Abel Cine Tech will be hosting a seminar called The Silicon Imaging - Cineform workflow on the day after HD Expo in LA.

http://siliconimaging.com/SEMINAR.htm

We will have some cameras set up and demonstrate the workflow from capture to edit.

Hope to see you there!
Steve

Steve
for a moment my heart jumped into my throat...
But I am in N.Y.C. -
Ugh,
I was hoping it would be at the Abel Cinetek Here.
Dang it.
Sometime Super soon, Please.
(If there is any way I can facilitate it on the NY end, let me know)

John

Wait a second...You are in Troy, NY

ok something has to happen in the East Coast Sooooon,

John

One of the reasons (and there are many) that we are excited to work with Abel is that they have a presense on both coasts. There will be something similar in NYC in the next few months.
Steve
Silicon Imaging Product Development.

Great !
How about Nov 3rd?
Haha - I cannot wait to see this camera (and am planning on it)

It would be great to have someone shoot this seminar so it can be posted on the Web.

I second that emotion

And so...
How was this?

And so...
How was this?

I flew in from SF to get a first hand view, and it was well worth it. I've got a feature in January shooting in SF that I was initially planning to shoot on an F900R, but thought the timing might be right to get an early adopter badge on the SI's first production run.

Steve did a great job running through the cam, and the Ciniform guys also added a lot of details on where the workflow is now, is not now, and is headed. The only real dissapointment is there was no working example of the Iridas Look integration, but I guess SI hasn't had time to integrate it yet.

In a nutshell, the camera and the footage looks bloody wonderful, considering the demo footage quality. What they were not able to show is a fully rendered CCed (or in SI verbage: "developed") clip shot by a pro in fashion that seeks the limits of the tool. Basically, they showed some raw footage from spoon and the yellow tower on thier website. I guess we'll have to wait for some example shots from Geoff's zombie fest for that.

The release date of the Mini is indeed a hard target, but Steve mentioned that the biggest risk to that slipping into 07 will be delivery of the second generation chip which will be used in all the production systems.

Workflow is still limited to Adobe, although Cineform has quicktime support in alpha/beta. Even with that though, since FCP is 8 bit, to extract the potential, FCP will have to be a cut-only editing environment with all effects/cc happening in AE or other supported 10bit tools. Say "hi" to automatic duck!

The user interface for the camera software is really quite cool, and pulls best of elements from many cams; center LCD taps zoom progressively for focus aid, plus red line highlight of edges also for critical focus. White balance to a zoomed in 10x10pixel region is also cool for some situations.

One of the coolest is the ability to store a reference frame, set it to 50% transparency, and then overlay it on the display for continuity or complex layers shots. Steve even talked about the possibility to use that same function to pull a greenscreen matt in realtime with the ref-frame as the background.

Downers included synch timecode being an afterthough that has not been addressed yet. As well no pro-caliber solution for recording synch sound (Steve suggested a USB interface like M-Box). That will work but it's a kludge for now.

Support for the solution is going to be pushed towards the Dell M90 in the style of Avid (ohh my). And they do not want to at this point support the desire of some to purchase the mini package now, and add the DVR camera back later.

Plane is loading now...thanks for the advance peek, Steve!

cheers

Paul Nordin,
DP - San Francisco

Paul,
Thanks for the update !

"The release date of the Mini is indeed a hard target, but Steve mentioned that the biggest risk to that slipping into 07 will be delivery of the second generation chip which will be used in all the production systems. "

The Mini is available now, but I would love to see the camera/forkflow in action, before I jump.
This is the first I have heard about their new chips. Good news, but it prolongs the potential purchase

Well according to Steve, they are not going to release/sell any more Minis until they get the first lot of revved chips. They are planning to upgrade all the older systems in the field with the new chip, which is an expensive task so they don't want the problem to get any more difficult by releasing more minis that will need a field upgrade within a month or so. In his paraphrased words, they already have a number of pre-production units out there, and the beta program is over so now they need to get serious about selling proper cameras.

(Steve, feel free to correct me if I got it wrong)

BTW, Paul, do you have any suggestions for the Pro-audio support?

Right now our main limitation is that you're either limited to what's on the motherboard of the computer, or you're going to have to add some sort of external device.

On-board computer motherboard audio is not "pro" by any stretch of the imagination. There are the USB input devices which we've found to give great audio sound quality, but do you think they are too "kludgy"? If so, do you know of any other audio devices on the market we can integrate to get "pro" audio without the kludge factor?

BTW, Timecode syncing has been an often-requested feature, and so please don't feel as though it's an "after-thought", although we haven't gotten to it yet, so I guess it was . . . but the nice thing is that this is all software, so upgrades are not what you're used to in the firmware-based camera world, expect future versions of the software, with your user input to greatly increase capability, useability, etc., . . . I mean think back to Photoshop 3.0 or After Effects 3.0, or Final Cut 1.0 . . . when you look at where they are today, you can see they've come quite a long way, and that's the wonderful power of software-based systems.

Also we're not a super-huge corporation like Adobe with 18-month versioning cycles . . . you can expect software updates much quicker from us.

Hi Jason,
There are two problems with the audio the way I see it (and I dont think I'm alone). Firstly, the audio path on a PC-style off-the-shelf card is notoriously noisy. To get anything close to reasonable, a lot of signal and RF isolation needs to be implemented between the noisy side of the system (hard-drives, CPUs, Clocking cycles, etc) and the audio side of the signal chain. Without that isolation, your forcing production styles that require an external hard-disk recorder. That is fine for dramatic work. But for broadcast & documentary that's a pretty big negative. Now I can't say for certain, as we didn't hear any audio at the demo. But, based on my experience, what may sound fine on a PC's speakers, when played in a proper mixing room will have all manner of noise issues that will require lots of cleanup. So thats one problem.

The second problem is the use of firewire cables. At least once a day, I would not be surprised if an inadvertant tug doesn't accidentally unplug it during a take. Again, that will force a external HDD solution where the cabling uses secure XLRs/etc. Thats the second big problem I see with the solution you have being accepted by at least some types of shooters.

Now as far as a solution, well, now I could tell you...hmmm...and you know I would really like to use the system on a feature in Jan-07...hmmm. ;-)

Seriously, I think the basic premise you have adhered to in the design of the system (and the notion of it being a system and not just a camera goes much deeped into the philosophy than I am used to) is at odds with the most obvious answer. Basing it on standard off the shelf boards precludes custom solutions. So the only thing you can do would be to integrate a separate channel with as much isolation as possible into the system, like a separate bus...perhaps part of the DVR Chassis? And/or a simple breakout panel or box with a couple of XLR inputs.

Its kind of a catch-22. Your pricing a very cool piece of technology within reach of low-budget filmmakers (say a target minimum being a $60-$80k feature). Those are also the very same types of users who will need simple yet high-quality overall systems solutions like - pristine audio chain (or one at least capable of recording quality production audio). Yet too much custom work starts to push the price of the system out of their reach.

I really am impressed with your camera. I really want to use it in January for a feature shoot. And I think you guys have a unique approach that is very different in style to what the Red-Team is doing, and I mean that as a huge compliment.

Yes, for single system sound recording the audio connections really do need to be robust (XLR etc). Often they're being disconnected between every set up and the leads are likely to be tugged during the takes.

Sound recordists tend to carry leads that connect into the current broadcast cameras. Almost all use line level as an input, saving mic level for single person operation without a sound recordist. BTW Having the option of mic level input with 48 phantom power is useful on docs or even recording guide tracks.

since FCP is 8 bit
As far as I know FCP is 10-bit capable these days (codec must support that as
well, obviously).

Hi Rob,

CineForm RAW decode to 10-bit 4:4:4 RGB . . . Final Cut Pro only supports 8-bit RGB, 10-bit YUV (but our RAW codec doesn't decode to YUV, it decodes to RGB, if you want YUV you must transcode to it . . . but that destroys the RAW data).

Hi Paul, I see you points . . . and as mentioned, on-board PC audio is horrendous, but USB audio devices do produce very good sound, and are isolated electronically from the motherboard and other electronic parts.

Now, in regards to the USB (not firewire) recording devices, what do you think about just mounting the audio device to the side or top of the camera? That way you just run an XLR to your boom op (and the boom op has a mixer), and the audio device stays with the camera. Since the audio device would be attatched or constrained to the camera, it won't get un-plugged, will it?

Now something as big as a MobilePre from M-Audio won't work for this, but I'm thinking the smaller Sound Devices USB device or the Apogee should work nice for this.

Would something like that work?

Not having seen the actual camera body...could these solutions work?

Have you considered some of the pcmcia(cardbus) cards out there that offer up to 24/96 stereo recording. Better than on board for most laptop mobos and you could make a custom connector from xlr to mini 8 or coax. Besides the one from Creative (which I have) There is on called indigo io from Echo. Both are shielded and are designed for portable high quality recording. The creative z runs about 99.00 USD and net prices for the Indigo go around 199.00 and include a six foot cable for 1/4" or RCA connections.

Not sure if it's possible, but the above would be a very compact solution. The only drawback is no phantom power.

I'm also thinking, because of the onboard DSP, cpu overhead would be negligible.

Here is the company link to the echo io
http://www.echoaudio.com/Products/CardBus/IndigoIO/index.php

Well, were I to make a recommendation for a USB outboard audio input box it would be for Sound Devices' USBPre. The MBox is a consumer desktop box, and would not stand up to the rigors of the field for long. The Apogee Mini-me is certainly high-quality, but a bit overkill and expensive for film production audio purposes. I'm a huge fan of Sound Devices (my sound-kit includes their 774t recorder, 422 mixer, and headphone amp) for field recording.

Additional problems in the field with this or any outboard box rigged to the camera "pod" will be:
- cable routing of USB to avoid inadvertent disconnect
Perhaps a short pig-tail between your input and their output with a harness that physically locks the two units together.

- inadvertent turning of the gain knobs.
I wonder if Sound Devices would be willing to construct a custom version of the device:
Option #1 - replace standard gain knobs with the push-button-recessed knobs they use on their mixers.
Option #2 - reconfigure the packaging of the circuitry of their USBPre to be integrated into either the body of your DVR (dream scenario), or a more form fitted box that can piggy-back onto the DVR with interface cables internally contained between the two units.

Don't know if that makes any sense or not...does to me.

Sound Devices is a great company that is aggressively winning market share over the bigger established names, with the film-audio community. They really listen to their customers (pro-audio mixers) and build great products that –work-, regularly release feature rich free product updates to their customers - reinforcing customer loyalty, and are not so big that it's all about making maximum $ vs. delivering great and affordable products. Jee that sounds a lot like the philosophy you (Silicon Imaging) are hoping to bring to image acquisition in the film ...I think your two companies would work together very well.

The creative z runs about 99.00 USD and net prices for the Indigo go around 199.00 and include a six foot cable for 1/4" or RCA connections.

Hi Joe, I'm sure that your system is working well for your purposes. However, in the field for pro-audio, RCA connectors are totally inadequate. On a normal day's shooting, sound will be disconnected and re-connected 25-50 times. They also get pulled and twisted. That is not something you can change by being careful, and putting in strain-relief loops only goes so far...it's the nature of audio on-set. The only connectors capable of that level abuse are XLRs. Additionally, the very delicate audio signals traveling through mic-cables to the source of phantom power will probably be draped over by hi-powered light cables, balasts, etc. And that by nature imparts a requirement for balanced cables. RCAs are unbalanced consumer connectors.

Many sound mixers use beta-snakes with a quick disconnect at the camera to make that quick connect & dis-connect at camera even easier and more robust. Those are very sturdy and balanced as well.

The creative z runs about 99.00 USD and net prices for the Indigo go around 199.00 and include a six foot cable for 1/4" or RCA connections.

Hi Joe, I'm sure that your system is working well for your purposes. However, in the field for pro-audio, RCA connectors are totally inadequate. On a normal day's shooting, sound will be disconnected and re-connected 25-50 times. They also get pulled and twisted. That is not something you can change by being careful, and putting in strain-relief loops only goes so far...it's the nature of audio on-set. The only connectors capable of that level abuse are XLRs. Additionally, the very delicate audio signals traveling through mic-cables to the source of phantom power will probably be draped over by hi-powered light cables, balasts, etc. And that by nature imparts a requirement for balanced cables. RCAs are unbalanced consumer connectors.

Many sound mixers use beta-snakes with a quick disconnect at the camera to make that quick connect & dis-connect at camera even easier and more robust. Those are very sturdy and balanced as well.

I understand, but thought XLR to 1/4" connectors would work, with the disconnect at the xlr interface, never pulling on the 1/4 to 1/8 mini connector.
As far as balanced, that would be issue. But some velcro a small usb recorder and ingenuity might be the best route.

But some velcro a small usb recorder and ingenuity might be the best route.

I agree that velcro, bailing wire, duct-tape, and gumption are all valuable ingredients to any film shoot! ;-)

However, SI is in the genesis stage of what could become quite a groundswell movement in the world of indie-filmmaking. And at this formative stage, it would probably be better to develop as elegantly integrated solution to Field-Audio, as they have to the Hard-Disk subsystem, the codec-with Cineform, and the Look system with Iridas. Those + SI are not kludges or work arounds...they are serious vendors working together to make an amazing tool. Personally, I think a well-orchestrated audio subsystem created in alliance with a company like Sound Devices would go that much further towards creating a world-class innovative solution for us to use on a broad variety of film/video making applications...but primarily for cinematic use.

I think in the beginning, the mini might be a better option for sound stage work, where you can connect what ever audio interface you need to your PC. Most of the current high end digital cams are tethered for one reason or another anyway. I can see a lot of benefit to running your audio directly to the PC instead of the camera.

I hope they come up with a viable solution for other situations.

Hi Rob,

CineForm RAW decode to 10-bit 4:4:4 RGB . . . Final Cut Pro only supports 8-bit RGB, 10-bit YUV (but our RAW codec doesn't decode to YUV, it decodes to RGB, if you want YUV you must transcode to it . . . but that destroys the RAW data).

Hi Jason, thanks for your response. I'm a bit confused with your last line. How
do you mean that it destroys the RAW data? Isn't that the case with the RGB
conversion as well (guess that depends on your definition of 'destroyed')?

Paul, here is another option that I forgot about, that might work in the field using existing plug in if necessary.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=78915

beachtek and velcro?

Joe,
I think we're getting a little off track here. I started out this thread by saying that the current solution SI has for audio is not going to be acceptable for most pro-audio mixers. Sure there are any number of ways to get an audio signal into a computer. I'm specifically addressing the desire to see SI adopt a bullet-proof industry-best-practice method...not a work around.

Joe,
I think we're getting a little off track here. I started out this thread by saying that the current solution SI has for audio is not going to be acceptable for most pro-audio mixers. Sure there are any number of ways to get an audio signal into a computer. I'm specifically addressing the desire to see SI adopt a bullet-proof industry-best-practice method...not a work around.

I agree that SI should use audio inputs that won't involve sound recordists muttering under their breath. For productions using single system sound there should be robust inputs that meet current professional audio standards. The Beachtek is just a box that allows consumer cameras to use professional audio kit; the prosumer versions of these cameras (PD150 etc) actually have XLR connectors as inputs.

Hi Jason, thanks for your response. I'm a bit confused with your last line. How
do you mean that it destroys the RAW data? Isn't that the case with the RGB
conversion as well (guess that depends on your definition of 'destroyed')?

Yes, RGB *transcoding*, i.e, converting to another CODEC that only supports RGB data destroys the original bayer information.

Now a RGB decode is always necessary in order for you to see the information in it on the computer screen (for it to be visible and in-color) . . . but if the codec is made to encode/decode RAW bayer, then it can show you a RGB image while keeping the RAW bayer source in-tact at the codec level. That's what CineForm RAW does.

The "problem" with FCP, is that when CineForm does it's RGB decode (meaning that the CineForm engine lies between the RAW bayer data and FCP, rendering it in real-time to the screen), it presents to FCP a 10-bit 4:4:4 RGB image. FCP though can't process this information at greater than 8-bits (RGB that is), so you'll need to use something like After Effects and Automatic Duck if you want to-do full 32-bit-float RGB rendering. You can do a finish in Final Cut, it just won't be at 32-bit float due to this limitation of Final Cut and RGB data.

While we wish this wasn't the case, it's not an issue with our end of the pipeline, it's a limitation of Final Cut and RGB data. Because Premiere Pro doesn't have this limitation, we can do a full 32-bit floating point RGB finish inside of Premiere Pro with CineForm RAW. In Final Cut Pro 6.0 or something of that nature, if it includes support for deep pixel RGB Quicktimes, then we should be capable of taking advantage of a total conform pipeline in FCP as well.

I agree that velcro, bailing wire, duct-tape, and gumption are all valuable ingredients to any film shoot! ;-)

However, SI is in the genesis stage of what could become quite a groundswell movement in the world of indie-filmmaking. And at this formative stage, it would probably be better to develop as elegantly integrated solution to Field-Audio, as they have to the Hard-Disk subsystem, the codec-with Cineform, and the Look system with Iridas. Those + SI are not kludges or work arounds...they are serious vendors working together to make an amazing tool. Personally, I think a well-orchestrated audio subsystem created in alliance with a company like Sound Devices would go that much further towards creating a world-class innovative solution for us to use on a broad variety of film/video making applications...but primarily for cinematic use.

The high end creative cards are testing out VERY QUIET! With breakout box and 48v. phantom power and xlr connectors. Most use neutrik xlr connectors, and altho neutrik makes several levels of connector, they can be replaced with the best for about 10dollars each plus labor.

This is a good solution, with quality Fletcher at Mercenary Audio can beat at 10x the cost, but only Fletcher and a few others can hear the difference. The idea of NOISY adc's because of all the rf in the case is pretty much obsolete, or how come the cmos sensors convertors don't get hashed up?

say the audio add on from si oem'd creative labs costs 1k and has to be replaced every 20 long projects, most of us would jump at it, I think.

TESTED 120db signal to noise

Hi Jon,

Is this a PCI card? Do you have a link?

Just a quick note though, if it is a PCI card, there's no more space in the case for it . . . we already have a GPU in there hooked up to the x16 PCIe slot on the motherboard.

Hi John,

Is this a PCI card? Do you have a link?

Just a quick note though, if it is a PCI card, there's no more space in the case for it . . . we already have a GPU in there hooked up to the x16 PCIe slot on the motherboard.

But their are a number of 'prosumer' systems out their that should not be looked down at. Many use the same adc's as the big name apogee and lynx.

My thought (ow, my head) is to maybe call cakewalk as a manufacturers rep and ask to talk to some of their tek/mkt people. They are a VERY agressive company that may not require high volume to start just to help you.

sonar and cakewalk before it could timecode sync and display video while you are composing/editing on their timeline for wave or midi. so they have at least encountered some of the issues you and cineform will be facing.

don't reinvent the wheel, I say, and learn from others mistakes, like mine!

by the way, jason, always appreciate your posts, thanks

Thanks for the info . . . but aren't Cakewalk and Sonar software tools (using external USB boxes)?

The issue on our end is not software-we can do that easily enough, and that's just matter of time for implementation . . . the main issue I believe is the hardware interface end. I think the current opinion is that attaching the USB audio devices are too kludgy, but that creates an issue in that there's no mechanical room for extra PCI cards or audio devices inside the camera besides what comes with the motherboard (Intel HD audio).

Thanks for the info . . . but aren't Cakewalk and Sonar software tools (using external USB boxes)?

The issue on our end is not software-we can do that easily enough, and that's just matter of time for implementation . . . the main issue I believe is the hardware interface end. I think the current opinion is that attaching the USB audio devices are too kludgy, but that creates an issue in that there's no mechanical room for extra PCI cards or audio devices inside the camera besides what comes with the motherboard (Intel HD audio).

and have had to interface to most all the boxes out there. would'nt it be good to have an idea of which boxes are flaky and not following or implementing the usb standerd properly (there are some!). which boxes give them the most trouble in tek support.

ps. don't knock mb audio support until you have tried it, and you know for a fact it is too noisy or has other problems. please don't dismiss it cause somebody says that is the way it used to be.....mb sound has been getting much better, too, in the last 2-3 years.

BTW, we're already doing the on-board mb audio with XLR inputs

BTW, we're already doing the on-board mb audio with XLR inputs

thats what I thought. Should be fine for most voice/field work.