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Old May 23rd, 2005, 02:52 AM   #16
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HDSDI is 10 bit and even HDCAM images look better through HDSDI port than recorded to tape. Sony announced HDSDI Miranda will be available for FX/Z1. The image through uncompressed output of FX/Z1 looks superior to recorded images. I'm sure uncompressed analog output is sufficient quality for HDSDI 4:2:2 output. HDSDI brings superior 10 bit quality. It be all I need. If compressed 8 bit 3:1:1 good enough for Lucas and Rodriguez, uncompressed 10 bit 4:2:2 should be good enough for all filmmakers on this board.

Please make someone 10 bit recorder for new low cost HD cameras. 12 bit is better for sure, but available 10 bit is good enough for me.

Radek
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Old May 23rd, 2005, 05:43 AM   #17
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"HDSDI is 10 bit and even HDCAM images look better through HDSDI port than recorded to tape."

This is correct. You can get 10bit 4:2:2 uncompressed off the SDI port on the camera and record direct to disc.

"Sony announced HDSDI Miranda will be available for FX/Z1."

And other companies have products too, but this will only deal with compressed HDV video over firewire being decompressed and then sent over SDI, so you don't get any quality improvement with it, but it will allow you to interface an HDV camera or deck with standard broadcast equipment or NLEs.

"The image through uncompressed output of FX/Z1 looks superior to recorded images."

I'm sure it does.

"I'm sure uncompressed analog output is sufficient quality for HDSDI 4:2:2 output. HDSDI brings superior 10 bit quality."

Probably. All depends on the DtoA converter. Avoiding the HDV codec probably is more beneficial than the analogue link. It would be nice to avoid the analogue link and have an SDI port on the camera, but Sony are not going to do that! Whether we will get 8bit or 10bit quality is unknown though.

"If compressed 8 bit 3:1:1 good enough for Lucas and Rodriguez, uncompressed 10 bit 4:2:2 should be good enough for all filmmakers on this board. "

Te he te he :-) Even though HDCAM is compressed 3:1:1, you'll still get better pictures off that and uncompressed off a little HDV camera due to the better lenses and bigger chips on the HDCAM, and of course, as you point out, recording direct off the camera head of the HDCAM elevates your picture quality still further, and indeed, that was uses a lot by Lucas, and only a small part was recorded to tape.

"Please make someone 10 bit recorder for new low cost HD cameras. 12 bit is better for sure, but available 10 bit is good enough for me."

Very few NLEs handle >10bit, so going beyond that would be hard to sell. A box with a Y'PbPr to HDSDI to hard drive RAID would be very interesting and ever-so-useful for some people. I'd see it being more useful still if you could compress with a mild codec lilke PhotoJPEG which would save on the drive requirements too.

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Old May 23rd, 2005, 06:11 AM   #18
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You are all talking nonsense guys.
How on earth would HDSDI give you 10 bit Y from a source which was recorded using just 8 bit Y????????
If you have 256 shades of gray at the beginning, HDSDI won't make miracles.
BTW, if nobody knows it, SDI is 10 bit and also 8 bit.Both bitdepths are supported.
Anyway I know some Einstein "wannabe" will come after me telling me I'm wrong, so everybody is free to do it.
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Old May 23rd, 2005, 06:32 AM   #19
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That's because people are talking about going out from the analogue Y'PbPr connections live, before the video ever gets recorded to tape with the HDV codec. That said, I don't think anyone knows exactly how the analogue output is made and what kind of quality it contains, but it's fair to reckon you might well get a better picture off it than after HDV compression, which is rather harsh on video.

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Old May 23rd, 2005, 06:43 AM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Graeme Nattress
Very few NLEs handle >10bit, so going beyond that would be hard to sell. A box with a Y'PbPr to HDSDI to hard drive RAID would be very interesting and ever-so-useful for some people. I'd see it being more useful still if you could compress with a mild codec lilke PhotoJPEG which would save on the drive requirements too.

Graeme
Exactly. Or could compress CineForm. Now, if Andromeda guy can break into DVX and tap ADC and feed into laptop drive, and he does not encounter noise problems by doing, it may be as easy get some mini computer with RAID and new AMD dual core processo that compress on fly and feed into local RAID. I would not mind carrying this battery powered thing on my back. Or maybe could separate th camera and feed to staionary camputer. How long can be HDSDI cable?

Maybe all parts and software are available off shelf, maybe all is needed is buld minicomputer with HDSDI in and big battery pack. Maybe some genius could figure it over weekend, make some good money to sell systems, as technology improves, would soon become not mini-desktop computer but laptop, eventually palmtop.

Can someone figure how big would the thing be, how much weigh and how much would cost to buy now, then build one and offer for sale. As orders come in, he could build systems as he goes, he would not need invest more money than build one. I'm sure would make much much more money than having regular job.

What is Obin building may be superior but this could available much quicker and there would not be LCD monitor issues. The camera could be used for regular shhoting, with minicomputer backpack for filmmaking, the backpack could be used for field editing, or for amateur like me as main editing computer.

Andromeda guy has nice system but camera viewfinder does not have proper brightness, etc.

Maybe different more expensive model could be used for editing too.

Radek
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Old May 23rd, 2005, 06:48 AM   #21
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn
You are all talking nonsense guys.
How on earth would HDSDI give you 10 bit Y from a source which was recorded using just 8 bit Y????????
If you have 256 shades of gray at the beginning, HDSDI won't make miracles.
BTW, if nobody knows it, SDI is 10 bit and also 8 bit.Both bitdepths are supported.
Anyway I know some Einstein "wannabe" will come after me telling me I'm wrong, so everybody is free to do it.
I don't think Sony would advertise their camera with HDSDI converter if signal would not have 10 bit quality. They well aware of DIY projects here and of Altasens CMOS, etc. They are getting ahead of these guys.

Radek
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Old May 23rd, 2005, 08:34 AM   #22
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I've been thinking about it, and sony makes chips that do pretty much only a handful of things. It might be possible to see if any of their hdv cameras have an dac just before output. If it does a serializer could tap into the signal before hand and with a little skill your hdv camera now has hd-sdi out.

Personally, I think that companies like sony would not include hd-sdi for the reason that the price point doesn't warrant it. It would be bad marketing if their is a hint of possibility that a 5k camera could compete with the same companies 100k camera.
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Old May 23rd, 2005, 05:37 PM   #23
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith Wakeham
I've been thinking about it, and sony makes chips that do pretty much only a handful of things. It might be possible to see if any of their hdv cameras have an dac just before output. If it does a serializer could tap into the signal before hand and with a little skill your hdv camera now has hd-sdi out.

Personally, I think that companies like sony would not include hd-sdi for the reason that the price point doesn't warrant it. It would be bad marketing if their is a hint of possibility that a 5k camera could compete with the same companies 100k camera.
Good idea Keith. A separate dac opens up the digital data path way for easy access. I hope there is more than 8 bits uncompressed, but I also would be surprised if there is, knowing the way they think.

You can test chart/oscilloscope levels when the cameras arrive, and see what signal is there also. I think the camera companies might be offering more in this generation to swing people away from the Andromeda scheme, and alternative raw cameras.

Quiet frankly, the control offered by this sort of arrangement is much better for me (and many) for docos than the pie in the sky Cinema stuff that has taken over this forum.
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Old May 23rd, 2005, 06:12 PM   #24
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I agree. The companies must be feeling some pressure and threat that someone outside the big names might steal some of their business so they might be trying to curb it by offering up some of the stuff we want to see in a camera.

I'd be interested in seeing the inside of a hdv camera, but I have no intention of ever purchasing one in the immediate future so my ideas are just pipe dream ideas of hacking.

Their definetly could be some real benefits to this method over the ccd hacking method, essentially the camera is still intact. ccd hacking is pretty much just using the entire body of the camera full of electronics to control a simple semiconductor
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Old May 23rd, 2005, 06:39 PM   #25
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You could ask a local service centre if you could take a peek, probably would not show you schematics or anything, but looking inside might be fine.

It would probably be a much better business strategy for Andromeda to sell a component to hard disk/HDSDI products based on their recorder as well. What do you think?

Actually, with your system, you could design a component direct to disk (GigE) a lot easier than making a platform. Which could be plugged straight into a computer for copying, or the drives could be. All you would have to do is record to an industry standard uncompressed file format. How much would a simpler FPGA board with component IC circuit on one end and GigE IC on the other cost? This would cut the cost of a capture computer, or the expensive HDSDI receiving card. Would this be a better idea?
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Old May 23rd, 2005, 07:33 PM   #26
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hard drive capture is possible in fpga, i know this for certain, gige isn't as easy as it sounds from my understanding - although I could be wrong. Network stuff is a protocol packet based interface so you need to know how to respond to requests and pack data and stuff like that. Makes gige more complicated. All the gige based cameras I've seen use an embedded processor to handle all that tcp/ip stuff and that is really what makes it too complicated for me.

But if your thinking something like converting hd-sdi directly to gige, you'll actually have to give up right now and why, because HD-SDI is 1.485 gbps continous. Even with special drivers gige will max out at 800 mbps. This is a technical limitation and in the end the money for a hd-sdi card I think would be well spent.

If someone can afford a 6k - 10k camera I don't think a decklink hd-sdi card at $600 is a huge stretch for anyone then.

Certain designs could benefit with doing away with hd-sdi and use some computer interface instead, but this application is much better suited for hd-sdi all around since what comes out of those component outputs is smpte 274 compliant
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Old May 23rd, 2005, 10:17 PM   #27
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Keith, could you point me to some info about interfacing to CMOS sensors?
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Old May 24th, 2005, 04:21 AM   #28
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Hi guys

I just remembered something that might help. I think Mike over at http://www.hdforindies.com/ might be working on a similar project, so he might be worth contacting. Keith for your project, Mike probably is also worth contacting.

Keith, I was more thinking of an integrated GigE chip solution (used on cards or MB, or FPGA/processor with it built in) but I see what you mean about the protocols. I don't particularly know how much is needed past the IC for this too work, but as the drive is the only thing on the GigE, and you are just issuing commands directly from camera to the drives, it should be a portion of the normal GigE protocol complexity. The other alternative would be to output to SATA drives directly. If you can work with one of the open source people familiar with SATA/GigE drivers, it should not be very difficult for them. It comes down to where ever you want to do drive interfacing or HDSDI interfacing and carry around a capture computer.

Bandwidth, there is a couple of things. If the camera is 4:2:0 8-bit 1080 25p, that's 75MB/s buffered/packed signal (1080*1440 and 720p less). If you wanted more you could use the work on the first channel and duplicate it (to dual channel/caddy software raid). I have thought of a simple differential lossless compression scheme, but this is probably much more than your looking for.

According to Radek, the cheapest Sony camera with uncompressed component out maybe $1500, if true, a blessing.

Of side interest, I have also started a specific thread for discussion of Sumix HD stuff, you are all welcome to come attend:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?p=315959

Last edited by Wayne Morellini; May 24th, 2005 at 04:37 AM.
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Old May 24th, 2005, 07:04 AM   #29
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Juan:
I don't really know where to point you to information on interfacing a cmos sensor. Cmos really only comes down to powering it, a serial register system, and an output. Their used to be a website for stanford class ee392 that had a simple project online with a cmos sensor and explained a lot but I can't get to the site and they are using a new ccnet thing that means only their students can get access now. I'm still looking to see if the old site is up but no luck so far

Wayne:
I see the advantages of some of the newer technologies, but the newer something is the more complicated it gets. I would love to goto sata, but the standard is, in one word, insane. It took me a few weeks of research to figure out ata, but sata, that needs a team of people to figure it out - or at least someone better than me.

So until I'm a little smarter (or at least more knowledgable) I'll hold these other methods in a pocket for some other time.

I know sony released a nother camera, I think its a hdv in a pdx10 body or something. Not sure on pricing, but if it is true then their could be all sorts of possibilities
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Old May 24th, 2005, 04:24 PM   #30
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Guys,

You can buy service manuals for FX/Z1 cameras, but they could be available for free over net. They are free in Japan and I actually had one of Japanese eBay seller getting me service manual for free. There are usaually two versions, Japanese and English. The English covers Export, US, European models. Export means model that is sold in Japan for foreign travelers and tourists. Sony normally prints and distributes Tourist model catalogs in Japan. Sony, Panasonic, etc. also extremely willing to send free service manual if you're strapped somewhere in Afrika or somewhere where there is no service. They also very helpful to filmmakers, schools, etc., will even send free parts from Japan. Don't expect this kind curteousy from local Sony or Panasonic headquarters.

New Sony HDV camera was announced in Japan at 1,500 street and $1.700 street in US. The pro version with XLR mic jacks will cost lot more.

FX/Z1 has analog output after ADC, from that point is also fed MPEG2 processor.

Radek
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