Component capture via firewire

[Noel Evans]

I did post this on another thread but didnt get much response, so I will ask it as a specific question here:

This is what I need correct? Remember no option for internal card - to be via firewire only.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?A=details&kw=AJIOLA&is=REG&Q=&O=productlist&sku=307759

[Noel Evans]

Sorry dodgy link... updated.

[manglerBMX]

i'm thinking yes, this is what i found

http://www.aja.com/html/products_Io_IoLAD.html

it would be nice if it was fw800 tho.

[Kholi]

I don't get how this turns your Component signal into a firewire out signal. Anyone want to fill me in?

[Barry_Green]

You're not going to capture uncompressed HD on a laptop, and certainly not through firewire or even FW800.

Maybe someday someone will come up with an ExpressCard adapter, but even then you'd still need a large RAID of hard disks to handle the data rate.

[Kholi]

That's what I thought.

Laptops won't cut it for uncompressed capture, you guys. You'll need to build a portable solution around a dekstop system that includes an AJA/Kona card or rent a Deck.

[egproductions]

why does the device claim uncompressed?

[Barry_Green]

Those devices are uncompressed.

But they aren't gonna work with a laptop, and certainly not at HD resolutions.

[Kholi]

That AJA box is for a desktop solution.

I'm not sure if this works yet, but I've been toying around with the idea of building a CUBE PC for tethered operations.

Seeing as how Mac Minis give me NO option to expand video cards, and G5's are crazy heavy tanks that take up a lot of space.

Of course, you could just save money and deal with the space issue as best you can. either way, forget a laptop, for now.

[Noel Evans]

OK cool thanks for the input all. Citidisk / Firsetore capture in native format are there any other options to capture uncompressed?

[Barry_Green]

Uncompressed HD is astoundingly data intensive. You're talking about five seconds of footage per gigabyte. It is not a trivial task.

CineForm offers the Wafian hard disk recording unit, but it's not uncompressed, it uses CineForm compression.

If you want to deal with uncompressed HD you're going to need 12 gigabytes per minute of footage, and it's going to need to be something on the order of a RAID that can handle 200 megabytes per second of throughput. Maybe a 4-disk SATA RAID, maybe you'll need six discs. No way would something like a G-RAID come close to being up to the task; you'd need to RAID together three G-RAIDS to pull that off.

And then, you'll be supporting only one stream! If you want to work with two streams simultaneously, you'll need twice as many RAIDS.

Uncompressed HD is a pipe dream for almost all circumstances. Might be usable for a chroma keying shot in a studio if you have the computing hardware on hand to handle it, but it is not something you're going to be doing as a matter of regular daily use.

[Elton]

Actually, it's more like 100 MBs for uncompressed 1080i, which is about 10 sec. per Gig.

Barry's right, it's obviously no trivial task, but uncompressed isn't really what people want all that badly--it's milder intra-frame compression that would *appear* to be virtually uncompressed. And when they offer a laptop SDI card, recording SheerVideo with an external 2 drive SATA raid wouldn't be out of the question, and it actually offers true lossless quality at nearly 1/3rd the bit rate of uncompressed.

I don't think it's 100% pipe dream stuff, but for most we're not there yet. When CineForm is offered with a laptop SDI card, this will probably be the best solution.

[Noel Evans]

Awesome thanks Barry and Elton for the responses, very useful.

[manglerBMX]

i knew uncompressed hd was a lot but danggggg. i'm glad i'm aware of that now.

[Elton]

That's why I'm such a fan of Sheer and bought a license for the codec. It's basically uncompressed at a data rate I can deal with.

[MarkG]

Avid's DNxHD codec is good too. It's something like 6:1 compression and the quality loss from multiple generations is minimal...

[Noel Evans]

That's why I'm such a fan of Sheer and bought a license for the codec. It's basically uncompressed at a data rate I can deal with.

Come again? Link please :)

[Elton]

http://bitjazz.com/

It works with current AJA and Blackmagic SDI cards and FCP.

[Elton]

Avid's DNxHD codec is good too. It's something like 6:1 compression and the quality loss from multiple generations is minimal...


True, true...sounds a lot like CineForm, but what does it cost to work with the format?

Still requires a costly Avid setup if I'm not mistaken, right?

The great thing about Sheer is it's a fantastic codec to composite with, and handles conversions from YUV to RGB extremely well. It's great to do greenscreen with too.

[meta4]

Elton~
How does this sheer codec compare with cineform when it comes to workflow?

[Elton]

Different beasts.

CineForm has actual RT fx/transitions in Premiere Pro, and I'm sure they're working on having the same speed in FCP when they make their debut on the Mac. They create HD files that are in the neighborhood of 12-17 MBs (I believe) for 1080 footage. Their codec is basically "visually lossless" but in fact there is some actual loss, however invisible to the eye.

Sheer, while fairly fast to render fx/transitions with a good RAID, isn't RT...but it is mathematically lossless and is great to maintain quality with. However, files are more like 40-45 MBs.

Both are great.

[MarkG]

Still requires a costly Avid setup if I'm not mistaken, right?

Depends. As far as I'm aware you can download the codec from Avid's site and use it with any Quicktime-aware application.

But to capture directly into the format I'm pretty sure you need an expensive Avid system.

[BitJazz]

Sheer, while fairly fast to render fx/transitions with a good RAID, isn't RT...but it is mathematically lossless and is great to maintain quality with.

SheerVideo is definitely real-time for HD, for which it usually only requires a cheap 2-disk SATA RAID 0. Try it in QuickTime Player Pro or After Effects Pro to see how fast it is. Premiere Pro uses QuickTime's single-frame interface, so it can't take advantage of Sheer's speed, but we're close to releasing SheerVideo AVI for Windows PC (currently in beta), and also plan to provide Premiere plug-ins. Final Cut Pro doesn't support third-party codecs for RT effects, FCP can only take advantage of Sheer's speed for capture, cuts-only editing, and playback.

Andreas Wittenstein
BitJazz Inc.
http://www.bitjazz.com/