C300 Discussion

[Thierry Humeau]

Originally Posted by Brian Drysdale

In this case and following a discussion I had with a Sony rep about the F3 not having a broadcast standard codec on board, I suspect one of the reasons is keeping the power requirements of the camera down. The RED cameras are power hungry and you really need to keep on top of the your batteries. The Epic appears to be less demanding than the RED One, but it is one of the considerations for the designers.........

The Sony F3 MPEG-2 codecs at 25Mbps and 35Mbps are fully broadcast compliant. As a matter of fact, MPEG-2 is broadcast compliant all the way down to 18Mbps (and less) for live transmissions and digital broadcasting. It is true that a few networks require a higher bit rate and 422 color space codecs for programing acquisition but often, a specific list of cameras is what is approved or not. For example Discovery Channel and National Geographic usually favor 50mbps 422 but have approved the F3 on board codecs for acquisition because they evaluated the front end as being of exceptional quality. The additional amount of power that may be used to encode at 50mbps 422 vs 35mbps 420 is very minimal.

Thierry.

[Brian Drysdale]

The on board codecs are not currently accepted by the BBC for HD, you can use them for SD. There could be a case by case consideration going on, but the BBC's concern seems to be increasing the compression errors through the post and transmission chain, rather than the actual camera front end.

I'd clear with the commissioning editor involved before using the internal codec, productions shot using 35 Mbps as the main recording have been rejected by BBC quality control.

I agree there wouldn't be much of a difference in power terms and it'll be interesting to see if Sony increase the on board to 50 Mbps, since I heard from a BBC senior cameraman that the electronics were the same, Of course, that could be just a rumour he'd heard.

[Thierry Humeau]

I guess the Beeb rules then :)

[Brian Drysdale]

Following up your point, Discover have 3 tiers, so the 35 Mbps should fit in the Silver.

Discovery HD Gold, Silver, Bronze tiers | In depth and practical guide to television production | eyefish.tv

The BBC currently only have the higher standard, if they reduce it remains to be seen as HD becomes more common on their channels. Although, I suspect the chances are that, with the reduced cost of the external recorders, their current minimum broadcast codecs probably will stay in place.

[Glen Vandermolen]

To anyone who has handled the C300 and the FS100: how would you compare the side handles? They seem to have a similar design.

[Brian Drysdale]

If no one here has, Adam Wilt discusses the handle.

Quick Look: Canon EOS C300 LSS 1080p Camcorder

[Don Miller]

Originally Posted by David Heath

.............
For 1080 output, there shouldn't be much difference in perceived resolution between the two - but the C300 will be able to make it with far simpler processing. Another sign of that should be if you compare the difference in power consumption between the two cameras.

You are equating quantifiable camera performance with actual camera performance. Unless the use of the camera is shooting line pairs the precise percentages of performance you quote aren't highly meaningful.

The Canon is sampling much more real data than the F3. How well the F3 can sharpen up blurry line pairs post capture is only moderately relevant to the real world of image capture.

[Thierry Humeau]

Originally Posted by Glen Vandermolen

To anyone who has handled the C300 and the FS100: how would you compare the side handles? They seem to have a similar design.

In what I can see from the pictures and taking in account canon's experience with control and ergonomics on DSLRs, I think the C300 is going to be much better fit for filming handheld.

Thierry.

[Henry Coll]

I found out this regarding Canon Log Gamma (from Dan Carr):

"you will be able to enable what Canon are calling 'View Assist' to preview a final graded look on the camera’s LCD screen. So whilst recording to the CF cards or out via HD-SDI is happening with Canon Log Gamma, you can see an estimation of the final graded outcome on the 4″ LCD or in the viewfinder. It is not possible to send this View Assist signal out via HDMI or HD-SDI as they did not want people to accidentally think they were recording Log Gamma"


Laforet has said, as politely as he could, that both the VF and the TFT are useless, (just as expected). So if you really can't 709-LUT the HDMI/SDI for monitoring while recording Log in the CFs, you're supposed to focus with a Log image with a proper external EVF/monitor? And do we need a very expensive Cinetal to avoid sending a Log image to the Producer/Client?


I'm really wondering who is Canon targeting with this camera. It's too expensive for the DSLR crowd and it lacks too many essential features for professional work.

Originally Posted by Thierry Humeau

In what I can see from the pictures and taking in account canon's experience with control and ergonomics on DSLRs, I think the C300 is going to be much better fit for filming handheld

Unless you use a FF which will force you to put the EVF just behind the camera or at a side, at the end of the body, as there's no other place left. Then the entire thing (camera, PL lens, FF, Mattebox) will be protruding your body and you'll need very long rails with lots of weight on the back to balance al those Kg in the front.
I've seen this in every C300 acessory video from Zacuto, ARRI, etc.

Look at this picture with ARRI accessories. An external EVF has to be placed sideways, parallel to the camera body and at the end of it. Then you'll stick your head to the EVF, which means the entire package will be in front of you, and you'll have to counterbalance that protruding the rods with lots of weights on the back.

[Brian Drysdale]

I think this is a problem with all these compact cameras like the Epic. They're getting to the stage where the camera is being attached to a heavy lens and it's accessories, so they're going to be naturally front heavy. Given that this camera doesn't need a large battery or a 400ft magazine of film, there probably is no option but to put an inert mass towards the rear.

Adding weight for balance is something that has been done in the past, camera operators have used 1000ft magazines to balance out the camera. The early Steadicams sometimes had small weights attached for balance. It can still be a light weight shoulder rig, but there should be better design than a mass of tubes cobbled together.

[Chris Medico]

One of the things that I'm looking forward to with this camera is to put pressure on other CMOS camera manufacturers to reduce the rolling shutter artifacts. Canon has certainly set a new high water mark for minimizing skew in this price range from what I've seen in the sample videos.

[Steve Kalle]

Does anyone know why the power consumption is rated at 11.4w for *normal* use (with both EVF & LCD on) but the max power consumption goes all the way up to 20.9w? (all according to Canon) Canon DLC: Cinema EOS Frequently Asked Questions

That is a huge increase of 9.5 watts (an 83% jump).

I bring this up because I have been thinking about why Canon took certain routes like 8bit SDI output. Both the AF100 and FS100 have 8bit outputs and the reason for Sony doing this is power consumption. The internal processing and DSP bit depth must be high enough for a 10bit output. A 12 or 14bit DSP in the F3 requires more processing power than a 10bit DSP in the FS100. By using a 10bit DSP in the C300, power consumption is reduced.

Another possible explanation is the processor taken from the XF300 because it also only outputs 8bits.

Lower power consumption equals smaller batteries, which fits in with the C300's small footprint.

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Steve Kalle

The internal processing and DSP bit depth must be high enough for a 10bit output. ....... By using a 10bit DSP in the C300, power consumption is reduced.

From the same Canon site site you link to:

Why 8-bit instead of 10-bit?
The video components within the EOS C300 camera are processed at 13-bit for Green and 12-bit each for Red and Blue.

Whatever the reason for 8 bit output over HD-SDI, it's nothing to do with a 10 bit DSP. That's not what the C300 has. I did think Jon Fairhurst and Chris answered this a few posts back. As Chris said: "Just to clarify Jon's post: existing chip = Digic DV III image processor. "

My own belief is that power consumption has far more to do with the general mechanism by which read out occurs, rather than bit depth. The way in which the C300 reads out is fairly simple - hence low power consumption. The way in which the F3 does it requires far more arithmetic (independent of bit depth) - hence more power. It's the deBayering and downconversion that consumes the power in the F3 - two things the C300 doesn't need to do.

The same argument for the FS100 and the AF100. They likewise have far lower power consumption than the F3, and I increasingly think this is down to the way the chip is being read out - simplified in the same (or similar) way to the C300. But it's because they don't have the precise QFHD chip dimensions that they (especially the AF100) don't give the performance of the C300. Direct read in these cases gives lower than 1920x1080 resolution, and it's because the AF100 only reads one quartlet block in four that it's sensitivity is so much lower than the FS100. This theory matches observed results quite well for resolution, sensitivity, power consumption, and such as rolling shutter.

[Barry Goyette]

Originally Posted by Henry Coll

I found out this regarding Canon Log Gamma (from Dan Carr):


Laforet has said, as politely as he could, that both the VF and the TFT are useless, (just as expected). So if you really can't 709-LUT the HDMI/SDI for monitoring while recording Log in the CFs, you're supposed to focus with a Log image with a proper external EVF/monitor? And do we need a very expensive Cinetal to avoid sending a Log image to the Producer/Client?

I'm not sure if this is the polite statement you are referring to

--"We found ourselves using Zacuto EVFs with the camera and the new Marshall monitors with built in waveform graphs with excellent success." -- (sorry if that's not it...but I couldn't find any other mention of the monitors on his blog...but maybe he said it on stage with the canon folks...I missed that :-) )

..but I think you're reading him wrong. Useless would be an interesting choice of words, as the EVF and LCD on the C300 are both of extremely high quality. The best I've ever seen permanently attached to a camera...in the same range in terms of contrast and resolution to RED's excellent monitors. This statement seems to be directed at letting folks know that external monitoring was no problem.

In addition, Laforet, during a talkback at friday's event, talked a lot about C-log and how it doesn't look like the typical muddy mess we are accustomed to. He said in fact it's quite pleasant to view and that he had no problem sending rough cuts to the producer in c-log without grading.

Barry

[Jon Fairhurst]

If C-log is both easily viewed for focus and gradable, that's a unique combination.

One thing that hurts CineStyle is that the absolute black level is somewhat lifted on the 5D2. The false colors on my Marshall monitor (after a firmware upgrade) see black fine on "Normal", but it never sees black on "CineStyle" even with the lens cap on.