SD Connect becomes the HD Connect?

By now, most of you should have heard of the AJA IO. Simply put, it allows you to send uncompressed 10bit 4:22 YUV video down a firewire connection. Its been around for about 18 months now.

When it first came out, I began wondering if rental houses would start stocking them. It would seem to make sense. Instead of buying an interface, you could simply rent one as needed. This would be particularly useful for studio shoots.

Well, no one in Sydney (AFAIK) rents them. So about a year ago I put up some cash and bought a Decklink Pro. Now, cause I'm a powerbook man through and through, that card resides in a good mate's G4. It WAS meant to be bought in the budget of a project which has kinda really badly imploded... so even though it wasn't meant to be mine, it kinda is. Which sucks. I'd much rather a Decklink HD.

Anyway. Personal angst aside, a competitor to the AJA IO has recently appeared. Its called the SD-Connect and is made by a company called Convergent Design. Its pretty full featured, offering composite, component, S-video, SDI and 1394 (firewire) in/out on the video side and on the audio side four channel balance/unbalanced analogue, AES/EBU and embedded-audio over SD. Its also got ethernet. At the moment, it doesn't offer uncompressed via firewire, but apparently that will be coming in the first half this year. Personally, I wouldn't want to buy one until the uncompressed support comes along, but thats me.

Anyway, turns out that my preferred rental house for weird production bits*, DigiHire, have bought a number of the SD-Connects and are renting them for $50 a day. Its free if you rent a deck from them - and they have J series decks for about $250-280 a day.

Once uncompressed via firewire happens on the SD-Connector... this will be a great thing for low-budget projects. While SDI Cards aren't that expensive any more - I mean, a Decklink is [currently, pre-NAB - and there will be a price drop post NAB] $295US - being able to rent your interface for free when capturing off digibeta is pretty farkin' awesome. I wish I had access to renting an SDI interface about three years ago when I first started working with uncompressed footage.

What is really killer from my perspective is that, apparently, Convergent Design are working on a HD version of the SD-Connect. Presumably, it'll be called the HD-Connect. Digihire promise to get one of those too... sexcellent. If it has HD-Component (which it should) on board and HD-SDI out (which it will - otherwise you're not really HD, are you?) or sd-downconversion via firewire [awesome]**... this will be excellent when working with the Z1P. You could theoretically capture straight to disk uncompressed 4:2:2 HD 1080i signals. Even if it only did downconversion to SDI being able to use the Z1P as an uncompressed SD camera with HD size sensors would be very useful. While it won't be one of those ready-made solutions of hd-component to hd-sdi that will be appearing on the market shortly, it should be pretty flexible conversion wise.

Hmm. Yummy.
*[Seriously. These guys rent a 1 inch tape machine for all those regular times you want to capture off 1 inch]

** Presumably it will offer downconversion to SD - and then all it'd need to do is bus the downconverted footage down firewire.

Creative Commons vs the Alliance

The MPAA (Aussie equiv of the Screen Actors Guild) has refused dispensation to a production company producing a short film under the Creative Commons licensing agreement.

[snip]

The MEAA Board decided that it could grant none of the dispensations sought by MOD Films, on the grounds that these would be “inappropriate”. The production had asked for dispensations and support for its world-first plans to employ professional actors in a film with only “Some Rights Reserved” by the production company. The company intends to permit non-commercial use and re-voicing of the film by the audience. The MEAA also rejected the option of any further negotiations with MOD Films.

[snip]

-- via Brian Flemming at Cinema Minima

I'll add commentary later. The MEAA is doing what it thinks is right for its members, BUT the CC angle is... interesting.

Rhetoric NOT logic

While I admire Harry's war-cry for its rousing quality, I also find it unsettling. By resorting to rhetoric, rather than logic and empiricism, Harry has ignored the issues raised at the American Director's Panel and that plague the Indie Film Scene.

Firstly, the whining Directors quoted in the Ebert article ARE established and have produced marketable films. The problem is that economic interest in the indie scene is drying up. Its becoming inreasingly hard to find investors and distributors. Probably a reaction to the wealth of crap that the digital revolution has produced. Unfortunately, this is affecting filmmakers who have been successful. I recently spoke to Clara Law, a top notch arty HK filmmaker [see I can name drop too] and she was explaining how hard it is to find finance these days. Even in the hey-day of HK filmmaking (and its late captailist concerns) she could find investors easily. This may be a phase. Or it could be a symptom of a late capitalist society in decay :-)

Secondly, shooting a film is easy and (relatively) cheap. I could shoot a feature on 35mm for $40,000AU. Bringing it to the screen is the expensive part. Anywhere from $1,000,000AU +/- even for just a few screens. You need advertising to get bums in seats in the first week. If you don't, then the cinema's will pull it - regardless of how much 'internet press' you've had. The oligarchial nature of distributors and exhibitors is another *huge* problem for the indie film maker. Art-house cinemas are your only route. Unfortunately, there are 100s of indie-films seeking distributors for a few few spots. The studio/distributor/exhibitor nexus makes the RIAA vs little labels look like a schoolyard brawl. Sure, you can bypass cinema-screenings, and go DTV. Unfortunately, DTV is the exploitation market. Unless you've got violence and/or sex, you're dead in the water. Internet-distributor is a far way off - and I'm yet to see a model which will produce enough income to offset production costs.

Third, the non-professionalisation of producers. Most of what Harry outlined in his article is the concern of the Producer, NOT the Director. A good producer will be considering marketing, audiences, stars, etc. Sadly its difficult to find a good producer. Everyone wants to be a Director or a DoP. Who the hell wants to be a Producer? Its the most thankless job in the industry, indie or otherwise. To paraphrase Art Linson, Robert De Niro doesn't have to call himself a creative actor, so why should we [producers] have to call ourselves creative producers? Indie Film Culture needs to produce an environment healthy to the evolution of Good Producers. Y'know, people who are filmmakers too, and not just business men. Kevin Smith would have been nothing without Scott Mosier and Bob Hawk.

Lastly, I think the mentality propogated by Robert Roderigeuz (and even Harry) of 'you can do it if you want' needs to be toned down. Or at least people need to be made aware that natural selection is rampant in this industry. For every indie hit, there's hundres of misses. Its how it is [yo].

-- by me, posted on AICN in the middle of 2001 in response to a rant by Harry.

Nothing changes, eh? Not just the situation, but my ranting.

HDV Ramble

[Update: Total dumbass = me. I just realised I kept on saying FX1 when I meant the Z1U. I recommedn teh Z1U NOT the FX1. P.S. Unwired broadband sucks total dogs balls]

I went to a presentation on the Sony HVR-Z1U last week, sponsored by Videocraft - a local rental house which also distributes Sony projects. It was also an Australian Cinematographers Society [ACS] event, so there were quite a few actual *DoPs* present. Consequently, for a trade demo the bullshit level was very very low. Mad props to Videocraft and the ACS for keeping it honest.

Highlight of the night was the presenter, Peter De Vires (I think?) saying that ALL the lessons you've learnt about shooting DV apply double, otherwise you end up "shooting hi res shit".

So what did I think of the camera? I'm impressed:

1. The camera itself is nicely laid out - probably the best handycam I've seen. Although, I still prefer the broadcast bodies of the JVC GY-DV5000 and Sony 570WSP -- But, y'know, those cameras are effectively ENG cameras that shoot DV and are priced accordingly (a 570 is around double the price of a HVR-Z1U).

AT LAST Sony has taken the good tactile interfaces of their ENG cameras and put it into a handycam. I seriously HATED the interface problems of the PD100 and PD150. A camera should feel like, y'know, a camera and not a piece of software with a lens. (That's probably because my first photographic experiences were with an old totally manual Pentax SLR and I first shot video on shoulder-mount SVHS cameras) This means the iris dial is at the front of the body, like the XL1, rather than at the back. There are actual switches for gain, white balance, shutter and, I think, for microphone settings too. The less you have to do via menus, the better. More than you can check visually quickly rather than having to burrow through settings. There's also a 'status switch' to check important software settings like format and gamma.

Its also got a non-perpetual (ie mechanical) zoom ring with distance markings (although its not a real zoom ring). Yay! However, it seems that the focus ring is perpetual. Why you'd only want a mechanical zoom ring and a perpetual focus ring is beyond me - especially considering how critical focus is in HD, you thought you'd might wanna, I dunno, use a frickin' tape measure to check focus. Then again, that idea is so foreign to so many videographers it probably would've hurt sales had they done it. (What, you mean I can't turn my focus ring around and around and around? What kinda camera is this?)

The way the LCD works is pretty cool too. Its in a position so you can kinda move it around in a number of different ways, making it far more flexible than those included on the PD150 etc.

The Shot Transition(TM) feature is also quite neat for small crews. It lets you pre-set focus and zoom positions. You set timing and the 'ease in /ease out' of the transition curve, and you hit the 'go' button and it transitions between them. In essence, its a focus/zoom/iris pull function that I wish I had on a number of projects I've shot... As an operator, you can concentrate on framing (WOW!) and the move (WOW!)‚ rather than pulling focus/zoom/iris (your standard WillisShot(TM) involves all three while doing a dolly that runs diagonal to the action). Nothing beats having a real focus puller, cause they follow the pace of the actors and the scene, but on low budget projects where having a focus puller is an anathema it will be very handy.

2. The images as projected were very nice. They were show on a HD projector and were VERY sharp (although the projector had a black level issue). Best projected DV I've ever seen. Once festivals start projecting HD (via HDV, HD-DVD or Blu-Ray) this will become *the* low budget camera to use for shorts [although that's probably already the case]. That said, they were biased images: there was very little movement - so no way to get any feel for mpeg blocking - and it was shot in 1080i rather than progressive (which is just field doubled). The skintones looked very good for a Sony camera. But the highlights looked just like contemporary DV - pretty crap. Panasonic STILL has a huge lead over Sony with highlight handling. In other words, it looked like GREAT DV - problem is, its still DV. All the footage we saw was at standard video gamma, not one of other gamma curves.

Can't really say much more until I download some transport streams and go nuts.

Commentary: Until I really get playing with this camera, this more informed speculation than any hard facts.... Its written in the context of my next project.

I was impressed enough with the camera that on any decent sized HD (or possibly film) project, its worth getting the HVR-Z1U as a B-Camera. Its sharp enought to intercut, imnsho, with big-boy HD.

I've just started prepping my next music video, and I've already decided that using the HVR-Z1U as a b-roll will be well worth the sub-$300 rental. Thats regardless of whether I'm shooting film or HD. Format for this clip ("Light's out") is still undecided - but at this stage its a toss up between 2-perf 35mm, CineAlta and the Varicam. In all cases, I'll be finishing to standard-def on digibeta. Edit will be in FCP.

If I shoot 2-perf, I'd shoot all the 'band performance' on probably TWO HVR-Z1Us and all the story stuff on 35mm. If we go HD, what's interesting is that the HVR-Z1U is CLOSER in format to the Varicam - its 8bit and the frames are 1440 x 1080 with a pixel aspect of 1.33 - than to the CineAlta - also 8bit, IIRC, but with 1920 x 1080 frames and a square pixel ratio [I think, don't hold me to that].

The camera is only a 1/3inch chip, so it doesn't had the signal-to-noise or minimum lux performance of the bigger cameras... it also doesn't have the Depth of Field. So it is DEF a kind of 'pickup' camera. Give it to an operator, all Kurosawa style, and tell them to grab whatever. Closeups in particular. All those kinds of 'odd shots' that you can use in a video clip to add pace as required. I'll still work with the focus on the main camera.

To capture the HDV footage, I'd use HDVxDV because it actually gets the timecode from the camera. I'd then transcode using MPEG Streamclip. What I'd transcode it to would depend on my other acquisition choice:

* If I was working with the Varicam, I'd probably just transcode to DVCProHD and accept the double-compression for the time being. If I was shooting with Varicam, it'd be for the slow-motion... Which, as I know, requires me to shoot at 29.97 frequency and edit at 23.97. This means I'll have to shoot the HVR-Z1U at 30i and get a 3:2 pulldown from it to match temporal resolution... fucking annoying. Thankfully, the FX IS switchable between NTSC and PAL. Yay! (NB: For indie film guys in PAL land who think they want to get to film out - shoot at 30i and let the lab take care of the 24P conversion. You won't have pacing issues like you would if you shot at 25fps and slowed it down to 24fps for film out). Better to speed up 24fps to 25fps than to slow it down, I think.

* If I was working the CineAlta, I'd probably be using an offline codec like photo-jpeg or DVCProHD. My big hesitation with the CineAlta atm is that I don't know HOW I'm going to bring the footage in. The easiest way would to be downconverting to SD on the fly - in which case I'd be capturing as 10bit Uncompressed Blackmagic. But I'd prefer, for flexibility reasons, to capture as full HD frames, cause then I can do 'frame extraction' as needed. If I was doing full frames, then I might need to do an actual offline-online recapture thing rather than what I call a 'digital offline' (capture in native format, do edit in lower format for speed/ease of workflow).

* If I'm working with 2-perf, then its much the same as the CineAlta except I won't have the budget to telecine to HD. It'll be an SD workflow, and I'll just treat the HVR-Z1U as an SD camera. I'll shoot it progressive and downconvert it as well as transcode it via MPEG Steamclip. It'd be converted to uncompressed 10bit.

In either case, once it comes to the final conform for colour correction, I want to bump up ALL the footage to an uncompressed codec. I'd re-transcode all the HDV footage into uncompressed HD frames (probably 8bit) and REPLACE the original offline files. This will force FCP to reconnect them in the timeline perfectly. I'd then change the timeline's codec to an uncompressed one - this will force all the footage, whether its from the CineAlta, the Varicam or the HVR-Z1U into uncompressed space. For ease of interpretation, I'll probably set it to 10bit.

At this point, I'll have decided whether I want to CC on full-frame HD footage or SD footage. I think saving the downconvert until after the CC will produce the best results...

SO... I'll export from the timeline into AE Pro. Best choice would be to use Automatic Duck because then I'd get my actual cuts across, not just a straight file. Need to investigate that a bit more.

I'd then use eLin to work in radiometric linear colour space. Hopefully, all the HDV footage will have been underexposed by 1-2 spots (possibly a 'split') so my highlights are protected. I'd then CC using the eLin tools. I'll have to investigate how Color Finesse works with eLin but one imagines not so well.

The final 'node' of the CC process will be to convert from linear space back to video space. Its not going to film out, its just going back to standard video gamma. The reason I want to work in linear space is cause its much better for highlights and makes a LOT more sense to those with a photographic background (e.g. double the brightness of an image and it increases by a stop).

If I was working with the Varicam, I'd output it as a image sequence so I could reconform it in FCP at 25P. If I was working with the CineAlta or 2-perf, it'd just be an export to a 10bit UC blackmagic file.

Bump to tape. Easy!

Commentary for Drama: To reiterate. I still would prefer shooting on a Varicam or CineAlta for a feature. But in a low-budget environment, the HVR-Z1U is the way to go - the camera seems to be VERY useable for an experience shooter. Probably better choice than the DVX100A. However, I'd shoot 1080 30i and let the lab/post house do the 24P conversion. I'd make sure I was underexposing by a stop or two for CC help. I'd hav eto test that to see its impact on skintones. Biggest problem with DV is that if you underexpose to protect your highlights, you often fuck up your skintones... which is kinda being stuck between a rock, a hard place, and john howard's heart.

I'd certainly consider this camera over digibeta for a short. Digibeta's biggest advantage is its near zero compression and its 10bitness. You can push it around like not much else. But its relatively expensive. Twice the price to rent than the HVR-Z1U and that excludes post-issues. ie having the workflow to make the near uncompressed 10bit of a 709/790 worthwhile.

Only other advantage to digibeta, really, is to get the P&S adaptor and use the 35mm lenses. But that introduces a two-stop light loss... which is a pain in the ass in terms of your lighting kit and the way it affects your contrast range. When suddenly you go from using redheats as your keylights to blondies.. that's a problem.

Commentary for Documentaries: If you're wanting to shoot a doco on a handycam, then this is the one to get. End of story. If its theatrical, shoot 30i. If its for TV then shoot your normal frame rate interlaced. If its for SD TV then shoot the progressive formats.

Advice to everyone:From what I heart - NEVER Shoot the stupid 24P Cineframe mode. It sucks.