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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 :)

Viper Film Stream

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Andrew McCarrick

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Just wondering if anybody knows if the Viper Film Stream camera has ever had an 35mm adapter put on it for a feature? Looking for sample footage from the camera with 35mm lenses.


I also need to know about the Post-Production process. How is the footage (shot in FilmStream mode) transferred and corrected to a viewable HD image? What kind of hardware/software is necessary?
 
Mark Pugh said:
I'd think results would be inferior to a Red One, and more difficult all-round regarding workflow. I shot one feature on a Viper. Much prefer shooting on R1.
Click to expand...

Well it a low budget project and I can get a Viper for 400 bucks a day.

Viper and S.Two recorder = 800 a day = 4800 for two weeks * 2 cams = $9600

So if you can find me two full RED packages for under 15k (for 2 weeks), then I'd shoot RED.
 
I would disagree. I just did a 23 minutes short, shot in Filmstream mode with S two backs. Much easier and faster to do prep for grading, than RED. (not that the RED difficult). No debayer necessary, you end up with DPX files, that you can grade right after the conform. I believe lens were Digiprimes, but I could be wrong... If interested, you can see the trailer on my site. It's called "Successful Alcoholics"
Mark Pugh said:
I'd think results would be inferior to a Red One, and more difficult all-round regarding workflow. I shot one feature on a Viper. Much prefer shooting on R1.
Click to expand...
 
jake blackstone said:
I would disagree. I just did a 23 minutes short, shot in Filmstream mode with S two backs. Much easier and faster to do prep for grading, than RED. (not that the RED difficult). No debayer necessary, you end up with DPX files, that you can grade right after the conform. I believe lens were Digiprimes, but I could be wrong... If interested, you can see the trailer on my site. It's called "Successful Alcoholics"
Click to expand...

What was the exact post process? How do I get a decent off-line copy of the material without having to grade everything before hand? I don't want to be staring at a green tinted shot for the whole offline process.
 
Andrew McCarrick said:
Just wondering if anybody knows if the Viper Film Stream camera has ever had an 35mm adapter put on it for a feature? Looking for sample footage from the camera with 35mm lenses.


I also need to know about the Post-Production process. How is the footage (shot in FilmStream mode) transferred and corrected to a viewable HD image? What kind of hardware/software is necessary?
Click to expand...

Andrew, I own one... Check this thread in DVXuser, a Viper with an adapter...

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=174960

With SGblade Rotorazor 3 ground glass the system will lose 1 stop so with Viper you will have 160ASA in Tungsten and Daylight...

Viper in Cinemascope mode 2,35:1 delivers more than 1400 lines as is obvius from the chart's, I have measure RED in the same chart and I have get the same results 1450 lines... Also have in mind that Viper has 3 x 9Mpixel CCD that is 4320 x 1920 each...! so is 4K in Red 4K in Green and 4K in Blue... it uses oversampling in order to deliver the cleanest 1080 signal...

Judging in what I saw in "The curious case of Benjamin Button" I don't thing that Viper has any handicap against RED... the movie shot with Viper had 13 Oscar nominations... So I don't thing that Viper will be the limiting factor for your feature not be in the Oscars...

In FilmStream mode needs a LUT to have the image viewable, S.two plus a good DIT that knows how to work with the camera will result a beautiful image with straight playback to tape for editorial. Viper needs to be handled in Log while in post, in CinemaScope mode you need a camera with the latest firmware because the first was very noisy... Apple Color is the entry level system, Viper is supported from all big CC systems.

Miranda in BB was using a quarter magenta filter to help the Green not to clip very fast. Viper was the first Digital Cinema camera that had a mechanical shutter, the second is the ARRI D21. In Fast horizontal pans it delivers extremely smooth motion far better than any other camera...

Viper has the widest DR than any other DC camera... its more than 12 stops...

Why Viper is not used any more?

Because... Sony tried to convince rental houses that had Viper, to buy F23... a task that was totally impossible... F23 is vastly inferior camera than Viper... So they did a competitive upgrade and they bought most of the Vipers that was around the world for a brand new F23 with all accessories... If you add the fact that the camera is EOL from 2007 and support will seize in 2011 you can understand why rental houses did it...

The Viper is one of the most advanced cameras that was ever build...

I will keep mine until I get another Digital Cinema camera that can really outperform it... EPIC FF35 or the new ARRI's is what I wait...
 
Mark Pugh said:
I'd think results would be inferior to a Red One, and more difficult all-round regarding workflow. I shot one feature on a Viper. Much prefer shooting on R1.
Click to expand...

Mark shot Acolytes on the Viper, I thought it was stunning. The Dynamic range was pretty okay (but that had more to do with the great lighting design)

I did the website for the film.. Check it out.. http://www.acolytes.com.au/
 
Actually, the Viper chips are 1920x4320, not 4320x1920. Significant difference is that they have a lot more pixels vertically than horizontally so that you can extract out different resolutions by different binning combinations of those pixels. The pixels are not individually addressed and read out, but binned on chip. 4 pixels are binned to get 4320/1080 = 4, and 4320/720 = 6.

The horizontal resolution is always 1920, and there is no way that the Viper can ever resolve more than 1920 lines horizontally.

Graeme
 
Graeme Nattress said:
Actually, the Viper chips are 1920x4320, not 4320x1920. Significant difference is that they have a lot more pixels vertically than horizontally so that you can extract out different resolutions by different binning combinations of those pixels. The pixels are not individually addressed and read out, but binned on chip. 4 pixels are binned to get 4320/1080 = 4, and 4320/720 = 6.

The horizontal resolution is always 1920, and there is no way that the Viper can ever resolve more than 1920 lines horizontally.

Graeme
Click to expand...

Graeme, or three 4320/1440 = 3 in CinemaScope mode... The binning is an on chip averaging mechanism that effects the DR and the resolved MTF greatly...

I have to remind you that CinemaScope film 2:1 has different resolution in vertical than horizontal... actually it has the double in vertical than it has in horizontal and thats because vertical resolution gives more perceived resolution to the human eye...

Viper is doing the same thing... plus it gets all the pixels with all the color information... you see its doing oversampling to maximize DR and MTF... plus the mechanical shutter is giving that filmic smooth motion... see the trailer that ACE is pointing how smooth the motion is...

If you do a 4K Scope crop from RED and a Scope from Viper the resulting resolution is very similar... check out the DVXuser link... and remember its from an adapter... so lens / GG / lens and then CCD...

You have to agree that for a seven years old technology it is still on the edge...

For me these are the real cinema cameras F35-Genesis/D21/RED/Viper/Si2K and then everything else... each one with pros and cons...
 
When 3 sub-pixels are binned, the sensor now has 1920x1440 effective pixels. Now, only the middle 1080 rows are used to achieve 2.37:1 aspect ratio. Vertical resolution must therefore be less than or equal to 1080. Measured resolution must be less than or equal to 1920x1080.

A RED one, similarly cropped to achieve the same aspect ratio will give a measured resolution of approx 3200x1400.

You'll have to point me at the literature showing higher vertical visual acquity. All I've read tends to show that on an eye test, you'll do better with the letters arranged horizontally, most probably due to learned / cultural effects of us learning to read that way.

Graeme
 
Alright, We have worked with Viper we shot in CinemaScope mode with Zeiss Digi Primes. I'll warn you, that CinemaScope will cause you to give up roughly half to full stop of DR. The work flow is just the same as any other HDCAM SR camera. However unlike most cameras, when your working in

FilmStream mode, there is no white balance it just shoots. Frankly it reminds me of RED in the fact that you can control the iris, focus and shutter and thats about it. Everything WILL look green!!! However in post you will be able to white balance it correctly for each shot. I would not put a filter in front of the camera to try to get around this. To fix issues with clipping, I strong suggest you shoot ALL day light balance. We have found that the camera loves to get very noisy in the blue channel under 3200K type light. If you want things to look good, make sure to have ND's day shoots outside and have either two 1.2K's or 2.5K's to help balance the focus versus the highlights.

Toss and ND on the camera save the blue sky and light your talent or focus as much as you can. When this camera blows something out white, its really bad. I don't think i'd put 35mm glass on the camera I'd go with the Digi Primes. If you want 35mm depth use longer end of the primes. Digi's are just too nice.

Hope this helps...
 
Darren, that's not surprising if it's only binning 2 compared to the usual 4 sub-pixels.

Graeme
 
Hey Graeme,

Yea we found however, that you had to shoot carefully but the pay off was when you where finishing. When you take that full rez desqueezed image of 2560x1080 and scaled it down to 2K finish or 1080P it looks fantastic. The issue still remains though to do that and make it look good there you got to protect your highlights big time and be all daylight balanced. Biggest issue is that when grading the footage if anythings blown out you have almost no room to work, so even is some stuff is a little dark with some more noise...I'd go that route then have blown highlight.
 
Graeme Nattress said:
When 3 sub-pixels are binned, the sensor now has 1920x1440 effective pixels. Now, only the middle 1080 rows are used to achieve 2.37:1 aspect ratio. Vertical resolution must therefore be less than or equal to 1080. Measured resolution must be less than or equal to 1920x1080.

A RED one, similarly cropped to achieve the same aspect ratio will give a measured resolution of approx 3200x1400.

You'll have to point me at the literature showing higher vertical visual acquity. All I've read tends to show that on an eye test, you'll do better with the letters arranged horizontally, most probably due to learned / cultural effects of us learning to read that way.

Graeme
Click to expand...

Yes it is 1080 the effective pixels but the resolving resolution is 1400 lines...

Relay_F4-5_Zeiss-50mm-F2_F2-8-5_Viper_235-1_4K.jpg


See the center resolution...

I had to take the anamorphic 1080 to scale it in 4K in a way that I will fix the aspect ratio and this is the resulting image through the adapter...

That is Zeiss 50mm F2 macro ZF, then ground glass (SGblade), my relay lens and then the CCD...

The Canon Cinestyle zoom had more aliasing artifacts because it couldn't resolve that many lines...

With F23 or F35 or Si2kdont mention F900... you can't get this resolution... only RED is surpassing it by a little and D21 when used in 4:3 and with anamorphic lenses...
 
You're playing games with how you're defining resolution. If that image were framed full height (which it can't be as you're shooting 2.37:1 not 16:9) then indeed, any vertical resolution on that chart would be what you read it as. But your aspect ratio is different and you've framed it fit to fill horizontally.

Graeme
 
Graeme Nattress said:
You're playing games with how you're defining resolution. If that image were framed full height (which it can't be as you're shooting 2.37:1 not 16:9) then indeed, any vertical resolution on that chart would be what you read it as. But your aspect ratio is different and you've framed it fit to fill horizontally.

Graeme
Click to expand...

No games, in the same chart if you shoot with RED in 16:9 frame of coarse (RED doesn't have anamorphic) and do the crop for 2.37:1 you will get the same result...

I'm home now... tomorrow that I will be in the office I will find it and post it...

Thing a little bit... hint its anamorphic... RED is not... you can do the same test if you have the chart...

The one is anamorphic so no crop... the other is not so you have to crop... crop = less resolution

EDIT: With Hawk anamorphics, RED would easily surpass it...
 
Of course it's games - if you don't frame the chart in one dimension, the numbers in that dimension don't mean what those numbers say any more. You can't say you have a vertical resolution of 1400 or so if you can only ever count 1000 of them before falling off the edge of the chart! It matters not that those lines are there on the chart outside what the camera captured.

Graeme
 
Darren Orange said:
Hey Graeme,

Yea we found however, that you had to shoot carefully but the pay off was when you where finishing. When you take that full rez desqueezed image of 2560x1080 and scaled it down to 2K finish or 1080P it looks fantastic. The issue still remains though to do that and make it look good there you got to protect your highlights big time and be all daylight balanced. Biggest issue is that when grading the footage if anythings blown out you have almost no room to work, so even is some stuff is a little dark with some more noise...I'd go that route then have blown highlight.
Click to expand...

There are a lot of Vipers with old firmware/dsp board... the new firmware is fixing exactly the DR in Scope mode... If you have one harry up because in two years it will not be serviced...

Vipers are collective items...
 
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