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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

What is the latency of video tap output on Epic?

If there is a delay, it's imperceptible.

It is consistent across different compression ratios.

It can be genlocked to an external sync source, yes.
 
Sweet, expectations (and hopes) met.
 
Yes, I have been getting this delay. It does not seem to be consistent. Very annoying when on-set and the director and clients are complaining about sync issues. Any fix available?
 
I think it's inherent to every buffer. The pitty is not the video tap but you also have some delay in the LCD for the operator, wich, in handheld mode, is a tiny hiccup IMHO...

Sometimes It would be nice to have a mirror shutter...

Pat
 
I don't think the delay is insignificant. I had some shots from a remote head and was operating off of a 17" Hd monitor that was patched directly from the epic hd sdi output. The delay was noticeable and made the shot difficult to operate. There was a particular moment where a fast tilt up was necessary and it was nearly impossible with the delay. I checked the signal routing and it was DIRECT from camera to monitor. I could visibly see the head moving as I was turning the tilt wheel but the video was at least 4 frames behind in my opinion.
 
Shane and Eric I think you should get your cameras checked out. If the Epic had a 2-4 frame delay it would make pulling focus on the fly pretty much impossible which would not be acceptable in a professional environment. I have noticed no delay when connected directly to monitors.
 
Shane and Eric I think you should get your cameras checked out. If the Epic had a 2-4 frame delay it would make pulling focus on the fly pretty much impossible which would not be acceptable in a professional environment. I have noticed no delay when connected directly to monitors.

You can barely see 2 frames, only really an issue when you are recording to an out board recorder. The pix240 has an offset to deal with this. I think that it's just an sdi delay.
 
There is a fixed "least" delay for processing. No real issue as long as you don't sit and measure it.

We just wrapped 100+ days of dual Epic shooting for a series.
This was a bit of a FUD thing before we started. No practical impact when we started shooting. ACs have allways had to anticipate what's gonna happen anyway.

G
 
To anyone using FSI monitors. They also have a delay, which can make the epic delay seem worse. Turn on Fast signal processing on the monitor to turn off this delay. It has no impact on IQ.
 
2-3 frames here, on both LCD and HD-SDI/HDMI out.

I was pretty surprised about this latency when i first got my EPIC. So I filed a support ticket.
They said "a slight latency between reality and the monitored image is normal."
They wouldn't commit to any numbers though.

Does anyone have a consistent lower latency?
 
It's far from imperceptible or insignificant. It's also different (longer delay) than the feed to the LCD. Every client I've had on a non-MOS shoot has complained about the talent's spoken audio (heard live on-set) being annoyingly out of sync with the picture on monitors. Since I'm generally working in fairly small environments, we don't have video village a mile away where they can monitor both audio and video from the HDSDI feed. And providing headphones to a whole peanut gallery of corporate and agency folks is completely unworkable. I also find that focus pullers are thrown by it, and prefer to work from the LCD screen.
 
It's far from imperceptible or insignificant. It's also different (longer delay) than the feed to the LCD. Every client I've had on a non-MOS shoot has complained about the talent's spoken audio (heard live on-set) being annoyingly out of sync with the picture on monitors.
One way around this is to have the sound mixer feed a wireless camera hop to camera, so that the camera is recording a simultaneous scratch audio track. If you monitor through the camera, then it will have the same 3-frame delay (about 100ms) as the picture during record. Another way around is to have the sound mixer add a delay so that the people hear the sound 100ms late -- which may bother them compared to hearing the actors live. Each situation is different.

And providing headphones to a whole peanut gallery of corporate and agency folks is completely unworkable.
Providing wireless Comtek monitoring is very standard on LA sets, especially large-budget commercials, TV shows, and features. I never carry fewer than 6, and have had to provide as many as 15 on occasion. On the set of Santa Clause 3,​ which I did some post for a few years ago, I believe the sound mixer had 22 Comtek feeds for various set people. A very, very, very large set.
 
I also noticed it today, it's really annoying and should really be fixed. Same as scott says, clients look at the monitor, then hear what someone says, and it's just out of sync. It's really a drawback and on of those things why people have a bad perception of RED... Please RED, the HD-SDI really should be near delay free, or at least so low that sound heard on set, feels sync with what's on the monitor.
 
My test puts the delay firmly at 2 frames, which is completely acceptable for a digital device in my book. This is via HDMI. As some have stated, a delay on the monitor could be exasperating the effect.

[video]http://harebrained.com.au/red/delay_test.mov[/video]
 
I also noticed it today, it's really annoying and should really be fixed. Same as scott says, clients look at the monitor, then hear what someone says, and it's just out of sync. It's really a drawback and on of those things why people have a bad perception of RED... Please RED, the HD-SDI really should be near delay free, or at least so low that sound heard on set, feels sync with what's on the monitor.
All digital video cameras, not just Red, have a processing delay. You need to fix the audio, not complain to the manufacturers about the video. Delaying the audio is trivial. Add 2 frames of delay and hand the clients a Comtek receiver and have them listen to that.
 
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