Convergent design nanodrive for post work
 

I'm thinking of buying this is for post work and have a few questions!

Would this make any difference in rescuing overexposed areas like you can with film?

Would this give you better colour correction abilities?

Also a side question Im making a film and in one scene there are posters on the wall. How would I stand with copyright on this?

TIA

Mark

Are the posters in a public place?

If yes then you have no problem, if in a private venue and the posters are original artwork etc. then you may have a problem. Generally posters are there to advertise, so in effect you are helping to spread the word.

Are you making a feature of them or they just a part of the scene?


Copyright laws are a mixed bag, I remember a couple of years ago the BBC did an interview in an art gallery with one of the artists, and one of the other artists sent a bill to the BBC because the interview was in front of his work. Needless to say he didn't get any payment, but I guess if had taken the matter further then he might have a case.

Hi Vincent

I'm dressing a set and need some posters that are in the background of a teenagers bedroom. This is worrying as filming outside there are posters everywhere.

I don't have a nanoFlash myself, but I just can't stop looking at them. ;-)
When you say "for post work", I hope you mean that the nanoFlash will be used for shooting (aquisition) and that the output of the nanoFlash will help you in your post work. I don't think it would do much to help improve material already shot on some other codec like DV or HDV.

As for overexposure, if you've blown out your highlights (overexposed) then no magic codec or plugin can get them back. So no, it won't help recover detail in areas that are blown out. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but if the signal is clipped like that, it's clipped.

And with the posters, I am not a lawyer, but I've always used the policy that if it's a minor element in the background and not prominent or the subject of the shot, then you might be okay. Pan past it if you can, make it out of focus, cross your fingers. ;-)

Hi Brooks

If you transfer overexposed film to DPX files you can still to a degree pull it back even though its now in the digital domain. I had wondered that by capturing this extra information it might be possible to a degree here too.

The only other advantage for me apart from greenscreen is colour correction. But how much better is the nanoflash for this?

I'm in two minds here to film with the nanoflash or use 16mm.

Thanks

Mark

I would not have thought that 16mm was an option. Even Super sixteen is now regarded as a no no for broadcast and the cost!

This depends on what you mean by overexposed. If the picture information has gone then it doesn't matter whether you shot on film or video, once it's gone, it's gone and DPX or any other clever wizardry will never get it back. However if your talking about film or video that's been pushed to its very limits then there is certainly a strong argument that says film correctly transfered (expensive) to a 10 bit or higher digital intermediate should give smoother results after grading. However 16mm film when pushed hard does tend to be very grainy. A properly set up EX with the appropriate cinegamma or knee settings gives very close to 11 stops of lattitude which is very respectable and not a million miles of film stock. Good modern film stocks come in around 11 to 13 stops. The cinegammas roll of highlights quite pleasingly, not unlike film and as you can directly monitor the recorded image on set you can see precisely what you are getting.

The nanoflash is 8 bit so you only have the same number of bits to play with so no extra lattitude, however the reduced compression ratio and better colour sampling does help when grading, allowing you to push the grade a little harder.

IMHO the EX produces a vastly superior image to 16mm film. There is no weave, less grain, higher resolution and a better aspect ratio. The gap narrows between Super16 and the EX as the resolution is similar, so you have to decide whether you want a little extra lattitude (film) or less grain, no weave and sync sound (EX). Having seen my EX footage back to back with 2K, 4K and 35mm film all projected digitally via a Sony 4K projector I believe that it stands up remarkably well and can look stunning. I wouldn't trade my EX for a Super16 camera.

The nanoflash would certainly help, it should give a cleaner image with fewer compression artifacts to deal with when grading but it's not a night and day difference. One thing to consider is that an EX with a nanoflash meets the BBC's guidelines for HD broadcast (1/2" sensors with 50Mb/s 4:2:2 minimum) as well as Discovery, Nat Geo and the majority of other broadcasters, while 16mm or Super16 is not accepted by Discovery and Nat Geo for HD due to problems encoding the grain structure.

I wouldn't have thought there would be any problem with this, just as there wouldn't be a problem if the Times newspaper was laying on a table in the shot.

I guess the restrictions would be if you were making a direct copy of the poster and then selling your work as a product. i.e. if you made a film about an artist work or the history of the poster and were showing detailed shots of the poster.

I have done some tests using an arri bl I transferred the negative using a ditto scanner to 10bit DPX files and I found that the resulting footage was streets ahead of the EX1

Colour information was recorded that was absent from the EX1's. I'm not a professional by any means but I loved the look latitude and colour correction of the transferred 16mm film and the looks I was able to apply to these files. I guess the nanodrive being 8bit will suffer in colour correction as opposed to 10 bit. Really I'd much rather the argument was for the EX1. Maybe I could hire a 10 bit recorder would that help? Though I imagine it would cost lots of money!

Thanks Vincent I've contacted the artist and asked for permission!

i am very surprised that you find standard 16 to be better than the EX. Is it that you feel the film to be technically better or aesthetically better?

Aesthetically I can understand, but by the time you've taken a 16x9 or other wide aspect crop out of a standard 16 frame your going to have pretty poor resolution. Thats one of the reasons why S16 was developed, it was felt that regular 16mm was below par even for SD TV.

Haven't seen a BL for years, that takes me back to when I first started making films about motorsports. I always remember the BL as the one we had was notorious for shredding film. It's registration pin would act like a hole punch. Big heavy beast too, esp. with the proper blimped mag.

Hi Alastair

Actually I use zeiss mark one superspeeds with an iscorama 54 anamorphic lens giving me a 2.1 film ratio even better to me than 1.66 or 1.85. The iscorama only loses a third of a stop.

Although you can only use the 25mm and 16mm as they have screws. Yes its a big beastie especially on your shoulder. I've shredded test film when learning to load the mags.

I've found for me aestheticly this is streets ahead and gives life and colour with little grain and overexposed footage can usually be rescued and grain can be for the most part taken out quite easily in AE. Although this doesnt look so good when the film is badly overexposed. But then the EX1 would just give you a white informationless picture.

I cant give an opinion on the technical side all I can say is I know what I thought looked better!

This is a test I did using the EX1 and the bl the footage is compressed but to me this shows a marked improvement over the EX1 especially in light and dark shadows and information captured.

16mm Kodak Vision 3 test. on Vimeo

Regards

Mark

Well were going to have to agree to disagree on this one as I really don't like the "look" of the footage in the vimeo clip. There is no shadow detail, blacks are totally crushed, the edges are very soft and distorted, it all looks under exposed and there's more grain than a Mid-West farm. The video shot of the guy by the car at the start has a different tonal range (easily adjusted) and what appears to be added noise so it's difficult to see what's really going on, but it has much more shadow information. You can see where the car tire's end and the shadow of the wheel arch starts, while the film clip the tire's and wheel arches are just total black blobs. You can also see far more compression artifacts and blocking on the film clip than the video clip, the reason why film is rarely used for HD TV.

That's my opinion, Some may disagree while others will disagree. As were talking aesthetics both will be right.. and wrong :). Perhaps that's the look you are trying to achieve, it certainly has a very retro look, like a 70's TV drama. At the end of the day it's your film so the most important thing is to go with the look that you feel best suits your project.

I'm sure that a few simple tweaks to the EX picture profiles could get a very similar look without the expense of telecine.

Hi Alastair

Personal taste? Yes I agree... To disagree. Have to disagree that vision 3 looks retro so maybe my colour correction is.

This was a test where the arri was deliberatly over and under exposed very badly to find out what was rescuable The EX1 was correctly exposed.

Anyway I dont want to defend either position. The most important thing is making this film I have a DP who wants to work either with the red or 16mm.

I want to upgrade the EX1 to achieve it. We are making a film and going for the look of a hollywood blockbuster as much as we can and thats what matters to achieve this look at low cost. If I can get a real film look with an EX1 then I'd be very very happy as this will save loads of money for all future productions.

TWO PLANS
I have the Letus extreme but would need the optimisation kit and backfocus as well as the nanodrive. That would cost me about £3300

Film costs for a 6 to 1 ratio would be about £2800. The EX1 route is still the best option as I would be able to use it for future productions.

I'd like to put aside my test and concentrate on what is the best option from the two above and forget my likes or dislikes regarding colour correction etc.

Hi Vincent Brooks

Just to update you. I got permission from the posters owner!

Thanks for your help

Best wishes

Mark

The only things the Letus (or other DoF adapter) will bring is shallower DoF and alternate lens options.

Before you splash out on anything you might want to look at this guide to grading for a blockbuster look, very enlightening.

Red Giant Software: Red Giant TV - Episode 22: Creating a Summer Blockbuster Film Look

Given that you can fake shallow DoF in post to some degree I'm still to be convinced by the DoF adapter route, I think it gets taken too far and they seem to add so many other issues such as drifting back focus, general softness plus soft edges and vignetting.

I would take Red over 16mm in an instant, I'de probably take digibeta over standard 16mm.

Hi Alistair

Yes I always use colorista and often MB.

Okay and thanks, in your opinion will the EX1 will give as good or better result than super16mm even when recorded using a cintel ditto scanner which records the image in DPX10 bit files and about 8mb per frame?

The problem with Red is the cost and workflow IE peripherals and editing on a mac as well as having to down rez to 2k Might as well stick with the EX1?

So I guess out of the cheaper priced recorders there is only the nanoflash 8 bit or the panasonic AG-HPG20 which is 10 bit both record at 100mbps I guess the panny looks like the better option.

That's true, if you're happy with using P2 cards as your storage medium. Personally I like the fact that the nanoflash uses more readily available compact flash memory cards. But yeah, it's more expensive, but it's also much more portable.

Personally I would get the AJA Ki Pro before I'd buy the Panasonic AG-HPG20.

I think the NanoFlash will be the best bet as it records at 100 or 160 mbits and in .Mov or MXF formats amonst others. The EX1 output is pretty well future proofed.

Mitchell the AJA can only be used on a mac and final cut pro?

Bruce I'm thinking here that 10 bits is better for colour correction?

Best

Mark

What are the pros and cons of an AJA card?

The AJA Ki pro I would expect to be better than the HPG20.

10 bit will only be better than 8 bit when there is a corresponding increase in the bit rate. The EBU have done many tests comparing 10 bit and 8 bit and their tests have shown that in many cases high compression 10 bit codecs are not offering the advantages they should as they just don't have high enough bit rates to take advantage of the extra bits. You have to remember that to compress 10 bits of data (1024 levels) requires a significantly higher bit rate than for 8 bits (256 levels), not just double or even triple.

Certainly the NanoFlash and Ki pro will improve on the already excellent EX output, I'm not so sure that there is any advantage to using the HPG20, however I have not done any actual comparisons so that is opinion only. It would certainly be an interesting test, anyone with a Mac could generate 50Mb/s XDCAM, ProRes HQ and DVCPRO HD files to compare. In the test I have done I found ProRes to be noisy. I still think that a NanoFlash at 100Mb/s would be hard to beat.

Hi Alistair

AG-HPG20 for colour correction - Google Search

On the second link down of this google search there is a pdf download that shows the HPG20 10 bit compared to 8 bit colour gradation. This looks impressive to me and would certainly make a difference in cc if true but then it is advertising what do you think?

I'm pretty sure the answer is Yes. Mainly because the Ki Pro saves everything to ProRes, and I don't think there's a way to use the ProRes codec in a Windows environment.

Just realised there are no P2 cards with the recorder and how expensive they are.

Everything has its catches..

Nanoflash 8 bits
AG HPG20 Cost of cards and only usable n some nle's
AJA KI Pro only usable with a mac and final cut pro
AJA capture cards need a controller and hard drives so lose portability.

All I want is 10 bit 4.2.2 recorder with a 100mbps codec and flash cards. This surely must be an obvious consumer product?

Panasonic are hardly going to say that there is no advantage and a simple image of a grey scale tells us nothing about how the codec actually performs.

It's not as simple as 10 bit v 8 bit. Bit rate and codec efficiency are just as significant. Mpeg as used in the NanoFlash uses a long GOP. It's generally accepted that long GOP codecs are much more efficient than I frame only codecs. Depending on the codecs often by a factor of 3 or more. Now if you take the NanoFlash and run it at 50Mb/s it's already almost certainly more efficient than a 100Mb/s I frame only codec by a fair margin. So that begs the question, where does all the extra bandwidth required to encode 10 bits (as opposed to 8 bits) in the AVC I codec come from? The answer is there is no extra bandwidth. As a result the AVC I codec will suffer from more macro blocking and mosquito noise in areas of high detail which wipes out any advantage that having 10 bits may have offered. The requirement for a higher bit rate for 10 bit 4:2:2 is why ProRes HQ as used on the Ki Pro is 220Mb/s, even the lower quality option is 145Mb/s. It's also why the EBU amongst others are perfectly happy with the use of 8 bit codecs for acquisition. Don't forget that the NanoFlash can go upto 160Mb/s using Mpeg2. At 100Mb/s it's pretty much impossible to tell it from uncompressed.

There is no doubt though that a really robust 10 bit codec for post production where storage space is not an issue is preferable.

You should also consider the additional cost of storage when using a 100Mb/s codec over a 35Mb/s or 50Mb/s codec.

You can view, playback and edit ProRes on a PC provided you have quicktime installed. The only thing you can't do on a PC is encode to ProRes.

Hi Alastair

From what I've been reading the nanoflash 100mbps is better than the 160 i frames so that sounds like the best option.

I guess I'm back to square one really and that is is the Nanoflash offer any advantage when it comes to colour correction?

What might be an idea is to hire a decent 10 bit portable recorder. Not sure where to get one though and which to go for?

Hi Alastair

Could I edit with the aja ki pro footage in vegas 9 if so this could be an answer.

Although vegas is only 8 bit so Id have to use after effects and create a proxy in vegas?

Thanks Alastair and Mitchell and everyone else I think the AJA KI PRO is the one now if I can only find a good price in the UK?

Best wishes

Mark

Vegas can be set to 32bit. The processing is done with 32 bits, all you need to do is choose a 10 bit output codec. For top quality you could even go uncompressed.

Thanks Alister

I have been stressing over what to film this with and today I've nailed it thanks to you guys! Couldn't be better

Mark :)

Alisters totally correct, and you can get an idea of the theory very easily in Photoshop by creating a simple gradient, black to white across the screen.

To show how bit depth can cause banding, use the "levels" control with "output" set to about 32. You get a nearly all black scale ranging in value from 0 to 32. Then expand it back with the level control set to give an output level of 255. Lo and behold, back comes the greyscale with black to white, but significant banding - the effect of insufficient bitdepth in the intermediate step.

But there's another way to get the same effect. Save the image as a JPEG with maximum compression. Lo and behold - severe vertical banding, just as before. A nice demonstration of how the same problem can be caused by lack of bitdepth or too heavy compression.

It's certainly true that 10 bit will get better results than 8 bit *IF ALL ELSE REMAINS EQUAL*, but if the price of 10 bit is significantly higher compression than an equivalent 8 bit system, you're taking one step forwards, one step backwards.

Alister, do you really think dof can be realistic done in post? I haven't done it myself and haven't seen many but the ones I saw looked well, fake. Do you have any examples or can point to any examples that look realistic?
Thanks.

Just wanted to chime in and say that recording a scene in 8bit won't cause any banding. Banding only occurs when converting between colorspaces (i.e. viewing 10bit on an 8bit display), and only when the software involved can't handle the conversion properly.

8bit is beyond sufficient for video capture. 10bit or higher is used more for heavy grading, when you aren't getting the look you want out of the camera that is. Like another poster said, an increase to 10bit without an increase in bitrate will actually produce a far inferior image. So the equivalent of an 8bit 100mbps would be a 400mbps 10bit.

I've had my eye on the nanoflash for a long time and have seen it demonstrated in person. Quite an impressive little device and I intend to pick one up soon.

I've been using one today to shoot thunderstorms at sunset. You can really see the colorspace difference in highly saturated images such as the ones I shot today. Really impressed by my NanoFlash, worth every penny.

I'd be looking to film day for night in post as well as add or change lighting and basically be able to paint the picture the way I want it. Would converting 8bit captured footage to 10bit for colour correction help?

Mark

The short answer is no.

Most editing and almost all finishing software will work in a wider colorspace when performing colour correction. For example, Sony Vegas can do all processing in 32bit without having to re-render or convert anything. The original file does not need to be 10bit in order to colour it in 10bit. And unless you have a top of the line camera with amazing glass and a very colourful scene lit to perfection, there probably isn't any more than 8bits of data available in the scene. So what's the point of carrying that 8bits inside a bulkier 10bit or 16bit box?

The long answer is that if you have a vfx pipeline or something to that effect, you want an intermediate codec that has plenty of breathing room. That's when you use a 4:4:4 10bit codec, when you're ILM and the scene is going sequentially through eight artists. If the box is too small, it won't be able to carry all the extra information added by the animation and compositing. This is not a common workflow, though.

The average human eye can distinguish somewhere between 3-10 million colors. 8bit is 16 million, 10bit is over a billion.

Hi Jad okay so you're working in your 10 bit environment now the crucial bit you render out to ten bit this should have the effect of at least preserving everything you had in 8bit anf giving you more headroom. Thats my point and my question was would this workflow help.

10 bit has the potential to offer 4 times more colour info but as Im now finding out doesnt neccesarily mean a lot with low bitrates. Alister has said colour correction with 8 bit 100mbps is working well for him.

What I can see is that to get an advantage for 10 bits I'd need 400mbps and the AJA Ki Pro does 220mbps So maybe there isnt much difference between the two. I dont know its all a grey area to me because unless you have specialised equipment to test for yourself then different codecs etc will make different results. I cant and wont know myself unless I become an engineer and buy the equipment all I can do is ask advice and hope someone without a biased opinion can help. So far though this discussion has been educational and interesting. Im interested now in Alistars results and how he thinks it compares to 10 bit.