Weapon SDI out monitoring latency?

[Eric Haase]

Just curious if the Weapon improves on the Dragon with regards to the latency of the SDI output? Epic Dragon SDI out can be difficult operating a remote head due to the delay. It's manageable but can occasionally make things difficult.

 

[Chris McKechnie]

I don't think a microsecond delay is really anything to worry about...may be your actual monitor causing the delay if it's long enough you're noticing it. Monitors may or may not have lots of processing power going on on the inside, which may cause a discernible delay.

 

[Jacek Zakowicz]

I guess you never pulled focus on a car action sequence. The 3-4 frame latency on Epic is ...well...epic. You will ram into the car if you can't see...

 

[Eric Haase]

I don't think a microsecond delay is really anything to worry about...may be your actual monitor causing the delay if it's long enough you're noticing it. Monitors may or may not have lots of processing power going on on the inside, which may cause a discernible delay.

It's not the monitor. Used Panasonics, TV Logics, Flanders, Sonys, etc etc.

Like Jacek mentioned, the delay is significant enough to make remote focus pulling by monitor difficult for an assistant and I have found in many cases it can be difficult to operate with a remote head during fast moving camera moves. Was just hoping this would be addressed with weapon- been asking for it since Epic MX. It's not unworkable but makes these situations a little difficult and annoying sometimes. I think this camera is to the point where they are working out the annoyances now that so many other things are fine tuned and great.

 

[Aaron McLane]

the Weapon will still have the Epic's multi frame delay? I'd like to know as well.

 

[Naim Sutherland]

I have used various monitors as well and noticed a delay on all of them. Any focus puller would likely agree.

It would be fantastic to know if the output delay on Weapon has been improved. And I would like to know exactly how long the Weapon can hold timecode before slipping.

I would also very much like to know if there is gate shadow on Weapon. It's nice to see the CMOS smear cleaned up again on Weapon, but it sucks that Dragon suffers from very severe CMOS smear when the MX didn't suffer from it. It would be nice if Red took back everyone's Dragon and fixed the gate shadow and CMOS smear without needing to go Weapon, they are both pretty severe issues.

 

[Stacey Spears]

Has anyone objectively compared the latency of various cameras over HD-SDI and HDMI output? Would be cool to see a chart of cameras and the amount of delay introduced. What is considered the maximum acceptably delay?

 

[Shiblon Wixom]

The only delay issue I've dealt with is when AC's like to set HD-SDI ouput to 720p, and then the monitor used has to scale to 1080p, or when the reverse is true and the monitor has to scale 1080p to 720p. But that's really a monitor issue, not camera.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Has anyone objectively compared the latency of various cameras over HD-SDI and HDMI output? Would be cool to see a chart of cameras and the amount of delay introduced. What is considered the maximum acceptably delay?

This would be interesting.

 

[Jacek Zakowicz]

Both Sony and RED have similar latency- bit annoying at times...
The only one real time I've used is the Amira viewfinder. THAT makes it feel a lot like OVF ;-)

 

[Jason Tan]

+1 for this info. I've always needed to switch to operating on the onboard red monitor for quick action. The killer is nailing an actor standing up out of a chair. That 3 frame delay on sdi becomes huge.

 

[Eric Haase]

+1 for this info. I've always needed to switch to operating on the onboard red monitor for quick action. The killer is nailing an actor standing up out of a chair. That 3 frame delay on sdi becomes huge.

yes any quick move like that becomes a challenge. the situation is unavoidable when the camera is on a technocrane or remote head. The delay has not seemed as egregious on the Alexa but I don't have scientific tests to compare the delays. However, this is something that should be improved regardless of what other cameras do...