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

This appears similar to audio recording. Experts say that the most important part of an audio interface is its AD\DA convertors, the one that transforms the analog electrical impulses from mics to a digital 01100101 stream and back. Then come the WAVs, MP3s, APEs and etc.
 
Hey Chris. I went on the reel-stream site, but can't find info on what the recording times are like.

How many minutes are you getting per gig or how many gigs per minute are you using?

thanks,

Jason
 
When shooting 10 bit I come in around 100 GB per hour. Thats about 1.67 GB per minute, but only for the RAW files.

The file sizes of the rendered files varies quite a bit. I online edit with 16 bit tiff files (the biggest and the best!), so its more like 400 GB per hour of rendered footage, or 6.67 GB a minute.
 
cardmaverick said:
When shooting 10 bit I come in around 100 GB per hour. Thats about 1.67 GB per minute, but only for the RAW files.

The file sizes of the rendered files varies quite a bit. I online edit with 16 bit tiff files (the biggest and the best!), so its more like 400 GB per hour of rendered footage, or 6.67 GB a minute.
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Thanks Chris!!

That gives me a good range to go off of. I appreciate it.

That's actually not bad considering the low cost of hard drives.

Thanks again,

Jason
 
cardmaverick said:
I think your mis-interpreting what I said.

The DVCPRO HD codec isn't the issue, ............
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I think you may have got me the wrong way round. What I meant was that the DVCProHD most definately WASN'T the issue with the HVX - lets say it keeps84.1274% (approx) of the full quality available from the HVX front end. By comparison, NTSC DV tape only keeps (say) 28.6582% (approx) of the full available quality straight off the DVX front end.

It's easy to see how an Andromeda device could be of huge benefit to a DVX, far more difficult to see how the same approach can work as well with an HVX.
 
I see what your saying now, but you still need to factor in the signal quality prior to the compression. From my studies with the DVX, you are being given the lower end of the cameras linear curve, which is very dirty compared to the top end of the curve. This is one of the reasons why my footage looks so clean. The HVX clearly does the same thing. Even though you have a better codec, you still have a lousy signal which doesn't represent the sensors fullest potential.

Whats even more damaging is that the cameras internal processing forces you to underexpose more, which creates an even dirtier signal to begin with. By bypassing that stuff, you can use the cleanest part of the cameras linear response, AND you can get a much more sufficient exposure as well.

Make sense? It's a bit hard to visualize, but thats basically why the HVX and DVX are so noisy looking.
 
cardmaverick said:
Make sense? It's a bit hard to visualize, but thats basically why the HVX and DVX are so noisy looking.
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Makes perfect sense, but you don't get anything for nothing. I suspect there are two reasons why the DVX and HVX are the way they are natively - sensitivity and highlight handling.

To do as you describe ("use the top end of the curve") will mean a higher light input - effectively the same as reducing the sensitivity, and it's the top end of the curve that gives the input to enable detail in highlights.

I'll agree that under certain circumstances what you describe has merit, but it would be wrong to come away thinking "huh, the designers were really silly there". The native camera is probably the best overall compromise for general use.

I'm also not saying that the Andromeda/Hydra approach has no merit in being applied to a HVX, but rather much LESS than for an DVX.
 
cardmaverick said:
The DVCPRO HD codec isn't the issue, its the processing the signal goes threw prior to being encoded to DVCPRO HD, which is why I now look at HDV cameras in a new light. The end result of HDV is something thats not very editing friendly, but neither is DVD compression, yet I see lots of great looking DVDs out there. Lots of formats
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I enjoy your posts and I've been reading them for a while. That said, it's spelt THROUGH. Threw is the past tense of throw.

Sorry, I'm just a grammar nazi I guess.
 
Alex.Mitchell said:
I enjoy your posts and I've been reading them for a while. That said, it's spelt THROUGH. Threw is the past tense of throw.

Sorry, I'm just a grammar nazi I guess.
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grammar_nazi.jpg
 
HAHAHAHAHA!

Good catch, thanks.

On the topic of using the high end, the reason why you never get to use it with the stock DVX and HVX cameras isn't because of highlight handling. It's because of magenta highlights. There is a difference, I'll explain...

This is another thing thats sort of hard to visualize, but imagine three gray scales, one for each color. A perfect balance would have each gray scale on top of the other, but that typically creates a green looking image in our everyday world (apparently there is more "green content" in your typical scene than any other color... kinda fascinating, also adds one more reason to the big list of why crappy green fluorescent lights are bad for video and film use). Because there is so much green, you have to jerk the red and blue channels around to create some kind of color balance, how much you move them around is also determined by the color temperature of your lighting. By the time you have created a "proper" balance, you will quickly see that all three gray scales no longer line up completely. The areas where all three channels are on top of each other look fine, but the extreme edges, particularly the highlights, end up having a color cast. Since green is the channel that always stays constant, you end up moving the red and blue channels around, and the upper highlights only contain red and blue, and in the world of additive color, that equals magenta....

Most people don't want magenta highlights, so the manufacturers make sure you never see it, and its certainly at the expense of potentially greater performance in the hands of a pro who really understands whats going on. Just check out the Reel Stream dynamic range chart, you can clearly see that most the additional top end is various shades of magenta.

This probably begs the question of why its useful to capture that stuff anyways, well... You still have two full channels worth of detail, so you can actually use secondary correction on those highlights to make them usable again, Red One does this actually, and its been mentioned several times. I think the code is called DRX or something to that effect. The downside to correcting it in post is you loose out on potentially greater dynamic range and low noise performance. I increase both by using my partial magenta filtering technique. I basically force the blue and red channels backwards, making them "line up" more evenly on top of the green channel. This lowers noise in the blue and red channels (because I'm lowering their individual gain settings), and it also minimizes my magenta colored highlights even more, almost to the point of non existence. I also gain more usable "textured" highlight range.

OH... and one more thing....

Highlight clipping creates fixed pattern noise, which is most noticeable in the green channel, as it tends to fully expose before the red and blue channels (remember, more green content, thus it blows out faster, even if the red and blue channels are more sensitive gain wise, there is less blue and red content, complex I know...). Is this an issue?? Well, sorta, but not really. Its easily processed out of the image if it ever occurs, and I have my record LUT setup to cut off just prior to green clipping anyways, and again, its one more thing the manufacturer doesn't want the consumer to see.

This little video illustrates what I'm talking about, watch as this blown out shot of some cloth suddenly fills with textural detail, and turns green. All I'm doing is going from a manual white balance, to a custom "unity balance" (all three channels balanced evenly). I shot this under 3200K light, no optical correction filters were used. Also note that this was shot on DV tape not the Andromeda....

http://www.chrisnuzzaco.com/special_uploads/dvrange.mov

I won't dive too deep into this next point but, in case some are wondering, some cameras are natively balanced for lower or higher color temperatures, this also affects overall performance with regards to signal noise and dynamic range. Its a bit deep, but this should put it in perspective...

The DVX is balanced for about 12,000 K (YIKES!), the Red One (according to the Red operation manual), is balanced for 5000 K. The difference certainly shows.

SHEW!

Thanks for sticking in there! I know that was really super long winded, but I feel this is probably the least understood camera out there, so I sorta feel a need to step in and explain whats really going on with it. It really is a mini Viper Filmstream camera. This is also why I DON'T recommend the Andromeda to less experienced DPs. I was fairly well versed technically (with regards to how cameras work) when I got the system, and it took me a good 3 months to win the above knowledge and really make the Andromeda system scream. You simply don't find that stuff in film textbooks, at least I didn't...

NOTE:

I'm just starting to test the magenta filter "trick" while shooting to DV... Not ready to post too much on it yet, but it might take a while, as I now have to deal with that pesky DSP....
 
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make a dvd, chris!

make a dvd, chris!

Chris, Very interesting as always. I think you should make a DVD explaining and exemplifying these techniques in relation to e.g. DVX, HVX, Andromeda and .... Hydra eventually.
 
I hate to say it, but I think that Juan may have dropped off the face of the earth. He hasn't posted anything on his forum in probably a month, and, despite EVERYONE wanting to know what the status of Hydra really is, he has not given us any additional information at all. Nor is he returning several phone calls.

While I am sorry to think that Hydra won't come out, I'm also reasonably convinced (per the above discussion) that Hydra isn't going to really lead to dramatically better HVX footage.

I'm going to have to just wait for my RED.

Stephen
 
I've been pessimistic since I learned that the HVX had SD chips. I think Panasonic realized that the codec/storage was what was holding the DVX back and rectified that with the HVX.
 
Stephen Pruitt said:
I hate to say it, but I think that Juan may have dropped off the face of the earth. He hasn't posted anything on his forum in probably a month, and, despite EVERYONE wanting to know what the status of Hydra really is, he has not given us any additional information at all. Nor is he returning several phone calls.

While I am sorry to think that Hydra won't come out, I'm also reasonably convinced (per the above discussion) that Hydra isn't going to really lead to dramatically better HVX footage.

I'm going to have to just wait for my RED.

Stephen
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I agree. As a matter of fact I would be willing to bet a HVX that Hydra will never go on sale. I don't think it's coming out anymore. Too silent lately.
 
Mediacre said:
I agree. As a matter of fact I would be willing to bet a HVX that Hydra will never go on sale. I don't think it's coming out anymore. Too silent lately.
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I really don’t understand your guy's logic on this one. When I am about to finish a huge project, I usually fall off of the map myself. I wouldn’t take this as a sign of failure, but as a hint at imminent completion.
:happy:
 
Mediacre said:
I agree. As a matter of fact I would be willing to bet a HVX that Hydra will never go on sale.
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Never is a long time. And you didn't say that the HVX had to be the first camera Hydra-ized. But, unless Reel Stream is updating their site, I find it odd that attempts to access www.reel-stream.com are redirected to the forums page. You have to add the path to the homepage (/index.php) to get there.
 
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This happened right before the Andromeda launch too. When Jaun dropped off the face of the earth the first time, naysayers started bashing him by calling his Andromeda vaporware. So until Jaun finally states that the hydra is officially DOA, im gonna assume he's hard at work on hydra.
 
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