will HDMI give the option to 4:4:4 color? data rate big but still, option?

nope. it is 4:2:2.

Of course this 4:2:2 only helps if you have not recorded to tape first. Once it is on tape it is 4:2:0 and not a whole lot is going to change that. HDMI and 4:2:2 will only work if capturing live from the camera head.

With analog component capturing 4:2:2 can sometimes help a lot because the 4:2:0 gets converted to an analog signal which doesn't have any extra detail in the chroma but it does smooth out the chroma. It sort of acts like chroma softening filters you can use in certain NLE's.

Thank You Thomas!!!

how does one capture the analog output? i was thinking firestore but thats digital, what you propose sounds interesting. and smoothing the chroma may help latitude too?

my interest in reduced color sampling is to achieve better color grading (and b&w) in post. i hope 4:2:2 will be good enough and comparable to 4:4:4.

thanks again!

I'm wondering how many people will actually be recording uncompressed video out of the camera head via HDMI. I mean c'mon, if you need that kind of quality and can afford the deck or NLE it would take to actually work with it I think a more expensive camera with better lens, chips etc would already be in your arsenal or plans.

It is nice great way to connect to an HDTV for normal playback off tape however.

I'm wondering how many people will actually be recording uncompressed video out of the camera head via HDMI.

Me !

Perhaps not uncompressed, but certainly something without the dataloss of MPEG2/HDV.

I mean c'mon, if you need that kind of quality and can afford the deck or NLE it would take to actually work with it I think a more expensive camera with better lens, chips etc would already be in your arsenal or plans.

Can't afford that kind of gear !! After Effects and similar compositing packages will simply love you for feeding them 1:1 1920*1080 files with only mild compression, I can see this method really helping things like keying.

For the price of a Intensity Black Magic Card ($249.00) I would say it is worth some investigation.

For the price of a Intensity Black Magic Card ($249.00) I would say it is worth some investigation.

Yes. But it seems is only 1080i therefore not progressive. Then, it won't take advantage from the sensor's progressive capabilities or isn't it so?

Yes. But it seems is only 1080i and not progressive. Then, it won't take advantage from the sensor's progressive capabilities or isn't it so?

The HV20 has a progressive sensor, it shoots progressive footage at 24/25 fps.

the HV20 also only outputs as 1080i because that is the standard for 1080 HD. 24p almost always has to sit inside of a 60i stream or 60p in the case of 720p HD. 24p DVD's are 24p but they have flags set in the mpeg2 stream to treat it as 60i. If you have a DVD player that can deal with those flags you can get the true 24p.

Even 24p DV cameras had to put the video in a 60i stream which is why we have all the fun with 3:2 pulldown. That is just the nature of the beast.

The intensity card captures 1080i which is exactly what every HDV camera outputs from Component, composite, YC, SDI or HDMI. You then either have to use a 3rd party tool to remove the pulldown, keep it as 60i with the pulldown or use software such as Cineform if they ever design their codec to work with the Intensity card. Cineform can remove the pulldown on the fly during capture for other hardware devices.

Just because HDMI is uncompressed doesn't mean you have to capture uncompressed. If you use a Mac you can capture to photojpeg or DVCPROHD both of which do not need a raid system for your hard drives and will work on pretty much any hard drive including external drives. On the PC side the Intensity card comes with mjpeg HD codec that also fits very well on a single hard drive. While these codecs are still compressed they are 4:2:2 and have much less compression and actually use less system resources so they are easier to deal with.

Think of it this way, capturing to one of these codecs with the Intensity card is almost exactly like capturing using Cineform. Both take HDV and translate it to a less compressed video format that is easier to process. Cineform does it as software only over the firewire connection. Intensity of course requires the card but it has the added bonus of true light compressed video live from the head that bypasses any mpeg2 compression which is something Cineform cannot do.

Here's what I'm wondering. If the sensor is 1920x1080, is all that information being sent out over HDMI or is it being scaled to 1440x1080 and then back up to 1920x1080 before going out to the HDMI port? Not sure if anyone but a Canon engineer would know this at this point. It's not horrible if it scales it down but it would be nice if it didn't do that.

Also, wonder if anyone has used Intensity to capture to one of the Motion-JPEG codecs and what the quality is like. What quality settings are available or perhaps that is dependent on the user's computer.

Even 24p DV cameras had to put the video in a 60i stream which is why we have all the fun with 3:2 pulldown. That is just the nature of the beast.

With the PAL version there will even be no need for pulldown as it most probably will shoot 50i and 25p.

:)

The intensity card captures 1080i which is exactly what every HDV camera Just because HDMI is uncompressed doesn't mean you have to capture uncompressed. If you use a Mac you can capture to photojpeg or DVCPROHD both of which do not need a raid system for your hard drives and will work on pretty much any hard drive including external drives. On the PC side the Intensity card comes with mjpeg HD codec that also fits very well on a single hard drive. While these codecs are still compressed they are 4:2:2 and have much less compression and actually use less system resources so they are easier to deal with.

My thoughts exactly !! I was thinking either Photojpeg or even H.264.

Think of it this way, capturing to one of these codecs with the Intensity card is almost exactly like capturing using Cineform. Both take HDV and translate it to a less compressed video format that is easier to process. Cineform does it as software only over the firewire connection. Intensity of course requires the card but it has the added bonus of true light compressed video live from the head that bypasses any mpeg2 compression which is something Cineform cannot do.

And additionally keeps the signal as 1920*1080 and not 1440*1080. (hopefully!)

The HV20 has a progressive sensor, it shoots progressive footage at 24/25 fps.Yes I know.

I meant the Blackmagic Intensity Card, not the new camera. Using it with this card, it will be 1080i not 24p nor 25p or am I missing here something?

the HV20 also only outputs as 1080i because that is the standard for 1080 HD. 24p almost always has to sit inside of a 60i stream or 60p in the case of 720p HD.

What about the Canon xh a1? It encodes the 25p mode as progressive, not interlaced, that's why it doesn't work anywhere else but Canons stuff.

Why couldn't the hv20 be like that?

What about the Canon xh a1? It encodes the 25p mode as progressive, not interlaced, that's why it doesn't work anywhere else but Canons stuff.

Why couldn't the hv20 be like that?

One reason could be because this is a consumer Camera and you would need a professional level editing program to edit 24f. Many low cost programs edit 60i HDV today which is what the HV20's 24p is captured in.

I agree. 60i is just a lot easier for consumers to deal with. Many times the consumer is looking at 24p as a sort of effect just like shooting B/W or inverted. It is an added bonus for those of us who know how to deal with the pulldown. 99% of consumers will never have a desire to actually edit the true 24p frames and just want to slap together a cool looking video.

I agree that it would have been nice to get a true progresssive encoding but we all must remember that this is a consumer camera. It is designed for the consumer and not for pro's. We should be very happy to even have any type of 24p recording on a camera this cheap. Yes the 24p may be harder for us to pull the true 24p frames from but it can be done and consumers just wouldn't want to do that sort of thing.

Yes I know.

I meant the Blackmagic Intensity Card, not the new camera. Using it with this card, it will be 1080i not 24p nor 25p or am I missing here something?

If the the Blackmagic Intensity Card captures interlaced or progressively makes no difference to the input signal.

Fair enough Lee, my problem is I'm a Mac guy. That means capturing live off the sensor block requires either a MacPro or G5 tower with that Intensity card, on set or in a studio. I guess I'm having a hard time visualizing a setup like that with the little HV20 (or HV10 for that matter) sitting there on a tripod.

If that Black Magic card works in a PC laptop and you're capturing to a codec that doesn't require an uncompressed type of bandwidth/storage then it makes more sense (although it still would pose some logistical problems obviously over going to tape)

If what you're thinking is feeding your NLE off tape via HDMI/intensity card to a different codec that's fine, the HDMI signal is probably a little cleaner the current component out on the HV10 and you've got your audio embedded as well (it's still not lossless like FW however I believe).

A clean, digital, uncompressed signal off the sensor sounds very sexy but in reality is impractical to work with. (IMHO)

I'm more excited about the 24p and audio I/O then the HDMI out. They figure out a way to record 720p60 with these little guys and I'll be in heaven.

Fair enough Lee, my problem is I'm a Mac guy. That means capturing live off the sensor block requires either a MacPro or G5 tower with that Intensity card, on set or in a studio. I guess I'm having a hard time visualizing a setup like that with the little HV20 (or HV10 for that matter) sitting there on a tripod.

Which part can you not visualize ?

If that Black Magic card works in a PC laptop and you're capturing to a codec that doesn't require an uncompressed type of bandwidth/storage then it makes more sense (although it still would pose some logistical problems obviously over going to tape)

You lost me there !!?

What do you mean by 'a codec that doesn't require an uncompressed type of bandwidth/storage' - sorry my brain is a little slow today !

A clean, digital, uncompressed signal off the sensor sounds very sexy but in reality is impractical to work with. (IMHO)

For me it would not be impractical in any way at all as I tend to work on pieces of 60 seconds and less (FX / Motion Graphics for TV) it would be a major advantage, I am sure there are numerous other people who would love the ability to capture a lightly compressed signal with 33% more resolution that HDV.

I am sure there are numerous other people who would love the ability to capture a lightly compressed signal with 33% more resolution that HDV.

I would! And I can totally imagine an HV20 connected to an injest box on a low-budget green screen stage... at least that's how I would use it. I can not afford a Mac Pro right now (my first choice) but could easily slap together a sub-$500 PC that will at least capture the compressed Intensity video.

I can even imagine putting together a little injest-to-go setup that I could lug around and get HDMI captures as needed. Not all shots would need it but if you knew you were shooting a plate for FX work I think it would be worth the trouble.

It is an added bonus for those of us who know how to deal with the pulldown.

25p has no pulldown.


If the the Blackmagic Intensity Card captures interlaced or progressively makes no difference to the input signal.

Is it possible to acquire 25p going with the Blackmagic Intensity Card via HDMI?

25p has no pulldown.




Is it possible to acquire 25p going with the Blackmagic Intensity Card via HDMI?


Yes I know that. The 50i users are lucky that they do not have to worry about pulldown as well. 24p does have pulldown and thats what us in NTSC land have to deal with. The video still gets encoded as 50i and sent through the intensity card as 50i but the frames really are 25p. Those 25p frames just sit inside of the 50i stream. This is exactly how 30p would work for NTSC users. We however do not get 30p on the HV20 but we do get 24p. 24p is a more complex beast to deal with. You see HDV2 or the 1080i form of HDV must be either 50i or 60i. 24F from the high end cameras move away from this which is why the format only plays from those cameras. All other HDV2 video has to sit in a interlaced stream regardless of how those frame are made up. For NTSC users 60i, 30p and 24p all have to sit in a 60i stream. This is no problem for 60i or 30p. 24p however has to use pulldown to fit inside the 60i. For PAL users you only have 50i and 25p both of which fit with no problem at all in a 50i stream.

Yes the HDMI card will capture 25p exactly like it does any other format. I suggest you check out the specs on the card at www.Decklink.com and find out for yourself what you can do with the card. The card captures 50i which is exactly what the camera will output.

Fair enough Lee, my problem is I'm a Mac guy. That means capturing live off the sensor block requires either a MacPro or G5 tower with that Intensity card, on set or in a studio. I guess I'm having a hard time visualizing a setup like that with the little HV20 (or HV10 for that matter) sitting there on a tripod.

A clean, digital, uncompressed signal off the sensor sounds very sexy but in reality is impractical to work with. (IMHO)

Rich Dykman, that's your opinion, I respect that. Not a work flow you'd do apparently.

Like Wes, and Lee suggests, I too prefer 1920x1080, and I fully intend to use this camera to capture the HDMI signal! Absolutely. It appears you're assuming that someone that can afford a Mac Pro and a capture card can afford a XH H1 or a high end HD-SDI camera - not at all in my case. I invested in the computer to be a lasting investment (or a minimized liability, depending on how you look at it) and for the film look, if this cam truly can capture 24P, then hell yes, this is ideal. I have the board - pair this with a Cinevate Brevis or a Red Rock M2, add a matte box, rails, a sturdy tripod, and audio directly into the computer at the same time (dual XLR), and wow, that's one powerful setup for filmmaking. The image quality won't be compressed, and the lens on the HV10 isn't important - I get to choose a standard 35mm lens.

My setup isn't a run and gun video production, it's a video village film making production. Assuming the HDMI out isn't hobbled too much (people are forgetting that Sony's HDMI out is 4:2:0!!!!) then this setup is very nice indeed. I can totally see other doing this. The HV20 sounds like a dream - the price really really helps.

My guess is that the 24p would be handled exactly as it is with the bigger Canon cams. Why should they change it? All of the Canon products will be geared to work with 24F, the software is already there. Being Canon is partially using these little HV cams as decks, you can bet it works 24F exactly like its big brothers.
I would also assume the HDMI to be full 1980x1080 being thats what its rez is befor compression. Could be a sweet little studio cam where its low light performance and cheap lens could be catered too.
Definitely a bargain at the price.

Ok guys I surrender (LOL), I remember a pro videographer friend of mine laughing at me when I told him to compare the video from the VX1000 I had just bought to his BetaSP rig so I guess I should know better!

I'm not knocking the HV10 or it's IQ (especially given what it costs) and I cetainly love mine but capturing and editing uncompressed or anything close to it is pretty much the Holy Grail of computer based editing so I'm just having a hard time visualizing anyone doing it with totally consumer based units like these given that it's still a fairly expensive proposition (visualize expensive RAID units and SDI HDCam decks).

But hey it's a new day out there and so I'll stopand quit sounding like a camera snob!

I would also assume the HDMI to be full 1980x1080 being thats what its rez is befor compression. Could be a sweet little studio cam where its low light performance and cheap lens could be catered too.

Let's try to keep from assuming - for instance the Sony V1U (a much higher end cam than the HV20) processes it's 1920x1080 footage to 1440x1080 and converts it to 4:2:0 BEFORE it's outputted to HDMI (it just upscales the 4:3 image to 16:9 on output again). So, no matter what, you're getting an image that's been processed! By outputting HDMI on the Sony, all you're doing is bypassing the macro blocks compression that HDV creates. And the Sony is approx $4-5k CDN!

We can *hope* Canon was nice and let the image be, but I could see the marketing department disabling it. Just because the HV10 played nice, doesn't mean the HV20 will. Canon knows they have something good, so it's up to them to decide how much they want a camera with superb image quality to cut into the sales of the XH-A1. If this Camera does 4:2:2 1920x1080 out, then hell no, I'm not going to buy an XH-A1 anymore!

I agree that it would have been nice to get a true progresssive encoding but we all must remember that this is a consumer camera. It is designed for the consumer and not for pro's. We should be very happy to even have any type of 24p recording on a camera this cheap. Yes the 24p may be harder for us to pull the true 24p frames from but it can be done and consumers just wouldn't want to do that sort of thing.



Then again the film rate we use now was just the cheapest way to get sound on film. (Beta Vs. VHS just older)That’s why its 24p, correct? The industry now buzzes around it, but the public can change its mind..
The day will come when Broadcasted movies will be digital and there is no need for the 24p look.
It’s just an option at that point.
I like my movies on my computer and think the theater experience can be duplicated in my home.

Then again the film rate we use now was just the cheapest way to get sound on film. (Beta Vs. VHS just older)That’s why its 24p, correct? The industry now buzzes around it, but the public can change its mind..
The day will come when Broadcasted movies will be digital and there is no need for the 24p look.
It’s just an option at that point.
I like my movies on my computer and think the theater experience can be duplicated in my home.

It is going to be a long time before that happens. As a compositor I can tell you first hand that I would not want to rotoscope and render 60i or 60p. That is a lot of extra wasted work to smooth the motion a little bit. Besides all movies are 24p so 24p will be something we will have to live with for the rest of our lives unless you want to never watch Star Wars ever again. Higher movie framerates have been tried in the past and not only was the cost way too high but it kind of lost that magic cinema look as well. There is nothing wrong with 24p at all and in fact almost all highend TV production in America uses 24p because most of it is shot on film. If 24p was so bad it wouldn't be used for shows like "24".

Let's try to keep from assuming - for instance the Sony V1U (a much higher end cam than the HV20) processes it's 1920x1080 footage to 1440x1080 and converts it to 4:2:0 BEFORE it's outputted to HDMI (it just upscales the 4:3 image to 16:9 on output again). So, no matter what, you're getting an image that's been processed! By outputting HDMI on the Sony, all you're doing is bypassing the macro blocks compression that HDV creates. And the Sony is approx $4-5k CDN!

We can *hope* Canon was nice and let the image be, but I could see the marketing department disabling it. Just because the HV10 played nice, doesn't mean the HV20 will. Canon knows they have something good, so it's up to them to decide how much they want a camera with superb image quality to cut into the sales of the XH-A1. If this Camera does 4:2:2 1920x1080 out, then hell no, I'm not going to buy an XH-A1 anymore!

Who told you the SONY V1U does this?

Yes I know that. The 50i users are lucky that they do not have to worry about pulldown as well. 24p does have pulldown and thats what us in NTSC land have to deal with. The video still gets encoded as 50i and sent through the intensity card as 50i but the frames really are 25p. Those 25p frames just sit inside of the 50i stream. This is exactly how 30p would work for NTSC users. We however do not get 30p on the HV20 but we do get 24p. 24p is a more complex beast to deal with. You see HDV2 or the 1080i form of HDV must be either 50i or 60i. 24F from the high end cameras move away from this which is why the format only plays from those cameras. All other HDV2 video has to sit in a interlaced stream regardless of how those frame are made up. For NTSC users 60i, 30p and 24p all have to sit in a 60i stream. This is no problem for 60i or 30p. 24p however has to use pulldown to fit inside the 60i. For PAL users you only have 50i and 25p both of which fit with no problem at all in a 50i stream.

Yes the HDMI card will capture 25p exactly like it does any other format. I suggest you check out the specs on the card at www.Decklink.com and find out for yourself what you can do with the card. The card captures 50i which is exactly what the camera will output.

Merci for your help (I'm not a tech guy).

Then, following this, why can't we have a 25p acquisition into the 50i stream using any other camcorder with HDMI? I mean exclusively 50i (without 25p mode).

Merci for your help (I'm not a tech guy).

Then, following this, why can't we have a 25p acquisition into the 50i stream using any other camcorder with HDMI? I mean exclusively 50i (without 25p mode).

I mean: That said, why the HV20? And not from other any other 50i offer?

Since the Blackmagic Intensity Card is 1080/50i or 60i (or 720p). The specs don't mention any progressive mode at 1080i (25p, 24p, 30p. . .only 50i and 60i). . .

I would! And I can totally imagine an HV20 connected to an injest box on a low-budget green screen stage... at least that's how I would use it. I can not afford a Mac Pro right now (my first choice) but could easily slap together a sub-$500 PC that will at least capture the compressed Intensity video.

I can even imagine putting together a little injest-to-go setup that I could lug around and get HDMI captures as needed. Not all shots would need it but if you knew you were shooting a plate for FX work I think it would be worth the trouble.

Amen ![color=white]

I'm not knocking the HV10 or it's IQ (especially given what it costs) and I cetainly love mine but capturing and editing uncompressed or anything close to it is pretty much the Holy Grail of computer based editing so I'm just having a hard time visualizing anyone doing it with totally consumer based units like these given that it's still a fairly expensive proposition (visualize expensive RAID units and SDI HDCam decks).

I would think a 7200rpm firewire 800 would do the trick, I play Photojpeg (at Q 85) off mine (LaCie) with no problems.

We can *hope* Canon was nice and let the image be, but I could see the marketing department disabling it. Just because the HV10 played nice, doesn't mean the HV20 will.

Let's try to keep from assuming!

Who told you the SONY V1U does this?

Thomas, it's listed somewhere on this Forum, DVInfo. I asked the poster for verification.. I *assume* they were correct. Anyone wish to prove me wrong?

But honestly, HD-SDI is a very expensive solution, and if HDMI can really get close to it, isn't that a problem? Why would anyone buy the XH-G1 with HD-SDI, if the XH-A1 with HDMI could offer the same benefits for the price of a $250 card?

My point is, who's to say that the HV20 will offer FULL RESOLUTION HDMI? Frankly, it makes more marketing sense not to.

Anyhow, prove me wrong. Show me proof that Canon does 4:2:2 and that Sony doesn't (or does) 4:2:0. I've looked.. haven't found it yet.

I'm pretty sure the HC3 does 4:2:2 over HDMI (I've seen an Intensity capture from this cam) so it'd be pretty dissapointing if the V1 only sends 4:2:0 over HDMI.

I'm pretty sure the HC3 does 4:2:2 over HDMI (I've seen an Intensity capture from this cam) so it'd be pretty dissapointing if the V1 only sends 4:2:0 over HDMI.

Wes, can you demonstrate this? This conflicts with what I've heard, but it seems neither of us have a product white sheet, or image proof. You can see 4:2:0 if there is a bright red in the image, the image is quite degraded. Posting a 1920x1080 image would be stellar - first person that captures HDMI from the HV20, please do.

No one seems to have proof.. the name of this thread is HDMI 4:4:4, and no one is echoing that as fact! Proof will work. 4:2:0 sounds logical to me, but no one can say till the device arrives, or a white sheet is available or someone has footage from a preproduction unit.

First of all the Intensity card is very new as is the concept of using HDMI for capturing.

I do not yet know anybody that has an Intensity card. There are also only a handfull of cameras that have HDMI ports. This is a fairly new beast to deal with here.

As for HDMI it is capable of sending uncompressed 4:2:2. That is the whole point of it or else HDTVs would have just used firewire which also offers video and audio on the same cable.

HDMI and SDI are two different beasts as well. SDI is a professional standard that is used on professional equipment. This means the cameras with SDI can feed directly into a workflow with other broadcasting cameras. The cables are also very robust and designed to be tough.

HDMI on the other hand is a consumer invention and is made to sit nice and still behind your TV and never moved around. It can offer the same level of quality in theory but isn't designed for a pro environment. It's kind of how RCA cables and BNC cables are pretty much exactly the same but pro equipment will many times have BNC connections because it is more robust and locks so it cannot be pulled out by accident.

If the SONY V1U outputs 4:2:0 then they are dumbing down the signal on purpose. I am almost positive the HC3 sends 4:2:2 because that is the camera Blackmagic uses as an example of what camera to use to capture uncompressed 4:2:2 with the Intensity card.

Every HDV camera to date has sent 4:2:2 out the component which is not that bad compared to SDI. 99% of people would never ever be able to tell the difference between uncompressed via SDI or uncompressed via component.

I do not plan on getting an Intensity card until the HV20 comes out in April. As soon as that happens I will do some tests in my bluescreen studio. Hopefully somebody can show some examples before that so I can decide if I should move up to the Decklink Studio card that adds component input as well.

There is 4:4:4 hdmi, but I think it is unlikely to see many cameras that would offer it. Intensity works on 4:2:2, one reason is, because cameras work at that rate.

I would think a 7200rpm firewire 800 would do the trick, I play Photojpeg (at Q 85) off mine (LaCie) with no problems.

I remembered playing around with some fairly uncompressed formats on my system with limited success in the past but thought I would give it another try.

So I took 40 seconds of HV10 footage and transcoded it to uncompressed 8 bit 4:2:2. Saved the file (4.7 gigs) to my Graid 500 (2 - 250 gig 7200 rpm drives with hardware raid connected via FW800 to my MacBookPro 2.33 core2 - 2 GB RAM) and played back via QT player. I'd get about 5 seconds of playback before the picture froze. I don't know if the bottleneck is the FW800 bus or the MBP itself but the only uncompressed I'm going to get is out of my MXO (which doesn't do me any good without a deck or other device to capture it anyhow)

Anyway the Intensity card in a fast PC or MacPro may overcome whatever limitations my system has unless the weak link is FW800.

If it's the FW800 bus I suppose an expresscard SATA adaptor with a SATA based RAID might give me more throughput.

Does that intensity card come with it's own codecs? Reasonably low compression Blackmagic codecs optimized for that card might be a great solution if uncompressed isn't attainable.

Also I'm curious Lee, how are you currently delivering those short spots you mentioned earlier?

There is 4:4:4 hdmi, but I think it is unlikely to see many cameras that would offer it. Intensity works on 4:2:2, one reason is, because cameras work at that rate.

Also the Itensity card is a PCI Express X1 card and it wouldn't have enough bandwidth for 4:4:4. I think using PCI Express X1 makes it easier for a lot of people to use these because not everybody has a X4 slot or larger on their motherboards.

I remembered playing around with some fairly uncompressed formats on my system with limited success in the past but thought I would give it another try.

So I took 40 seconds of HV10 footage and transcoded it to uncompressed 8 bit 4:2:2. Saved the file (4.7 gigs) to my Graid 500 (2 - 250 gig 7200 rpm drives with hardware raid connected via FW800 to my MacBookPro 2.33 core2 - 2 GB RAM) and played back via QT player. I'd get about 5 seconds of playback before the picture froze. I don't know if the bottleneck is the FW800 bus or the MBP itself but the only uncompressed I'm going to get is out of my MXO (which doesn't do me any good without a deck or other device to capture it anyhow)

Anyway the Intensity card in a fast PC or MacPro may overcome whatever limitations my system has unless the weak link is FW800.

If it's the FW800 bus I suppose an expresscard SATA adaptor with a SATA based RAID might give me more throughput.

Does that intensity card come with it's own codecs? Reasonably low compression Blackmagic codecs optimized for that card might be a great solution if uncompressed isn't attainable.

Also I'm curious Lee, how are you currently delivering those short spots you mentioned earlier?

Check out the www.decklink.com website to read about what options you have for codecs.

Uncompressed HD needs a bandwidth of about 120 MB/S. A 2 drive raid just will not do it. You may get a few seconds (usually up to 5) on an empty raid but it just isn't fast enough. You need at least a 4 SATA raid in order to work with uncompressed HD and even then you may only be able to get to 50% full before you start dropping frames. FW800 only has a bandwidth of about 60MB/S so it will never be able to handle uncompressed HD. Lightly compressed jpeg HD on the other hand will work perfectly and should even give you multiple streams of it during editing.

The whole point of Intensity is not so much capturing uncompressed but being able to choice how to compress the video. It gives us options so we are not limited to just to HDV. The card itself is uncompressed because that is the best starting point to compress video from. From there you can either keep it uncompressed or choose some other format. I'm sure most people will find the jpeg codec to be almost perfect and find little reason to ever use uncompressed unless you realy had a good reason to. I myself am not sure if I would use uncompressed. I have tested out the jpeg codec and it has an insane amount of quality for such a small file size. Just think of it like jpeg compression for still images because it is pretty much exacty that. With jpeg compression most of the time we can get a 10:1 compression ratio and we cannot really see the difference on those still images. The jpeg video codec in variable so it is hard to pinpoint the datarate but it is around 12 MB/S or a 10:1 compression ratio.

I do not plan on getting an Intensity card until the HV20 comes out in April. As soon as that happens I will do some tests in my bluescreen studio. Hopefully somebody can show some examples before that so I can decide if I should move up to the Decklink Studio card that adds component input as well.

Thomas, I hear your points and I understand the differences between Pro HD-SDI and HDMI. I agree, I'll wait till there is some proof either way, or make sure a store I purchase from would have a return Policy and then test myself. It looks like a great cam regardless - home movies always have their place. I already have a Decklink HD card with component and a 4drive RAID in my Mac Pro, so I could test that as well. If every cam does 4:2:2 component out, that's great - then I have high hopes for this one as well. Exciting!

Check out the www.decklink.com

The whole point of Intensity is not so much capturing uncompressed but being able to choice how to compress the video.

Thanks for your detailed explanation above. Though I haven't stayed up with the all latest bandwidth requirements I was pretty sure uncompressed was still out of the realm of most normal systems/storage. I'm also aware of the various codecs to some extent and their advantages/disadvantages in relation to HDV as I work a lot with the HVX200 and DVCPro HD codecs as well. Much of the talk earlier centered around whether the HV20 outputs 4:4:4 uncompressed or 4:2:2 uncompressed which is reality isn't as critical in my mind as the codec ingested to/edited with. I think it's safe to say that working with uncompressed in either format will be a challenge.

Also I'm curious Lee, how are you currently delivering those short spots you mentioned earlier?


I deliver all my work as Animation codec set at full quality (uncompressed) with 48khz 16 bit stereo sound, I have done it this way for years.

This is then usually dumped to digi-beta (not by me).

To 'proof' (and view) a project I am working on, I render to PhotoJpeg with the quality set to 99 (100 pushes the file into 4:4:4 and it size leaps up) - a 1920*1080p @ 25fps play back perfectly off my 7200/FW800 La Cie.

Uncompressed HD needs a bandwidth of about 120 MB/S. A 2 drive raid just will not do it. You may get a few seconds (usually up to 5) on an empty raid but it just isn't fast enough. You need at least a 4 SATA raid in order to work with uncompressed HD and even then you may only be able to get to 50% full before you start dropping frames. FW800 only has a bandwidth of about 60MB/S so it will never be able to handle uncompressed HD. Lightly compressed jpeg HD on the other hand will work perfectly and should even give you multiple streams of it during editing.

The whole point of Intensity is not so much capturing uncompressed but being able to choice how to compress the video. It gives us options so we are not limited to just to HDV. The card itself is uncompressed because that is the best starting point to compress video from. From there you can either keep it uncompressed or choose some other format. I'm sure most people will find the jpeg codec to be almost perfect and find little reason to ever use uncompressed unless you realy had a good reason to. I myself am not sure if I would use uncompressed. I have tested out the jpeg codec and it has an insane amount of quality for such a small file size. Just think of it like jpeg compression for still images because it is pretty much exacty that. With jpeg compression most of the time we can get a 10:1 compression ratio and we cannot really see the difference on those still images. The jpeg video codec in variable so it is hard to pinpoint the datarate but it is around 12 MB/S or a 10:1 compression ratio.



I agree with pretty much all that is said here, although we might want to make a distinction between live action footage/Editing and FX/Motion graphic work, in the case of the latter uncompressed might often be desirable.

In FX/Motion graphics files are often much shorter and worked on uncompressed and then rendered off only to view - if all looks good I then render a uncompressed version for the client - which will be put onto digi-beta.

I agree with pretty much all that is said here, although we might want to make a distinction between live action footage/Editing and FX/Motion graphic work, in the case of the latter uncompressed might often be desirable.

In FX/Motion graphics files are often much shorter and worked on uncompressed and then rendered off only to view - if all looks good I then render a uncompressed version for the client - which will be put onto digi-beta.

I totally agree with you there. I am a visual effects artist and I usually work with uncompressed SD. If you need uncompressed the beauty of HDMI and Intensity is that we can get uncompressed. With that said however I know a lot of sweet keying projects that were done with DV footage and the jpeg codec blows DV way out of the water. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see an indy pull off an amazing project with just using the jpeg codec.

I have done some tests of the jpeg codec over the weekend and it really is amazing. I rendered some stuff from 3D Studio Max to create an uncompressed 1920x1080 segment and converted it to jpeg and compared the two by switching the top layer off and on in After Effects and they were very close. There was only a tiny bit of noise in sharp edges which was pretty hard to see when viewed at a 1:1 ratio. When zoomed in 400% percent you could see it a little bit more but for the file being 1:16th the filesize of the uncompressed version this was amazing. Of course I will have to test this out on some real world footage to see how it holds up.

I have done some tests of the jpeg codec over the weekend and it really is amazing. I rendered some stuff from 3D Studio Max to create an uncompressed 1920x1080 segment and converted it to jpeg and compared the two by switching the top layer off and on in After Effects and they were very close.

Just to be sure when you say 'Jpeg' you do mean photojpeg don't you (and not MotionJpeg) ?

The nature of Jpeg compression means it is very reliant on the content you give it, but I would agree it is often visually lossless.

_______________


Instead of switching between two layers in After Effects to reveal any compression artifacting try this:

Stick the original into the timeline and the compressed version on the layer above.
Then apply the 'invert' plug-in to the compressed (upper) layer and set the opacity of this layer to 50%.

At this stage if both layers are identical you should be looking at a perfectly flat 50% grey image - if not any differences introduced by compression to the upper layer's file will show up as small aberrations.

To really get super forensic - pre-comp these two layers and apply a levels plug-in to the comp - then crush the black and white until the aberrations show up clearly.

**I have kept this simple - of course there are many other ways of doing it

I'd be interested in the quality of the Blackmagic JPEG codec. They have the uncompressed codecs available for download but I don't think they have the JPEG codec available, am I wrong?

The Blackmagic JPEG codec captures at 12MB/sec and I tested QT Photo JPEG on an HV10 clip resized to 1920x1080 at 95% quality and it came in around 12MB/sec. Of course at 95% quality the image is outstanding.

Just go to the Blackmagic website and download the drivers for Intensity. It installs the drivers for the card but it should not hurt anything. With the Install you will get all the codecs for the PC including the AVI uncompressed codecs the jpeg AVI codec and the uncompressed Quicktime codecs.

The AVI jpeg codec is a variable bitrate codec which is why it is hard to pinpoint the exact level of compression used for each frame. It changes for how complex each scene is. For example bluescreen footage should compress very small because most of the screen is a solid color with very little detail. The more noise and detail in a shot the larger the file will be. No matter how complex however the video should always fit on a single drive.

I did another test yesterday. This time it was SD but it way live component captured to uncompressed and converted to the jpeg codec. Visually I could not see any difference at all. I mean no artifacts at all. Doing the difference adjustment to compare the two only showed a slight amount of added noise but it wasn't anything any human eye on the planet would ever be able to see. Especially when the footage is playing back at a normal speed. The footage was shot in front of a green screen and it keyed just as well as the uncompressed version. Clearly I need to so more testing but so far this codec seems to hold up very well for compositing. Just to note I shot this greenscreen footage very bad on purpose. It was very low light with a lot of gain and only one light causing shadows and uneven light spread across the screen. With well lit and shot blue/green screen footage I cannot see this codec holding anybody back in getting high quality results.

Thanks for the tip Thomas. I contacted Blackmagic and that's what they told me also, they said datarates can range from 12-14 MB/sec for the JPEG codec. I was also able to see a sample and it looked very good to me.

I've been able to get excellent keys by taking interlaced HDV, magic bulleting and deartifacting it, and finally resampling to 960x540. I have found this resolution affords me an excellent image and very fast processing. So I'm thinking capturing Intensity video with the JPEG codec would be more than enough for my purposes. I think for the users of the HV20 it'd be a good solution. If I could afford an XH-A1 then I could afford a handful of drives to capture uncompressed, but for now that's out of the question.

The next issue would be image quality loss in the pulldown removal process. Would the video have to be re-encoded with another JPEG pass when removing the pull down? For FX shots I would remove the pull-down and export to Tiff sequences but if I wouldn't edit an entire video with uncompressed footage.

The JPEG compression is also done by the CPU and not on the Intensity card according to Blackmagic, which I asked them about.

Also the Intensity card is a PCI Express X1 card and it wouldn't have enough bandwidth for 4:4:4. I think using PCI Express X1 makes it easier for a lot of people to use these because not everybody has a X4 slot or larger on their motherboards.

The data rate is close to 266MB/s. The new version of PCI-E is to be around 533MB/s for an single lane (let's hope they replace USB 2.0 with it (there is an external device version)).

HDMI 4:4:4 is not impossible on cameras, Version 1.3 supports it, but it seems the cameras are an in between version. What we really need is an single chip mode (complimentary and RGB/Bayer etc) that would save three times over 4:4:4 (I wonder if an differential 4:4:4 could be possible). The data would then come in an smaller native format before compression. I knew an guy once, that was trying to specify an HDSDI bayer format.