Do the Cineform codecs allow you to capture in real time to a hard drive from an HD-SDI input, and if so what hardware and software would you need to support that? Reason I ask is I'm wondering if it would be possible to capture directly to Cineform from the HD-SDI output on the Canon XL-H1. Seems to me that could be a useful option if you want the best possible image quality at a reasonable price, especially if you could capture to 10-bit ProspectHD and edit that.

By my figuring, this means that for under $15K you could have a camera, capture and editing setup that produces real movie-theater quality footage, and the only limitation would be needing to have a power cord or portable power supply to operate the computer for capturing. Speaking of which, what kind of portable power supply might someone use to provide a few hundred watts AC for at least a couple of hours or so?

Yes we are already doing all that and some customers have already shot projects direct from the camera head directly into CineForm Intermediate 10-bit. We have also pre-announced the Wafian disk recorder that uses CineForm Intermediate for real-time on set ingest. Only issue it doing it all for $15k if you started with nothing (I think could do it all, building a Prospect HD system, HDSDI gear, with JVC HD100U for around $16k with the analog to HDSDI convertor -- if you build the system yourself.)

Ah, I see on the Cineform web site that there's an "ingest" version of ProspectHD, which I assume is what someone would need to capture in real time. So $3500 for that plus about $2500 for a dual-core computer with a Blackmagic HD card and 1.6 terabytes of storage (I ran this calculation separately in another discussion), plus $9000 for the Canon XL-H1 with HD-SDI output, plus $1000 or so for the Premiere Pro software suite, and for around $16K you've got a complete 10-bit HD camera/recording/editing setup.

What's the approximate bit rate for ProspectHD, and is this adjustable? Would an Intel Pentium D running at 3.0 GHz be adequate to handle the ingest process from HD-SDI to ProspectHD in real time? Would a fast two-drive SATA RAID be adequate to capture and stream 1-2 layers of ProspectHD footage?

AJA Xena, not Blackmagic, but otherwise yes. The Pentium Ds have not be qualified yet for Prospect HD, but we are working to make that happen. In my dream setup I was including a dual Opteron system but a less expensive camera for $16K.

Prospect HD compression is a variable for a selected quality. For 10-bit real-time compression 720p60 or 1080p24/i30 to data rates are around 17-18MBytes/s. Yes a two drive SATA raid will give you plenty of performance.

David: can you tell us more about the proposed Wafian drive? For example, what kinds of connections will it accept from/to cameras and editing systems, and could you use it to record 8-bit AspectHD instead of 10-bit ProspectHD?

The wafian unit will initially have only HD-SDI feeds, and will require analog on camera be converted to HD-SDI through adaptors like AJA's HD10A (which works very nicely for all 60p and 60i sources.) For 720p inputs the Wafian record will be able to achieve 24p, 25p, 30p, 48p (newer discovered in the JVC HD100), 50p and 60p frame rates. For 1080 inputs the unit will record 24PsF, 24p (reverse pulldown from 30i, e.g. 24F from Canon XL-H1), 25PsF, 25p, 25i (othercalled called 50i), 30p and 30i (or 60i is that naming is preferred.) All can be captured in 8 or 10-bit in 4:2:2. 720p is encoding at 1280x720 and 1080 is encoded at 1920x1080. All the media is compatible with Aspect HD (even the 1920x1080 10-bit clips) yet AHD will only use the files to 8-bit precision and will scale the 1920 to 1440x1080 to match HDV. Users of the Wafian unit will greatly benefit from Prosect HD Edit for 10-bit 1920 support.

quote "30i (or 60i is that naming is preferred.) "
you should remove any uncertainty about naming format.
As far as i could understand 30i would be either 15+15 interlaced (but it is silly) or 30p converted to 60i (frames are simply repeated twice).
For me 60i , really means 60 different frame interlaced with the difference from 30i that it is twice the data rate.
It is important since most HDV camera are now able to deliver the same content in different format just by tweaking frames.

Naming is not really an issue. 30i for profession products is correct -- 30 frame per second interlace. However consumer and prosumer gear uses 60i for 60 field per second (but still only 30 frames.) For this reason only interlaced should be banned. :)

The point of the thread is the CineForm real-time encoder can capture any standard video format.

User with AccuStream 170 capture card reported about possibility to encode in real time to CFHD 1280x720p:
"I've been in contact with the Cineform people and they are not optimistic about 60fps encoding with ProspectHD - they recommend the XenaHD hardware only along with a dual Opteron based system using RAID-0.
It does seem like overkill somewhat as I can achieve 50fps with their codec using AccuStream and my 3.4GHz P4 550 chip..."

David, can you comment?

Serge,

If you want 1280x720 p60 in 10-bit we recommend the dual Opteron. If you want only 8-bit captures then something less will likely do. We don't have an AccuStream card so we not know it limitations, yet that quote doesn't sound like the recommendations we have given for the AccuStream enquiries. The present limitation to the ability to hook the A.S.170 to the CineForm DirectShow encoder not the VfW codec -- all the highest optimization is in the DShow components. If there is a good market for AccuStream capture CineForm would like to support.

David, Pentium M 2GHz for 720p24 8-bit live capture is ok?

Yes, that will work.

Does anyone know if the HD-SDI out of the new Canon is 8 or 10 bit? I also never have understood what comes out of the component outs of say the Sony HDV cams...meaning there is some conversion that takes place between the outs and the heads but I don't know what it is...with either camera once they hit tape I don't see any advantage to processing in 10 bit data that has been reduced to 8 bits in the recording stage....even though you decompress it, it is still only 8 bit in precision and processing it at 10 bit can't change that. Now if the Canon does output 10 bit at least for Studio uses that is a big plus and frankly a feature that is starting to enchroach on what the high end HD cams do....hence the 9k pricetag.

Randy,
Canon isn't officially saying, but Mr. Newman's blog comments on it being 8bit. See the links in this post:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost.php?p=377308&postcount=7

That is a shame and it doesn't make a bit of sense to me...