Interesting Resolution test RED ONE

[Keith Walters]

You are right. Now they?re acting like any other brand. Arri, Sony, Panasonic, etc. They will be protecting their top end camera. They will be protecting their middle range from Scarlet. Is this what they had in mind when they signed with their early supporters?

From the limited amount of information released so far, it would appear that the Epic makes heavy use of Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) in place of the Programmable Gate Arrays used in the RED.

 

ASICs have much higher one-off manufacturing startup costs and generally cannot be re-programmed if a fault is discovered in the design, but the advantage is that their power consumption is much lower and they can run at much higher clock speeds.

 

You can perhaps compare this with early generation digital still cameras, most of which can still deliver outstanding pictures, but they chew through AA batteries at a frightening rate.

 

Presumably, since sales of the RED have gone so well, Jannard feels it is safe to put money into ASIC development.

[Guest Glen Alexander]

From the limited amount of information released so far, it would appear that the Epic makes heavy use of Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) in place of the Programmable Gate Arrays used in the RED.

 

ASICs have much higher one-off manufacturing startup costs and generally cannot be re-programmed if a fault is discovered in the design, but the advantage is that their power consumption is much lower and they can run at much higher clock speeds.

 

You can perhaps compare this with early generation digital still cameras, most of which can still deliver outstanding pictures, but they chew through AA batteries at a frightening rate.

 

Presumably, since sales of the RED have gone so well, Jannard feels it is safe to put money into ASIC development.

 

 

oh yes, asic, like on that nasa mission to mars where they confused units, instead of metric it used feet, and the probe is some unknown orbit around the sun.

 

 

i'll take a xilinx fpga anyday.

[Guest Glen Alexander]

"Compile"? Quantum computers do NOT compile. Plan 12 if I am not mistaken?

Sorry, where are my manners? Would you like some food? Some bananas perhaps? :rolleyes:

 

 

Perfectly feasible. 10,000 ASA is about 5 stops better than the nominal 320 ASA (since 32 x 320 = about 10,000)

 

Assume that a setting of 320 ASA only just uses all 12 bits of the ADC.

If one then closes the iris down 5 stops one will only be using 7 bits of the ADC.

Shift those 7 bits 5 bits to the left and voila one has a full contrast picture again.

Place 5 stops of ND in the Matte Box, open up the iris five stops again and there you have it: 10,000ASA, with 7 bits dynamic range. How useable that is depends on what you are shooting.

 

 

Step 1: Let a=b.

Step 2: Then a^2 = a*b

Step 3: a^2 + a^2 = a^2+a*b

Step 4: 2a^2 = a^2+a*b

Step 5: 2a^2-2*a*b = a^2+a*b-2*a*b

Step 6: 2a^2-2*a*b = a^2-a*b

Step 7: This can be written as 2*(a^2-a*b) = 1*(a^2-a*b)

Step 8: and dividing the (a^2-a*b) from both sides gives 2=1.

 

let's see 5 stops, log scale, equivalent antenna is going from a simple dipole to a high-gain phased array... i have mangrove forest in cobber peddy forsale, real cheap, cash only, no questions asked...

Edited May 15, 2008 by Glen Alexander

[John Sprung]

Step 7: This can be written as 2*(a^2-a*B) = 1*(a^2-a*B)

Step 8: and dividing the (a^2-a*B) from both sides gives 2=1.

But (a^2-a*B) = 0, so you have 2*(0/0) = 1*(0/0). The error is dividing by zero.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Keith Walters]

Step 1: Let a=b.

Step 2: Then a^2 = a*b

Step 3: a^2 + a^2 = a^2+a*b

Step 4: 2a^2 = a^2+a*b

Step 5: 2a^2-2*a*b = a^2+a*b-2*a*b

Step 6: 2a^2-2*a*b = a^2-a*b

Step 7: This can be written as 2*(a^2-a*B) = 1*(a^2-a*B)

Step 8: and dividing the (a^2-a*B) from both sides gives 2=1.

 

let's see 5 stops, log scale, equivalent antenna is going from a simple dipole to a high-gain phased array... i have mangrove forest in cobber peddy forsale, real cheap, cash only, no questions asked...

Well you don't get owt for nowt!

And I'll tell you that for nothin'

[Patrizio De Sica]

Boring geek talk.

[Stephen Williams]

Boring geek talk.

 

Hi,

 

This is a geek cinematography website, what do you expect? Fanboys!

 

Stephen

[Patrizio De Sica]

Hahahaha

 

Cold anyway. I don't believe I'm too close to be a fanboy. Only a boy, a grown up boy, sometimes. hahahahahaha

 

Edit:

 

Too much boring talk about numbers. Cinematography? Not really. Maybe a little bit of, a little bit of... hahahahaha digital cinematography?... hahahahahahahaha

Edited May 16, 2008 by Patrizio De Sica

[Keith Walters]

oh yes, asic, like on that nasa mission to mars where they confused units, instead of metric it used feet, and the probe is some unknown orbit around the sun.

 

 

i'll take a xilinx fpga anyday.

Well that's hardly the ASIC's fault, is it?

Continental Riff-Raff couldn't leave well enough alone. The Metre was supposed to be one ten-millionth of the distance between the North Pole and the equator through Paris. Except it wasn't. They managed to get it .5mm short, but we're still stuck with it.

 

Then there's SECAM: that magnificent Screwup Engineered by a Committee of AMphibians. All of its bizarre features came about because they were originally going to make it compatible with their old 819 line monochrome system, but they changed their mind at the last minute. So now we have positive modulation and AM sound to make it compatible with non-existent 625-line monochrome sets!

 

Viva la France!

 

I believe ASICS are preferred for interplanetary spacecraft, both because there is less chance of Cosmic rays re-programming them, and because of their lower power consumption.

For a long time the Space Shuttles still used magnetic core memories, becasue they didn't trust early semiconductor RAM in space.

[Guest Glen Alexander]

Well that's hardly the ASIC's fault, is it?

Continental Riff-Raff couldn't leave well enough alone. The Metre was supposed to be one ten-millionth of the distance between the North Pole and the equator through Paris. Except it wasn't. They managed to get it .5mm short, but we're still stuck with it.

 

Then there's SECAM: that magnificent Screwup Engineered by a Committee of AMphibians. All of its bizarre features came about because they were originally going to make it compatible with their old 819 line monochrome system, but they changed their mind at the last minute. So now we have positive modulation and AM sound to make it compatible with non-existent 625-line monochrome sets!

 

Viva la France!

 

SECAM sounds like something on TV... who watches that anymore.

 

I believe ASICS are preferred for interplanetary spacecraft, both because there is less chance of Cosmic rays re-programming them, and because of their lower power consumption.

For a long time the Space Shuttles still used magnetic core memories, becasue they didn't trust early semiconductor RAM in space.

 

it depends if the solution is some cheap COTS or full mil-spec Radhard. nasa is getting more on the cheap and using COTS. no full-spec Radhard spook satellite has any worries, i know guys who worked at TRW making the ASICS and FPGAs.

Edited May 16, 2008 by Glen Alexander

[John Sprung]

Then there's SECAM: that magnificent Screwup Engineered by a Committee of AMphibians.

Hadn't heard that one before. Here we know it as Something Essentially Contrary to American Methods. Which isn't a bad thing, since our method is Never Twice the Same Color. ;-)

 

So, what about ATSC? Are we doing All This for Sit-Coms? ;-)

 

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Keith Walters]

Hadn't heard that one before. Here we know it as Something Essentially Contrary to American Methods. Which isn't a bad thing, since our method is Never Twice the Same Color. ;-)

-- J.S.

History has become somewhat homogenized on this subject. Soundbites rule, reality takes a lot longer to describe.

 

There is nothing terribly wrong with NTSC itself; most of the problems in the early days came from sloppy studio practice, and the first videotape recorders, which had too much mechanical instability.

 

These problems were pretty much solved by in the early 1960s with the introduction of varactor diode based analog timebase correctors, as well as more reliable solid-state studio equipment. In my experience, just about every problem with American colour TV pictures, including faulty sets, worn-out picture tubes, terrible motel antenna installations and so on, was blamed on it being the NTSC system. Tourists from countries where colour TV was a more recent development, also tended to overlook the fact that all the colour sets in their experience were all new or near-new, whereas in the US they could be much older and nearly worn out.

 

In the 1950s various solutions to the chroma phase problems had been proposed, including what is essentially the forerunner of the PAL system. Two different versions of this were proposed by RCA when the National Television Systems Committee was re-convened to discuss colour TV in 1953. However at the time there was already a struggle to fend off the cheaper but drastically limited CBS sequential colour system that had already been licensed for broadcasting, so it was felt the extra cost could not be supported. It probably would have been different ten years later, but in those days every extra circuit function added several extra watts to the set's power consumption, because it had to be based on vacuum tubes.

 

Various alternatives to NTSC were proposed for a European colour system in the 1950s, all based on 64 microsecond delay lines. Two winners emerged from the fray:

Henri de France's SEquentiel Coleur Avec Memoire ("Sequential Colour System incorporating a Memory device") and

Walter Bruch's "Phase Alternating Lines" system (PAL)

 

SECAM systems transmit the R-Y and B-Y signals on alternate lines, using a 64 microsecond delay line to store a copy of the colour difference signal sent on the previous line, so that both signals are available simultaneously. Its principle advantage (in the 1950s at any rate) was that it could use a cheap magnetostrictive ultrasonic delay line based on mechanical vibrations travelling down a steel bar. The downside was that it could not easily use the efficient Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) system used by NTSC to encode the colour signals, (at least not without greatly increasing the complexity of the receiver), because the temperature stability of a metallic delay line was too poor. In the end they used frequency modulation, which makes it a very robust system for transmission, but drastically limits the scope of post-production that can be done with the SECAM signal. (You can't mix, wipe, dissolve, or fade to black with an FM colour subcarrier).

 

PAL solves the problem by reversing the phase of the R-Y colour subcarrier every other line, which cancels out the phase errors. However to do this properly, the original PAL receivers needed a very expensive quartz delay line, which was originally reckoned would make up about one-third the cost of the entire receiver. There were other proposed systems that used a similar delay line, but PAL was unique in that it was also possible to build a cheaper receiver without using the expensive delay line, that would work at least as well as a comparable NTSC receiver. This was known as a "Volks" receiver or "PAL-S receiver", hence the name PAL-D for "PAL de Luxe" for one fitted with a delay line.

 

Ironically, by the time PAL colour broadcasting commenced in the UK in 1967, the price of manufacturing the glass delay lines had been slashed drastically, with the result that virtually no Simple-PAL receivers were ever built! Not only that, virtually all production SECAM receivers used the same glass delay lines as PAL receivers, because by then they had become even cheaper than the technically inferior steel delay lines. The French really should have used PAL like everybody else but they originally were determined to stick to their unweildy 819-line system, so there was no compatibility advantage in doing so. Then when they decided to switch to 625 lines like the rest of Europe, it appears the SECAM boondoggle was too strongly entrenched to be discarded without losing a lot of technological face!

 

As for Something Essentially Contrary to American Methods, the real reason the USSR adopted SECAM was simply that it was the only colour system that could be used without massively upgrading their antiquated monochrome TV network. Faced the choice of SECAM or no system at all, SECAM was perceived as better than nothing. After the breakup of the USSR, most former Eastern Bloc countries switched to PAL. (It was ironic that until the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Eastern half of Berlin and Germany was on SECAM!)

 

With the emergence of composite video Post Production systems in the 1960s, the deficiencies of SECAM began to be realized. In France, most production facilities simply worked in PAL, transcoding to SECAM for transmission. With the development of component video post production equipment, this problem was eliminated, but the sun is about to set on SECAM analog transmissions anyway.

[Laurent Andrieux]

Henri de France's SEquentiel Coleur Avec Memoire ("Sequential Colour System incorporating a Memory device") and

Walter Bruch's "Phase Alternating Lines" system (PAL)

 

Sorry, it actually is "Séquentiel Couleur à Mémoire" (Memory Color Sequential)

 

And I think it's "Phase Alternated Lines"

[Laurent Andrieux]

Step 7: This can be written as 2*(a^2-a*b ) = 1*(a^2-a*b )

Step 8: and dividing the (a^2-a*b ) from both sides gives 2=1.

 

No because you can't devide by (a^2-a*b ) if it equals zero and if a=b, a^2-a*b = a(a-b ) = 0

 

Too bad, hum...

[Keith Walters]

Sorry, it actually is "Séquentiel Couleur à Mémoire" (Memory Color Sequential)

 

And I think it's "Phase Alternated Lines"

 

A remarkably restrained response :lol: In my experience Frenchmen can get very heated defending the SECAM system, EXCEPT those who work in TV post-production :rolleyes:

 

Anyway my 1967 colour TV textbook says "Avec", but it was written by an Englishman!

OK, I suppose I should have looked it up, but I don't know how to put all those funny little squiggles over the letters anyway :rolleyes:

 

Actually, there is a very common misconception that it means "Electronic Colour System with Memory" ("Système électronique de couleur avec mémoire") but no textbook written in the 60s and 70s mentions that, so I think some lazy journalist just guessed at some point, and the mistake has been endlessly repeated).

 

"PAL" doesn't really stand for anything sensible in either English or German, but we sort of know what it means! What exactly does "Phase Alternated Lines" mean? Only the R-Y subcarrier is actually alternated. Catchy name though.

[Keith Walters]

So, what about ATSC? Are we doing All This for Sit-Coms? ;-)

-- J.S.

ATSC is just a means of transmitting MPEGII signals, SD or HD. I know you're making a joke, but why sitcoms as opposed to quality drama, reality TV, or American Idol? It all looks the same to the transmitter.

 

I know your broadcasters were under pressure from the Japanese with their ridiculous analog HDTV system, but they should have waited a bit longer, since DVB-T is a vastly more efficient system, and I have been able to buy really good DVB-T set top boxes recently for $A34.95 (About $US30), so the original concerns about receiver complexity turned out to be groundless.

[Laurent Andrieux]

In my experience Frenchmen can get very heated defending the SECAM system, EXCEPT those who work in TV post-production :rolleyes:

 

It's nearly a half century ago that nobody works in SECAM in post anymore. SECAM is a great broadcasting system, but PAL has always been used in production for a very long time now, all over Europe - not to mention the fact that it's about 20 years that SD broadcast production doesn't use composite anymore, but component formats, or digibeta, almost 15 years.

 

It always make me laugh when people seem to consider SECAM a a bad system, althought it doesn't need a hue setting, like NTSC does. I really wonder how it is just possible to work in this industry (SD Video) in an NTSC system, considering color rendition... but if you don't mind the colour...

 

I like the conversation, but hey, I gotta go to work, going to the Carlton for interviews. Anybody here is in Cannes, these days ?

[Keith Walters]

It's nearly a half century ago that nobody works in SECAM in post anymore

How is this possible? SECAM broadcasting only started 40 years ago!

 

It always make me laugh when people seem to consider SECAM a a bad system, althought it doesn't need a hue setting, like NTSC does. I really wonder how it is just possible to work in this industry (SD Video) in an NTSC system, considering color rendition... but if you don't mind the colour...

 

Er, PAL doesn't need a hue control either, but once all the video sources are genlocked you can still mix them all together more or less like they were microphone signals, which is impossible with encoded SECAM.

 

Since about 1980 the hue control on most NTSC TV sets was a little knob usually hidden under a flap. Millions of NTSC TV sets are probably now decomposing in landfill, the knob never once having been touched! Now its usually a never-accessed remote control function.

 

As far as transmission goes, SECAM colour is an excellent system. It is much less affected by multipath reception and faulty antenna systems than either PAL or NTSC.

 

However the French broadcast SECAM system also uses positive modulation and AM sound, which date back to the 1930s. For its time, the original 1941 NTSC 525 line monochrome system was a technological marvel, with negative modulation, FM intercarrier sound, vertical equalizing pulses, vestigial sideband modulation and many other advanced features. All of which, unfortunately, were heavily patented, mostly by RCA :lol:

 

All of these problems can be solved one way or another, but it just seems to me that a lot of extra hard work was made for engineers by technically ignorant but overly patriotic politicians.

Edited May 17, 2008 by Keith Walters

[John Sprung]

SECAM is a great broadcasting system, but PAL has always been used in production for a very long time now, all over Europe -

That was our experience as well. Everything we sold into the 50 Hz SD markets went out as PAL. VHS is the only tape format for which we could find SECAM equipment. More recently, they've been ordering 1080i/50 for HD, instead of or in addition to PAL. All our masters are 1080p/24, so we convert frame for frame, and the shows run 4% fast over there.

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[John Sprung]

.. but why sitcoms

Just as a joke, to make the letters S and C match. There was a list a page or two long of alternates floating around 10+ years ago.

 

 

 

-- J.S.