Tim_Kolb-Tech_Blog

Continuity or Innovation? FCPX makes the trade.

2011-07-01T11:17:00.004-05:00

Well, all the buzz about the coming out party for FCPX is starting to appear to actually be a surprise for Apple as FCP users have now triggered an unprecedented refund-due-to-disappointment operation at the app store...even the recent "I need to hold my iPhone with a BBQ tongs in order to get decent call clarity" debacle now seems tame in comparison.

When well-respected FCP advocates like Larry Jordan need to publish statements to their user-brethren to clarify the limitations on their involvement in a software release, and Walter Biscardi immediately starts to share his journey to an alternate application, I think it's clear that the development philosophy, if not the majority of the process wasn't really opened to the installed user base for discussion, even though apparently Apple did solicit input. As Michael Wohl, an FCP user who had pre-release access to FCPX put it in a recent LAFCPUG meeting demo, he submitted "pages of notes...", then indicating none seemed to have been used.

While I have to admit that as a bit of a software advocate myself for a competitive product, I can relate to the feeling you're not being taken seriously when you're asked for this type of input...however, depending on the company, a user asked for input may not be completely informed of larger company plans or initiatives, either because of corporate confidentiality, or even just because the company may be interested in a completely unbiased perspective.

In any case, the reaction of shock on the part of users seems odd as Apple is known for decisive innovation, as well as pretty effective feature-set intuition when it comes to creating products that are popular and profitable. Apple's genius has never been so much in knowing what the market wants as much as it has been in persuading the market that what Apple has is what the market wants. Steve Jobs himself has been quoted multiple times uttering statements that are various iterations of "Customers usually know what they want when you show it to them..." In my opinion, Apple's track record indicates this cannot possibly be a significantly flawed philosophy.

In the case of FCPX, Apple has made a move to get into position for the "everybody will edit video" marketplace and I think that they'll likely see revenues in a couple years that will validate their fundamental revamp in FCP's operating philosophy from a stockholder benefit perspective.

However, when a company decides to change their market target, that effort can be especially clumsy when the existing customer segment they've been highly publicizing as an indication of their product's legitimacy is actually part of the casualties. Apple has been standing on the shoulders of their vast installed base of professional Final Cut Pro users who edit high profile entertainment projects in network television and film to show proof of their established legitimacy for the last couple years as their users have been waiting for some sort of significant upgrade. Apple's customers (who have a brand loyalty that is likely the envy of any business in any market) have been some of the most effective promoters of the Final Cut Pro application, even as it has been left behind in features and versatility by its competitors in the years since its last significant release.

Final Cut Pro's installed base bought it some time, as Avid's installed base did 5 years before. Even as it became obvious during the "DV years" that multiple players in the industry had passed Avid in feature set and cost-effectiveness, Avid wasn't completely out of the race until a significant portion of their users got frustrated enough to undergo considerable stress to change platforms...not something a professional facility can do spontaneously.

However, after spending their "customer base inertia" capital buying a couple years of customer patience, Apple created a new piece of software. No upgrades. No legacy version project loading. Existing FXplug-ins (a completely new plugin standard for Apple alone that the industry was forced to comply with, introduced a few short years and one version ago) aren't compatible.

To top it all off, the new "professional" application not only looks like Apple's consumer editing application, it's actually project-compatible with it. While this iMovie compatibility isn't a cardinal sin, it certainly is an embarrassing feature to have front-and-center for a customer base and a company that has traditionally been so professional image-conscious up to now.

Ryan from FilmRiot in this clip sees the iMovie compatibility and legacy FCP version incompatibility as a "...big middle finger to professional editors signed: Apple..." and it gets more entertaining from there:

Is what Apple did wrong?

Apple is a business and businesses make money, and Apple has shown that they know how to do that.

Is what Apple did foolish?

I think if even professional editors are honest with themselves, the combination of more varied and shallow markets for video content developing simultaneously with a significant cultural shift toward media literacy can't possibly be ignored as a force in moving video creation "down-market." Odds are that in a short time, Apple will see revenue figures that endorse their re-targeting efforts.

Does FCPX change the professional post market?

I think so.

Adobe Premiere loads projects from versions that are ancient, even in cases where not all the features translate, you can still load the basic project and revise or update it. I get calls from clients to do this with regularity, and I don't think my business is that unique. Avid makes efforts to maintain backward compatibility. This is how you keep a massive user base massive in the professional world. Does it restrict how far you can jump from version to version? I would think it would have to, but if you are creating a product for professional use, that product's ability to keep productive continuity flowing and therefore keep your customer's groceries paid for, is the most critical feature that product has.

Apple allows a user to run their legacy version of FCP along with FCPX on the same machine (since it's not an "upgrade" I don't see how it could work any other way...), but previous versions of FCP are no longer for sale (Edit: 7/7/11 it now appears that Apple will offer FCP7 for sale again...for those who wish to buy additional seats before it's permanently EOL'd). Of course the way Apple upgrades hardware and their OS, it's not likely that FCP legacy will operate on Apple systems all that far into the future.

FCPX is enough of a philosophical and operational departure that FCP users will have to take some time to adapt...but the clock is ticking as the next Apple OS revision in a year will sneak up fast, not to mention big changes in the media architecture (QuickTime) are moving forward...

While all this might be on-plan for Apple's ultimate goals, it will have to change its marketing pitch for its new editing system as the user names and faces it's been putting out there to be the image and reputation of its professional editing product appear to be left standing outside the new target area for FCPX.

...and it doesn't seem like the fact is lost on anyone that iMovie projects load in FCPX and the features and television programs edited in FCP projects previous...load in Adobe Premiere Pro.

I thought it interesting that Michael Horton of the Los Angeles Final Cut Pro User's Group was quoted as concluding the recent meeting with some at least partial humor: "...LAFCPUG has never been about just FCP; we're about the craft of editing, the art of editing — no matter what tool you use. We just draw the line at PCs."

Um...OK...perhaps the name of the user group may need revision?

MMSG perhaps? (The Mac Myopia Support Group)

TimK

Apple's 'Sneak Peek' offers a few answers, but lots of questions.

2011-04-21T10:05:00.001-05:00

Well, we finally know what Apple's been working on during the last couple years while Final Cut Pro users have been waiting and wondering... They offered a glimpse of the new "Final Cut Pro X" on the Supermeet stage they appropriated from their various industry partners one week prior to the event.

Emmanuel Pampuri has the presentation, captured from the audience, on Vimeo...

I will say that Apple is certainly capable of creating more marketing momentum from small amounts of precisely applied information than any company in any business that I've ever seen. I don't think that it is overstating the situation to say that this is their genius.

In this case the momentum seems divided between two camps. There are those who look at what little they saw and imply a "prosumer direction" due to the streamlined interface and its similarity to iMovie...

Scott Simmons compares the iMovie and FCPX "magnetic timelines..."

There are those who have anointed FCPX as "the future of editing..."

Videomaker magazine declares FCPX "Best Editing Software of NAB 2011"

...I guess there wasn't a category for "Best Keynote Presentation Showing Screen Grabs of Software that Doesn't Exist Yet.".

I'd say that the jury will be out until we see something we can at least test drive. QuickTime has been left to seed as the first computer company with a 64 bit OS now needs to completely gut its 32 bit media architecture 8 years later, so the changes coming from Apple will undoubtedly be significant.

I for one don't believe that a streamlined interface is a blatant cue that the application will lack the sophistication a professional needs...but then I also believe that presenting "background rendering" as if it's cutting edge technology when it was a feature in Pinnacle editing software nearly a decade ago (before Avid acquired them), is pure Apple, playing catch up without ever losing the swagger.

One thing is certain, it's nearly impossible to find a neutral opinion on what transpired during the presentation, which keeps the industry buzzing...which is what illustrates the genius in not revealing too much, but tossing a few hints out to seed the prognostication of Apple's motivations, intentions, and direction.

Hopefully the buzz level stays high enough that they get the bounce they'd like at release as no matter what Apple's charts say about their user base growth and market share, Avid and Adobe are gaining ground every day that there isn't a freshly minted Final Cut Pro version to evaluate.

Of course, once Apple's media architecture starts experiencing version 1 bumps in the road, look for Apple's computer platform to get some scrutiny as Microsoft's Windows 7 builds on an already fairly solid start...

That's all I've got as my crystal ball is starting to fog up...

TimK

NAB 2011...let the insanity begin.

2011-04-02T17:14:00.001-05:00

Visit me in the AJA Video Systems booth SL4420

OK...one week and counting until the National Association of Broadcasters tradeshow in Las Vegas and things are already starting to look interesting...

GoPro buys CineForm.

Press Release

I own 5 GoPro POV cameras which I originally bought for automotive work, then started to use them for various other things...I really like them and they are an incredible piece of equipment for the money.

I use CineForm Intermediate codecs for many purposes within various HD post production workflows and have for years. It's an excellent, efficient, and very high quality video compression system that has in the last few years, also become one of the industry's truly useful metadata management systems. One benefit of using CineForm's workflow is the ability to use their primary color correction system along with the rest of the metadata management tools in their application called "FirstLight", including the ability to do alteration of visual stereo (3D) settings on CineForm's industry-leading file structure which puts the right and left eye video clips inside the same video file.

(Disclaimer: I wrote the current manual for FirstLight as well as use the application regularly...I will not claim complete objectivity...though there are almost no competing tools to compare it to...)

GoPro has been selling their cameras to almost every conceivable user at every level of video production from a teenage BMX racer or skateboard performer to professional video production. CineForm has been focused on several professional production markets as well as video enthusiasts to some extent, but with the CineForm RAW format being used in the Silicon Imaging SI2K camera (and therefore figuring prominently in the production of the movies "Slumdog Millionaire" and more recently "127 Hours") and also providing a convenient post path for the RED camera, CineForm's sweetest sweet spot is probably higher end more than anything.

So who saw GoPro's purchase of CineForm coming? Not me. I've been working withn CineForm products and even working with the company for a number of years and with 5 GoPro cameras and additional GoPro mounting widgets for nearly any circumstance, I can at least characterize myself as a loyal customer on that end of the spectrum, and I would not have guessed this one.

GoPro's upcoming stereo (3D) offering was shown in prototype form at NAB 2010 and I am sure that CineForm's elegant handling of visual stereo figures prominently into the general landscape of the situation.

A couple things are certain. GoPro's business track record speaks for itself. A product line that has only recently really had any marketing push beyond us users pointing other users toward the product has built an impressive enterprise which seems to have a very clear view of their market's needs and expectations. CineForm has been cranking out impressive technical innovations for a number of years now and their video codec and workflow plays a quiet role in many little known but high-stakes workflows.

The possibilities for this unlikely marriage boggle the imagination...hopefully the realities coming are just as tantalizing...

TimK

3D Viewing "Not Necessarily Bad" -American Optometric Association

2011-01-26T11:43:00.006-06:00

The American Optemetric Association has apparently pointed out that viewing entertainment content (television, movies, games) is not necessarily a bad thing for young children.

This was apparently all triggered by Nintendo's warning label on their new 3DS hand held gaming system (google translated version here ).

Michael Grotticelli's January 21st entry in his Broadcast Engineering.com blog brought this to my attention...and it's an important topic for me as a parent...and as a content creator.

The gamer site 1up.com also has an article taking it even farther, quoting a New York Times article that describes studies using Rhesus monkeys, subjecting one group to constant 3D content for 3 months versus a control group that didn't showed no difference in visual development. It leaves out any findings in the way of the ability of the 3D viewing monkeys to ever get a life, a job or to move out of their parent's basement...but I digress.

I'll go on record as having had some concerns about the long term effects of viewing 3D content in marathon gaming sessions, or even several feature films back-to-back (Star Wars 1-6 if it were all in stereo on a rainy weekend for instance...) on young children. My 11 year old son certainly seems to become hearing-challenged when he's in a particularly prickly HALO scenario and my wife is calling the family to report for dinner...

With the nature of gaming and "forced" or synthetic 3D, it seems that 3D animation for gaming is probably the most cost-effective area to add stereo imaging in all of entertainment. Adding a render camera to a 3D animation to provide the other stereo "eye" is far easier and faster than adding, syncing, and managing a second camera on a feature shoot...at least for the moment. Kids (and some adults of course, though with less concern for visual "development") tend to play games for hours on end. What effect will this have long-term? Particularly in cases where a child may not have an athletic or otherwise physically "active" life in addition to their interests in things competitive, but virtual?

I couldn't find the particular findings that Grotticelli was referring to on the AOA site (not that I'm challenging it, just that "trust but verify" thing is the only Reagan-era strategy that really grabbed me...), but there are several other articles I could find.

First, an article on how many people have vision imperfections that at the least, prevent them from perceiving the difference between visual stereo and standard imaging, and at worst give them the headaches, nausea, etc that are mentioned by some people who view stereo (3D) content:

AOA.org : "...Not Everyone Can See What All the Hype is About"

And second, an article that reminds us of the inability of children to judge when to stop doing something enjoyable, often past the point of apparent exhaustion.

AOA.org : Impact of Computer Use on Children's Vision

Bottom line? I'm probably not nearly as informed as I should be if my goal was to lead you toward some specific conclusion.

The fact remains that human stereo vision and the way a human brain processes input has to be affected at some level by viewing stereo visual material as when that edit comes where we change from a close up to an establishing shot of the next sequence, our brain sees that we are changing from focusing on something closeup to something far away, but our eyes don't re-converge at all as the actual image plane we focus on is stationary. Does this help eye-brain cooperative function, or cause it to "disconnect" to maintain immersion in the experience? We move from place to place, and change our focus from point to point, but it's all done for us as the focal point remains the reflected, emitted, or transmitted image plane we are viewing.

Am I saying I'm opposed to 3D movies and entertainment? Absolutely not.

I'm saying we all need to be aware of the long term impact of any activity that we repeat often enough whether it's carpal tunnel issues from typing, health or safety issues from drinking (I'm a Single Malt Scotch guy myself), or the effects on our visual acuity and development from viewing our entertainment content in 3D.

...and criticism of Nintendo for issuing a common-sense warning on their products in a world where most of us can't even eat in a way that keeps us healthy, seems absurd.

TimK

2010...Moving, teaching, but not blogging

2010-11-27T12:18:00.004-06:00

Hi all,

I just wanted to reach back to the blog and get going with writing again...

I know the entire year has past and things have been busy with Adobe releasing CS5 to the world and all the training commitments that came with that...

I have two CS5 training DVDs available from Class On Demand, one is an introduction to the CS5 Production Premium Suite product, and the other, a deeper look at Premiere Pro CS5 itself.

I've also been teaching Premiere Pro CS5 at FXPHD.com, we're on the second term now, and I think that there are a lot of people seeing what Adobe Premiere Pro is really capable of for the first time.

In a very short couple of weeks, I'll be doing a free webinar for BorisFX, so look for that...

AND... I'll be picking up the blogging function again.

2011 here we come...

TimK

Back from some time off...

2010-01-19T11:24:00.003-06:00

...well, not really time off. I've been in production, but away from the blog.

I'll be taking a look at GoPro's new HD POV cameras (I just got a pair within the last few weeks), so stay tuned for that...

And also, be mindful that the frequency allocation shifts are happening this year and those of you with wireless instrument or microphone transmitters that use frequencies in the range between 698-806MHz are supposed to be dark by June 12, 2010.

Lectrosonics has a take on it which is largely self-evident in it's title: "The Sky Is NOT Falling!"

More coming in 2010...I had just gotten used to writing "2009" on my checks. A sure sign of aging I'm afraid.

TimK

December 5th, New York, RED Workflow

2009-11-26T12:00:00.003-06:00

The Red Digital Camera has few ambivalent observers. The camera is embraced or dismissed intensely by many in the production industry. As it is with many things, the real truth is always somewhere in between depending on your circumstances.

The post production workflow has become a critical factor in evaluating the merits of any of the new generation of Digital Cinema cameras.

Studentfilmmakers.com is hosting a RED Post Production Seminar on December 5th in New York, featuring William Donaruma of Notre Dame, Leigh Herman from Sony, and yours truly handling the Adobe version of the post workflow.

If you're in town, stop by...

TimK

Animating a Human Face from TED

2009-11-21T23:21:00.004-06:00

One of my favorite destinations on the web is TED.com. It's a site that has a wide variety of presentations and lectures and often the only common thread that runs between them is that they're all fascinating.

Paul Debevec talks about animating a synthetic human face.

TimK

POV Cameras...GoPro HD on the way!

2009-11-16T06:59:00.005-06:00

As my last few posts have indicated, I've been struggling with finding the right tool for a POV (point-of-view) mountable camera for several applications including my motorsports work.

The GoPro cameras that I have have it all...the size...the mounting hardware...the functionality. What my GoPro cameras don't have is HD. In fact they're a bit below full SD.

I've explored using some other small cameras, (Blog post October 6, 2009) but awkward body designs and narrow lens choices have been a challenge to overcome.

We've been making the standard GoPros work (Blog post August 12, 2009), but even with the really interesting images that the cameras are capable of, for video production purposes ten years into the 21st century, the resolution os a disadvantage.

GoPro has an HD product now listed on their website...though it looks as if it isn't shipping yet.

I know I'll be bookmarking it and ordering when it's available.

(I am not given any promotional consideration by GoPro, Creative Labs, or any other manufacturer associated with this post.)

TimK

Vado HD...from Creative Labs

2009-10-06T10:20:00.011-05:00

Creative Labs makes some interesting stuff. Most of it aimed squarely at the technology consumer market.

Below, I focused on the GoPro POV cameras that I use for my motorsports work. They're great cameras with well-made mounting hardware.

The problem is that I work primarily in high definition and the GoPro's video size of 512x384 is hard to utilize without really aggressive upscaling...which really isn't possible to do without featuring the obvious low resolution of the pictures. GoPro is working on an HD version, but no word yet on when it will be available.

Upon some additional searching, I decided to examine some cameras that fall into the category of the "Flip" camcorders that are out there as many of them are 720p capable. I stumbled upon a unit from Creative Labs called the Vada HD.

The camera has an on board USB connection for offloading and it charges from the USB port as well...not as convenient as the over-the-counter lithium AAAs and SD cards that go into the GoPro...but I gain the 1280x720p framesize.

This is also not to mention that the camera's form factor is that of a cel phone with an on-board camera and comes with no super-useful mounting hardware. In fact, since it's really meant to replace the family camcorder, it doesn't even come with mildly useful mounting hardware... It comes with a somewhat curious latex "boot" that I suppose is a very useful barrier against liquids and perspiration getting into the camera, though the viewscreen, lens and USB pigtail remain uncovered and available...and I suppose technically, still vulnerable. The unit is oriented vertically and has a threaded mounting hole off to one side. I'm working on fabricating a reasonable way to mount this in a car without the obblong weight of the thing causing strange stresses and vibrations. It may very well end up mounted upside down.

The GoPro comes with the waterproof shell that I've verified myself-underwater.

The Vada is of course, creating aggressively compressed video. The device has 8 GB of storage and for most casual use, as well as for the POV use I anticipate for it, I suspect it will be fine. I've included some frame grabs in the post for you to examine (click on the images for full size).

The PC utility that comes with the device seems to work well...for those who want to head directly to YouTube...you can do that right in the utility.

I've noticed with the GoPro that the Motion JPEG AVI files seem to agree with Sony's Vegas Video without much problem but my most frequent tool, Adobe Premiere Pro, can't seem to run them properly under any circumstances I can create. I haven't completed my tests on a post path for the Vada H264 material, but I'm going to be on that in the very near future.

...and of course I'll need to figure out how the heck to mount it.

TimK

Creative Labs Website

GoPro Camera Website

Fun doesn't have to be HD

2009-08-12T06:21:00.007-05:00

I've been out a while I know...I've been on vacation. My family and I vacation near Munising, Michigan where we camp on the Southern shore of Lake Superior. One fringe benefit of the area are the numerous shipwrecks that are in the area, many of them are in shallow enough water to simply view over the side of the boat.

This year, I thought it might be fun to take my GoPro POV cameras and see what they can do underwater. I have two units with 170 degree view lenses, and these little cameras come with an underwater housing included. Since I'm not a scuba diver, I decided to simply mount the cameras on an ordinary paint roller handle extension, one shooting video and the other shooting stills.

While the video is relatively low resolution by today's standards (512x384), the still images are far larger (2592x1944).

These little cameras are a lot of fun and were a great way for all of us to get a better view of some of the more interesting sites that we could have only shown the family through a dive or a snorkel in some extremely cold water...

At 200.00 USD, these devices are the least expensive fun that I know of...

These cameras record to a standard SD card and run on two AAA batteries (lithium works best as you might guess). An underwater housing is included and depending on which package you buy, many mounting methods are available.

GoPro website

Cut!...It's my wife calling.

2009-07-14T10:43:00.007-05:00

OK...just when you thought you'd seen it all with hand cage/matte box rigs for DSLRs (Red Rock's really elaborate rig is pictured), you realize you ain't seen nothin' yet.

We seem to be moving in the same opposing directions that the HD television-buying, yet YouTube obsessed consumer is... We like video to be of great quality...or really convenient. And we're willing to completely compromise one for the other.

The people at Zacuto in Chicago have seen an opportunity and seized it. Zacuto has been known for very solid camera accessory rigs for some time now. They are a rental company that also does their own hardware development.

The new iPhone has video capability-what it doesn't have...is a handle. So, here it is. This is the ZGrip iPhone Pro. Zacuto has made a fairly informative video that shows the capability of the grip system in use here.

You can mount the iPhone on a tripod, on a long accesory rod to gain elevation... it looks as if you can create a 30 pound accessory kit for your 135 gram smart phone in no time.

I'll be holding out for the teensy swing away matte box and french flag myself.

Once an iCinematographer has his or her rods, tripod, jib, audio recorder and other accessories assembled, the iPhone may be the only cel phone that is actually too bulky to carry on a commercial flight with all its accessories...

Don't forget to set the ringer to 'silent' before you call "Action!"

TimK

More on DisplayPort...Part 2 of 2

2009-07-06T09:10:00.005-05:00

Part 1 of this topic is here.

While the case for moving forward from VGA and DVI is a fairly obvious one for many of us, the logic on why we need DisplayPort in a world where HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) has taken hold, may be more subtle.

HDMI has become the standard for high definition television displays and, by extension, the devices that connect to them.Its ability to support multiple audio channels, nearly any video or computer display format and as of version 1.4, an option for 100 Mbit/s Ethernet connectivity would seem to make HDMI a clear contender as the omnipotent display connection choice for all entertainment and data display applications.
So what is gained from adding DisplayPort to the landscape?

In the list of advantages over DVI, both HDMI and DisplayPort can carry audio and each has the ability to use RGB or Y’CbCr colorspace (VGA and DVI are RGB only).

There are several reasons why DisplayPort may be better in certain circumstances…and in cases where there are several reasons for anything, one of them is often ‘money.’

In our scenario, the cost factor referenced most by manufacturers is HDMI’s licensing fees. The cost of licensing HDMI in the PC display space is apparently not as practical as it is for the consumer television market. DisplayPort is a royalty-free, VESA (Visual Electronics Standards Association)-defined standard.

Another application that makes DisplayPort technology attractive is “chip-to-chip” interface for use inside a device that has an integrated display (think laptops and smartphones, currently using low voltage differential signaling or LVDS), as well as a “box-to-box” for connecting external displays. This creates interesting opportunities down the road for external displays to become lighter and thinner (and less expensive) by jettisoning the considerable electronics dedicated to scaling and other “receive signal and deploy pixels” sort of duties inside the display and making the display “direct drive.” Manufacturers can also cut costs by standardizing on one method of driving integrated and external displays. HDMI is designed as a “box-to-box” connection only.

As our requirements for computer display performance continue to expand, ideally our next connectivity standard would be able to grow as well. HDMI has a lot of advantages over DVI, but one limitation the two share is having an external clock. This limits the ultimate speed and bandwidth of the pipeline to the predetermined maximum rates already set in the architecture. In a case like this, the standard needs to be revised to extend the capabilities of the protocol as in the case of HDMI 1.3 increasing the clock speed to 340 MHz over the 165 MHz in HDMI 1.2 to enable support of WQXGA displays (the 2560x1600 of 30” LCDs most typically) . DisplayPort embeds its clock in the data signal itself, making it scalable, along with data payloads, to the physical limits of the pipeline.

So…we know some of the advantages of DisplayPort…what are the limitations?

First, HDMI is backwards compatible with DVI and you can drive an HDMI display with a DVI output. DisplayPort can be adapted and converted to HDMI or DVI, but of course the signal would have to be compatible with the destination. In other words a Y’CbCr signal could be sent through an adapter from DisplayPort to HDMI, but DVI can only handle RGB.

Second, HDMI supports xvYCC or “extended-gamut YCC” whereas DisplayPort does not. xvYCC is a color space that utilizes the full gamut of RGB grayscale, which would use all values 0-255 in an 8 bit grayscale versus a typical television gamut which would confine legal values to 16-235 under BT.601 and BT.709.

Third, HDMI supports Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, which is one reason why HDMI is very entrenched in consumer products. For computer displays used in post production environments, support of these formats is far less an issue.

In the real world of motion visual post production (much of it which can no longer be described as “film” and some it even awkward to designate as “video”…) , both standards have some foothold.

The HP DreamColor display has been causing many of us in the image-handling world to reconsider the configuration of our systems to be able to monitor Deep Color…in this case, 30 bit color precision (10 bits per channel, effectively a palette of 1 billion colors). The DreamColor will connect to DisplayPort or HDMI 1.3 outputs…along with DVI-Integrated. Of course, DVI will only work with 24 bit RGB signals, but it’s a clear sign that DVI’s epitaph isn’t quite written yet. (The DreamColor also has S-video and composite video inputs…a bit of a trailer hitch on a Ferrari in my mind.)

Several manufacturers have released HDMI in/out cards for use as ingest/output devices for video editors taking in material from an HDMI-enabled camcorder, and several manufacturers have added HDMI capability to their computer display cards.

AJA Video Systems recently came out with their “LHi” line of video cards, which not only features all the traditional video industry standard interfaces such as HDSDI and analog component video, but now includes HDMI in/out.

DisplayPort has been adopted in varying degrees by many other manufacturers, and has seen a commitment as the next-generation display solution in NVIDIA’s line of professional display cards and Apple Computer’s laptops, as well as a fair number of their consumer desktops.

As for myself, I do color correction work and I also do conventional post production and editing work and I see Deep Color devices and workflows as a way to gain precision in my work. HDMI will likely be a very neat and clean way to drive a television display to view output in that environment, but I look forward to the sort of technical and economic advancements that DisplayPort will enable for those of us who need a standard that will stabilize yet remain extensible.

…and who among us wouldn’t love to add just one more cable type to the rack in the closet?

www.displayport.org
www.hdmi.org

TimK

Why Display Port? Part 1 of 2

2009-06-27T12:35:00.011-05:00

If you have been involved with computers for any amount of time, you may very well be reaching your point of maximum tolerance for sheer number of connection and slot types available. As the pace of advancement has accelerated in computers themselves, advancement and evolution of the methods of interface with these systems continues to accelerate in kind.

Display interface may not have been changing with quite the speed of hard drives and other peripherals, but for those of us who use computers in video post production, it’s become a chore to determine how to construct a signal path and monitor combination that can be considered “evaluation” quality as CRTs fade into the sunset.

When VGA (Video Graphics Array) was introduced in 1987, it was certainly a step up from its predecessor, EGA, which could choose 16 colors, and added the ability to choose those from a palette of 64 possible shades over its predecessor, CGA.

Of course, then we moved to Super VGA, XGA, WQVGA, WXGA, WSXGA, WUXGA, WQXGA…and on and on…ever increasing pixel count and color precision.

Of course, as displays changed, requirements changed in the way we fed them a signal as well. Flat panel displays had pixels instead of a CRT’s analog scanlines. Enter the Digital Visual Interface, or DVI connector in 1999.

Of course, the great thing about the standard DVI connector is that there are 5 different models. They are each just different enough to make many technicians misidentify them about 50% of the time, but to make them incompatible about 75% of the time.

A DVI-I connector (“I” for “Integrated”) can carry analog as well as digital information to be backwards compatible with analog displays. A DVI-D connector is “Digital” only. The fact that there even IS a DVI-A (“Analog only”) connector defies logic as the reason for DVI’s development was to overcome previous analog display cabling limitations. There is an M1-DA connector that integrates USB with digital and/or analog signals, and of course, the DVI-DL (“Dual-Link”) is what is necessary to run those spiffy 30” LCD displays at full native resolution because of its additional payload capacity.

All this has been expanding the capabilities of our computer displays quite rapidly over the last decade, but for video production professionals, 24 bits per pixel has started to become a bit limiting (DVI Dual-Link does have the capability to convey 48 bits/pixel in specific applications).

As displays have shown up with 30 bit color precision, (see more about HP's DreamColor here) in a new pipeline was needed. HDMI can handle the color, but as a data display driver, it didn’t quite have the necessary flexibility.

Enter Display Port.

Continue to Part 2 of this topic...

TimK

One of my favorite explanations of color balance...

2009-06-11T21:13:00.005-05:00

The fine folks at Cambridge in Color have a very helpful explanation of color balance. (among other things)

The concepts behind light and color are key to the work we do with images both in the field and in post. Check out the article which includes several solid visuals...

TimK

A Primer on 3d Modeling...for those of us who don't do it for a living.

2009-05-05T12:11:00.003-05:00

(Sorry for the gap in posts. I've been traveling for an extended period.)

Over the years, I've dabbled a bit in 3d animation but I am a neophyte relative to anyone who does it on a regular basis.

That's why Jeff Brown from FireMist Media is in my rolodex. When I have a need for something in the way of complex 3d animation, he gets a call from me.

Jeff has put together a white paper on 3d modeling to give those of us on the outside a bit of insight into the general concepts of 3d animation. For those of us who purchase this sort of work from vendors, this article will certainly help you begin to cut through much of the jargon involved in 3d work.

Download the PDF from the link here.

TimK

4 cores? 8 cores? How about 240 processor cores?

2009-04-03T08:21:00.010-05:00

NVIDIA has been making some pretty heavy-duty display cards for professionals for a number of years now. I use 2 NVIDIA Quadro dual head cards to drive my 4 monitor post production workstation. The acceleration provided for visual effects preview is extremely helpful in getting more work done in less time.
With all the focus on bigger and badder CPUs in our workstations, one of the more intriguing advancements in computer muscle is happening somewhat quietly. That would be the advent of parallel processing over a much larger group of processor cores.
While I'm absolutely positive we'll continue to see advancements in CPU power, one CPU core represents the capability to process one operation at a time...at an incredible speed of course. When you add more physical processors, you gain processing power but your limitation becomes how well the math can be sectioned up between two processes and the energy expended to figure out how to divide the operations up-and on the back side, reassemble the results into one unified dataset.
When you have multiple logical cores on one physical wafer, you now have the ability to do multiple operations using each logical core, limited by the pipeline that gets the operations on and off the chip as well as the efficiency of the code to divide and reassemble data. Multiple physical processors would involve multiple "pipes" to get data on and off each processor, gaining some extra torque over an equal configuration utilizing the same number of logical cores on one physical processor.
For operations like 3d animation or complex visual effects where the data that needs to be streamed onto the processor and the math involved is small in relationship to the processing necessary, multiple physical or logical cores are of immediate benefit. In video editing applications, adding processor cores can be helpful where large amounts of decode and encode operations are necessary, say when editing highly compressed HDV or AVCHD footage. In applications where the material is less compressed, or even uncompressed, multiple processor cores become less of an advantage as the dataset that needs to be moved becomes larger, but requires less processing, moving the speed burden to hard drives and buss speed.
NVIDIA has recently started focusing on their CUDA technology. CUDA is what gives software manufacturers a way to tap into the processing architecture of NVIDIA's powerful graphics cards to complete processes that may or may not be display or graphics related. NVIDIA uses parallel processing to get the speed from their configuration. While the cores may be smaller, there are a LOT more of them. The Quadro 5800 card for instance, has 240 processor cores. One example of utilization of this kind of processing is the CUDA-enabled RapiHD™ H.264 encoding plug-in for NVIDIA Quadro cards.
(Wikipedia's take on parallel processing-good general info.)
A way to picture the relative capability of an 8 core CPU and a 240 core GPU might be to picture five decks of cards being dealt out. With eight dealers, each dealer has 32.5 cards to distribute...with 240 dealers, each one distributes 1.083 cards. Even when we take into account that the 240 processor cores are smaller, the share of the load they have to carry is MUCH smaller and the processing is all happening at the same time. The 8 dealers may be very fast but they can't throw 32 cards out at the same time and expect them to fall neatly in front of each player in the proper rotation...they have to go one at a time. They may be dealing cards out of a pitching machine at a velocity that could severe a human limb, but the cards still have to be handled one at a time-serially. In the case of the 240 dealers in parallel, they also handle the cards one at a time with the one caveat that all but 20 of them are only handling one card with one destination. Which way do you think would be faster?
I think that GPU based processing is one of the most interesting areas of computer processing to keep an eye on... With GPUs becoming available to handle instructions along with ever more powerful CPUs, I don't think that the exponential growth in computing speed and power will be leveling off anytime soon. This technology is even being deployed as the primary processor in specialized workstations...learn more about Tesla here.

TimK

Sasquatch...The Loch Ness Monster...and Magenta

2009-03-23T11:09:00.004-05:00

I came across this article on biotele.com (a site that calls itself the "neurostimulation portal" which seems appropriate, looking at the home page design) that explains why...spectrally...magenta does not exist.

It's an interesting article for those of you who are interested in color theory and how the human brain perceives color.

TimK

Slumdog Millionaire wins "Best Film"...without much film at all.

2009-02-25T07:06:00.008-06:00

Slumdog Millionaire is truly one of those inspirational filmmaker stories. We never get tired of an underdog and a low budget film about a poor person in India is about as un-commercial as you can get in the feature film industry.

The recognition for the film (to date) includes:

2008 Camerimage Film Festival "Golden Frog" Award for best-in-class visual aesthetic and technical values

National Board of Review of Motion Pictures "Best Film for 2008"

American Society of Cinematographers nominates Anthony Dod Mantle, BSC for Outstanding Achievement Award for Slumdog Millionaire.

A total of four 2009 Golden Globe Awards

Nominated for ten Academy Awards

Received 8 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Directing, Cinematography and"Film" Editing.

In addition to being amazing, it's also a "film" that was acquired, in the majority, digitally. (depending on who you're quoting and whether or not you refer to raw footage or finished screen time the figure sits around 60-70%).

There has been a LOT of buzz around some Digital Cinema Cameras, but this one has been a bit under the radar.

The Silicon Imaging 2K and 2K Mini are now officially cameras of legitimate capability... Actually they really aren't two cameras. The 2K Mini is the sensor assembly alone and works by ethernet link to a fast laptop, which constitutes the 'processing' portion of the camera body, complete with viweing LUTs and an onboard version of Iridas SpeedGrade embedded for viewing picture adjustment. The full SI 2K takes the mini and inserts it into a full camera body with all the processing and storage on board, including the embedded version of SpeedGrade, no laptop required. If you have the full SI-2K, you already have the Mini, just detach it from the full body and connect it to the body via ethernet and you have a dash cam or POV camera with a full body on .

The camera uses a Super 16mm sized Bayer sensor (for more on Bayer, see my blog post on the Bayer patent from 12-14-08).

The workflow-favored format for the camera to write to is CineForm RAW, which is a high quality, compressed RAW motion picture format that has several post workflow options for editing directly inside an NLE without 'flattening' the image.

(**I should probably point out that I was involved a bit with this camera's testing prior, and shortly after its release, as well as involved with CineForm products, so I am probably not without my biases...)

Congratulations to everyone involved with Slumdog Millionaire, and congratulations to Silicon Imaging and CineForm.

Links for more info:

Slumdog Millionaire at IMDb

Silicon Imaging

CineForm

So what qualifies as 'High Definition' Video?

2009-02-14T18:35:00.007-06:00

One basic criteria often referenced for high definition video is having at least four times the resolution of standard television (double the pixels horizontally and vertically). However...

A significant source of confusion for production professionals migrating into HD delivery is that the accepted picture sizes for digital television distribution vary and not all are “high definition” by any modern standard we could apply. In the United States, the ATSC or Advanced Television Systems Committee has issued “Table 3” of picture formats for digital television, specifying 640x480, 704x480, 1280x720, and 1920x1080 as digital video display resolutions. Both the 640x480 and the 704x480 formats have interlaced and progressive variations at multiple frame rates, with the progressive scan versions often referred to as “extended” or “enhanced definition,” the spoken shorthand being “EDTV.” (HighDef.org has the chart, as well as a simplified version here.)

The two accepted frame sizes for HD, 1920x1080 interlace/progressive, and 1280x720 progressive are 16:9 aspect ratio picture formats.

1280x720 is not 4x as many pixels as standard definition video (it even falls short of 3x), but it is used as a progressively scanned image. Most professionals would agree that progressive scanning does allow for the perception of very high detail with the tradeoff being progressive scanning does sacrifice some aspects of the smooth motion of interlaced scanning at an identical frame rate.

Advocates for the 1280x720 progressive format point out that while 1920x1080 images may be larger in size, when the 1080 frame is interlaced the picture delivers only half of the picture content every 60^th of a second, while “720p” can refresh the entire image every 60^th of a second. In this scenario then, 720p would deliver only slightly fewer pixels over time than “1080i,” and it would be temporally “sharper.”

The comparison and debate over spatial resolution (frame size) and temporal resolution (frame rate) and whether one trumps the other didn’t begin here and it won’t end here either. However, it's probably significant to note that one large stock footage library has ceased placing new footage acquired as anything less that 1080...and the trend for program format for an increasing number of broadcast and cable networks is to simply require a 1080i master with the stipulation that footage may be acquired as 720p (not mastered) with prior clearance... Many local stations will undoubtedly drag their feet on upgrading local origination to HD resolutions in the present economy, but mastering you content in HD maximizes shelflife.

Each professional needs to take a hard look at what sort of projects they do and what kind of delivery requirements are involved. It does look as if mainstream program distribution is definitely pointing toward 1080.

John Galt of Panavision chats a bit in the pasture...

2009-02-07T13:51:00.004-06:00

John Galt, Panavision's Senior Vice President of Advanced Digital Imaging (and I'm happy to say, a professional acquaintance of mine) has taken some time to chat with CreativeCow.net on pixel counts, dynamic range and a really interesting new technology that Panavision has in the queue called 'DynaMax' (Think HDR in motion).

Some of this discussion does come back to the point of what the human eye actually sees... The December 9th, 2008 entry here on the blog has some additional thoughts... see "Shoot it and they will...probably see it"

As always, I refer those of you with questions to watch Panavision's excellent videos on camera sensors, image sharpness and modulation transfer function, which are permanently linked in the right margin.

TimK

AAF Explanations from...the AMW Association

2009-01-27T10:44:00.006-06:00

I apologize for the break in postings...I've been on assignment.

As we all approach the world of universal project and media structure...more or less, it's always good to review why in the world we are doing this to ourselves and at least remember that the whole idea was ultimately to make everything easier.

The Advanced Media Workflow Association is the name of the body that is the keeper of the AAF and MXF standards that manufacturers seem to typically adopt, but not completely or in a standard way...which of course leaves the main role of these standards (transportability between applications and environments) absent in many circumstances.

Eventually however, we all know that intellectually the adoption of open standards in a uniform manner will benefit the entire production community and therefore we'll hold out hope that some day manufacturers may actually agree and implement accordingly...

In the meantime, the AMWA has an excellent AAF explanation document available for those of you interested in a better understanding of what AAF is ...and isn't.

Download the PDF here.

TimK

Want to hear about the REAL beginning of the Internet?

2009-01-09T09:26:00.005-06:00

Vint Cerf (pictured) was around way back when the idea of what we now know as the internet was being visualized and being concept-tested. I know it isn't related to imaging directly, but this is an interesting presentation by a really engaging speaker on a topic that affects all of us.

Trust me, it's a great tech war story, you'll like it. It runs an hour and you can download it and watch it when you have some wait time.

...on one of my favorite sites, The Research Channel.

TimK

General Knowledge: Quick Visual Guide to RAID Levels

2009-01-06T11:57:00.004-06:00

JetStor has (in my opinion) one of the most easily understood visual guides to RAID Levels and how they work.

The selection buttons are a little small, but they're just above the illustration.

Enjoy.

TimK

Dalsa announces a 48 megapixel image sensor.

2009-01-03T23:03:00.005-06:00

Dalsa has introduced an image sensor that is 48mm x 36mm and has a photosite lattice of 8000 x 6000. The CCD is a Bayer pattern in the modern RGB configuration. (See the post "Bayer Sensors...Patented in 1976...")

The technical paperwork in here. The claim is that even though each photosite is reduced in size by 30% from the previous generation sensor, the signal-to-noise ratio improved by the same amount.

Dalsa also has an excellent tech paper on how image sensors work here.

Luckily our data storage expands as voraciously as our pixel counts...

TimK

More excellent reference material: CCD vs CMOS image sensors

2009-01-02T21:25:00.005-06:00

I'm dusting off all my favorite reference material and sharing it with you this Holiday Season.

The fine people of Dalsa have some of the most detailed CCD vs CMOS sensor comparisons I've seen. Make sure to also check out the two links on the right side that take you to additional papers on the topic in PDF form.

More news from Dalsa tomorrow...a small hint...pixel count.

Enjoy.

TimK

More General Knowledge...courtesy of Quantel

2008-12-25T17:22:00.007-06:00

Quantel has an excellent glossary of DTV/HDTV terminology. I find myself searching for technical definitions often and this is one of my frequent stops...

Quantel Digital Factbook

TimK

General Knowledge: Colorspace from Charles Poynton

2008-12-20T21:49:00.004-06:00

Charles Poynton has a great note (formatted as a FAQ) concerning color space here.

Some really straightforward explanations of terms frequently misapplied...

TimK

Into the way back machine...

2008-12-19T10:56:00.005-06:00

A break from the future for a moment, let's look at some history.

An interesting look at early educational television...at Johns Hopkins.

The topic is formatted for viewers, but it's a good look back at what television was like before NLEs and tapeless workflow. (...well, technically I guess it was tapeless workflow...)

Hosted by John Astin.

...from the Research Channel. Enjoy.

What IS a video camera anyway?

2008-12-18T08:25:00.002-06:00

EOS 5D Mark II

So...it had to happen. Actually I suspect it is happening/has happened more than once...but here is a credible example of a television commercial for a real client (Ford Motor Co.) shot on a digital SLR.

Make your own judgements on the quality, but this will continue to reshape how we think about image acquisition...

TimK

The HP Dreamcolor Display, 30 bit color...

2008-12-16T09:23:00.006-06:00

The HP Dreamcolor monitors have been creating a bit of buzz around the post production industry. These displays utilize an LED backlight to increase the color precision of the monitor to 30 bits. (10 bits/channel as opposed to 8 bits per channel, which is how most cold cathode fluorescent backlit LCD displays seem to be defined.)

(See the blog post from December 11th, linking to Martin Euredjian's assessment of LED backlight deployment in LCD panels for another perspective.)

If DreamWorks finds the technology acceptable for their work, it would seem that it probably achieves its claims, but extensive testing is still happening and as with most new products these days, the monitor itself has had some software upgrades to improve performance...

Below, the Hard Forum Review seems pretty thorough, though the reviewer mentions he doesn't have all the hard measurement tools he'd like to substantiate a few subjective analyses...but still considerable work put in and some off-brochure info... Dithering seems to be something of concern.

The Hard Forum Review

An HP person chimes in on the Creative Cow thread below. Someone mentions the dithering mentioned in the Hard Forum review and Dan Bennett from HP says he's seen it but there's a firmware upgrade for the monitor, though the Hard Forum reviewer seems to show he has the latest firmware...

The Creative Cow.net Apple Color Forum thread

HP's FAQ on the Dreamcolor monitor is here:

The HP Dreamcolor FAQ

For reference: PNY NVIDIA's two 30 bit display cards capable of driving the Dreamcolor:

QuadroFX 4800 (one Dual-link DVI port)

QuadroFX 5800 (two dual-link DVI ports)

There are other display card vendors of course, and I've tried to scan the product lines of ATI and Matrox for 30 bit capable cards...while ATI appears to have some products with 30 bit support on PC only (24 bit on Mac), it's difficult to discern if Matrox has a product or not. I'm almost positive I've encountered a description of a Matrox product that supports 30 bit...I'm checking further.

(Update: After a few email exchanges with Matrox, it appears that the instances where Matrox display cards talk about display cards with numbers larger than 24 bit, they are referring to 32 bit, which would be 3-8 bit color channels an 8 bit alpha channel, not 30 bit color precision, which would be 3-10 bit color channels.)

TimK

Bayer Sensors...Patented 1976...but things have changed a bit...

2008-12-14T23:15:00.010-06:00

If you spend any time working with television or feature or high end television spot production, you've probably heard at least one person express wonder or disdain, or perhaps complete faith or doubt in the relative merit of a Bayer Pattern sensor.

The original patent, granted on July 20, 1976, has the sensor primarily as a Y'CC (color difference) sensor with the green photosites shown here being Y' and the red and blue photosites being "C1" and "C2" (as opposed to naming a specific color difference structure).

(image is courtesy of Wikimedia)

However, Bryce Bayer changed the proposed sensor layout for an RGB implementation in the patent. Today, most well known Bayer implementations in the 'digital cinema' technology area (RED, Silicon Imaging, etc.) are RGB, and photosites are distributed as illustrated in the first visual. However, the original vision for a Bayer pattern RGB sensor in the patent was actually what you see here:

You'll notice that blue is sampled far less... Apparently the arrangement was meant to mimic human visual acuity, which is of course sensitive most to green, less to red and least to blue. The sensor's layout would have spatially sampled 50% Green, 37.5% Red, 12.5% Blue.

It would've been curious to see how such a sensor performed. Though it would've been maddening to develop a low pass filter for it...

(I don't know of any implementations of this highly asymmetrical system, but I don't work much with still imaging or highly specific industrial applications...if you know of one, please add it in the comments.)

Original Bayer sensor patent #3,971,065.

TimK

LED Backlights, Our Salvation for Reference LCD Panels?

2008-12-11T06:35:00.006-06:00

Many of us in the post production industry have been coping with the relatively limited options in reference monitors these days.

A recent glimmer of hope for many of us was the idea of an LED backlit LCD display as opposed to a cold cathode fluorescent, which would expand the color gamut of an LCD display to something we could more easily utilize for precision color decisions...

(Caveat: Yes, the links above are wikipedia...they are starting points only for those who are unfamiliar with the concepts, not the final indisputable words on these topics...wikipedia, like used cars, can be a great deal, but should always be shopped with caution...)

Martin Euredjian of eCinema Systems, makers of LCD panels for the post production industry, has some thoughts on this approach. As it turns out, eCinema had given this idea a shot some time ago. It may be time to look for a new technology to be the next step up for the LCD panel.

Martin has a whitepaper that he points out is, in his judgement, 'not a finished piece'. we'll have to call this a sneak peek.

Thanks to Martin for the insight and permission.

TimK

Quick Entry...Jan Ozer on Adobe CS4 and 64 bit systems

2008-12-09T19:33:00.003-06:00

Anyone wondering about just how much advantage Windows Vista or Apple Macintosh holds for Adobe CS4 users over Windows XP...may want to check out Jan Ozer's article at Digital Content Producer.com.

The results appear to be...significant.

TimK

Human Visual Acuity...Shoot it and they will...probably see it.

2008-12-09T09:29:00.006-06:00

With all the carrying on about pixels in our digital imaging world, it's interesting that nobody has thought about upgrading the last step in the image viewing process...the human eye.

If you read up on the topic (or just Google it I guess...), you will find that human visual acuity is often described as "cycles per degree". To any broadcast engineers out there, this sound suspiciously like "line pairs per picture height"...and it's very similar. Humans have a given field of view...with each individual varying somewhat of course. Military pilots in many western countries are required to have a 147 degree peripheral range...unscientifically, I can see dark objects out to about 150 and bright tennis balls, flashes of light and signs that say 'beer' out to about 180 (though my wife thinks I have full 360 for signs that say 'beer').

Within this field of view, humans can only discern a fixed amount of 'resolution' or cycles per degree ( a 'cycle' being much like a line pair...one dark, one light alternating...at the point they become blurred and the light/dark turn visually to grey, you've exceeded the resolving power of the visual system). The images we watch on a screen can only be perceived with all their inherent resolution if they fill enough of our field of view to occupy enough 'degrees' to account for the image resolution.

The data on human visual acuity paints a picture that is...well, not as sharp as many people think.

Panavision's John Galt remarks in his excellent presentation in Panavision's "Demystifying Camera Specs" , Segment 4, that the visual frequencies they assess most closely to determine if a 35mm flm image is 'sharp' is "20-21 cycles per millimeter" which on a 24mm wide film frame (super 35mm stock, no sound track), he reminds us, comes out to be about 1000 pixels across. More precise (higher) frequencies are visible of course, but to a human viewer these are the 'make or break' aspects of image sharpness in this visual system.

(To understand more about the principles of how different visual frequencies are captured and retained...watch the whole series of videos. This is, in my opinion, the clearest explanation of what resolution and perceived sharpness really is that I've ever encountered...I have a permanent link in the list of links to the right... For some info on how the eye responds to different color frequencies, I find this article at Olympus Microscopy to be helpful)

As far as the maximum 'cycles per degree' attainable in the human visual acuity system, research tells me that is...somewhat unclear. I have seen information that quotes everything from 30 to as high as 60 cycles per degree...I did see that dogs apparently come in at about 12 cycles per degree (I've moved the dog bed in the living room closer to the television).

BobAtkins.com has an interesting article, focusing primarily on still photography, but I thought the graphic and the study outlined actually has bearing on our discussion. You can see that regardless of the maximum visible resolution of the human visual acuity system, our vision is at peak effectiveness at about 6 cycles per degree (moving my chair past the dog bed...).

So the interesting take away from much of this information is that our perception of 'sharpness' has less to do with peak resolution than we think. Someone with a 25" diagonal television image 10 feet away may actually have trouble discerning between 480p, 720p, and 1080p material all else being equal (and you thought that your cranky old neighbor was just too tight to buy an HDTV capable monitor). HDTV didn't catch on in Japan before the U.S. because everyone has bigger television monitors...it's because they have smaller houses.

As we all obsess over the pixel count in the sensors, video file codecs, and monitors we use...let's keep in mind that the human eye has its own limitations, and the television monitor or projection screen isn't the final stage in the visual chain.

...and since most of us produce material for humans...

TimK

Color Subsample Notation

2008-12-08T12:22:00.008-06:00

The numbers get tossed around with impunity these days. The first number is usually 4 and the closer the next two are to 4 the better…right? Well, while that statement is basically true, there’s a lot more to it than just that. The number is really a ratio. (click on the chart for a large visual)

“4” in the first slot is meant to represent the baseline of four pixels and these ratios only apply to digital video signals. The physical arrangement of the four pixels in question isn’t really referred to in a standard way any longer but originally it was supposed to represent 4 horizontal pixels. The second number and third number are frequently, but erroneously assumed to represent the relative sampling value for each of the color difference channels. Actually the second number refers to the sampling frequency of both difference signals horizontally and the third number was originally intended to indicate the sampling frequency of both difference signals vertically, though the system was developed without really considering vertical subsampling systems like 4:2:0. In the current system, the third number is either the same as the second number as in 4:2:2 and 4:1:1 indicating no vertical subsampling…all the vertical color difference samples are there in each column that has a horizontal color difference sample. In ratios where the third number is zero, the “0” indicates that there is a 2:1 vertical subsample in addition to the horizontal color difference subsample.

4:4:4

A designation of 4:4:4 would mean that there is a discreet sample for each of three color channels making up the signal for each pixel. While this could apply to either RGB or one of the color difference color spaces used for video, 4:4:4 would most often be seen with an RGB signal. Even though 4:4:4 could refer to a Y'CbCr color sample, RGB does not subsample one color channel in relation to another, so 4:2:2 (or 4:1:1, etc...) would never refer to RGB.

4:2:2

This number is most prevalent in high-end video formats and refers to a discrete sample for Y’ on every pixel and samples for each color difference signal is sampled at one value for every two pixels. While in theory this sounds like the elimination of a lot of information (a third actually) compared to 4:4:4, the human eye prioritizes the detail in the luma portion of the image and most humans would be hard pressed to see the difference between a color Y’ CB CR image in 4:4:4 and one in 4:2:2. In fact, 4:2:2 is good enough that most video types that are designated as “uncompressed” are actually color sampled at 4:2:2.

4:1:1

Most users of NTSC DV are familiar with this color sampling scheme. For every four Y’ samples, there is only one sample for CB and CR. This creates a 4x1 four pixel horizontal “block” with common color difference values, though each pixel has a discreet Y’ value so the pixels aren’t identical. While DV footage is used extensively, even in broadcasting, it can be a challenge for special effects and compositing as chroma keying and green and blue screen work requires a lot of subtle tonal variations to create smooth irregular vertical edges. Canopus and Matrox each created custom methods of decode for DV to attempt to better interpolate the four pixel horizontal spread for better keying, and many software keyers have similar measures in place. It's intersting to note that even though 4:2:0 subsampling is thought by many to be somewhat inferior to 4:1:1, 4:2:0 (compression set aside from color subsample for a moment) can actually be slightly easier to composite as there is only one pixel of interpolated value in either the vertical or horizontal direction, while 4:1:1 interpolates 3 pixel values horizontally.

4:2:0

PAL DV users and anyone who outputs to MPEG has seen this number. Many who may initially interpret the notation as a Y’ sample for each pixel, a CB sample for every two pixels, and no samples whatsoever for CR can find it confusing. In reality, there are the same number of color difference samples as NTSC DV with the pixels arranged differently. Also confusing: all the color difference sample sites for the various approaches to 4:2:0 are not standard. (see chart) JPEG/MPEG-1 structures the samples so that they’re sited in the center of the four pixel block. MPEG-2 sites the samples between pixels vertically, and PAL DV sites the difference samples on alternating lines. Even with the color difference samples sited differently for different applications of 4:2:0, you could say there are still four pixel blocks that net out to the same amount of color difference samples as 4:1:1 and simply picture these 4 pixel “blocks” as square (2x2) instead of a horizontal line (4x1) like NTSC DV’s 4:1:1.

4:2:2:4, 4:4:4:4

As if all this isn’t complicated enough…you could add a number. 4:2:2:4 or 4:4:4:4 refer to 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 color sampling with the addition of an alpha channel for keying purposes. The fourth channel would carry an 8 bit or 10 bit (depending on the image format) grayscale map indicating relative transparency of each pixel in the image. The alpha number is always the same as the Y' sample.

3:1:1

As if the strange way the second and third value seem to fall in these ratios isn’t confusing enough…now we see a ratio where the first number has changed. This ratio appears when referring to HDCAM pictures which on playback are 1920x1080, but actually record 1440x1080 to tape. In my opinion the most confusing aspect is not so much that there is a different baseline number, but whether or not that number is a proportion of “4” in itself as 1440/1920 is 3 of 4. I suspect the interpolation to 1920x1080 4:2:2 (this is how the manufacturer presents the specs on the playout picture) and the color difference subsampling ratio of 3:1:1 are separate issues and their mathematical scale to full raster 1920x1080 is most likely coincidental. 3 equates to 1440 horizontal Y’ samples and 1 is a ratio to 3 designating 480 horizontal color difference samples. This notation is NOT on the chart as it does not exist anywhere but in file storage, and the end user can only access HDCAM footage as 4:2:2 SDI output without a proprietary post solution.

TimK

8 Bit vs 10 bit Color Precision

2008-12-06T11:16:00.004-06:00

Often when 8 bit vs 10 bit color is brought up, many confuse the increase in precision with an increase in ultimate dynamic range. Moving from 8 bit to 10 bit will increase the amount of data you save, but it will still exist inside the color range you're using.

Every 'bit' has an 'on' and 'off' state if you will...the zeros and ones that make up data. One bit would be the equivalent of ancient terminal CRTs...each pixel is 'lit'...or not. Each bit we add gives us another 'on/off switch', which when you multiply the 2 states of the first bit by the 2 states of the second bit...you have 4 possible states or gray shades in our case...add another bit to increase to 3 bits and double that giving you eight states, or 'shades' if you're referring to imaging...

4 bit=16 shades
5 bit=32
6 bit=64
7 bit=128
8 bit=256
9 bit=512
10 bit =1024

An RGB '8 bit file' in typical use, refers to '8 bits per color channel'...frequently referred to as a 24 bit file with the combined channels, and adding an 8 bit alpha channel gives you a 32 bit file in the case of a Targa or similar file format.

The difference between 8 bits per channel and 10 bits per channel is significant. The possible values inside each channel quadruple. You have the same color range subdivided into four times smaller increments. The subtlety of shades within the palette is increased significantly when all color channels are combined to create the complete palette.

256 x 256 x 256 = 16,777,216 total colors, 8 bit palette

1024 x 1024 x 1024 = 1,073,741,824 total colors, 10 bit palette

Next time you have a project that will require significant color correction, keep in mind how much finer control you'll have over gradients and subtle differences by moving to a 10 bit workflow. Even if your source material is 8 bit (which most video is, even in HD), using a 10 bit pipeline for post will improve you results.

TimK

As Promised... General Colorspace Information

2008-12-06T09:52:00.010-06:00

We hear a lot about color space. RGB, Y'U'V', Y'/R-Y/B-Y, Y’/Cr/Cb…it ranges from logical to alphabet soup. In the end, the color in our images is made from three component signals combining to create a color image. What those three component signals are…well, that depends. (There are colorspace definitions outside of the colorspaces I've listed here, of course. I just tried to include the colorspaces most media production pros will encounter...)

RGB
The easiest place to start might be RGB. It will be review for almost anyone with any computer background as RGB logically stands for “Red/Green/Blue”. RGB color images are produced by combining three channels of image information, each containing the intensity information for each individual color, Red, Green, and Blue. This colorspace is typically used in computer displays and projectors. It’s used in the creation of the visual content developed for video games or the web. Conventional analog and digital video has traditionally not used RGB color space, causing many long-time professionals to discount the general accuracy of the video your NLE shows you on your computer desktop monitor. However, with the growing use of large LCD and Plasma displays RGB is becoming at least one of the display methods you may want to (or be forced to…) employ through the post process.

HSL

“Hue, Saturation, Luminance” is found most often inside computer software for image manipulation or video color correction. It is fairly simple to picture as a color wheel where the color red is in one direction, moving around the wheel to yellow, green, cyan, blue, magenta, and back to red. While the color order would seem to directly mimic the vectorscope display, in HSL the individual colors are evenly spaced like numbers on a clock face while a vectorscope is showing a color difference signal where the positions of the primary and secondary legal colors are not equidistant.

However, the vectorscope model is indicative of how the hue and saturation portions of an HSL color wheel work. The “compass” direction from center indicates the hue and the distance from center indicates saturation. Also similar is the way the HSL color wheel doesn’t display luminance changes, but the brightness is adjusted via each color channel somewhat similar to an RGB model.

CMYK

For those of you who have dealt with this color space strictly as an irritant when you receive your client’s logo art from their printer and forget to convert it before spending 10 minutes trying to figure out why it won't load into After Effects, we’ll just touch briefly on what it is. Printing ink is based on reflected light whereas the RGB color model is constructed to create an image from a light source.

RGB is based on the color we perceive when we look directly at a light source (spotlight, television screen, LCD monitor…etc.) and is referred to as “Additive Color.” The primary colors are Red, Green and Blue while the secondary colors are Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow. When all colors are combined in an additive color environment (all colors of light are 'on'), you get white, when all color is gone (lights off), you get black.

CMYK turns everything on its head, as it's based on “Subtractive Color.” This is color we perceive once light has bounced off of something. Usually the color we see is the only color not absorbed by the object. So the car isn’t really green, the surface of the car absorbs most of the spectrum of light that hits it, but rejects green light and it bounces off, becoming visible to us. Since we are turning everything around, you can picture combining all the colors in a paint store (or as a kid, in your water color tray...or on the living room carpeting...) and getting something that is usually undesirably close to black. Removing all pigment from paint gives you…white. Just to cap off the confusion, the primary colors are Cyan, Magenta and Yellow, hence the “CMY” with “K” indicating black ink. Of course since all else is opposite, Red, Green and Blue are the secondary colors in subtractive color.

Color Difference Systems

I explained my rather unconventional way of visualizing Color Difference systems in general. (see the explanation and illustration from the post "Y's and Whats..." below). What follows is a description of the various common designations we all encounter in the field and their intended definition.

Y’UV

I’ve even spouted this designation off when I am referring to all color difference, non-RGB television color space, but it’s just laziness on my part as it really isn’t correct.

It does refer to color difference video color space, but it specifically refers to the color difference signals B’-Y’ and R’-Y’ after scaling used in an intermediate step in the creation of an analog composite NTSC or PAL signal. Though “Y’UV is frequently misused in referring to digital video, and particularly incorrect in cases where it is paired with a subsampling designation such as “4:2:2”, as it has nothing to do with component video or digital video.

Y’ PB PR

Y’ PB PR is the description for the coding for analog component video. PB and PR correspond to the B’-Y’ and R’-Y’ signal after scaling to this standard. In the case of analog, digital color sampling ratios like “4:2:2” don’t apply, but in this system the color difference components are lowpass filtered to approximately half the luma bandwidth.

Y’ CB CR

Digital component video changes the designation somewhat. Y’ CB CR references the scaling method used in digital video files on disk or tape. While the analog component color difference signals would be lowpass filtered to preserve bandwidth, their digital counterparts would instead be subsampled if efficiency was required, creating the basis for the typical ratios expressed with numbers like “4:2:2” or “4:2:0”. (More on that in later posts.)

Y’ I Q

An obsolete system established in the early days of color television. What was intriguing about this system is the normal vectorscope color orientation was tilted 33 degrees, and the “I” and “Q” axes (which correspond to the ‘U’ and ‘V’ components, but the axes are actually switched) can still be seen on some vectorscopes to this day in that configuration.

There's some stuff to keep your mind working over the weekend...

TimK

The Y's and Whats...Color Difference Concepts

2008-12-05T11:59:00.012-06:00

Color came along after television had established itself as a black and white medium. Therefore video color space was developed to carry the black and white picture and color separately from the earliest days of color television. This basic approach also made color television signals inherently backwards compatible with black and white televisions as the older black and white models could simply ignore the color component of the signal and still show a serviceable picture.

Most users who look at the notations for color difference systems try to apply it to what they know about RGB. I’ve had users look at the “Y’/B-Y’/R-Y’” designation on their Betacam deck or their DVD player and ask if the green signal is buried in the “Y’” channel because they see the “R” and the “B” which obviously correspond with “Red” and “Blue”.

Well...not exactly.

The “Y’” represents the luma, or black and white portion of the video signal. The “R-Y” and “B-Y” in the case above represent the two color difference signals. (Color difference systems do vary and there are several non-interchangeable notations which I'll cover in another post. ) In any case, the two color difference values can be demonstrated with one illustrated concept as they are all applied the same way with the exception of the scaling factors

On a vectorscope, the further from the center the display shows a given signal, the more saturated with color it is. The “compass” direction it extends out from the center determines its “hue” or what “color” the color is. Upon looking a bit closer at that same vectorscope, we see that there is a vertical and a horizontal axis that run through the very center. The vertical and horizontal axis might be designated as R-Y’ and B-Y’, or PB and PR, or you even may see perpendicular axes tilted 33 degrees counter-clockwise from vertical and horizontal labeled “I” and “Q” .

My sort of quirky take on this to help people visualize the concept is that one could think of these color difference signals as the axes of “latitude” and “longitude” creating the “coordinates” that tell the video system where to find the proper hue and saturation to create the designated color for a pixel that already has brightness or luma information supplied by the Y’ component.

So instead of attempting to picture the abstract concept of color difference signals as hue/saturation with no luma, it might be more useful to think of them as a set of map coordinates telling the system where to “retrieve” the proper color…and the vectorscope is the color "world."

(As with all things technical about digital video, my personal reference bible on the subject is Charles Poynton's "Digital Video and HDTV Algorithms and Interfaces." I highly recommend it as a source of unbiased and thorough information.)

TimK

Why the HPX-170 is NOT an HVX200a without a tape drive...

2008-12-04T08:11:00.008-06:00

Anyone who knows me has probably witnessed me taking issue with Panasonic's sales hyperbole (when I'm not taking issue with Sony's sales hyperbole...or anyone else's) surrounding their line of DVCPROHD cameras.

This is not one of those times.

At 5,695 USD, the AG-HPX170 is the least expensive small camcorder with HDSDI out. This connector seems to be worth as much as the entire camcorder for most manufacturers. (Canon's step between their entry level HDV camcorder and the next step up, which adds primarily HDSDI, nearly doubles the price) The HDSDI out allows the camcorder to be used as a 'baseband' capture device to capture live, uncompressed, or use an external recorder such as Convergent Design's Flash XDR. This is a feature that is not included on the HVX200a. This may be the single most important versatility feature on small camcorders as we go forward, allowing the largest variety of recording formats to be used downstream from the camera if the on-board recording mechanism is inappropriate for a given application.

At a full 2,000 USD less than Sony's PMWEX1, the 170 is a worthwhile consideration for those who have a comfortable history with Panasonic's small camcorders and even with the EX1's 1/2" CMOS sensors with higher native resolution beckoning, one can realize value from the P2 cards (and experience) they already own. This is not to mention Panasonic's clear edge in the HD professional production marketplace, which is "buy the small P2 camera and rent a Varicam 3700 or an HPX 3000 when you need it" using the same P2 media and the same post workflow (using DVCPROHD of course)...try that with a Sony Z7 and an F23 or F900...

Panasonic has taken some flack for the sensor in these cameras (some from yours truly, though I took more issue with the early marketing strategy of appearing to try to hide the spec as opposed to explaining it) , which creates an HD image from super-sampling a sensor lattice that has less photosites than the ouput image has pixels. Anyone (myself included) who has actually used the HVX camcorder knows that the aesthetic of the images created is simply better than the specs give it a right to be. (Frankly, I find this to be the case with the vast majority of handheld HD camcorders in the pro marketplace, HDV included.)

When you add in the 170's waveform and vectorscope monitoring on-board (also not available on the HVX200a...or anything else in this price range AFAIK) and a slightly wider lense...

....and you really examine how many HVX200 users have really utilized their tape drive in the time they've owned the camera...you realize that the 170 isn't the 200's little sibling at all...it's the next generation.

For small, handheld HD cameras, the HPX170 will prove to be a pretty good value to those who find it fits with their needs.

TimK

Panavision's must see videos on camera specifications

2008-12-03T13:09:00.008-06:00

I know this isn't new info for many of you, but the Panavision guys have done the most complete job of interpreting camera and acquired image specifications to-date in my opinion.

The video is in 7 parts...download them and watch them...

(The point at which the bayer sensor configuration is compared to the Genesis can seem like it's making a case for a particular workflow, but overall, the info is incredibly solid and nearly unavailable anywhere else as far as I can tell.)

Demystifying Digital Camera Specifications

Stu Maschwitz has a take on the new RED lineup

2008-12-03T11:55:00.004-06:00

Too Much is Not Enough

As always, Stu keeps his eye on the prize...producing more data is great, but are more pixels the same as more information?

One thing is for sure, Jim Jannard is changing everything...as he's promised.

TimK

Now Open for Business

2008-12-03T11:47:00.003-06:00

(thump, thump) "Is this thing on?....

So, I've finally done it, I've started my own blog dealing with issues of digital video production and the pieces of it that I find interesting.

I'll be posting stuff as I get up to speed here...and I'll warn anyone who pops in that I do try to be objective, but the tools I use are the tools I know best and occasionally that sort of thing will be evident.

I hope my personal thoughts are useful to someone out there as I start my own personal, ongoing braindump into the great cyber noise chamber... Stay tuned, and thanks for stopping.

TimK