Big New Canon Rumor - RAW Recording Module for 5D2 & 7D?

[Graeme Nattress]

If you can't go out an buy CineformRAW hardware chips, it's not off-the-shelf. AFAIK you can't go to Texas Instruments, say, and buy a CFRAW chip.

Graeme

 

[Matt Gottshalk]

Right, but it would be easy for Cineform to PARTNER with a hardware chip maker and come out with such a chip.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

I have no idea... But I know that making an asic is neither cheap, nor easy. Either way, it's certainly not the immediate off-the-shelf proposition.

Graeme

 

[Steve Sanacore]

I would think the big game changer will be when computing power gets fast enough to just store each frame uncompressed as a DNG or other raw format. Maybe a few years away but I think it will eventually happen as long as the sensors don't keep increasing in size (MP).

 

[Michael Hastings]

How hard? Not easy at all. There's always a lot of gotchas and devils in the details. Also, remember that there's no off-the-shelf RAW codec. None of the standard codecs touch raw, and certainly not linear light data over a wide dynamic range. It's not alien tech, but it's certainly non-trivial at the very least and darn tricky at the worst!

Graeme

Graeme: I know it isn't easy and what you and RED have done is wonderful and much appreciated. And it is very likely that you and your team are the best in the world right now.

I just suspect that the second and third best are pretty good, and it disturbs me a little bit that a lot of the (at least the vocal ones) REDUSERs act like the engineers at Canon are just a bunch of bozos and that the Canon marketing people are greedy a--holes because they have multiple products and user budget levels that also dictates multiple feature levels.

In other words, I'm pretty happy being a Canon owner (L-lenses, T1i - both of which I think are amazing for the price) and a REDONE/Birger EOS (soon Epic) owner. But I'm sometimes a bit embarassed by the level of discourse here which seems to ignore the negatives with anything to with RED and ignore the positives that Canon might have - which also is unfortunately is projected out to the world at large. (I tried to think of a better word than embarassed, but it is probably closest to the truth.)

Why can't it be that they both do some really good things and a few things that can be annoying. It is getting to be like modern day politics where the other side can't have any good ideas and must be evil.

It doesn't have to be a zero-sum game.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

I don't think anyone here knows anything about Canon engineers as we can't speak to them. They make very competently engineered gear at a very reasonable price. However, we all know the 5D2 and 7D video implementation is less than perfect, but very understandable given the hardware limitations of a digital stills camera, and a sensor designed for a digital stills camera. That they managed to put video on such a camera at all, and have it work at all, is quite an achievement. However, I'm sure it's not what they would have designed if they'd been given a clean sheet to begin with.

I'm a semi-happy Canon user. I've had both good an bad experiences with their gear. I think the difference here is that if you have a problem with your RED, there is someone you can email, phone or you can post on this forum, and it does get READ by those that have the knowledge to help you, or those that can take the feedback and do something with it.

Every camera company has it's detractors and fan boys. That's the nature of the game. There will always be those that love their Nikon or Hassy, their RED or their Canon. And those that hate and despise the alternatives. No surprise that RED has it's fans and detractors.

However, I reckon most people here are pretty balanced with regards to their RED. ANd discussions here are pretty balanced and because of the influence of a number of highly technically competent posters and RED people, the discussions are also highly educational too.

Graeme

 

[Graeme Nattress]

I would think the big game changer will be when computing power gets fast enough to just store each frame uncompressed as a DNG or other raw format. Maybe a few years away but I think it will eventually happen as long as the sensors don't keep increasing in size (MP).

By then there will be more DR, more resolution, more fps and the situation keeps moving forwards... Uncompressed is not about computing power though, but about size of storage and speed of storage. Even still, uncompressed is a waste when good lossless compression will work and generally give you a 2:1 saving.

Graeme

 

[Jack Kelly]

But I know that making an asic is neither cheap, nor easy. Either way, it's certainly not the immediate off-the-shelf proposition.

I've occasionally wondered whether or not off-the-shelf mobile GPUs could be used as cheap and easy to develop number crunchers for digital cinema cameras (instead of purpose built ASICs or FPGAs). I presume that even the best mobile GPUs are too slow by many orders of magnitude and/or they guzzle too much power when running at full tilt. (a quick Google suggests that ATI's mobile HD4800 GPUs are capable of 832 gigaFLOPs each... but I have no idea how much horsepower would be required to compress a RAW video stream)

*edit* a quick bit of back-of-the-envelope maths suggests that data comes hurtling off the back of a 14-bit 5k 24fps sensor at about 0.84 GBytes/second... so an 832 gigaFLOP processor would be able to perform a bit under 1000 floating point operations per byte of data coming off the sensor... or have I got the maths completely wrong? more than probably. I'm not a developer. And I got a B in A-Level maths. Plus I really should stop procrastinating and get this damn edit finished!)..

 

[Deanan]

I've occasionally wondered whether or not off-the-shelf mobile GPUs could be used as cheap and easy to develop number crunchers for digital cinema cameras (instead of purpose built ASICs or FPGAs).

GPUs don't even come close because they're limited to a very specific type of problem. When you look at what it takes to push 5k@100fps, 6k, etc. in guaranteed realtime, our new asics can do the work of about 15 GPUS (crude estimate

 

[Jack Kelly]

Many thanks for the reply.

(I LOVE the fact that we're having this discussion, out in the open with you guys at RED. It would be absolutely inconceivable to have this kind of customer:engineer conversation with Canon/Nikon/Panasonic/Sony/Arri/Panavision/just-about-anyone. Really fantastic stuff. I really appreciate it!)

 

[Steven Caesare]

GPUs don't even come close because they're limited to a very specific type of problem. When you look at what it takes to push 5k@100fps, 6k, etc. in guaranteed realtime, our new asics can do the work of about 15 GPUS (crude estimate

And at a fraction of the power/heat budget.

;-)

-sc

 

[Michael Hastings]

Many thanks for the reply.

(I LOVE the fact that we're having this discussion, out in the open with you guys at RED. It would be absolutely inconceivable to have this kind of customer:engineer conversation with Canon/Nikon/Panasonic/Sony/Arri/Panavision/just-about-anyone....

Graeme: This isn't like some of the really bad/silly comments I have seen. (see below) But it is a lighter example of what I was talking about in my last post.

I have had exactly this kind of discussion with both Panasonic and Sony engineers many times over the years. In person at trade shows and by telephone at other times. And I got extensive help with my Editcam from one of the Ikegami engineers (including several free firmware upgrades and advice on which drives to use to upgrade the Fieldpaks I had) even though I bought it government surplus.

Nobody (including RED) gives away their trade secrets/proprietary methods. But companies like Sony and Panasonic have published numerous very in-depth white papers about their technologies and even their future pathways. Not to mention that the broadcast cameras I bought over the years from Sony and Panasonic came with technical repair manuals with complete parts lists, schematics and even actual size board layouts from which you could actually repair most problems and in fact could practically build a camera from scratch (hardware not software/firmware obviously) if you could make economic sense out of it. For most of the past 30 years one of the key differences between a professional/broadcast camera and a prosumer was field repairability. Yet AFAIK we aren't even allowed to open the R1 much less try to repair it.

I'm not knocking on RED itself, because I fully understand it is a one camera startup company that is in development and therefore needs to be graded on a curve. I'm responding to a bit of aggravation with the so called "fanboy" discourse, and to see if maybe we can raise the level because I think Jeff Brown made a valid point a little while back:

I won't quote the post he refers to because it was pretty long (but definitely a bit over the top.)

Michael please...

Posts like that are what make it so hard to work on on professionals sets with this camera - because of the fanboy stigma attached to it.

I appreciate you like the work Red's doing but it's not a religion.

The camera stands on it's own without all that.

...
say what you'd say in person
that's the forum law of the land
grandma's law was if you cant say anything nice....
...
Red-haters are a dying breed
Scarlet cures the disease

OK Michael what I'd say in person:

"Hello Michael, I'm not a red hater, I own multiple reds and work daily on commercials/TV projects in the UK. I get on very well on set with everyone I work with. The camera is well accepted but the biggest problem I face is the reaction of the wider industry to people like you and the over zealous nonsense that they spout on reduser."

I'm not trying to insult you - it's a fact that big DPs have an aversion to that type of idolisation.

Jeff Brown
brownianmotion.co.uk

And there are also many comments like these:

Canon are just ticking over, leaving the customer dangling on a drip feed.
That's cool if you enjoy being a corp bitch.

I didn't think I was a sucker for putting down a deposit on a titanium R and a vaporware camera almost two years before it was real. Nor do I think I'm a corp bitch for spending $1100 on a 40D and $700 on a T1i two years later (sold the 40D for $650). I understand market segmentation (and the proposed Scarlet/Epic lineup suggests RED does too) and have been very happy with the price/performance ratio of both the RED and Canon products.

The point is: RED is doing some great things, but I believe the inaccuracies and a blinders-on fanboy, us good/them bad mentality cheapens things overall.

 

[Jack Kelly]

Graeme: This isn't like some of the really bad/silly comments I have seen. (see below) But it is a lighter example of what I was talking about in my last post.

I have had exactly this kind of discussion with both Panasonic and Sony engineers many times over the years. In person at trade shows and by telephone at other times.

Your experience certainly differs from mine. I'm impressed that RED engineers are willing to discuss the performance of a key component of a *pre-released* camera on a public discussion forum.

This contrasts to the last time I tried to ask Sony and Canon a technical question. I wanted to know the frame readout speeds of a couple of shipping CMOS-based video cameras (I was planning to use the camera for matchmoving so I needed a camera with a rapid readout speed and it was a toss-up between a Canon and a Sony camera). After several phone conversations, neither Sony's nor Canon's pre-sales support team was even able to comprehend my question, let alone answer it.

So, as I say, your experience differs from mine. I hope that I'm not a "fanboy" but that, instead, I take a relatively rational approach to the RED camera.

But I take your broader point: the "fanboy-ism" that RED attracts can be a turn-off for some professionals. It's not a religion, it's a high performance image acquisition and recording system.

 

[Gabriel Scindian]

I forgot to mention. The same source claims that the 5D2 will get a firmware update "to match the 7D's framerate and resolution."

Obviously I have no idea if this is true or not, but it makes sense that if Canon is making an sRAW recorder for the 5D2, they would give it 24p.

Tom! You're 5d firmware update is right on! I believe there will be an add on module for the 5d. I heard this a few months back in gossip at a local camera shop.

Gabriel
gabrielscindian.com

 

[ericyoung]

Michael and Jack

I agree with your points and there is no contradiction!

I'm a TV broadcast electronics engineer in my day job, and appreciate that I can get a complete service/repair manual from Sony or Panasonic or JVC for the cameras in my studios and that I'm allowed and trusted to poke around in the innards to an extent! At the same time, RED allows me to contact the actual people directly responsible for all the RED components in a pretty damn fast feedback loop, but can't open up the body without sacrificing upgrades and warranty.

When people remember the legally defined raison-d'etre of corporations (ie the maximisation of the bottom line at all costs) it's no surprise that Sony et al and RED have such different marketing approaches.

Neither are 'wrong', both have pros and cons. On balance I prefer RED's philosophy, but it's not a panacea.

 

[Tom Lowe]

Tom! You're 5d firmware update is right on! I believe there will be an add on module for the 5d. I heard this a few months back in gossip at a local camera shop.

Gabriel
gabrielscindian.com

Hey, well I got half of it right! I still think there's a good chance there are some sRAW recorders coming.

 

[morgan_moore]

Im not on the rumors one way or the other but my recent observations with the 5 and 7 is that viewing the 10X mode on the screen one sees a far higher res than is recorded

I think a major problem with these cameras is the compression rather than what is coming out of the chip (which is of course not perfect)

S

 

[Ace]

Tom you need to hurry up and get into bed with Canon so we could have our own Bloom/Laforet insider guy!

 

[Stuart English]

Magnify

Magnify

my recent observations with the 5 and 7 is that viewing the 10X mode on the screen one sees a far higher res than is recorded

I think a major problem with these cameras is the compression rather than what is coming out of the chip (which is of course not perfect)

Thing is when you invoke a MAGNIFY mode, what's coming out of the chip is just a crop of a portion of the sensor.

The critical issue is what's coming out of the chip / being processed / being recorded when you are NOT in MAGNIFY...

 

[Tom Lowe]

Tom you need to hurry up and get into bed with Canon so we could have our own Bloom/Laforet insider guy!

I'm working on it. :yesnod: