Graeme: FPS... Wow...

[Jay A. Kelley]

ok Graeme, I admit it, I was on that "other" board a little while and I noticed a conversation with a Dalsa person (very nice and professional by the way).

It mentions that they could not get their Frames Per Second above 37.. And you guys are talking 60 for most everything.

So it seems to me that you have had a bit of a breakthrough here. I won't even comment on the possibility of 120 frames per second.

My question: Are the current numbers held where they are due to the speed of the chip, or the current data through-put limitations of the capture devices.

I am wondering if the FPS ratings will change over time as data through put gets faster, or it we have already hit the wall due to the chip

Jay

Are these good questions?! Hope I get an "A"

[Graeme_Nattress]

Our FPS numbers are chip limited. That's what the mysterium sensor is designed to do. I think, but I'm not sure, that Dalsa's limitations are data throughput limits. You'd have to ask them to be certain. And yes, the Dalsa people are great.

[Jay A. Kelley]

Does this mean there is no hope of ever seeing a 2k scaled image run at 120fps using REDCode?

Jay

[Nick_Shaw]

Just wondering, and I don't know enough detail about the way data is read off CMOS chips to know if this is possible, but might there be a way of producing 2K scaled, as opposed to windowed, footage at 120fps if the pixels were sub-sampled rather than all read then scaled? That is to say read every other pixel (or RGB 'cluster' of pixels). Maybe this would not produce sufficient quality, but just a thought. I assume a similar approach to this is used on digital stills cameras with a 'movie' mode.

No comment has been made from anyone at Red as to whether REDCODE on-board recording may be possible at 120fps. I hope we'll know soon about this, as 120fps is one (but only one) of the big selling points of the RED ONE.

[Graeme_Nattress]

Onboard recording is 60fps at 2k, and 30fps at 4k. Sorry. Just can't fit enough chips in the camera to do more.

Graeme

[Nick_Shaw]

Fair enough. Still pretty impressive. I suppose we'll have to wait for RED-RAID to achieve 120fps.

By the way, is that 2K windowed or scaled at 60fps?

[alan_lasky]

Hello,
The DALSA Origin currently can record up to 36fps. We top out at that frame rate due to the limitations of recording the RAW Bayer imagery to disk drives. The Origin currently uses Infiniband fiber to connect the camera to the recorder (in this case the CODEX field recorder), and Infinband has a great deal of potential bandwidth.

Indeed the next step to get higher frame rates is for us to move on to a solid state recording medium such as flash memory. In fact we are developing a flash-mag solution and we believe we can go higher than the current 36 fps limit. As Graeme points out there are limitations on the top end frame rates based on sensor design, be they CCD or CMOS. At a certain point you reach the limit of what the sensor was designed to do.

We like to joke that 4K is an "ass-load" of data, but truthfully even single channel raw Bayer DPX files at 4096x2048 16 bit come out to about 16 megabytes per frame. That is a lot for the disks to keep up with, especially for a field recorder. The solid state 'on-board' system we are developing will work in a similar fashion to the Viper 'Venom' flash mag in that it will have a short recording time and the data will need to be "dumped off" to a supporting digital magazine in the field. Of course that means that more than one will have to be carried for 'duty cycle' type on-set workflow. Nothing new there, in fact that is the way things are done with Venom now, but it deserves to be mentioned.

Alan Lasky
DALSA Digital Cinema

[Graeme_Nattress]

Thanks Alan for answering that one!

Still, we're all much further ahead with RAW than we would be with RGB, so that's something to be thankful of.

You say ass-load of data, we say data-to-burn. Same thing - tonnes of lovely picture information you can lovingly care for in a respectful post environment to make great images!

Isn't RAW wonderful?

Graeme

[Jay A. Kelley]

Hey Alan..

Welcome.. I hope you will continue to visit here.. Lots of cool people and we LOVE hearing about the technology of different cameras. Of course this is a RED forum, so you can expect a little bit of bias, but we're all big boys here and we fully realize that without you and Dalsa doing what you have been doing, companies like RED would not be able to take the next step. The evolution of this type of technology requires we all learn from one another. You have a lot to teach us, and hopefully you may pick up a thing or two while here, making it worth your time.

Jay

[Brook Willard]

Alan, thanks for posting here. I also hope you continue to chime in, we all appreciate it. You shouldn't find enemies here.

[alan_lasky]

Thanks for the welcome gentlemen.

I didn't expect to find enemies here at all. As a matter of fact we get on quite well with our brothers at RED. It is funny when we hear people chime in with claims of "industrial espionage" between our companies. If we want to know something about the RED (or the Arri D20, Genesis, or Viper for that matter) we often just pick up the phone or we see our counter-parts at trade shows and simply ask. There is certainly no animosity or shady dealings with the individuals actually doing the work. That is better left for Cyberpunk novels and bad TV shows.

I know the DALSA team wishes RED well. More 4K data is good for all of us as it will push the post / vfx pipeline to meet the demands of high bandwidth / high resolution workflow.

Alan Lasky
DALSA Digital Cinema

[Jay A. Kelley]

Alan,

With that in mind, I hope this does not corner you, but a part of me thinks you may know the RED team even better than we do.. How do you answer those people who say RED will never see the light of day?

I know what we say, but yours would be a unique and valuable viewpoint.

Once again, sorry if this puts you in a bad position.. If you want to ignore it I understand

Jay

[donatello]

i believe during the time Dalsa was developing their 4k camera they too heard "it will never see the light of day "

[Jay A. Kelley]

Yeah Alan,

I remember those posts that accused everyone and their uncle for breaking into the RED offices. Sorry your company's name came up a few times. I think we were all a bit emotional and quite frankly I think it scared the shit out of a lot of us.. We did not know for sure what was going to happen to Jim and his project.

Now all seems well and cooler heads have prevailed

Jay

[alan_lasky]

Not at all.

The RED team members I have met are intelligent, hard working, and very nice people.

I have a great deal of faith in Mr. Jannard and the RED team.

Please understand that DALSA has also endured heaps and heaps of nay-sayers, 'armchair' camera designers and doom prophets. We still do, actually. Indeed most of the the speculation and criticism on these matters comes from people who are not actually involved in digital production at all. It is always this way.

When I was a camera assistant many years ago an old British dolly grip once said to me: "You know why they call it experience, Alan? Because you experienced it." =)

Alan Lasky

[Graeme_Nattress]

Thanks again Alan.

Graeme

[Brook Willard]

I remember those posts that accused everyone and their uncle for breaking into the RED offices
Heheh, yeah, that was me. I ostensibly accused every major camera company I could think of. :laugh:

[Haakon]

If there ends up being 64GB of onboard flash, how does that differ from the external RED-FLASH, aside from the fact that the former is not removable? Is 120fps recording possible with the combination of the two?

[Jay A. Kelley]

I was not aware of an onboard flash or talk of one.. I am aware of REDFlash Where did you get that info from?
Jay

[Brook Willard]

It's been mentioned numerous times... they're between either 32GB or 64GB of internal [onboard] flash memory.

[Jay A. Kelley]

So if 160gb is 90min.. We're looking at round 20min of footage on these things alone.. Right?

Jay

[Haakon]

If 160GB is 90 minutes, then each minute would take 1.7GB. At that rate, you could fit 36 minutes onto a 64GB internal flash, not 20. But I have no idea if your numbers are accurate according to their system.

[Jay A. Kelley]

No dude I am SURE you are righter than me. I suck major at math. I can't believe I never saw anything about an internal flash memory.. Is it on the website?

Jay

[Graeme_Nattress]

We've mentioned it at trade shows and the such. Remember, REDCODE is not a fixed bit rate, so you could record longer if you want.

Graeme

[Haakon]

I'm not sure. They have mentioned a billion times that onboard recording will be an integrated part of the camera, and as far as I know, it will be through means of flash memory. I can't imagine there's going to be an internal hard drive inside the chassis. What I was trying to determine is how the onboard memory differs from the external "RED-FLASH," and if they can be used in tandem to acheive higher fps recording as Graeme has stated that 120fps won't be possible with just the internal memory alone. I have no idea what the actual internal recording times are (they may not even know yet) - my math was just an extrapolation of the figures that you had listed. To be honest, right now REDCODE is confusing the hell out of me. :-P

[Jay A. Kelley]

I hear ya.. I THOUGHT I had a handle on it until Graeme threw out his little
"Remember, REDCODE is not a fixed bit rate, so you could record longer if you want."

According the site REDCode does 27 MBs.. I saw nothing about variable bit rate.

Jesus.. Haakon, you ever get the feeling that really don't have any frakkin idea what they are really building over there?

I am getting the feeling that we're only aware of 75% of this camera's abilities. Kind of drives me crazy sometimes, but it's preferable to the alternative.

Hey Alan, does the Dalsa have variable frame rates? If so how to they work in terms of can you select any frame rate from 1 fps up to 36fps?

Jay

[Graeme_Nattress]

27MB/s is an example of REDCODE. It's very variable, but we'll ensure only good quality settings are available.

Graeme

[Jay A. Kelley]

I trust you Graeme..

:)

[im.thatoneguy]

Hey Graeme I was a little confused on the Red.com page. It sounded like in the Red workflow section that we could see 27MB/s at 4k compressed RAW @ 24fps with a variable wavelett compression. But on the Format Options page it says that there will be no internal option for 4k even though there is for 60fps 2k. From my personal tinkering with wavelett, I've only been seeing a 30% decrease in size when compressing to 2k. It would seem like a a decent 7200rpm modern laptop hd could reliably deliver at least 30 MB/s which could possibly be within spec of 24 fps compressed 4k.

Along the same lines... why is there a 2k 4:4:4 hard drive option but no 1080p RAW option? Also... on the Formats page... why is 2k Windows listed as an option for the S35 and 35mm sized sensor? Should I just completely disregard the formats page as a source of information, it's very confusing.

[Rob Lohman]

1080p in would not make a whole lot of sense since you wan't it scaled (I assume), which is not possible with RAW data (from 2K). So you either crop it (you loose pixels) or store 2K RAW and extract 1080 RGB from that through REDCINE.

4K 30 fps RECODE onboard has been confirmed.

[Graeme_Nattress]

Formats page was written before the announcement of REDCODE RAW 4k, hence the issues.

Graeme

[Jarred Land]

Also... on the Formats page... why is 2k Windows listed as an option for the S35 and 35mm sized sensor? Should I just completely disregard the formats page as a source of information, it's very confusing.

I know its confusing but its also cause your reading it wrong heh heh heh :)

Its not S35 and 35mm sensor.. its S35mm and 35mm Lens, which just means you can shoot windowed when you use a s35mm or 35mm lens.

[Gopher_Greene]

Hey Graeme,
Is there any way at any resolution to get the 120 fps in? I was sure looking forwad to down tha super slow-mo like with film cameras.

Thanks,
Gopher

[Graeme_Nattress]

Theorectically, the less lines on the sensor that get read, the more the fps. However, practically speaking, there will be limits elsewhere in the circuitry, and we don't know the full upper limits of the sensor yet.

Graeme

[Jay A. Kelley]

we don't know the full upper limits of the sensor yet.

Graeme

Ok so this begs the question: Perhaps not 120fps, but what about 80 or 90 fps.. In high speed, every little bit helps

Jay

[alan_lasky]

I
Hey Alan, does the Dalsa have variable frame rates? If so how to they work in terms of can you select any frame rate from 1 fps up to 36fps?

Jay

Hello Jay,

Yes on the DALSA Origin you may select any frame rate from 1fps to 36fps. We support 23.976 and 29.97 (in order to be compatible with HD cameras for hybrid shoots) so you could select any 3 decimal point accuracy frame rate like 11.738fps, if you were looney enough to want to do so. =0

Of course SMPTE timecode is only supported at standard SMPTE rates.

We are working on timelapse/animation software for the camera as well. The functionality is there, just not the control code, but it will come.

Alan Lasky
DALSA Digital Cinema

[Neil Rowe]

Ok so this begs the question: Perhaps not 120fps, but what about 80 or 90 fps.. In high speed, every little bit helps

Jay

i definitely agree on every bit helping. especially if they'e implemented a mode similar to the HVX "film cam" mode when it just writes the frames to a 24 or 30fps file in camera then you could shoot at whatever fps you wanted and get smooth even motion on playback. so if the limit is 73 fps then ill take 73 fps. im assuming they've already got a system in place for a film cam like mode though.

[Haakon]

im assuming they've already got a system in place for a film cam like mode though.
They do - in fact I'm not sure there's anything but a "film cam" mode on RED. It was one of the first questions I asked Graeme a long time ago when the camera was still in barebones development - it will record single frames at the framerate of your choosing and only that; no pulldowns or "over 60" modes to have to deal with. Just pure, independent frames.

If only every camera were so accomodating...

[Omar Saad]

Hey guys, sorry if it's just not clicking in my head (havent had my coffee yet)....as of this point are we saying no 120fps even in 2k windowed mode? Just want to clarify.

Thanks,
Omar

[Rob Lohman]

The specs indicate max 120 fps in windowed mode. I would not expect it onboard though (like 4K @ 60 fps onboard is probably not gonna happen either, at least not yet :))

[Brook Willard]

Allow me to throw another question on top - will 120FPS 2K shooting be possible with a *small* outboard recording drive? I know you guys are against refrigerator drives, but I'm more interested in something small enough to operate handheld or mount on my head and jump out of a plane with.

Obviously it's a work in progress and this is a specific question, a simple "i dunno" would be good enough. :laugh:

[Graeme_Nattress]

Sensor is capable of 60fps in full 4k or 120fps in windowed 2k. We are not certain exactly the max fps recordable in camera is yet, but it's likely to be 4k30p and 2k60p. For higher speeds, you're looking at the external RAID style solution and uncompressed.

Graeme

[Brook Willard]

Brilliant, thanks.