New Partnership between Silicon Imaging and IRIDAS Announced
 

http://www.iridas.com/press/pr/20061025.html

I'm excited, and really, this is big news because it means our camera is now a complete "blank slate" for you to make whatever color adjustments you want, load that into the camera, and have complete color management from the camera head through post.

Nothing like this exists anywhere on the planet. There is no camera on the market that can take 3D LUT's and use them as the native colorimetry of the camera, shoot with that 3D LUT, and manage it as non-destructive meta-data all the way through post. You're typically either constrained to the annoying confines of the on-board matrix and colorimetry of the camera, or you can do the 3D LUT technology using the Iridas toolset, but you have to preview the look on a monitor that can use 3D LUT's, like an expensive Cinetal, or something of that nature.

Speedgrade On-set has some amazing tools to create any color-look you can imagine . . . virtual film-stocks, etc. If you don't like the way the camera looks, make it look like *anything* you want! Seriously!

The reason I say this is because 3D LUT's map one set of RGB triplets to another set of RGB triplets. As a result, a single 3D LUT can model absoluetly ANY non-linear color correction, be it gamma correction, curves, saturation, selective color corrections, etc. Also our implementation of IRIDAS's 3D LUT's are completely non-destructive, meaning that if you clip the whites in the 3D LUT, but there's still "over-white" information, you can simply dial that information back in during post correction in a 32-bit floating point environment.

We're going to be packaging a bunch of generic looks with the camera to-do stuff like bleach bypasses, wide-dyanmic range stuff, low-con looks, etc.

There'll be more information coming out soon, but we just wanted you all to be aware of the exciting new developments happening. We've been quite, but we've been working hard :)

I went to the IRIDAS site and the only way to get pricing is to give them extensive info about yourself. What do these tools cost?

I'm also excited by the synergy between Silicon Imaging and IRIDAS.
I would like to know if one can preview the look on normal crt monitors in combination with software like cinespace or truelight, instead of using very expensive Cinetal monitors.
Thanks.

Excellent news, anothe added value reason to get a camera that fulfill our needs. Now we just await news about quicktime and you guys...

Speedgrade On-Set, which you use to make the .look files (3D LUT's), will be packaged with the camera as an add-on (i.e., like buying photoshop or cheaper), and we will also package with the camera a bunch of looks.

Also we will provide a customer sharing site for .look files, where users can upload them and then others can download them.

The "look" will be embedded in the CineForm RAW file, so you don't have to purchase the pricier Speedgrade HD or DI software for post, although they are *stellar* tools, and I would highly recommend them. You can still use After Effects, Premiere Pro and Prospect HD to modify the 3D LUT metadata. Metadata is always non-destructive, and operates in a floating-point colorspace.

So I'm assuming after a couple months of use, there will be a lot of "looks" to choose from if you decide that making your own is not your cup-of-tea . . . but knowing how most of you are in this forum, I'm sure you're going to take this feature and run with it to-do some really creative stuff.

If you've EVER tried to tweak a professional broadcast camera before, those convoluted menus are a thing of the past! :)

Expect news on QT shortly :)

Sounds great, will the captured video still integrate with Prospect HD?

Yes, naturally :)

Because the color-management technology from IRIDAS is metadata, and non-destructive, using Prospect HD you will have the ability to swap out .look files, and process the information using their 32-bit floating point pipeline, which means if you vitually "clipped" values using a high-contrast LUT, you can quickly and easily bring the information back into the visible color-space of your LUT (since over-white and under-black information is retained).

Prospect HD allows for some very powerful workflows with this arrangement.

Yes, this is completely possible since we have independent dual monitor support, although one thing to keep in mind is that we don't support running truelight on the DVR configuration . . . but with a "normal" PC or laptop, this is definitely possible. Just make sure you have enough processing power to do everything you need.

But yes, I see no issues running cinespace or truelight on a normal PC with a color-calibrated monitor attached as the second "video village" output source.

Cinetal monitors, while expensive though, do have a number of advantages, including an HD-SDI converter, Omnitek waveform and vectorscope, and superiour black levels and contrast ratio with special monitor coatings to maximize the ability of the monitor to show deep blacks to bright whites. It's definitely a step above a typical 23" Apple or 24" Dell LCD. And sony no longer makes their 24" CRT monitor (that thing was a beast), so if you want a wide-screen CRT, I'm not so sure there are many choices out there.

Looks like Cinespace supports IRADAS 3D LUT files too.

Ah, okay, well there you go then, perfect fit!

You will probably find IRIDAS .look file support cropping up in a number of different products and locations. It's quite a popular format, and the biggest name in non-destructive metadata color management on the market right now. That's why were're very happy to be partnered with them.

Also remember that IRIDAS Speedgrade can also export 1D and 3D LUT's in a number of formats . . . keep an eye out on the IRIDAS website for their upcoming release of Speedgrade 2006 which will have quite a number of features and support for third-party LUT's.

Speedgrade HD is priced at approx 10K USD per seat. I think I can stop even thinking about them for the forseable future.

Does this mean I can not speedgrade off the DVR (full body model). I can t turn up on a job and shoot "that 70's look" in real time out to the monitors with no additional laptops and cables?

Once QT support comes, will we be able to grade using all the functions of the cineform codec within FCP?

You can load the .look file from a seperate laptop running Speedgrade OnSet into the full-body SI-2K to get "that 70's Show look" straight out of the camera, into AVI/QT files, and on out-board monitors.

Also, you don't "need" Speedgrade HD or DI if you can't afford it to create "looks", although it does make the camera a very attractive choice if you're using a facility that has these tools in their post and finishing workflow.