HD Share

Dalsa Origin

Ready for more resolution in more places?

Nvidia, a major player in the post graphics-hardware market, recently made a serious foray into the smartphone market by launching its APX 2500 at an international cell-phone convention. Although the company press release waxes on about how the compact chip is a low-power, “high-definition computer” on a chip, what it is delivering is an HD (720p) display interface to Windows Mobile-powered smartphones. (By the way, it offers support for cell-phone camera sensors of up to 12 megapixels.)

That's right; now we'll be getting some 10 hours of HD playback (Nvidia's estimate) on a cell phone. The chip, the company's first basic computer processor for mobile phones, also encodes video to 720p.

Digital still-camera manufacturers want to offer HD too. At the PMA 2008 convention (the former Photo Marketing Association), HD video capture was announced for digital still cameras from Canon (PowerShot TX1), Panasonic (Lumix DMC-TZ5 and DMC-FX35), Samsung (NV24HD), and even a few in Kodak's EasyShare line.

On Feb. 17, 2008, the one-year countdown began for the shift of all U.S. television stations to be “exclusively digital”, as per the FCC. This might be as good a time as any to consider your next purchase of a camera system for content creation at HD res and beyond.

Purchase? That's right. While you still can't buy digital cameras from Panavision and Arri, one trend is for a new generation of manufacturers to leverage lower-cost digital components to offer affordable camera systems. Red Digital Cinema, Silicon Imaging, and GS Vitec are among the innovators pointing toward a future of more affordable high-end cameras.

“Red has enabled people on a much lower budget to do 35mm-level acquisition,” says Torrey Loomis, owner of Folsom, Calif.-based Silverado Systems. The company, an Apple value-added reseller (VAR), owns and rents out two Red One camera systems. “Our systems [cost us around] $65,000 to $70,000 each. We might have to spend $250,000 or more for a competing system.”

Why buy? Silverado isn't a standard camera-rental house, but it designs high-end Apple Final Cut Pro-based edit systems, so sussing out the workflow issues that its clients face is a key concern. “We realized if we had some of the [Red cameras] inhouse, we could become experts in handling 4K workflow,” Loomis says.

From the point that Red One cameras number 20 and number 21 were inhouse, Loomis reports considerable interest, with rentals of complete rigs following at $2,000 per day. “The cameras are already tremendous income generators.” (For an account of life with Red One camera number 17, see p. 53.)

Over the past year, Silicon Imaging, working with P+S Technik, delivered a more modular and upgradeable camera rig that didn't have the homebrew look of its original SI-2K digital cinema camera system, yet still prices at $28,500 for a basic system. At the 2008 NAB Show, expect to see the latest updates — which include stereo 3D and multicamera frame-accurate synchronization and recording, integrated film-camera-style optical viewfinder, a 24-bit color OLED SVGA electronic viewfinder, a MiniRig for improved single-handed or shoulder-mount camera operation, and integrated CineForm RAW QuickTime recording.

Because its camcorders incorporate an Intel CPU and run Windows, Silicon Imaging continues to code software to create innovative apps that no one else has brought to market. One good example is its SiliconDVR interface, a touchscreen control panel that not only can be used to set up and analyze shots, but is turning into an on-set production tool for post. New features include direct CineForm RAW recording to QuickTime and an improved green- and bluescreen keying algorithm. User settings from the SiliconDVR keyer are saved in Iridas' .look format. The Iridas SpeedGrade product line, also integrated into the interface, enables keys to be captured on-set and moved to post.

Being able to own your own digital camera system is even a consideration at higher price points.

Sony F35

In December, at the annual Band Pro One World on HD event, Sony's Rob Willox provided detail about the F35 CineAlta, a 1920×1080p HD digital camera that will feature a Super 35-sized CCD sensor. Planned for release later this year, it's essentially the same camera form factor the company worked out for its F23, but featuring a 35mm PL mount to allow use of film lenses.

“The camera will offer capabilities similar to the F23, including over- and under-cranking, and very similar ergonomics,” says Willox, Sony's director of marketing for professional content creation products. According to Willox, Sony sees a market for a film-style camera that fits into current production paradigms.

“Film rental houses looked at [cameras based on] 2/3in. imagers either as interim devices or as something that was not part of their business model,” Willox says. “Part of the decision [to make the F35] was that the 35mm space is primarily rental. We wanted to create a product that offered an affordable price point, so that if an independent 35mm filmmaker had enough work, they could justify purchasing one.” He points out that digital camera systems from Arri, Dalsa, and Panavision are only available as rentals.

The F23 provides the basic layout for the new system. The imager for the F35 could be a concern. But because Sony stopped its development partnership with Panavision, the technology for a full 35mm-sized CCD imager was readily available; a version of one was what Sony had already provided for the Panavision Genesis. The 1920x1080p-capable F35 will record 10-bit 4:4:4 HD at variable frame rates of 1fps to 50fps. (The large number of pixels that must be constantly moved off the imager precludes offering a more standard 60fps top speed, which requires more bandwidth.)

Willox estimates that the system will price around $300,000 when the camera is available this fall.

And while the F35 will cost more than some of the upstart competition already out there, Willox says he doesn't see a need to worry. He says he knows his buyers and what they want. “One of the things we learned in talking with DPs going back to when we developed the [HDW-F900H] were the number of horror stories of how badly some cameras end up being treated,” he says. “We know that anything we build needs to be completely bulletproof because they're going to be used in nasty places like the deserts of Tunisia and to the bottom of the ocean in a submersible driving rig.”

4K is on the way from Sony too. But “it's not going to be something you'll see at NAB 2009,” Willox says. There are still technical barriers in developing usable 4K camera systems, but Sony is going beyond just solving imaging or storage problems to figuring out business models, he says. “We also realize customers want to get a relatively long return on investment for the cameras they are buying.” To address that, Willox says that the company is determining whether the modular F35 chassis can accommodate the design requirements of the 4K system. That might allow, for example, buyers of an F35 to move to a 4K system when they're ready by only changing out the modular imaging and storage components of the camera. That could be a great money saver and, of course, quell the concerns of someone contemplating buying an expensive Sony HD system even while rising interest make 2K and 4K the latest in digital-cinema buzzwords.

With a demo of HDCAM SR recording 4K set for Sony's 2008 NAB Show booth, the company shows that, beyond its having long ago amortized any development costs, there is still useful storage technology to be found in spinning reels of magnetic tape. “It's not a realtime process yet,” Willox says. “That's one of the technology hurdles we are facing. There's an absolutely enormous amount of data coming out of the camera head each second that we need to learn how to manage. For us, working in 1920×1080 is a comfort zone. Working in 4K is going to require us to develop some new technology in order to handle it.”

Thomson Grass Valley Viper FilmStream

High-end digital video camera systems are, by all accounts, still a small percentage of the overall feature-film production market. There are still improvements in film camera technology coming, while new generations of film stock — such as the Kodak Vision3 series — keep 35mm film the top choice of most productions.

It's often smaller productions that benefit by going digital, targeting one or another special features a digital camera might offer — such as good low-light sensitivity or an improved post workflow.

Matt Farnsworth, who shot film for his feature Iowa, recently decided upon the Thomson Grass Valley Viper FilmStream to shoot Sibling, a small, independent production. His DP, Aaron Medick, worked with postproduction supervisor Dave Satin (of New York-based post facility Mega Playground) to create a series of lookup tables in order to create a specifically defined look for each period in the characters' lives. The LUTs, which could be referred to while on set, enabled the film's colorist to quickly set up the specific color tones during post.

Flexibility came from shooting in FilmStream mode, with uncorrected 4:4:4 RGB CCD data recorded onto Sony's HDCAM SR; the 10-bit log data requires color correction in post.

For Peter Mavromates, postproduction supervisor on two of David Fincher's most recent films, the Viper offers better post workflow, helped by an innovation created by storage manufacturer S.two. “The most significant improvement in digital workflow between Zodiac and [The Curious Case of Benjamin Button] is the realtime ingest for Final Cut Pro,” Mavromates says. “On Zodiac, we needed to load the DPX files and then render the edit media [DVCPRO HD]. Also, we needed to post-sync the audio. For Button, S.two developed a realtime batch digitize that allows us to ingest DVCPRO HD in realtime with audio. The irony of this is that, as processing speeds continue to increase, we will likely migrate back to rendering once it can be done in faster than realtime. After that, it will be drag and drop, and then, we will eventually cut in uncompressed HD.”

Dalsa Origin and Evolution

For Rob Hummel, the past 18 months as president of Dalsa Digital Cinema was an eye-opening experience. Hummel had built a reputation for straightforwardness and an uncompromising push for researching and deploying the highest-resolution technology when in charge of Warner Bros.' digital restoration lab, but he says he spent his first year at Dalsa “cleaning up a lot of surprises.” “Folks at Dalsa thought that no one would notice [some minor quirk], or they would say, ‘Isn't this something you'd see in a film camera?'' and I would end up saying, ‘Yes, someone will notice,'' and, ‘No, you don't see that on film cameras — we have to fix it,''” he says.

Hummel says the Canadian company has now “turned a corner,” solving issues from specular highlights generating “a ton of magenta” coming off the imager (tweaking an algorithm solved that) to “fixing up anything that remains” with Evolution, the smaller-sized version of the original Origin that, at press time, was in the final stages of completion.

Dalsa finally has projects to talk about, Hummel says, beyond the standard commercials and music videos. Actor LeVar Burton, for example, recently used the Origin on Reach for Me. “I wanted the first feature film done with the system to be something like a remake of My Dinner with Andre, and not as principal camera on a $200 million production,” Hummel says.

Burton, who didn't have the budget to shoot in 35mm, was skeptical at first. “When we showed him test images from it, he went cuckoo for it, and thought it looked like 65mm,” Hummel says.

The Origin recently did make a major feature-film debut, with eight of the digital cameras synced together for a complex effects shot on the new James Bond production Quantum of Solace. Dalsa worked with MovieTech, its new European partner, which has a facility at the storied Pinewood Studios in England, where the Bond film was shot.

At the 2008 NAB Show, expect to see demos of a Flash RAM magazine that will capture 20 minutes of 4K imagery. With the solid-state storage, the cameras will be able to run at higher frame rates. Turns out that current hard-disk recording systems choke at the high data rates, Hummel says.

With most of the technical problems solved for both camera systems, Hummel says he thinks Dalsa's new challenge is to try to convince people that “it's worth the struggle to use the larger Origin camera until the smaller camera becomes available,” he says. “Let's be clear — the Origin is slightly smaller than a city bus, and that's a problem.

“People have been very excited about the images but couldn't see using that size of a camera, so we're going full tilt to get the Evolution out. That's why everyone gets so excited about the Red; it's the compact size of that 4K camera system. We feel with the expertise that Dalsa has, people will see that we deliver some pretty spectacular image quality, with a frame transfer shutter that yields many fewer artifacts than you can see with some other digital camera systems.”

Productions employing the Arriflex D-20 have garnered awards over the past year. In January, the American Society of Cinematographers gave Ben Nott, ASC, an award for his cinematography on the TNT miniseries The Company. The DP — who, prior to the show, had only worked with film — says it was a smooth transition working with the D-20 because there's a “very film-camera feel” to the system. “It has the same familiar form as all the other film cameras in the Arri family,” says Nott, who also enjoyed working with the camera's optical viewfinder. “I've worked with other digital cameras, and I have to say, looking at an electronic viewfinder does not compare to the optical finder offered by the D-20.”

Sam Nicholson, visual effects supervisor at Stargate Digital, used the D-20 to capture all greenscreen effects shots for the “Battleground” episode of Nightmares and Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King. Last fall, the Academy of Television & Sciences gave an award to that show for visual effects for a miniseries, movie, or special.

“When possible, we use the D-20 almost exclusively on all blue and greenscreen work,” says Nicholson, who says the blue channel is “so solid” that it gives superior keys compared to film stocks or other digital cameras. Nicholson says that blue has traditionally been the grainy channel in film and telecine transfers, but it's “extremely quiet” in the D-20.