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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 :)

Zacuto Gratical HD Micro Oled EVF

The waveform thing is obviously a mistake. Like EVERYTHING ELSE these days it's released with firmware issues to be then fixed with updates. So annoying. Where are companies integrity these days, they HAD to have noticed the waveform thing. Sigh, I'll probably still buy one...
 
Isaac Marchionna said:
I'd frankly send it back and ask for an EVF without anything under the screen. Hands down.
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Yeah, I just sent an email to Steve at Zacuto. They've got pretty great support so I'm not concerned with getting it fixed right this second, I'm sure they'll do what they can to get it taken care of. And it's not stopping the Gratical from functioning or affecting the end image, so if I have to use it like this for a couple weeks, I'll survive.

My main concerns now are that I can't seem to get custom LUTs to work and that the waveform seems to change with any visual tweak made (LUT, display setting changes, etc.) even though the SDI input image isn't changing.
 
The reason we did not do a power out is that it would make the unit larger and more expensive, it's just as easy to use a battery eliminator and they come in both lemo and D-tap
 
Tom Gleeson said:
Steven,

How does the Zacuto EVF compare to the Red's OLED Bomb EVF. Is it substantially sharper? I assume its a much larger image FOV compared to the Bomb? And Mr. Weiss will any of your Australian distributors be getting a demo model?
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Hi Tom,
I don't want to make those comparisons, that's for users to do. In my opinion yes, a lot sharper. The Gratical works with every camera and is not camera specific. It's $800 cheaper then the Bomb OLED and in kit form can be up to $1500 cheaper. I really want to address tech questions, this is not my forum and I don't want to be disrespectful to our hosts who also have a nice product. The FOV is larger then the Bomb, even slightly larger then the Alexa and the feature set of the Gratical is it's own, and pretty rich. These can be found in many videos and on my website. More then the FOV, the large eye box is what make it luxurious being able to move you head around and not be pinned into a tiny pinspot to look through. Lemac carry's the Gratical in Australia.
 
Patrick Tresch said:
?

All the infos got me interested in the Gratical but I wonder why you tell it's impossible to see the difference between HD ready and full HD resolution? Your distance argument doesn't apply here as you are using a loupe and blowing up the picture size to the eye. It depends if the horizontal resolution and picture manification outperform the eye sight. I want to have the same immersion as beeing in the 1/3 first row of seats in a movie theater and not in the last seats at the back. It's also why I never use the Bomb EVF as size and resolution aren't close to the 5'' Touch and a Grid loupe. I definitly have to look through one of these.

Do you apply some sharpening in the EVF?

The mechanical shutter on film camera wasn't as clumsy as you discribe. All the movies made handheld where shot without problem , don't tell you have to use sticks because of the pressure you have to put on it! What red orb on your eye?

Now if you'r really happy with your flap system, good for your. I'm eager to test it. It's also cool to have a working option out there.

Patrick
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Patrick maybe I didn't state it well. Here is the test we did.
We blew the FOV to the size we wanted it in both a 720p and 1080p display. You can't see the pixels in the 720p display at that magnification and FOV and the 1080p was the same, no pixels. They looked the same. About sharpening, you can start from pretty unsharp to pretty crispy. We picked a spot that seemed best for focus. In future upgrades we are going to allow even further sharpening if wanted.
I'm not going to argue about the mechanical shutter, I hated it, you had to push rather hard and keep constant pressure on it to keep it open. It's also very expensive to create. No one I no like it and the red orb was the ring it left from the constant pressure. Doesn't really matter, we opted for this system which I think is easy and light weight. But it takes a little practice. I'm never going to please everyone so I have to go with my gut.
 
Scott Pultz said:
What is the FOV when looking at the Gratical screen? If one cannot tell the difference between 1920 and 1280 with this FOV, it must be pretty narrow?
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Scott,
Look at it this way, we designed the magnification so that when you look at the image it not too big that your eye cannot see all of image at once without having to move your eye around. When you find that point it's the optimal FOV. Many EVF's especially the ones designed from cell phone screens are extremely long like the Fs7 because that's the only way to reduce the image so that the FOV is not like sitting in the front row of the movie theater and even then most of those EVF's you still have to do a ton of eye movement to see the whole image because they cannot get the loupe far enough back. That technology is not great and very large. When starting with a Micro OLED you can design your optics to have the image small or large. When the image is brought to the correct FOV so you can see the image without moving your eye around and you see no pixels that's the limit of your resolving power and I saw no noticeable difference between our 720 and the prototype 1080p unit we created. There is just a limit to the resolving power of your eye at that size. You have to look in it to see.
 
steve weiss said:
Scott,
Look at it this way, we designed the magnification so that when you look at the image it not too big that your eye cannot see all of image at once without having to move your eye around. When you find that point it's the optimal FOV. Many EVF's especially the ones designed from cell phone screens are extremely long like the Fs7 because that's the only way to reduce the image so that the FOV is not like sitting in the front row of the movie theater and even then most of those EVF's you still have to do a ton of eye movement to see the whole image because they cannot get the loupe far enough back. That technology is not great and very large. When starting with a Micro OLED you can design your optics to have the image small or large. When the image is brought to the correct FOV so you can see the image without moving your eye around and you see no pixels that's the limit of your resolving power and I saw no noticeable difference between our 720 and the prototype 1080p unit we created. There is just a limit to the resolving power of your eye at that size. You have to look in it to see.
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An interesting design in the future would be one that is higher resolution and a wider FOV. If somebody wanted a narrower field of view, they could just shrink the image down and end up with the FOV that you have today.
 
Just got an email from ABEL, looks like orders are being held up due to casings from China. Bummer. Looks like this won't be shipping till April or so. Yeesh.
 
Guys, if anyone wants to buy my Gratical HD, I willing to sell it. This is an awesome EVF but with the new Dragon upgrade announcements, I need to come up with some cash before NAB. I can always purchase this at a later time.

PM me if interested.
 
darren scott said:
Steve can you comment on Josh's issue of the custom luts and display brightness affecting the waveform and histogram? This definately should not be the case. Is that an error?
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I've spoken with Steve on the phone about this, they are working it out. Steve even asked if there were other features that I would want in the Gratical, so they are open to changes/new features/etc. Chime in if there are any features currently left out that you would want!
 
Steve just curious, did you guys know about the waveform issue and release it anyway? Or, did this somehow miss QC? Not trying to give u a hard time, just curious as a potential customer.
 
Jake Wilganowski said:
Steve just curious, did you guys know about the waveform issue and release it anyway? Or, did this somehow miss QC? Not trying to give u a hard time, just curious as a potential customer.
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No, we don't ship anything with what we perceive as errors. The whole subject got really confusing and complicated and we had many people in on these color discussions. Here's how it went. It was so easy in NTSC days, you brought in the signal adjusted your wave and vector. then adjusted your monitor so you could barely see the pluche and contrast with bar chips. Very easy. Now with computer monitors, especially in edit, I'm always freaked out because I never really know what i have and log makes it even harder. As a director we all freak out when we see log, that's why the LUTs are in the Gratical, essentially for me ;-)

Here's the problem I was having. When it comes to calibration in post, you can spider the screen (not in the Gratical) but it's not an exact science like it was with NTSC and a TBC to exactly align the Luminance, pedestal, chroma and phase with bars and then adjust the monitor to the bars chips and pluche. The Gratical display itself needs a quasi LUT to know how it should work in base mode. You shouldn't have to adjust the display but when you did I wanted to have it reflected in the scopes so you didn't get a false brightness or darkness and think that is what you are getting only to realize in post that's not reality. When we bring in bars from some cameras via rec709, often they were not at all correct on the scopes (these rec709 LUTs are subjective) and then you'd have to adjust the EVF display to make them look correct. Here was my thinking. Since the base LUT is correct or as correct as we feel it can be. The Gratical currently has the ability to display the log and show you the log on the scopes or the LUT on the scopes. My thinking was that most people would assign a LUT to a preset button. When you click the button it will switch from log to LUT and you'd be able to see what each signal looks like on the scopes. Since the Gratical is going to have the ability in the next firmware update to create LUTS internally I didn't want to have folks jacking the luminance or chroma (while creating a LUT) and not see how the creation of their LUT is looking on the scopes. Nevertheless, the Gratical is a computer and I'm already re-programming it to your liking with an added twist and this update should be ready the week after next.

There will be ONLY two variables that will affect the scopes:
1. The default toggle switch will show you whatever is coming into the Gratical no matter what you do with a LUT, creat LUT or display change. The scopes will only show the input signal.
2. When you flip the toggle switch and enter LUT preset, LUT creation (new feature) or LUT import, the scopes will not show you the input signal but instead will show you what you are doing to that signal on the scopes.

Best of both worlds.

The display itself will never effect the scopes. We have designed a base look with bars; although, when it comes to the pluche beware they tend to run brighter on OLED's then other displays. Be careful when adjusting the display, it's a computer and it's calibrated. Obviously with any display you need to learn your screen and how it transfers to your post screen so it becomes you "g#d" monitor. Now that we have log, and LUTs are subjective, it's much less critical then in NTSC days because you have tons of adjustable room.

p.s. on a good note, be happy the scopes themselves don't effect the scopes as they do in most cameras and proprietary EVF's.
p.s.s let me know any other features or changes you would like. We are open to making the Gratical better with user suggestions and features.

I hope this satisfy everyones needs.

best, Steve
 
+1 Also, in response to the "eye pressure" on off switch, perhaps a sensor that works like iPhone that turns display on off when it senses proximity or light compared to ambient levels might achieve the same effect less annoyingly?

Thank you,

Chris M - I PM'd you about GB...thank you,


Steven Heyse said:
Audio meters and a record indicator would be my wish.
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Chris McKechnie said:
For a major group buy opportunity on the Gratical EVF and for a HUGE savings...PM me directly. I'm working with Zacuto on something BIG!! Trust me, you won't want to miss it. It's so huge, it's being kept under-wraps.
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Pm'ed you Chris.
 
Hi Steve,

I am renting a Gratical HD right now while in Hawaii. Finally I can see my footage outside!

The screen really is beautiful. Great color, contrast, no reflections, sharp, and very clear. A zillion times better than the Zeiss Cinemeizers that I had briefly. Personally I wish the FOV that it was a little larger for pulling focus, perhaps this isn't practical to produce? I find that I still need to use focusing aids due to the FOV of the screen.

One software feature that I would love is the ability for the crop marks to darken the image outside of the cropped area. For example when using 2.35:1 crop marks, have the image outside of this reduced to 20% intensity.

I wonder if the unit is light enough to head mount? Would be cool for gimbal use especially if there was built in wireless transfer :)
 
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