OK, I get you, QA hit me a bit out of left field, thats why I didn't catch on to it. I see what you mean, I haven't heard any negative report of their QA yet, have you?

Yes, your right, anything above standard frame rates, for slow motion capture, will require much more than one uncompressed Firewireb.

I'll wait and see what happens.

Obin, I can't find the SheerVideo beta download. Wasn't it on the website, or do I have to personally e-mail them?

http://www.dv3productions.com/pub/

Jason you will find the demo in that folder for mac os X


has any one seen this chip:

http://www.fast-vision.com/cameras/P...salessheet.pdf

it's global shutter and 1inch in size..what are the down sides on this one one? anyone?


WOW I am impressed..just came back from the screening of the VariCam footage that DuArt fixed the colors/contrast on..looks really really good..I would shoot a feature on that camera EVEN with the compression and 8bit! if that looked that good think what 1080p 12bit is going to look like!

Steve, shipping update on the Altasens?

64 bit Board + f-mount camera w.Micron MT9M413 CMOS Sensor+XCAP soft:
http://www.epixinc.com/products/pixci_cl3sd.htm

= $15,430.00

test mpeg:
http://www.epixinc.com/images/1sec1000fps.mpg

Hey Obin,

Do you have a current license for SheerVideo? Seems like the beta wants an already valid SheerVideo license to work correctly.

that is not a beta jason but a demo..do you need a code to unlock the demo or jsut to un-zip it?

Okay Obin,

I'll see what happens here, but I have auditions to run in an hour, so I won't be able to play around with this again till later today or tomorrow.

Typically though I'm assuming that you only get so many "trys", especially on my machine where I've "tried" the program before.

I think i'ts just a watermark not a limited number use demo

I need some feedback Jason..we are looking at save formats now and I need to know how well the sheervideo works for you ;)

would anyone care for a frame or 2 in the RAW format we have going? I would like to know the Rob project could transcode this RAW file yet...

I'm really sorry Obin, but there must be something that I'm doing wrong, and I'm really not sure because I've done this type of thing many times before (installing Quicktime Components). Quicktime won't play any of my SheerVideo movies.

Also at this point in time I can't re-install my system to try and get a fresh install for Sheer to work on, so that it hasn't see that it's been installed before.

Does anyone else on the list have a mac for editing?

I need help on this asap if anyone can that would be really great

We now have CIneLink working and are working on save formats and re-doing the preview on-screen for color instead of the SDK black&white and using our own code for preview/disk write

Community Technical Update
 

The latest community technical update is over at the technical discussion thread:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...43&#post221443

Obin,
If you could tell us how the format looks like, we can for sure open it....
I have a conversion application working now.It opens a RAW file (I mean pure binary file nothing more) and outputs a sequence of Tiff files...
Could anybody here tell me how to manage hot pixels.I mean what is the usual way to remove them....


What a test image should look like.......................

http://www.outbackphoto.com/artofraw/raw_09/essay.html

Hot pixels are typically "mapped" out, i.e., they are linearly interpolated from the surrounding pixels to look like they belong in the same area. Even if they are on a line, typically you won't notice if you only have one pixel out of place (again, it's typically a linear average of the surrounding 8 pixels in RGB).

That's pretty cool Juan that you made your own RAW converter. Is there anywhere that we can see the converted output?

Also, I think Juan has touched on something interested here, our RAW converters should have some sort of methodology of identifying and removing hot pixels. Maybe not the first alpha/beta, but definitely the final release.

Good on you, Juan :)

Hey Obin,

Here's the deal: FCP does work with the new Sheer at RGB 10-bit, 1920x1080, but it's only recongnizing the file as an RGB 8-bit file. That's an FCP limitation, where YUV is recognized at high bit-depth, such as 10 or 12-bit (and it renders at 32-bit floating point), but RGB is limited to 8-bit for now (no 16-bit).

While Quicktimes are very convenient, I still think that Sheer video might not be the best idea, especially if you have to convert from RGB to YUV for 10-bit processing-there are a whole ton of problems that can go wrong in that conversion. Of course the call is yours, but I would still leave open the door to a 16-bit TIFF file for those of us who don't want to mess with the Sheer Video processing that could be compromising the ultimate image quality or bit-depth of the image.

Now if you don't add any filters in FCP, then you're fine. You can maintain the 10-bits since FCP is only making pointers to Quicktime files, it's never modifying the original source files. So if you edit in FCP, and then take that edited timeline to AE or Combustion, etc. (via automatic duck, XML, etc.), then you are maintaining the total 10-bits RGB. But assume that you're going to be able to do your final render/conform in FCP-if you do that, then you're going to be filtering at 8-bits, and your result will be in 8-bits. I think if you do log-encoding to the 10-bit RGB Sheer file, then you're in very good shape, and will be preserving the totality of the 12-bits from the Altasens. Also at 1920x1080 we were running at 64MB/s.

this sounds good Jason...so if FCP is only a pointer app if you don't apply effects how does it deal with stuff like fade-to-white etc? if it's a pointer then it will not render a single file an dyou can jsut open the project in AE and CC or Combustion? how can you get a FCP timeline into AE or Combustion?

Jason I would like to call you on the phone for a chat..ok with you? I need number ;)

Juan M

can I send you a RAW file to look at and test?

send me your email and i will send you a raw file to test with

morsa @t morsa DOT net Dot ar

Remember it just opens .bin and it only does the color interpolation...
No gamma, no other things up to now....
I need a hot pixel filter.....:(

I have .raw files

hat is wrong with 8 bits as a master format Jason? do all the CC in 10bit/12bit and then edit and compress at 8bit..ok?

.raw

If they are just binary (I mean no headers, no tails, just the crude line of pixels it would be ok....)
I can only work with 1920x1080 and 1280x720 at 16 bit per pixel so no packing supported yet..

There's nothing wrong with 8-bit as a presentation format, for a Master format there's the insinuation that you'll be archiving on this format.

BTW, again, Sheer is a 10-bit codec, it's just that you can't Master in FCP with it right now, you're gonna have to move over to AE, etc. Frankly, as a 10-bit format, it's not as good as the Blackmagic, etc., which can take 16-bit renders out of AE and filter them down to 10-bits, so when you're selecting them under the Quicktime filter tab, they say "trillions of colors" rather than "Millions of Colors".

Again, I'm not telling you what to do, but as a potential end-user, I would like to see you keep the option for uncompressed 16-bit linear TIFF's for those of us who want uncompromised image quality.

But as far as Sheer goes, yes, it does work with Sheer 10-bit stuff, but only in YUV, not RGB.

Yes we will have tiff files but I am looking at compression as a way to allow the editing of files on a standard computer with no special hard disk drives etc...that is the reason for SHeer and to keep 10bit at a datarate of only 10-15MB/sec with very little compression like Sheer is amazing I think..it's like CineForm but it's an open codec that anyone can install and edit with if it's used by a mac

what are the other options at the moment for editing?

Does anyone know how hard it is to go from RGB -> YUV?? could this be a converter that could take RGB make it YUV AND compress it with quicktime Sheer codec all at the same time? how bad would the quality hit be?

Obin, what happened with the images you would send me?

I could not get at them today as the LightWave animation machine was in use by our animator ;( I will do it asap

Isn't this conversion process handled by the Quicktime conversion engine? Or is that not enough quality, or not operating at high enough bit-depth?

not sure Jason you said something about it being a bad process to use..didn't you?

RGB to YUV isn't a big penalty (about processing power)Don't know if image quality will suffer too much...
The only problem I see is that you would need a YV12 colorspace capable codec to compress the Bayer more or less directly.
If not you would need to interpolate at least the R and B parts.
Are you going to convert the Bayer on camera?

no we capture the RAW pixel data and then de-bayer the image and save with quicktime SheerVideo 10bit....unless that is that we have to go from RGB -> YUV first in a new process?? will the quicktime take care of that or not?

If this is a Quicktime process then I am home free and can jstu input the data into the quicktime SDK and let it do the RGB--> YUV conversion...I am not sure if this is how it works..anyone?

ohh, right.Clear now.
If that is the case just ask your programmer to implement the YUV conversion (I don't trust on built-in conversions, sorry)and send it to the codec..

good news:

Obin,

Within a few days we will release SheerVideo v1.9.8. This public
preview of version 2 will contain all the engine enhancements of v2,
including the incorporation of our StickyColor technology for
interconversion between RGB[A] and Y'CbCr[A] pixel formats. Version 2
turns the six specific SheerVideo codecs into a set of hubs capable of
inputting and outputting any pixel format with the least possible
information loss. In other words, every one of the Sheer codecs:

Sheer RGB[A] 8b
Sheer RGB[A] 10b
Sheer Y'CbCr[A] 8bv 4:4:4[:4]
Sheer Y'CbCr[A] 10bv 4:4:4[:4]
Sheer Y'CbCr[A] 8bv 4:2:2[:4]
Sheer Y'CbCr[A] 10bv 4:2:2[:4]

will directly input and output all of the following pixel formats:

ARGB (RGB[A] 8b)
'b64a' (RGB[A] 10+b)
'v408', 'r408' (Y'CbCr[A] 8bv 4:4:4[:4])
'v410' (Y'CbCr[A] 8bv 4:4:4[:4])
'2vuy', 'yuvs' (Y'CbCr[A] 8bv 4:2:2[:4])
'v210', 'v216', 'Y216' (Y'CbCr[A] 10bv 4:2:2[:4])

I hope this information helps answer your questions.

- Andreas

SheerVideo

Well....
Nice ,isn't it? :)

<<<-- Originally posted by Obin Olson : would anyone care for a frame or 2 in the RAW format we have going? I would like to know the Rob project could transcode this RAW file yet... -->>>

The conversion application will not support this without work from
you guys Obin. As soon as the basics are done it will be an open
source project and you can add your own handler to read your
format. We can't just "magically" add stuff for you.

RGB to YUV conversion is extensively documented and reasonable straight forward to code. It would be worth picking up this book for the algorithms (and better understanding of the process) Video Demystified. One warning RGB to YUV calculations are always performed on gamma corrected RGB -- don't forget this stage.

Hey Obin,

Yah, I forgot about that "sticky color" stuff that Andreas had talked about before. Supposedly it's seemless/lossless RGB->YUV conversion, because typically you are loosing something in the translation from RGB->YUV; the color spaces are not identical (AFAIK), unless using true floating-point operations, and even then I think there are ways to screw it up. I think the big problem is that you typically color-correct in RGB, so even if you have something in YUV, you're going to have to convert it back to RGB for good color-correction and then back to YUV for editing.

ok so then the workflow would be TIFF for CC in high bit and then save to sheer in yuv for editing? how does that sound?

The whole point is to keep it in a greater then 8bit depth at all times..wha would the point of YUV be anyway?

That sounds good.

Altough you might want to consider the option of just doing offline/online-I think that you might be creating more problems that it's worth by trying to edit with the online files when that's not really necessary (unless it's short-form project). I know for anything over 10 minutes, you're gonna want to try and do offline/online for the sake of sanity.

so what an option that allows a save to SD resolution and DV codec??

Sticky color is lossless and artifact free 10 bit RGB > 12(16) bit YUV > 10 bit RGB and 10 bit YUV > 12(16) bit RGB > 10 bit YUV.
http://www.bitjazz.com/bitjazz/press/2004.04.22.shtml

FCP has a very nice mediamanager that will batch process your Project into another format.
It can automatically convert all your uncompressed 10 bit HD files into SD DV (or any other format of choise) and convert your edited sequences as well. All in one single step.
Later you can simply relink to your HD files to make an online version.

Either that or you can use Sequence Publisher from IRIDAS for the conversion of the 16-bit TIFF files to a DV codec. The nice thing about that program is it allows custom burn-windows, etc., things that come in very handy for offline/online workflows.

If you're on the Mac, I can't reccomend Shake enough. Shake combind with some Perl, Python, or Tcl/Tk scripting is an unbeatable combination for file conversion, etc., although it's an expensive file converter at that!

BTW, Obin,

Just want to say again, if you take your 12-bit RGB linear image, and map that to a 10-bit Log colorspace, then encode to Sheer, you should be perfectly fine. In fact, you can then use Stickycolor to go back and forth between YUV and RGB, and like Anders pointed out, no loss. If you just use 10-bit linear though, you're loosing two bits, and in the case of the Altasens, those two bits are valuable, since you have greater than 11bits that are not contaminated by noise according to the Altasens spec sheet.