analog monitors, one in HD and one in SD, no dice.
-in exchanging emails with AJA on this, they pointed out that the IO HD has a clean, simple front display. Granted. The V3HD has a lot more discrete information displayed - is that more useful information, or just clutter? Client bling or inefficient, overkill and busy? Judgement call, personal preference. There's aspects of the detail V3HD gives I like, there's areas where I see they could convey the information more efficiently. But the information given is very thorough and discrete, and the geekier side of my soul likes that too.
-if you want to go beyond 4 channels of analog audio, you'd need a breakout cable from another 25 pin connector (but at least you can, IO HD doesn't have that many analog audio outputs). Nod, if an inconvenient one, to V3HD, since it will more affordably do 6 channels of analog audio out for surround. While you certainly can do it from AES/EBU, it is frightfully more expensive based on my recent research.

* (one could argue which is better, and I don't want to argue over it here...yet. For now, I'm OK calling them different, and although it may be that one has greater utility than the other, it is easily envisionable...blah blah see right below)

Winner? Either "nope", "not yet", "it depends", but ultimately "can't tell yet"

...so it isn't clear which one is definitely "better" to my mind, it would depend on the user and usage scenario to differentiate (as well as the price), since I can easily envision multiple scenarios where either would be preferable to the other. In THEORY: On Mac? Got FCP 6? Not worried about 5.1 surround monitoring? Want/can use ProRes on the project? IO HD is lookin' good! On Windows? Or a Mac on FCP 5? Or doing surround, and want to monitor affordably? Need an analog HD output and an analog SD output? Want to see exactly what's up with all of your connections? A heavy audio kinda guy? MOTU V3HD is lookin' damn shiny. As usual, we're talkin' 'bout a horses for courses kind of thing. Also keep in mind...neither of these products has shipped yet. While both companies have good track records of shipping solid products, either or both of them could conceivably blow chunks in actual use, so keep in mind this is all complete conjecture based on published specs. And, as always, price matters.

I'm guessing, since it was just announced and they only have nice Photoshop mockups online, that V3HD is further from shipping than IO HD, since we saw fully working units of IO HD at NAB, and those are scheduled to ship in July for $3495 list.

OK, that's good for now, I'm heading out for the evening. Chime away using the link below with your thoughts and preferences, I'll revisit this over the weekend probably. Anybody want to guess at the price? Feel free in the comments, keeping in mind AJA is coming out at $3495 with theirs.

If there's any known technical inaccuracies in all of this, PLEASE do let me know - I'm just tryin' to get it right.

-mike

Labels: post, post equipment

A little birdy told me that Blackmagic was going to discontinue their very useful (I bought one for myself with my own money) Multibridge Extreme product, and that they'd be unavailable well before the launch of the new Multibridge Eclipse (which is due in July & I'll be posting more info on soon).

This seems to be borne out by the fact that I was going to link to Multibridge Extreme's page on BMD's site....but there isn't one.

The reason I heard was a parts availability issue.

So if you were thinking about getting one, and needed it before the superior but more pricey Multibridge Eclipse ships, get on it with your resellers that might still have them in stock.

It is a very nice product, I've been very happy with mine both as an attached device (acting like a normal HD-SDI card) and as a standalone converter.

I've pinged BMD about it, I'll update as I hear back.

-mike

Labels: Blackmagic Design, hardware, post equipment, rumor

UPDATED Friday afternoon - I'm breaking out the IO HD vs V3HD to its own post here.

AJA & Blackmagic, make room, as there's a new HD gunslinger in town, and his name is MOTU.

I'm working on some client stuff today, so I had Andy the intern dig through the specs on this VERY interesting new device from MOTU (Mark of the Unicorn), a well known & respected name in the audio world, this is AFAIK their first video based product, and WOW, the specs on this are pretty killer.

Short version: It is called the V3HD, and it will ingest SD or HD (including 23.98), do up/down conversion, has simultaneous SD & HD digital and analog outputs, convert analog or digital HD to DVCPRO HD, all KINDS of good stuff.

Think of it as very, very similar to the recently announced AJA IO HD, but with Windows support as well, and DVCPRO HD as the codec of choice instead of ProRes.

Works with Final Cut and Premiere Pro, so presumably Mac Premiere Pro later this year as well.

Here's what Andy had to say about it:

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

Almost all the inputs and outputs you'll need in one box. That's what MOTU claims with the V3HD. This SD/HD production hub plugs in via a single FireWire cable to either a Mac or PC with support for Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere Pro, respectively.

Check out all the ins and outs here.

You can use it on the go with a laptop, or even as a stand-alone converter for SD to HD, HD to SD, or pull down insertion/removal. On the high end, the V3HD supports uncompressed 10-bit SD formats and can handle DVCProHD. There's an HMDI out (with optional DVI support) for monitoring or any of the other HD-SDI, SD-SDI, Component, Composite, and yes...S-Video options for monitoring. Speaking of monitoring, the V3HD features a big, bright LED timecode display with support for TC sync and device control.

Video I/O specs from MOTU:

• 1 x HD-SDI in and out (4:2:2 10-bit) on independent BNC connectors
• 1 x SD-SDI in and out (4:2:2 10-bit) on independent BNC connectors
• 1 x extra HD-SDI output connector
• 1 x extra SD-SDI output connector
• 1 x HDMI output (4:2:2 10-bit, YCbCr or RGB)
• Support for DVI output with HDMI-to-DVI adapter (sold separately)
• 1 x HD component in and out (10-bit, YPbPr or RGB) on independent BNCs
• 1 x SD component in and out (10-bit, YPbPr or RGB) on independent BNCs
• 1 x composite in and out (10-bit)
• 1 x S-video in and out (10-bit)
• 1 x 400 Mbit (1394) FireWire A
• 2 x 800 Mbit (1394b) FireWire B

Video isn't the only thing the V3HD has going for it; with 32 channels of simultaneous audio at 192kHz and support for digital AES/EDU or SDI/HDMI embedded audio, the V3HD could stand as an audio-only interface if need be.

----------

end Andy notes

See all the company's product details here: MOTU V3HD - Overview

Mike's Comments: This sounds VERY interesting. The biggies I don't know are:

a.) what it costs, and
b.) when it ships.

I'm pleased to see that it can do (via breakout cable) enough channels of analog audio to do 5.1 surround sound - excellent!. This looks extremely similar to the AJA IO HD, and they will obviously be compared to one another.

Had this come out a year or two ago, I'd have promptly declared it Sliced Bread 2.0. But announcing this two months after AJA announced IO HD, which uses the frankly superior ProRes codec, puts a dent in the unique value they offer. But the unique value this has is that it offers Windows support as well (IO HD is strictly Mac and likely to stay that way, as it hinges on Apple's unlikely to be shared on Windows ProRes codec). It also has plenty of simultaneous outputs, which AJA doesn't match (EDIT TO CLARIFY): AJA has tons of simultaneous outputs as well, but the V3HD seems to go a little further.

I'm curious to see how well the software works to control it, I'm curious to see how smoothly it integrates into the other programs. AJA and Blackmagic have been making drivers and integrating with Final Cut Pro for a long time (Premiere Pro too), so how smoothly will this new entrant with 1.0 software work?

I've emailed the company to find out more, but it looks EXTREMELY interesting.

I'm sure I'll have more to say on this over time, but this (depending on price) could be a BIG deal, both in terms of this specific product, as well as the fact that there is now a third signifcant player in town making HD related I/O gear for NLEs. What might they do next?

CHANGE - IO HD compared to V3HD moved to a new post here if you're curious for an INITIAL comparison just based on published specs.

UPDATE SATURDAY MORNING

A FEW MORE TIDBITS: Matthew Jeppsen at FreshDV learned a bit more: "Motu informed me that they are looking into the possibility of a ProRes codec addition, and the V3HD does include a USB port for firmware updates. Expect the product to be available sometime in Q3 2007, "

If they could do ProRes, that would be impressive. To paraphrase & augment what I had said in the Comments for this article:

Andy had mentioned the possibility of a firmware update to handle ProRes in his original notes, but I excised it, because I see two potential issues:

1.) It takes a LOT of horsepower to encode on the fly - Apple is saying it takes Xeon power to transcode to ProRes without dropping frames, my Quad G5 isn't officially supported for it - so does the box have the juevos to pull it off?

2.) Political - I don't know either way, but I'd be surprised if AJA didn't have some kind of exclusivity window with Apple on ProRes as they'd worked on it together. Even if they didn't, Apple might not want to let that genie out of the bottle beyond a well trusted friend like AJA. (EDIT - MOTU has been an Apple developer for a long time as well, so that point isn't so much...)

And if they did, and MOTU wanted it cross platform, I'd guess Apple ostensibly doesn't want to enable Windows to use ProRes, they made ProRes to sell more FCP to sell more Macs! I perceive Final Cut Studio as a potential loss leader to sell more Apple hardware - not just Macbook Pros and Mac Pro towers, but XServe RAIDs, xSAN, etc. We all benefit from that low price.

My $0.02.

So IF it has the processing performance to do it, and IF Apple would let them, AND AJA didn't have some kind of exclusivity clause, with or without a time limit, it would probably be Mac only is my guess. That's all speculation and conjecture though. BUT if they could pull it off, that'd be a damn nice feature and make for an even nicer product.

I also apparently glossed over the fact that the V3HD can do DVCPRO and DVCPRO50 for standard def work, as makes sense.
-mike

Labels: hardware, post equipment

Blackmagic Design: Software Downloads:

This software release introduces support for Apple Final Cut Studio 2 and adds support for Apple ProRes, the the Canon HV20 camera, 1080i HDV playback, 720p25/50 DVCPRO HD playback with the Panasonic HVX-200 camera and general stability and performance improvements. These drivers support Intel-based Mac Pro series computers. PowerMac G5 series computers are not supported."


Since so many folks are so gung ho for the low cost Canon HV20, the $250/350 Intensity/Pro cards are a good match if you want to capture live over HDMI and skip the HDV compression. Transcoding to ProRes on the fly now appears to be a valid option as well - sweet!

-mike

PS - thanks to Greg Boston for pointing out the DVInfo.net thread where this was found.

Labels: hardware, low end, post, post equipment

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.

--------------
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): 10 bit 4:2:2 1920x1080
to/from tape: 8 bit 3:1:1 1440x1080

D-5
to/from tape: 1920x1080 10 bit 4:2:2

until I get better info, I consider the 4:2:2 quality a tie from what I know right now. However, as a deck, I give the nod to the HDCAM SR deck, since for the price of a D-5 deck you can get an SRW-5000 HDCAM SR deck with the RGB 4:4:4 board, and then you can do things the D-5 can't ever do (4:4:4 RGB).

HDCAM SR 4:2:2
to/from tape: 1920x1080 10 bit 4:2:2

HDCAM SR 4:4:4
to/from tape: 1920x1080 10 bit 4:4:4 RGB

SRW-1 HDCAM SR deck
besides all the HDCAM SR options of the SRW-5000, it also has a "double time" 4:4:4 mode where it only uses 2.7:1 instead of roughly 4:1 compression that the SRW-5000 does. That's the 880mbit mode

Labels: advanced, cameras, FAQ, hardware, high end, original, post equipment, techie, workflow

I spent some time this weekend on a non-HD4NDs related work project - getting my own home studio in order, so that I can actually, you know...DO STUFF rather than merely sacrifice my house to the tidal ebb and flow of gear coming in and out.

I'd long ago run heavy duty coax underneath my house* by the bucket load (I don't know how many hundreds of feet of it), but I'd never really gotten it all going and hooked up.

(* I have a rarity in Austin, a pseudo-basement, since I live on a hill - my pier and beam house has what would be a crawlspace under any other home, but since I'm on the hill it is 18" on the uphill side and about 6 feet tall on the other....thankfully the living room surround channel speakers were the only thing that had to be run to the 18" side)

I made a push back when I pondered and then got my first HDTV to get it all hooked up to/from the studio - I bought a 50 foot HDMI to DVI cable and a 50 foot toslink in addition to the 8 heavy coax cables (RG-6 I think it was) that ran from the living room into the wiring closet.

So while I'd finally got studio to living room wired and working, I'd never gotten the living room to studio setup working - and after having put it down a couple of months ago, identifying which cable was which that dissapear into the floor in one room and pop up in another can be a bit daunting. So through trial and error I got it all working by spending half my Sunday on it.

Just for kicks to show what's involved to get this kind of stuff going, here's a few photos walking through my setup. Click for a larger view, but command-click (Safari w/tabs enabled) to open in a new tab, or possibly open in a new window if you'd prefer. I'm too lazy to provide proper links, so deal. ;p

Also, please realize this is a work in progress - yesterday I spent many hours running cables over the floor etc. testing, and this ain't purty - it is just where I have it at the moment figuring it all out and getting it working. This is my house/mad scientist lab, not set up at the moment as a client presentable space! This is just me sharing my geekery with you folks, not trying to show this off as a final result.

Here's the back end of the home theater setup:

Hooked into that I've got
-the big HDTV (Sony SXRD rear projection)
-an Xbox (original, aka Halo Injection Device)
-an Apple TV
-an HD cable box
-a Toshiba HD-A2 HD-DVD player
-an S-VHS deck whose apparent fate is to gather dust
-and a 5-8 year old Onkyo 5.1 receiver, that doesn't have enough ports on it.

Therefore, with the new toyz, I got a 4-in-1-out HDMI/toslink/digital coax switch with a remote. I literally ran out of remote commands available on my Onkyo's universal remote! I need to deprogram all the CD changer's commands to free up some buttons and squeeze the AppleTV's and HDMI switch's commands in there (yes Logitech universal remotes are nice, but I don't want to spend that much). Figuring out who has toslink vs. digital coax vs both and how to allocate my limited digital audio ports was quite an undertaking - DON'T be one port shy, else MAJOR hassles ensue.

The HDMI/toslink/digital coax audio switch flips between the HD-DVD player, the AppleTV, the HDMI feed from the studio, and a 15 foot DVI cable if for some reason I want to connect a laptop or computer into the living room to the HDTV (makes a helluva desktop, and Macs can underscan to avoid the "I can't see my menus!" dilemma). The switch was was also necessary because I only have two HDMI ports into the HDTV. A bit irksome considering this was Sony's top or near top of line last summer.

All that routes into the HDMI switch and/or receiver and/or directly into the TV. The wiring does get a bit dense...

...and you can't even see 2 or 3 devices & their wires in that pic. One nice tidbit - the HD digital cable box has both digital coax and toslink audio outputs, and they're both hot at the same time - so I have a 50 foot toslink running under the house to get the living room's audio into the studio - that way I can hear the same TV channel while working (good for CNN). For all other digital audio, that's an M-Audio CO2 sitting on the corner - I pass the HDMI/toslink/digital coax switch's audio output through the CO2, and send a digital coax audio signal (the CO2 is configured as a signal repeater/converter) to the studio - since the two rooms are on separate audio legs, if I send analog stereo pair from one to the other I get an annoying hum. By going digital, I skip the hum and get pure digibitty goodness. As is wise in any endeavor like this, label all your cables! At both ends! Makes life MUCH easier when you find a stray later or are trying to troubleshoot.

The stray grey cables with barrel adaptors are from the HD-DVD player - I can route the analog component outputs simultaneously with the HDMI output to get HD picture/sound into the studio for when I'm back&forthing living room to studio. (Incidentally, I've tested & verified I can use the "analog hole" approach to capture video this route if I want to put my HD-DVD content on my AppleTV...but it doesn't look nearly as good, that's another post).

If you look at that first picture closely, you'll see what looks like a white rag on the floor (it is) - that is actually a rag wrapped around and stuffed into the little hinged hatch I oh-so-carefully drilled and hand cut in the floor (about 2x4 inches) carefully and exactly into a single board of my original hardwood floors. (A side benefit of old house - ZERO insulation underneath - drill through 3/4" of wood and you're seeing the basement.) That runs a few feet under the house (carefully crossing electrical lines under the house at a 90 degree angle and a wide looping berth) and comes up through an even bigger hole in the wiring closet (the closet is immediately behind the TV through a wall, closet opens into the studio). The Master Hole has about 32 RG-6 cables, all the Ethernet drops for the house (about 15 or 20, this done before ubiquitous cheap/fast WiFi), all the phone lines, etc. You can just see part of it at the bottom right of this picture (the blue/grey/black cables lower right):


What you see here is (bottom to top) GigE & 100Base-T Ethernet switches, cable modem, router, S-video/RCA stereo pair duplication amplifier I picked up on eBay and not got quite working/installed right, and my recently simplified patch panel.

Below is a detail shot of the patch panel:



You'll note in the high res that a bunch of these cables are properly/professionally labelled underneath clear plastic - these cables were scavenged from a facility that went out of business (Big Old Heavy Iron Avid for lower end work, ahem), so their labels were a HUGE time saver when configuring and connecting all 32 of them into the studio head end.

While technically I "shoulda" run all the labelled Studio In & Out lines into the back of the patch panel and then patched to the Living Room Ins & Outs, I realized the way I've got it set up now is how I'll probably use it 99.9% of the time (I've got 4 BNCs running to breakfast room aka meeting room and also to the bedroom, but I'll probably rarely use'em that way...haven't yet, unless I get that DA properly set up). Since it is an analog signal path, I didn't want to go through several more signal degrading physical connections, so I just connected them as directly as possible.I can always redo it with studio ins/outs into the back of the patch bay if I want/need to. This is ugly but cleaner signal path.

So that is the bridge between living room and studio, with the option to route it elsewhere in the house, with the option to duplicate an s-video video source with stereo analog audio and send that to the 4 zones of the house all at the same time (my Whole House Audio/Video Dream).

Also coming out of the floor in the closet are a big gob of cables that lead under the house to the back corner of the studio with another little hatch:


You can see the hatch flipped up, can't see the cute little brass hinges and knob I suffered to install so if I. The other hatches just like this. The purple is an old t-shirt I wrapped tightly around the cable gob and tucked up tightly into the hole to tighly block it - I learned the hard way that wasps like to set up camp in cool dry underhouse environs....and then crawl up. I also heard black widows and other Ickies do this, so I'm glad I've got it sealed off pretty well (I sit barefoot sometimes with my toesies right down by that...bad bad scene). it is loose at the moment until I'm sure my wire pulling is done and then I'll secure it again.

All that gob leads up to some cable guides I made out of some Home Depot J-hooks I bent to mount under the desk to keep all the cables tidy, out of sight, and away from any electrical interference. All of those then leads to...


...what I call my half-rack. Bottom to top:
-Apex DVD player (which can disable Macrovision for quickie DVD rips of client stuff or for creative rip-o-matics)
-Kenwood stereo amp/receiver I've had for a loooong time
-Toshiba S-VHS deck...it sits here or gets thrown away...
-Blackmagic Multibridge Extreme - which can be used either as primary HD I/O for my Quad G5, or as a standalone converter (which will soon be its primary task)
-home configged BNC patchbay - here's where three Macs worth of HD I/O, two component monitors, and the living room feed can all get routed to each other. I spent hours figuring out the layout of those 32 ports, as I had about 50+ possible connections I could have made to it
-AJA Kona3 breakout box
-AJA Kona2 breakout box

I have more HD-SDI I/O cards than I have Macs (have BMD & AJA gear), so I config as needed to the project at hand - the AJA stuff has convenient breakout boxes, I've remoted the cables from three Macs so when set up with BMD gear the panel acts as a breakout box - HD-SDI, audio & component I/O can be routed/patched through there. When I'm done wiring it all, I'll be able to slide this in under the desk out of the way.

If you thought the front was a big messy cable gob, the back is even busier:


I am still not finished setting all this up - note the receiver's audio I/O is looking a little lonely down there. I also hard-mounted a power strip on the shelf that the A/V gear sits on, to simplify wiring and have "one switch for off" simplicity. The one thing I have to be careful of - if the Multibridge is hooked up to computer, it essentially is a PCIe card, so I have to be careful about my power up/down order with that.

Here's a detail shot of the half rack:


Note once again all cables labelled - HUGE time saver down the road! I can't stress how important it is to label all the cables in what is to be a permanent install - label both ends of EVERYTHING. I used to quibble about labelling power cords as they are interchangeable, but if you've got 10 of them hanging down the back end of a desk and one is loose, or you need to unplug something non-vital to plug in yet another FireWire drive or whatever...you need to KNOW, and not accidentally unplug the computer. And once labelled, PUT 'EM IN THE RIGHT PLACE! Only thing worse than an unlabelled cable is a mislabelled one. Anyone, back to cable central - and all that feeds into my monitoring options:


-the 23" Apple is connected to the Multibridge Extreme for pixel-for-pixel accurate monitoring of 1080p/i signals
-the "Mon1" is a 19" JVC HD broadcast CRT, LOVE this thing - does EVERY SD/HD standard, including PAL & 23.976 frame rates. I have a component HD analog board in it
-the silver one is a 20" consumer SD CRT - lets me see what signals will look like on a "normal" TV (and I have cable hooked up to it as well for watching bad SciFi Channel stuff to half-ignore when working late)
-I can also connect the Multibridge to the 50 foot DVI-HDMI cable that runs under the house to the living room - one nice thing about using the Multibridge as a standalone converter is that ANY of the 3 HD stations can feed it either HD-SDI (single/dual link) or component analog and I can monitor SD/HD as well as HDMI in the living room...all at the same time! Nerdly schweetness...but also truly convenient for clienty stuff as well if they want to know how it'll look in a variety of viewing environments and types of viewing tech.

Next up, I need to get this guy all set up:


...so I can more readily monitor audio from any of the three HD stations in the room, as well as listen in on living room's AppleTV feed (got 50 days of non-repeating Shuffle Luv all queued up). So this is as clean/tidy/lonely as it'll ever get.

So maybe that'll be next weekend's task, getting all the analog/digital audio in/outs figured out in the studio. Then get a passel of color coded not-too-short and not-too-long patch cables so I can route everything quickly/easily. I got these patch panels from that defunct production company and from a friend, if I were starting from scratch BNCs on the front aren't the quickest/easiest way to go as they are slow to get on/off.

All of this has probably totalled into the hundreds of hours of cutting holes, mounting racks, pulling cable, planning, testing, etc...I wouldn't go to all this trouble if I didn't own the house (been here 8 years), and actually got secret geeky joy out of getting it all working. Sometimes, it isn't playing with the toy, it's just BUILDING it that is a ton of the fun. Because I LIKE being able to say, whenever anyone says uncompressed HD editing & routing is a huge undertaking, "Well, HELL - I've got THREE of'em set up in my house, all talkin' to each other and with a triple monitoring setup...its no big deal."

...and get my metaphorical propeller beanie all spun up to 7200rpms.

:D

Your geeky friend,

-mike

PS - and a note for anybody else embarking on such a setup - as I figured out when running the BNC cables (RG-6 & RG-59)originally, the distance above floors has little to do with how long cables need to be under floors. While the HDTV and the Multibridge are perhaps 15 linear feet apart, by the time I factor in going from the Multibridge to under the desk with slack, across the room under the desk, down to where the hole is in the floor, through the floor, under the house following the cable guides I'd already built, dodging around electrical lines to prevent interference, up through the floor, slack, and connecting to the HDTV...a 50 footer was exactly long enough - I have maybe 6 feet of excess slack in the whole thing, and I wanted that anyway to reach the furthest possible computer I might want to directly drive the HDTV with. And if you do want to set up a similar studio or home studio setup...I am available for consulting on such things. This was done somewhat on the cheap as I'm pretty comfortable patching things around by myself, and didn't want to pour a ton of cash into this endeavor. If I really wanted this all to be completely simple and slick, I coulda/woulda spent a bunch more on things like matrix routers, different patchbays & racks, newer/better equipped receivers, proper professional amps, etc. This was scaled to my comfort level and budget - I went out to Fry's to buy a rack and rack shelf and hacksawed it down to fit under my desk, etc. It sits on a cheap blanket to slide it around my wood floors until I come up with something better for it to roll/slide on, etc. I'd previously spec'd out a professional studio for the color correction business I was in, and much of the gear to achieve the same functionality was going to cost thousands and thousands more.

So yes this is an UNGODLY MESS as is, a work in progress- first Thou Shalt Make It Work, and then later Shalt Thee Make It Tidy. Someday, hopefully soon. And then maybe I'll have tidy, client presentable pics to show. As I said at the beginning, this is must me sharing my geekery with you folks.

Another reason to label all cables - after you've got it all working, going to have to unplug/replug/re-route a ton of those cables to tidy it up - and you don't want to be holding a toslink in each hand wondering which one went where...

-mike

Labels: hardware, post equipment, workflow

DV - Reviews - DeckLink HD Studio

Hey all - my second article for DV Magazine is online, checking out the DeckLink HD Studio. Nice little card, but much of what you'd want to use it for has been obviated by the announcement of the upcoming (NOT shipping yet) Intensity Pro card from BMD. But need something before July? Read this review, it is a good fit for non HD-SDI based HD work. This card has HDMI in/out at 10 bits/channel, and analog in/out, and...read the article for the rest of the details.

-mike

Labels: hardware, post equipment, review

OK, let's talk workflow with Redcode RAW and Redcine.

Some background for those not up to speed:

Redcode RAW is the native compressed recording file format of Red, recorded as data to files in a folder structure on a Red Drive, Red Flash, or Red RAM. Redcode RAW is a 12 bit linear RAW (Bayer pattern, color filter array) wavelet based compression scheme.

All above recording media have about the same performance envelope - based on public statements, all can record the same frame sizes/rates as all the others - so long as you have a properly spec'd CF card, for instance, the only limit as compared to Red Drive is the recording capacity. Recording quality, frame rate/size, etc. all the same. Red gives you LOTS of recording options - single/dual link HD-SDI to deck or DDR/DFR, uncompressed 4.5K out the high speed link, or the more likely/useful Redcode RAW to one of two external recording modules (320GB, $900 Red Drive or 64GB, $4500 Red RAM), or to one of three $500 internal Flash RAM based adaptor modules that fit on side of camera body (CF, ExpressCard 34, or eSATA).

Anyway...after you record all this stuff, how do you use it? Redcode RAW is the native format, but it is also proprietary - nobody else's camera generates it, it is specific to the Red One at this time. How to edit it, do VFX work with it, etc.?

Redcine

If you hadn't heard, Redcine is the tool to convert Redcode RAW to...whatever you want (I'll skim over the basics previously covered and get to the juicy stuff here shortly). Standard image file format sequences or any "normal" codec you have installed on your Intel Mac (no PPC Mac support, drat) or Windows based system.

Click the pic above for a larger view of what Redcine looks like.

As you can see, there are four tabs, and I'l zing through what they are for:

Project

In the project tab, you set up your, well, project. What is a project in Redcine? If you're used to working with film and the telecine process, think of this as your telecine session, saveable to disk, same as you'd save your color grades for a given tape on your daVinci setup. If you're a software jockey, you can think of a project as being akin to an FCP timeline settings or an After Effects composition settings (not exactly for either of those, but that's the general idea).

From here you can load a shot or a full mag - one of the nice features of Red One is that on camera, during the shoot, you can do some digital slating - specifying shots, takes, etc. The files are filed in folders that fall to that order - takes inside shots inside scene folders, etc. Redcine understands this struture, so when you import, shots are stretched out horizontally, and multipe takes are stacked vertically - just like Scratch, which this owes a very obvious debt to. So much so that the UI (user interface) pretty much IS a very cut down version of Scratch's toolset with some modifications.

One of the coolest features of Redcode, which makes it more like anybody else's v3.0 software than a beta release, is the use of gestural controls - if you flick the mouse pointer (no clicking involved) towards a screen edge, controls and UI elements will appear or dissapear (or even build/reduce in terms of how many/how simple things are shown). Sounds a little complicated/scary at first, but once you start using it, is super fast and easy. It's the little touches - things like you can click and drag horizontally to control some things where they make sense, but in other areas you click-hold and twirl mouse clockwise or counter-clockwise to increase/decrease values...just like a knob or wheel. Very clever.

Anyway, in the project, you can set things like your format, your aspect ratio, your frame rate, etc. You can also control display reticles and masking areas (opaque or transparent, your color of choice), show timecode, all kinds of useful stuff and powerful stuff.

It is important to remember that Redcine is a prep/conversion tool, not intended to be an editor or full coloring tool. It is a pre-grading tool for one light type color corrections, and a prep tool to deliver assets in format of choice.

You can flip between Library View which shows all your shots (horizontally) and takes (stacked vertically atop each other) - is a pre-editorial organizer so you can get a sense of your shot coverage - instead of a long vertical text list for your to organize, is thumbnails in a timeline like interface. Fast and efficient.

Next up, you can proceed to the Shot portion of the application. In here you can see and edit the shots metadata, name, position and scale. Want to crop? Want to scootch it around in that cropped area? All doable, and those shot-by-shot decisions get saved in your project for later recall and usage (handy when it comes time to generate your online res copies). You can play back, even on a laptop. That's right - play back 4K footage without pre-rendering - it is extracting a fractional res version on the fly. You have pop-ups for playback quality at full/half/quarter res, in preview through high quality. Higher res, higher quality slower to process. Wanna see realtime playback as you adjust scale or whatever? Quarter res preview is your friend. Wanna zoom in on that blown highlight for subtle tweaks? Crank up the res to see all the detail. The wavelet nature of Redcode makes it cake to extract fractional resolutions on the fly, no problem. So scale and repo as it is playing back - nice! Can't keyframe though - for that kind of subtle work, just take it to Motion, After Effects, or tool of choice at full res and manipulate it there.

In the Color tab, you have control over a bunch of the color attributes of the shot - you've got three point curves (toe/gamma/shoulder), you've got tint, exposure (measured in stops, very nice), white point (measured in Kelvin and properly executed without just chopping channel data), color channels, a special highlight recovery tool that manipulates digital blowout (ever see a magenta highlight in an overexposed area? This tool can fix it!), and several other things I can't recall.

One major feature of this: the color controls on camera, and in Redcine, and in the FCP plug (more on that below), are all the same, on purpose...because you can save in any one of them and move them to the other. It takes a little time for the full meaning of that to soak in, but do so. Hypothetical: imagine shooting a few test frames, throwing on laptop, previewing the shot there. Tweak color until you like it using the convenient mouse/keyboard interface (could do all same stuff on camera UI, just harder, like iPod vs. iTunes playlist organization...in fact VERY much the same metaphor). Save those settings as a file, put on an SD card, and load back into camera. Bang! Your tweaked nondestructive look metadata now rides shotgun with all footage shot with those settings...and gets baked into the HDMI and HD-SDI outputs. Doing a live shoot? Save those settings and put it on all 8 (or however many) cameras used for them to match. Calibration issues in what I just suggested, but you get the general idea.

Anyway, as you tweak the color settings, you're working from the 12 bit RAW source, manipulating in a 32 bit floating point color space - very precise. And of course, GPU accelerated as well. You can adjust colors WHILE the footage is playing back - very handy.

Oh - you can also define the color space you're working in - be it Rec 709 for HD destined work, or Camera RGB for the native color space, Adobe 1998, etc. as desired.

When you're done there, you can go to Output. From the Output settings, you pick what size you want to generate, what file format, what bit depth (auto-governed by what's possible with the format, so you can't try to create something impossible), and what codec. Now, for everyone who's concerned about will their NLE be supported, the answer is pretty much yes. If you can write to the codec you want to edit with on an Intel Mac or a Windows box, you're in luck. If you need a high end image sequence like TIFF, DPX, OpenEXR, JPEG2000, etc., you're also in luck - as all those formats are already working in the build shown at NAB. As for codecs, here's the drill - if you have a codec installed on your box that you could "normally" use, such as with After Effects or similar programs...you can write to it from Redcine. Simple as that. If you're on a Mac running FCP 6, you could convert to the brand new ProRes422 codec. If you're on a Windows box running Avid, you could convert to DNxHD 36 for your offline, and then later DNxHD 220 for your online. Or the same from a Mac with Avid stuff installed. Just bought the Sheer codec from BitJazz.com, or any other third party codec? Install in on your box, and you write to it from Redcine, no new version of Redcine required. It is that simple.

I mentioned offline/online - if you aren't converting to your final format (and if you're doing an indie feature, you probably aren't, or shouldn't), then convert the first time to your offline codec, save your Redcine Project, and Red is working on something they'll call a Red Pull List to help with your conform - you kick an EDL or XML out of your NLE, then bring that back to Redcine which parses it for all the shots and selects you used - those selects can then be processed to your online format of choice (frame size/codec/etc.) Software conform (easy with FCP I know, I'd imagine so with Adobe, dunno enough about Avid to say), and you're in bidness. Redcine and Red Pull List don't DO the conform for you, they just HELP in the conform process.

Or, if that all seems to complicated, there's another option...read next article posted.

If you have workflow questions about how Redcode RAW will fold into your existing pipeline, be it editorial, VFX, offline, online, hardware, software, whatever, I do exactly that kind of consulting for a living - contact me at the email address at the top of this page in the header. I charge by the hour, rates are indie viable/affordable.

-mike

UPDATE - I'll keep adding extra bits of info to this post -

Q: What about subclips?

A: you can "dupe" the shot in Redcine (doesn't replicate any data on disc, just makes another instance of it in the timeline...like making a copy of a clip in your NLE - no new media generated). You can set separate ins and outs for that VERSION of that shot...this is a big deal for doc makers that roll for an hour and want to pre-slice into shots, but not have to process that one hour shot for the online if all they need is 5 second subclip.

Q: What about conversion times in Redcine?

A: They haven't released official stats, because it'll depend on a lot of things - what clock speed your CPU/s, how many cores, what GPU, what bus speed, what read/write storage & speed; then on top of that what size frame are you rendering to, what color/cropping/repo are you doing, what quality and scaling settings are you using....lotsa factors. What they want to avoid is posting a "it took my box x.y secs/frame" on some pimped out 8 core box doing draft quality SD to a RAID, and some Moe Ronn getting upset stating "Hey! It took WAY longer than that for me!" ....on his Core Solo Mini cooking 4K Hi-Q DPX files to a USB 1.0 drive or somesuch. So they need to get organized and test in an appropriate fashion, and then publish the results in a detailed, well documented and qualified fashion.

All that said...if they are managing to play back at 1K on a Macbook Pro and 2K on a Mac Pro in REAL TIME...I'm not too worried about how long conversion is going to take in Redcine. Rob's on the job.

-mike

Labels: Final Cut, post, post equipment, Red, Redcine, software

Studio Daily | IRIDAS Extends Capabilities of SpeedGrade OnSet:

The update includesa new matrix control allowing filmmakers to shift the color space they are working in so that it matches the sensor characteristics of various digital cameras. It adds up to a more accurate representation of the final output
against which artists can develop their creative looks.


The onset version is only $400. The haven't-seen-it-yet HD version I think was around $12,000-$13,000 US. The full film version is what, over $50K I believe?

In any case, an interesting tool, the idea being you can establish looks on set and hand those off to the colorist later. Guy working on Hills Have Eyes 2 said the colorist can work for 3 days with his settings before he even has to show up.

Interesting. Does it save time/money? Sounds plausible. Does it maintain the DoP's vision? Sounds like it may be a good tool for that. Is it feasible to, if not lock into that DI tool, at least be pretty strongly attached to it that early in the production process? That's got to be carefully answered - get all ducks in a row before shooting...

UPDATE - not necessarily so - you can export your 3D LUTs to LUTher box etc. - read Jason's Comment using link below...

-mike

Labels: acquisition, high end, post, post equipment

HDV To HD-SDI Video Converters Professional Video Equipment HDMI To HD-SDI Television Studio Equipment

Hardware to convert HDV to HD-SDI ($1000) or HDMI to HD-SDI ($700). Includes necessary deck control hardware.

Handy if your NLE doesn't support natively.

-mike

Labels: post, post equipment