Someone I know has funding for a couple of cameras in this price range. At the moment he's considering the XDCAM HD, but the SI could be an option.

How are the delivery dates for the camera at the moment? He has a deadline for the end of October.

I am in exactly the same position. I am considering the XDcam also! I am waiting for the SI because it seems a better otion for the money. But time is an issue. I am hoping something happens very soon.

Expect announcements on Nov 2nd.

Sorry to be so vague.

Hi,
The SI Mini (camera head) is available now and the full DVR (camera with recording) will be available early November. We will have some big announcements regarding new features. Contact me off list if you need more information.
Regards,
Steve

Hi,
The SI Mini (camera head) is available now and the full DVR (camera with recording) will be available early November. We will have some big announcements regarding new features. Contact me off list if you need more information.
Regards,
Steve

Neat. I'll pass the info and dates over to him and find out the requirements of the funders.

Thanks Jason, I will be expecting news from you, please keep us posted.

-I am correct in assuming that the camera head can run into a laptop (usb2/firewire) and record to Cineform Raw?
-What is the price for the camera head?
-(also the Cineform Raw)
- Is there a ETA for Cineform on Intel MacBookPro's?
(I am assuming that with the upcoming core2dou they will now be fast enough,

Thanks,
John

The camera head runs gigabit ethernet to a NIC card in a PC. Our Recorder software with the Cineform RAW encoder runs under XP on the PC. Once you record on a USB 2.0 or firewire drive, it can then be moved to another machine.

For pricing contact me off-line.

The record application is an XP only application. The editing for Premiere with the Cineform tools is in place now. Cineform will have a solution for FCP by November.

Recording requires a Core2 Duo processor, at least 2.3GHz. There are some other requirements we can discuss.

-Steve

-I am correct in assuming that the camera head can run into a laptop (usb2/firewire) and record to Cineform Raw?

-What is the price for the camera head?
-(also the Cineform Raw)

- Is there a ETA for Cineform on Intel MacBookPro's?
(I am assuming that with the upcoming core2dou they will now be fast enough,

Thanks,
John

BTW, slight revision to the 2.3Ghz specification . . .

This is what we highly recommend to use all the features we've been putting in with the best compression settings . . .

lower-quality compression needs less processing power. Also lower resolutions need less processing power. And finally lower frame-rates need less processing power.

You could do 720/24P with a Dothan-based Pentium M notebook from last year. Also 1080/24P with the lowest compression quality setting (which still looks good) will also work on a normal Yonah notebook.

If you want all the bells and whistles we're putting in though, you've gotta have the fastest machine you can get your hands on when it comes to laptops.

Given the likely local competition that a SI would have here; how do the pictures from the SI camera compare to those from a Sony HDW 750 or a F900?

Just that commercials production companies might be more interested than the traditional ENG camera users.

For pricing contact me off-line.

The record application is an XP only application. The editing for Premiere with the Cineform tools is in place now. Cineform will have a solution for FCP by November.

Recording requires a Core2 Duo processor, at least 2.3GHz. There are some other requirements we can discuss.

-Steve


Steve:
You may be swamped with info requests, but I messaged you a couple of days ago, and haven't heard back yet. Let me know if you didn't get the message, and I'll re-send. I'm in the market for a new camera in the near future, but have some questions about the head-only config.
Thanks

Sorry Scott. I'm plowing through some responses this morning. You are next.
Steve

Sorry Scott. I'm plowing through some responses this morning. You are next.
Steve
No sweat... I was just checking. Never used the forum for a private email before, so just wanted to make sure it got through.

Steve I sent you and email too.

Thanks for taking the time.

haven't heard anything, did I ask the wrong questions?

Hi Joe,

I'm sure Steve will get back with you in a timely manner . . . right now we're really busy getting ready for the immient release of the camera (can't tell you when, but soon), and as a result, there may be a little bit of delay in response-but we are not intentionally ignoring anyone here.

He contacted me. Thanks.

How do the camera images hold up aginst the 1080p 3ccd cams on the market?

and the price for the entire camera? not the head unit, camera with body and viewfinder?

Obin,
You can see the images on our website under "Gallery" and decide for yourself. We have been met with enthusiasm but we encourage you to make qualitative evaluations.

For now, we are keeping pricing off the boards but it is similar to what was announced 6 months ago. There will be a new round of press releases within a month as the product is finalized. Lots of new features have been added.
-Steve

So am I right in thinking that it will be more money for the camera body then the RED?

So am I right in thinking that it will be more money for the camera body then the RED?

It hasn't been clear to me what you get for how much when RED is ready. Our basic camera includes the viewfinder, 4 hours of media, extra drive carriers, shipping case, the Cineform RAW codec and we have a bundle with full editing tools for not much more. This is a complete and ready to use camera (add batteries and optics).

People who understand the Cineform workflow recognize the value that this brings to the SI-DVR camera.
-Steve

Thanks Steve.

People who understand the Cineform workflow recognize the value that this brings to the SI-DVR camera.
-Steve

I think there's one pricinpal that everyone is missing right now with any other camera's proposed RAW workflow compared to CineForm RAW. You Obin, with your involvement in the Andromeda project, should be very aware of what I'm about to talk about.

The situation is this . . . I've shot my footage, it's in a proprietary RAW format and I need to edit/composite/etc. with it . . . "How do I get access to my RAW data?"

Do you sit in a conversion application which is one large step removed from your editing/compositing application and render the footage to another codec that will then serve as your "working" format?

Let's say you take this option.

If 1 frame of RAW data takes 1 second to render over to your chosen actual "working codec", it will take 24 hours for 1 shot hour to be ready for editing, etc. That's at 24fps. It will take 30 hours at 30fps. Now I know you will tell me that Moore's law will remove that need, but honestly, even if you were to halve that amount and it took 0.5 seconds per frame, you're still looking at 12 hours for conversion of 1 hour at 24fps. Just as an indicator, Dalsa at Cinegear expo was showing off their RAW conversion tool of their 4K Origin frames on some fast systems . . . depending on the system, it takes them 5-7 seconds per frame!. That would mean it will take 5 days to convert only 1 shot hour of footage on a single machine! Now of course you can reduce those times by throwing a render farm into the mix, but realize this . . . decent render farms are not cheap. You cannot just set one up in your basement without proper cooling, power, etc. For instance, your standard dual Woodcrest Xeon server (let's say an Xserver) will consume around 350W total at 100% CPU. An Xserve RAID will consume 480W. A Sanbox 5200 fibre switch will consume around 120W of power. You can only add 4 machines and a RAID with associated fiber and gigabit metadata switch to a standard 20amp house circuit here in the U.S. Plus the cost of such a system will run you around $50K when you're all said and done. In addition, you've gone from being the artistic film-maker to being a technical data-wrangler.

Say you don't shoot RAW, and shoot directly out HD-SDI or to a 4:4:4 RGB codec, etc.? Well, in that case, you've now lost all the benefits of RAW, including the non-destructive nature of RAW conversion and codecs.

If you go to a "working codec" because you can't edit the native RAW codec, you're also stuck in the same situation . . . if you use something like DVCProHD because of it's real-time streaming capabilities, when you want to make adjustments to your footage with the maximum amount of dynamic range at your disposal, it's back to the RAW conversion program. Furthermore, you need to go through an offline-online workflow scenario, which will cost more time in rendering, and there will be the need for expensive fast disk-space as the online format will most likely be some form of uncompressed 4:4:4 RGB which takes up 180MB/s+. If you want to edit that in multi-stream, it's not going to be cheap . . .

With all the workarounds and headaches mentioned above, you start to wonder why anybody in their right-mind would settle for a proprietary RAW conversion applicaton workflow and [i]wouldn't want to have direct access to their RAW data in all their favorite applications, and not have some intermediary step in-between?

CineForm RAW gives you direct access to the RAW data in a universally accessable AVI or Quicktime wrapper, it gives you 10-bit precision with 4:4:4 RGB decodes and 32-bit floating point internal processing so no data is ever clipped, and furthermore it gives you real-time multistream editing without the exhorbant costs associated with uncompressed and the disk arrays required to move that stuff around. All you need is a modern-day desktop computer. $3K for a new MacPro is a lot easier to swallow than $50K for a render farm so you can see what you shot by the end of the day.

Frankly, RAW conversion applications are worse than the film-lab . . . I'll get my film dailes back faster and cheaper than spending money on render farms, etc. to-do the same thing.

The question shouldn't be do I save $3K or whatever on the price of a camera, but "What do I save in my very precious and expensive [i]time", and "How much does the workflow and associated infrastructure cost me?"

If time isn't important to you, then I guess there is no argument. I think for many working these are very important questions though, and the fundamental flaws associated with RAW conversion applications will rear their ugly head in the near future. So in the end, you purchase a RAW camera, but you'll never be able to take advantage of all the benefits that RAW could deliver.

I thought of that too when I saw the RED flowchart released at IBC. You can't go converting everything BEFORE you edit. That's nuts, and very inefficient.

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume for now they are not dumb, and know this. All that would be required to get around this would be to make a Quicktime codec that can do a quick display of the data stream, but not at full quality/bit depth, etc.

If they put it in a Quicktime wrapper that decodes to an "offline" proxy, you're only delaying the pain if you still have to go through a conversion application and not your editing/compositing application when it comes time to get access to the RAW data.

You're still back to an offline/online workflow . . . you'll still require super-fast disks for the online file formats, and if the RAW conversion application can't ingest your timeline like a Final Cut Pro XML or Adobe AAC file, you're stuck having to figure out timecodes and export clips one-by-one from your timeline for conforming (so you don't have to re-render all your footage for online). This still sounds very messy to me.

I can see that you might be able to edit the offline files in Final Cut, etc., but it's matching back to the online that's going to bite you. You will have to export one-by-one from the timeline a Quicktime Reference movie file (so you don't destroy the RAW data in the codec), then import that into the conversion application, batch convert it to an online format, and then re-conform.

The only advantage to this process is that you're trimming down the amount of footage that needs to be converted, and you can do an offline "creative" edit, or at the very least pick your shots. But in the end you're still back to offline/online, conforming, etc., all of which waste time and money, and require significant hardware investments in fast storage, especially for multi-stream uncompressed RGB 4:4:4 work.

To simply look at the price of the base camera and make your final decision misses the whole point of what it takes to actually work with that piece of equipment, and how well it integrates into common workflows.

No, I was talking about the concept of a codec that presents two different faces to different apps.

A quicktime codec that handles things in the fastest way possible, for quick decoding to screen or whatever. And then a more complete codec implementation for their conversion utility.

I should say, this is the way I've always understood Cineform raw to work. Cut in the codec in Premiere or whatever, then finesse the data in the codec after you are done cutting into an uncompressed format.

Oh No!

That is *definitely* not the way that Cineform RAW works. There is absolutely no need for offline/online or re-encoding to an uncompressed codec anywhere in the pipeline . . . the Cineform RAW codec is already a high-quality 10-bit online codec with 4:4:4 RGB decoding and a 32-bit floating point internal processing pipeline of the RAW data. Furthermore metadata control over your RAW data is available in your primary working applications. You shoot, edit/composite, and output to whatever or wherever, all with the same file . . . there is no need to convert to anything else.

Read the white-paper here for a better explanation:

http://siliconimaging.com/DigitalCinema/Files/CineForm_RAW_Whitepaper.pdf

The main problem is when those "two different apps" you mention are not your editing/compositing programs, but is a separate conversion application that requires rendering into another online codec. That means you have to jump out of your primary working application into another app to get at the RAW data, and then re-import that back into your primary working editing/compositing application-basically offline/online. Cineform RAW completely avoids that scenario.

Thanks Jason, you're reading up. ;)

Nate, the beauty of the system is that it feels like you are editing like normal (i.e. DV-ish), yet the engine hides all the high dynamic range processing and bayer demoasicing filters, and bunch of other secret sauce we aren't discussing yet. Raw is supposed to be hard, that's why we have the Dalsa Origin, Arri D20 and Red workflows, each offering (publicly) variations on the same pre-processing workflow. To prove the flexibility we put our own money on the line (the entrance fee :) ) and used a SI prototype camera to shot in 48 Hour Film Project (http://48hourfilm.com/). It is a hard enough getting this done when shooting DV to tape, yet we did it with a prototype camera, a $50 lenses off ebay and rangling a toddler in the shoot (I couldn't get a baby-sitter, so she needed to star) -- we shoot to disk and onlined directly in 1920x1080p24, all in RAW, I think faster than if it was DV. We also did well because we had an awesome team -- thank guys! See how we did here http://www.cineform.com/48hour/index.htm

Aha. It seems I'm understanding it correctly. Jason, I wasn't talking about an offline/online situation. I was talking about how a Cineform-like workflow would be implemented in a Mac environment.

When I was describing was multiple ways to decode the same codec datastream. One is a quick/easy way for most QT apps, and one for really extracting the raw data.

Regardless, as unfortunate as it may be for Cineform, it looks like the same style of RAW workflow may be co-opted for other systems down the line. On the longest timeline, I'd say it's likely that that might be where it's all going.

Yes, doing the typical "conversion app" approach, the 48 hour film-festival would have been over by the time you'd be ready to begin editing . . .

When I was describing was multiple ways to decode the same codec datastream. One is a quick/easy way for most QT apps, and one for really extracting the raw data

Correct . . . so what program actually has access to the RAW data, or has the "intelligence" to extract that RAW data to the fullest?

If it's not either your DI package (After Effects or Combustion for desktop indies, Speedgrade, Scratch, Lustre, or Nucoda for the big boys) or your editing/compositing software, then you're going to have to somehow figure out a method to match-back the footage from this separate conversion application back into one of these DI/editing/compositing programs.

I consider that sort of workflow the bane of offline/online, especially if the conversion application is not "intelligent" with the editing apps, meaning it can't automatically conform your timeline for you, so that the RAW conversion process is just a click-and-go situation. Basically you end up having to eyeball shots or do visually matched edits which is NOT fun-been there, done that.

To David, Jason, Steve, and everyone involved in the Cineform/Silicon Imaging partnership responsible for bringing this amazing camera to us, I must confess that in spite of the excellent timeframe from announcement to release date, I will still be waiting too long for its availability.

Now, I don't mind hearing about something before it's available, thus preventing me from a premature purchase. But, while I think it is very exciting to be involved in the development/birth/conception of a colorful camera, and understand the fascination of following a product through its entire life (seeing its growth and changes, the first opening of its sensor, its first steps, no matter how small), I am nonetheless perhaps even more excited by seeing a finished camera with a complete workflow that will not be a seemingly endless, continuous stream of publicity before I can ever use the thing.

That your "publicity stunt" was an actual use of the camera in a high-pressure filming situation like the 48Hour Film Project is nothing short of prodigious professionalism. I hope that this camera gets the attention and success it deserves; that it is not overshadowed by the hype and promise of the competition.

This is a very exciting camera for filmmaking. Kinetta teased us, RED is seducing us, but SI is here ravishing us. Ain't it a nice analogy?

From a sincere desire to see the success of this camera, so that I might benefit from a resulting reduced price ;-)

I offer a name: The CinecamHD (formally: The Silicon Imaging SI-1920 CinecamHD)

I think it's fine to have a model# as the name, but without (and also even with) mainstream company name recognition like Sony, Panasonic, Nikon, or Canon, you need something with more branding like Infinity, or Viper, or CineAlta, or Handycam, or DVcam, or Blackberry, or Walkman, or iPod... how about PodCamHD - wait, Apple will issue a C&D letter :-\

Anyway, HDVR is a little square. Now, I'm also kinda square, so I don't mind using obscure acronyms when talking about something. But, I have noticed that my "normal" friends don't accept this kind of talk. Well, actually they accept it quite easily. By this I mean too easily; so easily that they don't even bother to tell me directly that they don't know what I'm talking about, but instead just pretend to understand while continuing to hear my voice without really listening at all. I guess you could just say they tune me out.

Here's an example:

ME: Honey, I'm thinking about getting the new SI-1920HDVR.
HER: What's a %^$*&#DeVeR?
ME: It's a 1080P, direct to disc, RAW codec, portable, digital cinema camera :-D
HER: Oh, that's nice :-|

On the other hand:

ME: Honey, I'm thinking about getting the new CinecamHD.
HER: Oh, are you going to make a movie?
ME: Well, yes :-)

So, all the acronyms and model#s are still in place, but I'm not forced to use them in normal conversation. I remember reading a thread about the name not too long ago, so I apologize for not jumping in earlier, but I think this thing needs a TM name along the lines of "shot on VariCam" or "shot on CineAlta." "Shot on Silicon" is cool, but too esoteric/cryptic. If not CinecamHD, then something similarly concise and using real words descriptive of cinema/video/camera. Okay, "HD" works because it is a widely accepted acronym for, well, you know... just like iPod works because "i" is a widely accepted acronym for, well, i....

Thanks, keep up the good work. I will continue to be interested in the SI-1920HDVR, but I think a CinecamHD would reach a more mainstream audience. Either way I look forward to the public release.

Hmm . . . that's a cool name . . . now you just have to convince Ari ;)

BTW, also consider that Spoon has shot an entire feature film with over 140 hours of shot footage as well.

Warren,
Thanks for the praise and the chuckle.
I will remember in the future not to read your posts while drinking tea over my keyboard.
Maybe we should call our camera the Epiphany?
iSteve

About other costs, what the going rate for S16 primes and zooms? Used if possible? Or do we take a page from RED and consider using Nikon still lenses to keep costs down?

If cost is an issue, you can still use c-mount lenses . . . you aren't required to use PL-mount.

Fujinon makes a great series of fast, sharp c-mount prime lenses that only cost $300 each.

Thanks,

Jason

Jason,
To be accurate, those lenses that are rated at 5Mpix are $400-$500 - still a great buy. We have found them to be about the equivalent to the $1000 Schneider and Tamron lenses. Keep in mind that they are machine vision though. The distance markings on the barrel may not be precise, there may be some breathing and the don't work with focus followers.

They are available in 12.5mm-75mm. Since they are made for 2/3" sensors there is no magification factor - you get wide angle with the wide angle lenses.
Steve

Have you decided on a design yet? I read on a thread before that you were trying to decide on a body design. Somebody mentioned the Aaton Minima... Will it be a small, medium or big camera? Any colors? Thanks for your time.

Carlos,
The mechanical design is complete, the details are being polished and parts are being machined. The case for now will be an anodized black. Aside from getting hot in the sun, it seems to be the best choice. It will be similar in size to what was shown at NAB (see our forum for pictures) but more stylized an a bit less boxy. It is still about function, not form however.

We will post photos as soon as we have one together.
-Steve

do I hear a drumroll...?