Received the Nano/Testing/ItRocks
 

Hey everybody,

Just wanted to say that we received the nanoFlash this morning and I have done some super quick testing and so far I am VERY HAPPY!

There's lots to test, but so far I've been able to:

Record 100mbs Long GOP
Record 160mbs Long GOP

Haven't tested I-frame modes but will do that soon.

Files were recorded from an XL-H1 and they do indeed look like uncompressed output, even with some extreme whip pans in a low light interior shot in the studio. For now we have to figure out a battery solution, which I'm hoping CD can offer soon. It's frustrating to not have a working portable solution right from the get go. We'll see about getting something from the battery/adapter vendor in the other thread.

I can also confirm editing straight from the CF card (SanDisk Extreme IV 45 MBs) in FCP 7 and outputting a self-contained QT directly without recompression. (I put in a few transitions to see if they held up and they were fine)

The only curiosity is that FCP seems to recognize the material as XDCAM 422 1080i 50bs, even though I was able to edit and output at the native file size/bit rate.

Anyways, well done CD!!

More later

A png frame grab from the 160mbit mode recording should be visible. (2.9 MB file size) It was shot with 1080 60i output from the XL-H1. Enjoy pixel peeping a whip pan!! At some point I will show a hideous HDV frame from the same moment...hehe

Thanks for the report, Barlow -- are you able to upload attachments
directly to this thread? Let me know if that's not working for you.

I think it's working now. Thanks Chris, I'll share more soon

Dear Barlow and Friends,

Many NLE's (Non-Linear Editors) do not recognize the bit-rates that we produce, such as 100/140/160 Mbps Long GOP.

So, we trick the NLE's into recognizing our files by reporting, in the file header, that the file is 50 Mbps.

Please note, while we trick the NLE's, you do get all of the benefit of the bit rates that we put into the files. The NLE's codec, decoder portion, does not care what the recording (encoding) bit rate was, it just uses all of the data present.

Full Disclosure: It is important to note that a render by your NLE is limited to whatever maximum bit rate is allowed by your NLE. Of course, full uncompressed output does not have an limitation, and one can choose the output codec of their choice or stick with ours.

However, if your NLE's is capable of full uncompresed output via HDMI or HD-SDI, then you can feed this back into a Flash XDR or nanoFlash to achieve the same high-quality as the original recording, but after all of your edits. Or you can choose whatever option you want from the wide variety available in the Flash XDR and nanoFlash.

Do you have an hirose plug via AC? How did you run the electrical into the nanoflash?
I'm waiting for a swit battery and D-Tap /hirose connector to run the unit. They should all arrive sometime end of this week ... beginning of next.

We just used the AC adapter that came with the unit.

I think this is brilliant and seems to work well despite the non-standard XDCAM files. (non-standard at least to FCP)

I don't have a problem with the native XDCAM workflow of the nanoFlash files. It's easy enough to 'offline' in XDCAM 50mbs mode--even with full image filtering. Yes, it does reduce the image quality to a more compressed version of the codec...but it's easy enough to just copy/paste a finished XDCAM edit into a ProRes HQ sequence and render first generation into ProRes. That way you don't need to convert to an intermediate, such as ProRes, until doing a final output.

question ...
 

Elton ... I have the NanoFlash sitting right before me and do not see a barrel input on the unit for AC? Are you saying you have the unit plugged into the AC via the supplied barrel plug? On my unit, I only see the Hirose power input. I was supplied with an AC barrel plug but no means (as far as I can see) to plug the AC directly into the unit? Maybe Dan can clear this up.

Dear Friends,

We have many options for powering the nanoFlash.

1. If you have a battery system, such as IDX or Anton Bauer with a D-Tap, we offer a D-Tap to 4-Pin Female Hirose cable.

2. The Swit battery, sold by Alex Dolgin at Battery Charger Quad - Camera DC Power - DC Power Converters - Panasonic - Sony - Canon - JVC is a great option for Sony EX1/EX3 users. It powers the camera and offers a D-Tap to power the nanoFlash with the above cable.

3. We offer a Male 4-Pin XLR to 4-Pin Female Hirose cable for those with traditional 4-Pin Female power sources.

4. We offer a Male 4- Pin Hirose to Female 4-Pin Hirose for many pro cameras that have a Female 4-Pin Hirose power tap that is capable of 5.6 watts of power (not all are, some are limited to around 200 mW).

5. We offer a Female 4-Pin Hirose to bare leads if you have to wire it into your own power supply.

6. We offer two versions of a back plate with a Anton Bauer Gold Mount Adapter so you can use any Anton Bauer Gold Mount battery.

Please note that this is typically overkill, as a Dionic 90 will power the nanoFlash for over 15 hours.

7. We can work with various Swit and Dolgin battery holders by modifying them to provide a Hirose 4-Pin Female cable.

8. We can offer a cable for the Anton Bauer Elipz batteries.

9. We are working on our own power solution.

10. One can build their own power cable by using a Hirose HR10A-7p-4s(73) (solder version, includes the pins) or HR10A-7p-4sc(73) (crimp version - buy the female pins separately). Note: Pins 1 & 2 are Positive and Pins 3 & 4 are negative. This is the same as Toshiba's power supplies for their POV cameras, but different than most pin configurations.

The nanoFlash is protected from short durations of power being powered with reverse polarity. If the nanoFlash does not power up, disconnect the power as soon as possible. Extended duration of reverse polarity may damage the nanoFlash.

We accept 6.5 to 19.5 Volts DC so a wide range of battery types may be used. We do not directly support 28V DC power.

Our D-Tap to 4-Pin Female Hirose is the most popular solution.

Hi Dean-
My apologies, it appears we shipped the wrong type of AC power supply. We will ship the correct type and the D-Tap cable today.

Best-

power ...
 

thanks Mike

Ok, so I shot some footage that I knew would be VERY difficult for HDV and even the 35mbs long GOP mode to deal with.

Details:

Shot with a friend and his kids up in the nearby mountains beside a small river. Put the XL-H1 on a jib arm (Kessler crane) with the nanoFlash mounted on the hot shoe of the camera.

My intention was to shoot something VERY motion intensive and obviously difficult for HDV and other low bit rate long GOP modes to encode...but also a 'real world' kind of shot, i.e. nothing ridiculous.

I ended up shooting scenes of the kids throwing rocks into the river, and I deliberately filled the frame with a lot of rushing water in the background--a prime recipe for codec breakdown IMO.

Recorded the following modes:

--HDV 1080i and 24F to tape (recorded simultaneously while uncompressed live SDI was captured by the nanoFlash)
--35mbs long GOP 4:2:0(same as the EX1's top recording mode)
--50mbs long GOP 4:2:2
--100mbs long GOP 4:2:2
--160mbs long GOP 4:2:2
--220mbs 4:2:2 I-frame

For ***** and grins I even recorded live HV-30 HDMI output, but I screwed up and forgot to turn off the data display, so I got some goofy shots that are REALLY clean and uncompressed looking, but have silly data displays in the recording.

I attached a few png grabs from both 1080i and 24F SDI/nano recordings. The interlace grab was recorded at 160 mbs long GOP and 24F (in a 1080i stream) was recorded at 100 mbs long GOP. The HV-30 frame (which will be obvious) was recorded at 100 mbs long GOP. All are full 1080 frames so download and open full size to really peep at the compression.

So far I am extremely impressed with the quality of the compression the nano puts out. I still agree that the 100 mbs long GOP mode is the sweet spot, but I have to say that I like the higher bit rate options for added peace of mind.

Here is a 10 second raw SDI nano/QT file that I can share for a short time. It's 1080i recorded at 160 mbs long GOP. Requires FCP 6 or later, I believe.

Right click and "save as" (193 MB)

http://files.me.com/mrbarlowelton/ybq218.mov

More thoughts later!

Here is a grab from the 35 mbs mode:

Dear Barlow,

We greatly appreciate you taking the take and effort to put the nanoFlash through its paces.

It is very nice of your to share your results.

We will be happy to post your footage on our website.

Thanks Dan.

If the footage is useful to C.D. by all means, please feel free to add it to the website. I really like the innovation inherent in the nanoFlash. It's VERY easy to use and incredibly lightweight and non-PITA (a miracle compared to every other "portable" solution, save for the XDR) and basically opens up a whole new dimension of quality and possibilities to the stable of cameras we already use.

I like the fact that it's so unobtrusive. You don't need a video village or data wrangler and it means the solo outdoors shooter can take this thing into the wilds and get pristine quality right from the get-go.

I have some other footage I think really shows off the immunity to artifacting that you can get with the higher bit-rate options.

Here's a grab similar to the 35mbs shot posted above, but this time with the max 220mbs I-frame mode. (btw, I post lossless .png grabs in order to eliminate the question of jpeg artifacts introduced from the export process in QT player)

Note: to those out there that aren't big fans of 1080i--I realize it's not aesthetically pleasing to watch compared to true progressive shots, particularly from a frame grab, but understand that interlace is the toughest king of footage to encode cleanly, and the H1 is a native 1080i camera...and I haven't even gone into the surprising cross-conversion possibilities of high quality 1080i to progressive formats like 720p. More on that later...

Looking good Barlow. I just got my recorder too and I'll be posting up some footage very shortly. My testing has gone well so far, I've even run some footage at the highest bitrate possible. I also can't see a difference between that and the 100Mbps Long GOP. No visual difference, just bigger files.

The files I post will be codec torture as well. Stay tuned ...

Dear Aaron,

We are looking forward to your footage from you new Viper.

Very much looking forward to your footage too, Aaron!

Here's a clip of 24F embedded in the 1080i stream. I can't wait for the firmware update that allows pulldown removal!

http://files.me.com/mrbarlowelton/bfrpc9.mov

11 second 100 mbs long GOP, 138 MB file.

Note: If my shots look a little flat and washed out...it's intentional. It's the closest thing you can get to camera raw from the H1. Footage is VERY nice to color correct this way, however. 4:2:2 with no compression artifacts does help a lot!

got the D-Tap today ...
 

Finally, all seems to be here for some test runs. Apart from heavy rains today, I'm in deep post production ... should be done tomorrow or the next day and then, I can have some fun with the EX3, SGBlade and the NanoFlash! Just wish I could play all day!

A fairly still shot. Single frame grab. I've been doing some torture tests too but I thought I'd post this (the fine detail on the caps and bottles would be a torture test for HDV).

Straight out of the camera, captured with XDR, no color correction or modification.

Last night I did a torture test by strapping on some rollerblades and skating fast with my camera and XDR with the lens set to infinity and the aperture wide open. It was fun and pretty dangerous too (I don't recommend any hand hold a rig this heavy while on rollerblades). Even flying by objects very fast and doing pans while moving forward, no compression artifacts whatsoever. Amazing really.

Anyway, I promise some footage with some motion soon.

if the link for the TIFF doesn't work. just pull it up from my site:

http://www.vjaswift.com/archive/propel/01085001-60.tiff

Dear Aaron,

Thanks for posting.

I find the Viper images very interesting. The level of detail makes the images very interesting.

I changed the filename to ".tif" so I could open the file.

the moving images are so detailed that they look unreal. there's also a fine grain that i find very pleasing.

oh yes, and this is shot with a cheap standard def lens. i can't wait until i save up for a nice sharp high def lens.

Are you using the onboard canon batts, or do you have an adaptor to run AB or V-lock batts?
I was thinking that you could tap into the aux port on these adapters and supply power to the unit?? anybody know if this is correct. We are looking at getting one soon and was hoping this was a good way to power the unit

Dear Craig,

We have many battery options.

1. Our most popular is the Anton Bauer / IDX Male D-Tap to 4-Pin Female Hirose cable.
This works with the Swit battery with the D-Tap also.

We are now building a variation of the above cable so that a Female D-Tap is included to power a light, as well as power the nanoFlash.

2. We offer 4-Pin Male Hirose to 4-Pin Female Hirose.
We recommend number 1 above over this one as not all cameras supply 5.6 watts of power out their 4-Pin Hirose power outlet.

Some only supply around 200 milliwatts, and others, even in the same brand, supply up to 1.5 amps which is great as we only use .47 amps (at 12 volts) and .40 amps at 14 volts.

If one has their own camera and knows that it supplies up to 1.5 amps, then this is a great cable to use. Otherwise cable number 1 above is safer. Using this with a camera that only supplies 200 milliwatts or so must be avoided.

3. We offer 4-Pin Female Hirose to bare leads cables.

4. We are building a battery cradle for the Sony L-Series batteries.

5. www.Dolgin.net offers a battery cradle for the Sony EX1/EX3 series batteries.

6. Swit offers battery cradles for many batteries that we can modify for the Hirose 4-Pin Female cable.



We offer the following mechanical mounts for the nanoFlash:
(These do not supply power to the camera or to the nanoFlash.)

A. Hotshoe Ball Mount

B. IDX V-Mount (for use with IDX Piggyback batteries, or the camera mounted V-Mount)
(If mounted directly to the camera, then another way to power the camera must be provided.

C. Anton Bauer Gold Mount
(This allows the nanoFlash to be physically mounted as if it was an Anton Bauer Gold Mount battery, but this does not provide any power.



We offer the following adapter which allows an Anton Bauer Gold Mount battery to be used to power the nanoFlash. (Please remember that the nanoFlash is much smaller than a Dionic 90 battery.)

AA. Anton Bauer Gold Mount battery plate.
(This allows the nanoFlash to accept an Anton Bauer Gold Mount Battery which can then power the nanoFlash). A Dionic 90 will power the nanoFlash for over 15 hours.

BB. Anton Bauer Elipz Battery cable.
The Elipz battery can attach directly to the back of the nanoFlash. This is a cable to power the nanoFlash.

I'm using an Anton Bauer battery plate to power both the XDR and the camera at the same time. This seems to work pretty well.

[/QUOTE]

I can also confirm editing straight from the CF card (SanDisk Extreme IV 45 MBs) in FCP 7 and outputting a self-contained QT directly without recompression. (I put in a few transitions to see if they held up and they were fine)

The only curiosity is that FCP seems to recognize the material as XDCAM 422 1080i 50bs, even though I was able to edit and output at the native file size/bit rate.
[/QUOTE]

You must be aware that whatever you render in FC won't keep the original data-rate, but the one of the time-line codec.
When you export your QT movie as XDCAM 422 50Mbps, the picture that is rendered will be crunched to this data-rate while the picture that is not will keep the native one.
Once you need to render I think that the way to keep the picture quality is to go to Proress, Uncompress or any other high quality codec.
Cheers,
rafael

Dear Rafael,

Your footage is recorded at the bit-rate you selected, such as 100 Mbps Long-GOP.

But, we trick Final Cut Pro by specifying 50 Mbps in our file's header so that it will accept the file and work with it.

Even though we trick it, you get all of the benefits of the higher-bit rate.

Hi Dan,
i know that you can record with the data-rate that you want (from 19 to 220 Mbps),
I'm talking about exporting from FC with the XDCAM 422 50Mbps.
Cheers,
rafael

I can also confirm editing straight from the CF card (SanDisk Extreme IV 45 MBs) in FCP 7 and outputting a self-contained QT directly without recompression. (I put in a few transitions to see if they held up and they were fine)

The only curiosity is that FCP seems to recognize the material as XDCAM 422 1080i 50bs, even though I was able to edit and output at the native file size/bit rate.
[/QUOTE]

You must be aware that whatever you render in FC won't keep the original data-rate, but the one of the time-line codec.
When you export your QT movie as XDCAM 422 50Mbps, the picture that is rendered will be crunched to this data-rate while the picture that is not will keep the native one.
Once you need to render I think that the way to keep the picture quality is to go to Proress, Uncompress or any other high quality codec.
Cheers,
rafael[/QUOTE]

Believe me, I am aware that rendering causes the bit rate to conform to whatever the codec dictates in a FCP timeline, however, what I've found is that unrendered high bit rate nanoFlash files do keep their original quality, even when editing in a XDCAM 422 50mbs sequence. And I don't mean that in the sense that they look fine, but that they actually export as self-contained QT movies with the 100mbs rate. I didn't get any render bars on footage that wasn't filtered, etc.

Yes, ProRes is better if you have to render, but what I've found so far is that you can do a very nice 'offline' in the XDCAM 422 50mbs environment, but when you need final output, you can simply copy/paste or nest the XDCAM edit into a chosen ProRes or even CineForm sequence and do a first generation render into the higher quality intermediates.

Basically, there's no need to convert all your original nano/XDR footage to an intermediate in order to get the best final quality output. And on the faster Macs, XDCAM does edit nicely. You also have a choice to render in ProRes rather than XDCAM in the edit preferences.

Hi Barlow,
I agree with you.
I don't see the point of transcoding unless you work with few layers of footage.
Transcoding XDCAM 420 it mays makes sense when done through an AJA. You get the best 420>422 Chroma filtering available.
NANO-XDCAM is already 422, so nothing to be gained.
I expect to work NANO-native as I've been doing with EX-1.
But never rendering back to GOPs. For me this only makes sense if this is your delivery format.
Cheers,
rafael

Dear Rafael,

If you have the appropriate HD-SDI outputs on your computer, you can play your timeline in Final Cut Pro out to HD-SDI and have the nanoFlash record the uncompressed sequence in any of our formats/mode/options.

This method allows you to keep all of the quality.

[QUOTE=Barlow Elton;1226394]
Believe me, I am aware that rendering causes the bit rate to conform to whatever the codec dictates in a FCP timeline,

however, what I've found is that unrendered high bit rate nanoFlash files do keep their original quality, even when editing in a XDCAM 422 50mbs sequence.

And I don't mean that in the sense that they look fine, but that they actually export as self-contained QT movies with the 100mbs rate....

Dear Barlow,

This is a great discovery and excellent news.

Personally, I was not aware of this.

Thank you very much for reporting this!

This discovery, combined with the other option of sending out your full uncompressed rendered timeline through HD-SDI (or possibly HDMI) to the nanoFlash, gives you some powerful options.

I recently started recording wildlife, mostly Fynbos flowers and the mountains where it is found. I use a Sony PMW-EX1 which is a fantastic camera for this purpose.

However, having heard of the Nano Flash recorder, I was wondering what improvements in picture quality I could expect in the work I'm doing.

I'm aware of the advantages in recording fast, demanding scenes and in keying. Would I see a general improvement, even in less demanding scenes? Also, would there be a visible improvement in a static wide shot with lots of detail?

Thanks!

Dear Johan,

The answer is yes. But I think it is best to have some of our users answer your question.

From a technical point of view, your native Sony EX1/EX3 footage is 4:2:0.

The nanoFlash records in 4:2:2 and this provides more color information.

The additional color information will be in your recorded images.

I hope others will share their experiences.

We employ a Canon XLH1 and XHG1 and the side by side comparisons between the 25mbps 4:2:0 HDV footage and and the 4:2:2 50/100mbps FlashXDR and Nano footage is huge in every instance. The color is just so much richer and the absence of macro-blocking and diagonal line "jaggies" in the footage out of the Convergent-Design recorders is just wonderful. It puts your work in a whole different class.

And often overlooked is the boost to audio from 16bit to 24bit which holds up better to manipulation in post as well as allowing you to protect yourself better during recording by going for a little lower average level giving you extra headroom against sudden amplitude changes and clipping. And instead of having to use separate devices like a Fostex FR2 or the like to record double for the better sound values, you get your 24 bit audio cake and eat it too with these recorders.

And as for post - capturing tape - for get about it! huge time savings - like moving files from one hard drive to another instead of running tape thru a deck at 1 times real time.

And the cost of the recording media per GB is also a big win for the C-D recorders.

I would guarantee you that the comparison between 4:2:0 35mbps and the various 4:2:2 higher data rates out of the XDR and Nano is a different world.

Spending about $3,000 takes our sub $10k cameras into the big daddy arena and beyond and goes a long way of making up for the lense and sensor size. There are folks using these devices with Vipers!!! that should tell us something.

Yes there are. I've done my research and there is nothing, absolutely nothing on the market even close to the Convert Designs in terms of price / performance.

Battery powered, portable, HD-SDI, full raster 1920x1080, recording to inexpensive media is unheard of at this price.

With the instant upgrade and improvement to ANY camera, these things should be flying off the shelf.

I used to look at my HDV footage and think, "that doesn't look so bad". Compared to full raster, high bitrate files coming from the XDR, there is no comparison.

I shot an event last Thursday with 2 cameras. One camera was an HDV camera (recording to a Firestore in native HDV), stuck to some truss with a bogen super clamp. The other camera I handheld for the entire event and that was recording to a Convergent Designs box
My idea was that I would get some decent cutaways from the truss clamped camera. After laying both footage into a multiclip timeline in FCP, I can't bring myself to intercut the footage. The difference in quality is just too dramatic. The lack of detail and jaggies in the HDV footage is noticeable, especially when compared to the 100Mbps, 4:2:2, full raster footage.

I may have to get another CD box or sell my HDV camera.

This is exactly what is going through my mind with my Sony V1 camera! (compared to my EX3 with my very soon to be shipped nanoflash)

For my self is not a question about if there is something that can record with higher quality than the NANO or not.
The point is that (unless you intend to go to the big screen) more quality that the one offered by the NANO, is unnecessary.
TV, Video and the electronic components (Luminance and Chrominance) are based in the capabilities and shortcoming of the human eye.
Why to record more quality that the one your eyes can appreciate?
Why to manage more information than the one your displays can shows?
To get your Y' recorded in 10b sure would be great, but you won't see much difference with the color components recorded in 8 or 10b.
I work in video since 1.983 and, except the Ampex Quad, I've worked with all the mayor formats in the market. From my experience I have to consider the NANO like a dream come true.
Best,
rafael

I've tried keying 4:1:0 and 4:2:0 subsampled footage, and honestly, my experience with doing it makes me want disagree with you. While I was able to get a reasonably workable key most of the time, it really is a lot more work than if I had all the color info in the file.

There are people who will tell you that you can key DV and HDV footage with no problems. I just tend to think it's harder to do with most of your color information being thrown away right at the capture stage.

Just another reason I'm going to love keying with the convergent designs box.

Wait, I just read your post again. I think we actually agree.

Hi Aaron,
for acquisition, a kind of hybrid 422 codec: 10b Y' and 8b C'b/C'r would be perfect.
Cheers,
Rafael