hd cmos

[phijie]

not sure if this is in the correct forum, but i was just thinking, if panasonic were to make a hd camera with a single cmos rather than 3 ccds, and interchangeable lenses, would 35mm lenses work on it? as far as i understand they could pretty much make a it similar to a digital slr camera, but video. is this possible or practical?

[soarprod]

Yeah a lot of companies do that - I believe that the Panavision HD system uses it.

[The Machinist]

Yes you are correct and it is being worked on. I dunno if Panny has or is implementing this tech.

However Arriflex ( a long time producer of some top of the line film cameras) has developed this monster:

http://www.arri.com/prod/cam/d_20/articles.htm

Although i believe it comes with an almost 100,000 dollar price tag. If that is any indication a Cmos HD camera using 35mm lenses would be out of the price range of the vast majority of members of this board. Not all but most.

[Emanuel]

uncompressed HD@1080p 35mm PL mount or SLR lenses to 1Q 2006 for $18,000

300fps@1080p option

http://x10.putfile.com/12/34800481165.jpg

http://www.ctt.ru/products/hd/camera/

...and what about that?...

...download the samples and see the material!...

...any thoughts?

[The Machinist]

Is that Russian?

Raw output to a Flash DVR?

A bit out of my price range at 18,000 for the body but hey i think this thread is for those of us still dreaming.

The guys with the wallets and expense accounts can let us know how it feels to live large.

[Emanuel]

Levan Bakhia* bought one and he promised to publish some clips.

*A georgian (from Georgia - former soviet republic) advertising filmmaker.

You can see his work here (www.sarke.ge) or download a TV commercial from him - www.pepsi.ge/axis/axis.zip - made it with a (www.photron.com) high speed camera.

<PS> I sent him an e-mail and I received a nice answer where he is saying that he is waiting the final post-production and he prefer to post the final images (my comment: like all the PRO must do) in order to share with all the community and to hear the thoughts of everyone.

Thanks Levan!

[phijie]

i dont see why it would be so expensive, arent cmos chips cheaper? it just seems like it would be a rearranged hvx or a digital slr video camera to me, but im just speculating on all this, any input?

[Levan Bakhia]

Hi, Eamnuel, thanks for invitation to the forums.

Yes, I am expecting the Russian camera to be finished. Unforutnatelly they have problems with capturing the data from the flash card to the computer. I don't quite clearly understand, why but, now that is the problem. When I was in Moscow, testing the camera, the workflow with the camera was in several step. First you capture the raw data to the flash drive (which is built in the camera, and has a capacity of 5 minutes), then they transfered the data from the flash drive to the camputer via SDI connection, and they did it with the capture card, that they developed themseves. Then on a computer you would get a raw file from the sensor, and you could convert it (debayer) to 10bit uncompressed 4:4:4 to all the know formats. The only problem then seemed to be the vertical lines in the image after debayering, and they corrected the error. But since they don't sell their own SDI capture cards yet, they assumed that they would do the same with decklink card (the one I already have) but now that seems to be a problem. They can not capture raw file on decklink, decklink only does its own format. So, the camera is stuck again in production process. I was telling them that the best way to do is to use USB 2 to copy and past data from flash drive to computer hard drive, but they say that it is going to take a long time, but I don't know, for me waiting for 20 minutes to copy 5 minutes of HD uncompressed 10 bit 4:4:4 is not too much at all. After all, if the image quality is so filmlike, I don't mind waiting at all. I don't know, it is their own business, but I lost about 6 month, while waiting for the first DRAKE and now this Russian camera. Now I think I should have bought xl2 with the mini35 converter and that would do some jobs.

[michland]

Hi Levan, glad to meet Emanuel.

I'm one of the russian developers Mediator HD camera (http://www.ctt.ru/products/hd/camera).

About decklink problem: they've faked about progressive formats! They work only with interlaced ones. Serail HD-SDI is based on SMPTE standards (the most popular stanard for 1920x1080 picture is SMPTE274M as a base format and SMPTE292M as it serial implementation). We'd built capture system on Decklink HD Pro PCI-X board and We'd tried it with SMPTE292M 24p/25p/30p progressive transport formats. Decklink hasn't accepted it! In really. Decklink understands only 24i/25i/30i (and with /1.001 NTSC modificator). By the way, 24i doesn't present in the SMPTE274M - it looks like direct unstandardizited interpolation of 25i. So, we had to rebuilt our HD-SDI to interlaced manner and now we are shooting progressive picture but transfer it as a interlaced.

At this moment we've greatly suppresed vertical bars and enhanced internal debayer function. You can write good quality picture directly into DeckLink's 10-bit avi.

Our old technical shoots you can see at the:

video:
www.ctt.ru/files/demo/monorels.rar (http://www.ctt.ru/files/demo/monorels.rar), 155MB (YUV 4:2:2 1920x1080 HD)
www.ctt.ru/files/demo/fast_dog.rar (http://www.ctt.ru/files/demo/fast_dog.rar) , ~150MB (YUV 4:2:2 720x576 FastSpeed)
www.ctt.ru/files/demo/supermotion_rugby.rar (http://www.ctt.ru/files/demo/supermotion_rugby.rar), 155МБ (YUV 4:2:2 720x576 FastSpeed)

Frames:
www.ctt.ru/files/demo/bunch.bmp (http://www.ctt.ru/files/demo/bunch.bmp) - 1920х1080, 6.2МB, offline debayer

etc.

New demo captured by DeckLink we'll take out in monday-tuesday.

Digitally yours,
Michael

[Levan Bakhia]

Hi, Michland :*)

To tell you truth I recieve about 5 e-mail per day, from people that want to know what my impressions are about the camera, how are my shots. I never posted the last shots that we did togather in Moscow. (by the way I don't understand by nickname who you are :*) ) Because I am waiting for you to finalize. I know that decklink has problems with progressive and you told me that 4 weeks ago and I don't think it is a problem where it is transfered as progressive or interlaced, as long as you get the final picture progressive. But as I was told by alexander, you now longer can transfer raw files from the camera and to the debayer offline, and when I was in Moscow you were talking about being able to do the offline debayer as an advantage, and I understand why, that is because you have more power to do some mathematic on computer rather than in the camera, so doing the offline debayer delivers better result. To tell you the truth, even thou we didn't do very good shots and we couldn't transfer 10bit files that time, I think the picture with Alexander in front of the Ostankino tower is great, it has so much details in white shirt and the suit, and his skin also has a lot of information, and the image looks very filmlike also in terms of motion and so on. The only problem is the vertical lines, I had those lines when I was shooting with photron high speed camera also, I guess that is something with CMOS sensors.

So, could you tell me, and us, at what stage is it at this moment? When do you think you will be able to send the camera to me?

On monday I hope you send me new demos, I would really appreciate that. The funnies thing, is that when I was in Moscow, you told me that you would finish the camera in a week, so I left all the money with my friend, I told him to keep it and give it to you when I would say to do so, and he is calling me every day, wondering if he can have the money for himself if I don't need them. :*) What can I tell him? when will you finish it, if you know? :*)

So when you say that, you can capture 10bit .avi via decklink, how good is the debayer in the picture? Is it same as you had offline? What about the line? are they gone for good, or they are just less visible?

Oh, and I was wondering, you know about Canon's new XL H1? It has SDI output for uncompressed 8 bit 4:2:2 HD. Do you think your flash drive can do the capture from there?

[Emanuel]

Welcome Levan and Michael!

I've been in contact with Alexander and I salute your presence here as our members of this community!

Your presence and knowledge is very useful for all the indies spread europewide, United States and worldwide, too. It's a large community, indeed. That needs your contribution. Thank you!

[michland]

Do you know how to export 10 bit frames from Adobe Premiere Pro? We have 10 bit avi but when we're trying to get picture it is exported only in 8-bit graphical formats. Premiere doesn't support DPX or 16-bit tiff export? Or is there any plugin for these purposes? Oh we have to write own frame grabber (o, shit!)?

[obin]

I will have a CineFOrm Premiere PRO setup soon, it will work native 10bit with the software from cineform...I would suggest you look at doing that! 1080p cienform is a NICE codec! and files are small!

what about USB FIREWIRE or gigabit transfer from the DVR with the 5 min of pictures?! FORGET HD-SDI! or is HD-SDI FAST?

[obin]

i HAVEI have asked before, PLEASE shoot a human face with a soft front light and hard kicker in the back! I want to see CINE setup on the test shots!

[michland]

Cineon uses slightly changed DPX (SMPTE268M) and packs 3 10bit words into one DWORD. The big advance cineon's dpx is a Photoshop compability. We're changing our DPX writer under cineon's file headers.

Sorry, what does it mean "hard kicker in the back"? We're shooting face and pack to our new "cineon" DPX.

HD-SDI is really outmoded transport. At this mometn there is more suitable solutions - the best, IMHO, fiber optics up to 10Gbit. Fast, robust, low cost transport.