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It's not the Red, but...
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Phil Bates
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I believe we got it direct from Vision Research. It was around $20K per month. Based on a 3-day week that would be around $1600 per day. It included their laptop as well. I need to check my data, if it's off, I'll post the correction.
Phil
www.artbeats.com
Phil
www.artbeats.com
Andrew Kimery
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Beautiful shots. Thanks to all the Phantom users for sharing.
-A
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Mitch Gross
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Be still my heart -- I step away from the forum for a few days and come back to find a long thread on the Phantom! Phil, your stuff looks great. Let me make some comments allong the way here to clear up some details. My notes are in BOLD.
"The camera stores the frames in onboard RAM. At 1000fps our model held about 4 seconds or about 2 minutes of 30fps. There are no memory cards (there may be an optional drive available now...), so any shots must be downloaded to the laptop which can take 5 to 15 minutes depending on how much of the shot you want to keep."
I'm assuming you shot everything at 1920x1080 (the Phantom HD can shoot 2048x2048, and in fact the width is always 2048 so 1920 is a center extraction). This means that your available top speed is just over 1000fps. Assuming you had 16G of internal RAM and always shot at 14-bit color depth (best image), that yields 4438 frames, or a 4.44 second burst. Played back at 30p that's just shy of 2.5 minutes and at 24p it is a little over 3 minutes.
There is now the CineMag available, in both 256G and 512G. Shooting the same image size & quality, the 512G CineMag can hold 132 minutes of footage when played back at 24p.
"You can preview the shot only while it is in the camera's RAM (via HD SDI out). Once copied onto the raid, it cannot be viewed again until after post."
It's a pity you didn't know about IRIDAS's software, Speedgrade and FrameCycler. They can read the native CINE files from the Phantom. SpeedGrade allows you to take a single frame and apply color correction, then save this a s a LUT. FrameCycler will load the file into your computer's available RAM and then play it live through your video board (you have to have a somewhat powerful laptop, but not too crazy). Abel now delivers all of its rental Phantoms with these programes installed on the accompanying laptops.
And now GlueTools has created the Phantom QuickTime Wrapper, which allows the files to be carried directly into a standard QuickTime workflow, making them just as easy to transport as, well, as a RED One's footage! You can apply curves in these programes to make the footage appear essentially the same as what comes out of the HD-SDI feed (REC 709, but user defineable).
"Since there is a large time lag between shots you are careful to pick only the best shots, and only the section of the shot you want to keep. (we typically picked 600 to 900 frames in the sweet spot). You are fortunate to get 20 shots in one day."
With an experienced Phantom Tech you can get far more than that. Not to say that you guys didn't know what you were doing, but on our very first Phantom job we recorded more than 60 setups in the day. Partitioning the memory is a big factor (for example, breaking the 16G into four 4G takes). Now that the CineMags are available, you can just blast away all day and download at night.
"The shots are stored on the local RAID as a proprietary flavor of Cineon file. It cannot be accessed by anything but the Phantom capture/conversion utility which can convert the file into sequential 16bit TIFFs. Storage is an issue since these files are BIG. There is always the nagging question of how much do we archive?"
The name of the file extension is the same but they actually have nothing to do with Cineon files. In fact, they are far more akin to .DNG files like one would typically get our of a raw digital still camera. The latest software can now actually convert these files into .DNG files so that they can be posted as one would a digital still, and then batch converted (works great with Photoshop and After Effects). Last Fall the file extension was changed from .CIN to .CINE to avoid the Cineon confusion.
"We then import the TIFF files into After Effects for color correction. Since they are RAW, the shots typically look dull and dark (nothing like the HD preview). They require a pretty aggressive gamma curve which means they are log or linear --I always get confused which term applies. It is always a challenge to get the shots to look as vibrant as you remember seeing on the preview which always puzzled me."
It is a flat Linear file as opposed to Log. That generally means that the image at first appears to be really contrasty with little color. Applying 2.2 gamma (the inverse of 1/45th gamma that a video monitor is set to) generally snaps the image right back to where you expect it. In the other programs I mentioned above this can be an automatic function, and even in After Effects it can be made to be a simple LUT.
Phil, I hope you don't think I'm harping on you. I'm just using your statements as a jumping off point to give out more detailed information. I think the stuff you guys shot is terrific. More directed comments to other posts to follow.
"The camera stores the frames in onboard RAM. At 1000fps our model held about 4 seconds or about 2 minutes of 30fps. There are no memory cards (there may be an optional drive available now...), so any shots must be downloaded to the laptop which can take 5 to 15 minutes depending on how much of the shot you want to keep."
I'm assuming you shot everything at 1920x1080 (the Phantom HD can shoot 2048x2048, and in fact the width is always 2048 so 1920 is a center extraction). This means that your available top speed is just over 1000fps. Assuming you had 16G of internal RAM and always shot at 14-bit color depth (best image), that yields 4438 frames, or a 4.44 second burst. Played back at 30p that's just shy of 2.5 minutes and at 24p it is a little over 3 minutes.
There is now the CineMag available, in both 256G and 512G. Shooting the same image size & quality, the 512G CineMag can hold 132 minutes of footage when played back at 24p.
"You can preview the shot only while it is in the camera's RAM (via HD SDI out). Once copied onto the raid, it cannot be viewed again until after post."
It's a pity you didn't know about IRIDAS's software, Speedgrade and FrameCycler. They can read the native CINE files from the Phantom. SpeedGrade allows you to take a single frame and apply color correction, then save this a s a LUT. FrameCycler will load the file into your computer's available RAM and then play it live through your video board (you have to have a somewhat powerful laptop, but not too crazy). Abel now delivers all of its rental Phantoms with these programes installed on the accompanying laptops.
And now GlueTools has created the Phantom QuickTime Wrapper, which allows the files to be carried directly into a standard QuickTime workflow, making them just as easy to transport as, well, as a RED One's footage! You can apply curves in these programes to make the footage appear essentially the same as what comes out of the HD-SDI feed (REC 709, but user defineable).
"Since there is a large time lag between shots you are careful to pick only the best shots, and only the section of the shot you want to keep. (we typically picked 600 to 900 frames in the sweet spot). You are fortunate to get 20 shots in one day."
With an experienced Phantom Tech you can get far more than that. Not to say that you guys didn't know what you were doing, but on our very first Phantom job we recorded more than 60 setups in the day. Partitioning the memory is a big factor (for example, breaking the 16G into four 4G takes). Now that the CineMags are available, you can just blast away all day and download at night.
"The shots are stored on the local RAID as a proprietary flavor of Cineon file. It cannot be accessed by anything but the Phantom capture/conversion utility which can convert the file into sequential 16bit TIFFs. Storage is an issue since these files are BIG. There is always the nagging question of how much do we archive?"
The name of the file extension is the same but they actually have nothing to do with Cineon files. In fact, they are far more akin to .DNG files like one would typically get our of a raw digital still camera. The latest software can now actually convert these files into .DNG files so that they can be posted as one would a digital still, and then batch converted (works great with Photoshop and After Effects). Last Fall the file extension was changed from .CIN to .CINE to avoid the Cineon confusion.
"We then import the TIFF files into After Effects for color correction. Since they are RAW, the shots typically look dull and dark (nothing like the HD preview). They require a pretty aggressive gamma curve which means they are log or linear --I always get confused which term applies. It is always a challenge to get the shots to look as vibrant as you remember seeing on the preview which always puzzled me."
It is a flat Linear file as opposed to Log. That generally means that the image at first appears to be really contrasty with little color. Applying 2.2 gamma (the inverse of 1/45th gamma that a video monitor is set to) generally snaps the image right back to where you expect it. In the other programs I mentioned above this can be an automatic function, and even in After Effects it can be made to be a simple LUT.
Phil, I hope you don't think I'm harping on you. I'm just using your statements as a jumping off point to give out more detailed information. I think the stuff you guys shot is terrific. More directed comments to other posts to follow.
Mitch Gross
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More comments from me, again in BOLD or quoting Phil.
"We didn't use the camera for anything lower than 300fps.
It can shoot as low as 1fps so it is versatile in that sense. However, since you can only capture one shot at a time (you can't put multiple shots in ram), it seems like a lot of hassle for standard speed shots.
The media is always RAM no matter what the speed. There is an external solution they call hot-swappable stolid state CineMags. I never used them so can't comment on how they might improve the work flow. It looks to me like they merely give you storage for longer shots."
The camera can shoot 24fps no problem. It is not true that you can only capture one shot at a time; the internal RAM can be partitioned into as many as 16 separate "takes." But there is a limit to how much the RAM can hold until it needs to be cleared. Standard 16G is only just over 3 minutes and the largest option is for 32G, which is a bit shy of 6.5 minutes. But I would highly recommend using a CineMag if you wanted to shoot 24fps. Then you could shoot for 132 minutes! If you want high speed, shoot up to 430fps or so (I forget) directly to the CineMag (bad idea, you'll fill it fast) or shoot to the internal RAM at speeds up to 1000fps at 1920x1080 and then dump what you like to the CineMag in about 6 seconds. So Phil, no more 15 minute downloads during your shooting day. Just clear off the CineMag at night.
"However, there is another option. With the HD SDI preview out, you could conceivably record from that source. We never did that because the image quality wasn't reliable, we commonly saw vertical artifacts. I am sure that for live broadcast instant replay shots, this is what they do."
I refer you to Inertia Unlimited and their X-Mo camera system, which is based on the Phantom V10 (a slightly older model). This is exactly what they do at little sporting events like Championship Boxing and the Superbowl.
http://www.inertiaunlimited.com/
"We didn't use the camera for anything lower than 300fps.
It can shoot as low as 1fps so it is versatile in that sense. However, since you can only capture one shot at a time (you can't put multiple shots in ram), it seems like a lot of hassle for standard speed shots.
The media is always RAM no matter what the speed. There is an external solution they call hot-swappable stolid state CineMags. I never used them so can't comment on how they might improve the work flow. It looks to me like they merely give you storage for longer shots."
The camera can shoot 24fps no problem. It is not true that you can only capture one shot at a time; the internal RAM can be partitioned into as many as 16 separate "takes." But there is a limit to how much the RAM can hold until it needs to be cleared. Standard 16G is only just over 3 minutes and the largest option is for 32G, which is a bit shy of 6.5 minutes. But I would highly recommend using a CineMag if you wanted to shoot 24fps. Then you could shoot for 132 minutes! If you want high speed, shoot up to 430fps or so (I forget) directly to the CineMag (bad idea, you'll fill it fast) or shoot to the internal RAM at speeds up to 1000fps at 1920x1080 and then dump what you like to the CineMag in about 6 seconds. So Phil, no more 15 minute downloads during your shooting day. Just clear off the CineMag at night.
"However, there is another option. With the HD SDI preview out, you could conceivably record from that source. We never did that because the image quality wasn't reliable, we commonly saw vertical artifacts. I am sure that for live broadcast instant replay shots, this is what they do."
I refer you to Inertia Unlimited and their X-Mo camera system, which is based on the Phantom V10 (a slightly older model). This is exactly what they do at little sporting events like Championship Boxing and the Superbowl.
http://www.inertiaunlimited.com/
Mitch Gross
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How does instant replay at the Superbowl strike you?
The camera will send a live output all the time via HD-SDI and then can remotely be controlled to lock the memory buffer with whatever the last 5-30 seconds of play was (depending on frame rate and resolution) and the slow motion material dumped as a playback to an EVS recording setup. Then the camera is free to continue shooting and the slow motion shot is available for broadcast off the EVS.
Trust me, if you are at all into professional sports you have seen Phantom cameras in action.
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Phil Bates
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Mitch, this is great! thanks for helping out. 
Most of my comments were by memory. We were really flying by the seat of our pants, and had no knowledge of the helpful tools you mentioned (our shoot was early 2007) even though we did research and pestered the Phantom techs at the time.
We actually shot wider than 1920, I believe it was 2048 x 1080. We got a little extra cropping room and still kept the FPS at around 1000K (it might have been slightly less).
Is the 2.2 gamma a preset setting on any of the effects in AE? At the risk of sounding ignorant, your comments about the simple LUT in AE don't ring a bell with what I know about AE. Both "LUT" and "Look Up Table" yield zero results in the AE Help search. Can you flesh out the details? I would love to have that handy, although I will say that we couldn't apply the same curve to everything, there was too much variation between subjects.
Regarding the number of shots per day, we asked the VisionResearch guys about getting multiple shots in RAM, but were told it wasn't possible. Maybe something changed since January 07. That would have really helped.
Thanks again,
Phil
www.artbeats.com
Most of my comments were by memory. We were really flying by the seat of our pants, and had no knowledge of the helpful tools you mentioned (our shoot was early 2007) even though we did research and pestered the Phantom techs at the time.
We actually shot wider than 1920, I believe it was 2048 x 1080. We got a little extra cropping room and still kept the FPS at around 1000K (it might have been slightly less).
Is the 2.2 gamma a preset setting on any of the effects in AE? At the risk of sounding ignorant, your comments about the simple LUT in AE don't ring a bell with what I know about AE. Both "LUT" and "Look Up Table" yield zero results in the AE Help search. Can you flesh out the details? I would love to have that handy, although I will say that we couldn't apply the same curve to everything, there was too much variation between subjects.
Regarding the number of shots per day, we asked the VisionResearch guys about getting multiple shots in RAM, but were told it wasn't possible. Maybe something changed since January 07. That would have really helped.
Thanks again,
Phil
www.artbeats.com
Mitch Gross
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There are now a few rental houses with Phantom HD camera systems available for rent. Abel currently has more camera available than any other facility. Anyone interested in renting (or purchase) can feel free to contact me directly.
We're working very hard to develope these cameras for our industry. We now have color viewfinders, an amazing handheld rig and some really fun stuff on the horizon. With CineMags the camera only needs to be tethered to a computer at the start of the day, and then all controls are pretty much available at the operator's fingertips. There's only a single knob and three buttons -- it's that easy to use. The Phantom HD has been used on a number of major feature films and we now have clients shooting their entire productions using them, even when they're all 24fps.
Okay, enough from me tonight. It's 2am and after all this is reduser, not the Phantom Zone. Anyone wanting to know anything Phantom feel free to ask here or contact me directly.
Mitch Gross
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Mitch, this is great! thanks for helping out.
Most of my comments were by memory. We were really flying by the seat of our pants, and had no knowledge of the helpful tools you mentioned (our shoot was early 2007) even though we did research and pestered the Phantom techs at the time.
We actually shot wider than 1920, I believe it was 2048 x 1080. We got a little extra cropping room and still kept the FPS at around 1000K (it might have been slightly less).
Is the 2.2 gamma a preset setting on any of the effects in AE? At the risk of sounding ignorant, your comments about the simple LUT in AE don't ring a bell with what I know about AE. Both "LUT" and "Look Up Table" yield zero results in the AE Help search. Can you flesh out the details? I would love to have that handy, although I will say that we couldn't apply the same curve to everything, there was too much variation between subjects.
Regarding the number of shots per day, we asked the VisionResearch guys about getting multiple shots in RAM, but were told it wasn't possible. Maybe something changed since January 07. That would have really helped.
Thanks again,
Phil
www.artbeats.com
The camera always shoots 2048 wide. I think a year ago your max speed at 1080 height would have been 1031fps.
AE calls it something other than a LUT, but I do know that you can preprogram a series of settings and apply them every time you load footage as a simple script. It's not my area of expertise. If you ask an AE artist they should be able to help. If you still need info, give me a call.
I don't know why anyone would have told you that you couldn't partition the RAM. This is a very common practice and would have saved you a great deal of time.
I wrote a basic FAQ on the Phantom HD for our website. I is probably old hat for Phil, but may be of interest to others reading this thread.
http://abelcine.com/articles/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=142&Itemid=57
Jason Ing
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couldn't red do this... or eventually? is it about the chip or the data capture that makes it possible?
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What's the color sampling on the Phantom line? The HD-SDI out is 4:2:2, but is internal recording higher than that?
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Mitch,
If this camera is to be used for live sports it needs Real-timeIris & paint controls....every slow-mo system I’ve worked with has this. That includes Super Bowls, Olympics, Basketball, Skiing, Auto racing etc.. It's a great camera and the post here is fantastic, but really look at the post production workflow you just reviewed...how does that get accomplished for live replays??? There's no time for color grading or exposure adjustments for LIVE replays...... You won't find many network level directors willing to cut a camera that does not match the other cameras on the show.(unless it's a gimmick shot).
What broadcaster used it at the Super Bowl? I am familiar with Ablecinetech
but not for supplying any equipment to sports broadcasters, outside of a few lenses for NASCAR Images..
Sports broadcasters mainly use Bexel & VRI....I'm not knocking Ablecine, you guys are great and it's good to see your post on this forum..we love the group buy deals you put together for RED Users and the knowledge you share here...But I can't let a comment like "Trust me, if you are at all into professional sports you have seen Phantom cameras in action".[/QUOTE]
The phantom’s great, It’s just not a mainstay for Live events at this time..
Dave
Mitch Gross
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Dave,
I never said Abel Cine Tech supplied the cameras for live sports, just that the Phantoms have been used. As I pointed out before, Inertia Unlimited has an amazing setup designed around the Phantom V10. There are available shading controls available with the Phantom cameras to paint the HD-SDI output, and Inertia has created their very own purpose-built paintbox to do just this. They connect to the camera via a fiber link and the paintbox and other controls are located in the production truck right next to all the others. The live feed plays to the switcher as just another camera and they match it just fine, in fact many times the director will cut to the Phantom shot for the live realtime image. When they want a slow-mo shot that's when they feed to the EVS and then the feed is available a few seconds later.
Inertia was working with Phantoms before we were and we've essentially left that market to them. We're generally more targeted to the commercial, documentary and narrative arena. But that doesn't negate their success with the camera system and the extensive use it has seen. I urge you to check out their website and talk to someone like Jeff Silverman, who is a very clever fellow. He's all about the most interesting camera rigs this side of Garrett Brown.
Abel does a little bit of business with Jeff & Inertia, but generally they have their areas of expertise and we have ours. When the Superbowl aired (Fox this year, CBS last year), Jeff's cameras were there, but our cameras were used to shoot some of the commercials. Room for everybody!
I never said Abel Cine Tech supplied the cameras for live sports, just that the Phantoms have been used. As I pointed out before, Inertia Unlimited has an amazing setup designed around the Phantom V10. There are available shading controls available with the Phantom cameras to paint the HD-SDI output, and Inertia has created their very own purpose-built paintbox to do just this. They connect to the camera via a fiber link and the paintbox and other controls are located in the production truck right next to all the others. The live feed plays to the switcher as just another camera and they match it just fine, in fact many times the director will cut to the Phantom shot for the live realtime image. When they want a slow-mo shot that's when they feed to the EVS and then the feed is available a few seconds later.
Inertia was working with Phantoms before we were and we've essentially left that market to them. We're generally more targeted to the commercial, documentary and narrative arena. But that doesn't negate their success with the camera system and the extensive use it has seen. I urge you to check out their website and talk to someone like Jeff Silverman, who is a very clever fellow. He's all about the most interesting camera rigs this side of Garrett Brown.
Abel does a little bit of business with Jeff & Inertia, but generally they have their areas of expertise and we have ours. When the Superbowl aired (Fox this year, CBS last year), Jeff's cameras were there, but our cameras were used to shoot some of the commercials. Room for everybody!
Mitch Gross
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14-bit depth, as compared to RED One's 12-bit. The camera also records uncompressed raw, as opposed to RED's wavelet compression.
Mitch Gross
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To design a chip that can deliver this fast is a special task. To design a system that can accept and deal with the data that fast is another special task. We're talking about blasting through 16G of info in under 5 seconds! RED One is built for other things and does them quite well. No one ever expects these two cameras to compete head to head; they actually complement one another quite well.
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Actually during our first month shoot they tried it out on a footage ball game. I don't remember which one. You could see I big difference in the exposure. The Phantom requires you to have so much more light than most other cameras.
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The Phantom's relative sensitivity is around 550 ISO. Of course if you shoot high speed you are allowing light to reach the sensor for less time per frame, so you need more.
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Mitch,
550 ISO for how many frames??
Do you have a chart for frame rate and ISO?
Thanks
Dave
Mitch Gross
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550 ISO is the sensitivity of the chip. This is framerate independent, just like it would be on RED, a film camera or anything else. What a 550 ISO sensitivity represents is that at 100 footcandle illumination at 24fps with a 180 degree shutter, the proper T-stop would be T5.6 1/2. If you went to 48fps, then light hits the sensor half the time so the aperture needs to open to a T4 1/2. But the sensitivity of the chip is still the same, you're just not delivering as much light to it.
Don't know if there's a chart online, but I know that there is one in the American Cinematographer's Manual. And any lightmeter will allow you to calculate based on frame rate.