For those who missed the annoucement, check out the new Silicon Imaging 1080p camera at http://www.cineform.com/press/rel-SI1920HDVR.htm. More details on the camera are available here http://siliconimaging.com/DigitalCinema/. Details on CineForm involvement are here http://www.cineform.com/technology/CineForm_RAW.htm and on my blog http://cineform.blogspot.com.

See this camera fully opterational at NAB in Adobe's booth (SL3732)

I just popped back in here because I found the announcement and wanted to see if anyone else had noticed it yet. VERY exciting! It answers a question I asked myself recently, which was, "with the limitations of HDV and DVCPRO-HD, why doesn't someone develop a camera that records directly to the CineForm codec?"

Now we know what you've been up to this past while. Great work, David. Looking forward to hearing/seeing more from this.

David,

There are some other threads that let the cat out of the bag so to speak. However, since you have direct involvement with the project, I will consider you a 'reliable' source and have placed your thread in the Industry News forum.

regards,

-gb-

like the spec's and like the price ...

i'm off to Paris so i'll miss NAB ... will look for all updates on this camera when i return ...
congradulations to cineform and all involved on this camera ...

"The pricing for a camera head system, which includes the SI-1920HD-GE camera head, a copy of Prospect HD Edit, Premiere Pro 2.0, a Arri-base-plate adapter, and two Fujinon c-mount lenses will retail for $12,500." - (http://www.siliconimaging.com/DigitalCinema/faq.html).

Wow, $12,500... wow, 1080p, 1920x1080 sensor and 10bit recording... wow.

I don't know what to say, but i'm loving this!

Just one question, are people noticing the rather grainy videos from this? Looks like +9db on my FX1??? (I was looking at clip#3)

Just one question, are people noticing the rather grainy videos from this? Looks like +9db on my FX1??? (I was looking at clip#3)

Yes I did too.

I'm sure there will be more footage durng/after NAB.

It might have been an early model that took that footage

"The pricing for a camera head system, which includes the SI-1920HD-GE camera head, a copy of Prospect HD Edit, Premiere Pro 2.0, a Arri-base-plate adapter, and two Fujinon c-mount lenses will retail for $12,500." - (http://www.siliconimaging.com/DigitalCinema/faq.html).

Wow, $12,500... wow, 1080p, 1920x1080 sensor and 10bit recording... wow.

I don't know what to say, but i'm loving this!

Just one question, are people noticing the rather grainy videos from this? Looks like +9db on my FX1??? (I was looking at clip#3)

I don't see any reference to price or what's included other then "under 20K" in the press release.

Nope, not a joke. Notice how I quoted that from the page on their site I referenced... http://www.siliconimaging.com/DigitalCinema/faq.html have a look for your self, it's very near the bottom.

$12,500

I'm thinking about changing from filming my feature film - www.inasinglemoment.com - with an FX1 to this, just a shame that Sony is helping with sponsorship of my film, oh well, next time :-)

Nope, not a joke. Notice how I quoted that from the page on their site I referenced... http://www.siliconimaging.com/DigitalCinema/faq.html have a look for your self, it's very near the bottom.

$12,500

I'm thinking about changing from filming my feature film - www.inasinglemoment.com - with an FX1 to this, just a shame that Sony is helping with sponsorship of my film, oh well, next time :-)

You're absolutely right. I think I just couldn't wrap my mind around that kind of price, so I couldn't see it. I feel like a kid on Christmas eve. I can't wait to see it at NAB. Thank you Silicon Imaging and Cineform!

Welcome David,

Well, I would be disappointed if you didn't come over and tell us first, considering the whole thing was kicked off by interests in our Digital Cinema project threads.

Good to see.

Thanks

Wayne.

I tried the link and it doesn't work... who knows maybe you spilled the beans...

Which link ain't working? http://www.siliconimaging.com/DigitalCinema/faq.html seems to be fine...

Gary, I also had a little trouble opening this link, but after a couple of trys came right up.

Rand in Uganda

Nope, not a joke. Notice how I quoted that from the page on their site I referenced... http://www.siliconimaging.com/DigitalCinema/faq.html have a look for your self, it's very near the bottom.

$12,500

To be clear, the full recording camera is under $20K. From the FAQ:

I can't afford a complete cinema package at this time. Can I purchase the remote SI-1920HD-GE camera head and software and use my own PC hardware for recording?

Yes. The pricing for a camera head system, which includes the SI-1920HD-GE camera head, a copy of Prospect HD Edit, Premiere Pro 2.0, a Arri-base-plate adapter, and two Fujinon c-mount lenses will retail for $12,500. Please contact us for certified systems for recording.

You need to supply a computer, display, etc.
Regards,
Steve

Although I'm more looking forward to RED, this camera is very well priced and could be a very good contender too!

Who would even want a F950 anymore?

While the F950 may have a few video camera type things that make it a better camera when it comes to workflow and storage and price this camera really does blow it away.

HDCAM SR and uncompressed are a bear to deal with while Cineform is not only small enough to fit on single hard drives but is easier on the cpu than mpeg2 based formats. While uncompressed RGB may be slightly better than Cineform RAW it is much much closer than HDV or DVCPRO HD would ever be.

My only concern at this point would be color in low light and just low light performance is general. It is after all a single chip camera. I know single chips can be great for film production where you have lots of light but what if you don't have lots of light?

I can really see other people using this camera for live HDTV work since it can record up to 4 hours. It would be much higher quality than HDV but not nearly as expensive as HDCAM SR. I happen to know a few guys who do just weddings that are planning on getting the SONY 350 in a few months. If they are willing to spend that much on a camera to get slightly better than HDV quality at 1/2" then why not go 2/3" with this great camera?

How well would the camera work in a live situation?

Just to be clear since there was some confusion in a Tom's Hardware article, the battery life is something like 1-1.5Hrs per battery. The disk storage is 4 hours per drive.
Regards,
Steve

Who would even want a F950 anymore?
...snip....
I can really see other people using this camera for live HDTV work since it can record up to 4 hours. It would be much higher quality than HDV but not nearly as expensive as HDCAM SR. I happen to know a few guys who do just weddings that are planning on getting the SONY 350 in a few months. If they are willing to spend that much on a camera to get slightly better than HDV quality at 1/2" then why not go 2/3" with this great camera?

How well would the camera work in a live situation?

Not to start up a hardware war, or anything, but this cam is much more realistic for a 20k price tag than the RED camera. I know a lot of people are hoping that RED is going to come in at 20k, but I just don't see it. This is definately going to hit the "sweet spot" for indie filmmakers.

Hi Steve & David, that's some good news!

Yes. The pricing for a camera head system, which includes the SI-1920HD-GE camera head, a copy of Prospect HD Edit, Premiere Pro 2.0, a Arri-base-plate adapter, and two Fujinon c-mount lenses will retail for $12,500.

Just hypothetical, but what if someone already has Premiere Pro 2.0 and c-mount
lenses for example?

Not to start up a hardware war, or anything, but this cam is much more realistic for a 20k price tag than the RED camera. I know a lot of people are hoping that RED is going to come in at 20k, but I just don't see it. This is definately going to hit the "sweet spot" for indie filmmakers.

We'll know after NAB :-D

under the dept 'this sounds really cool but...'
What dispaly technology is out there that will let us preview 10bit video during the editing process? I know ATI and nVidia have 10bit ramdac chips but this sounds like you will need a high end sdi capable CRT to get full color and contrast.
Should that be figured into the cost?

Wow - this does look pretty promising. If the noise can be smoothed out a bit more it would be great. The DOF at at 1.4 looks pretty good to me. This is worth keeping a close eye on and might even inspire Redto to drop their pricing a little if needed.

Joe, AJA Xena LH or LHe is the way to go for monitoring. However a 10-bit display as you describe is not necessary. Remember 10-bit adds levels between the 8-bit levels, designed for color correction without contouring.

Hi Steve & David, that's some good news!

Just hypothetical, but what if someone already has Premiere Pro 2.0 and c-mount
lenses for example?

I'd like to know as well - that was just what I was thinking...
PPro is around $850..

also did they say which C-mount lenses are free?

Edited to remove pricing subtractions :)

Pricing speculation like this should not be put on the forum when you can simply ask Silicon Imaging. Doing subtractions of retail prices makes no sense.

Ram Ganesh just got OWNED by David Newman! no, im just kidding. it's pretty funny though.

Im impressed, this is the approach i would take if i found myself designing a camera. On paper it looks very exciting.

Price is good too, $20k plus another $10k worth of lenses and bits i would imagine.

I wonder how robust the camera is on location... physical dimensions, weights etc would be useful.

David, the cineform RAW codec states 10bit but i can't find anywhere whether that's 10bit log or linear? Obviously i hope it's log... If the head does 12bit then log would be the best way to capture that? I'd hate to loose those 2 bits by having to determine at the capture stage what i needed - to have the dSLR raw workflow for film is perfect for me.

The sample images/movies really aren't that good though, if i was SI i would consider pulling the footage or getting better full res stills before showing the world. It would also be worth stating what lenses were used as they would be the determining factor with quality and DOF.

I assume that up to 70fps is only 720p, how fast can 1080p go, just to 30?

One other area not discussed yet is timelines, i would love to get a ballpark as to when the system could be demo'd/purchased.

Sadly no NAB for me this year, so i will have to virtually visit via the internet.

cheers, paul

Hi Paul,

I work with David, Steve, and Jason, and know a bit about the camera.

The 10-bit Cineform signal is log, standard dynamic range or wide dynamic range (both log curves). With the black pedestal settings, you are getting the *absolute* best 10-bits from the 12-bit sensor

30 fps should be 1080p.

cheers,

Kyle

Paul,
A lot of good questions there. We run the sensor acquisition at 12 bit linear and the Cineform codec is 10 bit log.

The physical dimensions and weight are on the spec sheet at our web site:
12"x4"x8" and 13lbs.

We decided to wait on photos of the camera until after NAB to stir things up a bit. We put up what footage we had to convince people that this is a real camera. There will be much more very soon. We are taking part in the CML party to get some pro footage and more feedback on the camera. There are also a few early units going to filmmakers. They will be posting some dailies on our support forum at the web site.

1080p at up to 30fps, 720p at up to 72fps. We run the 1080p at 2x the rate in the camera head and drop every other frame. This cuts any rolling shutter artifacts in half while keeping the bandwidth low.

Full production is Q3 2006. This is mainly a sensor availability issue.
Regards,
Steve

like Steve said.... ;-)

> We run the 1080p at 2x the rate in the camera head and drop every other frame. This cuts any rolling shutter artifacts in half while keeping the bandwidth

Plus additional vertical blanking, higher pixel clock, further reducing any rolling shutter Useful for 24p.

Thanks everyone, it's all sounding too good to be true. I look forward to seeing more, especially raw full frames, the CML guys will produce some great results im sure.

What kind of shutter adjustments can be made?

The 10 bit log is great news, perhaps the best.

I assume the WDR mentioned in the faq is a 12bit -> 10bit log curve created at capture time, rolling off highlights nicely? The WDR doesn't do anything special to the sensor?

the full production implies that prior to that there might be limited availability?

cheers
paul

Full production means that it is after the date we have been given for production releases of sensors. If we can get sensors earlier, we can have some cameras earlier. There will be a few being used internally and for a couple of showcase projects but that is all we know for sure. I wish I could say - thousands next week but I can't.

> WDR mentioned in the faq is a 12bit -> 10bit log curve created at capture time, rolling off highlights nicely? The WDR doesn't do anything special to the sensor?

Absolutely correct.

As for shutter settings, yes they can be made, but I don't have accurate current information. You may want to repost this question on the Sillcon Imaging Forums.

http://www.siliconimaging.com/phpBB/index.php

cheers,

Kyle

BTW, I will be starting up a blog for a "Virtual NAB", so you can see the team in the Adobe booth, and any other goodies we think up :)

Thanks,

Jason
Silicon Imaging

like Steve said.... ;-)

> We run the 1080p at 2x the rate in the camera head and drop every other frame. This cuts any rolling shutter artifacts in half while keeping the bandwidth

Plus additional vertical blanking, higher pixel clock, further reducing any rolling shutter Useful for 24p.

Guys, I've done lots of testing, and if you download the new clips on line, especially the girl and mom walking through the door, you will see there is no "rolling shutter" problems.

Thanks,

Jason
Silicon Imaging

Since the 1080p is captured at double fps and then frops every other frame. Then when doing 72 fps at 720p does the camera also run at double speed and drop everother frame? or does running the fps that high get rid of any rolling shutter artifact anyway?

Forrest,
Your second question is correct. Running at 72fps solves the problem without dropping frames - that that point it is about speed.
-Steve

Okay, to clarify the rolling shutter situation versus "dropping" frames, what we're basically doing is just running the chip as fast as we can. Whether we're doing extra vertical blanking, or skipping frames, we run the chip at 75Mhz or greater, which means the readout of the chip happens really fast. Because the read-out happens so fast, there is no time for the bottom of the frame to integrate longer than the top of the frame, hence no visible rolling shutter skew. Now there's always motion blur, but any camera has that.

Rolling shutter skew occurs because the readout on other CMOS chips is really slow as the electronic shutter goes from top-to-bottom. So at the time that integration ends, the chip is read-out from top to bottom . . . if this takes too long, then the bottom of the frame has captured light long after the top of the frame has ended light-gathering. If the read-out happens really quickly (as it is in our case), then the top and the bottom of the frame are shuttered almost together, and there's no skew.

The speed of the rolling shutter is determined by the Mhz you're running the chip at. There are two ways to crank the chip Mhz up . . . either run at a fast frame-rate and then skip frames, or increase blanking so that the rolling shutter has to travel more "virtual" lines in a given time-frame before it gets back to the top of the frame. The more lines it has to scan through, the fast it runs, and the faster the clock freq.

So if you see a CMOS sensor that is 40Mhz or lower (like cell-phone chips, consumer cameras, etc.), that's going to mean trouble for rolling shutter, because it means that the fastest the shutter can move across the chip is at a 40Mhz rate. The Altasens on the other-hand is now capable of up to 90Mhz, which is super-fast, and means no visible rolling shutter skew.

Hope this all made sense.

Jason
Silicon Imaging

Thank you Steve and Jason. thats pretty cool, i wonder what mhz my cameras sensor is maxed at.

As long as all this double speed/dropping frames business still allows true 1/48th a second exposure at 24fps on the non-dropped frames, it's okay.

It's not actually making the shutter speed shorter than that, is it?

Should be the same.

The are many reasons professional cinematographers need larger sensors with higher dynamic range, 10-bit, with greatly reduced compression.

whats the latest scoop on this? its already 2 hrs into NAB :)

I want to see a picture of this awsome camera!!!

8)

It is there and fully operational.

I want to see a picture of this awsome camera!!!

8)

Jeff go to this site to see some photos of camera on a production.

http://cineform.blogspot.com/

Is there a viewfinder available if you don't want to shoot using the 7" monitor? A V/F would be a lot more handy when shooting hand held or on docs when shoulder mounted.

In the pictures the camera looks quite high, does that make the camera a touch top heavy?

I'm very impressed with this camera! I can't wait to see some footage.

heath

It doesn't look very impressive. The camera itself looked pretty cool, looked more like a small footprint computer with a lens sticking out of it. The image though, I couldn't see it being all that much better than what you can get out of an HVX200.

It probably has a high resolution with no real toys or functions. I think it looks cool. BUt if your working with 2 or 4 k I assume alot of work will go into the post. That's where the cost will really add up. probably.

Still think it is a step in the right direction.