4:4:4 10bit single CMOS HD project

[James Ball]

http://www.logisysus.com/

Specializes in small PCs

Many aren't as large as some dockable decks.


Also think of what you're replacing here. You're not replacing a video camera, you're replacing a motion picture camera. Small is nice but how many features are shot run and gun? None.


I'd also like to Amen someone else's comment about SDI. Indeed the whole world is HD-SDI.

Check out Blackmagic-design.com. They have a 14bit 4:4:4 HD with variable frame rate capture card for $1295. Lesser resolution for less money.

[Jason Rodriguez]

http://www.logisysus.com/

Specializes in small PCs

The big problem I see with this stuff is that there's no 64-bit PCI-X interface, which kind of leaves you high-and-dry for anything remotely complicated, especially if you want to get into HD-SDI. Personally, let's stay away from HD-SDI. Camera-link is fine, we have the software, HD-SDI will take you to a WHOLE 'NOTHER level of sophistication and price. There's a reason right now why I don't have a $1,000 Blackmagic decklink HD. Yes, the card is cheap, but I don't have the $5,000 to plunk down along with everything else that goes along with HD-SDI, just for a stupid RAID array, the tape deck, etc. And a simple piled together SATA RAID won't do the 200MB/s+ that you need from a SATA RAID for an HD-SDI baseband signal, not without adding a lot of drives. So HD-SDI is going to get real expensive real quick. HD-SDI monitors are real expensive, everything in that category is real expensive, and I don't understand everyone's insistance on going that route, since it's going to add a good $15K onto the price of your camera.

Check out Blackmagic-design.com. They have a 14bit 4:4:4 HD with variable frame rate capture card for $1295. Lesser resolution for less money.

The 4:4:4 card is $2495, and that WILL require a tremendous amount of throughput, at least 300MB/s+ for sustained image transfer. That's going to set you back a bundle ;-)

[Eliot Mack]

Neat to see this coming together. A couple of suggestions on the software effort:

-Qt is a really nice C++ GUI framework, just right for wrapping around a raw camera interfacing SDK. It has built in support for file handling, image handling and display, timers (to determine frame rate updates), TCP/IP networking, etc. Works on Mac/Win/Linux. There's a great book for it, "C++ GUI Programming with QT3", available for about $35, that includes libraries for all 3 platforms. Using it is free for open source projects. I've used it to implement a live video display application, and it's amazingly quick to get things working. I can volunteer some time in this area as the user experience will be very important.

-Setting up a CVS or Subversion server for the code would be great; that way people can download it, understand it, and start coming up with good ideas.

-One addition that would really make a difference for professional use would be to sync the frame grabs with incoming time code from an external time code generator. This is usually done on PC's through the RS232 interface. An event driven serial communications framework for Windows can be found here. http://www.tetraedre.com/advanced/serial2.php
Perhaps a Linux expert can add one for Linux. It's very easy to make external events trigger actions in Qt programs; no polling necessary.

The 1280x720 4:4:4 10 bit w/2 SATA drives looks like a great 1st stage design. This is exactly what low budget green screen shooters need.

Thanks,

Eliot

[Obin Olson]

The 1280x720 4:4:4 10 bit w/2 SATA drives looks like a great 1st stage design. This is exactly what low budget green screen shooters need.

Thanks,

Eliot -->>>

man it's almot as easy as going to Burger King for a burger...in like 15sec i had a PERFECT greenscreen key with this camera!!

Eliot make sure Rob knows about what your talking about with the Qt stuff....he is going to write code for this project

[Richard Mellor]

hi everyone


having trouble with the link to the clip .

[Obin Olson]

you may have to download it...I had issues then I updated windowsmedia player and now it works great..try that

[Richard Mellor]

I think its something with the page . I see your url frames
but it won;t link from the page and copy and paste won't link either.

[David Newman]

This thread is moving fast; I didn't seem to be able to read it frequently enough. Several pages ago there was a discussion of CineForm products for use with this workflow (Aspect/Prospect HD), that followed with the issue of 8 bit vs 10 bit. I totally agree this is you going through the trouble to design and build your our camera you don't want to compromise on the quality of it output (i.e. you want 10bit or better.) CineForm Prospect HD is priced the way it is as is designed for multi-stream real-time 1920x1080 compressed and uncompressed workflows over HD-SDI. i.e. expensive hardare and the software to manage it. Do you guys need that?

The primary question for you guys is what is your intended post-production workflow? On the PC side the low cost solution that support > 8 bit is After Effect Pro (16bit RGB 4:4:4) and that is difficult to use as an NLE. The NLEs from Adobe, Ulead, Sony (Vegas), etc., are all 8 bit. CineForm has extended Adobe Premiere Pro to a 16bit per channel YUV 4:2:2 workflow (currently only sold with Prospect HD.) I'm wondering is their a market for a high depth NLE package (with Premiere Pro) that doesn't require HD-SDI and a dual proc system. i.e. a 10bit / high-end version of Aspect HD. CineForm is interested is designed products to the market needs.

[Obin Olson]

David we do need a way to edit 10bit on PC I guess MAC finalcut pro HD can do it but like you said premiere can't and that sucks...I was going to capture all to tiff files in 16bit and do the color work in combustion and output 8bit for editing AFTER color work was done but it sure would be nice to edit 10bit....could your software have a 3rd "version" that would allow 10bit in premiere pro with a dual AMD or sungle p4 system? this thing is real and needs support from NLE systems, it can't cost too much as the whole point of this camera/system is lowcost highquality HD for Indy films Music videos and Commercial Production...so yes support from Cineform would be great IF it's a high enough quality codec...FYI that clip in wmv9 is 9 megs...it came from a 1 gig file! from 1 gig to 9 megs..that is amazing because the quality looks almost the same!!

Oh i think sony Vegas Video does HD at 16bit?

so how does Cineform stack up for image quality?

David why YUV 4:2:2??? whynot RGB 4:4:4 with 10/12/16bit?

the whole point that this camera can shoot images that you have more control in post is 4:4:4...maybe 4:2:2 would be ok if it was high bit depth...??

[Eliot Mack]

Hi David,

There is definitely a need for some sort of workable 10 bit HD codec that doesn't use dual Athlon 64s and HDSDI. It looks like the easiest way to capture is to RAW files. From there, the files can be color corrected and converted to a file format suitable for editing and compositing.

Avid is introducing a new HD codec designed specifically for multigenerational editing and compositing; it has about 5:1 compression but can apparently handle multiple generations of work without artifacting:

http://www.avid.com/DNxHD/

They will be making the source code to this codec available in another couple of months. I could see a fit between the capabilities of this codec and Cineform's knowledge of optimizing codecs to run on mainstream equipment. The download will be free, so it's easy to try out.

If a variation of the Prospect codec can handle compositing and editing without artifacts, that's great too. Whatever works!

Thanks,

Eliot

[Les Dit]

David,
It would be nice to have a tool to allow higher bit depth images to be used in Premiere Pro. Perhaps a lowest common denominator of the tool would be a codec that allows the user to batch convert a sequence of images ( tiffs, cineons ) to an avi file for use in the NLE. I don't suppose that Premiere would allow the high bit depth image sequence to be imported directly, that's too bad.
As new image stream formats come about with the various projects, there will be a need for 'stream conversion' tools for those raw high bit depth files.
If Premiere can host the 10 bit files and do 1st stage color grading on them before Premiere chops to 8 bits, everything is there for a low budget digital intermediate system!
There is a great niche here for those filmmakers wanting a more film like experience than DV, but they don't want to originate from film.
Personally I don't even think it's a problem if the codec isn't real time capable, 1/2 res proxies let me color correct just as well.

Jason,
Often the inadequacies of the image don't show up on a still. Thinks like awkward motion artifacts and fixed pattern noise ( or any noise ) will only become distracting when the movie is run at speed.

-Les Dittert

[Obin Olson]

Les I think way more shows up on a still image then a moving one! have you ever looked at feauter film frames on the net they look dirty and grain filled..not when you watch the film in theaters

[Les Dit]

Obin,
Sharpness certainly shows up on stills better than moving. But fixed pattern noise, quantizing, and other non uniformity is much more obvious when the image and the tones are moving.
For example, how can you tell the difference between fixed pattern noise and the image, if you only have one image to look at? You can't! Fixed pattern noise means that the same noise pattern exists in consecutive frames. It can't be detected with one frame.
Another example: Movie of a sunset. The quantizing ( banding ) if subtle won't be seen in a still. But when put into motion, the subtle bands can be seen slowly moving across the frame like an odd rainbow effect.

I was not referring to dirt, but even dirt shows up *much* better in motion. When we work on scanned effects shots, the dirt painters ( dust busting ) always flip between a few images to catch the dirt particles they need to paint out. Especially if the dirt or dust spec is actually on a shot of a dirt field!!!

-Les


<<<-- Originally posted by Obin Olson : Les I think way more shows up on a still image then a moving one! have you ever looked at feauter film frames on the net they look dirty and grain filled..not when you watch the film in theaters -->>>

[David Newman]

>-- Originally posted by Obin Olson :
> Oh i think sony Vegas Video does HD at 16bit?

No Sony Vegas is only 8bit and RGB (no YUV support either.)

> So how does Cineform stack up for image quality?

It is designed for HD online. It is equilevent (or better) than D5 (which is YUV 4:2:2 10bit.) D5 is the workhorse standard for HD masters.

> David why YUV 4:2:2??? whynot RGB 4:4:4 with 10/12/16bit?

History. Single link HD-SDI is 10bit 4:2:2 YUV. YUV is a more natural compression format -- optimized for the human visional system. RGB compression is less efficient. 150Mb/s compressed RGB would look worse than 150Mb/s YUV 4:2:2 (this is even true for 4:4:4 YUV although to a lesser extent.) Basically is you want the benefits of compression, YUV is the way to go.

> the whole point that this camera can shoot images that you have more control in post is 4:4:4...maybe 4:2:2 would be ok if it was high bit depth...??

I believe 4:2:2 is plenty particularly if you source is extracted from a Bayer pattern CCD/CMOS. 4:2:2 is more chroma resolution than the source which is 4:2:0 equivelent. 10bit YUV has enough data to prevent banding artifacts that can occur in color correction.

[David Newman]

>- Originally posted by Eliot Mack :

> It looks like the easiest way to capture is to RAW files. From there, the files can be color corrected and converted to a file format suitable for editing and compositing.

I see no reason not to capture directly into CineForm encoded file. We are doing this today from HD-SDI feeds.

>Avid is introducing a new HD codec designed specifically for multigenerational editing and compositing; it has about 5:1 compression but can apparently handle multiple generations of work without artifacting:

This is the same approach of CineForm. The only difference is the AVID codec is DCT based, whereas the CineForm HD codec is wavelet based. At the same quality the CineForm files are smaller (and faster.)

<<<-- Originally posted by Les Dit : David,
> It would be nice to have a tool to allow higher bit depth images to be used in Premiere Pro. ... I don't suppose that Premiere would allow the high bit depth image sequence to be imported directly, that's too bad.

This can be done; I know someone who already has an TIFF and DPX importer for Premiere Pro. This feature hasn't yet been integrated into the Aspect/Prospect HD.

>Personally I don't even think it's a problem if the codec isn't real time capable, 1/2 res proxies let me color correct just as well.

If we were to do this, we would aim to keep the performance up.