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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 :)

Alternative to Recording Red to HDCAM SR

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TimPipher

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Let's say I have three Reds in a studio configuration. I can't simply record in-camera because I'm using a switcher and running everything through an Orad virtual studio system.

My plan has been to record to an HDCAM SR deck. Any suggestions as to a better and/or cheaper alternative to recording to SR?

Suggested brand names would be appreciated so I can check them out at NAB.

Thanks!
 
Well, direct 4:4:4 1920x1080 at your choice of framerate is possible with a number of hard-disk-based recording systems, whether standalone or via a Kona card or similar in a computer.
 
Aja/Kona, Blackmagic are companies that make capture cards (and I think they might have virtual VTR utilities). There's also Aurora, and Bluefish (formerly Digital Voodoo?)
Sheer has lossless compression, which might also help.

2- Cineform has its Wafian recorder (hardware), and Prospect HD (software; real-time encode to Cineform codec).

Cineform might actually help your workflow (smaller file size), and the compression artifacts from their greenscreen-optimized version is essentially negligible (and a tad better than SR IMO).

Try the green screen challenge (try not to spoil yourself, since the results are out):
http://cineform.blogspot.com/2007/03/green-screen-challenge.html

3- Panasonic has its D-5... although I don't see the point in it. With HDCAM SR, you can make a HDCAM SR master if your broadcaster will accept that. The deck will also likely read digibeta and HDCAM, if you need to deal with that stuff.

4- Colorspaceinc is also coming out with a recorder?
 
Studio recording

Studio recording

Personal opinion : as you are going through a switcher forget about 4:4:4 - you are in single link HD-SDI land so operating 4:2:2 color space either at

720p/59.94, 1080i/29.97(59.94 if anyone insists on that nomenclature) or 1080p/23.98 fp

D-5 can do all three of those formats and is by far the most commonly acepted broadcast delivery tape format. HDCAM can do two of those formats and is also very well accepted, but its only 8 bit recording and its 1440 pixels resolution per line not 1920, unlike D-5 or HDCAM SR which are full 10 bit 1920 x 1080.

Finally HDCAM SR can also do all three of those formats.. but its the most expensive VTR and fewer broadcast organizations have it. The D-Beta playback feature is irrelevent to this application.

So on the price / performance basis you should check out the D-5 from Panasonic - Model AJ-HD3700.
 
This is exactly the sort of situation that brought up my ponderings about a possible software version of the internal REDCode engine.

It seems like releasing a software version of the internal engine would allow a number of possibilities:

1) A situation like this where incamera encoding is impractical
2) A situation where the internal DSPs are incapable of keeping up with the data: i.e.

Let's say you want to record 120fps 2k raw? Well you could do that through the serial data port, but then you have to record to uncompressed? Why? Obviously some software already exists which is capable of taking a datastream and compressing it into a redcode stream. Or what if you want 60fps 2450p? Just because a tiny onboard DSP can't do it doesn't mean a large general purpose processor array can't.

I would rather spend $10,000 on a blazing fast capture/encode machine than have to depend on an HDCAM VTR for the same price or more.

I would assume the capture software would also interface with all of the camera APIs. In essence it's transitioned from a camera with a computer in it, to a camera with a computer attached to it.
 
im.thatoneguy said:
Just because a tiny onboard DSP can't do it doesn't mean a large general purpose processor array can't.
Click to expand...

This doesn't sound practical. DSPs are typically a lot faster than general purpose processors; you'd probably need an impractically large number of chips. What you'd really want is an external box with faster DSPs. There are a couple of companies selling rack-mount servers with Cell processors; that might do the trick, if you had a Cell-tuned REDCODE implementation.
 
"if you had a Cell-tuned REDCODE implementation" is a mighty large assumption, though. I would think take whatever DSPs are in the Red and just use more and break up the task by frame - if 1 chip can do 60fps, 2 chips can do 120 fps by just divvying up frames. Why re-code when you can re-use?

-mike
 
MikeCurtis said:
"if you had a Cell-tuned REDCODE implementation" is a mighty large assumption, though. I would think take whatever DSPs are in the Red and just use more and break up the task by frame - if 1 chip can do 60fps, 2 chips can do 120 fps by just divvying up frames. Why re-code when you can re-use?
Click to expand...

True, but that's probably hardware Red would have to offer. Maybe they will, but it's interesting to look at possibilities based on commonly available tech. (Hmm... I suppose a solution Red wasn't involved in would probably use something other than REDCODE, of course.)
 
Stuart English said:
Personal opinion : as you are going through a switcher forget about 4:4:4 - you are in single link HD-SDI land so operating 4:2:2 color space either at

720p/59.94, 1080i/29.97(59.94 if anyone insists on that nomenclature) or 1080p/23.98 fp

D-5 can do all three of those formats and is by far the most commonly acepted broadcast delivery tape format. HDCAM can do two of those formats and is also very well accepted, but its only 8 bit recording and its 1440 pixels resolution per line not 1920, unlike D-5 or HDCAM SR which are full 10 bit 1920 x 1080.

Finally HDCAM SR can also do all three of those formats.. but its the most expensive VTR and fewer broadcast organizations have it. The D-Beta playback feature is irrelevent to this application.

So on the price / performance basis you should check out the D-5 from Panasonic - Model AJ-HD3700.
Click to expand...

one more thing, 2K recording as well in D-5 plus Pana 2K processor not HDCAM or even SR. It means that Panasonic can do 4 formats from 2K to anything ) and remembered that DVCPROHD codec are OPEN not like SONY HDCAM is " proprietary " TAPE - based format. You can not use HDCAM or SR in any NLE to encode the Single or dual link uncompressed HDSDI signals !!!

Stewart
 
REDHKSC said:
one more thing, 2K recording as well in D-5 plus Pana 2K processor not HDCAM or even SR. It means that Panasonic can do 4 formats from 2K to anything ) and remembered that DVCPROHD codec are OPEN not like SONY HDCAM is " proprietary " TAPE - based format. You can not use HDCAM or SR in any NLE to encode the Single or dual link uncompressed HDSDI signals !!!

Stewart
Click to expand...

Not quite true. DVCPROHD is not an 'open' format but Panasonic are more generous in their licensing partnerships (eg. Apple). I believe Discreet (or whatever the hell they are called now) have licensed the HDCAM and SR codecs.
 
vinney57 said:
Not quite true. DVCPROHD is not an 'open' format but Panasonic are more generous in their licensing partnerships (eg. Apple). I believe Discreet (or whatever the hell they are called now) have licensed the HDCAM and SR codecs.
Click to expand...

Yes both Discreet and Avid
 
digitalfx said:
Yes both Discreet and Avid
Click to expand...

May I recall that DL, AVID and even Quantel are not affordable to many RED users though!!!

Stewart
 
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