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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 :)

Soderbergh is a wild man...

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Jannard said:
Do that with a Viper and you would be shooting 1K! :-)

Jim
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No, you wouldn't. Read their PDF.
http://www.thomsongrassvalley.com/docs/DataSheets/cameras/viper/viper_ds.pdf
The way the sensor is configured you can do real 2.37:1 without losing much resolution at all. They have THREE 9 megapixel sensors, Jim, not one! You're drinking the kool-aid of your own Red specs page. It just means they do a 3:1 oversample instead of a 4:1 oversample. I'll readily admit that it doesn't look quite as good as it should, though.

David Mullen ASC said:
Dalsa is building a set of 1.22X anamorphic lenses for their cameras, with front anamorphic elements -- judging by the one lens they built so far (a 50mm I think) it exhibits classic anamorphic attributes but just a lot more subtle, less distorted.
Click to expand...

Dalsa had the 50mm T1.4 at CineGear. I was pleasantly surprised to see it had a nice anamorphic look to the bokeh despite the lower stretch:
dalsa_anamorphic_out.jpg

(please note that that's just a low-res preview from the monitor to give an idea of the bokeh - looking through the optical viewfinder it seemed tack sharp and all)
Here's an exterior:
dalsa_with_anamorphic_50_14.jpg

I played around with it - breathing (or lack thereof) seemed really nice.

If I were shooting anything with a Red I'd want to rent that lens set for sure. Hey nice Dalsa folks who lurk here, any news on how the set is going?

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Bruce...not exactly what I was saying. If you take any sensor configuration, including a three chip 2/3" sensor block that records 1080P (1920x1080) and lop off the sides for an anamorphic the way Soderbergh is shooting with RED, you would end up using about 1080x1280 from the viper. That sounds like roughly 1K resolution to me. If the Viper can record 1080x2559 as it sounds like you are suggesting, then I am completely mis-informed and apologize.

With RED, SS is using about 2048x2400 after he lops off the sides, which I called 2K. I don't think I included Dalsa in my example... if I did, I shouldn't have.

If you are comparing the difference between a 3 chip sensor block vs. a single bayer, that is a different discussion.

I don't like kool-aid.

Jim
 
Jannard said:
If the Viper can record 1080x2559 as it sounds like you are suggesting, then I am completely mis-informed and apologize.
Click to expand...

Yep, the Viper has three 1920x4320 16:9 sensors. The sensor sites are rectangular. A bit like the way the old Nikon D1X had rectangular sensor sites.

To make a 16x9 1920x1080 image, they average four sensor sites per color channel (scaling three 1920x4320 images down to a 1920x1080 RGB image).

To make an 2.37:1 image 1920x1080, they discard the top and bottom lines, giving an active sensor resolution of 1920x3240 per R,G,B channel. They then scale this down to 1920x1080 (three sensor sites per pixel per color channel).

Here's a quote from Fincher:
“Plus, we wanted this to be a widescreen movie, and Viper has a nice way of dealing with anamorphizing the 16×9 pixel array to give us full use of 1920/1080p across the 2.37:1 anamorphic aspect ratio. We really wanted to get as much resolution out of it as we could, since I did not want to crop the frame top to bottom. Why start out with a 2K image, and then throw a third of the frame away?”
(from this article:
http://digitalcontentproducer.com/videoedsys/revfeat/video_going_tapeless/ )

That said, I don't think the quality of the individual sensor sites on the Viper are that high but then they don't advertise it as a 27 megapixel movie camera. When you use the info from 9 of them per pixel at 1920x1080 (or 12 if you're doing 16:9) you get something quite nice and smooth, which is why Zodiac looked decent, if a little soft.

Imagine if they'd gotten clever and done something like your REDCODE RAW when their camera first came out? They missed a major opportunity, methinks... but I agree that 1CCD is also the way to go eventually. Oh, and a great price :) And a great, friendly, communicative attitude. Not that they aren't nice people but it's not like all the people in charge of making the Viper are posting on viperuser.net ;) Red will crush / is already crushing them...

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
My error... thanks for correcting me.

Jim
 
Bruce Allen said:
No, you wouldn't. Read their PDF.
http://www.thomsongrassvalley.com/docs/DataSheets/cameras/viper/viper_ds.pdf
The way the sensor is configured you can do real 2.37:1 without losing much resolution at all. They have THREE 9 megapixel sensors, Jim, not one! You're drinking the kool-aid of your own Red specs page. It just means they do a 3:1 oversample instead of a 4:1 oversample. I'll readily admit that it doesn't look quite as good as it should, though.
Click to expand...

Apples and Oranges. We're talking about shooting real 2:1 anamorphics and not shperical 2.35/7/9. The viper is shooting spherical lenses and sampling at 3:1 compared to their normal 4:1 oversample. So since it's using fewer samples than their normal HD mode, the gain is really in maximizing the use of the 1920x1080 in HDSDI. It's basically still cropping out of a 16:9 and using fewer vertical samples at the same time.

If you wanted to do the same on RED with spherical lenses, you'd be at 4096x1743 (or even more later but I don't want to speak until we know the exact numbers for sure).

3x 9mp sensors and it's still a mushy image (in my opinion). Must be lime flavored kool aid :)
 
Deanan said:
3x 9mp sensors and it's still a mushy image (in my opinion). Must be lime flavored kool aid :)
Click to expand...

Totally agree, Deanan. I did say that in both of my posts -
post 1: "I'll readily admit that it doesn't look quite as good as it should, though."
post 2: "Zodiac looked decent, if a little soft").

Also agree that if you want that sweet anamorphic bokeh, Viper is a bad option, because the pixels are rectangular in the wrong way for that. If I re-read the whole set of posts, it's now pretty clear that's what Jim was talking about... sorry, just haven't been checking Reduser on a daily basis due to changing countries ;) So, sorry, Jim! Apologies are on me.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Again, Bruce, with all due respect, I wouldn't be rushing to discount Jim's assertions as a "Kool-aid high" until the RedOne, which is a 4K camera by the way, is fully enabled and been on the market for a while before comparing with a 2K camera like the Viper.

My 2c...
 
Mardi_Gras said:
Again, Bruce, with all due respect, I wouldn't be rushing to discount Jim's assertions as a "Kool-aid high" until the RedOne, which is a 4K camera by the way, is fully enabled and been on the market for a while before comparing with a 2K camera like the Viper.

My 2c...
Click to expand...

Totally agree again that the Red is way superior, although simply saying it's better because it's "4K vs 2K" does the Red a great disservice IMHO. There's no need to wait for "fully enabled" or "on the market for a while" before proclaiming this. The writing has been on the wall for a few years now and we all knew they would deliver... You seriously misread me, buddy. Good night!

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Bruce Allen said:
To make a 16x9 1920x1080 image, they average four sensor sites per color channel (scaling three 1920x4320 images down to a 1920x1080 RGB image).www.boacinema.com
Click to expand...

Resolutionwise this is equvivalent to having 1920x1080 sensors. As opposed to reading out all 9 million pixels and doing a downscaling with a nice algorithm in post processing.

The 9 million pixel is only good for having the equvilant of 1920x1080 pixels in the 2.35:1 mode as well.
 
Bruce Allen said:
Totally agree again that the Red is way superior, although simply saying it's better because it's "4K vs 2K" does the Red a great disservice IMHO. There's no need to wait for "fully enabled" or "on the market for a while" before proclaiming this. The writing has been on the wall for a few years now and we all knew they would deliver... You seriously misread me, buddy. Good night!

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
Click to expand...

Bruce, if you're referring to my post above, I definitely wasn't insinuating a "4K vs 2K" debate - what do I know about these things? :) , neither was I trying dumb down the debate. But then again, if you now agree with the whole premise of the original argument, instead of going back and editing your post and confusing the topic in the process, I suggest you make such amendments in subsequent posts. Good day!
 
baro said:
Resolutionwise this is equvivalent to having 1920x1080 sensors. As opposed to reading out all 9 million pixels and doing a downscaling with a nice algorithm in post processing.
Click to expand...

I agree with you again. That's why I said "Imagine if they'd gotten clever and done something like your REDCODE RAW when their camera first came out?" at the end of my post.

Mardi_Gras said:
But then again, if you now agree with the whole premise of the original argument, instead of going back and editing your post and confusing the topic in the process, I suggest you make such amendments in subsequent posts. Good day!
Click to expand...

I DID apologize in the subsequent post. I don't think I edited anything substantial in my earlier post either. You are weird and nasty. Good day to you too. I'm going to go back to sleep and try to fight my jet lag now.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Bruce Allen said:
... You are weird and nasty...

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
Click to expand...

Wow! Thanks for been such a bonafide jerk, Bruce. How much more personal, wierd and nasty can one get than your quote above. The jet lag doesn't even explain this off.
 
Bruce Allen said:
but I agree that 1CCD is also the way to go eventually.
Click to expand...

In order for RED to use a CCD like Dalsa, they would have to incorporate a mechanical shutter. Otherwise their options would be limited: they could either use a Frame-transfer CCD (way expensive and probably none exist that match Mysterium on grain and overall image quality) or they will suffer from vertical smear using a normal CCD without a shutter.

The CMOS chip has only one disadvantage that I can see and that's the frame split artifact with strobes and gunfire. Since this issue is limited to only a few scenarios and can sometimes be prevented with genlock, I'd say the advantages of the CCD are limited.

What I would like to see is a modified RED, or even a specialized front mount that incorporates a mechanical shutter (just a flat one, not a mirror). The shutter will sync with the genlock and protect the chip during readout, smoothing out frame splits. If you know you are going to be shooting with uncontrolled strobes or blanks, you just rent this mount or camera for that day of shooting.

Ian
 
donatello said:
"the Viper has three 1920x4320 16:9 sensors"

i see in the viper pdf ( page 2) they call the vertical 4320 "sub pixels" and the 1920 horizontal "pixels" ... how are sub pixels different then pixels ?
Click to expand...

They're not accessible to the end-user (no RAW equivalent). You can only see them after they're averaged together. Like early Nikon DSLRS.

But please note that I was a confused jetlagged fella when bringing this up and failed to note that Jim was talking specifically about getting nice Anamorphic bokeh - which you can't do with the Viper. The Viper shoots good 2.35 aspect ratio stuff but it is done with spherical lenses. Anyone who wants to flame me for being stupid about this please do it via PM because I think everyone would much rather talk about anamorphic lens options, frame grabs, etc here ;)

That said, anyone tried those Hawk / Vantage filters that are supposed to make anamorphic horizontal blue streaks on spherical lenses? I'd love to know how they compare to real anamorphic streaks:
http://www.vantagefilm.com/en/news/news_2005-09_01.shtml

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Jim, are there any plans for 2764 X 2304 windowed mode,for shooting with 2X anamorphic?... This would obviously extend recording time considerably...and if so, is the current hardware capable ( with appropriate firmware) of unsqueezing the lcd/evf, image?
 
John Allardice said:
Jim, are there any plans for 2764 X 2304 windowed mode,for shooting with 2X anamorphic?... This would obviously extend recording time considerably...and if so, is the current hardware capable ( with appropriate firmware) of unsqueezing the lcd/evf, image?
Click to expand...

I think a specific anamorphic mode is in our future...

Jim
 
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