Boxx HDV, Aspect HD, etc. Questions for David Newman

[Mike Metken]

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...187#post188187

David,

please look at the above post. Maybe you can help us configure a PC system based on Aspect HD. You discussed this already in Camcorderinfo. That is where I learned about it. It seems that use of a PC combined with Aspect HD, and the use of one of the low cost industrial HD cameras is the least expensive way to get high quality HD recording. Could you please explain more about the possibilities in that thread.

The Boxx Technologies HDV computers are nice and they include not only HDV editing but also the possiblity to work with 1440x1080/24p, 4:2:2, 8-bit HD. So if one buys such a computer for his HDV camera, he can also use it for more sophisticated HD work later. All he would need would be to install an input HD card for the camera, record uncompressed, then use Aspect HD to cange the codec and comress the footage to another drive. The quality would be superior to HDV. Am I right?

Thanks,

Mike

[David Newman]

Mike,
I'm not sure what your question is. Yes it is true that Aspect HD is not just an HDV tool so you can use to accelerate the on-line editing of any HD content up to 1440x1080p24/30. This does make it unique for its price. The use of these industrial HD cameras is very interesting to me and I will be investigating how they might be better integrated into the Aspect / Prospect HD workflows.

Regarding the BOXX tech HDV system. Yes these are very nice, but if you intend to put in HD-SDI at a later date you will need to confirm that the system has PCI-X.

Finially, yes your quality would be superior to HDV.

[Mike Metken]

David,

Thanks for looking into it. I was kind of fascinating by the posts I read in the other Camcorderinfo forum. Then I contacted Boxx and they confirmed the quality of the Aspect HD and Prospect HD codec. I think that it is perfect not unly for the cheap industrial cameras but also for the more expensive and practical box (POV) cameras with HD SDI output.

I basically understand how Prospect HD could be used for acquisition. All you need to do is plug the camera into HD SDI input of Boxx RT and you have 24 hours of HD capacity there in the high quality mode.

The Aspect HD is sold separately for $1,200 I think. So someone could bulid a PC and could record to hard disc arrays uncompressed HD SDI.

The Camera would be Sony HDC-X300 with 1440x1080 chips. I need to convert the 10 bit 1080p material that will sit on my hard drive to 8 bit 1440x1080p and then I can use Aspect HD to compress it and the PC would record it real time onto another drive.

This is what I don't understand: What do you need to convert the camera stream to the stream that Aspect HD can work with.

I understand that with the Boxx RT I can do everything in real time. With the Aspect HD I can't, which is OK since the PC would cost a lot less. I just need to know how to make it work.

I made a reference to the other dvinfo forum because I thought that you could make the other memebers there aware that there is a cost-effective recording acquisition solution already and that the main ingredient is Aspect HD and that the quality is excellent. Without their firm understanding of this, they may come around in long circles to realize this.

It would be also nice if you could describe a configuration of a PC that would take the HD SDI 1080p signal and would be able to record it for 2 hours uncompressed, then transcode it in high quality Aspect HD, with capacity of 24 hours.

I would also like to know, if you could feed two such cameras into a PC with Prospect HD and enccode both of them in real time, and record to HD arrays at ther same time, in real time.

Thanks again,

Mike

[David Newman]

The CFHD codec which come with all our products can be used within nearly any PC tool. So if you aren't using Prospect HD and you still which to use HD-SDI or CameraLink, you would simple capture with the tools provided by the capture vendor. Get the resulting files into and uncompressed AVI, MOV, ASF etc (it doesn't really matter), then input that into any tool that can export into a VfW or DirectShow codec (Premiere, Vegas, VirtualDub, AfterEffects and many more.) Select CineForm HD (CFHD) from the list and export. The resulting files will play in real-time within Aspect HD.

Note: As this is an HDV forum, HDV users don't need to worry about any of this as capturing into Aspect HD is a single step from HDV cameras.

Mike, It sounds like you really need and want Prospect HD not Aspect for your project. Once you need uncompressed HD_SDI capture you are looking at a system like the BOXX RT Pro which comes with Prospect HD. Things will get cheaper over time, but uncompressed 1080 capture is not cheap yet.

[Mike Metken]

David,

Thank you very much. I don't want to bug you with this anymore, but please answer me the following, as I am more or less illiterate when it comes to computers and I cannot afford Prospect HD bundled with Boxx RT.

What kind of a computer and software do I need to use to be able to take Sony 1080p SD HDI output camera, record with it to hard disc arrays, then transcode it with Prospect HD high quality mode to another hard drive?

What would I need hardware- and software-wise?

I'd really appreciate, if you could help me with this one,

Thanks,

Mike

[David Newman]

The system you describe is an expensive system. It would take some effort to build that system, that is why BOXX is in business.

Fior uncompressed 1080p over HD-SDI you will need a dual Xeon or dual Opteron (you could go with single processor as you aren't compressing in real-time, but for workstation class PCs the dual proc is more common.) A PCI-X motherboard. A PCI-X 5 to 8 drive RAID controller. 5 to 8 hard drives for video. Add HD_SDI card from BlueFish or AJA, a big case and power supply. This the type of system you purchase to spec, not build yourself (i.e. BOXX, 1Beyond etc.). In fact I'm not sure how sells working HD-SDI card directly to end user (they are mostly OEM.) Typically this configuration would start around $10k.

[Mike Metken]

sorry, one last thing; what software do I need?

Mike

[David Newman]

If you going to use Aspect HD, you will need that and Windows XP. Everything depends on what you want to do.