4:4:4 12-bit Uncompressed DVX100

Jon Yurek · April 24th, 2004, 03:38 PM

I'm sorry if I may have come across as unwelcoming, I just didn't understand what Dan thought Juan was trying to do. Dan's initial post made it sound like we were trying to squeeze blood from a stone in terms of increasing resolution and whatnot, when in fact the resolution didn't really come into the picture. This whole thing (unless I'm mistaken) has been about getting (very) full color uncompressed video. The talk about the increase in resolution was about how well the image would look when upressed, not that Juan could suddenly get 1080p out of the CCDs (at least I don't remember that. I could very well be wrong though).

I'm sure Dan has plenty of experience that may well be useful here, I just think we got started on the wrong foot.

Robert Martens · April 24th, 2004, 05:35 PM

That's the worry with internet message boards; they're only text. The intricacies of real world communication (body language, inflection, etcetera) are lost. Comments tend to seem a lot more caustic than they were intended to be, and it's easy for this stuff to get out of hand. This has happened to me more times than I can count; I'm currently on "sabbatical" from about thirty five thousand different boards for fear of getting involved in pointless arguments. I'm hoping to start anew on these boards, to start acting like an adult. We all know what they say about arguing on the internet.

But one thing there's no debating is that DV Info Net is quite the step up from DV.com (no offense to those of you "crossover" members :P ). This collection of forums has Bullpuckey® tolerances even lower than Something Awful--which is enormously impressive, for those not familiar with the site--and we're all better off for it.

Dan, if you see this, I implore you, give it another shot, noting especially that all parties involved have offered apologies, and are being civil. That's something you're hard pressed to find anywhere else these days, and it says a lot about the caliber board member you'll be dealing with.

I'm proud to be a part of this wonderful community, and so will you, if you just spend a little more time with us.

Jon Yurek · April 24th, 2004, 06:11 PM

By the way, Juan, what did you decide on for the prototype's storage situation? IIRC, you were thinking of sticking a laptop SATA drive in there, right? What are the chances that you would be able to make it easily removable?

How are you going to interface with the drive? Directly, or via a 3rd party controller (running an embedded OS)? I ask because it may be easier to add features like a capacity meter and hot-swapping empty drives with an OS in between, although it would probably be much more complicated electronically.

Also, for the software side of storage, will you be streaming the data to the disk straight away, or will you try to put some kind of formatting on it? It seems as though it may be easier to stream the 12 bit data either completely raw or with a minimalist header and have a special codec for importing into NLEs.

Sorry if you've answered these already, I don't remember seeing a firm position in any direction.

Juan P. Pertierra · April 24th, 2004, 06:49 PM

Jon,

My current prototype design for the final device has a Firewire 800 port only. This port can be connected to a PC/Mac to capture raw data directly as with a standard DV camera.

However, the firewire port can ALSO be connected to a ~standard~ Firewire800 drive for capture. You do not need a special drive like those designed for DV capture. The circuitry automatically recognizes the drive and saves data accordingly.

The device will have a recording control separate from the recording control on the camera. I haven't decided yet, but the device will probably have an LCD screen with menu buttons, such that you can select if you want to decimate the data in order to save space, along with other options like color precision, etc.

The files will most likely be saved like I am doing now, using uncompressed RGB frames. I haven't found a video format capable of handling the data so frames will have to do.

As always, i'm open to suggestions...a SATA drive was harder to implement than the FW800 solution using the components I have.

Another option would be to include an SDI link, but since the raw data is not standard, either a compromise must be done or a propietary driver for capture.

Juan

Obin Olson · April 24th, 2004, 10:43 PM

Juan what about audio? do you think we can still use the dvx to record DV and audio while we capture 4:4:4 ? it would be awesome to have sync sound that is recorded to tape with the DV preview video for matching it up in post....also how long do you think it will be until you have a working prototype? how will we deal with 4:4:4 in post..Does anyone know if ANY NLE supports the bit depth this will have? I guess we could treat it like film and color work all the footage in AfterEffects etc BEFORE the edit....

Juan P. Pertierra · April 24th, 2004, 11:07 PM

Obin,

The DVX will work completely as usual, and separately from the capture box. This means that you can record to DV tape and 4:4:4 simultaneously, and as such the audio is captured to tape.

As far as the prototype, my aim is to have it ready within a month. I can give a better estimate in a week when i'm done with most of my finals.

About the 4:4:4 footage, we really need the opinion of some FCP(or Vegas, Premiere,etc) guru. I have seen in FCP that there are is an option for 'Animation', which suggests that you can use any images as independent frames, but I am not sure. Also, there has to be a way, like you said, to treat it like film slides at full color sampling...i've just never done it before in an NLE. I know shake does it.

Juan

Gordon Lake · April 24th, 2004, 11:28 PM

<<<-- Originally posted by Juan: we really need the opinion of some FCP(or Vegas, Premiere,etc) guru. I have seen in FCP that there are is an option for 'Animation', which suggests that you can use any images as independent frames...-->>>

I use the Digital Juice Jumpback files for background animations in Vegas. They're in the PNG format and work fine.

Gordon

Juan P. Pertierra · April 24th, 2004, 11:34 PM

I took a break and read a bit in my FCP manual, and tried some tests. it seems that at least FCP has no problem importing entire directories of frames, the question is will it work in 4:4:4 and at least 12-bit RGB? Does anyone know?

The render options allow for a high-precision rendering mode, but it doesn't say what precision is used...there is also an RGB render mode which does not specify the precision. I would assume that the system works in 4:4:4, it makes sense for effects.

A good experiment if anyone has the time, would be to drop one of the raw frames i posted into your NLE program, and then render it as a short video...see if there is a way of setting a custom resolution, and if any color precision is lost....

Juan

Obin Olson · April 25th, 2004, 12:40 AM

Juan here are some really cool guys, if you ever want to build a custom made HD camera give them a call...I am working with them now to try and make/build/buy a highspeed camera that can shoot 60fps or more..I need this all the time for commercial productions...

http://www.illunis.com/index.html

I think it would be so cool if you took your ideas and applied them to an HD camera..all you need is the raw digital output right? and you can build/code a system for capture?

Joel Corkin · April 25th, 2004, 01:37 AM

Juan,

I'm not sure about FCP, but Adobe After Effects imports image sequences and can handle and render out to 16-bit per channel. Apple products aren't always as transparent about what they are doing to your video as Adobe products are.

Good luck with this project, you must be a bonafide genius.

John Cabrera · April 25th, 2004, 02:02 AM

Juan,

Vegas Video can handle it perfectly. So can insync's blade 2. Although, I was very disapointed with my purchase of Blade 2 when it first came out. It was like installing an elephant onto my system. Of course, that was when it first came out and when it was the only software that could handle the advance 24p pulldown on the camera.

John

Joel Corkin · April 25th, 2004, 02:12 AM

Juan, I just sent you a jpg to point something out that hopefully will be helpful. I haven't been able to read through the entire thread to see if this was covered, but it was only something that became apparent when I drastically altered the contrast of the RAW image. I hope it is useful.

Rob Lohman · April 25th, 2004, 04:16 AM

Juan: could you tell me which device you are using to allow
connecting a straight firewire harddisk to the camera? I'm
thinking about experimenting with some things myself this year
and could really use some pointers on such a thing.

Obin: those guys seem pretty cool. I'm assuming they are
expensive?

Thomas Smet · April 25th, 2004, 01:20 PM

I am not sure about this but those uncompressed capture cards for Apple such as the aja or the black magic decklink claim to capture to a 10bit video format. The only problem is that I think these are YUV 4:2:2 format files. I was just thinking that it must be possible to create a video format that at least used 10bit.

Also apparently these files work great in Final Cut Pro so that must mean that Final Cut Pro can handle higher than 8 bit video.

The windows xp drivers for the black magic decklink card that works with Adobe Premiere Pro however currently only works at 8 bit video so this may mean Premiere Pro might have a bit depth limitation. The company is trying to get 10 bit to work in Premiere however so maybe it is possible. If 10 works than so should 12 bit. I hope this helps somewhat.

Jim Lafferty · April 25th, 2004, 08:08 PM

Quote:

Vegas Video can handle it perfectly.

Despite being a Vegas user and fan, at the moment this is untrue. Vegas works in an 8bit color space, but can do 4:4:4 uncompressed up to 2k resolutions. Naturally you don't get to preview this kind of media in realtime :D

Incidentally, Vegas can read/write to 10bit codecs, but internal processing of the codecs, and the effects you choose to apply to them, all happen in 8bits.

Now that Vegas 5 is out a lot of this looks to be changing shortly -- Decklink was doing SD over firewire from Vegas 5 at NAB, and it's only a matter of time before the bugs are shaken out and this feature will be added to Vegas (likely as part of an update to 5.0, ala 5.0b or 5.0c).

Similarly, Douglas Spotted Eagle mentioned discussing 14bit (yes, 14!!) developements and their implementation with Vegas at NAB.

- jim

April 24th, 2004, 10:43 PM	#395
Obin Olson Trustee Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Wilmington NC Posts: 1,414	dealing with 4:4:4 Juan what about audio? do you think we can still use the dvx to record DV and audio while we capture 4:4:4 ? it would be awesome to have sync sound that is recorded to tape with the DV preview video for matching it up in post....also how long do you think it will be until you have a working prototype? how will we deal with 4:4:4 in post..Does anyone know if ANY NLE supports the bit depth this will have? I guess we could treat it like film and color work all the footage in AfterEffects etc BEFORE the edit....

April 25th, 2004, 02:02 AM	#401
John Cabrera Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: California Posts: 67	Vegas Juan, Vegas Video can handle it perfectly. So can insync's blade 2. Although, I was very disapointed with my purchase of Blade 2 when it first came out. It was like installing an elephant onto my system. Of course, that was when it first came out and when it was the only software that could handle the advance 24p pulldown on the camera. John

April 25th, 2004, 04:16 AM	#403
Rob Lohman RED Code Chef Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Holland Posts: 12,514	Juan: could you tell me which device you are using to allow connecting a straight firewire harddisk to the camera? I'm thinking about experimenting with some things myself this year and could really use some pointers on such a thing. Obin: those guys seem pretty cool. I'm assuming they are expensive? __________________ Rob Lohman, visuar@iname.com DV Info Wrangler & RED Code Chef Join the DV Challenge \| Lady X Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Buy from the best: DVinfo.net sponsors

April 24th, 2004, 03:38 PM	#391
Jon Yurek Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Worcester, MA Posts: 64	I'm sorry if I may have come across as unwelcoming, I just didn't understand what Dan thought Juan was trying to do. Dan's initial post made it sound like we were trying to squeeze blood from a stone in terms of increasing resolution and whatnot, when in fact the resolution didn't really come into the picture. This whole thing (unless I'm mistaken) has been about getting (very) full color uncompressed video. The talk about the increase in resolution was about how well the image would look when upressed, not that Juan could suddenly get 1080p out of the CCDs (at least I don't remember that. I could very well be wrong though). I'm sure Dan has plenty of experience that may well be useful here, I just think we got started on the wrong foot.

April 24th, 2004, 05:35 PM	#392
Robert Martens Major Player Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Miller Place, NY Posts: 820	That's the worry with internet message boards; they're only text. The intricacies of real world communication (body language, inflection, etcetera) are lost. Comments tend to seem a lot more caustic than they were intended to be, and it's easy for this stuff to get out of hand. This has happened to me more times than I can count; I'm currently on "sabbatical" from about thirty five thousand different boards for fear of getting involved in pointless arguments. I'm hoping to start anew on these boards, to start acting like an adult. We all know what they say about arguing on the internet. But one thing there's no debating is that DV Info Net is quite the step up from DV.com (no offense to those of you "crossover" members :P ). This collection of forums has Bullpuckey® tolerances even lower than Something Awful--which is enormously impressive, for those not familiar with the site--and we're all better off for it. Dan, if you see this, I implore you, give it another shot, noting especially that all parties involved have offered apologies, and are being civil. That's something you're hard pressed to find anywhere else these days, and it says a lot about the caliber board member you'll be dealing with. I'm proud to be a part of this wonderful community, and so will you, if you just spend a little more time with us.

April 24th, 2004, 06:11 PM	#393
Jon Yurek Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Worcester, MA Posts: 64	By the way, Juan, what did you decide on for the prototype's storage situation? IIRC, you were thinking of sticking a laptop SATA drive in there, right? What are the chances that you would be able to make it easily removable? How are you going to interface with the drive? Directly, or via a 3rd party controller (running an embedded OS)? I ask because it may be easier to add features like a capacity meter and hot-swapping empty drives with an OS in between, although it would probably be much more complicated electronically. Also, for the software side of storage, will you be streaming the data to the disk straight away, or will you try to put some kind of formatting on it? It seems as though it may be easier to stream the 12 bit data either completely raw or with a minimalist header and have a special codec for importing into NLEs. Sorry if you've answered these already, I don't remember seeing a firm position in any direction.

April 24th, 2004, 06:49 PM	#394
Juan P. Pertierra Major Player Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 479	Jon, My current prototype design for the final device has a Firewire 800 port only. This port can be connected to a PC/Mac to capture raw data directly as with a standard DV camera. However, the firewire port can ALSO be connected to a ~standard~ Firewire800 drive for capture. You do not need a special drive like those designed for DV capture. The circuitry automatically recognizes the drive and saves data accordingly. The device will have a recording control separate from the recording control on the camera. I haven't decided yet, but the device will probably have an LCD screen with menu buttons, such that you can select if you want to decimate the data in order to save space, along with other options like color precision, etc. The files will most likely be saved like I am doing now, using uncompressed RGB frames. I haven't found a video format capable of handling the data so frames will have to do. As always, i'm open to suggestions...a SATA drive was harder to implement than the FW800 solution using the components I have. Another option would be to include an SDI link, but since the raw data is not standard, either a compromise must be done or a propietary driver for capture. Juan

April 24th, 2004, 11:07 PM	#396
Juan P. Pertierra Major Player Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 479	Obin, The DVX will work completely as usual, and separately from the capture box. This means that you can record to DV tape and 4:4:4 simultaneously, and as such the audio is captured to tape. As far as the prototype, my aim is to have it ready within a month. I can give a better estimate in a week when i'm done with most of my finals. About the 4:4:4 footage, we really need the opinion of some FCP(or Vegas, Premiere,etc) guru. I have seen in FCP that there are is an option for 'Animation', which suggests that you can use any images as independent frames, but I am not sure. Also, there has to be a way, like you said, to treat it like film slides at full color sampling...i've just never done it before in an NLE. I know shake does it. Juan

April 24th, 2004, 11:28 PM	#397
Gordon Lake New Boot Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 6	<<<-- Originally posted by Juan: we really need the opinion of some FCP(or Vegas, Premiere,etc) guru. I have seen in FCP that there are is an option for 'Animation', which suggests that you can use any images as independent frames...-->>> I use the Digital Juice Jumpback files for background animations in Vegas. They're in the PNG format and work fine. Gordon

April 24th, 2004, 11:34 PM	#398
Juan P. Pertierra Major Player Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 479	I took a break and read a bit in my FCP manual, and tried some tests. it seems that at least FCP has no problem importing entire directories of frames, the question is will it work in 4:4:4 and at least 12-bit RGB? Does anyone know? The render options allow for a high-precision rendering mode, but it doesn't say what precision is used...there is also an RGB render mode which does not specify the precision. I would assume that the system works in 4:4:4, it makes sense for effects. A good experiment if anyone has the time, would be to drop one of the raw frames i posted into your NLE program, and then render it as a short video...see if there is a way of setting a custom resolution, and if any color precision is lost.... Juan

April 25th, 2004, 12:40 AM	#399
Obin Olson Trustee Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Wilmington NC Posts: 1,414	Juan here are some really cool guys, if you ever want to build a custom made HD camera give them a call...I am working with them now to try and make/build/buy a highspeed camera that can shoot 60fps or more..I need this all the time for commercial productions... http://www.illunis.com/index.html I think it would be so cool if you took your ideas and applied them to an HD camera..all you need is the raw digital output right? and you can build/code a system for capture?

April 25th, 2004, 01:37 AM	#400
Joel Corkin Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Toronto/L.A. Posts: 47	Juan, I'm not sure about FCP, but Adobe After Effects imports image sequences and can handle and render out to 16-bit per channel. Apple products aren't always as transparent about what they are doing to your video as Adobe products are. Good luck with this project, you must be a bonafide genius.

April 25th, 2004, 02:12 AM	#402
Joel Corkin Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Toronto/L.A. Posts: 47	Juan, I just sent you a jpg to point something out that hopefully will be helpful. I haven't been able to read through the entire thread to see if this was covered, but it was only something that became apparent when I drastically altered the contrast of the RAW image. I hope it is useful.

April 25th, 2004, 01:20 PM	#404
Thomas Smet Trustee Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Milwaukee, WI Posts: 1,719	I am not sure about this but those uncompressed capture cards for Apple such as the aja or the black magic decklink claim to capture to a 10bit video format. The only problem is that I think these are YUV 4:2:2 format files. I was just thinking that it must be possible to create a video format that at least used 10bit. Also apparently these files work great in Final Cut Pro so that must mean that Final Cut Pro can handle higher than 8 bit video. The windows xp drivers for the black magic decklink card that works with Adobe Premiere Pro however currently only works at 8 bit video so this may mean Premiere Pro might have a bit depth limitation. The company is trying to get 10 bit to work in Premiere however so maybe it is possible. If 10 works than so should 12 bit. I hope this helps somewhat.