Totally agree :) Cineform is crossplatform PC<->MAC highly optimised for Intel CPU's.
ProRes for MAC only. BTW, Aja's IOHD good device.

Mike,

Is the EX1's HD-SDI capable of outputting 1080p format? There is a discussion here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=118054

- and the conclusion so far is that, according to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Digital_Interface

- Dual-Link SDI is required for 1080p.

So, would the Flash XDR on the EX1 be limited to 1080i modes only?

Please answer asap; TIA

Piotr

Cineform is fine if you use Premiere, Vegas or FCP. If you use any other NLE you are pretty much SOL. Cineform tends to be much larger in size as well which means a limited recording time. File size may be equal to the 160 mbit I frame mode but the smaller long form GOP modes offer amazing quality for a much lower bitrate then what Cineform can use. Cineform also is not very cheap when you get into the good forms of the codec. Sure Neo HDV is cheap but many people would want to go up to at least full HD. There is also a wide range is Cineform products based on what NLE you use. The is Aspect, Neo and Prospect. Which one would they use?

Clearly not very many people have ever seen high bitrate mpeg2 or they would know how good it can look. Long form 100 mbit and I frame only 160 mbit should look pretty darn close if not slightly better then ProRess422 and DnxHD. Sure perhaps Cineform has a tiny edge in quality but it isn't as universal as some people think it is. mpeg2 in MXF is already supported by every major NLE out there. Supporting the XDR will either already work with your NLE or your NLE will only need a small update to tell it to allow higher bitrates. As long as their are flagship cameras such as the XDCAMHD line and the EX1 we will see all the major NLE's support mpeg2. In fact I have already loaded my own 300 mbit m2v files into Premiere with no problem at all. Usually mpeg2 decoders don't really care what profile, level and bitrate was used.

Dear Piotr,

The Flash XDR is currently designed to support the more common single-link version of HD-SDI, as used by most cameras with HD-SDI.

It would be interesting to see if two Flash XDR boxes could be used to record dual-link HD-SDI from very high end cameras that support dual-link.

So, with one available HD-SDI link from a Sony EX1, the Flash XDR should be able to record any format that the EX1 can send over the cable.

Thanks Dan,

I should make it clear that Mike has already addressed the "issue" - the information in the thread I linked to (about 1080/30p not being outputted by the EX1's HD-SDI) is simply untrue. As Mike points out, even if the progressive signal is output within interlaced stream will pull-down added, the Flash XDR can get rid of those extra frames and record native 24/25/30p. This information is enough for me to stop worrying about it.

This HD stuff seems like it is still being ironed out as it goes along at times.

Hi Nikol-
Good suggestion. We will likely expand the number of bit-rates with newer versions of the firmware. We have not finished fully testing the Transcend card, so 100 Mbps is still a possibility. Since our CF card interface is hardware based, we should be able to get the absolute maximum bandwidth from a given card.

We'll post our test results in the coming weeks.

Support for Varicam?
 

Hello Mike,
I checked this thread last fall and I think I read that the Varicam will not be supported. Is that still accurate?
Reg

Hi Reg-
We can accept the HD-SDI output from Varicam. We have not listed every possible camera that works with Flash XDR, but as long as the camera outputs a standard 1080i/p or 720p signal, it should work OK. Flash XDR does not support dual-link or 1080p50/60, but I think we support just about every other flavor of HD-SDI.

Mike, with the Varicam I take it the XDR will only record 720 60p and not recognise the flagged frames? Regardless if the Varicam is set to 720p 24 the XDR will only see the 720p 60 output?

Hi Scott-
We can remove the pull-down frames automatically and record at 720p24. The pull-down removal is a setup option on the box. You can send in 720p60 HD-SDI and we will immediately remove the pulldown and output 720p24 HD-SDI, while recording in 720p24 mode.

It's the same routine we use to remove the pulldown in 1080i60 -> 1080p24.

OK, I'll see your 'remove the pulldown' and raise you a 'playback 60p on a 24fps base for slo mo playback' :)

Good point about the 60p for 24p playback. I hadn't thought about that.

Flash XDR Update 5-Apr-08
 

Just a quick status update on Flash XDR Development. Using our engineering development board, we are now recording 50 Mbps 4:2:2 MPEG2 to Compact Flash. We should debug playback from Compact Flash in the next few days.

The final production boards are due Tuesday morning, so hopefully we have time to debug some of the basic features before NAB. The sheet metal chassis arrived on Friday, but we are still waiting for the rubber over-mold, due next week.

Our tests now strongly suggest that the $150 32GB Transcend CF card will work for 100Mbps 4:2:2 Long-GOP MPEG2 video + 2-channels 24-bit PCM audio. 100Mbps Long-GOP 4:2:2 will be above HDCAM video quaility. Four of these 32GB cards will provide 2.7 Hours record time at this rate.

Great news, Mike!

Your calculations on recording time using 100Mbps and 4 x 32GB cards made me thinking: when a card is filled, will Flash XDR automatically switch to another one? And can spanned clips be seamlessly stiched?

Las but not least: any news on EX1 mounting options? And PAGlock battery plates?

I'm pretty sure he's talking about the 4 cards being used as a Raid0 set here, so the question about spanning doesn't apply, unless that's not what you were referring to.

I don't think so; as I understand RAID'ing is only necessary with 160Mbps...And you would not get 2.7 hours recoring time on a RAID like this!

Not like I've never been wrong before. Which is it Mike?

Hi Piotr, Ethan-
The 100Mbps rate should be achievable without Raiding (ie writing to one card at a time). Flash XDR will automatically switch to the next card, when one card fills up. 100Mbps MPEG2 video + 2 channels of 24-bit PCM audio = 103 Mbps (or 12.9 Mbytes/sec). We're getting 16.6 MBytes/sec write speed on a single 32 GByte Transcend CF card, so we should have ample margin for this data-rate.

We are working on a program to stitch together the files as they are being transferred off the CF cards. Ultimately, you can load up 4 Lexar UDMA Firewire-800 readers (daisy-chained together) and set up a transfer of 128 Gbytes of data. I'll have more details in the coming month.

Yes, we are studying the various mounting options to the EX1. Now that we have the cabinet design finished, we have tasked our Mechanical Engineer with developing mounting options for all the various cameras. The Sony EX1 and the Canon XL-H1 are our top priorities.

Ah crap, looks like I was wrong again. Well, at least Mike spelled my name right.

**EDIT**
Wait, seems I was wrong again, but I swear I thought he mispelled Piotr's name the first time I looked at his post. It's just not my day.

Mike, and anybody else -
-perhaps this has been discussed before, but which NLE is supposed to handle the files recorded with Flash XDR? For example, the 100Mbps, 4:2:2 format - will it be possible to edit with Vegas, or will some SW/HW solution like Edius SP/SP-SDI be required?

Hi Piotr-
We are expecting NLE support for the 50 Mbps rate to be announced at NAB. Extending this rate to 100 Mbps should not be a difficult update to the software CODEC.

Look for more info next week.

Flash XDR Update 10-Apr-08
 

We have some exciting news to report on Flash XDR: we now have video recording and playback from Compact Flash at 50Mbps 4:2:2 (Full-Raster) working on our engineering eval board! We are recording a 30 second clip and playing back on our HD-SDI monitor. The video quality looks superb.

We also just received the metal chassis and the rubber overmold. We'll post photos of the actual product later today.

Please see Flash XDR at our booth (SL7828) next week at NAB.

I'll be there to collect my machine...

but seriously when do you expect to start fulfillment? (the act or state of fulfilling: to witness the fulfillment of a dream; to achieve fulfillment of one's hopes.)

Can't wait!

BTW - My 4 Lexor card readers arrived yesterday. Sent away for my 4 x $35 refund. $140 coming back.

Stefan

Stefan

Did you send out 4 seperate rebate forms or did you send out 1 form for the four???

Just curious as mine showed up this friday also.... :-)

Hi Stefan-
We hope to start delivery in May. Our engineers are working double time to get Flash XDR finished. We are making excellent progress, but this is a complicated product.

Also, if anyone needs high-rez images, they are available on our website for download.

The invoice from Adorama had all four on it. I stapled four bar code cuttings to the rebate form. Put a big X4 on the form. We'll see what happens.

They say only 3 per rebates per customer but I might get lucky.

Haven't bought the Flash cards yet. Will wait until Mike delivers real soon now.

http://stefansargent.com

I understand - if you need a Beta tester, try me.

See ya at NAB!

http://stefansargent.com

NAB press releases and product photos posted at http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost....&postcount=140

Hey Mike
 

any news on the NLE support yet? Thats a biggie

cheers

Adam

NLE support is still a little nebulous at this point.

Asked this question at NAB ... and did not quite get an answer out of Adobe.
Mike said they have been working with all the majors on it for some time though. And seeing how thorough his team has been with the product, I doubt if they would leave out the last step.

Also, since this is a Sony codec, I would imagine that Sony's Vegas may already support it.

Hopefully Mike Schell will find time after NAB to provide more detail on the NLE support issue.

P.S. XDR won a Viddy for Best of Show at NAB'08.

Congrats guys
 

on a well deserved award on a great product, This was actually the reason a year ago I spent the extra on a JVC 251 over the 200 almost a year ago before I knew specifically about your product, it is a must-do progression of the industry, and will once and for all herald a time when the days of bad colour keying capability, unnecesary mosquito noise and subpar audio, especially for the independant one man bands will be gone.

Now I just have to find a way to pay for one when they come out :- P

Hi John-
Apple announced support for the 50Mbps 4:2:2 Long-GOP CODEC at NAB. We will send test files sometime this month to the Apple CODEC development team. We don't expect any big challenges, but there may be a few necessary tweaks for 100% compatibility. We also hope for 100 Mbps compatibility in the near future as this is a simple increase in the bit-rate (the basic CODEC is unchanged).

Avid is projecting 50Mbps 4:2:2 support in June. We also plan to send test files shortly. I will check with Vegas and Premiere this week.

As a fall back, you can always playback the video via HD-SDI and capture into an NLE just like a tape deck. This is certainly not the preferred method, but it will work as an interim solution.

In theory Avid Liquid should have full support all set to go. I always work with everything up to 300 mbits m2v files in Liquid. The only issue there may be is how the MXf files are created. Liquid does already however every single flavor of mpeg2 you could ever have. I know this doesn't help those who do not use Liquid but it does show that it can be done and that it shouldn't be any problem to support the format. Like Mike pointed out once you support the high profile high level form of mpeg2 with the 4:2:2 support everything else is just bitrate level and usually a decoder doesn't really care what bitrate it is decoding. For those who work with Cineform or Prores there shouldn't be that much of a problem to convert the files to either of those formats to work with.

This is all very nice, but:

- still no word on mounting option for Sony EX1
- still not even a shortest sample of 50 Mbps 4:2:2 which not only would help us assess quality (which I believe will be great), but also let us try out our current NLE's (using Vegas personally, I wouldn't like the idea of being forced to invest in Liquid, or a hardware card for HD-SDI capture, at all !!)

Mike?

How about Grass Valley/Canopus Edius?

Hi Piotr-
Sorry, but we have been a little busy with NAB. However, our engineers stayed home and worked on XDR while I relaxed at the show!

We do have images at 50 Mbps and 100 Mbps 4:2:2. You can see a definite improvement over 25 Mbps HDV, but it's hard to see the difference between 50 and 100 Mbps. I am sure that we'll see a difference in high-detail and/or high-motion footage. I will try to get images posted this week for download, but I'll need to offload to a file streaming site, as these could overload the bandwidth of our server.

I will also meet with our mechanical engineer to discuss mounting options to the various cameras. I'll post some concepts ASAP.

Flash XDR at NAB
 

Dear DV Info Members-
We want to thank everyone who stopped by our booth last week at NAB. We appreciate your comments and suggestions. We were, quite frankly, swamped. We had Flash XDR units at our booth as well as the Canon, Iconix and Polecam. All locations reported high levels of traffic. Thank you!

We are also excited to report that Flash XDR won two awards: Videography Magazine Viddy award and Broadcast Engineering Pick Hit. Again, we thank everyone's comments and recommendations throughout these last 9-12 months as these helped us define Flash XDR into an award winning product!

We will send an e-mail blast update later this week with photos and more details.

Sincerely-
Mike Schell and the Convergent Design Team

Hi Tim-
Can you e-mail to me a good technical contact? I would like to send them test MXF files.

Here's a couple of NAB photos to start off with...