The DRAKE HD camera

[Mike Brennan]

Anyone have any thoughts or seen pics of the drake in remote head mode?

 

Mike Brennan

[Christoph Heimer]

Hello fellows,

 

it is one week ago, that I had the Drake in my hands and shot some test footage.

There are some interesting things to note about the camera.

http://tuxsolutions.de/chfilm/drake1.jpg (Don't mind the prehistorical look of the camera, 2 weeks ago on a roadshow both d20s from arri did NOT work, but the drake did, so its unimportant how it looks atm)

 

I tested the 8bit version of the camera, but i also saw some footage of a new prototype which records 12 bit and yes guys, you are right, the 8 bit IS undersaturated. But the 12 bit is NOT. You have a converter software with the camera which allows you to simply change EVERYTHING. It is like when you have raw images of a canon 300d in photoshop, and that footage is definitly not undersaturated or anything else. This one ist not yet ready too, but they're working on it. In the meanwhile, we have to be happy with the 8 bit camera which is not bad at all.

The handling of the camera has to be optimized, but the technical part works fine. There is no compression and though it has only 8 bits, you are able to push the saturation. I uploaded 3 test shots:

 

http://tuxsolutions.de/chfilm/judith_hd.wmv

http://tuxsolutions.de/chfilm/vogel_hd.wmv

http://tuxsolutions.de/chfilm/chris.wmv

 

There is some dirt on the lense, please don't care about it.

I am quite happy with the cam, but it's a pitty that the contrast is way worse that i thought it to be. We filmed a house against the sky and it looked nearly like dv because the sky was all white while the house looked quite normal. Well, we have to use ND filters, but maybe, we will be able to shoot our movie with the 12 bit equipment and that does really rock! :)

 

@mike: I have not tested the drake on a remote head, but there is one great feature: You can remove the camera head from the recording part and you have a camera which is smaller than a fist so could do great things with it like moving it through veeerry small doorgaps or something.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

So where do I get one?

 

Can I rent one on the 7/8th of August? I've got this shoot and...

 

Phil

[Stephen Williams]

Hi,

 

So where do I get one?

 

 

Phil

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Hi,

 

Looks very interesting!

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

I was being facaetious, well, in part at least. I'd love to shoot this thing with a Drake.

 

What I was trying to highlight is the increasing vapourware problem, which Mr. Most so ably brough to the fore. There is no such thing as a Kinetta. There is no such thing as a Dalsa Origin. Or there might as well not be. The only camera system I can actually get my hands on in that league is a Viper.

 

Phil

[Michael Most]

What I was trying to highlight is the increasing vapourware problem..... There is no such thing as a Kinetta. There is no such thing as a Dalsa Origin. Or there might as well not be. The only camera system I can actually get my hands on in that league is a Viper.

 

I might add that there is also no such thing as a Panasonic HVX200, which seems to get a hell of a lot of press and Internet postings lately. Nor is there any such thing as a 24p standard definition recording system. There is also no Santa Claus, although he's probably a bit more real than some of the other things we've mentioned.

[Christoph Heimer]

Well, just wait some time,

You won't get any ArriD20 to your hands in the near future too, because they are working on it while the Drake is developed too.

Be patient... B)

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> Be patient...

 

I'd love to be, but the shoot's in August. Anyone got a reasonably-priced uncompressed camera system I can rent? Anyone? Anyone at all? Anywhere?

 

I suspect silence will be the only response.

 

Phil

[Michael Most]

\I'd love to be, but the shoot's in August. Anyone got a reasonably-priced uncompressed camera system I can rent? Anyone? Anyone at all? Anywhere?

 

Arri 435. Or 535, if there's sync sound.

Panavision Platinum, Millennium, or even G2.

Aaton.

 

Seriously. If you need ultimate picture quality, to the point that you "must" have an "uncompressed" electronic camera, then why are you only looking at electronic solutions?

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Well, I'd happily shoot it on an F900. Actually the only thing that's stopping me is the post costs. The attractiveness of file-based things like Viper is that once you've dumped it onto a firewire drive it's fairly easy to get at, and doesn't require a six-figure VTR.

 

Oh, and by the way - I'm going to assume that anyone suggesting I shoot film, from this point on, is offering me £10,000 to make it a realistic possibility. Paypal donations should go to the usual address...

 

Phil

Edited July 10, 2005 by Phil Rhodes

[Peter J DeCrescenzo]

Hi Phil: I'm fairly sure you may have already considered it, but would a SDX-900 be appropriate for your project & budget? It's not HD, but as you know, it can shoot nice-looking DVCPRO-50 in 25p 16:9. I suspect its post costs might be somewhat less than HDCAM or DVCPRO-HD, depending on what's available to you.

 

A variation on the theme would be to use a SDX-900 or other similar SD cam with a SDI output card installed and record the "uncompressed" 10-bit 4:2:2 video on a computer with appropriate interface & HDD array. (One example: A fast PowerBook w. AJA's IO-LD interface box & external Firewire 800 drive.)

 

Anyway, I'm curious to know whether any of the above (or other high-end SD solutions) is appropriate for your project.

 

All the best,

 

- Peter DeCrescenzo

[Michael Most]

Hi,

 

Well, I'd happily shoot it on an F900. Actually the only thing that's stopping me is the post costs. The attractiveness of file-based things like Viper is that once you've dumped it onto a firewire drive it's fairly easy to get at, and doesn't require a six-figure VTR.

 

Maybe, as long as you have unlimited and vast amounts of storage - which will cost you something as well. Besides, you don't need "a six figure VTR" if you're working with HDCam. You could use the Sony J-series machines (under $25,000, and rentable at very reasonable rates) for ingest and either take a Quicktime file on a Firewire drive to a facility for layoff, or convert to frame based files for anything else. The fact is that movie files are a hell of a lot simpler to keep track of than a few hundred thousand individual frame files and have the same random access advantages. And if you're editing on Final Cut, you have to create Quicktime files anyway - that's all Final Cut will work with. Not to mention that you could easily get those HDCam clips to a Firewire drive by having a facility do the transfers for you (same as you would likely have to do with a Viper/S.two situation, and basically the same as a Viper/HDCam SR setup) and not pay anything for the VTR.

 

Basically, I don't understand why you seem to think your post costs are any less shooting with a Viper than an F900.

[Michael Maier]

Hello fellows,

 

it is one week ago, that I had the Drake in my hands and shot some test footage.

There are some interesting things to note about the camera.

http://tuxsolutions.de/chfilm/drake1.jpg (Don't mind the prehistorical look of the camera, 2 weeks ago on a roadshow both d20s from arri did NOT work, but the drake did, so its unimportant how it looks atm)

 

I tested the 8bit version of the camera, but i also saw some footage of a new prototype which records 12 bit and yes guys, you are right, the 8 bit IS undersaturated. But the 12 bit is NOT. You have a converter software with the camera which allows you to simply change EVERYTHING. It is like when you have raw images of a canon 300d in photoshop, and that footage is definitly not undersaturated or anything else. This one ist not yet ready too, but they're working on it. In the meanwhile, we have to be happy with the 8 bit camera which is not bad at all.

The handling of the camera has to be optimized, but the technical part works fine. There is no compression and though it has only 8 bits, you are able to push the saturation. I uploaded 3 test shots:

 

http://tuxsolutions.de/chfilm/judith_hd.wmv

http://tuxsolutions.de/chfilm/vogel_hd.wmv

http://tuxsolutions.de/chfilm/chris.wmv

 

There is some dirt on the lense, please don't care about it.

I am quite happy with the cam, but it's a pitty that the contrast is way worse that i thought it to be. We filmed a house against the sky and it looked nearly like dv because the sky was all white while the house looked quite normal. Well, we have to use ND filters, but maybe, we will be able to shoot our movie with the 12 bit equipment and that does really rock!  :)

 

@mike: I have not tested the drake on a remote head, but there is one great feature: You can remove the camera head from the recording part and you have a camera which is smaller than a fist so could do great things with it like moving it through veeerry small doorgaps or something.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I'm honestly not impressed. It doesn't look much better than well shot SD in 24p like with a SDX900. Besides the SDX900 will run laps around it in the color department, and also in the contrast department(based on the sky/house image you mentioned). The skin color in those clips look sepia like and very ugly actually. I still think 20k for a home made camera based on a small industrial camera head is way too much money. Maybe if the 12bit system you mentioned is really much better and comes in the same price, one could justify paying 20k. Also, look at the little lens hanging from the front of the Drake in that picture. Is it a survailance camera lens? It seems ridiculous for cinematography work. Anybody knows the bigger the glass the better. I mean, have you seen the glass used on the Viper for instance? I know Viper is way more expensive, but it would be nice to be able to use at least a normal broadcast lens or to rent a HD lens for it.

Edited July 11, 2005 by Michael Maier

[Keith Mottram]

Maybe, as long as you have unlimited and vast amounts of storage - which will cost you something as well. Besides, you don't need "a six figure VTR" if you're working with HDCam. You could use the Sony J-series machines (under $25,000, and rentable at very reasonable rates) for ingest and either take a Quicktime file on a Firewire drive to a facility for layoff, or convert to frame based files for anything else. The fact is that movie files are a hell of a lot simpler to keep track of than a few hundred thousand individual frame files and have the same random access advantages. And if you're editing on Final Cut, you have to create Quicktime files anyway - that's all Final Cut will work with. Not to mention that you could easily get those HDCam clips to a Firewire drive by having a facility do the transfers for you (same as you would likely have to do with a Viper/S.two situation, and basically the same as a Viper/HDCam SR setup) and not pay anything for the VTR.

 

Basically, I don't understand why you seem to think your post costs are any less shooting with a Viper than an F900.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It depends on how savvy you are with the post route. When we used the Viper for pick up shots on Mirrormask I had the DPX files from the S2 transfered to firewire (we also had them backed up on data tapes) made QT proxies, edited them in FCP and then used automatic duck to reconform them in After Effects uncompressed in 16bit. This is a pretty cheap way of working (having said that we mastered to SR and I also had an Xraid for our final conform at full res). Its swings and roundabouts and there are great deals on the J3, but when you consider that you can internally raid 1TB in a G5 for about £1000 it can be a cheaper and better route. It all depends on the project.

 

Keith

[Michael Most]

It depends on how savvy you are with the post route.  When we used the Viper for pick up shots on Mirrormask I had the DPX files from the S2 transfered to firewire (we also had them backed up on data tapes) made QT proxies, edited them in FCP and then used automatic duck to reconform them in After Effects uncompressed in 16bit.  This is a pretty cheap way of working (having said that we mastered to SR and I also had an Xraid for our final conform at full res).  Its swings and roundabouts and there are great deals on the J3, but when you consider that you can internally raid 1TB in a G5 for about £1000 it can be a cheaper and better route. It all depends on the project.

 

It's not a matter of being "savvy," it's a matter of being logical and sensible. I don't understand why going your route is any less costly than what I was suggesting. You needed to have a facility transfer the DPX files to firewire and data tapes. Why is that any different than having a facility transfer HD clips to Firewire drives? Neither way is "free" if you don't happen to have either the tape deck or the S.two. And assuming you have a properly equipped system (you've mentioned internal RAID setup, but it could be external as well), you avoid the whole time consuming After Effects step (I don't know why you would use AE as an editing program, but whatever) by bringing in the movie files and putting the final version together in Final Cut. There is no real advantage to using DPX files from a Viper for a final conform vs. uncompressed 4:4:4 HD versions of the same files. There is an advantage if you're working from film scans, but not with an HD video original, which is what the Viper is.

 

To my mind, you're going through an awful lot of additional time and trouble for no serious benefit, particularly in light of what you've mentioned about finishing on HDCam SR. But I'm certainly willing to be educated as to what I'm missing here.

[Keith Mottram]

It's not a matter of being "savvy," it's a matter of being logical and sensible. I don't understand why going your route is any less costly than what I was suggesting. You needed to have a facility transfer the DPX files to firewire and data tapes. Why is that any different than having a facility transfer HD clips to Firewire drives? Neither way is "free" if you don't happen to have either the tape deck or the S.two. And assuming you have a properly equipped system (you've mentioned internal RAID setup, but it could be external as well), you avoid the whole time consuming After Effects step (I don't know why you would use AE as an editing program, but whatever) by bringing in the movie files and putting the final version together in Final Cut. There is no real advantage to using DPX files from a Viper for a final conform vs. uncompressed 4:4:4 HD versions of the same files. There is an advantage if you're working from film scans, but not with an HD video original, which is what the Viper is.

 

To my mind, you're going through an awful lot of additional time and trouble for no serious benefit, particularly in light of what you've mentioned about finishing on HDCam SR. But I'm certainly willing to be educated as to what I'm missing here.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

There is no need for the fascility house as you can dump the data straight from the S2 to firewire via a laptop (the tape backup is obviously preferable but not nesceassary). As for the after effects step perhaps I wasn't clear, by converting the dpx files direct to Quicktimes (at say uncompressed) is obviously going to use up a whole lot of drive space on your edit drives, so proxies are clearly advisable if you are on a budget. You can therefor use After Effects to reconform at full 16bit do color correction - which will always be necessary on viper files, or conform to data for TK. You basically have greater options for image manipulation. You could also reconform in this method with shake 4 (at a greater expense). I was using SR as an example because this was the route we went through last year. This however works with finishing higher res scans for example for reconforming for film out. It is tried and tested and is very economical. I found that I lost too much information if I was working with direct conversion of DPX to quicktime. So After effects wasn't used to edit merely to reconform still files which you cannot currently do in FCP- unless I'm very much mistaken. I am not saying one route is better than another and indeed it would seem foolish if you are starting on tape to take this extra step, but filmstream dpx are a different bread to compressed HDCAM.

 

respectfully,

 

Keith

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

To reiterate Mr. Mottram's considerations, the advantage of never going near a tape format is that tape formats are very, very expensive to access, whether you buy the deck, interface boards and RAID, or whether you take them somewhere. Once I have a DPX image sequence on a hard disk it's the work of an overnight render or two to create AVI movies out of them at effectively zero cost. I don't know of anywhere in London (hell, anywhere in the UK) that offers HDCAM to files, but you can bet it'd be £500 an hour if they did.

 

I did look at SDX-900, but in 25megabit it didn't seem to offer enough over a DSR (other than progressive scan) and in 50megabit it has the same high cost of accessing the tapes as HD formats. It's also fundamentally a compressed tape format which expects you to put most of the colour correction in before it's recorded, which to me is the biggest advantage of the uncompressed file-based systems - it's a completely clean image. Even a DVCPRO-50 image suffers video clippiness exacerbated by all that DSP.

 

SDX-900 is also - sigh of anticipated inevitability - very expensive in London.

 

It seems like my best bet might be to shoot it in HDV on a Z1 then deinterlace that and downres it to SD. I'd anticipate an impressively sharp result, but I'm not sure I can stand working with one of those nastly electronic lenses.

 

Phil

[Peter J DeCrescenzo]

... SDX-900 is also - sigh of anticipated inevitability - very expensive in London ...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Is Sony shipping (and dealers renting) the new DSR-450WSL over there yet? (They've _just_ barely started shipping it in the US.) It's list price is several thousand $ less than the SDX-900, it's available with an SDI output card, and the PAL version shoots 25p.

 

I'm only mentioning it again in case you have any interest in the "science project" approach of using it with the small, relatively inexpensive AJA "IO-LD" SDI capture box, a fast PowerBook w. an add-in FW-800 PC-card, and a fast external FW-800 HDD. Clearly this wouldn't be a run & gun solution, but it would give you 10-bit 4:2:2 "uncompressed" SD recorded on a HDD (and backup DVCAM recording in the camcorder.) AJA's IO products require Final Cut Pro.

 

Isn't there a similar solution that runs under Windows? ... maybe from Boxx???

 

Just a thought,

 

- Peter DeCrescenzo

 

P.S.: Also, my apologies to the forum since this line of thought is clearly not "HD Only". If necessary this part of the conversation could/should move over to the "Video Only" forum?

Edited July 12, 2005 by Peter DeCrescenzo

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Well, I don't have any of the kit to make that work, so probably not going to happen - but it's a nice idea.

 

I don't know about the DSR-450, or who'd have them. I have seen the, er, I think 490? Or 410, or whatever it is - the 4:3 version, anyway.

 

Phil

Edited July 12, 2005 by Phil Rhodes

[Peter J DeCrescenzo]

Hi Phil: I don't know these folks, or if they're anywhere near you, but Creative Video Productions in "Studley ? Warwickshire UK" states on their website they have the 16:9 2/3" DSR-450 "in stock". I wonder if they rent them?:

http://tinyurl.com/e46e6

 

I'd be curious to know if they actually have the DSR-450 in stock. Dealers here in the US are only just now getting their very first few units. But perhaps PAL units shipped first?

 

The DSR-400 model has 4:3 2/3" CCDs, and unlike the DSR-450, is interlaced only, doesn't have an SDI option or film gamma standard.

 

All the best,

 

- Peter DeCrescenzo