1080p 2/3" PL & C mount Lenses - NAB just got NAB-ier

Steve Nordhauser said:
We do intend to post quite a bit more video from our camera. On our forum we have an area dedicated to projects by our customers. We are also paticipating in the CML party at NAB so there should be some pros handling our camera.

As has been pointed out, this camera is more of an incremental step for us. We have been selling camera link and gigabit versions of the head for about a year. Also, we are an established camera maker, just not in this market. So, please keep an open mind and wait until we have more footage posted after NAB. I realize that in this industry people get very skeptical about all the hype. This is not a spec sheet, this is a camera.
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Thanks for jumping in here, that explains a lot. What approach will you use for recording?
Thanks
 
$12,500 .... from their site

I can't afford a complete cinema package at this time. Can I purchase the remote SI-1920HD-GE camera head and software and use my own PC hardware for recording?

Yes. The pricing for a camera head system, which includes the SI-1920HD-GE camera head, a copy of Prospect HD Edit, Premiere Pro 2.0, a Arri-base-plate adapter, and two Fujinon c-mount lenses will retail for $12,500. Please contact us for certified systems for recording.
 
$12,500 is for the camera head only + software + lenses, not the complete camera body with built in harddisk recording.

For $12,500 you need to use your own PC to record over a gigabit network.
 
woah....the specs are awesome!

now i am more optimistic of RED being within that range... <15k hopefully!....
 
David Newman said:
When I turn the color matrix off you can see the image doesn't have a green hint, and is flatter and less saturated. All sensors natively produce this flatter image, which are much more suitable for obtaining the highest dynamic range of the image. Prosumer HD cameras pump up the image to make it look cool straight out of the box, this limits the dynamic range the degree the image can be corrected in post.
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I can only say I'm astonished. Astonished to get this amount of control, in a package at this price. Not just in terms of the image recorded (the "digital negative"), but also that it is a package with a 2/3" sensor, with all the DOF and sensitivity (hopefully) implications that should imply.

To give this degree of post control makes all the current 8 bit cameras pale in comparison - HDV and DVCPRO HD may be fine for recording/replay, but neither of them can begin to stand up to the amount of post treatment that this will. Indeed, is DESIGNED to. Comparisons of posted footage become a bit meaningless - as David Newman implies, the user can define what it looks like, that's the beauty of recording something comparable to the raw data off the chip.

Since it's obviously aimed at the digital cinema market, it's likely to impact on sales of the HVX more than the HDV range, the latter still appealing to users who still currently need the tape workflow.
 
Hmmm, seems to be that SI smelled the money and didn't give chips to Kinetta, but developed their own camera...
 
taubkin said:
Oh, sorry, I didn't mean that directly to you. All I'm saying is that "we need more data" (quote from "short circuit"!) before trashing the thing. The concept, and just the fact that tey have a working portotype, are very cool news!

And Cheers! :beer:
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No worries mate, I totally agree, and I'm very glad to see Mr. Newman & Rodriguez pop in to clear up some of the questions.
 
Jason Rodriguez said:
This is only because you've never had the opportunity to work with the direct RAW data from the sensor.

With most video cameras on the market (well, all really except for film-stream mode in the Viper and the Dalsa), "getting it right" is required because you are irreparably manipulating the data with in-camera color matricies, sharpening, noise-reduction, pre-filtering, and compression.

With the Cineform RAW approach, you now have the opportunity to shot, and like a negative on film, post-manipulate to your heart's content. Additionally if you use our "none" white-balance mode, you can white-balance in post (so make the white-balance whatever you want), apply any color matrix transform you want, and with the 1024 levels provided by the 10-bit encoding of the footage, re-manipulate the gamma curves without banding. None of that is possible on a system like the HVX, or any other 8-bit YUV camera system. With the Cineform RAW approach of the SI-1920HDVR, you are basically getting every bit that the camera head's A/D converter produced delivered to you in post to manipulate and change-and this is especially true with Cineform's compression system which is extremely efficient and robust, what we term "visually lossless". In a RAW workflow, you become the camera's post-processing unit.

Again, think of this system like truely shooting digital film, only CineForm RAW gives you the tools to easily maniuplate the RAW data in post, with real-time effecst, play-out to tape via HD-SDI, etc., rather than trying to convert all your footage up-front to another format for editing and post, which is very time-consuming and clumsy since it removes the capability of manipulating the RAW data all the way from the camera head to delivery-you have to do it at the start and that's it. Or, like with the HVX or any other camera system on the market, get it "right" on-set since there's not much information left after the camera processing is done with the signal to really change the image in post.

Thanks,

Jason Rodriguez
Silicon Imaging
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True, I've never worked with RAW. Let me ask you this though, if all I've got is Avid Xpress Pro HD 5.23 and perhaps Combustion (which I don't really like to CC a whole movie in), do you really think I'll be able to get a better look with those than I would from the HVX200 strait out of the camera. The idea of total control really excites me. I tinker with my DVX100A settings constantly from shot to shot and to quite a bit of CC. Nevertheless I think much of it may well be that Panasonic simply knows how to better replicate the film look than others and perhaps better than me. That's why I still think the DVX100 looks nicer (if a bit softer) than the XL2. Hell, I saw something shot side by side with the DVX100 and a JVC HD100U in SD and the DVX100's colors and gamma looked much better. I'm a control freak to be sure but I wonder if maybe Panasonic knows how to do some things better than I do and worry that perhaps I may not be able to really get what I want.

I guess I still really need to see some better looking stuff come out for this camera. The specs and price blow me away but the images still havn't impressed me. I'm glad you guys are coming here and talking to us but, I think if you really want to sell hold outs like me, we need to something really visually arresting.
 
I believe this is the best announcement for a new camera since the Andromeda was introduced ! This might well be the THE camera of the year. Forget HVX, forget Sony XDCam, forget Canon...... I just hope that this camera lives up to its expectations.
I'm also quite amazed that this camera has not set this forum on fire..... Doesn't this camera offer what we are alll craving for? Don't we all want 2/3", F10 stops, CC till we turn blue and a fabulous codec to work with? Why is this thread so quiet?

I also want to congratulate the people behind this project for being so bold and so elocuent about the specs on this camera.... seldom you read on the specs sheets about F-stops and such..... Thank you for being so informative..... That's is just the kind of information one likes to read!

Best.
 
we'll see...I'm still waiting for an image that makes me go wow.
PLUS we all just spent 5-10k on the HVX...we're all too broke LOL
 
Wow

Wow

Okay, this camera just made me hold off on my HVX200 purchase. It's a Varicam for less than half the price. I'm not sure how the HD codecs compare but I'm assuming they're at least just as good.

For those who are ripping on the footages posted, why don't you wait til veteran DPs get there hands on this before you bash the camera? I've seen horrible footage on this website that came from the HVX but I've also seen good ones. Alot of it really depends on the shooter. I'm sure you've seen horrible cinematography on 35mm. Does that mean the Arri cam sucks?

To SI:

I hope you can get this camera down to $10,000 - 15,000. You can keep the Adobe software and lenses. I just need the camera and I'll use my own F-mount lenses and FCP (which I'm sure will be compatible by time of release).
 
By the way

By the way

And by the way, another note to those SI bashers, just in case you didn't notice, you're viewing 1:30 minute worth of HD footage compressed to 50MB. What the heck were you expecting of the footage? No noise? No degradation?
 
Guys! This is the camera of ours Dreams! And IT's real! Will be available at september! :) Have you seen some shots from Arri d20 or Drake Camera? It's very similar! The Cmos imagery is superb, but very different from CCD, much of you have a made eye for CCDs, but Cmos looks as film! We need to re-educate the eyes, and keep away from CCD imagery we've used for years to see.
This camera is amazing and we've resolved a lot of ours problems!

I can't believe we are not enthusiastic for this camera, it's the year's surprise! I bet next rivals will be Silicon vs. Red,
Pana, Sony and Canon start to bit the dust! LOL!
World of Digital Cinema will turn over a new leaf this year...
 
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Danilo Del Tufo said:
I can't believe we are not enthusiastic for this camera, it's the year's surprise!
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I certainly agree it was a surprise, Danilo. I used to follow the "alternate imaging thread" about a year and half ago... and saw the various attempts at "home brew" cameras... this camera came out of left field for me, I had forgotten all about Silicon Imaging. Certainly interested in seeing it in person next week, and I do like their purposed workflow with Cineform.

Then, yet another cinema style camera project came to my attention today, http://www.truecolorspace.com/

They are at NAB as well, with a booth. Has anyone seen other history on these guys?

Regards,

Jim Arthurs
 
This will be a great NAB and it's exciting because we are just starting to scratch the surface of what to expect in the next couple of years. I've always said that we need a Motion version of a Canon 5D SLR and this camera shows we are getting very close (at a reasonable price).

I'm shocked at the pounding of this camera and its footage - Some of you love and embrace RED but haven't even seen a single frame. Here you actually have some still images to view. Obviously the motion samples are not the best but remember these are encoded for the web.

CineForm is a great company, their stuff is just amazing. If you haven't experience RAW files before and you don't have a digital SLR that shoots decent images in RAW format, go to the store and find a camera like the Canon 5D (full size 35mm CMOS censor) bring a Memory Card, shoot some images in the store (so this experiment is free) take it home and use a program like Photoshop or Aperature to manipulate these RAW files. The post processing, exposure control, white balance changes, etc. are just amazing.

The Arri D20 records to a RAW format as well. Imagine, a 100K camera that could have done many things to the files but chose RAW. Now you too can shoot to RAW at 1/10th the price using a RAW codec that you can actually edit with on your desktop. Try editing the Arri RAW files on your home computer. CineForm deserves much praise for their work here, especially since they are not going to forget about the FCP users. Hmm, real time 10bit RAW HD files on home computers. Amazing.
 
New footage online. Just go back to the footage gallery.

These are MPEG-2 clips from an earlier camera prototype.

There is no fill lighting except for very slight white-card bounce on clip #10, but other than that, everything is sun-light and shade under the trees.

Also this earlier prototype had no optical low-pass filter, so there is some fringing on edges and hatch-patterns. Just a disclaimer if you see some of that in the footage.
 
Thanks Jason, downloading now... I might have to change my avatar again, to a generic "Digital Cinema Camera" banner. :)

I do remember from the hundreds of pages of the alternate imaging thread over at dvinfo.com two things before I walked away... 1.) the long awaited Altasens chip was slow in coming and 2.) everyone wanted the custom version of Cineform for free, because, you know, it's "just" software.

Can't wait to see and talk with you and Steve N. next week. You get the same list of questions as the RED folks get, except your answers won't be so much a "road map" as they are a record of "trip history".

Jim Arthurs
 
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