FS700, Atomos Samurai and Slow-mo

C

Colinelves

Well-known member
I don't suppose anyone has managed to get the FS700 to play nice with the Atomos Samurai while outputting the slow mo have they?

I managed to get the Atomos to recognise the output from the buffer when I set the camera to record 1080 50p and output 50i in the SDI settings and I managed to record it, but the footage is all screwy: about half the frames are fine, but the ones inbetween have odd compression artefacts or are totally black (or solid green) and every now and then this frames jump back (i.e. on the test when I had the data out I could see the camera's timecode run backwards).

Unfortunately this was a rushed test, done at the weekend before the camera went out for a four day hire, so I didn't realise there was problems till I got home, but I'm intending to try again on Friday (maybe by having the camera set to record 50i). Although I was wondering if anyone else has had any success....

Cheers,


Colin Elves
DoP and Steadicam Operator
FS700 Owner/operator
Mob: 07886849073
Email: colin@colinelves.com
Web: www.colinelves.com
 
I haven't any success either in correctly capturing FS700 slow mo with Samurai.
Did a lot of testing and got passable interlaced results by using more or less your settings on FS700 output.
I am very disappointed because when we bought the Samurai a lot of "famous" video bloggers where claiming it was possible, if not at 200 fps, at least at 100 (I am in PAL land).
Obviously they did not test enough, or where happy with the ugly aliasing or interlaced footage they where getting.
The Samurai can not capture 50P, and whatever you do, during the slow mo buffering the FS700 just outputs 50P, and cannot output 25P.
Even with a "good" de-interlacement the footage was losing clearness and producing a lot of aliasing. It was actually quite ugly as soon as you got straight lines, architecture, typos etc.. in the frame.
Since the FS700 in slow mo mode already tends to do much more aliasing than in normal rates, for me the footage was unusable (unless we left it interlaced).

Since the GEMINI device (that CAN capture 50P) is to expensive for us right now, we bought the Blackmagic Ultrastudio 3D (+/- 1000 $) connected to a new retina macbook pro equipped with Thunderbolt, and got perfect results in capturing FS700 slow mo during buffering.
Of course this can only be done in studio work because one needs a laptop connected to the camera (it could work with a thunderbolt equipped macbook air for more portability...).

The Ultrastudio 3D works really well with Premiere that is our editing suite.
The capture is really easy to perform but it has to be done manually, so this workflow unfortunately needs a dedicated person only for capturing. It does not have like the Samurai a timecode triggering...a pity really!

So the first test we did was to compare the Apple pro res to internal AVCHD slow mo.
Does it really worths the hassle?
My answer is YES, if you are doing professional work (for TV advertisement for instance) and don't always necessarily control what happens after the shoot (post production, grading, de-noising etc...).
The slow mo signal of the FS700 is already quite degraded because the internal processors can't handle so much data, so Sony is doing some sort of quality reduce to be able to deliver slow mo.
Buy capturing with the UltraStudio at least we get the best out of it.

The difference between the 2 footages is obvious, even without grading, especially if the motion you want to slow down is really fast (like an object falling down).
As soon as you start grading you are really happy of the Pro res codec that definitely holds better (no big square artifacts in plain colors etc...).

So for now we are quite happy with this blackmagic device that does the job in studio work.
Sorry for my mediocre english.
Good luck to you.

Mickael
 
Hi Mickael,

First off I'd like to say: what mediocre English?! To be honest, using the word 'mediocre' itself firmly places you outside the mediocre category!

As regards the ability to record the footage on the Samurai - by passable, do you mean you were able to record uninterrupted interlaced footage? As that is really all I am hoping to achieve at this point: i.e. to say, as a minimum, yes you can record 'broadcast quality' (i.e. in excess of 50Mbps compression) slow-mo footage using the Samurai (but I would use the internal codec if I were you)? If so, what were the settings (for both FS700 and Samurai) that worked?

In terms of selling the Atomos recorder to my clients I am hoping it is sufficient to say: You can use the Atomos to record the regular speed stuff at 'broadcast quality', but the slo-mo stuff you'll want to record on the internal cards. Since I really only got the Atomos so I could say the camera was 'broadcast quality'.

Thanks for the tip on the Blackmagic Ultrastudio, I wonder if they'll release an external recorder that can do that in a similar price-bracket? Either way it is useful to know as I rent the camera out through a rental house/studio/production services company, so they may be interested in investing in one of those for studio high-speed shoots.

As regards getting annoyed at the big time bloggers - to a certain extent I agree, I only bought the Atomos after I read that it was possible to record the slow-mo on it. But, you have to remember, all these guys were using pre-production cameras, which I suspect did in fact output the 25p feed (pre-capture) rather than the 50p feed (pre-compression, or whatever it is).

However, since then Sony have adjusted in the firmware for the production cameras (that we own) so that they don't do that. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if the only reason they made such a change was because these bloggers realised you could record the slow mo footage on cheap decks like the Atomos and so Sony deliberately throttled the camera to prevent you from doing this. So if you want to blame them for anything, it would be for making Sony wise to this possibility whilst they were still in a position to do something about it!

If you play around with the cameras long enough you realise that they are more than capable of outputting a 25p stream from the buffer. Set the camera to record a 25p slow-mo stream and then cancel read-out half way through a writing to card and you see it: the Atomos springs to life and you can record the last second of slow mo footage before the camera cancels the read-out (I've done this). Clearly the Camera is switching the 50p-25p conversion circuit back on at that point (or whatever the software version of that would be).

If we're lucky, and people like us moan loudly and long enough, Sony may decide to change this back in the future firmware update (although I doubt it, for the reasons I outline below!) - or, perhaps, some clever bods out there will be able to produce a hacked version of the firmware that turns it back on again.

You have to remember that Sony are bringing out their own external recorder for the camera at some point (for the 12bit 4K Raw update) and, for business reasons, they're going to want to hobble the competition as much as possible. So don't be surprised if one of the things this recorder can do will be to record the slow-mo stream in 'broadcast quality' somehow. The fact that they have left it so that high-end recorders like the Gemini can still capture the footage hopefully indicates that the price point for their recorder will be a little below that of the Gemini, but clearly above that of the Samurai and its ilk: i.e. it'll be somewhere between $1,500 and $6,000 USD.

One other thing that is interesting about your tests is that the aliasing increases when you record the slow-mo footage. I'm guessing that this means the 240fps output requires some line skipping from the 4K chip (not unexpected as the Epic does this too as I recall). In which case the 4K Raw output clearly won't be at 240fps. Maybe at 60fps if we're lucky.

That's all just speculation though....
 
thank you, Collin, you are very nice for my english.


"As regards the ability to record the footage on the Samurai - by passable, do you mean you were able to record uninterrupted interlaced footage? As that is really all I am hoping to achieve at this point: i.e. to say, as a minimum, yes you can record 'broadcast quality' (i.e. in excess of 50Mbps compression) slow-mo footage using the Samurai (but I would use the internal codec if I were you)? If so, what were the settings (for both FS700 and Samurai) that worked?"




"Passable" was not what I meant.
YES we where able to record with the Samurai perfect uninterrupted interlaced slow mo from the FS700 buffering.
I don't remember to what output exactly was set the FS700 since we tried every possible combination.
BUT what I can tell you is that the camera was set to 50P PS mode, and the "S&Q slow mo" menu was set to 50.

Then in a 50P premiere timeline I would slow down the footage at 50% to get the promised 200 FPS perfectly smooth but interlaced sequence.
At the end I export to 25 and it stays smooth.

If I said "passable" it is more in regards to the fact that I don't want to use interlaced footage in my films. Once deinterlaced the slow mo footage recorded with the samurai looks much more aliased and not as sharp as the very clean one we get out the Ultrastudio with the direct 50P recording.
For me the Samurai performs a perfect interlaced slow mo recording., if it's that you are looking for.
But who would want interlaced footage?



"In terms of selling the Atomos recorder to my clients I am hoping it is sufficient to say: You can use the Atomos to record the regular speed stuff at 'broadcast quality', but the slo-mo stuff you'll want to record on the internal cards. Since I really only got the Atomos so I could say the camera was 'broadcast quality'."


I have shot quite a few TV adverts with FS100 AVCHD and everybody was really happy with it,
especially the colorist who was more used to Red/Alexa stuff and found the footage absolutely stunning…Of course I was in a studio controlled environment.
It also means the camera profiles where good.
For me it's strange to shoot too flat with 8 bit codecs anyway.
Why is there this fantasy of an 8bit log profile?
With 8bit it seems that the more you are close to your final result, the better the grading will be, and flexibility you will have in grading later. Some people tend to think the opposite.


But you are right. Shooting in Pro res is more reassuring for production company and clients.


"Thanks for the tip on the Blackmagic Ultrastudio, I wonder if they'll release an external recorder that can do that in a similar price-bracket? Either way it is useful to know as I rent the camera out through a rental house/studio/production services company, so they may be interested in investing in one of those for studio high-speed shoots."


I regret now I bought the Atomos. Blackmagic has a great 300 $ recorder Decklink that does the same job as the Samurai. The screen is not really important and the device is really more compact. I think I am going to sell it.
(Be aware that it's only the Ultrastudio 3D that records 50P, the other Ultrastudio models don't record over 30P.)


"As regards getting annoyed at the big time bloggers - to a certain extent I agree, I only bought the Atomos after I read that it was possible to record the slow-mo on it. But, you have to remember, all these guys were using pre-production cameras, which I suspect did in fact output the 25p feed (pre-capture) rather than the 50p feed (pre-compression, or whatever it is)."


Same reason I bought the Atomos without trying…so angry with myself. I read too many blogs.


"However, since then Sony have adjusted in the firmware for the production cameras (that we own) so that they don't do that. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if the only reason they made such a change was because these bloggers realised you could record the slow mo footage on cheap decks like the Atomos and so Sony deliberately throttled the camera to prevent you from doing this. So if you want to blame them for anything, it would be for making Sony wise to this possibility whilst they were still in a position to do something about it!"


You could be right.
I first suspected that too, but somehow I can't believe Sony could have been so mean.
Next time the bloggers should wait before they reveal the secrets… Let's ask for that in new firmware!


"If you play around with the cameras long enough you realise that they are more than capable of outputting a 25p stream from the buffer. Set the camera to record a 25p slow-mo stream and then cancel read-out half way through a writing to card and you see it: the Atomos springs to life and you can record the last second of slow mo footage before the camera cancels the read-out (I've done this). Clearly the Camera is switching the 50p-25p conversion circuit back on at that point (or whatever the software version of that would be). "


I am surprised you couldn't not record more easily clean interlaced slow mo since you tinkered nicely with the cam…
I you have problems in achieving it, send me a message and I will glad to try the set up again.
Right now the Samurai stays the box. In Studio I'll always use the Ultrasudio, for creative stuff the AVCHD is great because I can control everything from post production to grading and especially clean my artifacts with Neatimage that is awesome.




"If we're lucky, and people like us moan loudly and long enough, Sony may decide to change this back in the future firmware update (although I doubt it, for the reasons I outline below!) - or, perhaps, some clever bods out there will be able to produce a hacked version of the firmware that turns it back on again. "


Poeple could be afraid to "brick" the FS700 with a hack.
We will have to moan to Sony I guess.


"You have to remember that Sony are bringing out their own external recorder for the camera at some point (for the 12bit 4K Raw update) and, for business reasons, they're going to want to hobble the competition as much as possible. So don't be surprised if one of the things this recorder can do will be to record the slow-mo stream in 'broadcast quality' somehow. The fact that they have left it so that high-end recorders like the Gemini can still capture the footage hopefully indicates that the price point for their recorder will be a little below that of the Gemini, but clearly above that of the Samurai and its ilk: i.e. it'll be somewhere between $1,500 and $6,000 USD."


It could be good news that Sony does it's own recorder, ideally fitting in the FMU's empty space.
The problem is that I shoot EVERYTHING in 50P for more flexibility in post. Could I dream to have RAW 12bits 4K in 50P? I doubt it.

Or even better: RAW 12 bits in regular HD at 50P. I doubt it too. I don't want the hassle of 4K, nor the production companies I work for.

Creatively speaking I think I will love 4K for my own personal stuff, not for production yet.

"One other thing that is interesting about your tests is that the aliasing increases when you record the slow-mo footage. I'm guessing that this means the 240fps output requires some line skipping from the 4K chip (not unexpected as the Epic does this too as I recall). In which case the 4K Raw output clearly won't be at 240fps. Maybe at 60fps if we're lucky."


The aliasing and moire increases a lot…but since we where doing test, I chose "complicated stuff" to shoot like typo, shirts with little squares, grills with little holes etc… In real life and with short depth of field, it shows really less.
The artifacts remain though on plain unfocused areas.
But for this price range, I am sooo happy to have slow mo anyway.

Michael





 
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I don't think clients nor producers should really know too much technical stuff /codec etc…you are doing. FS700 is broadcast enough, the rest stays your job as long as people are happy, especially the colorist.
I have shot quite a few national TV adverts with FS100 AVCHD and everybody was really happy, especially the colorist that was more used to red/alexa stuff and found the footage absolutely excellent…and said "there is nothing to do" it's great. Of course I was in a studio environment.
It also means the initial profiles where good. For me it's really silly to shoot too flat with 8 bit codecs anyway.
I don't understand this fantasy of an 8bit log profile. With 8bit the more you are close to your final result, the better the grading will be, and flexibility you will have in grading.

But you are right. Shooting in Pro res is definetely more reassuring for production company.

I know that there are plenty of countries and TV channels that would accept the FS700 AVCHD footage as 'broadcast quality', but here in the UK, the major players (along with Nat Geo) won't accept it. They follow the EBU recommendations: http://tech.ebu.ch/camtest and these require a minimum data rate of 50Mbps CBR or 35Mbps VBR. The 28Mbps of the FS700 50P doesn't cut it - that's why I bought the Atomos in the first place - If I am to use the camera on broadcast productions, I need it - and for most of the footage it is fine.

I had hoped to be able to record the slow-mo footage using it too, but even then it is not essential, since they generally accept up to 20% of a program being 'non-broadcast'.

However, if it can record the interlaced stream, then I can at least say to a nervy client: sure, you can record the slow mo at 'broadcast quality' but only if interlaced when using the Atomos (which is probably not worth it) or you can hire a Gemini for £200 a day and record it progressive - but the AVCHD footage is generally pretty good. i.e. it's important to be able to offer them the choice.

I will also say that you're not the first person to suggest that an 8-bit log profile is a waste of time - and I must admit I'm coming round to the idea. It would be interesting to get some input from the a grader on this...

You could be right.
I first suspected that too, but somehow I can't believe Sony would have been so mean.
Next time the bloggers should wait before they reveal the secrets… Let's ask for that in new firmware!

You clearly have too much faith in Sony!

I am surprised you couldn't not record clean interlaced slow mo since it looks like you tinkered nicely with the cam…
I you have problems in doing it, send me a mail and I will try try the set up again. Right now the Samurai is the box. In Studio I'll use the Ultrasudio, outside for creative stuff the AVCHD is great because I can control post production and especially clean my artifacts with Neat image that is awesome for that.

It was a rushed test - the camera was booked out on a job - I didn't have time to check the footage until after I got home. I'm going to try again on Monday. At the moment I'm just happy to know it is doable!

Poeple will be too afraid to "brick" the FS700 with a hack.
We will have to moan to Sony

Worth a try, but as I said before, I don't think they'll care: it's a business decision. They're concerned with the financials, not with our creative desires!
 
I have not read the entire thread and do not know if this was mentioned..but I believe it is not possible to pass Variable Frame rates via sdi connections.

That eliminates the Atomos Samurai as a record device for that purpose...unfortunately for me as well...BUT...

Here is something we discovered with our AF102 and someone might test it with the FS700. Let me know how it goes please.

If one set ups the Samurai to trigger Record off TC start..one can make the Samurai Record on Playback of the Camera.

If the card has recorded a slo mo clip...the samurai will record it as such( ie a dubb)...BUT..it wont be true 4:2:2. It will be AVCHD 4:2:0 pretending to be 4:2:2 (Prores 4:2:2)

We always dual record to AF102 internal SD card and the Samurai but all our reviews and playbacks are done from the Samurai. It gets messy otherwise. Multiple clips!

NOTE: I am assuming this still works with latest Samurai Firmware where the record triggering options were changed. We have not tried it for sometime.
 
Hi folks,

Don't forget, as I already stated in another thread, regarding the connection of the FS700 to the Alphatron EVF in 60P via SDI, that THE 3G-SDI IS NOT YET ENABLED !

So no wonder you have problems to record slo-motion to an external recorder, plus the fact that you will need a recording device with a 3G-SDI input to record the full 240fps from the buffer (packed onto a 60P stream) so no PIX or Intensity Shuttle nor Samurai to do this job...
 
The hole idea was just to say that it was possible to do it with a device that is less than 1000 dollars and that has enabled a 3G-SDI. Some of us who don't want to buy a Gemini have this option.
 
I actually did some testing the other day and realised that it had worked all along - the problems with the footage seems to have been with bad transfers between my Samurai and LaCie drives.

If you like, you can see the footage online here: https://vimeo.com/50168350

Getting it to work was pretty easy, you just switch the monitor output to 1080i/480i (from 1080p/480p) and boom! The buffer plays out interlaced - allowing the Samurai to record it (interlaced, obviously).

It's not ideal, but if a client wants to record the slowmo at 'broadcast quality' compression (but they don't want to pay for the hire of a Gemini), then they can - and you still have the progressive AVCHD copy from the card if they later decide the quality is better on that (or there are aliasing issues with the interlaced frames).

It's certainly an annoying compromise to have to make, especially given that (I'm pretty sure) the camera could output a 25p stream from the buffer if Sony wanted it too (converting it to interlaced itself must take a fair bit of effort) and it does do this (briefly) if you cancel the buffer readout before it is finished. But I guess Sony are worried about damaging sales of their 4k recorder (whenever that comes out).

But at least it's doable.

As regards the 3G-SDI - clearly it is enabled, otherwise you couldn't record the 1080 25p (regular speed) output from the camera to the Samurai (or the 50p high speed to a Gemini), if it wasn't. What isn't enabled yet is the 4K output stream from the SDI port.

Cheers,

Colin Elves
DoP, Lighting Cameraman and Steadicam Operator - London
Mob: 07886849073Email: colin@colinelves.com
Web: www.colinelves.com
 
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Colinelves said:
As regards the 3G-SDI - clearly it is enabled, otherwise you couldn't record the 1080 25p (regular speed) output from the camera to the Samurai (or the 50p high speed to a Gemini), if it wasn't. What isn't enabled yet is the 4K output stream from the SDI port.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry but it's not, 1080p/60 over SDI is not working (yet), nor is 50P. 1080/25P only requires HD-SDI, not 3G.
 
Hmmm. There are reports (e.g. Here: http://www.xdcam-user.com/2012/06/uncompressed-slow-mo/) that you can record the slow mo output from the camera using a Gemini - which would entail the camera outputting a 50p or 60p signal via 3G-SDI.

However, judging by the date of that blog, I suspect the guy was testing using a pre-production FS700.

So I guess, if it's not working now, Sony turned off the 3G-SDI output in the firmware for their production models - which is another black mark against them in my book.

It kind of pisses me off a little that they (clearly) read all these blogs written about their pre-production models and realised that people were able to record the slow-mow output using external recorders and they thought "****, if people are able to do all they want with these third party recorders, they're not going to want to pay for ours! We better choke it back in the firmware on the production models or we might lose a little bit of money". It doesn't exactly show much respect to your consumers to deliberately disable features of your hardware and then charge them extra to turn them back on again - that's practically fraud!
 
guys could you plz explain about Gemini...... if i understood you right - its possible to record slow motion with it? what model would be ok for it? there are 2.... raw and 4:4:4!

and i just wonder if i ll use c300 is it possible to record 1080 50p with gemini? or any other recorder?
 
The production FS700 does output 50/60P over 3G and it can be recorded with a Gemini or other 3G 50/60P device. It will not work with a samurai etc at 50P as this does not have 3G nor 50P recording capability. To do this the camera must be set so the Super Slow mode base/playback frame rate is 50/60P and the 3G output must be activated and set to 50/60P. When the FS700's output is set to 480/576i then the output of the super slow mo buffer is interlaced at 25/30fps.

It is almost certain that the 4K output will never be more than 30P simply because anything more would be too much data for a single 3G HDSDI connection to pass.
 
I'm happy to know that it does - have you tested this? (just out of interest since S.Blanchardon is pretty adamant that this isn't the case)

Colin.
 
Alister Chapman said:
The production FS700 does output 50/60P over 3G and it can be recorded with a Gemini or other 3G 50/60P device. It will not work with a samurai etc at 50P as this does not have 3G nor 50P recording capability. To do this the camera must be set so the Super Slow mode base/playback frame rate is 50/60P and the 3G output must be activated and set to 50/60P. When the FS700's output is set to 480/576i then the output of the super slow mo buffer is interlaced at 25/30fps.

It is almost certain that the 4K output will never be more than 30P simply because anything more would be too much data for a single 3G HDSDI connection to pass.
Click to expand...


Hello Alister,

This is just weird, because as I understand it, 3G-SDI is only enabled for Super Slow Motion ?

Nevertheless, the camera doesn't output 60P over the SDI output. Period, tested it again with my Alphatron EVF and TVLogic monitor, 3G-SDI = no signal.

Unless I missed something in the menu that enables the 3G-SDI output ? (which I doubt).

Cheers,
Stephane.
 
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