Hi Juan,

If all goes well, I'm wondering if you plan on building all these puppies yourself by hand, (because a lot of people will want one), or are you thinking about mass fabricating?

I personally can't wait to get one.

For starters, i'm planning on building them myself, but I do have other people who are going into this with me.

This is not final, but there will be a website such that you can actually monitor process on the installation, track the unit when it is sent back, etc. Test footage will also be posted as soon as the unit is installed and calibrated, so you can see results even before you get the camera back.

Some parts i might have another company make in bulk, but I will probably do the assembly. I have put a lot of effort into making it a design that can be easily assembled, and is very modular so it's easy to troubleshoot.

Juan

Juan price? do you have a ballpark yet?

Questions
 

Juan, you mentioned way back when that the ability to capture 4:2:2 uncompressed with any gamma changes, etc from the DVX would also be possible via this add-on. Is that still the case?


Also, a question for everyone I have as an independent filmmaker as to how pragmatic is using the 4:4:4 raw image as a method of doing long form projects. What processes would there be to go from the raw to a broadcast format? Is it time consuming to do the conversion? Also what is the gain using the raw since it will be converted to x format anyway (sort of a silly question, but still...)?

A lot of the technical talk is flying over my head and I just want to know what the functional potential is for making films.


thanks for all your hard work.

es

Eduardo,

The SDI output provides digital 10-bit 4:2:2 uncompressed video(YCbCr). The FULL quality RAW video is 4:4:4 12-bit RGB, which is what gets recorded as raw TIFF frames through the FW800 interface. There will also be the option to down-grade the quality that is recorded in the following ways:

RGB:
12-bit
10-bit
8-bit

YCbCr:
4:4:4 12/10/8bit
4:2:2 12/10/8bit
4:1:1 12/10/8bit
4:2:0 12/10/8bit

In either case, you can do all of this in post from the full quality output, but having the hardware do this simplifies the process and allows you to record longer on the same size drive.

I am contemplating the possibility of allowing the user to decide where the dynamic range will be allocated for 10/8bit selection, but that might get a bit complicated.

Juan

So the FW800 interface won't be able to capture the 4:2:2 uncompressed? I ask because The FW800 provides a cost-effective portable soloution as far as shooting on location (least I hope so). There are no SDI portable drives, right?


thanks for your prompt replies.

Yes, the FW800 interface will capture all of the settings i listed above, which are all uncompressed. In addition, the SDI will provide 4:2:2 10-bit, just because that's what the SDI standard is...but you can also get 4:2:2 in any flavor/decimation/precision via FW800.

I took one of the raw images you posted(the one of the tree) and I figured out that there are 382,635 pixels in that grab, yet the DVX100 has 410,000 pixels per CCD. Shouldn't your grabs be bigger?

That's correct, there are however some pixels which are covered up in the DVX, i think they are used to adjust the black level of the image. This is normal and is done in all cameras.

The 410k figure is correct, however a smaller portion actually 'sees' an optical image.

Juan

Hey Juan sorry to bother you but what is the statis of getting a stil(s) image of a gren/blue screen setup. I am really excited about testing out the keying with this type of footage.

No bother at all! Thanks for reminding me, i've been so caught up working on the prototype that i totally forgot. The setup is a little torn apart right now but I can probably manage to do it tomorrow, it doesn't take that much to hook it all up.

Juan

What would everyone suggest is the cheapest way to test SDI video output?

Rental is not an option because I probably need to have it for a relatively long time. Are there any cheap SDI monitors out there? Or is my best choice an SDI computer card, and if so which?

Oh and another dumb question...why exactly wouldn't one use a computer CRT monitor instead of an expensive production video monitor? AFAIK the computer monitors have at least a thousand lines of resolution, and ~some~ control over the image. I have an old small TV as an excuse for a video monitor for editing, and i'm considering using a large Sony computer CRT which is lying around at work.

My little TV is maxed waaaay out as far as resolution goes and the color is terrible...so a better monitor would really help in working with the raw footage off the DVX.

I'm not exactly sure why SDI is a requirement for this. What is the point of it when you can capture onto a firewire 800 disk and monitor with a regular S-video monitor? This seems far more economical than introducing SDI into the mix. Who wants to go out and buy an SDI monitor or deck to capture/monitor this?

My only question about FW800 is how you would design the IO so that the drive captures the data. AFAIK, there is no FW800 version of something like the FW400 quickstream or the Laird capdiv.

This is an exciting project. Let me know if you need any help with marketing it online in terms of content or design. I work for Amazon.com, so I have some experience setting up good customer experiences!

Thanks.

I would imagine that the FW800 drive has no file system as we know them, and is treated as a raw drive. Maybe a basic indexing data structure to mark where shots start and end. Simple.
Personally, I too would dump the SDI stuff. I hate video stuff :)

-Les

A 'FireStore' type drive is NOT needed. ANY Firewire800 drive WILL work. The drive will be formatted in the same manner that you use with your PC/Mac, and the files will be readable by a computer likewise. There is no special formatting, because the Box acts as a host, so it's just like connecting a drive to a computer....except the computer is now the raw capture box mounted on the DVX.

I am doing the SDI because it really isn't that much harder, and i'm sure someone can use it.

Juan