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Kinetta


Mitch Gross

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We'll see; the Kinetta is quite complicated with many features. The cameras being developed take existing components and just put them together.

Nothing is ever so easy. Try taking some existing auto parts, put them together and see if they magically run in unison without issues. Even better yet, try it on commercially available computer software and hardware components. For anyone who has ever pulled their hair out trying to install some new board or driver, you get my drift.

 

There's a world of issues involved in getting this stuff to work, and especially to getting that camera to work right. Motion pictures is a lot more than 24 consecutive still frames every second. I'd be interested to see what the Bayer filtering on a stills camera looks like when you stack the frames one after another in realtime HD res. Companies spend thousands of hours and millions of dollars developing and dealing with this stuff. If it was so easy then it would have been done long ago.

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kinetta

Hi everyone -

 

I think we are the future of image acquisition! The new modular camera will allow us the lenses of our choice, the chips of our choice (CCD, CMOS), raw capture, and eventual output to the codec of our choice.

 

All this with repair and upgrade similar to a PC.

 

This is a link to what that camera will look like: http://www.kinetta.com/home.php.

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Guest J Jukuzami

You may be right Mitch. We'll see. I corresponded with one of the manufacturers. They were developing the uncompressed HD camera already and wanted input on what lens mount and interface to use. I told them Nikon 35 mm mount and HD SDI interface. They claimed to have engineering team with hundreds of years of optical experience, plus many times larger electronics development team. They said 3-4 months to finish their development. They may be wrong. We'll see.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I heard that there'll be more news on the website mid-summer, so maybe around the middle of July/August. Last I heard they're shooting for a shipping date sometime in the fall, so probably October, November.

 

The Altasens chip they're planning to use isn't even shipping yet commercially.

 

I did hear something about beta units in late summer though. Sounded interesting to me.

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I heard that there'll be more news on the website mid-summer, so maybe around the middle of July/August. Last I heard they're shooting for a shipping date sometime in the fall, so probably October, November.

 

The Altasens chip they're planning to use isn't even shipping yet commercially.

 

I did hear something about beta units in late summer though. Sounded interesting to me.

Thanks Jason. I'll be anxiously awaiting further news.

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  • 2 weeks later...

So - it's still a few months before the Kinetta and other cameras of this nature are released. I'd like to know the basic production process will be - or perhaps more accurately, if my assumption is correct.

 

Here is my assumption:

 

Once shot - you have uncompressed RAW data - you probably dump that data onto cheaper drives to clear off your "mag" for more shooting the next day.

 

Once on cheaper storage, you convert the entire movies to an editble format using After Effects (I'm not sure Apple's Compressor will handle RAW, I'm doubtng it). Then you do your edit with these 'proxies'.

 

Once finished, you are going to want to assemble your edit. I'm thinking using something like Automatic duck from Final Cut into After Effects would be the trick. Then you are able to work with your RAW files in AE and time them as you need them - or get them close at least before making them RGB again.

 

Then do a large render for further color correction or final lay off.

 

For visual effects, the shots would be pulled as needed in a similar manner.

 

 

Now, the ohter other alternative I see is to color time the RAW footage into an appoximate range the first time and have them as editable FCP files right out of the conversion.

 

 

Is this in line with what others are thinking for these uncompressed formats?

 

(BTW Kinetta updated their site, but only with a few more articles.)

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Hi,

 

I'm not sure the specifics are really that important; if it comes out as a DPX file, you can stick it through something as simple as nconvert (See Red Hat Linux) which will import and export more or less anything; downsize or downcolour it to the best format your gear will handle, and go from there.

 

Cinelerra (also see Linux) is a free NLE which will handle high bit-depth images.

 

Phil

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I'm not sure the specifics are really that important;

Hi Phil -

 

I'm not sure a post production supervisor would agree with you. Certainly if you're thinking of shooting a feature in this format, before you end up with 900 minutes of raw images, it would be a good idea to have a specific idea of what you're going to do with all that footage.

 

Let me rephrase my querry, though, to address what is really the heart of my question.

 

Can you really just throw it into a converter and expect top quality conversion?

 

It's my understanding that the advantage of shooting RAW is the increast bit depth. When you are converting to what most editing systems can edit in real time, you are going to have to sacrifice that bit depth. Once you convert, are you losing the advantage of the RAW format - or is it like film transfered to HD where despite the current medium, because the capturing medium was higher, you retain smooth gradients. How much will this depend on your color timing of the RAW footage?

 

As for Cienerela - I do not believe there is any hardware which would let you edit RAW movies live despite the softwares ability to handle it.

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  • 2 weeks later...

BTW, does anybody know what the bayer algorithms will look like out of the Kinetta?

 

I've been doing some research into that lately, and from the algorithms I've seen that are available via research paper, etc. things look pretty dicey. I know that what I get out of my Canon D60 looks really good, but besides Canon or Nikon, the other camera manufacturer's stuff can look pretty bad, and those industrial cameras can look even worse.

 

Basically I'm hoping there's no problems with "zippering", "gridding" (where you can see the bayer pattern in an out-of-focus or gradient area), or color moiré. Also no wierd twittering or fridging along moving edges that will require some sort of blurring filter to remove the offending artifacts, thereby reducing the resolution of the image.

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Guest Pete Wright

What's going on with the kinetta? Are they waiting for the Altasens chip? Is the camera pretty finished by now?

 

Jason,

 

The Bayer algorithm? I saw your post at the other forum. i can't believe how much effort are these guys putting into making the camera work. I think Silicon Imaging should do that themselves. All these guys are doing SI R&D work and testing for free, on some worthless cheap 1/2" chip camera.

 

I hope some solid company, in addition to the Kinetta, takes notice and introduces some real good inexpensive HD camera. The damand is there, in a market vacuum. No products.

 

Pete

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Guest Pete Wright

I think that David Newman mentioned something that they will be introducing some competitively priced 10 bit CineForm product that will include the Bayer algorithm.

 

Pete

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Hi,

 

> I'm not sure a post production supervisor would agree with you.

 

Well of course they're important on a production by production basis, but trying to tie it down without further information is both fruitless and counterproductive. The only reason Avid suites are so expensive is that Avid have everyone believing that Avid is better than everyone else when this is often not the case. The last thing you want is for everyone to become married to the idea that Kinetta footage can only be posted through [insert expensive piece of hardware] because then you'll be locked out of the most cost effective routes whether they work or not.

 

What I was trying to say is this: there's so many ways of doing it it almost doesn't matter. Of course you would lock down and test a route before you tried to shoot with it, but there are so many that in general terms you can pretty much say "convert from X to Y"; once it's data who cares.

 

In any case, if you want to get more specific than that, you hire me...

 

> Can you really just throw it into a converter and expect top quality conversion?

 

You are likely to get better convesion out of a freeware image processing tool than you would get out of a realtime DSP in a camera. I would have no problem using the standard Linux tools such as nconvert and xnview to manipulate full resolution images for filmout, with a couple of caveats about how they'd handle log data (and that doesn't mean "don't do it," that means "know what you're doing and what the result will be.")

 

> It's my understanding that the advantage of shooting RAW is the increast bit

> depth.

 

Well, it depends what you mean by shooting raw. What people normally mean by this is that you are storing the unprocessed CCD data, but that doesn't have anything to do with the bit depth. You can have 10-bit 4:2:2 at 2:1 Huffman (Digital Betacam) or 8-bit 4:4:4 RGB data, which is uncompressed, but the digibeta has a greater bit depth.

 

The purpose of doing what things like Viper do is to get unadulterated material since you know you're going to be doing more work on it later; all you're actually trying to avoid is putting several manipulations one after another, be they in camera or in a post suite. It's also worth noting that most camera onboard electronics are forced by size, power consumption and cost to do pretty approximate maths; you can do better digitally, even with free command line tools, since they can take time which cameras don't have.

 

> When you are converting to what most editing systems can edit in real time, you

> are going to have to sacrifice that bit depth.

 

Why? There are uncompressed hi-def edit systems out there.

 

> As for Cienerela - I do not believe there is any hardware which would let you

> edit RAW movies live despite the softwares ability to handle it.

 

Welcome to the online/offline cycle! Again, there are free tools available to downconvert your original material; the obvious format is to stick it into a DV AVI or Quicktime and apply Premiere or FCP. Either is capable of conforming EDLs, but you'd probably have to develop a way of making them conform DPXs. Conforming a cuts-only EDL from frame source is pretty much a scripting operation anyway.

 

Phil

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Hi,

 

I'm not quite sure how this is supposed to work. People decry 4:2:2 video formats because half the colour's made up, then go running to a Bayer single chip, where... half the colour's made up.

 

Anyone?

 

Phil

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I'm not quite sure how this is supposed to work. People decry 4:2:2 video formats because half the colour's made up, then go running to a Bayer single chip, where... half the colour's made up.

 

Anyone?

 

Arri say that they "image" at 4:2:2 but record 4:4:4

 

Familiar lenses and accesories, familar rental company is more important to individuals being presented with new technology than any nuance in the technical quality.

 

 

Mike Brennan

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I seem to recall reading a paper discusing where and when information is lost and why one can be better than the other. There are strong arguments out there for Bayer fltering, but there are some against it as well.

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Hi,

 

I think it's a quirk of terminology that people are accepting this. "Bayer Filtering" doesn't really refer to a filter, other than perhaps the silk-screened filter matrix on the front of the CCD. It might better be called Bayer interpolation. Watch everyone scream and run from THAT word.

 

Phil

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To some degree it really just matters "what it looks like" in a variety of conditions. I am really hoping there are some sequenced images at some point soon not only from the kinetta but from the other potential HD options out there as well. That said, I would love to see some sequenced images from the Genesis as well (since I've not seen it in person).

 

Anyone know if samples are forthcoming?

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Phil, no need to worry about Quicktime and 10-bit DPX log.

 

Blackmagic has a new free 10-bit RGB 4:4:4 Quicktime codec designed for dual-link cards and for 10-bit Log files.

 

So you can now seemlessly convert your DPX files to Quicktime without wasting space and maintaining the Log profile (AFAIK).

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Does anyone have any contact info for these guys. I'm really interested! We do music videos and have been using the varicam. But this looks like a real option. I heard they were out of the southeast and so am I. I'd love to go chat:) No e-mail on the web site though. How can I get in touch?

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Guest Pete Wright

The camera will use Altasens CMOS and the manufacturer delayed this chip's introduction.

 

Pete

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