October News Flash

It’s been a while since I’ve written an update. That’s not without good reason, things have been BUSY!

CANON are on the warpath

The first thing I want to mention is that Canon are taking thier DSLR’s very seriously indeed. The 5D MkII is getting a long rumored firmware update enabling 24fps and 25fps HD video recording. You can read the press release here: http://www.4khub.co.za/node/27

Next up, Canon have announced the 1D Mk5, the ultimate DSLR intended to set the benchmark for all others. The full press release is here: http://www.4khub.co.za/node/28

MONSTER FCP D.I. Suite Update

In other news, I’ve approached Mike Brennan from LABSpace about the MONSTER FCP suite build up and they have a new 8-core MacPro we can use as the test machine. So, LABSpace are now partners in this project.

FCP Native Redcode Conform Video How-to

I’ll be putting together a how-to videocast outlining the step by step method in conforming and finishing native Redcode RAW within Color. Just for fun this will be shot in HD with the Canon 7D!

Two short film projects “Daydream” and “Flame”

Of interest to some will be my two short films. The first of these, today postponed until the 14th or 15th November is “Daydream” a 3 minute short to be shot 3-perf 35mm with Kodak’s new Vision 3 stock, transferred to HD DPX and posted uncompressed entirely within the world of Adobe Creative Suite. This is intended to illustrate that a high end finish from scanned 35mm film material can be done with a down to earth toolset. I will show exactly how its done and post screenshots.

“Flame” is a 25 minute short and will be shot with the Red One. This one will also be posted in Adobe Creative Suite but will illustrate the Red workflow accomodated by Adobe.

I am also planning a third as yet undecided short film to be shot on the Canon 7D just for variety, more info will be coming soon.

Power to the people! The MONSTER FCP online suite!

So, it’s official. You can build your own resolution independent, real-time Redcode ready, DPX dominator digital intermediate system out of a off the shelf Mac Pro!

I’m going to introduce what this system consists of, and what it’s theoretical capabilities are, and attempt to find some support to actually build a test machine.

First, why would one want to do this?

The answer is a. every film maker should really have a FCP suite of thier own, and b. the software itself does most of the work, and the hardware peripherals necessary to get media in and out of the system, and provide the real-time Redcode RAW support are relatively cheap.

Second, how much does it cost?

I don’t know yet. I have yet to add up the bill, I only know what goes in the shopping basket.

Third, will it really work?

I can’t say 100%, the combination of cards I am suggesting might have compatibility issues and changes might have to take place.

The QuadroFX card is powerful, but maybe un-necessary and the Nvidia GT120 or Radeon HD 4870 would probably work fine in it’s place, they are both x16 lane PCIe cards.

The Red Rocket card is a x8 PCIe card, not sure yet if I’m going to run into motherboard slot problems.

The Blackmagic Decklink HD Extreme is a x4 PCIe card.

It should be fine, with the graphics card installed there is one open x16 slot which can accomodate the Red Rocket, and two open x4 slots, which can be occupied by the Blackmagic card and a fibre channel networking card. A question still remains about physical space.

The configuration:

Dual-quad Nehalem Mac Pro
16GB RAM
Nvidia QuadroFX 4800 (PCIe x16)
Red Rocket (PCIe x8) with breakout box
Blackmagic Decklink HD Extreme (PICe x4)
4Gb Fibre channel card

Final Cut Studio 3
Red Final Cut Studio plugin
Gluetools

Storage:

I like having a RAID internally. I have a dual-quad Xeon PC in a nice solid chassis that gives me 10 drive bays. I have 2 system drives and 8 media drives in a RAID 5 configuration that give me sufficient throughput for a single stream of uncompressed 2K DPX playback. This makes the system box weigh a ton, but it’s all there. The Mac chassis won’t work this way, and unfortunately storage will have to be external.

I’d like to explore what cost effective storage options are out there, but that is another discussion. For now, a 4Gb Fibre Channel card will let me plug into the SAN, and there’s my storage. I can pull HD DPX’s real time across from the server, and that’s what I need for testing purposes.

Monitoring:

We have plenty of monitoring options and I/O out of this box. Here it is.

GRAPHICS:

2 x Dual Link DVI Stereo

RED ROCKET (Output Only):

4 x HDMI
4 x Dual Link HD-SDI

DECKLINK HD EXTREME:

1 x Dual Link HD-SDI Input
1 x Dual Link HD-SDI Output
Component SD/HD YUV/S-Video/Composite
1 x HDMI Input
1 x HDMI Output

AUDIO I/O (DECKLINK):

2 x AES
2 X Analogue
16 X SDI
2 X HDMI

So we are even ready for full 4K monitoring to a Sony SXRD 4K Projector via the 4 x Dual Link HD-SDI outputs from the Red Rocket card. In reality, though we’ll probably run a single Apple 30″ display for the desktop and a 58″ Panasonic 10-series plasma via HDMI or optionally dual link HD-SDI.

CONTROL SURFACE & PERIPHERALS:

We’ll look at the Tangent Devices Wave panel for operating Color, and a Wacom tablet.

More to come…

Panavision Dynamax35 ULTRA

Just a short post to bring something to your attention that you may or may not already be aware of.

One of the most exciting things to come to my attention in a long while is Panavision’s development work on the Dynamax35 imager.

This is essentially bringing HDRI to digital motion picture acquisition. Imagine taking six photos simultaneously, all at different exposures, and combining them to make a single HDRI (high dynamic range image), and doing so at motion picture frame rates up to 120fps. Welcome to the Dynamax35.

With six sets of RGB photosites for each resulting image pixel, the Dynamax35 imager has a resolution of 37 mega-pixels, it’s a large 35mm format imager and for every frame, data is processed at six different exposures and combined to make a single image with a range over 16-stops.

This promises to take the constant battle between digital imagers and film emulsions to new heights, and may just tip the scales in effective exposure latitude to the digital side for the first time in the history of cinema.

More information is available here: http://www.panavisionimaging.com/imagers_DMAX.htm

Also read this interview with John Galt: http://www.onfilm.co.nz/editable/JohnGaltJULY.html

Some high dynamic range images by Mark Verlijsdonk (http://madsick.deviantart.com/):

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