Results of my first XDR Timelapse at DVinfo.net

Mark Job · October 11th, 2009, 06:15 PM

Hi Dan:
I Shot my first test with the XDR Yesterday Afternoon of a typical Sunset at the beach. I will upload the video with a link here as soon as I can get the upload to my server to work. The quality of the 220 I frame video is spectacular ! However, I have experienced two problems.

1. I get small file chunks only three seconds in length.

2. On one record session, I actually had the XDR go into full motion video capture for about one second, then go back to I frame timelapse all in one movie file. What the ?????

I put the little movies all together on one timeline and was once again faced with editing problems in Avid Media Composer. (Very Sad) I couldn't get MC to output the files to any format other than HDV (Including QT and QT Ref) !! What the ??? I understood I had set my video files to 100 % size on the XD card. (??) Did I miss a setting in TL mode ?

Things I Liked:

Seems easy to set and use.

Things I didn't like:

XDR Screen is almost impossible to read in Sunlight (See Picture)

Dan Keaton · October 11th, 2009, 08:48 PM

Dear Mark,

Please let me know how you had the Flash XDR setup, specifically, Mode, Long-GOP, or I-Frame Only, QT or MXF, Bit Rate, the File Size parameter, and all of the timelapse options.

I will then troubleshoot your settings.

You may post here publicly or send me a private email, your choice.

Mark Job · October 12th, 2009, 08:43 AM

Hi Dan:
My Time Lapse Mode Settings were as follows.......

1. Mode: Time Lapse

2. Format: I- Frame

3. Data Rate: 220 Mbps

4. File Type: MXF (For Avid MC Post)

5. * File Size Parameter:
Huh ? What's this ?? I didn't see this setting before in the timelapse mode menus - I did see it in the regular Menu, which was set to 100 % file size on the card. (??) Where is it ? Does this have to be set in *Time Lapse Mode* as well ???

Tommy Schell · October 12th, 2009, 11:03 AM

Hi,

the just posted Flash XDR 1.1.63 and nanoFlash 1.0.112 has beta support for time-lapse recording. We didn't get a chance to document everything in the manual yet, but there are a couple of things to consider with time-lapse recording:

> the hour glass on the lcd screen will only change on the selected time interval that we write a frame;
> when you stop a time-lapse record, there may be a delay up to the selected time interval to close the clip. In addition, the clip will end with under a half second of regular speed footage, which will need to be edited out.
> As was mentioned in another thread, use a reliable power source as we do not have a file recovery mechanism from lost power at this time.
> You can record time-lapse @ 220 Mbit on a slower card, but the footage may not play back out of the XDR / nanoFlash because of the high data rate at regular speed (but will be fine with supporting NLE's / software on a computer) . This is not a problem on the fast CF cards we recommend.
> Time-lapse is always I-frame only recording.
> I believe we've only tested in MXF and Quicktime file formats.

So it's not perfect but we hope people will find it a useful feature.

Tommy Schell

Mark Job · October 12th, 2009, 11:38 AM

Hi Tommy:
I may have missed a file size setting which is seperate (?) from the file size setting in regular recording mode. In my case, the full speed jump was initiated at the beginning of a second Time Lapse session after stopping the first and changing a battery on my XL H1, then initiating a second session of TL recording. Tommy, can you confirm if there is a *seperate* file size setting from the one listed in the regular recording menu ?

Dan Keaton · October 12th, 2009, 12:09 PM

Dear Mark,

No, there is only one File Size setting.

Could it be that the Full Speed Jump was at the end of the first time-lapse session?

If so, then this is what is expected. We are trying to close out the file, as opposed to have one wait until we finish a group of pictures, with each frame occurring at the time-lapse interval.

Mark Job · October 12th, 2009, 12:31 PM

Dear Dan:
No. I'm pretty sure the speed jump was at the *beginning* of the second recording session, thus it *CANNOT* be editerd out of the sequence without a noticeable *JUMP* in the footage, which ruins the sequence and makes it unuseable for any practical purposes. I will do a second test today to confirm exactly where the speed jump occurs. Even if it occurs at the end, then this is also not desireable. I'm sure all would agree that in a timelapse sequence-any timelapse sequence, one cannot have a full speed jump suddenly appear in the *beginng* of the sequence. Also, could you please confirm if the Time Lapse Mode is *supposed to* record tiny little MPEG files of only 3 seconds one after another on the CF card please ?

ADDENDUM: The first recording session contained no speed jump. I will check this again and perform a second test now to confirm if and when the malfunction is random or repeatable.

Mark Job · October 12th, 2009, 04:44 PM

Hi Dan & Mike:
Just completed a second timelapse test. This time I shot the entire onset of late Afternoon into early Evening in One (1) recording session. I obtained perefect results with *NO SPEED JUMP* whatsoever. I need to perform a third timelapse as a control measure to this test to see if that looks alright. The speed jump thingy *may* be related to closing one recording *session* then opening another. (??) This remains to be seen at this point. However, can Tommy or someone at CD explain if the small 85 Kb 3 second file chunks a *normal* result by design, or should this be viewed as a malfunction ??

.....Perhaps someone else with an XDR who has performed the recent upgrade to 1.1.63 also try a timelapse sequence and confilm to us if they also get these tiny series of MPEG file chunks ? I would really like to know. If this is only a *Beta* of the timelapse, then fine - not bad, but needs a little work to make it more stable. If this *is actually* by design to have 85KB data chunks 3 seconds long, then could we have an option to set the file size to 100 % on the CF card like we could with full motion shooting ? - Or at least be able to set a file size of 20 MB for each chunk.

Aaron Newsome · October 12th, 2009, 04:56 PM

The Viper is time lapse recording this moment. The recording will be over, when this Dionic 90 is depleted. Will post back results in a few.

Lance Librandi · October 12th, 2009, 05:42 PM

Hi Dan & Mike,
I have just recorded my first time-lapse sequence "Early morning sunrise on the bay". Congratulations to CD on a great addition to the NanoFlash and the quality is awesome and it still records sound?

Mark Job · October 12th, 2009, 06:51 PM

Hi Lance:
What is the *size* of your timelapse MPEG file (s) on the CF card please ?

Lance Librandi · October 12th, 2009, 07:55 PM

Hi Mark,
I have actual conducted two tests. The first one was just a quickie after I load the new firmware. The operating instructions in the new manual on TL are bit thin so used the adventure technique. I set the system for I-Frame and the TL menu timer for 5 seconds, placed the camera on the balcony and let it go. I had assumed that by selecting TL that the frame bit rate would automatically be set to 220Mbps. The file size that I got from that shoot was 154.4MB. I noticed that the frame rate on the screen had not switched to 220Mbps so I set the frame rate manually to 220Mpbs.

This morning I got up before sunrise and went to the local lookout at the top of the hills over looking the bay and shot the sunrise. This time I got a file size of 726.7Mpbs which more like it and I had no problem playing out of the NanoFlash via HDMI on both occasions.

Dan Keaton · October 12th, 2009, 08:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aaron Newsome

The Viper is time lapse recording this moment. The recording will be over, when this Dionic 90 is depleted. Will post back results in a few.

Dear Aaron,

Please try to stop the timelapse before the battery shuts down. We do require power the whole time, otherwise we will lose some of the file, probably a lot of the timelapse sequence.

Dan Keaton · October 12th, 2009, 08:33 PM

Dear Friends,

Yes, the manual is very thin at this time.

We are working on instructions for timelapse.

Yes, please set the bit-rate to whatever you want.

If you want to playback in your unit, please select a speed supported by your CompactFlash cards.

Mark Job · October 12th, 2009, 09:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lance Librandi

Hi Mark,
I have actual conducted two tests. The first one was just a quickie after I load the new firmware. The operating instructions in the new manual on TL are bit thin so used the adventure technique. I set the system for I-Frame and the TL menu timer for 5 seconds, placed the camera on the balcony and let it go. I had assumed that by selecting TL that the frame bit rate would automatically be set to 220Mbps. The file size that I got from that shoot was 154.4MB. I noticed that the frame rate on the screen had not switched to 220Mbps so I set the frame rate manually to 220Mpbs.

This morning I got up before sunrise and went to the local lookout at the top of the hills over looking the bay and shot the sunrise. This time I got a file size of 726.7Mpbs which more like it and I had no problem playing out of the NanoFlash via HDMI on both occasions.

......Hi Lance:

What I don't understand is why is your completed timelapse file just ONE (1) file chunk of approxiomately 154 MB on your Nano, while all I get on my XDR is a whole bunch of little 3 second duration 85 KB file chunks one after the other ??? This to me is the 800 lb gorilla in the room. Something is wrong. (??)

Dan what do you think is going on with my XDR in Time Lapse Mode ?

EDIT: Additionally it seems to always take exactly 23 seconds to go into actual time lapse mode from the moment I press record on the XDR until the little hour glass symbol appears on the right hand side of the screen and actual writing of single I Frames to the CF card commences with the intermittent flash of the Red LED by the CF card socket I am using (Socket 1). I have populated this socket with a Sandisk Extreme IV 16 GB CF card and sockets 2 and 3 have Sandisk Extreme III 32 GB cards in them. Socket 4 remains empty. I have not written any time lapse sequences to the Extreme III cards yet.

October 11th, 2009, 06:15 PM	#1
Mark Job Trustee Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada Posts: 1,138	Results of my first XDR Timelapse Hi Dan: I Shot my first test with the XDR Yesterday Afternoon of a typical Sunset at the beach. I will upload the video with a link here as soon as I can get the upload to my server to work. The quality of the 220 I frame video is spectacular ! However, I have experienced two problems. 1. I get small file chunks only three seconds in length. 2. On one record session, I actually had the XDR go into full motion video capture for about one second, then go back to I frame timelapse all in one movie file. What the ????? I put the little movies all together on one timeline and was once again faced with editing problems in Avid Media Composer. (Very Sad) I couldn't get MC to output the files to any format other than HDV (Including QT and QT Ref) !! What the ??? I understood I had set my video files to 100 % size on the XD card. (??) Did I miss a setting in TL mode ? Things I Liked: Seems easy to set and use. Things I didn't like: XDR Screen is almost impossible to read in Sunlight (See Picture) Attached Thumbnails

October 11th, 2009, 08:48 PM	#2
Dan Keaton Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Augusta Georgia Posts: 5,421	Dear Mark, Please let me know how you had the Flash XDR setup, specifically, Mode, Long-GOP, or I-Frame Only, QT or MXF, Bit Rate, the File Size parameter, and all of the timelapse options. I will then troubleshoot your settings. You may post here publicly or send me a private email, your choice. __________________ Dan Keaton Augusta Georgia

October 12th, 2009, 08:43 AM	#3
Mark Job Trustee Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada Posts: 1,138	My Timelapse Settings For First Attempt Hi Dan: My Time Lapse Mode Settings were as follows....... 1. Mode: Time Lapse 2. Format: I- Frame 3. Data Rate: 220 Mbps 4. File Type: MXF (For Avid MC Post) 5. * File Size Parameter: Huh ? What's this ?? I didn't see this setting before in the timelapse mode menus - I did see it in the regular Menu, which was set to 100 % file size on the card. (??) Where is it ? Does this have to be set in Time Lapse Mode as well ???

October 12th, 2009, 12:09 PM	#6
Dan Keaton Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Augusta Georgia Posts: 5,421	Dear Mark, No, there is only one File Size setting. Could it be that the Full Speed Jump was at the end of the first time-lapse session? If so, then this is what is expected. We are trying to close out the file, as opposed to have one wait until we finish a group of pictures, with each frame occurring at the time-lapse interval. __________________ Dan Keaton Augusta Georgia

October 12th, 2009, 08:33 PM	#14
Dan Keaton Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Augusta Georgia Posts: 5,421	Dear Friends, Yes, the manual is very thin at this time. We are working on instructions for timelapse. Yes, please set the bit-rate to whatever you want. If you want to playback in your unit, please select a speed supported by your CompactFlash cards. __________________ Dan Keaton Augusta Georgia

October 12th, 2009, 11:03 AM	#4
Tommy Schell Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Colorado Springs, CO Posts: 65	Hi, the just posted Flash XDR 1.1.63 and nanoFlash 1.0.112 has beta support for time-lapse recording. We didn't get a chance to document everything in the manual yet, but there are a couple of things to consider with time-lapse recording: > the hour glass on the lcd screen will only change on the selected time interval that we write a frame; > when you stop a time-lapse record, there may be a delay up to the selected time interval to close the clip. In addition, the clip will end with under a half second of regular speed footage, which will need to be edited out. > As was mentioned in another thread, use a reliable power source as we do not have a file recovery mechanism from lost power at this time. > You can record time-lapse @ 220 Mbit on a slower card, but the footage may not play back out of the XDR / nanoFlash because of the high data rate at regular speed (but will be fine with supporting NLE's / software on a computer) . This is not a problem on the fast CF cards we recommend. > Time-lapse is always I-frame only recording. > I believe we've only tested in MXF and Quicktime file formats. So it's not perfect but we hope people will find it a useful feature. Tommy Schell

October 12th, 2009, 11:38 AM	#5
Mark Job Trustee Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada Posts: 1,138	Hi Tommy: I may have missed a file size setting which is seperate (?) from the file size setting in regular recording mode. In my case, the full speed jump was initiated at the beginning of a second Time Lapse session after stopping the first and changing a battery on my XL H1, then initiating a second session of TL recording. Tommy, can you confirm if there is a seperate file size setting from the one listed in the regular recording menu ?

October 12th, 2009, 12:31 PM	#7
Mark Job Trustee Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada Posts: 1,138	Dear Dan: No. I'm pretty sure the speed jump was at the beginning of the second recording session, thus it CANNOT be editerd out of the sequence without a noticeable JUMP in the footage, which ruins the sequence and makes it unuseable for any practical purposes. I will do a second test today to confirm exactly where the speed jump occurs. Even if it occurs at the end, then this is also not desireable. I'm sure all would agree that in a timelapse sequence-any timelapse sequence, one cannot have a full speed jump suddenly appear in the beginng of the sequence. Also, could you please confirm if the Time Lapse Mode is supposed to record tiny little MPEG files of only 3 seconds one after another on the CF card please ? ADDENDUM: The first recording session contained no speed jump. I will check this again and perform a second test now to confirm if and when the malfunction is random or repeatable.

October 12th, 2009, 04:44 PM	#8
Mark Job Trustee Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada Posts: 1,138	Hi Dan & Mike: Just completed a second timelapse test. This time I shot the entire onset of late Afternoon into early Evening in One (1) recording session. I obtained perefect results with NO SPEED JUMP whatsoever. I need to perform a third timelapse as a control measure to this test to see if that looks alright. The speed jump thingy may be related to closing one recording session then opening another. (??) This remains to be seen at this point. However, can Tommy or someone at CD explain if the small 85 Kb 3 second file chunks a normal result by design, or should this be viewed as a malfunction ?? .....Perhaps someone else with an XDR who has performed the recent upgrade to 1.1.63 also try a timelapse sequence and confilm to us if they also get these tiny series of MPEG file chunks ? I would really like to know. If this is only a Beta of the timelapse, then fine - not bad, but needs a little work to make it more stable. If this is actually by design to have 85KB data chunks 3 seconds long, then could we have an option to set the file size to 100 % on the CF card like we could with full motion shooting ? - Or at least be able to set a file size of 20 MB for each chunk.

October 12th, 2009, 04:56 PM	#9
Aaron Newsome Major Player Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Rancho Santa Margarita Posts: 590	The Viper is time lapse recording this moment. The recording will be over, when this Dionic 90 is depleted. Will post back results in a few.

October 12th, 2009, 05:42 PM	#10
Lance Librandi Major Player Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: South Australia Posts: 374	Hi Dan & Mike, I have just recorded my first time-lapse sequence "Early morning sunrise on the bay". Congratulations to CD on a great addition to the NanoFlash and the quality is awesome and it still records sound?

October 12th, 2009, 06:51 PM	#11
Mark Job Trustee Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada Posts: 1,138	Hi Lance: What is the size of your timelapse MPEG file (s) on the CF card please ?

October 12th, 2009, 07:55 PM	#12
Lance Librandi Major Player Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: South Australia Posts: 374	Hi Mark, I have actual conducted two tests. The first one was just a quickie after I load the new firmware. The operating instructions in the new manual on TL are bit thin so used the adventure technique. I set the system for I-Frame and the TL menu timer for 5 seconds, placed the camera on the balcony and let it go. I had assumed that by selecting TL that the frame bit rate would automatically be set to 220Mbps. The file size that I got from that shoot was 154.4MB. I noticed that the frame rate on the screen had not switched to 220Mbps so I set the frame rate manually to 220Mpbs. This morning I got up before sunrise and went to the local lookout at the top of the hills over looking the bay and shot the sunrise. This time I got a file size of 726.7Mpbs which more like it and I had no problem playing out of the NanoFlash via HDMI on both occasions.