Graeme: FPS... Wow...

Jay A. Kelley

Jay A. Kelley

Well-known member
ok Graeme, I admit it, I was on that "other" board a little while and I noticed a conversation with a Dalsa person (very nice and professional by the way).

It mentions that they could not get their Frames Per Second above 37.. And you guys are talking 60 for most everything.

So it seems to me that you have had a bit of a breakthrough here. I won't even comment on the possibility of 120 frames per second.

My question: Are the current numbers held where they are due to the speed of the chip, or the current data through-put limitations of the capture devices.

I am wondering if the FPS ratings will change over time as data through put gets faster, or it we have already hit the wall due to the chip

Jay

Are these good questions?! Hope I get an "A"
 
Our FPS numbers are chip limited. That's what the mysterium sensor is designed to do. I think, but I'm not sure, that Dalsa's limitations are data throughput limits. You'd have to ask them to be certain. And yes, the Dalsa people are great.
 
Just wondering, and I don't know enough detail about the way data is read off CMOS chips to know if this is possible, but might there be a way of producing 2K scaled, as opposed to windowed, footage at 120fps if the pixels were sub-sampled rather than all read then scaled? That is to say read every other pixel (or RGB 'cluster' of pixels). Maybe this would not produce sufficient quality, but just a thought. I assume a similar approach to this is used on digital stills cameras with a 'movie' mode.

No comment has been made from anyone at Red as to whether REDCODE on-board recording may be possible at 120fps. I hope we'll know soon about this, as 120fps is one (but only one) of the big selling points of the RED ONE.
 
Fair enough. Still pretty impressive. I suppose we'll have to wait for RED-RAID to achieve 120fps.

By the way, is that 2K windowed or scaled at 60fps?
 
Hello,
The DALSA Origin currently can record up to 36fps. We top out at that frame rate due to the limitations of recording the RAW Bayer imagery to disk drives. The Origin currently uses Infiniband fiber to connect the camera to the recorder (in this case the CODEX field recorder), and Infinband has a great deal of potential bandwidth.

Indeed the next step to get higher frame rates is for us to move on to a solid state recording medium such as flash memory. In fact we are developing a flash-mag solution and we believe we can go higher than the current 36 fps limit. As Graeme points out there are limitations on the top end frame rates based on sensor design, be they CCD or CMOS. At a certain point you reach the limit of what the sensor was designed to do.

We like to joke that 4K is an "ass-load" of data, but truthfully even single channel raw Bayer DPX files at 4096x2048 16 bit come out to about 16 megabytes per frame. That is a lot for the disks to keep up with, especially for a field recorder. The solid state 'on-board' system we are developing will work in a similar fashion to the Viper 'Venom' flash mag in that it will have a short recording time and the data will need to be "dumped off" to a supporting digital magazine in the field. Of course that means that more than one will have to be carried for 'duty cycle' type on-set workflow. Nothing new there, in fact that is the way things are done with Venom now, but it deserves to be mentioned.

Alan Lasky
DALSA Digital Cinema
 
Thanks Alan for answering that one!

Still, we're all much further ahead with RAW than we would be with RGB, so that's something to be thankful of.

You say ass-load of data, we say data-to-burn. Same thing - tonnes of lovely picture information you can lovingly care for in a respectful post environment to make great images!

Isn't RAW wonderful?

Graeme
 
Hey Alan..

Welcome.. I hope you will continue to visit here.. Lots of cool people and we LOVE hearing about the technology of different cameras. Of course this is a RED forum, so you can expect a little bit of bias, but we're all big boys here and we fully realize that without you and Dalsa doing what you have been doing, companies like RED would not be able to take the next step. The evolution of this type of technology requires we all learn from one another. You have a lot to teach us, and hopefully you may pick up a thing or two while here, making it worth your time.

Jay
 
Alan, thanks for posting here. I also hope you continue to chime in, we all appreciate it. You shouldn't find enemies here.
 
Thanks for the welcome gentlemen.

I didn't expect to find enemies here at all. As a matter of fact we get on quite well with our brothers at RED. It is funny when we hear people chime in with claims of "industrial espionage" between our companies. If we want to know something about the RED (or the Arri D20, Genesis, or Viper for that matter) we often just pick up the phone or we see our counter-parts at trade shows and simply ask. There is certainly no animosity or shady dealings with the individuals actually doing the work. That is better left for Cyberpunk novels and bad TV shows.

I know the DALSA team wishes RED well. More 4K data is good for all of us as it will push the post / vfx pipeline to meet the demands of high bandwidth / high resolution workflow.

Alan Lasky
DALSA Digital Cinema
 
Alan,

With that in mind, I hope this does not corner you, but a part of me thinks you may know the RED team even better than we do.. How do you answer those people who say RED will never see the light of day?

I know what we say, but yours would be a unique and valuable viewpoint.

Once again, sorry if this puts you in a bad position.. If you want to ignore it I understand

Jay
 
i believe during the time Dalsa was developing their 4k camera they too heard "it will never see the light of day "
 
Sorry

Sorry

Yeah Alan,

I remember those posts that accused everyone and their uncle for breaking into the RED offices. Sorry your company's name came up a few times. I think we were all a bit emotional and quite frankly I think it scared the **** out of a lot of us.. We did not know for sure what was going to happen to Jim and his project.

Now all seems well and cooler heads have prevailed

Jay
 
Not at all.

The RED team members I have met are intelligent, hard working, and very nice people.

I have a great deal of faith in Mr. Jannard and the RED team.

Please understand that DALSA has also endured heaps and heaps of nay-sayers, 'armchair' camera designers and doom prophets. We still do, actually. Indeed most of the the speculation and criticism on these matters comes from people who are not actually involved in digital production at all. It is always this way.

When I was a camera assistant many years ago an old British dolly grip once said to me: "You know why they call it experience, Alan? Because you experienced it." =)

Alan Lasky
 
Jay A. Kelley said:
I remember those posts that accused everyone and their uncle for breaking into the RED offices
Click to expand...
Heheh, yeah, that was me. I ostensibly accused every major camera company I could think of. :laugh:
 
If there ends up being 64GB of onboard flash, how does that differ from the external RED-FLASH, aside from the fact that the former is not removable? Is 120fps recording possible with the combination of the two?
 
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