Results of my first XDR Timelapse
 

Hi Dan:
I Shot my first test with the XDR Yesterday Afternoon of a typical Sunset at the beach. I will upload the video with a link here as soon as I can get the upload to my server to work. The quality of the 220 I frame video is spectacular ! However, I have experienced two problems.

1. I get small file chunks only three seconds in length.

2. On one record session, I actually had the XDR go into full motion video capture for about one second, then go back to I frame timelapse all in one movie file. What the ?????

I put the little movies all together on one timeline and was once again faced with editing problems in Avid Media Composer. (Very Sad) I couldn't get MC to output the files to any format other than HDV (Including QT and QT Ref) !! What the ??? I understood I had set my video files to 100 % size on the XD card. (??) Did I miss a setting in TL mode ?

Things I Liked:

Seems easy to set and use.


Things I didn't like:

XDR Screen is almost impossible to read in Sunlight (See Picture)

Dear Mark,

Please let me know how you had the Flash XDR setup, specifically, Mode, Long-GOP, or I-Frame Only, QT or MXF, Bit Rate, the File Size parameter, and all of the timelapse options.

I will then troubleshoot your settings.

You may post here publicly or send me a private email, your choice.

My Timelapse Settings For First Attempt
 

Hi Dan:
My Time Lapse Mode Settings were as follows.......

1. Mode: Time Lapse

2. Format: I- Frame

3. Data Rate: 220 Mbps

4. File Type: MXF (For Avid MC Post)

5. * File Size Parameter:
Huh ? What's this ?? I didn't see this setting before in the timelapse mode menus - I did see it in the regular Menu, which was set to 100 % file size on the card. (??) Where is it ? Does this have to be set in *Time Lapse Mode* as well ???

Hi,

the just posted Flash XDR 1.1.63 and nanoFlash 1.0.112 has beta support for time-lapse recording. We didn't get a chance to document everything in the manual yet, but there are a couple of things to consider with time-lapse recording:

> the hour glass on the lcd screen will only change on the selected time interval that we write a frame;
> when you stop a time-lapse record, there may be a delay up to the selected time interval to close the clip. In addition, the clip will end with under a half second of regular speed footage, which will need to be edited out.
> As was mentioned in another thread, use a reliable power source as we do not have a file recovery mechanism from lost power at this time.
> You can record time-lapse @ 220 Mbit on a slower card, but the footage may not play back out of the XDR / nanoFlash because of the high data rate at regular speed (but will be fine with supporting NLE's / software on a computer) . This is not a problem on the fast CF cards we recommend.
> Time-lapse is always I-frame only recording.
> I believe we've only tested in MXF and Quicktime file formats.

So it's not perfect but we hope people will find it a useful feature.

Tommy Schell

Hi Tommy:
I may have missed a file size setting which is seperate (?) from the file size setting in regular recording mode. In my case, the full speed jump was initiated at the beginning of a second Time Lapse session after stopping the first and changing a battery on my XL H1, then initiating a second session of TL recording. Tommy, can you confirm if there is a *seperate* file size setting from the one listed in the regular recording menu ?

Dear Mark,

No, there is only one File Size setting.

Could it be that the Full Speed Jump was at the end of the first time-lapse session?

If so, then this is what is expected. We are trying to close out the file, as opposed to have one wait until we finish a group of pictures, with each frame occurring at the time-lapse interval.

Dear Dan:
No. I'm pretty sure the speed jump was at the *beginning* of the second recording session, thus it *CANNOT* be editerd out of the sequence without a noticeable *JUMP* in the footage, which ruins the sequence and makes it unuseable for any practical purposes. I will do a second test today to confirm exactly where the speed jump occurs. Even if it occurs at the end, then this is also not desireable. I'm sure all would agree that in a timelapse sequence-any timelapse sequence, one cannot have a full speed jump suddenly appear in the *beginng* of the sequence. Also, could you please confirm if the Time Lapse Mode is *supposed to* record tiny little MPEG files of only 3 seconds one after another on the CF card please ?

ADDENDUM: The first recording session contained no speed jump. I will check this again and perform a second test now to confirm if and when the malfunction is random or repeatable.

Hi Dan & Mike:
Just completed a second timelapse test. This time I shot the entire onset of late Afternoon into early Evening in One (1) recording session. I obtained perefect results with *NO SPEED JUMP* whatsoever. I need to perform a third timelapse as a control measure to this test to see if that looks alright. The speed jump thingy *may* be related to closing one recording *session* then opening another. (??) This remains to be seen at this point. However, can Tommy or someone at CD explain if the small 85 Kb 3 second file chunks a *normal* result by design, or should this be viewed as a malfunction ??

.....Perhaps someone else with an XDR who has performed the recent upgrade to 1.1.63 also try a timelapse sequence and confilm to us if they also get these tiny series of MPEG file chunks ? I would really like to know. If this is only a *Beta* of the timelapse, then fine - not bad, but needs a little work to make it more stable. If this *is actually* by design to have 85KB data chunks 3 seconds long, then could we have an option to set the file size to 100 % on the CF card like we could with full motion shooting ? - Or at least be able to set a file size of 20 MB for each chunk.

The Viper is time lapse recording this moment. The recording will be over, when this Dionic 90 is depleted. Will post back results in a few.

Hi Dan & Mike,
I have just recorded my first time-lapse sequence "Early morning sunrise on the bay". Congratulations to CD on a great addition to the NanoFlash and the quality is awesome and it still records sound?

Hi Lance:
What is the *size* of your timelapse MPEG file (s) on the CF card please ?

Hi Mark,
I have actual conducted two tests. The first one was just a quickie after I load the new firmware. The operating instructions in the new manual on TL are bit thin so used the adventure technique. I set the system for I-Frame and the TL menu timer for 5 seconds, placed the camera on the balcony and let it go. I had assumed that by selecting TL that the frame bit rate would automatically be set to 220Mbps. The file size that I got from that shoot was 154.4MB. I noticed that the frame rate on the screen had not switched to 220Mbps so I set the frame rate manually to 220Mpbs.

This morning I got up before sunrise and went to the local lookout at the top of the hills over looking the bay and shot the sunrise. This time I got a file size of 726.7Mpbs which more like it and I had no problem playing out of the NanoFlash via HDMI on both occasions.

Dear Aaron,

Please try to stop the timelapse before the battery shuts down. We do require power the whole time, otherwise we will lose some of the file, probably a lot of the timelapse sequence.

Dear Friends,

Yes, the manual is very thin at this time.

We are working on instructions for timelapse.

Yes, please set the bit-rate to whatever you want.

If you want to playback in your unit, please select a speed supported by your CompactFlash cards.

File Chumk Size of Completed Time Lapse
 

......Hi Lance:

What I don't understand is why is your completed timelapse file just ONE (1) file chunk of approxiomately 154 MB on your Nano, while all I get on my XDR is a whole bunch of little 3 second duration 85 KB file chunks one after the other ??? This to me is the 800 lb gorilla in the room. Something is wrong. (??)

Dan what do you think is going on with my XDR in Time Lapse Mode ?

EDIT: Additionally it seems to always take exactly 23 seconds to go into actual time lapse mode from the moment I press record on the XDR until the little hour glass symbol appears on the right hand side of the screen and actual writing of single I Frames to the CF card commences with the intermittent flash of the Red LED by the CF card socket I am using (Socket 1). I have populated this socket with a Sandisk Extreme IV 16 GB CF card and sockets 2 and 3 have Sandisk Extreme III 32 GB cards in them. Socket 4 remains empty. I have not written any time lapse sequences to the Extreme III cards yet.

Hi Mark,
I just checked my setup and all my testing has been on Sandisk Extreme IV 16 GB CF card I am going for another try a 5am tomorrow and I will use the Sandisk Extreme III 32 GB cards.

Well this time I will take a shot gun to get rid of all the large pacific seagulls that keep doing flybys and destroying my vision. (Just Kidding it's easier not to pack near over full rubbish bin)

Dear Mark,

I do not know why you are getting 3 second files in timelapse mode.

We will run some tests in our lab.

Third XDR Time Lapse Test
 

Hi Dan:
Same results this time too. No speed jump. Nothing but a series of tiny 3 second clips :-( These are no good for file import purposes for us. I suppose I could just hit playback and see if the XDR will playout the entire clip as one continual sequence. I will go test this now and see on my HD-SDI portable monitor.

.....Someone else reading this thread who has a Flash XDR and has the latest 1.1.63 firmware upgrade please try a timelapse sequence and tell us what your file structure looks like. Do you get a whole bunch of tiny 3 second clips on your CF card ?

Mark,
What's your record trigger? (System->Record Trigger)
Tommy

Dear Mark,

What is your time interval?

Is it 1 second or, for example 5 seconds?

How long are you recording your timelapse sequence?



If you are recording with a time interval of 5 seconds, and you record for 9 minutes, you will get a 3 second timelapse sequence.

3 seconds at 30 frames per second (actually usually 29.97) = 90 frames.

90 frames times 5 seconds for each frame = 450 seconds = 9 minutes.


If you are recording with a time interval of 1 seconds, and you record for 90 seconds, minutes, you will get a 3 second timelapse sequence.

3 seconds at 30 frames per second (actually usually 29.97) = 90 frames.

90 frames times 1 second for each frame = 90 seconds = 1.5 minutes.


If you record for much longer times, you will get corespondingly longer files.

...Hi Tommy:
I'm on System>Record Trigger>Record Button.

Mark

,,, Hi Dan:
I have just completed my third timelapse sequence, which has run all night at 1 frame every 15 seconds. I don't think it is the issue of my time interval-Whatever I set my time interval to be should be surperfluous as to what the actual size of the data chunk I wind up with at the end of the day on my CF card. (??) EDIT: Obviously, if I only shoot for an hour than my corresponding file will be small indeed. However, this is not the case with my tests. The shortesttest I have run so far is four and one half hours. Test 2 was about five hours and test three was nine hours. EDIT 2: Whatever you record, why should it not be put into one data chunk ?

The good news is that if I play back the entire sequence out of the XDR via HD-SDI, then I get the whole sequence playing out fluidly and completely with no speed jump I can see.

** However, Playback pause, then play, then pause is *unstable* If I hit pause for longer than 5 seconds, then the XDR locks up and then the picture disappears from my monitor ! Then sometimes it begins to play back two different clips at the same time alternately ! What the hell ?! DMA Read error ?

I forgot to post back my results. The timelapse worked perfectly. All the clips were 5 seconds each. I laid them on the timeline in FCP and the played back as fluid as can be. I wanted to punch them up a little bit so I sent the timeline to color, then back to FCP (as ProRes422).

Everything worked as expected, no weirdness, no speedups.

Dan, my camera and XDR are powered off the same battery. My camera always shuts down first, XDR loses signal and closes the file properly. I've never lost a file on the XDR because the camera always shuts down first on low battery.

Hi Aaron:
OK. Your results seem to confirm mine. Congratulations-this is a malfunction. THe XDR is not supposed be giving you little file chunks. I spoke with Dan Keaton of Convergent Design today and he confirmed you are not supposed to get a whole bunch of little files. If you set your recorded file size to 100 %, then you should be getting much larger or large single file on your CF card.

My file size is set to 75%. I did this on day one of owning the XDR (as a protection against losing a large file on power off). As it turns out, I can probably set my file size to 100% and just leave it there forever.

Hi Aaron:
I suspect that even if you do set your file size @ 100 % you will still experience having these tiny MPEG files of only a few seconds.

Small Files in Timelapse
 

Hi Mark, Aaron-
Here's the story on time-lapse and file size. Our time-lapse feature records I-Frames into a 15-frame GOP (12-frames in 720p mode). So depending on the time interval, it takes 15 or more seconds to fill up a GOP, which is then transferred to the CF card. If the time interval is 1 frame per hour, then it will take 15 hours to capture just one GOP of data. Naturally after writing a certain of GOPS, we have to close the file to make it usable to the NLE.

Our big concern in developing time-lapse was the potential lose of power to the nanoFlash. Given the potentially long interval before data is written to the CF cards (and file closure), we worried about the lose of power and the potential lose of all the footage. So, to minimize this potential lose, we reduced the file size based on the time interval. So, at 1 frame per second, the file size was reduced to 20%, but by 1 frame every 15 seconds the size dropped to 2%.

We now realize that this strategy needs to be revamped. So, look for appropriate corrections to this issue in the next firmware release, scheduled for the end of this month.

Best-

This confuses me since I-frame only codec has no GOP. It's intraframe, meaning each frame stands alone, not as part of a group of pictures like long GOP.

Maybe it would make more sense if you just wrote each image to a single frame Quicktime / MXF.

.....Mike:
Yes, I follow how you have engineered your SSDR's to handle your I - Frame MPEG Time Lapse, but what I don't quite follow is why you have designed to register I-Frame MPEG using *Long GOP methods to do it ???* Mike, is there an important technological reason why it is being handled in this manner ? Like Aaron, I also understand I- Frame to be the opposite of Long GOP, because Long GOP is not a good way to do animation or time lapse on digital video. - Or so I understood.

......Yes, I understand. Please feel free to extend this ratio back up to as large a file size as possible to obtain with your methods. The loss of power and our work is strictly our problem - not yours. *OR* How about this possibility ? - Could the engineers at CD write an adjustment software switch that would give the end user the ability to set this ratio just like you have done with regular motion video capture ? You would add this adjustment parameter to the Time Lapse Mode Program menu.

....Thank you Mike. I know I appreciate CD's flexibility on working with our end user feedback.

...Thank you Mike.

....Hi Aaron:
Yes. I find this very confusing, but much to my surprise, I actually understood Mike's explanation. I don't understand exactly why CD has chosen to impliment MPEG I-Frame capture within a Long GOP format, but doing so has taken on the limitations of the Long GOP format indeed. Their file size ratio winds up being way too small to be practical.

......I also think creating an image sequence is another way to record digital frame grabs. All NLE's will accept image sequences in JEPEG or Targa usually. This is how we will do Time Lapse with our SSDR.

Dear Aaron,

Our I-Frame Only, is exactly what is says, it is only I-Frames.

From a purely technical point of view, we create (for 1080) 15 I-Frames in a Long-GOP sequence. For 720 it is 12 I-Frames in a Long-GOP sequence.

So, they are all I-Frames, so it is intra-frame recording.

In nornal operation, this has no side effects whatsoever. At the end of a recording, we complete the GOP before we stop recording. This takes up to 1/2 second, no big deal.

In timelapse, we want to finish the Long Group of Pictures before we close the file.

In the most extreme case, if we were recording 1 frame a day (not a normal practice), it could take up to 14 days to close the file. If we were recording at 1 frame a second, which is the most common case, it would take up to 15 seconds to close the file.

So, for a entire timelapse sequence, the last GOP, in the last file, will be partially padded out at normal speed. This allows us to close the file prompty.

What I mean Dan is, don't most other I-Frame codecs have GOP = 1. I mean, if each frame stands alone, isn't a long GOP redundant?

Dear Aaron,

Other systems could easily have 1 frame in a GOP, I do not know.

We have not investigated having 1 frame in a GOP.

1. I do not know if we can do this.

2. I do not know if we do this, if any editor would support it.

In other words, we have not considered setting the GOP to 1.


We expect people, when using the timelapse feature to record slightly longer, or a lot longer than what they will actually use. Thus, it should not be a big deal to cut off the last 15 frames of a multiple hour timelapse sequence, especially when these last 15 frames represent 1 second.

Record I Frame MPEG as Long GOP
 

Hi Dan:
Yeah, this concept bends the mind. Why use a Long GOP MPEG video method to Record I- Frame MPEG video ? Surely there must be a very good reason for this ? Would it not be possible to simply record Time Lapse via pure I- Frame MPEG Video File Structure ? In this way, using a purely I-Frame MPEG video file structure would end the need to have a speed jump at the end of a time lapse sequence to accelerate the file closure operation would it not ? Or is there a technical consideration here, which strictly enforces the requirement to capture the I-Frame video in a Long GOP format ?

Dear Mark,

After recording a long timelapse sequence, in post, cut off the last second, of the last file that we created and you will be ok.

All of the other sub-clips (files) will not have the speed bump. Only the very last of any timelapse sequence.

Re: Speed Jump at the End of a Sequence
 

Hi Dan:
There is a fatal flaw in what you are suggesting. What you propose is viable *only if you successfully take the TL sequence using One (1) recording session.* If you have to shut down and restart for any technical reason (Like changing a battery) then this speed jump at the end of each sequence would ruin the flow of the sequence when you have to join two sessions together to make one sequence. Think about it. Any speed jump would have to be edited out, of course, and as soon as you do that, then you have a big missing piece of your timelapse progression, therefore you cannot match multiple sessions together properly.

Caveate: You must take your timelapse sequence in *One* (1) recording session. Bring big capacity battery (s) to shoot.

Guys there is a fundamental misunderstanding going on here. MPEG is a long GOP format - an I frame only format merely fills the long GOPs with I frames. A 1 frame GOP would "break" the MPEG format rules for the codecs involved - it's a standard and your NLE expects it. There is a standard technical way to get around this. You can "fool" the GOP into thinking it is full by using a flag that tells it to repeat the one frame as many times as necessary for 1080 or 720 - and the good news, it takes up no extra space. This would at least allow recording to stop instantaenously.

I don't know if you can then force the GOP to play back as one frame only - that would involve another flag or specialised software. It then becomes non-generic or needs post processing. If you have a 35mm DSLR that will do timelapse it currently seems like a better option than the XDR or Nano, but if you don't then the XDR seems like a reasonable, if imperfect solution.

Mark - I don't get this - if you had to stop recording for any reason you would ruin the flow anyway unless you could time the restart perfectly? Have I misunderstood you?

Hi John:
Actually, you make an even more fundamentally valid point, which is what I was trying to express but in different words. In case you want to *salvage* a 5 hour sit down because a battery has managed to last allot less than you thought it should, then under normal conditions there cannot be any hope in doing so if you have any kind of *speed jump* at the end of the recording session you just had to close before you battery died completely. If you cut out the speed jump and join it onto the next session, then you will have in most cases a 'missing piece' of TL progression - checkmate ! If you leave the speedbump in, then you also have a nasty interruption in the timelapse flow - checkmate once again.

You have two possible solutions:

A) You close one session and open another within the interval you are shooting. (Can this be done ?) Maybe ? What about the speed jump you now have in the middle of your time laspe scene ? You could.......*Possibly* cut out the jump and frame blend in post and hope no one notices. This sometimes can be done. I have actually accomplished this once.

B) You capture everything in one session and then record longer than you need and let the sequence speed jump away at the end and simply remove the jump part in post. (Dan expressed this idea)

* I still think this speed jumpy thingy way is a fatal flaw, but what to do if it takes another 9 hours to close your session without one ??? Hmmmmm ? This drives me back to my earlier inquiries as to why do we have to capture TL's using an I-Frame within Long GOP method ? Can we not use straight I-Frame MPEG recording structure ??

I think you have pretty much failed capturing your TL sequence if you don't get it all in one recording session, so bring large capacity batteries to the shoot.