Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • 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 :)

Panasonic 17" waveform doesn't function with EPIC feed

Matt Gerard

Matt Gerard

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 30, 2011
Messages
133
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Minneapolis, MN
I have the SDI out from the EPIC going to my Panasonic 17" monitor that has a built in waveform. It works with the AF-100 we have, but when I try to activate it with the EPIC hooked up, the monitor says "INVALID FUNCTION". The monitor is working just fine otherwise.

Does this have something to do with the odd sdi signal coming from the EPIC? I've read a bit around here that its not a full raster 1080 frame. Any ideas?

Thanks!

Matt
1st AC novice
 
I have 3 of the 17" monitors, one of them won't display the waveform but the others are fine. They are all different ages, I'll check next time out.
 
What's the point of monitoring the waveform from a LUT-transformed RGB feed when you're shooting RAW?
 
The waveform was highly critical for DP and electric crew on an all green screen TV show I worked on.
It was a great indicator on how under lit things were and how much more light the green screen needed to be in a better exposed range.
 
BigLu said:
The waveform was highly critical for DP and electric crew on an all green screen TV show I worked on.
It was a great indicator on how under lit things were and how much more light the green screen needed to be in a better exposed range.
Click to expand...

Agreed, it's pretty useful for looking at an even greenscreen.
 
Different approaches, I suppose. I guess without having colorspace profiles for the common RED LUTs and since it's all meta anyway and often discarded in post, it seemed that outboard scopes picking from the RGB feed have never been that useful to me. False color / exposure-check or even zebras can just as easily show how even a green screen is lit and I always check with a meter anyway. I'm rarely in a situation where I'm catering to some other director or DP, so I don't usually have people asking me if they can view a waveform on the camera monitor. On the odd occasion I am in that situation, most of them haven't asked for such things... Typically it's a director wanting to watch the action on a monitor and they don't concern themselves with any of the scopes. I'd love an on-camera RAW-based waveform...

Now in post, it's a different story. I rely heavily on the software scopes as they can be applied to RAW and/or my target color space. Outboard scopes in post are also useful as they can offer an extra level of assurance that my output is within my target range for broadcast or other delivery.
 
I can confirm this. I have several of those Panasonic 1710's. The oldest one will display the waveform with Epic. The newer ones will not. It's a p versus psf thing for sure.
Another reason why Red might have offered psf (sigh)
Cheers,
Harry
 
To quote Jarred, "PsF is retarded". While I most certainly agree, that still sucks when you have $$$$ invested in hardware that uses it.
 
WIth Primatte and other modern greenscreen post tools you can be WAY off and not have any problems that take more than 7 seconds (real time estimate) to fix.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Different approaches, I suppose. I guess without having colorspace profiles for the common RED LUTs and since it's all meta anyway and often discarded in post, it seemed that outboard scopes picking from the RGB feed have never been that useful to me. False color / exposure-check or even zebras can just as easily show how even a green screen is lit and I always check with a meter anyway. I'm rarely in a situation where I'm catering to some other director or DP, so I don't usually have people asking me if they can view a waveform on the camera monitor. On the odd occasion I am in that situation, most of them haven't asked for such things... Typically it's a director wanting to watch the action on a monitor and they don't concern themselves with any of the scopes. I'd love an on-camera RAW-based waveform...

Now in post, it's a different story. I rely heavily on the software scopes as they can be applied to RAW and/or my target color space. Outboard scopes in post are also useful as they can offer an extra level of assurance that my output is within my target range for broadcast or other delivery.
Click to expand...

You are absolutely right that 709 scopes not useful for absolute exposure control of raw footage.

It is useful for relative exposure.

I mean, it doesn't matter what the LUT is or how anything is calibrated. If the Waveform shows you something is even, like say a green screen, then its a good bet its even. If on the other hand there is a peak somewhere ... its probably not even. So, out comes the spot meter and we find the hot spots and fix the screen. Rinse. Repeat.

Also, if the profile on camera comes from a calibrated DIT set up that has an "intended" look, well you should be able to see relative values from that too. Ostensibly if your grade comes out of Resolve looking like the DIT's "intended look" then you can really make use of the waveform.

Even though its RAW, you still have a plan and an endpoint ... you can work backwards and make the Rec 709 scopes useful.

Coming back to your point that its easier to use false color and such ... thats true for the operator and AC, but not for the gaffer or key grip as an example. Since I want those crew to watch my back as a DP, they need to have tools they can use to do that. Hence why its useful to set up things so that the 709 outputs are useful. If the gaffer can use a monitor to check exposure, then they can be working on lighting without interrupting camera crew or myself as I perhaps work on staging or whatever else has my attention.

So, that's why I try to get my scope outputs to do useful things on set.

I still expect my crew to use their light meters ... but as an add on to the quick easy tool of scopes.
 
Greenscreen. White cyc. Checking the porthole effect of a particular lens. Seeing noise. Any of the above. I also find it a more logical graphic than a histogram. By far. Not even close. In fact, I would say histograms are "retarded", to quote Jarred.
Cheers,
Harry
 
We ran into this today. We were doing a simple green screen shoot and found our newer Panasonic 17" was not able to display waveform, but our old one had no problems. Even though we shoot raw, using the waveform to help find any inconsistencies in the green screen is crucial.
 
It's the 1080 resolution. I ran into this recently on our 1760. We switched the output of the Epic to 720 and it started working. My guess is that since its a native 720 monitor, it can't scale 1080 down and display a waveform/vector simultaneously.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top