1080 output

[roryhinds]

any news on when 1080 output from the HDSDI will be enabled?

720 blows.

[jbeale]

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=5803

[roryhinds]

I'm talking 1080 output from the cameras HDSDI output, not 1080 capture.

[jbeale]

According to this post:
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=106599&postcount=52

the only mode in which 1080p will be present on the HD-SDI outputs is when the camera is also recording in 1080p, so the timing for release of 1080p on-board capture is relevant to the question. I may be misunderstanding Stuart's post, in which case I hope someone will correct me.

[Brian Broz]

For the few people I know that have put down deposits, 1080 over HDSDI is essential. Not for monitoring, but for recording (eg. a REC709) output to a VTR, AJA IO HD, etc.
I think a lot of people would be willing to give up RAW recording for no render times, while retaining the camera's excellent dynamic range, detail, and 35mm DOF.

[Zach Hilton]

No render times is completely relative to what you are editing on. I am editing on FCP real time of 2k proxies...no need for extra rendering at all, even with some filters on the clips. Also, done some tests in Premiere and that currently isn't as good as FCP, but it isn't bad either. So, one could essentially cut in either FCP or Premiere without any rendering or converting at all.

[TimPipher]

For the few people I know that have put down deposits, 1080 over HDSDI is essential. Not for monitoring, but for recording (eg. a REC709) output to a VTR, AJA IO HD, etc.
I think a lot of people would be willing to give up RAW recording for no render times, while retaining the camera's excellent dynamic range, detail, and 35mm DOF.

Count me among those for whom 1080 HD-SDI output recording to a deck is essential.

I thought this was coming soon. I've seen numerous threads where the consensus was that it is, but no clear comments from RED -- makes me worry.

Is HDSDI 1080 output recording on the near horizon?

[Greg M]

see post 2 above

[Brian Ferguson]

For the few people I know that have put down deposits, 1080 over HDSDI is essential. Not for monitoring, but for recording (eg. a REC709) output to a VTR, AJA IO HD, etc.
I think a lot of people would be willing to give up RAW recording for no render times, while retaining the camera's excellent dynamic range, detail, and 35mm DOF.

At NAB 2006 with the RED One introduction there was no 4K recording available onboard. Some things may seem delayed but much more has been delivered out of the gate.

There was also no REDCODE at that time. Now you can record 4K on a CF card and downrez to any format you wish. All that in RAW with no "baked in" preset Digital Signal Processing. If you want a HD-SDI output you have to realize that the camera "look" is "baked in" the signal. To me the Dynamic range and "digital negative" aspects of RED are only available in the RAW format. I understand the people who want to use the camera as a "head unit" but it really does not take advantage of what the camera is capable of offering.
Not an "official Red" response but a Storytellers version of where we started and where we are at.

[TimPipher]

I also posted this on another thread of the same topic.

I got through to RED on the telephone today to ask this question. Had no problems getting through to a technical person -- I appreciate the good service.

Bad news, though, at least for me. HD-SDI output recording doesn't seem to be a high priority and won't be coming anytime soon. That renders the camera almost useless for studio multicamera configurations, at least for the forseeable future.

Is it possible for a third party device to make the HD-SDI output work for recording? Or, is it possible for a camera/computer genius to figure out how to enable it?

[jbeale]

Apparently due to logic constraints on their FPGA they will have to load in a separate and mutually-exclusive firmware build to enable 1080p recording & output. So I assume the current hardware can't handle real-time recording in 4k as well as downscaling & 1080 output (just my guess). If that is true, 1080 out is a major firmware rewrite, not a small "add-on" so it is highly unlikely you'll get 3rd party support for this. Unless Red opens their architecture completely and I haven't heard any suggestion they plan to.

Edit: I see Stuart just answered the identical question elsewhere. Let's not have multiple threads on the same topic, please direct your followups to: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=6098

[Sven Seynaeve]

On ibc, someone of iridas showed me a company that made monitors who actually had the feature having luts inside. Maby if there's a way to get these feeded, you could get out in 1080. But as i can't recall the name maby someone else could help.

[Mark L. Pederson]

Personally, I don't care if the camera ever outputs a 1080 signal - AS LONG AS I CAN DO IT IN REALTIME FROM A 4K .r3d file FROM MY "RED BOX" - or whatever Red wants to call the "deck/IO" box they should make.

There are many applications where being able to play 4K .r3d files out 1080 with a LOOK file applied would be totally useful. Without that, RED will actually loose a lot of broadcast opportunities. And dailies creation in RT would be a slam-dunk.

[Stuart English]

In summary, not now, but the various requests are understood.

[Jim Arthurs]

I understand the people who want to use the camera as a "head unit" but it really does not take advantage of what the camera is capable of offering.

I was on a shoot Monday and Tuesday where just such a scenerio would have been perfect... we had an HDCAM SR deck downstream from an F900, feeding it a single 4:2:2 channel, which of course is as good as it gets from that camera.

How nice it would have been to have a RED in that situation, feeding dual link 4:4:4 to that SR deck...

Having the RED "only" as good as an F950 or F23 is not such a bad thing, when a client is set up to work with HDCAM SR...

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Personally, I don't care if the camera ever outputs a 1080 signal - AS LONG AS I CAN DO IT IN REALTIME FROM A 4K .r3d file FROM MY "RED BOX" - or whatever Red wants to call the "deck/IO" box they should make.

Not 100% the same thing, but I'd really like to see a REDCODE version of the AJA IO-HD box. Although, I don't know what you would do with an input stream coming into the box... AFAIK, the REDCODE RGB codec is MIA.

[Mark L. Pederson]

Not 100% the same thing, but I'd really like to see a REDCODE version of the AJA IO-HD box. Although, I don't know what you would do with an input stream coming into the box... AFAIK, the REDCODE RGB codec is MIA.

Same as IO-HD is not exactly the way to go IMHO. But LOTS of similar features.

I want a "stand-alone" BOB, no computer. Just a box. Rackmount or field use.

No input stream. Direct from .r3d files.

Slots for CF cards, Lemo for REDDRIVE - SD slot for LOOK file, watermarks, and text overlays, EDL for "playlist" etc. Outputs 444 Dual, 422 1080 (with or without pulldown) 720p, SD - choice of 2:40,2:35, 1:85 masking on output, etc.

Drafting a full "wish list" spec-out this weekend -

We will be able to do lots of stuff with the Kona card and FCP - but advantages of stand-alone box are pretty significant.

[Simon Blackledge]

Box with a touch screen then >?

[Sven Seynaeve]

Yeah , mabe this could be nice,
an external unit being able to act as a player with the conversion built in ,
so you won't have to worrie about space, processing if you built a different application unit. You would have far more options left due to this.
and maby a feature if possible, that you could stream the redcode live from the camera to the unit, and there you'd be able to have multiple outputs at once.
Very smart idea indeed.
If you guys could implement a 4k realtime output, it would even be greater.

[Mark L. Pederson]

If you guys could implement a 4k realtime output, it would even be greater.

That would be in the RED BOX EXTREME - let's see what RED does in terms of developing projectors and monitors ....

Trust me when I say that masking, or overlayed frame guides are critical - because the studio exec's want to see dailies in the "proper" aspect ratio.

[Anders Holck]

I personal dont care at all about recording off the 1080p HD-SDI, but....
Not having the option to monitor your 4k image in 1080p 4:4:4 is unfortunate.

I'm not saying the current 720p output isn't great, and much better than any videotap on any film camera, but new directors are getting used to seing a very sharp image on a large monitor. Especially for studio setups the extra resolution going from 720p to 1080p is really important.

So Stuart, can we get a final judgement:

A: Monitoring will be stuck to 720p 4:2:2 forever with the current electronics.
or
B: 1080p 4:4:4 monitoring of 4k recording up to 30 fps will be enabled at some point.

If we are stuck at 720p, well it's still a great camera, but I think it will make the camera less appealing for people doing HD productions where 1080p monitoring is standard.

[Tony Lorentzen]

On ibc, someone of iridas showed me a company that made monitors who actually had the feature having luts inside. Maby if there's a way to get these feeded, you could get out in 1080. But as i can't recall the name maby someone else could help.

Cinetal's Cinemáge (http://www.cine-tal.com/cinemage.htm) maybe?

[Stuart English]

A: Monitoring will be stuck to 720p 4:2:2 forever with the current electronics.
or
B: 1080p 4:4:4 monitoring of 4k recording up to 30 fps will be enabled at some point.

See my earlier comment Anders. Not now, but we do understand the requests for a higher resolution output than 720p - although the challenge there is that 1080p resolution battery powered professional video monitors don't exist, so this really becomes a discussion about tethered or studio applications rather than camcorder based field portable applications.

Meanwhile the 1280 x 848 RED-EVF that we do offer is the highest resolution EVF or field portable display available for ANY camcorder on the market.

[David Mullen ASC]

I can see 720P and 1080P 4:2:2 monitoring using single-link HD-SDI, but I can't imagine the need for 1080P 4:4:4 on-set monitoring using dual-link HD-SDI. Why would that be necessary?

[Gunleik Groven]

In my case, the question for 1080 is mainly studio-related.
(And as an addition: A fantastic sales pitch, when major partners are concerd about workflow issues)

If you're not comfortable with the workflow, hook up an SR deck, your favourite RAID or what you'd like, just like you can with... (whatever -;)

The more the HD-SDI was 4:4:4 10 bit, the merrier

That said, I can see that this is not 1st priority right now.
For some work, it would be a very good, relevant and quick enough solution, though.

Record to SAN, start compositing. Sorta like what we're doing here today.

Gunleik

[Michael Lindsay]

I was on a shoot Monday and Tuesday where just such a scenerio would have been perfect... we had an HDCAM SR deck downstream from an F900, feeding it a single 4:2:2 channel, which of course is as good as it gets from that camera.


Did this twice once with a 750 and once with a 900... Lay people where able tell there was a difference between on board Hdcam recording and hdcam sr..

it helped fuel my dislike for Hdcam..

regards

Michael

[Nick Shaw]

I can see 720P and 1080P 4:2:2 monitoring using single-link HD-SDI, but I can't imagine the need for 1080P 4:4:4 on-set monitoring using dual-link HD-SDI. Why would that be necessary?

I agree totaly with this sentiment. 4:4:4 makes a big difference if you are recording the output, to use in a final deliverable, particularly if VFX are involved. But for monitoring, is the difference between 4:4:4 and 4:2:2 really visible? I've never noticed it. 4:2:2 is a bandwidth compromise based on the fact that the human eye has lower chroma than luma resolution, so you probably should not be able to see the difference. For judging focus, it's the luma resolution that's critical anyway.

If you are recording the output to use for offline editorial, 4:2:2 is absolutely fine, and you could use for example an IO HD (which is only 4:2:2 anyway) and a Macbook Pro to record it. For me as an editor, the great benefit of 1080 output would be that it could be psf 24/25/30 depending on the REDCODE frame-rate, and therefore have a one to one frame relationship with the REDCODE frames. At 25 and 30 fps, it could also be downconverted to SD, and preserve that relationship. Pull-down is a complexity I can well live without, and non standard pull-down (eg 25 over 60) even more so!

As far as I know, the 720p60 output does not have Varicam style flags in it to indicate 'padding' frames, so matching back an external recording to the REDCODE would be a somewhat manual process. Stuart please correct me if I'm wrong there. It might be very useful if the RP-188 timecode in the 720p HDSDI stream had metadata which enabled it to be captured externally at the native frame-rate. But maybe Panasonic have a patent on this concept!

[Anders Holck]

Well, I didnt want to put that much emphasis on 4:4:4 vs 4:2:2, but mainly having a clean 1080p feed, and that may be 4:2:2.

(For critical applications yes I do believe you can see a difference between monitoring 1080p RGB or the color subsampled, converted YpBpR 4:2:2.
As a Photographer I might not rate having a 1080p RGB output high on the list, but as a rental outlet I do:-)

[Andrew M.]

Showing the 1080 4:4:4 output on 47” screen to the client while shooting is what sales digital technology to them. Yes I can show it at 4:2:2 but just mentioning the 4:4:4 and 60p that he is looking at, makes the difference.
Also recording HD-SDI 1080p is important for some jobs here.

Yes, I can feed the REDRAW in to the fast portable and then to the screen but it will not be real time and it is not a simple setup anyway.

[Jim Arthurs]

Did this twice once with a 750 and once with a 900... Lay people where able tell there was a difference between on board Hdcam recording and hdcam sr..

it helped fuel my dislike for Hdcam..

regards

Michael

On our shoot, even the make-up lady could tell the difference when we A/B'ed the sources!

Even more interesting, we had downstream from the HDCAM-SR a Macbook Pro with the IO-AJA taking in HD-SDI and converting it to Prores full raster 4:2:2. It's very likely both the HDCAM and HDCAM SR tapes will set on the shelf, and the Prorez will be the editors choice. We kept joking all day that the worst quality we had was the on-camera F900 recording.

I will miss having a real 1080 live output. Clients can certainly tell the difference when hovering around the Video Village. I guess the only plus side is the fact I now won't have to keep an HDLink in the kit and can rely on lower resolution field monitors...

[GlennChan]

But for monitoring, is the difference between 4:4:4 and 4:2:2 really visible? I've never noticed it.
In some rare cases, yes. If your colors are not fully saturated, then you probably won't see the difference. If you have colored lighting (especially very saturated reds) like red LEDs or just strong Red lighting then you'll see the chroma bleed off slightly.

You will see it in titles, although for acquisition the camera doesn't deal with titles.

Some more info:
http://glennchan.info/articles/technical/chroma/chroma1.htm

2- In practice, 4:2:2 is not perfect quality but it should definitely be good enough for many uses.

You can definitely pull good keys from 4:2:2 **as long as it is shot well**. In keying, it's usually everything else that makes the compositor's job tough (noise, shots that don't key because something is obscured or the greenscreen ain't big enough, reflections, motion blur, etc. etc. etc. etc.).

2b- The artifacts are generally pretty subtle.

2c- The show Lazytown is shot on the Viper as 4:4:4, but they convert all the material to DNxHD (4:2:2) and they pull keys off that. They needed to do that for workflow reasons.
(This is my understanding of information on their website.)

An alternative is to shoot on HDCAM SR (4:4:4 with some mild DCT compression; should be way more benign than DNxHD) and do offline/online... this is a viable workflow. 4:4:4 HDCAM SR should be visually lossless whereas any 4:2:2 is not... though the small quality in difference may not be that important in practice. In either case, you are way better off shooting the chromakey as good as possible.

[GlennChan]

To chime in on 1080 output... you have to look at your intended application.

1- On-set monitoring: You want to know if you hit focus correctly. 4:4:4 instead of 4:2:2 definitely doesn't help. Maybe Graeme's focus assist is the key, and/or maybe it's worthwhile to go up to 1080p versus 720p.

2- Live production: You want a good quality 1080p output... no cheesy debayer (e.g. zipper artifacts, etc.), perhaps 4:4:4 (for live keying; might as well do that), and the camera should ideally apply some image processing like sharpening and color matching.

3- Recording straight to a deck: In my opinion this is not the best approach. Record 4k to the camera... and come up with good solutions for dailies and workflow. And use tape backup.

This gives you higher quality.

[Häakon]

Meanwhile the 1280 x 848 RED-EVF that we do offer is the highest resolution EVF or field portable display available for ANY camcorder on the market.
Knowing that the pixel density for the RED LCD is possible (since they're shipping and all), would it not be possible to make a larger panel, using the same density, to achieve a 1080p screen? The weight of the current panel is so light that even a slightly bigger, 1080p form factor should still be "riggable," and it would help nicely with focus (as well as framing) to have a larger, higher-resolution screen.

[Tony Lorentzen]

A lot of people will be really amazed by the sheer resolution of 4k, but how many of you will really be shooting 4k on a daily basis for real bread and butter style jobs? In my mind 4k makes no sense if you're going out to, say, TV (or internet) anyway - and if you're on fairly tight schedule. On my current system (MacBook Pro) it will take me 3 days (!) to transcode 1 hour of 4k REDCODE to ProRes HQ and just about 100 Gb. of storage for the R3D files. Sure - with a lot of raw computing power and some optimization of REDCINE we might get the transcoding down to 5:1, but even that is a lot longer than it takes me to offload my P2 cards and start editing away.

I had originally planned to either shoot 4K and then transcode to 1080p in REDCINE or to shoot directly to a laptop via AJA Io-HD when it was possible, but without 1080p as an output I guess I'll have to go with the other option, which would be to shoot 1080p direct to CompactFlash although that will also require some transcoding time and firmware flashing.

Now - I'm not saying that I won't love the fact that my RED camera can do 4k - I'm just saying that for most of the work I do 4K is pure overkill. But... let's see when I get the camera... I might just change my mind :-)

[Brian Broz]

Tony, I couldn't have said it better myself.
I have exactly the same concerns and issues (MBP 2.4/17"/4GB RAM). Used to working with P2's seamless workflow. 4K will be nice, but 2K or 1080p with the 35mm DOF + high dynamic range is what I'm looking for...and minimal processing times.
The AJO IO HD is an attractive option for the immediacy of recording a REC709 stream off the camera but only if and when the camera outputs a 1080P signal.
I think the big issue alot of people are having is starting off with 4K but only viewing and being able to record a relatively low resolution 720P on set. I mean XDCAM EX and HDV give a relatively true 1080 (albeit interlaced) output to a monitor or deck on set!

[Tony Lorentzen]

So it looks like the new build 16 will allow us to hook up the IO HD to the HD SDI on the RED to create ProResHQ in real time. That is just awesome!

[Drew Mylrea]

I guess there is also another side to the argument - if you have a full quality picture coming out to the client / producer they can critique the hell out of it and you can't say - "well really that's just a preview." 720 is as much as I want for set preview...

[Chris Parker]

does it do 1080 output for live picture though....or JUST playback on the camera. THAT is the key question. If it is only playback, it really is only useful for live monitoring and checking. BUT...if it plays back timecode and audio at the same time, then the camera itself could act as a RED deck to playout dailies to ProRes through an IO HD (or Kona)...or even to tape. Still, to load in card after card to playout would be a pain.

too much thinking without knowing enough about the 1080 output. Anyone with Build 16 experimented with this feature yet???

[Chris Parker]

I guess there is also another side to the argument - if you have a full quality picture coming out to the client / producer they can critique the hell out of it and you can't say - "well really that's just a preview." 720 is as much as I want for set preview...

even if the client sees 1080, it won't matter. they don't know the difference between 720 and 1080. so you can still tell them you are shooting 4K, and they are seeing a very high quality representation in full HD quality. BUT.....big BUT.....what they are seeing is just an 'example' of how their footage COULD look. You could also turn around and show them a few different potential 'looks' for their footage. Then tell them they can do the color work later....

[Tony Lorentzen]

1080p is playback only (and I would count on seeing a live 1080p feed at any time), so the only really useful thing would be to output to something like the IO HD after the shoot is over. To me the IO HD is super cool because it can be used on a MacBook Pro and powered (with a bit of ingenuity) while being on the road. The new Matrix MXO2 also looks like a cool product for something like this.

[Tony Lorentzen]

Can someone confirm if the 1080p playback signal carries audio and timecode over HD-SDI?

[David Battistella]

Can someone confirm if the 1080p playback signal carries audio and timecode over HD-SDI?

Tony,

I think the answer to this is in the initial B16 thread. I believe the answer is NO. I believe it carries picture but no TC or audio support. Not sure if you can hear audio on the headphone out either.

There also has been speculation on whether the output is 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 (I think it is 4:2:2). It's just a REC Check and it is better than 720P. I can report that the LCD signal is MUCH clear with this build and the 720P display is clearer with less 8-bit banding than we saw before.

I have Build 16 loaded and I also have KONA card so I can test this in seconds back at the studio tomorrow.

David

[Tony Lorentzen]

According to the Build 16 release history: "support for 1080p 4:2:2 and RGB 4:4:4 playback of REDCODE RAW .R3D files".

The link is here (http://www.red.com/support/release_history/7)

[Stuart English]

The 1080p output comes in two flavors.

10 bit 4:2:2 YCC over the PVW HD-SDI output ... what is labeled PREVIEW

10 bit 4:4:4 RGB over the Dual Link HD-SDI .... what is labeled HD-SDI


Timecode and audio are not available on these outputs at the moment.

Audio is available on the headphone jack and the audio line out.

[David Battistella]

The 1080p output comes in two flavors.

10 bit 4:2:2 YCC over the PVW HD-SDI output ... what is labeled PREVIEW

10 bit 4:4:4 RGB over the Dual Link HD-SDI .... what is labeled HD-SDI


Timecode and audio are not available on these outputs at the moment.

Audio is available on the headphone jack and the audio line out.

Thanks for confirming this Stuart.

It's helpful.

David

[Tai Wah Lim]

So it looks like the new build 16 will allow us to hook up the IO HD to the HD SDI on the RED to create ProResHQ in real time. That is just awesome!

Tony, just to let you know IO HD does not support 1080p at the moment. AJA people say maybe in a couple of weeks. Lim

[Tony Lorentzen]

Lim - that is not true. I have successfully grabbed 1080p with mine.

[Anders Holck]

Lim - that is not true. I have successfully grabbed 1080p with mine.

From what source? :devil:

Real 1080p is very rare at this point while 1080psf is very common...

[Chris Parker]

yeah, they told me they were getting 1080P24 support in a couple of months. This was four months ago. It will be nice though. Be even nicer if RED had LIVE 1080P going out, with audio and timecode. That would be a trick. Still shooting at 4K of course ;)

[Keith Neff]

We checked it out on a scope today, as Red has said, pure 24P not psf. That means no Sony recording, will try it on a HD-D5 tomorrow. If the quality is good it would be great to just dump everything to tape, even if you wanted to work in data you would still have the tape as backup. Or as others have suggested use the HD/IO and go straight to ProRes4:2:2.

[Karl H]

is there any possibility for 1080p over HDMI in the future? This would pipe directly into my Sony 1080p LCD TV and also my Dell 24" for mointoring.

[Stuart English]

is there any possibility for 1080p over HDMI in the future? This would pipe directly into my Sony 1080p LCD TV and also my Dell 24" for mointoring.

That is the plan ...

[Karl H]

great, thanks stuart...