The footage is very nice, you just have to know what it means. The RAW ouput is pre-sharping and pre-color correction, giving a flat filmic like (more detail than any sub $10k camera.) Today more clips were color corrected and sharpened to show what the final image result can look like. I will be at the AMD booth for a short while first thing tomorrow; drop on buy and a will show you way this is so cool.

I think it's a shame that RED is sucking so much of the limelight away from this awesome camera. I'm not knocking RED, but Silicone Imaging has pretty much everything I need right now. I can't help but wondering if the true cost of ownership for the RED camera is going to be higher in the end too. By the way, something I can't tell from SI's Web site -- does the $20,000 package include a lens?

On their FAQ there's a reference to a basic camera head system with two Fujinon lenses for $12,500 (or do they mean the two Fujinon lenses are an additional $12,500?). It would stand to reason that full package would include lenses as well, doesn't it?

Thanks Marco,

I think the press coverage will be very favorable for the SI camera over Red, simply because the press gets to see something working they can make coments about. I have many of the online reporters like Adam Wilt and Steve Mullen react suitably impressed by the SI/CineForm achievements. Most internet coverage is more driven by buzz, and you all get the extreme opinions, and Red has done great at this, that will settle as the SI camera goes onto make feature films. That said I sure Red will be huge next NAB.

As for what you get with the SI camera. The two lens that come with the $12.5k head-only package do not came with the full camera at $20k, although the lens for this mount are not expensive. The assumption for the full camera was customers will want to select there own lens.

Marco,
Thanks. We may have to re-think the $12.5K package pricing since we are getting requests for that without lenses, different lenses, software differences, etc. It may become more a la carte. But, as David says, the offer is for the camera head (gigabit out) recording software and two Fujinon 5Mpix c mount lenses. That and a fast laptop or desktop machine is all you need.

The full up camera does not come with lenses but includes mounts for PL, F and c.

Yes, the final production camera will be prettier and have some mechanical and functional changes based on input from the show.

Yes, we will have an optional viewfinder. The problem is that microdisplays are expensive and we wanted to keep the entry price down.

Something people seem to be missing is the low cost in post. Media is cheap since we use 2.5" laptop drives - 160GB hold 4 hours. We don't want to sell drives - you get extra carriers when you buy the camera and buy the drives yourself. You get Prospect HD and Premiere Pro with the camera. Ready to edit. The camera and a good PC and you are making a movie. OK, add some details in front of and behind the camera.

Oh, for the portable people, we have a shoulder support and handles to balance it. There will be an alternate mounting position for the battery to balance better. We have a long list of good suggestions that will be implemented by production. Thanks for the advice all.
Steve

For those who just buy the camera head, how would you mount that on a tripod?

David, Steve, etc., what is meant by the camera "head"? The images I've seen don't say modular. Do you mean the camera "body"?
It might be a good idea to break down the workflow step by step for those of us-FCP users- that are not familiar with cineform. I've seen workflow diagrams on the SI site but they're not nearly informative/detailed enough for me to make the leap with confidence. I hope Apple has enough room in its moneyed heart for both RED and SI whatever it's called- the name of the unit has the pulse of a mannequin. RED rolls off the tongue as easily as does Lolita, and is memorable; well branded.
You have an excellent product in this camera, very important to the future of indie filmmaking. Thanks- I wish you every success.

"you get extra carriers when you buy the camera and buy the drives yourself"

Brilliant Steve. This is such a breath of fresh air. What is the interface to the camera for these drives? eSATA?

Since the camera back is pretty much a computer could we use that as our editing system if we wanted to? Imagine shooting with the camera and then using the same device with a keyboard, mouse and monitor hooked up to edit. Just a thought.

Camera body of SI-1920HDVR is a equal to "dual-core 2.1GHz notebook computer". Really good notebook at $7K :)
Camera head which utilise Altasens ProCamHD 3570 with ProspectHD and Premiere Pro priced as $12,5K. Total cost less than $20K.
I want to know how much cost Altasens ProCamHD 3570?
Sorry, but imo, SI-1920HDVR overpriced and only one reason for this situation is absence to competitions.

Overpriced? They introduce a camera that's tens of thousands of dollars cheaper than what similarly performing cameras have been going for and you think it's overpriced? I don't think you can just total up the cost of components and base the price on that. If it was so easy to design and assemble this system for cheaper I think there would be lots of people already doing it.

I think there would be lots of people already doing it.
Drake Team done this a year ago. Just with another CMOS imager IBIS5A,
limited 720p24 and recorded RAW direct to HDD by utilise of fpga.
http://www.xilinx.com/esp/dvt/cdv/collateral/digital_camcorder.pdf
SI and RED only second and third but first was Drake and Kinetta.
I predict, cost of these tapeless camcorders with cmos 1/3" and 2/3" imager and fpga based will by leaps and bounds fall.

Kinetta is stalled out.

hwm

I wondering about non PremierPro users, lots of us prefer other tools.

Drake Team done this a year ago. Just with another CMOS imager IBIS5A,
limited 720p24 and recorded RAW direct to HDD by utilise of fpga.
http://www.xilinx.com/esp/dvt/cdv/collateral/digital_camcorder.pdf
SI and RED only second and third but first was Drake and Kinetta.
I predict, cost of these tapeless camcorders with cmos 1/3" and 2/3" imager and fpga based will by leaps and bounds fall.

Serge,
No offense because I am very impressed by the Drake but I don't think you can compare an IBIS-5A 720p camera with an Altasens 3570. Also, our camera is about the Cineform workflow and is bundled with Prospect HD and Premiere Pro. We also have had an IBIS-5A camera for years, just don't consider it a real cinema camera.
Regards,
Steve

Falls Church, VA - TV Technology has announced Silicon Imaging SI-1920HDVR Camcorder the winner for the coveted Mario Award at NAB2006.

Organized in 1993, the Mario Awards were established to recognize manufacturers whose products represent significant technical breakthroughs -- many of these products have gone on to significantly impact the future of video technology.

The awards are named after Mario Orazio, a pseudonym for a nameless engineer and a renowned technology columnist for TV Technology who pens the industry's most widely read column "The Masked Engineer." The awards are given out annually at the NAB convention to companies that demonstrate forward thinking and technical excellence in their products.

Serge,
No offense because I am very impressed by the Drake but I don't think you can compare an IBIS-5A 720p camera with an Altasens 3570. Also, our camera is about the Cineform workflow and is bundled with Prospect HD and Premiere Pro. We also have had an IBIS-5A camera for years, just don't consider it a real cinema camera.
Regards,
Steve
Hello Steve! I've reading your old discussion with Rai Orz in tread dedicated to
Drake camera and IBIS5A sensor. Drake was developed as sensor agnostic camera. http://www.drachenfeder.com/aktuelles/drake_hd_en.htm
A 15 months ago Altasens 3570 was just non exist on market.
What is really nice in yours SI's project is CineformRAW and Cineform workflow.
Price of Elphel camera model 333 with 1/3" cmos imager 1280x1024p30 is only $800. Why price of SI-1920 camera head is $10K ?
Yes, this camera head have 2/3" cmos imager, which cost less than $1K from Altasens. How much better SI-1920 than Sony HDCX300 ?
http://www.ggvideo.com/sny_hdcx300k.htm
When you sell camera body (actually PC with dual core CPU) at $7k,
what you thinking about potential buyers?
Imo, this DIY project overpriced at least two times:D

Is the body design fixed? Will it be weather sealed (up to a certain point)? It certainly looks robust enough which i like. Im a bit worried about cooling for the PC inside and needing big vents prone to collecting all matter of exterior sand, dust and god knows what...

Is the PC inside running windows or something custom? I would hope custom although a full colour correctable 2k blue screen of death on the output could be amusing the first time you see it instead of your shot...

Looking forward to full res examples.

>Imo, this DIY project overpriced at least two times:D

i wouldn't call this a DIY project and i don't think you can over estimate the man hours that go into getting something like this up and running (especially the software). So maybe the various components are under 10k but the time certainly isn't. Afterall a copy of premier pro only phsyically costs a few bucks to make, so why do we pay so much more? :)

cheers
paul

To be successful a camera has to able to withstand vibration, G forces, salt water, cold, heat, humidity and technicians who don't really care how they treat the kit.

None of this comes cheap.

As been already been said, it's not just the cost of the components, it's whole ranch of extra elements (support, distribution etc) plus the profits that a company needs in order to invest in it's future projects.

Volume of sales are another factor, there will be less demand for this sort of camera than consumer cameras that people want to use for family events etc.

Congratulations Ari! That's great. I'm glad you guys are getting recognition for this.

Brilliant! Congratulations to the SI... team. And thanks again for this significant contribution to the Digital Arts.

Falls Church, VA - TV Technology has announced Silicon Imaging SI-1920HDVR Camcorder the winner for the coveted Mario Award at NAB2006.

Organized in 1993, the Mario Awards were established to recognize manufacturers whose products represent significant technical breakthroughs -- many of these products have gone on to significantly impact the future of video technology.

The awards are named after Mario Orazio, a pseudonym for a nameless engineer and a renowned technology columnist for TV Technology who pens the industry's most widely read column "The Masked Engineer." The awards are given out annually at the NAB convention to companies that demonstrate forward thinking and technical excellence in their products.


Thanks again Ari for taking time to appear on camera for DVINFO.NET at NAB. For you and the others who haven't seen the clip from NAB, here is the link I posted a few days ago.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost.php?p=471831&postcount=1

regards,

-gb-

Thanks all.
Serge: A 15 months ago Altasens 3570 was just non exist on market.
Steve: True enough. We work closely with Altasens and get pre-release sensors. We worked with the 3560 before it was released and have been selling industrial cameras with this sensor. Now we have the 3570 for cinema.

Serge: Price of Elphel camera model 333 with 1/3" cmos imager 1280x1024p30 is only $800. Why price of SI-1920 camera head is $10K ?
Steve: The camera head without software can be much cheaper if you use a cheap sensor. You can use our SI-3300 if you want to do 1080p (or 720p) with a gigabit interface and SDK for $2795. Of course then you write your own software. The Altasens 3570 is a premium chip that took a long time to design in and is very expensive.

Serge: Yes, this camera head have 2/3" cmos imager, which cost less than $1K from Altasens. How much better SI-1920 than Sony HDCX300 ?
Steve: You clearly don't know the cost of a 3570. We sell the camera link head for the 3560 for $3995. Also, the 'kit' includes our recording software.
For comparisons, we are going to post lots of video on our site. You can do the comparisons - it isn't proper for me to do them for you.

Serge: When you sell camera body (actually PC with dual core CPU) at $7k,
what you thinking about potential buyers?
Steve: I am thinking that they are cinematographers who want a working tool, not IT hackers. That price includes the machined case, display and touchscreen, media, software, lens mounts, pelican case and some other stuff. Oh yeah, some engineering.

One more thought on price and then I will be dropping the discussion since the price is what it is. As Brian and Paul said, there is a cost for development. If it is a consumer product that sells 100,000 units, that cost is amortized over the total. Our market is much smaller - who knows, maybe a couple of 100 per year? We have some pretty big bucks invested in this project for a small company. I'm sure RED spent more on advertising so far than we have on development, but we have a lot invested without knowing the return. At NAB, I didn't hear one comment that the price was too high after doing the pitch. At least 5 asked if I left off a zero. Maybe it seems expensive because we are being totally honest about what we have in hardware. The head (sensor to gigabit) is our rocket science - what we really do best. The rest is completely understandable, upgradable and straightforward which might be why some may think it is an expensive PC. We are not selling a PC, we are selling a camera.

-Steve

We are insuring that you never see a blue screen :)

Thanks,

Jason
Silicon Imaging

We are insuring that you never see a blue screen :)

It has been a long time since I have seen a Blue screen of death, since using Windows XP, it may freeze rarely, but no Blue. If it worries people, you could simply change the Blue screens colour to pink (Reds already taken) ;)

Serge,
No offense because I am very impressed by the Drake but I don't think you can compare an IBIS-5A 720p camera with an Altasens 3570. Also, our camera is about the Cineform workflow and is bundled with Prospect HD and Premiere Pro. We also have had an IBIS-5A camera for years, just don't consider it a real cinema camera.
Regards,
Steve

The Ibis did have some features over the competition, minor ones, relatively to Altasens, were the fill-factor allowing faster lens and less fly screening and the global shutter, but one that really did matter was the extra latitude from the large well capacity and multislope.

If you look at the Altasens compared to the Red (from what we can tell) you may likely get better Signal to Noise ratio, better sensitivity, and latitude with the Altasens. As There is a trade off for the extra resolution, and Altasens is one of the best performers for it's cell size.

I think it's a shame that RED is sucking so much of the limelight away from this awesome camera. I'm not knocking RED, but Silicone Imaging has pretty much everything I need right now. I can't help but wondering if the true cost of ownership for the RED camera is going to be higher in the end too. By the way, something I can't tell from SI's Web site -- does the $20,000 package include a lens?

Red also has the Red codec, so unless you are goign to record RAW, the cost is not as significant as it seems.

With all these cameras it should be possible to construct a simple SLR lens adaptor using a suitable triplet condenser, if cost id of a prime concern. I have suggested to Steve, in times past, that this would be nice to include with the cameras as standard, because they probably could get them designed and done in batch fro $50 each. It would be good to see how much a basic package without lens and capture computer, but with cineform (and guide to setting up own capture computer) and SLR lens adaptor, as described, would cost.

It would be good to see how much a basic package without lens and capture computer, but with cineform (and guide to setting up own capture computer) and SLR lens adaptor, as described, would cost.

Hi Wayne,

This is basically our remote head camera package (SI-1920GE-S) for $12.5K!

Does changing the battery involve a full reboot of the system as in a PC?

I'm bringing up the question because of the references to Windows and how long a PC takes to get operating again after a power down. In some situations that could be too long, if it's a problem perhaps a small built in battery could keep the system going long enough for battery changes. Basically, you won't get pictures, but the OS is still working for a few minutes.

XP should be setup for hybernate, rather than standby or shutdown, that will aid battery changes with fast OS restart.

Brian,

The SI-1920HDVR will be shipping with Windows XP embedded. The boot times will be much faster than full blown XP.

Anton Bauer has hot swap battery mounts to always keep power to the camera if you want 100% up time.

These are the results you can achieve from having 10 stops of dynamic range......

http://www.siliconimaging.com/DigitalCinema/gallery_footage.html

Just looking at the stills and I'm impressed! I hope QuickTime/Final Cut Pro support comes soon. I have a feature (www.904am.com) I'm shooting later this summer with cinematographer Jon Fordham (http://hdvinfo.net/articles/misc/fordham6.php). We'd love to take the camera for a spin!

heath

Sounds like an exciting project and a talented team. Lets book it! I may even come down myself to visit some family :-) !

Ari,

I'll email you privately. Florida is nice, ya know (gets windy and rainy from time to time).

Thanks,

heath

Hi Wayne,

This is basically our remote head camera package (SI-1920GE-S) for $12.5K!

That is with lens etc. They Steve mentioned they are starting to think of prices without now.

These may give you some better detail:

The QT is compressed with WinRaR and expands to 2GB (8-bit output only)!!!

Uncompressed Quicktime (8-bit, 970MB)
http://www.siliconimaging.com/DigitalCinema/Gallery/CML_Uncompressed.rar

For single frame 10-bit viewing, grab the individual frames:

RAW File (DNG)
http://www.siliconimaging.com/DigitalCinema/Gallery/Stills/SI-1920.dng

Cineon File (Adobe Camera Raw conversion)
http://www.siliconimaging.com/DigitalCinema/Gallery/Stills/SI-1920.cin

These files are also posted in the usuall GALLERY location:
http://www.siliconimaging.com/DigitalCinema/gallery_footage.html

Thanks, Ari!

heath

Here is the rig the "Spoon" team built with the remote camera head!

http://www.siliconimaging.com/DigitalCinema/Images/Head_on_wire.jpg

"Here is the first rugged set ready head on wire si1920. It's a nice size and weight. We will be recording and controling on wire so the operator only shoots for composition the rest is controlled at the wafian....Both heads are making excellent images. Everyone here is crowded around the monitors in disbelief. Very very excited. We shoot tommorow."

Can't wait to see some of their footage!

http://indiefilmlive.blogspot.com/

ftp://www.atomic-vfx.com/spoon_test_clips/SI1920HDVR/web_001.wmv

ftp://www.atomic-vfx.com/spoon_test_clips/SI1920HDVR/web_005.wmv

ftp://www.atomic-vfx.com/spoon_test_clips/SI1920HDVR/web_003.wmv

ftp://www.atomic-vfx.com/spoon_test_clips/SI1920HDVR/web_004.wmv

Would anyone like to provide some feedback?

and it's name is SI-1920HDVR! You've got a winner!

http://indiefilmlive.blogspot.com/20...and-grips.html

Some great pics of the heads in action on Spoon, including a Glydecam shot showing how easy it is to mount the head on a rig and fly it.