Frame Rate Question for Scarlet.

[Kyle Gentz]

After reading the thread/poll for burst mode in scarlet, it got me thinking.

Many people talked about the reasons the scarlet cannot do high frame rates is because of the issues with processing power writing raw data.

Would it be possible for RED's purposed Proxy/ProRes/DNxHD module to record higher frame rates than the SSD module? If this was possible could that make the Epic do like 600fps or something outrageous like?

Might be a dumb question but I figured I would ask.

 

[Kyle Gentz]

Anyone?

 

[Nick Pasquariello]

It depends on how it's set up, really.

You've got a few things in play. Light comes in through the lens, then hits the Sensor (in this case, the Mysterium-X sensor). That creates some electronic signals that are then sent over to the processor to figure out what to do with. The processor compresses these signals down and then transmits that compressed data over to the SSD, where it is written bit-for-bit to the drive. So, simplified, it's Light ---> Sensor ---> Processor ---> SSD.

If the ProRes/DNxHD module intercepts the signal after the Sensor and before it hits the Processor, then sure, it could do so. Because the module wouldn't just be taking a SDI signal out from the camera and converting that to ProeRes/DNxHD. It would be taking raw signals off the image sensor and could do . . . well, any number of things. But it would have to have a hell of a processor inside the module, and would be ignoring the beastly processor inside the camera brain.

BUT! The amount of bandwidth you would need to come out of the brain is absurd. Because you'd be taking out a raw 4K frame 24 times a second, or more. And unless the pins on the back of the camera are set up in some revolutionary fashion, I would not suspect that this could be the case. Chances are the signal would go from the Sensor, to the Processor, which would route a signal out to SDI/HDMI just as it does for the LCD/EVF, as well as having the option to pipe the compressed R3D Raw to the SSD at the same time. I'm sure it would integrate really well with the camera, even automatically, and hang off the back much easier than jury rigging the Pix240 or Samurai. I highly doubt that it would change the order of how the camera works, because you would be completely ignoring/wasting the processor within the brain. And the settings in the brain for dealing with things like color science, framing, etc.

 

[Les Dittert]

Data out would be ballpark about 1 GB/sec. Not that unmanageable these days.
I doubt they present the data on the back, however.
The 'beastly' processors on the Epic/Scarlet are about 3 years old. Not beastly by todays standards.
Think 3 year old Intel for example, a long time in CPU 'years'.
Color 'science' is all post process meta data, can be done later.