4:4:4 10bit single CMOS HD project

Jason Rodriguez · July 27th, 2004, 09:16 PM

BTW, you know what I'm lov'n?

I'm lov'n those highlights on the skin!

That's very hard to do on Sony HD cameras without it looking nasty, cause they tend to clip and get color-shifts in the highlights. I've done it, but it never looks that good.

Chalk one up to Uncompressed!

Obin Olson · July 27th, 2004, 09:21 PM

ok... Joe Dunton Cameras have a grey card you think?

I live 2 blocks away from them

Thanks Jason...as you can tell that image has been WHACKED on by me in Combustion...not bad eh?

post the images Jason if you would for everyone

Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn · July 27th, 2004, 09:32 PM

Obin,
That streaks in the black have always the same spatial placement.
If the answer is yes it would be posible to make a plugin to remove them if necessary..

Also, if you can and will, please remember the exposure test I've told you....

Jason Rodriguez · July 27th, 2004, 09:32 PM

Quote:

ok... Joe Dunton Cameras have a grey card you think?

Yah Man,

You're in Willmington! Next to NY this is the film hot-spot on the east coast (not sure why it's not Norfolk, Virginia Beach, less hurricanes ;-)

BTW, here's Obin's images he sent me:

http://home.mindspring.com/~jrod/original.jpg
http://home.mindspring.com/~jrod/re-touch.jpg

Wayne Morellini · July 27th, 2004, 09:34 PM

Ben thanks for this advice, I see what you mean by the 40Mhz, clock limit, I had forgotten that, and I posted before I saw your subsequent post about Sumix looking at a lock. But really Sumix should have had somebody here to find out in times past, like SI's Steve has. I have been unable to get around to contacting them yet (as Steve I suggested) to talk with them.

Rob L is still on holiday, maybe he can help us with some space (like the 35mm adaptors have) when he gets back, good to see you all back.

The JVC altsens, is a 3chip camera, not bayer. Bayer is worse than 4:2:2, it is more like 4:2:0, red and blue is only sampled every 4 pixel block. If it is really under $2K, that would help offset the extra price of a HD-SDI card, but I don't really see JVC selling a HD camera for a price so close to the card. The thing is not even a true HD spec camera (I'm just being controversial here) if it only supports 30p and 60i. For lense, make an SLR adaptor.

I have talked to the local JVC pro distributor and that camera looks like an update to an existing model, and not likely to be under $2K. He informs me that the new HD1/10 like 3ccd camera maybe released at CVI?? show in Amsterdam, in Steptember.

Juan, if you want Altsens images, ask Altsens I'm sure they would have links on there site. I think you are going to be gaurantted to get better results from an Altsens, anyway.

Steve, arty B&W 1080 image, keep it away from Woody Allen ;), actually thats probably the best way to promote your camera, get him to use it (when the software is done).

Aaron thanks for the links but http://www.ccd.com/kaf-1602e.pdf is not found. I actually turned down a secondhand scsi HD rack thing for $20 recently, I wonder if it was fibre channel. If we could only get the speed and capacity in one drive at a cheap anough price (including standard interface like SATA 300, high speed doesn't need fibrechannel anymore) we can go three chip no worries (very nice for case design and drive swapping). I want to research this too.

Rob S what make of PC do you have, ussually they just exchange main boards to repair.

<<<-- Originally posted by Obin Olson : Anyone who wants more test images with HIGHCONTRAST stuff please provide your email...I can't upload ftp from home (don't know login)

I have been fooling around and it turns out that yes they more you GAIN the camera the worse the "smear" is...I now question if I had gain REALLY high on the shoot with the backlights....it was so much pressure I could have overlooked that I think...it's weird ...testing at home here I have to push it HARD to get that amount os smear again... -->>>

I posted questions ages ago, asking about how the gain effects latitude as well, as the more gain the more current issues. Your earliest outside shoots (with the dark face) did not seem to have any smear/streaking problems when lifted in post. Maybe we need to do standardised tests on each camera to test lattitude and problems at: 0 gain, the highest gain without smearing/streaking/colour banding, highest gain, lowest problem free negative gain, and lowest negative gain, for each channel. Testing for quality, and also hotspots and shadows.

Obin, would a 35SLR prime relayed (condesed) into 1/2 inch format condensed, help with dark shots?

Thanks

Wayne.

Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn · July 27th, 2004, 09:34 PM

@Jason:
To me It looks the original image is a little too high......

@Steve:

What do you talk about when you talk about "low sensitivity"??

About the FPN, is it always the same?
Can I remove it ,I'm really interested about that chip.
Having 12 bits and 2048 would be great for my work so I want to know everything.
Besides it supports 48 fps in 1920x1080.....

Obin Olson · July 27th, 2004, 09:41 PM

Juan I bet your right...you REALLY have to expose for the highlights on this chip in the RAW format

Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn · July 27th, 2004, 09:44 PM

so??
Is it overexposed??
I think we're going the right way now with all this new discoverings and tests...I'm so happy :)

What about the streaks in the shadows?
Did you read my post above?

BTW, My friend DP, tested yesterday the relay lens conbined with a lens for a 6x4 camera.
Amazing!!! he gained almost 1 1/2 f-stops against his SRL lens..

The problem is he was using a single un-coated lens, so image quality wasn't good.
Now we're heading to an optics factory to ask for help...

Wayne Morellini · July 27th, 2004, 09:48 PM

Dooh! I thought you were in Europe :).

Still this log trick that Sumix is doing for Bens camera, would it make sense for SI to do it for your camera too?

Jason Keenan · July 27th, 2004, 10:23 PM

Hey there,

Fascinating work everyone. I'm currently trying to get through all of the posts. I can only do this at work at the mo' so I'm only up to page 51. There's a lot of reading to get done. My interest here is mostly as a geek. Not sure what if anything I can contribute but I just thought I'd share something before I asked any stupid questions.

I read on part of the thread that someone had looked at the possibility of adapting virtualdub to work with the files but it only worked with 8bit. I was wondering if that person had also looked into Avisynth. Avisynth is a frameserver, which virtualdub has, but has the advantage of being much faster and scriptable. Unfortunately, i can't find any info about the colour depth it handles.

Why, you might ask. If it could be engineered to work with the files, you would be able to keep the original format and create a 'virtual avi' which is basically a dummy file that redirects the individual frames through avisynth and into your app. The app thinks that the dummy file is a standard avi. No compression artifacts, hopefully no loss of information and hopefully more compatability. You could ideally create scripts which would allow you to open the files in nearly everything (eg dropping from 10 to 8 bit to work in premiere)

Just a thought.

Jason :)

Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn · July 27th, 2004, 10:31 PM

Forget about it!! :)
Avisynth is heavily assembler optimized, has a lot of memory leaks, eats a lot of memory.
It looks faster to you because it works most of the time directly in YV12 colorspace.
When you use it in RGB, the same colorspace Vdub uses, it isn't faster.
Also it is very windows based so it is almost imposible to port it to any other OS.
Any of the things you are proposing would take more than 6 months of heavy work and a complete re-writing from scratch even if its developers (Shodan and Company) were working on it.

Wayne Morellini · July 27th, 2004, 10:44 PM

<<<-- Originally posted by Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn :BTW, My friend DP, tested yesterday the relay lens conbined with a lens for a 6x4 camera.
Amazing!!! he gained almost 1 1/2 f-stops against his SRL lens.. -->>>

This is what I'm talking about Obin. Stuff it, I'll reveal some of my plans, I wanted to keep them quiet so I could rub it in the noses of those people on my thread last year, but this is it. I was planning on using a Medium Fomat prime for indoor shoots, and a slr zoom (adjusted for MF for outdoor shoots). I was even eyeing a 30cm+ large format for night shooting (by moonlight, Starlight would be better, but I think that would require a truck to carry it ;). I suppose my doco's wont look so good if somebody else beats me to it, but I am getting tired of keeping it quiet. I've come up with many good computer inovations in the past, only to slowly see them erroded away as others, eventually, develope and exploit the same ideas (not saying that plenty of people haven't allready thought of condensing larger formats down to do low light, it is such a no brainer). But optically I think I still have got a few cards left.

Juan, are you talking about 6 by 4 inches, is he using a GG, because he should be getting more stops than that. Does the lense have a small aperture. I did some rough calculations previously and the best aperture lense for MF should give much more light (condensed) than a f1.0 SLR.

Jason Keenan · July 27th, 2004, 11:29 PM

Ok, another stupid suggestion. Is there anything in Cinepaint AKA FilmGimp that might be useful?

Also, even if Avisynth is not practical, is some sort of frameserver style of app worth looking at so you can work using the original without having to duplicate your footage to work with it in your NLE?

Jason :)

Les Dit · July 27th, 2004, 11:58 PM

How exactly would an 18% grey card help define exposure with this cmos camera?
With film, defining a single point along the response curve of film works, because the film toe, shoulder and whole response curve has been defined by the film manufacturer. With the Cmos camera, you can control the gain and offset of the chip, so you need more definition of a curve to nail down the 'exposure'.

I recommend shooting the equivalent of a sensotometric strip to help calibrate the camera. If you wanted to, you could even mimic the response curve of a particular film stock. I have a bit of color management experience under my belt from my last 'regular' job.

But it's also possible to just match it up visually to something on the monitor, without doing all the science.

Just a couple of things to think about.

-Les

Eric Gorski · July 28th, 2004, 12:26 AM

hey obin,
did you ever figure out how to get rid of the bending of the image that happens with fast pans? i remember, from the footage you posted awhile ago, the bottom of the image would have to catch up to the top, and smear... was that solved by shutter or mhz or something?

July 27th, 2004, 10:44 PM	#1167
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	A Lite Light Revolution! <<<-- Originally posted by Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn :BTW, My friend DP, tested yesterday the relay lens conbined with a lens for a 6x4 camera. Amazing!!! he gained almost 1 1/2 f-stops against his SRL lens.. -->>> This is what I'm talking about Obin. Stuff it, I'll reveal some of my plans, I wanted to keep them quiet so I could rub it in the noses of those people on my thread last year, but this is it. I was planning on using a Medium Fomat prime for indoor shoots, and a slr zoom (adjusted for MF for outdoor shoots). I was even eyeing a 30cm+ large format for night shooting (by moonlight, Starlight would be better, but I think that would require a truck to carry it ;). I suppose my doco's wont look so good if somebody else beats me to it, but I am getting tired of keeping it quiet. I've come up with many good computer inovations in the past, only to slowly see them erroded away as others, eventually, develope and exploit the same ideas (not saying that plenty of people haven't allready thought of condensing larger formats down to do low light, it is such a no brainer). But optically I think I still have got a few cards left. Juan, are you talking about 6 by 4 inches, is he using a GG, because he should be getting more stops than that. Does the lense have a small aperture. I did some rough calculations previously and the best aperture lense for MF should give much more light (condensed) than a f1.0 SLR.

July 27th, 2004, 11:58 PM	#1169
Les Dit Major Player Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Southern Cal-ee-for-Ni-ya Posts: 608	18% grey card How exactly would an 18% grey card help define exposure with this cmos camera? With film, defining a single point along the response curve of film works, because the film toe, shoulder and whole response curve has been defined by the film manufacturer. With the Cmos camera, you can control the gain and offset of the chip, so you need more definition of a curve to nail down the 'exposure'. I recommend shooting the equivalent of a sensotometric strip to help calibrate the camera. If you wanted to, you could even mimic the response curve of a particular film stock. I have a bit of color management experience under my belt from my last 'regular' job. But it's also possible to just match it up visually to something on the monitor, without doing all the science. Just a couple of things to think about. -Les

July 27th, 2004, 09:16 PM	#1156
Jason Rodriguez Trustee Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Virginia Beach, VA Posts: 1,095	BTW, you know what I'm lov'n? I'm lov'n those highlights on the skin! That's very hard to do on Sony HD cameras without it looking nasty, cause they tend to clip and get color-shifts in the highlights. I've done it, but it never looks that good. Chalk one up to Uncompressed!

July 27th, 2004, 09:21 PM	#1157
Obin Olson Trustee Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Wilmington NC Posts: 1,414	ok... Joe Dunton Cameras have a grey card you think? I live 2 blocks away from them Thanks Jason...as you can tell that image has been WHACKED on by me in Combustion...not bad eh? post the images Jason if you would for everyone

July 27th, 2004, 09:32 PM	#1158
Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn Major Player Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Buenos Aires , Argentina Posts: 444	Obin, That streaks in the black have always the same spatial placement. If the answer is yes it would be posible to make a plugin to remove them if necessary.. Also, if you can and will, please remember the exposure test I've told you....

July 27th, 2004, 09:34 PM	#1160
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	Ben thanks for this advice, I see what you mean by the 40Mhz, clock limit, I had forgotten that, and I posted before I saw your subsequent post about Sumix looking at a lock. But really Sumix should have had somebody here to find out in times past, like SI's Steve has. I have been unable to get around to contacting them yet (as Steve I suggested) to talk with them. Rob L is still on holiday, maybe he can help us with some space (like the 35mm adaptors have) when he gets back, good to see you all back. The JVC altsens, is a 3chip camera, not bayer. Bayer is worse than 4:2:2, it is more like 4:2:0, red and blue is only sampled every 4 pixel block. If it is really under $2K, that would help offset the extra price of a HD-SDI card, but I don't really see JVC selling a HD camera for a price so close to the card. The thing is not even a true HD spec camera (I'm just being controversial here) if it only supports 30p and 60i. For lense, make an SLR adaptor. I have talked to the local JVC pro distributor and that camera looks like an update to an existing model, and not likely to be under $2K. He informs me that the new HD1/10 like 3ccd camera maybe released at CVI?? show in Amsterdam, in Steptember. Juan, if you want Altsens images, ask Altsens I'm sure they would have links on there site. I think you are going to be gaurantted to get better results from an Altsens, anyway. Steve, arty B&W 1080 image, keep it away from Woody Allen ;), actually thats probably the best way to promote your camera, get him to use it (when the software is done). Aaron thanks for the links but http://www.ccd.com/kaf-1602e.pdf is not found. I actually turned down a secondhand scsi HD rack thing for $20 recently, I wonder if it was fibre channel. If we could only get the speed and capacity in one drive at a cheap anough price (including standard interface like SATA 300, high speed doesn't need fibrechannel anymore) we can go three chip no worries (very nice for case design and drive swapping). I want to research this too. Rob S what make of PC do you have, ussually they just exchange main boards to repair. <<<-- Originally posted by Obin Olson : Anyone who wants more test images with HIGHCONTRAST stuff please provide your email...I can't upload ftp from home (don't know login) I have been fooling around and it turns out that yes they more you GAIN the camera the worse the "smear" is...I now question if I had gain REALLY high on the shoot with the backlights....it was so much pressure I could have overlooked that I think...it's weird ...testing at home here I have to push it HARD to get that amount os smear again... -->>> I posted questions ages ago, asking about how the gain effects latitude as well, as the more gain the more current issues. Your earliest outside shoots (with the dark face) did not seem to have any smear/streaking problems when lifted in post. Maybe we need to do standardised tests on each camera to test lattitude and problems at: 0 gain, the highest gain without smearing/streaking/colour banding, highest gain, lowest problem free negative gain, and lowest negative gain, for each channel. Testing for quality, and also hotspots and shadows. Obin, would a 35SLR prime relayed (condesed) into 1/2 inch format condensed, help with dark shots? Thanks Wayne.

July 27th, 2004, 09:34 PM	#1161
Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn Major Player Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Buenos Aires , Argentina Posts: 444	@Jason: To me It looks the original image is a little too high...... @Steve: What do you talk about when you talk about "low sensitivity"?? About the FPN, is it always the same? Can I remove it ,I'm really interested about that chip. Having 12 bits and 2048 would be great for my work so I want to know everything. Besides it supports 48 fps in 1920x1080.....

July 27th, 2004, 09:41 PM	#1162
Obin Olson Trustee Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Wilmington NC Posts: 1,414	Juan I bet your right...you REALLY have to expose for the highlights on this chip in the RAW format

July 27th, 2004, 09:44 PM	#1163
Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn Major Player Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Buenos Aires , Argentina Posts: 444	so?? Is it overexposed?? I think we're going the right way now with all this new discoverings and tests...I'm so happy :) What about the streaks in the shadows? Did you read my post above? BTW, My friend DP, tested yesterday the relay lens conbined with a lens for a 6x4 camera. Amazing!!! he gained almost 1 1/2 f-stops against his SRL lens.. The problem is he was using a single un-coated lens, so image quality wasn't good. Now we're heading to an optics factory to ask for help...

July 27th, 2004, 09:48 PM	#1164
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	Dooh! I thought you were in Europe :). Still this log trick that Sumix is doing for Bens camera, would it make sense for SI to do it for your camera too?

July 27th, 2004, 10:23 PM	#1165
Jason Keenan New Boot Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 19	Hey there, Fascinating work everyone. I'm currently trying to get through all of the posts. I can only do this at work at the mo' so I'm only up to page 51. There's a lot of reading to get done. My interest here is mostly as a geek. Not sure what if anything I can contribute but I just thought I'd share something before I asked any stupid questions. I read on part of the thread that someone had looked at the possibility of adapting virtualdub to work with the files but it only worked with 8bit. I was wondering if that person had also looked into Avisynth. Avisynth is a frameserver, which virtualdub has, but has the advantage of being much faster and scriptable. Unfortunately, i can't find any info about the colour depth it handles. Why, you might ask. If it could be engineered to work with the files, you would be able to keep the original format and create a 'virtual avi' which is basically a dummy file that redirects the individual frames through avisynth and into your app. The app thinks that the dummy file is a standard avi. No compression artifacts, hopefully no loss of information and hopefully more compatability. You could ideally create scripts which would allow you to open the files in nearly everything (eg dropping from 10 to 8 bit to work in premiere) Just a thought. Jason :)

July 27th, 2004, 10:31 PM	#1166
Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn Major Player Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Buenos Aires , Argentina Posts: 444	Forget about it!! :) Avisynth is heavily assembler optimized, has a lot of memory leaks, eats a lot of memory. It looks faster to you because it works most of the time directly in YV12 colorspace. When you use it in RGB, the same colorspace Vdub uses, it isn't faster. Also it is very windows based so it is almost imposible to port it to any other OS. Any of the things you are proposing would take more than 6 months of heavy work and a complete re-writing from scratch even if its developers (Shodan and Company) were working on it.

July 27th, 2004, 11:29 PM	#1168
Jason Keenan New Boot Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 19	Ok, another stupid suggestion. Is there anything in Cinepaint AKA FilmGimp that might be useful? Also, even if Avisynth is not practical, is some sort of frameserver style of app worth looking at so you can work using the original without having to duplicate your footage to work with it in your NLE? Jason :)

July 28th, 2004, 12:26 AM	#1170
Eric Gorski Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Western Oregon Posts: 138	hey obin, did you ever figure out how to get rid of the bending of the image that happens with fast pans? i remember, from the footage you posted awhile ago, the bottom of the image would have to catch up to the top, and smear... was that solved by shutter or mhz or something?