Record uncompressed 14-bit (4:4:4) on your HVX200

pertierr said:
Hello,


Second, taking into consideration that this system is meant to be affordable, there is no advantage whatsoever to using HD-SDI:
No advantages, yet makes the system more expensive for the end customer.

Hello ! ! Hello !!!.
Are you telling me that having 4 HVX200's with HD-SDI, plugged to a Panasonic AV-HS300G live video switcher has no advantages whatsoever?
come on man ! !.

as far as I know there is no Live gigabit ethernet video switcher out there. or is it?
I know you are targeting guys shooting with no more then one cam at a time. but, how about event videographers?. (Concerts and games)
I do not know anybody who shoots a concert with only one camera.
do you?
Click to expand...
 
What Juan is saying is that HD-SDI would add enormously to the expense and would bring no net value to a Hydra user. Even if he used HD-SDI terminals, he wouldn't be transmitting SMPTE-codified data across the HD-SDI cable.

Andromeda and Hydra use proprietary custom data streams. A switcher wouldn't have any idea what to do with that signal.

If you need HD-SDI, get HD-SDI cameras. XHG1, XLH1, HD200 and HD250, HPX500, there are lots to choose from. But HD-SDI is not appropriate for the Hydra, and wouldn't do what you want anyway.
 
Interesting post over at the Reel-Stream Hydra Forums:

http://forum.reel-stream.com/viewtopic.php?p=3613#3613

JUAN SAID:

" If we endup with any really high-bandwidth 60P modes that are over 100MB/sec then you will probably need SATA or direct to RAM. If you had a 3GB MacBook Pro, you could do about 25-27 seconds direct to RAM at full 60P, which is very useful if you are doing slow motion shots which are going to be stretched over 2x anyway. You shoot a 60P slow-mo shot for 27 seconds, the final 24P shot is over a minute long! Probably sufficient for most slow-mo shots, and you don't need a fast drive on location! You can just write the shot to the internal disk when done."

Just a Macbook Pro huh? I don't want to misinterpret this, but is it sounding like you could get away with a maxed out Macbook Pro? Even better, a cheaper Core 2 Duo laptop WITH PCMCIA slots?

Mayhap we won't have to be tethered to a full blown system if it's not our choice?

And here's a tasty little MIGHT that was mentioned:

http://forum.reel-stream.com/viewtopic.php?p=3676#3676

Oh yeah!?!?!
 
Juan,
If you are worried about storage for 60P at 2k resolution and 14bits, you could always get this one:
http://www.hyperossystems.co.uk/
for $2325, you get 16gb rather than 3gb on the machine.
but at that price range, you might as well just get some 74mb WesterDigital Raptors and set them up in a 4 stripe raid. Each one should get you about 50-60gb/sec sustained transfer rate.
Just some thoughts.
 
And here's a tasty little MIGHT that was mentioned
Click to expand...
Ooooooh, nice. Hadn't thought of that, but yeah that should give you just enough to make a native 1.85.

Yes, the RAM thing is interesting, it could obviate the need for a superfast RAID. Record to a RAM buffer, then have the system flush that RAM buffer to your regular hard disks while you set up the next shot. Hmmm. Certainly makes the system much more portable; we'll have to try it to see how it affects the actual workflow. I can imagine some frustration if the director were to shout "okay, going again, and... action!" and the DIT says "no, wait, we have to wait 15 more seconds to clear the RAM buffer." I presume it copies down to the hard disk even while the RAM buffer is still filling up... that should make the system close to realtime, just using RAM really to prevent dropouts or hiccups.

Then again, for handheld shots you could actually have someone following the shot with an MBP or C2D in hand, and it would record live to RAM... very intriguing possibilities. I'm liking this idea, I think Hydra just became a whole lot more portable than I thought it was going to be!
 
Barry_Green said:
Ooooooh, nice. Hadn't thought of that, but yeah that should give you just enough to make a native 1.85.

Yes, the RAM thing is interesting, it could obviate the need for a superfast RAID. Record to a RAM buffer, then have the system flush that RAM buffer to your regular hard disks while you set up the next shot. Hmmm. Certainly makes the system much more portable; we'll have to try it to see how it affects the actual workflow. I can imagine some frustration if the director were to shout "okay, going again, and... action!" and the DIT says "no, wait, we have to wait 15 more seconds to clear the RAM buffer." I presume it copies down to the hard disk even while the RAM buffer is still filling up... that should make the system close to realtime, just using RAM really to prevent dropouts or hiccups.

Then again, for handheld shots you could actually have someone following the shot with an MBP or C2D in hand, and it would record live to RAM... very intriguing possibilities. I'm liking this idea, I think Hydra just became a whole lot more portable than I thought it was going to be!
Click to expand...
That's what caught me. I didn't think about how realtime you could get if you had enough RAM working in your system. Given that example, though, if the shot was going at 60p (Narrative) in the first place then it's probably going to take as much time to set up the scene again as it would to dump/clear the buffer.

And following the shot? Uhm... we have 350" feet of cable to work with here. Who needs to follow the shot at that length? =PPP

I would still consider an actual Desktop option in conjunction with the system as it does have a host of upgradable paths that not only (of course) go hand-in-hand with Hydra but you know... you can use it for the post workflow as well. The mention of fast SATA drives is a good reason to go desktop solution.

Siniarch -- I was thinking about striping some Raptors myself, but didn't think about an external raid array for that. Internal would probablly be a bit too much heat expulsion.

Edit here: ONE THING I AM THINKING MORE AND MORE ABOUT--

And this was probably because I saw it mentioned a week or two back when concerning Andromeda. How is the HVX glass holding up to the Hydra modification? How WILL it hold up? With 35mm Adapters? Is this something to be concerned about?
 
Only Juan can answer that, but if the DVX lens is any indication, it's probably doing just fine. The DVX is standard-def glass but Juan gets 1540x990 HD out of it. I was originally an Andromeda skeptic because I thought the glass would never hold up, but... y'know what, I'm getting more and more impressed with the glass on these cameras. I mean, the little HV20 does a great job of rendering a high-def image, and it's got only a tiny little lens. Amazing. So I'm thinking the HVX's lens will hold up, given that it's derived off the same basic design as the DVX's lens.
 
Hello,

About the glass, we haven't seen or expect any issues. But then again why would there be any issues? The imager block on the DVX was designed to resolve 1540x984, and that's what the lens was built to spec. In the HVX it's the same case but with roughly 2kx1080 to resolve. As I've mentioned before, the key aspect here is the resolving power of the entire imager block, not a single CCD element. We don't go in and change the resolution of the imager block such that it exceeds the lens capability...the extra resolving power was there to begin with, it just may not get transferred to the standard compressed output for various reasons.

The built-in camera lenses do have one advantage, that because they are custom designed for a very specific imager block, in my experience they do a better job at correcting chromatic aberration with additional lens elements.

In the case of cheaper removable lenses CA is usually bigger issue, i believe the new HPX500 has a system where the CA of a lens is parametrized over different lens settings and then DSP is used to reduce the CA via operations on the relevant color components. Or something along those lines.

Cheers,
Juan
 
About the direct-to-RAM feature:

This feature is intended for situations where you do not have a hard disk or other storage media that can handle the selected bandwidth for the record mode. Please note that SculptorHD ALWAYS records the video to RAM first, even when you are recording to a hard disk.

The size of the RAM buffer for the uncompressed video is user-selectable, so if you set it to hold, say 30 seconds of video, then your hard disk would have to slow down consistently for a 30 second(actually more) period of time for things to stop. This is how SculptorHD currently works with Andromeda. Allowing for a large RAM buffer effectively eliminates any issues with 'hiccups', unless the drive really starts performing slower over a long period of time. This means the actual drive hardware is not fast enough.

Cheers,
Juan@reel-stream.com
 
Kholi said:
Edit here: ONE THING I AM THINKING MORE AND MORE ABOUT--

And this was probably because I saw it mentioned a week or two back when concerning Andromeda. How is the HVX glass holding up to the Hydra modification? How WILL it hold up? With 35mm Adapters? Is this something to be concerned about?
Click to expand...

I just shot a test today that im gonna post up later. Stock lens and SGpro w/ 55mm F1.2 @ F16, to simulate the DOF of the stock lens in 1080P. They both look EXACTLY the same interms of sharpness, the big differences are the way the gamma curve is affected, color saturation, and FOV. Im sure if i can't quite tell a difference of sharpness in 1080P there shouldnt be a big difference in 2k.
 
TimurCivan said:
I just shot a test today that im gonna post up later. Stock lens and SGpro w/ 55mm F1.2 @ F16, to simulate the DOF of the stock lens in 1080P. They both look EXACTLY the same interms of sharpness, the big differences are the way the gamma curve is affected, color saturation, and FOV. Im sure if i can't quite tell a difference of sharpness in 1080P there shouldnt be a big difference in 2k.
Click to expand...

PM when you post. I'd like to see what the real differences are.

And I'm happy to know that the glass issue is... well... not even an issue. It'll be up to how well the adapters hold up then.
 
i think the adapters, (all o them Brevis/SG/M2) can hold WAY more resolution than we will need. i think they will start losing thier bite somehwere around 2.5k line. jut because the diffuser will start muddying up the detials at somepoint. Where as i feel the "red" looking into a Sgpro at 4k, will overpower the optics of that system. but i think the 2k image will be fine.

Wayne showed me a still form a XHA1, through a Sgpro, shot by a "popular" member of this site, and that is a sharper picture tha the HVX puts out, and it looked Remarkable. ithink the resolving power isnt the issue. its the workflow limitations. of an inverted image, a tether, and HUMONGO filesizes. :)

Im seriously thinking about this though.... Hydra seems amazing.
 
I've often heard it said that in a 35mm adapter configuration with a prosumer cam the in-camera lens is the weakest link, but it would seem like the ground glass diffuser in the 35mm adapter would be the weakest link, it seems like the only limiting factor. The in-camera lens is obviously designed matched to what the imaging block in the camera can resolve, and the 35mm lens shouldn't be a bottleneck if it is a good lens.

We've had consistent reports from users that using one of these adapters reduces resolving power, but then again we haven't done in-house tests so this may not be accurate. I should also point out that for the most part they all choose to keep using it because in the end the footage looks far more filmic with the shallow DOF and a softer look than with a sharper look.

There's also the possibility that since Andromeda is a special case, the 35mm adapters being used may be somehow not be matched for the new resolving power of the system.

Cheers,
Juan
 
goodness, I am truly hoping this turns out as expected and with a reasonable price tag.

Good luck with the project and I look forward to the NAB pics on your forum Juan. :thumbup:
 
It's almost here man. Just a day or two more and Reel-Stream will shut down from traffic overload!!!
 
the new crop of 35 adapters are optical miracles. i remeber when they first came out thinking... how can that possibly keep a sharp piccture.... but it does.... amazingly. :)
 
AH! Which brings up a very good point, TImur. Juan says that the other andromeda users were reporting softened images when using adapters.

Do you think the HD achromat changes this? The SD adapters weren't created for hi-def imagery. So the HD ones are.
 
I've been amazed at how much detail the Letus35 Flip Enhanced retains. I think it retains more detail than the Series 300 mini35 I used a few years ago.

If we were talking about a homemade pepsi-can adapter with a scuffed plastic CD cover for a "ground glass", then I doubt it'd retain sharpness of course, but something like the L35FE does an amazing job of retaining sharpness.
 
yea like i said, new crop. my old sgpro couldnt have handled hd. the SGProRev2 laughs at hd resolution and mutters something then screams "this is sparta" and kicks hd in the chest.

back on track. juan, i would simply love to see some hydra footage. :)
 
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Originally Posted by TimurCivan
the SgPPProrev2 laughs at hd resolution and mutters something then screams "this is sparta" and kicks hd in the chest.
Click to expand...

LOL

I was actually wondering the same thing about the 35mm adaptors; it seems a Hydra equiped with one of these would be the holy grail for a shallow DOF look.
 
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