4:4:4 10bit single CMOS HD project

Ben Syverson · June 29th, 2005, 09:43 AM

The Altasens camera that they are basing this system around costs $5000 for just the box, so unless SI is supposed to throw in the software and buy a capture card from Epix to give away there is no way this camera will cost under $5000.

Uh... Altasens doesn't make cameras -- they make sensors. Their sensor costs about $1500 -- NOT in bulk. Forget about software and capture cards -- what we're talking about is a FPGA-based device that streams data from the sensor to a couple of hard drives. It's not rocket science. The parts would cost at the most $3000... You could mark it up heartily from there...

Eric Gorski · June 29th, 2005, 10:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Noah Yuan-Vogel

eric, I checked out the primer movie website and it says the film was shot on super16mm and blown up to 35mm....

oops.. my bad.

BTW, just because I'm being critical of the direction some people are going in, that doesn't mean I don't wish them well... even if I can't afford these more expensive cameras, if they are profitable, then there will be more chance of someone making something cheaper... I'm just trying to remind people that us low-no-budget filmmakers need a camera too.

Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn · June 29th, 2005, 01:32 PM

JUST MY TWO CENTS:

Through the more than a century of film production there has been always one issue:
Shooting film is Expensive, since the beginning and till the end.There is no other way for it.
Cinema and Film Production isn't/wasn't made for people with no money.
If you are ready to produce a "film" you are also ready to Know and understand that it can't be made cheap.
On the other side digital technology and new workflows opened the gates for much more filmmakers to realize their dreams.Film production became more affordable but one thing still remains:It is not at "Zero Cost".
Of course you can go out and shoot the next blockbuster with your MiniDV camcorder.After that comes Post and may be a transfer to 35mm, and guess what: It isn't cheap!!!!
Lightning is not cheap (just go out and get the pricing of just an HMI lamp), Film negative, development and post equipment is not cheap.Even if you weren't paying anyone for his work, there is still the fact that someone needs to recover the money invested on equipment, eat, and pay the rent.
So I will say again something I wrote long time ago:

If you are a filmmaker and you are not prepared to invest the minimum money on your basic "tools" (which by the way are supposed to generate some profit for you, I mean make some bucks) how on earth are you able to buy a brand new car which just generates expenses ?
Would you trust a surgeon who uses a kitchen knife because he doesn't want to pay the "high" price for a scalpel?

Steve Nordhauser · June 29th, 2005, 02:04 PM

Juan,
In general I agree with you as long as people aren't convinced that great tools make a great film. I'm sure a great filmmaker with a DV camcorder and a PC will produce something more watchable than a ...lesser talent.... with a $200K tools budget.

I've seen this effect in woodcarving. Phenomenal stuff done with sharpened scrap metal vs. the newbie who spends $500 on the best tool set he can find. It is skill and practice that set the bar. Sure, the skilled person can be limited by poor tools and the unskilled person can be assisted by good tools but the talent and practice make the result.

Kyle Edwards · June 29th, 2005, 05:55 PM

Yes it costs money to make a quality product, but do you really think the people with money want to spend it as much as someone who is trying hard to keep costs down? They're in the same boat.

Price points aside, making either product (the one that SI is working on and the HDD machine we all want) the best they can be is the main goal.

Noah Yuan-Vogel · June 29th, 2005, 07:59 PM

I'm not sure I agree with that. There are people who have money and make money with their equipment who know equipment will pay for itself, seems to me thats a lot of security and big reason to buy equipment. For the student/indy filmmaker its much more expensive to make an expensive purchase since in a lot of people's cases they wont be making any money back because they dont have enough experience. I mean who is more quick to spend money on expensive HD equipment than a production company who has paying clients itching for HD content? Those are the people who have the money, I am the people who are trying hard to keep costs down because chances are I wont be making it back (and by the time i start actually making money with doing this I'm likely to have new equipment) but I still want to make an awesome product in HD now if possible.

I'd buy a camera with problems for $2000 even if it meant having some technical difficulties on the set because production time doesnt cost me much money. People with money and bigger productions would pay $10,000 for a higher quality, less buggy camera system; I wouldnt because I dont have the money.

Eric Gorski · June 29th, 2005, 09:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn

Cinema and Film Production isn't/wasn't made for people with no money.
If you are ready to produce a "film" you are also ready to Know and understand that it can't be made cheap.

I couldn't disagree with you more. Movies have, can, and will be made for very little money.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JUAN M. M. Fiebelkorn

Would you trust a surgeon who uses a kitchen knife because he doesn't want to pay the "high" price for a scalpel?

I would trust a talented surgeon with a plastic spork over a hack with a laser scalpel.

Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn · June 29th, 2005, 11:31 PM

For the people looking for HD and without "lots of money"

Just go out and buy the One CMOS HDV Sony camera.It gives you 1920x1080i and costs just 1,800 dollars.

@Eric:
Well, just tell me one good and famous movie made with no money.If it was shown at a Cinema ( I mean not Digital), and not shot on film the least it can cost was around 30~35,000 dollars.(and this means having just one or two final copies with sound).
In case you say 35,000 is cheap, so then 10,000 for a Good camera can't be called "expensive", right?

@Steve
I see you got the idea ;)

@to all others

Ok, it was my fault.I should have mentioned that my comment was based on making the asumption that someone looking for a Full RAW (uncompressed or not) removable lens system with at least 1920x1080 with color higher than 8 bit per channel should be a pro or semi pro.
If you are a film student you don't need this camera.If Lars Von Trier can shoot using MiniDV ,why a film student needs something better if not using it for profesional stuff?
Darren Aronovsky shot Pi using a Bolex, and in my opinion it is a quite good movie.He wasn't using an ARRI 435 or the like.

Footnote: Nothing personal fellows.Just common sense.I work professionaly as movie crew.I also do some post stuff.
So my basic idea would be something like this : "You don't need a War Tank to go to the Supermarket"

Noah Yuan-Vogel · June 30th, 2005, 12:28 AM

juan,
I dont imagine filmmaking to be about necessities but about creativity. People could all be shooting movies on analog video formats and people would still watch the stuff if that was the norm. The norm for mainstream cinema nowadays seems to be 35mm or HD. A student doesnt need to use HD for certain kinds of exercises, but for learning how to increase production value with HD or to shoot HD and learning how to take advantage of variable framerates or a 10bit image? If these are factors that could make a production better, or teach a student more, or get me a job (who is going to hire me to shoot in HD if I havent done HD before?) I dont think it would be reasonable to say students shouldnt have them. Students strive to be professional and want to be seen as professionals as quickly as possible, and its possible that creating images that people think look more like the professional, modern 35mm or HD images normally seen in theaters may help a student to be seen as a professional.

There are of course many other moer creative and more important aspects of filmmaking (varying from project to project), but as an aspiring DP with a fairly technical background, it seems limiting to me to be restricted to one frame size, one frame rate, one lens, and the option of only sensors <=1/3" . Anyway my point is I could deal without it, but if I can have better technology to create images that in some ways are more pleasing and use more flexible technology, especially in the same price range as inferior technology, then I consider it reasonable to pursue that option, especially in a world where its not so unusual for people to not get hired just because their camera doesnt do 24p.

Eric Gorski · June 30th, 2005, 05:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn

@Eric:
Well, just tell me one good and famous movie made with no money.If it was shown at a Cinema ( I mean not Digital), and not shot on film the least it can cost was around 30~35,000 dollars.(and this means having just one or two final copies with sound).

When you say an independent filmmaker needs $30,000 to pay for 35mm prints of their movie to screen it, I think you're out of touch with what's happened in the industry over the past decade. As a truley independent filmaker, your job is to make a movie and get someone to buy it. That's it. Robert Rodriguez's made El Mariachi for $7,000. He shot it on film, transfered it to vhs and cut it on two VCRs. He took that cut he made on tape and from that he sold it. After the studio bought it they spent tens of thousands of dollars cutting it on film and making prints and creating a marketing campaign. But Robert still gets to run around saying he made it for $7,000 because that's all he spent. Imagine if he had been born ten years later and was able to shoot on a borrowed HD camera? His budget would of been almost $0. Well... someone is going to pick-up where he left off. Its only a matter of time before the advances in technology connect with someone talented and ambitious enough to pull it off.

Maybe the technology isn't there yet. These cheap HD cameras might not be good enough and these $10,000 industrial set-ups are still going to be out of reach of most people. We're getting close though and its exciting.

Régine Weinberg · July 3rd, 2005, 11:04 AM

hm
a big story trying to keep rather short.
Living in France not french at all, once a week
all wednesday I'm on air on a free low power
radio station. It is Live political, uncorrect
and low tech but for about 2 million people to hear.
It is only 2 hours but all administrations knows about it
and there is really sometimes some impact.
We are not 124 bit SACD we are using of the shelf cd
and chep mik's but we are uncut live and talking
what a commercial radiostation
most time will never tell you.
We announce where free or quite free 3-8 Euro or $
live music or theatre is to be found and there is pleanty of,
but the newspapers mostly announce only blockbusters.

Let's resume, there is a niche, a need for such a radio station.

So there certainly is a niche for such live political uncorrect
TV station that's DV and if HD a 1080 Sony will be fine maybe with some 35mm adapter using some surplus film or foto lenses.
It's about ENG some experimental shorts maybe but never more.
It's live a lot of fun and not about running any money.
It's shows where all that money taxes are crying for is gone,
and the number of poors is counting more each hour.

That's the story and Sony or Pana at he lowest
entry level are way good enough. Cinerella and Linux
Cynebolic and free streming software is waht the future is about,
Vegas is great and a seven year old dual pro SGI people are
throwing out wit Maya complete not the latest version
will be great for yaers
So what, there is a lot of talent out just whith no
money on the hand, but but with low tech to have a theoretical audience of 2 to 3 million people
that's great and stremin ww is even more fantastic.
Let's face it, let the others dream of HD low budget blockbusters.
Film is the fastest way to loose your money,
there are so many things to be paid you can't get
the set for free.
New's, ENG, Shorts some
crazy Animation that's quite
a free lunch.

sorry for my bad english
sitting outside dreaming of streming
political uncorrect free live content
promoting with low tech clips
the local music groups,
thers is a lot work out
crying to be done
not dreaming of free 3 Cmos sytem

Riley Harmon · July 15th, 2005, 02:32 AM

wow this has grown insanely huge...hard to read through all the stuff...question....

how much does the SI-1300 chip cost?
how much do the USB model chips cost?

how easy is it to capture through their software without writing your own?
What are it's limitations?

thanks

Steve Nordhauser · July 15th, 2005, 08:33 AM

Riley,
These are sales questions to be discussed off the list. I have forwarded them to our sales manager.
Steve

Obin Olson · July 15th, 2005, 08:59 AM

for anyone that wants it I have a 1300 camera I will sell at a discount..we are using other sensors now..the 1300 is just sitting around....

check this for some progress on the dvx100 HD output...

www.dv3productions.com/HD.wmv

and yes the project is still alive and well...working hard on the board design for our 1080p system...

Will Griffith · July 15th, 2005, 10:01 AM

that looks pretty good...even on windows media.

what kind of lens? how was it being recorded (compression)?

June 29th, 2005, 01:32 PM	#2913
Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn Major Player Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Buenos Aires , Argentina Posts: 444	JUST MY TWO CENTS: Through the more than a century of film production there has been always one issue: Shooting film is Expensive, since the beginning and till the end.There is no other way for it. Cinema and Film Production isn't/wasn't made for people with no money. If you are ready to produce a "film" you are also ready to Know and understand that it can't be made cheap. On the other side digital technology and new workflows opened the gates for much more filmmakers to realize their dreams.Film production became more affordable but one thing still remains:It is not at "Zero Cost". Of course you can go out and shoot the next blockbuster with your MiniDV camcorder.After that comes Post and may be a transfer to 35mm, and guess what: It isn't cheap!!!! Lightning is not cheap (just go out and get the pricing of just an HMI lamp), Film negative, development and post equipment is not cheap.Even if you weren't paying anyone for his work, there is still the fact that someone needs to recover the money invested on equipment, eat, and pay the rent. So I will say again something I wrote long time ago: If you are a filmmaker and you are not prepared to invest the minimum money on your basic "tools" (which by the way are supposed to generate some profit for you, I mean make some bucks) how on earth are you able to buy a brand new car which just generates expenses ? Would you trust a surgeon who uses a kitchen knife because he doesn't want to pay the "high" price for a scalpel? Last edited by Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn; June 29th, 2005 at 01:53 PM.

June 29th, 2005, 02:04 PM	#2914
Steve Nordhauser Silicon Imaging, Inc. Join Date: May 2004 Location: Troy, NY USA Posts: 325	Juan, In general I agree with you as long as people aren't convinced that great tools make a great film. I'm sure a great filmmaker with a DV camcorder and a PC will produce something more watchable than a ...lesser talent.... with a $200K tools budget. I've seen this effect in woodcarving. Phenomenal stuff done with sharpened scrap metal vs. the newbie who spends $500 on the best tool set he can find. It is skill and practice that set the bar. Sure, the skilled person can be limited by poor tools and the unskilled person can be assisted by good tools but the talent and practice make the result. __________________ Silicon Imaging, Inc. We see the Light! http://www.siliconimaging.com

July 3rd, 2005, 11:04 AM	#2921
Régine Weinberg Major Player Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Bordeaux, going to Bangkok, 2011 Posts: 232	low budget and so on hm a big story trying to keep rather short. Living in France not french at all, once a week all wednesday I'm on air on a free low power radio station. It is Live political, uncorrect and low tech but for about 2 million people to hear. It is only 2 hours but all administrations knows about it and there is really sometimes some impact. We are not 124 bit SACD we are using of the shelf cd and chep mik's but we are uncut live and talking what a commercial radiostation most time will never tell you. We announce where free or quite free 3-8 Euro or $ live music or theatre is to be found and there is pleanty of, but the newspapers mostly announce only blockbusters. Let's resume, there is a niche, a need for such a radio station. So there certainly is a niche for such live political uncorrect TV station that's DV and if HD a 1080 Sony will be fine maybe with some 35mm adapter using some surplus film or foto lenses. It's about ENG some experimental shorts maybe but never more. It's live a lot of fun and not about running any money. It's shows where all that money taxes are crying for is gone, and the number of poors is counting more each hour. That's the story and Sony or Pana at he lowest entry level are way good enough. Cinerella and Linux Cynebolic and free streming software is waht the future is about, Vegas is great and a seven year old dual pro SGI people are throwing out wit Maya complete not the latest version will be great for yaers So what, there is a lot of talent out just whith no money on the hand, but but with low tech to have a theoretical audience of 2 to 3 million people that's great and stremin ww is even more fantastic. Let's face it, let the others dream of HD low budget blockbusters. Film is the fastest way to loose your money, there are so many things to be paid you can't get the set for free. New's, ENG, Shorts some crazy Animation that's quite a free lunch. sorry for my bad english sitting outside dreaming of streming political uncorrect free live content promoting with low tech clips the local music groups, thers is a lot work out crying to be done not dreaming of free 3 Cmos sytem

July 15th, 2005, 08:33 AM	#2923
Steve Nordhauser Silicon Imaging, Inc. Join Date: May 2004 Location: Troy, NY USA Posts: 325	Riley, These are sales questions to be discussed off the list. I have forwarded them to our sales manager. Steve __________________ Silicon Imaging, Inc. We see the Light! http://www.siliconimaging.com

July 15th, 2005, 10:01 AM	#2925
Will Griffith Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Tennessee Posts: 164	that looks pretty good...even on windows media. what kind of lens? how was it being recorded (compression)? __________________ will griffith producer/editor

June 29th, 2005, 09:43 AM	#2911
Ben Syverson Major Player Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: chicago Posts: 434	The Altasens camera that they are basing this system around costs $5000 for just the box, so unless SI is supposed to throw in the software and buy a capture card from Epix to give away there is no way this camera will cost under $5000. Uh... Altasens doesn't make cameras -- they make sensors. Their sensor costs about $1500 -- NOT in bulk. Forget about software and capture cards -- what we're talking about is a FPGA-based device that streams data from the sensor to a couple of hard drives. It's not rocket science. The parts would cost at the most $3000... You could mark it up heartily from there...

June 29th, 2005, 05:55 PM	#2915
Kyle Edwards Major Player Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: LI, NY Posts: 274	Yes it costs money to make a quality product, but do you really think the people with money want to spend it as much as someone who is trying hard to keep costs down? They're in the same boat. Price points aside, making either product (the one that SI is working on and the HDD machine we all want) the best they can be is the main goal.

June 29th, 2005, 07:59 PM	#2916
Noah Yuan-Vogel Major Player Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: New York City Posts: 613	I'm not sure I agree with that. There are people who have money and make money with their equipment who know equipment will pay for itself, seems to me thats a lot of security and big reason to buy equipment. For the student/indy filmmaker its much more expensive to make an expensive purchase since in a lot of people's cases they wont be making any money back because they dont have enough experience. I mean who is more quick to spend money on expensive HD equipment than a production company who has paying clients itching for HD content? Those are the people who have the money, I am the people who are trying hard to keep costs down because chances are I wont be making it back (and by the time i start actually making money with doing this I'm likely to have new equipment) but I still want to make an awesome product in HD now if possible. I'd buy a camera with problems for $2000 even if it meant having some technical difficulties on the set because production time doesnt cost me much money. People with money and bigger productions would pay $10,000 for a higher quality, less buggy camera system; I wouldnt because I dont have the money.

June 29th, 2005, 11:31 PM	#2918
Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn Major Player Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Buenos Aires , Argentina Posts: 444	For the people looking for HD and without "lots of money" Just go out and buy the One CMOS HDV Sony camera.It gives you 1920x1080i and costs just 1,800 dollars. @Eric: Well, just tell me one good and famous movie made with no money.If it was shown at a Cinema ( I mean not Digital), and not shot on film the least it can cost was around 30~35,000 dollars.(and this means having just one or two final copies with sound). In case you say 35,000 is cheap, so then 10,000 for a Good camera can't be called "expensive", right? @Steve I see you got the idea ;) @to all others Ok, it was my fault.I should have mentioned that my comment was based on making the asumption that someone looking for a Full RAW (uncompressed or not) removable lens system with at least 1920x1080 with color higher than 8 bit per channel should be a pro or semi pro. If you are a film student you don't need this camera.If Lars Von Trier can shoot using MiniDV ,why a film student needs something better if not using it for profesional stuff? Darren Aronovsky shot Pi using a Bolex, and in my opinion it is a quite good movie.He wasn't using an ARRI 435 or the like. Footnote: Nothing personal fellows.Just common sense.I work professionaly as movie crew.I also do some post stuff. So my basic idea would be something like this : "You don't need a War Tank to go to the Supermarket"

June 30th, 2005, 12:28 AM	#2919
Noah Yuan-Vogel Major Player Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: New York City Posts: 613	juan, I dont imagine filmmaking to be about necessities but about creativity. People could all be shooting movies on analog video formats and people would still watch the stuff if that was the norm. The norm for mainstream cinema nowadays seems to be 35mm or HD. A student doesnt need to use HD for certain kinds of exercises, but for learning how to increase production value with HD or to shoot HD and learning how to take advantage of variable framerates or a 10bit image? If these are factors that could make a production better, or teach a student more, or get me a job (who is going to hire me to shoot in HD if I havent done HD before?) I dont think it would be reasonable to say students shouldnt have them. Students strive to be professional and want to be seen as professionals as quickly as possible, and its possible that creating images that people think look more like the professional, modern 35mm or HD images normally seen in theaters may help a student to be seen as a professional. There are of course many other moer creative and more important aspects of filmmaking (varying from project to project), but as an aspiring DP with a fairly technical background, it seems limiting to me to be restricted to one frame size, one frame rate, one lens, and the option of only sensors <=1/3" . Anyway my point is I could deal without it, but if I can have better technology to create images that in some ways are more pleasing and use more flexible technology, especially in the same price range as inferior technology, then I consider it reasonable to pursue that option, especially in a world where its not so unusual for people to not get hired just because their camera doesnt do 24p.

July 15th, 2005, 02:32 AM	#2922
Riley Harmon Major Player Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Oklahoma Posts: 424	wow this has grown insanely huge...hard to read through all the stuff...question.... how much does the SI-1300 chip cost? how much do the USB model chips cost? how easy is it to capture through their software without writing your own? What are it's limitations? thanks

July 15th, 2005, 08:59 AM	#2924
Obin Olson Trustee Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Wilmington NC Posts: 1,414	for anyone that wants it I have a 1300 camera I will sell at a discount..we are using other sensors now..the 1300 is just sitting around.... check this for some progress on the dvx100 HD output... www.dv3productions.com/HD.wmv and yes the project is still alive and well...working hard on the board design for our 1080p system...