20 stops of dynamic range in Digital Cinema Camera

[gbalaji]

Believe it or not. It can capture at 1920 X 1080 upto 30fps with dynamic range of 20f stops from a digital cinema camera.

Fxguide has the story check out here - http://www.fxguide.com/article556.html

 

[Kwan Khan]

"The project is still deliberately not releasing much information, they joked with some people that this German company "was not RED"."

LOL
1-to-30fps?

 

[Ed Watkins]

Hardly a portable solution:
"The file is then written by a single connecting cable to a server as a full EXR - "raw file" - this generates a huge raw data stream. There is then processing done in the server that allows 100:1 raw compression to provide a workable file for post, while maintaining high quality details. This compression is done all in very fast GPUs to produce the high quality compressed digital negatives."

HDR camera, an interesting concept though.

 

[Stepan Kment]

negative?

negative?

full EXR - "raw file" - server that allows 100:1 raw compression to provide a workable file for post .. compression is done all in very fast GPUs to produce the high quality compressed digital negatives."

seems bit strange to me. EXR is RGB file, gamma 1.0, 16 or more bit float per each channel, then lossless compressed I have read (http://www.openexr.com/).

How EXR can be a raw negative, I don't know. Or they can store some raw data, but raw means data in need of debayer, which also is unclear as the chip can have any imaginable color matrix. Simply if EXR, then I'd expect already RGB hdr data.. and rgb is a digital positive, right? :001_rolleyes:

Compression - well, if they store exr, they can alter the data a bit and make wavelet compression EXR supports a bit lossy (by default exr stores everything after the wavelet transform and so the compression is lossless), but Q is why would they do it, when they can store the data on the array, it is not embedded in camera, so it doesn't matter how many disks one would use for recording anyway.

Well, we'll see if it had large chip and so many fstops and also the image looked natural, it may certainly be interesting addition to the arseanl of available technology.

 

[Carsten Kurz]

The really interesting thing for now is:

Is it really a HDR sensor, or is it doing some tricks, multiple sensors, multiple exposure, whatever, and what is the resolution.
Nobody cares for now if they currently have to use an external server to process, it's just a prototype. There have been special HDR sensors around for some time, but I only saw them in BW surveillance applications so far, HDR being the only positive aspect of them ;-)

With their Spheron VR HDR camera, it's 'easy' to achieve HDR since it's a rotating linecamera and can do as many exposures as needed from a static scene. With a motion camera area sensor - I don't know...



- Carsten

 

[Mike Seymour]

The really interesting thing for now is:

Is it really a HDR sensor, or is it doing some tricks, multiple sensors, multiple exposure, whatever, and what is the resolution.
Nobody cares for now if they currently have to use an external server to process, it's just a prototype. There have been special HDR sensors around for some time, but I only saw them in BW surveillance applications so far, HDR being the only positive aspect of them ;-)

With their Spheron VR HDR camera, it's 'easy' to achieve HDR since it's a rotating linecamera and can do as many exposures as needed from a static scene. With a motion camera area sensor - I don't know...

- Carsten

a few things:
1. it is one sensor a new HDR sensor
2. We dont know how it is made but they hinted it was not CMOS
3. The Spheron does the HDR scan in a single pass with its special sensor - think photocopier scanning around the image, but it only needs one pass for a 26 stop HDR
4. They claim it records the raw data - which is very large and then produce a 100:1 compressed version. As we dont know how big each frame is we can talk to why 100:1 - but they said they were aiming for the image to look identical - all be it compressed.
5. OpenEXR are half16 float -these are 21 bit float at the start of the process we were told...

They seem really serious about the camera, but it is too early to judge its use in normal cinematography.

I do laugh when I see people write that it seems too good to be true,.. isnt that what they said about another break through camera

Mike

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

There is no reason they can't store each bayer channel into a separate EXR layer. EXR doesn't necessarily have to be an RGB image. You can have an arbitrary collection of disparate monochrome layers.

If it's a 6 color bayer pattern then they could just have 6 mono channels of varying resolutions.

But I would suspect that they aren't terribly interested in RAW. Still it is possible.

 

[Stefan Christou]

I'll believe it when I see footage. Might be a scam

 

[Patrick Scheller]

HDR = High Dynamic Range... hence the 20 stops :thumbup1: I'm sure this is possible with specialized harware and at a price. Why not? But RED is making all purpose cinema cameras, which is not the same field.

 

[Joseph Ward]

The article says we may know more in about a week?

 

[chris tech]

Spheron VR - reveal HDR Video Camera
http://www.spheron.com/en/intruvisi...le/spheron-vr-at-siggraph-2009-hdri-hdrv.html

Siggraph 2009 - spheron you tube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svebBoTxfpA

 

[Tom Lowe]

Where's the footage or screencaps?