CineForm HDMI Recorder Concept Posted

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Originally Posted by Mike McCarthy

After a lot of testing in this area, I recommend FS1 over High when possible. Although High is "Visually lossless" you begin to reach a point where the changes due to compression can be detected on a waveform monitor, while FS1 does not have that issue. (In my experience) It would probably be a good idea to have FS1 available as an option, even on the HDMI Solid. And I figure that it will probably be there among others, since one thing Cineform products are never short on, is a large selection of somewhat ambigious and subjective compression levels :) (Low, Medium, High, Higher, High Optimized, FS1, FS2, FS1 ChromaKey, FS2 ChromaKey...)

Well I agree more options is better. I'm too used to Sony et. al and their miserly ways with features.

That said, I don't know if filmscan will really be useful to HDMI users.

I think that most HDMI cameras have more noise in the sensors than High will introduce until you go to 8 or more generations.

In other words you don't need it at acquisition.

It may be smart to convert footage that will be heavily processed selectively in post to Filmscan. Of course you could acquire with the same forethought.

I am not sure about noise levels in low end SDI cameras.

I know that the Canon units have a bit of noise, but I think they are an edge case for filmscan at acquisition. Maybe at negative gain values for them? (Of course that would apply to similar HDMI models as well.)

The EX1 should be able to use Filmscan at 0db and negative gain values. +3dB is my guess at where the value starts to drop off. Otherwise High should be fine.

Next years prosumer HDMI models, maybe even new models at NAB, will probably change the story... so I guess that having the option is a good thing- even if it costs us money.

[Nicky Campos]

Will the Sony EX-1 work with the Cineform Portable Recorder?

[Lonnie Bell]

David,
Convergent Design is trying to have their SDI recorder ready by NAB '08...
any chance Cineform will have their HDMI recorder ready by then?

[David Newman]

Not by NAB, sorry.

[Alexander Ibrahim]

I just wanted to give some feedback on features Cineform says they are considering.

From Cineform's Solid site. What Cineform wrote is bold.

Power: Mounted battery - still TBD

Please. Pretty please. With sugar on top? Pretty please with sugar on top, some whipped cream and a cherry?

I don't know what the power requirements are, but at least make some kind of optional battery/cradle arrangement that can be mounted to the unit.

Requested Features under consideration:

Dual CF slots for continuous recording.

I consider this essential for every version.

I'd like to point out that Convergent Design's Flash XDR is supposed to have 4 CF slots. That might be a good choice on a dual link SDI capable unit.

I don't know if there is enough market to make it worth making an SDI version and a seperate dual link capable version- right now my understanding is that you are looking at one SDI version that can handle dual link. Just thinking about costs.

Component HD input. Comment: We're really tempted to keep the first version of the recorder as a digital-only device. But we realize older camcorders don't have HDMI. So I think we'd like to explore a small form-factor external component-to-HDMI converter with a partner.

I think this is perfectly acceptable. I really want analog i/o support, but you have to draw the line somewhere.

Maybe I can put the bug in your ear about a competitor to the AJA ioHD? Basically a big one of these with all the connectors anyone might need that supports Cineform instead of ProRes and has CF cards for recording. Oh, and for goodness sakes give the thing its own battery as well as plug in capability. I'd love something useful to me in the studio and the field- but it is a different product.

Replace dual RCA jacks (shown) with 3mm stereo mini jack (too flimsy?) OR Replace dual RCA jacks with BNC connectors so cords don't become unplugged

Clips to hold HDMI and audio cables in place so they don't fall out

I reordered these because they are related.

3.5mm headphone jacks are far too flimsy so definitely leave them off please. Well... except for connecting headphones of course.

Clips are essential if you use consumer style connectors.

Forget BNC connectors for RCA. You shouldn't be using "weird" connectors for standard connections. If its an RCA connector, then use an RCA connection and some clip arrangement to secure the cable.

If I hand this thing to someone who's never heard of it before and tell them to hook it up I want them to be able to just look at the connectors and know what its about without a manual or instructions. If they see BNC audio jacks they may think its AES/EBU!

On that note... what about AES/EBU connectors? If you want all digital.. that would meet that criterion. Of course the dearth of things equipped with AES connectors right now should keep this in the "no" column. But hey... there will be a version 2 right?

I want to reiterate that pro connectors are a smarter choice. My vote is still for MiniXLR connectors which take up a similar amount of space to the RCA connector. They have positive lock- check them out. They aren't out of bounds given the audience.

If miniXLR doesn't suit you consider 1/4" TRS connectors, which is at least more common. They require a whole bunch of internal space though.

Oh, I want mic level inputs and phantom power too... but expecting a pre-amp in there is too much to ask.

Firewire interface. Comment: Maybe. We wouldn't use FW for data, only for START/STOP control. Although the signaling is present, even Sony doesn't use the FW port on their hard disk recorder (HVR-DR60) for START/STOP control.

I like the idea of remote control... but it may be overkill.

If I am hooked up to the SOLID then I am not going to need the camera's recorders. Starting and stopping the SOLID itself serves my needs. Just so long as the camera stays on. (XL-1 users lament! What.. they aren't the target audience you say? Nevermind.)

If you do put a FW interface on, then don't be shy. Do it right or skip it. Make it a 6 or preferably 9 pin FW connector and that way I can power small devices through the SOLID.

Consider giving users a menu to configure its operation.

I might configure it for camera control as suggested, or I might want to use it to connect to a FW disk or I might want to use it to connect the SOLID to a computer for transfer.

Heck, I know it defeats the main purpose of the device but if I really wanted to, let me record HDV onto the CF cards. I suppose I might desperately need the space or I may need to stay compatible with HDV for some weird reason.

Flexibility.

Belt Mount

I don't know. Belt mount is maybe too specific.

Perhaps you should make a screw mount, and a few accessories.

That way I can screw in a clip and clip it to my belt, or screw in a shoe adapter and attach it to the camera or stick it on its own little tripod or... you get the idea.

Go for flexibility of design.

[Alex Raskin]

Regarding the recording media: new generation of CF cards appears to be in the works, called CFast:

http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-987...eed&subj=Crave

Should have up to 375MB/s bandwidth.

And, it is *incompatible* with today's CF cards.

Will Cineform recorder be future-proof and support CFast cards?

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Originally Posted by Alex Raskin

Should have up to 375MB/s bandwidth.

To be clear they are talking about the interface bandwidth, not the card performance.

You may as well expect a SATA Hard Drive with 300MB/s read/write performance.

And, it is *incompatible* with today's CF cards.

Will Cineform recorder be future-proof and support CFast cards?

I think this sort of answers itself- the Cineform recorder will either support CF cards and be incompatible with CFast or it will support CFast and be incompatible with CF cards.

There is a remote possibility that Cineform could make a unit that had both CFast and CF card slots, but in a device of this size that would be a waste.

Should we care about CFast compatibility at this stage?

I don't think so.

When CFast first appears it isn't going to have much practical advantage over CF cards.

Before I go further let me point out a fallacy in the Crave article. CF cards support 133MB/s peak theoretical bandwidth, not the 80MB/s the article claims.

The various manufacturers aren't making CF cards faster than 300x because the flash chips aren't fast enough.

If faster flash chips were available they could at least get out to 600x CF speeds.

(While the theoretical max speed of the PATA bus is ~900x CF speed, practical signaling issues would limit this to closer to 700x I'm estimating based on peak PATA hard disk performance.)

The proposed Cineform SOLID recorder works with 133x CF cards, as does the Convergent Designs Flash XDR.

I expect that that both of these devices have hardware to take advantage of increased read/write speeds of 300x CF cards- and possibly even faster. If so I expect software/firmware updates will allow us to do a bit more. (like capture at higher data rates)

Finally, while CFast is coming, CF cards won't go anywhere for a long while, just like PATA drives are still readily available.

So... again we don't need to be worried about CFast for the time being.

I am going to keep an eye on the technology, and eventually I expect to purchase and use it, but my guess that eventually is two to three years down the road.

[Paul Leung]

It would be lovely if the DDR supports 1394 as well. For normal wedding video guys like me, most of our cameras don't have HDMI or SDI. Please add this support, we are a big market for this DDR.

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Originally Posted by Paul Leung

It would be lovely if the DDR supports 1394 as well. For normal wedding video guys like me, most of our cameras don't have HDMI or SDI. Please add this support, we are a big market for this DDR.

I think they should add that support too, but you must understand that the Cineform will just be a CF recorder for your regular DV or HDV then... you won't get any quality improvement AT ALL. None... zip zilch nada.

This is because the video signal out firewire is already compressed.

You'd probably be better served with a Firestore.

[Jim Andrada]

By CF do you mean CineForm or CompactFlash?

I'd love to have an alternative to Firestore that was already encoded to CineForm - even at a higher price point! The responsiveness and support of the CineForm gang would be worth the price difference!

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Originally Posted by Jim Andrada

By CF do you mean CineForm or CompactFlash?

I'd love to have an alternative to Firestore that was already encoded to CineForm - even at a higher price point! The responsiveness and support of the CineForm gang would be worth the price difference!

I mean Compact Flash.

I can also see I was not clear enough... if you use firewire as input to the Cineform Recorder, what you will get is compressed DV or HDV footage exactly as it comes out of the camera.

(I don't know what would happen with DVCPRO or AVC Intra cameras, but I expect they'd have to be recorded in their native output mode.)

This is because the camera outputs COMPRESSED video via firewire.

All Cineform would record is the raw stream exactly as it comes out the camera.

There is no point in decoding and recompressing it again in the recorder. Doing so would actually DECREASE quality.

I would lobby Cineform to make recording whatever comes down the Firewire pipe possible... just because it would occasionally be useful.

I am all for flexibility in the product... so long as it doesn't raise the price unnecessarily.

What I really want is the ability to use firewire for storage, to control the camera, and to hook up to a computer to offload stuff from the Cineform Recorder.

If FW is enabled for all that then recording raw camera data shouldn't be a huge thing.

[Paul Leung]

Originally Posted by Alexander Ibrahim

I think they should add that support too, but you must understand that the Cineform will just be a CF recorder for your regular DV or HDV then... you won't get any quality improvement AT ALL. None... zip zilch nada.

This is because the video signal out firewire is already compressed.

You'd probably be better served with a Firestore.

That's right. I just need a CF recorder with multi CF slots. Unfortunately this thing is currently not available. If Firestore records to CF, that would be great. However, it does not. I like this DDR to record to Cineform avi as well... however, that would eat up the CF capacity.

[Robert R. Schultz]

Is there any way possible to include an "audio recording only" mode in the SOLID?

[Craig Irving]

That's a great idea Robert, I hope they do.

I hope they can tease us with some more info on this product before NAB, but I'm guessing they won't. Hopefully this product is coming out soon though.

[Alex Raskin]

Another alternative to CF:

http://www.videography.com/articles/article_15613.shtml

Quote: "Maxell Corp.’s Professional Media Products division will introduce a new lightweight, rugged and shock resistant compact removable hard drive solution for field archive operations at NAB."

"connects directly through a bi-directional USB or e-sata adapter to a shoulder-mounted camcorder capable of delivering 10-bit, 4:2:2 master-quality video and native full HD video. In its current form factor, Maxell iVDR solution can store 160 GB of data and has a transfer rate of 540 Mbps."