High Definition with Elphel model 333 camera

Forrest Schultz · April 13th, 2006, 12:50 PM

And if the half-res aint doing it for ya, here is a full size version of the same thing, coded in wmv. but still keeps pretty much all the quality. (as much as i can see).

http://www.savefile.com/projects.php?pid=967631

Oscar Spierenburg · April 13th, 2006, 02:47 PM

This footage looks great. Grrmm.... still don't have my camera. (it made me write another email though)
I really like the colors and the lack of grain. The motion is good too.
I still think it would be wonderful to use this with a 35mm adapter...although the DOF isn't bad at all. Thanks for the footage Forrest.

Forrest Schultz · April 13th, 2006, 03:02 PM

Thank you Oscar.
I think the thing that is so stunning and makes it so filmlike is the fact that it doesnt have artificial edge enhancerments, or atleast, looking at the footage, there seems to be none of that. It gives it a much more filmlike trait. and the color it picks up is unbelevieble also. im going to post some more clips real soon. one of which, you can actually see the pick in my hand is a bright orange clip. i know my dv camera cant pick that up.

Forrest Schultz · April 13th, 2006, 04:45 PM

Alright, so i got 2 more half res clips for you guys.

HERE is the link for the clips: http://savefile.com/projects.php?pid=967631

One is called "Guitar Chair"
still preview:http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...tarchai001.jpg

and the other is called "Motion test back"
still preview: http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ti/jump001.jpg

you can also view the other clips, i have 2 versions of me playing the guitar
preview:http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a162/vericetti/4.jpg

one is full res and the other is half.

Forrest Schultz · April 13th, 2006, 10:05 PM

One more video. half res, its called Mother with a Gun. this is shot indoors at nighttime.

http://www.savefile.com/projects.php?pid=967631

Eric Gorski · April 14th, 2006, 12:14 AM

very nice clips.

have you tried performing much color correction on your raw video files? if so, how well do they stand up to adjustments in contrast, saturation, etc? is there much to work with beyond what's seen in the compressed internet vids (can you pull alot of hidden info out of shadows, etc.)?

looking good.

Forrest Schultz · April 14th, 2006, 12:26 AM

The color corrections for contrast and saturation stand up perfect. I fixed that scene with the closeup of me and the guitar outside because i didnt white balance the camera correctly before i recorded. it recorded a little too green. so in Adobe After Effects i adjusted the curves and lowered the green a tad, and that coloring was perfect. I also was able to add the S-curve, much like film has and it held fine. i havent tried to bring out details in the shadows, that might be a goood thing to try. are they are techniques in doing this?

Heres an example of color correction:

original, unbalanced green shot: http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a162/vericetti/1.jpg

Adobe After Effects color corrected and s-curved: http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...rrected001.jpg

Eric Gorski · April 14th, 2006, 01:15 AM

it looks like most of your outdoor footage (the shot of the shovel and you with the guitar especially) is over exposed quite a bit (the sky and highlights are just blown out white that bleeds into the rooftops and fence)...

a good way to test the range of the camera would be to try underexposing some outdoor footage quite a bit, to the point where it looks too dark to your eye. try setting the exposure so that you can get as much definition out of the clouds as possible and everything else should be pretty dark. seeing if you're able to pull detail out of the dark stuff in post is a good test...

also is it possible to see some full res stuff compressed at %100 jpeg quality? i think once you start trying mess with the footage alot in post, the compression will become much more apparent.

Wayne Morellini · April 14th, 2006, 01:37 AM

This is good advice. In the RAW cameras, the footage naturally came out dark and had to be increased in post.

The bleeding from the clouds into the roof tops, I didn't look, but is this blooming? The 1.3 mpixel microns were supposed to be very bad at this, but the 3 mpixel is supposed to have on chip circuits to suppress this.

Konst Seraf · April 14th, 2006, 06:55 AM

To the 333 owners. Can you describe the workflow for recording session. Lets say we have evrything working indoors. Now we taking whole system (camera, laptop/desktop, etc) outdoors. Please, describe steps necessary to setup camera to new conditions and do the recording. What software is used and what tools you have to control camera setup before and during record session.
Thank you.

Forrest Schultz · April 14th, 2006, 10:47 AM

Eric, might i suggest watching the clip thats Titled something like "guitar chair". its me sitting in a chair during a full bright sunny day. the one with the shovel i set the exposure too high, and that day was overcast anyway. But the one with me sitting in the chair you can actually see the sky is a deep darkish blue, deeper blue than what my eye actually made out of the sky that day. anyway, i filmed it with the iris set like that, and was able to record myself with perfect exposure. meaning the camera was able to record the subject in perfect balance with the sky. something i didnt think was possible until i saw it could handle it. check that out and let me know what you think.

and Konst,
for all the info, please visit wiki.elphel.com and ww3.elphel.com

basically, you control everything about the camera through your laptop or pc. to do outdoor stuff, you'll need to power your laptop (either AC or battery power) and you need to power a little box with either AC or some type of batter that work. this little power box has 2 ethernet plugs. one to go to the computer and one to go to the camera. the power supply allows you to use reallly really long etherent cables without losing performance.

And the CD you get with the camera, and you can also download as an ISO and burn yourself is the program you work with. you pop it into your PC, reboot your system, and it will load its own Knoppix OS. all the neccesary software is on their to stream and record. Since the Knoppix is using Virtual Memory you wont want to record with that. youll need an external harddrive to store all your shots. basically thats it. controls look like this for the camera:
http://wiki.elphel.com/index.php?tit...ol_panel_1.jpg

Eric Gorski · April 14th, 2006, 12:20 PM

yeah, that clip of you in the chair is very well exposed. if you could post something like that in raw format that i could mess with, i would appreciate it.. if possible, next time you're shooting, could you try underexposing alot.. something where everything is just really dark. that's the real test. thanks ;)

Jef Bryant · April 14th, 2006, 01:29 PM

With that mjpeg compression, underexposing might not be a good thing for image manipulation later.

Is there any way around this compression? Has elphel developed any other options in that area besides mjpeg? I like most of what I'm seeing, but the compression seems pretty heavy.

Forrest Schultz · April 14th, 2006, 01:35 PM

Jef, what compression artifacts can you see? do you mean the image looks soft, or do you see jpeg squares (like the grid looking thing)

If you see there are image squares, it is because i have been recording files with 70-75% quality on the jpeg compression to save space mostly. i can record all the way to 99% quality, which is really overkill, basically no visiable sqaures should be seen. but i can try some at 90 or 95 to see if that solves any image square issues. but i cannot even see that big of a deal at 70 %. thanks, let me know what you see.

Jef Bryant · April 14th, 2006, 03:15 PM

Don't get me wrong, the images look nice, and I am NO expert. I love the real 24p with proper motion blur, lack of sharpening, and general flexibilty (and low cost) of the camera.

The artifacts I'm talking about are not very visible in normal viewing, but are brought out when manipulating the image in post. Desaturate a clip and you'll see them (blockiness in solid or dark areas, compression "fuzz" around the edges of moving objects, etc). I'm not enough of an expert to know if upping the mjpeg quality to 100% will change any of this.

Depending on how one wants to use their footage, this may not be an issue at all. Minimal adjustment of images in post probably wouldn't be a problem, but I tend to push things...

Perhaps I'm being overly picky. Compression is just one of those things that gets to me. :/

April 13th, 2006, 12:50 PM	#31
Forrest Schultz Major Player Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Atwater, CA Posts: 246	And if the half-res aint doing it for ya, here is a full size version of the same thing, coded in wmv. but still keeps pretty much all the quality. (as much as i can see). http://www.savefile.com/projects.php?pid=967631

April 13th, 2006, 02:47 PM	#32
Oscar Spierenburg Major Player Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: (The Netherlands - Belgium) Posts: 735	This footage looks great. Grrmm.... still don't have my camera. (it made me write another email though) I really like the colors and the lack of grain. The motion is good too. I still think it would be wonderful to use this with a 35mm adapter...although the DOF isn't bad at all. Thanks for the footage Forrest.

April 13th, 2006, 03:02 PM	#33
Forrest Schultz Major Player Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Atwater, CA Posts: 246	Thank you Oscar. I think the thing that is so stunning and makes it so filmlike is the fact that it doesnt have artificial edge enhancerments, or atleast, looking at the footage, there seems to be none of that. It gives it a much more filmlike trait. and the color it picks up is unbelevieble also. im going to post some more clips real soon. one of which, you can actually see the pick in my hand is a bright orange clip. i know my dv camera cant pick that up.

April 13th, 2006, 04:45 PM	#34
Forrest Schultz Major Player Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Atwater, CA Posts: 246	Alright, so i got 2 more half res clips for you guys. HERE is the link for the clips: http://savefile.com/projects.php?pid=967631 One is called "Guitar Chair" still preview:http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...tarchai001.jpg and the other is called "Motion test back" still preview: http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ti/jump001.jpg you can also view the other clips, i have 2 versions of me playing the guitar preview:http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a162/vericetti/4.jpg one is full res and the other is half.

April 13th, 2006, 10:05 PM	#35
Forrest Schultz Major Player Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Atwater, CA Posts: 246	One more video. half res, its called Mother with a Gun. this is shot indoors at nighttime. http://www.savefile.com/projects.php?pid=967631

April 14th, 2006, 12:14 AM	#36
Eric Gorski Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Western Oregon Posts: 138	very nice clips. have you tried performing much color correction on your raw video files? if so, how well do they stand up to adjustments in contrast, saturation, etc? is there much to work with beyond what's seen in the compressed internet vids (can you pull alot of hidden info out of shadows, etc.)? looking good.

April 14th, 2006, 12:26 AM	#37
Forrest Schultz Major Player Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Atwater, CA Posts: 246	The color corrections for contrast and saturation stand up perfect. I fixed that scene with the closeup of me and the guitar outside because i didnt white balance the camera correctly before i recorded. it recorded a little too green. so in Adobe After Effects i adjusted the curves and lowered the green a tad, and that coloring was perfect. I also was able to add the S-curve, much like film has and it held fine. i havent tried to bring out details in the shadows, that might be a goood thing to try. are they are techniques in doing this? Heres an example of color correction: original, unbalanced green shot: http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a162/vericetti/1.jpg Adobe After Effects color corrected and s-curved: http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...rrected001.jpg

April 14th, 2006, 01:15 AM	#38
Eric Gorski Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Western Oregon Posts: 138	it looks like most of your outdoor footage (the shot of the shovel and you with the guitar especially) is over exposed quite a bit (the sky and highlights are just blown out white that bleeds into the rooftops and fence)... a good way to test the range of the camera would be to try underexposing some outdoor footage quite a bit, to the point where it looks too dark to your eye. try setting the exposure so that you can get as much definition out of the clouds as possible and everything else should be pretty dark. seeing if you're able to pull detail out of the dark stuff in post is a good test... also is it possible to see some full res stuff compressed at %100 jpeg quality? i think once you start trying mess with the footage alot in post, the compression will become much more apparent.

April 14th, 2006, 01:37 AM	#39
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	This is good advice. In the RAW cameras, the footage naturally came out dark and had to be increased in post. The bleeding from the clouds into the roof tops, I didn't look, but is this blooming? The 1.3 mpixel microns were supposed to be very bad at this, but the 3 mpixel is supposed to have on chip circuits to suppress this.

April 14th, 2006, 06:55 AM	#40
Konst Seraf New Boot Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 12	To the 333 owners. Can you describe the workflow for recording session. Lets say we have evrything working indoors. Now we taking whole system (camera, laptop/desktop, etc) outdoors. Please, describe steps necessary to setup camera to new conditions and do the recording. What software is used and what tools you have to control camera setup before and during record session. Thank you.

April 14th, 2006, 10:47 AM	#41
Forrest Schultz Major Player Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Atwater, CA Posts: 246	Eric, might i suggest watching the clip thats Titled something like "guitar chair". its me sitting in a chair during a full bright sunny day. the one with the shovel i set the exposure too high, and that day was overcast anyway. But the one with me sitting in the chair you can actually see the sky is a deep darkish blue, deeper blue than what my eye actually made out of the sky that day. anyway, i filmed it with the iris set like that, and was able to record myself with perfect exposure. meaning the camera was able to record the subject in perfect balance with the sky. something i didnt think was possible until i saw it could handle it. check that out and let me know what you think. and Konst, for all the info, please visit wiki.elphel.com and ww3.elphel.com basically, you control everything about the camera through your laptop or pc. to do outdoor stuff, you'll need to power your laptop (either AC or battery power) and you need to power a little box with either AC or some type of batter that work. this little power box has 2 ethernet plugs. one to go to the computer and one to go to the camera. the power supply allows you to use reallly really long etherent cables without losing performance. And the CD you get with the camera, and you can also download as an ISO and burn yourself is the program you work with. you pop it into your PC, reboot your system, and it will load its own Knoppix OS. all the neccesary software is on their to stream and record. Since the Knoppix is using Virtual Memory you wont want to record with that. youll need an external harddrive to store all your shots. basically thats it. controls look like this for the camera: http://wiki.elphel.com/index.php?tit...ol_panel_1.jpg

April 14th, 2006, 12:20 PM	#42
Eric Gorski Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Western Oregon Posts: 138	yeah, that clip of you in the chair is very well exposed. if you could post something like that in raw format that i could mess with, i would appreciate it.. if possible, next time you're shooting, could you try underexposing alot.. something where everything is just really dark. that's the real test. thanks ;)

April 14th, 2006, 01:29 PM	#43
Jef Bryant Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 31	With that mjpeg compression, underexposing might not be a good thing for image manipulation later. Is there any way around this compression? Has elphel developed any other options in that area besides mjpeg? I like most of what I'm seeing, but the compression seems pretty heavy.

April 14th, 2006, 01:35 PM	#44
Forrest Schultz Major Player Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Atwater, CA Posts: 246	Jef, what compression artifacts can you see? do you mean the image looks soft, or do you see jpeg squares (like the grid looking thing) If you see there are image squares, it is because i have been recording files with 70-75% quality on the jpeg compression to save space mostly. i can record all the way to 99% quality, which is really overkill, basically no visiable sqaures should be seen. but i can try some at 90 or 95 to see if that solves any image square issues. but i cannot even see that big of a deal at 70 %. thanks, let me know what you see.

April 14th, 2006, 03:15 PM	#45
Jef Bryant Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 31	Don't get me wrong, the images look nice, and I am NO expert. I love the real 24p with proper motion blur, lack of sharpening, and general flexibilty (and low cost) of the camera. The artifacts I'm talking about are not very visible in normal viewing, but are brought out when manipulating the image in post. Desaturate a clip and you'll see them (blockiness in solid or dark areas, compression "fuzz" around the edges of moving objects, etc). I'm not enough of an expert to know if upping the mjpeg quality to 100% will change any of this. Depending on how one wants to use their footage, this may not be an issue at all. Minimal adjustment of images in post probably wouldn't be a problem, but I tend to push things... Perhaps I'm being overly picky. Compression is just one of those things that gets to me. :/