4:4:4 12-bit Uncompressed DVX100

[Juan P. Pertierra]

Ditto what Rob said.

The website is done, I am now adding the content and images. I'm shooting for tomorrow or tuesday. Hey, you can all get a preview if you can guess the name of the company and .com it. :)

Juan

[Stephen Birdsong]

Im going crazy trying to figure it out and I dont even own a dvx.


Stephen

[Gary McClurg]

Tried to guess but no luck so far.

So when will the link be up for the web site?

[Nicholi Brossia]

No luck here either. Although I have fumbled onto some fairly interesting sites... and apparently, the P. stands for Pablo :).

[Jaime Valles]

Hello all. Forgive me if this has been asked before, but how much HDD space does the output of this camera consume? Let's assume the highest possible quality settings (4:4:4 12-bit uncompressed). How many GBs would an hour take? MiniDV is about 13GB per hour. How about other, slightly compressed settings?

Also, you mention that it records to FW800 drives... no chance of using FW400? Too slow?

Thanks again for all the hard work. Can't wait to see the website!

[Juan P. Pertierra]

At full quality 4:4:4 36-bit RGB 24P, with no compression, it consumes about 40MB/sec. I am working however on lossless compression such that the number can be greatly reduced while mantaining full quality. If you drop the color precision down to 30-bit RGB it comes to ~33MB/sec uncompressed.

Now that you mention it, there ~is~ a chance that this might all work over Firewire400 after all. I went with FW800 just to be on the safe side, but the total bandwidth was always a bit under the FW400 bandwidth. Given that the host drive can handle the full 400Mbps rate, it just might work with standard firewire drives.

Do note, however, that i've seen older firewire 400 devices that do not operate at the full rate, plus the main point is that the actual drive that is in the Firewire casing can handle the bandwidth.

I'm confident that all new drives can handle it fine.

Juan(Pablo) :)

[Ron Severdia]

144GB/hour . . . so nothing lest than a terrabyte oughta do. . . :)

Where's that URL, Juan . . .??? Need some help with the web design? I can help ya out . . .

[Chris Rubin]

Hello Juan and all the lovely think tank!

This is my first post here although I've been checking this thread almost every day since early February (hey, better late than never).

Anyways, fantastic work... I don't care if hell freezes over, I'm gonna buy this thing.

I've done a lot of color grading work (both film and video) and I've had lots of fun playing around with the stills you've posted. A graded image off the mod looks surprisingly pleasant at 2k and 4k resolutions, it doesn't feel forced at all and the extra bits give a lot to 'tamper' with. Beautiful...

Juan, I'm sure your fanbase will grow fast after you get your web page running... screaming girls, paparazzi... you know the drill :)

OK, a couple of questions:

1) Did you get the RGB alignment problem sorted out? BTW, most prosumer 3ccd DV cams I've worked with have their channels very slightly misaligned. The compression usually hides it well, so it hasn't been that much of a
problem (until now). Fairly impossible to detect on a SDTV monitor, but uprezzing gives it away.

2) You have mentioned that it is still possible to record simultaneously on standard DV tape (to use as dailies/backup). As uncompressed capture requires wider aperture than standard recording (due to added stops), shouldn't the DV video be totally overexposed?

3) The Mini35 issue still bugs me. I'm gonna be shooting a movie next year (budget around $2m), and I would
definitely like to use your mod (or several of them). But Mini35 is pretty much a necessity here (gotta use
anamorphic primes). It would be good if they didn't null each other out. There seems to be enough space
between the support rods and the camera base attachment, but I'm not sure.


Thanks again and keep up the good work!
Chris

[Eric MacIver]

Not to speak too soon (yah, I know I am) but if this works out on the DVX, maybe he'll make one for the XL2, so you won't even have to bother with the anamorphic primes (can use more accessable standard primes) and you won't even have to worry about the down-sampling of all this prime Canon pixels to fit on a miniDV tape.

Hint, hint...

Also, I've been following this post fairly regularly, but I must have missed the part where the uncompressed image adds stops to the recording... Is there a simple answer to why that is?

[Aaron Shaw]

Non-downsampled XL2 - now there's something intriguing! Now if only I could afford one!

Chris: This is sort of off topic, sorry, but what do you use to upsample video/images?

[Juan P. Pertierra]

Chris:

1.Yes, the alignment problem can be perfectly fixed with some shifting and slight resizing. However, since I only have one DVX I leave open the possibility that the corrections that work for my DVX might not work on another, so my code allows the user to experiment in order to obtain the right alignment.

2.Depends on the scene and settings, but yes it does happen. There's no way around it unless I heavily modify the camera. Most of the shots i've posted however, didn't use the full dynamic range, and thus the DV output was still usable. I've found that to really get a nice film look to it, I under-expose the scene to avoid complete white-outs and then take advantage of the color resolution and apply a gamma curve.

3.That's a tricky one. I completely understand the need for it, but the problem is twofold: the wiring coming out the bottom has to be kept as short as possible, and in addition the box is pretty large so it would be hard to mount it elsewhere. The only option I can think of is a side-by-side arrangement. It will be huge, but it will allow the mini35 to be mounted.

Eric:

The DV process limits the dynamic range of the CCD's in order to comply with NTSC standards. My mod actually uses the full latitude of the CCD"s, which in my tests has resulted in about 2-4 additional F-stops of latitude.

Cheers,
Juan

[Mark Grgurev]

Come on Juan!!!!!!!! What's the URL?!!!!!!!!

[Eric MacIver]

Thanks Juan. Sorry to go over this again if it already has been. Are the stops your mod adds on both sides evenly or does it stop down more than it opens up stops?

Regarding the mini35 mount, would it be feasible to to make your box wider, but shorter so that it could mount to the rods and fit between the camera and rods? (not sure what the longest wire length would be).

[Flax Johnson]

Hi Juan and everyone.

Lots of people think you're a lier and a psychopath.
For people interested about that go on cinematography.com :
http://www.cinematography.com/forum2004/index.php?showtopic=1887&st=15

I don't have a personal opinion about it.

I think what you've done is possible even if I don't understand what you don't give the so long awaited URL.

The only thing annoying me is your price.

8500 $ is too expensive.
Especially when you know that some amazing HD will appear soon.
So, is it your last price ?

---

Chris Rubin if you have a 2$ m dollars budget what you spend time with Juan's mod ?

[Juan P. Pertierra]

Flax, all i'm gonna say is that you have the wrong person. I checked the link and they are talking about someone called Pete, who wants to do some low-cost HD solution.

And i haven't announced the price yet but it will be waaay lower than $8500 that's for sure.

Juan