ST: HDMI Team

Brian202020

Keep up the good work guys. We are all pulling for you, and praying you get no bricked GH2's. Clean uncompressed 422 1080 and 720 signals in standard modes and in both the 2.6 and 3.9 ETC modes would be a god send. I will be checking this thread several times a day awaiting updates. Thanks again.

pixel_pilgrim

For all those GH2 + Atomos Ninja owners out there... Like you, I've been waiting for their Stripper software which they announced some time ago. This was supposed to convert your GH2 HDMI output recorded onto the Ninja into proper progressive footage.
They have just released a new product called Connect (http://www.atomos.com/connect/media/connect_brochA4-IBC-web.pdf) - which, among various cool things, also promises hardware 3:2 pulldown to create 24/25p footage. Now, if this is true for us GH2 owners, it'll be really cool... I've emailed them for clarification.
There seems to be a hitch though. Isn't there always? The Connect comes in 2 flavours, a HDMI to HD-SDI or HD-SDI to HDMI convertor which seems to be able to do the famous 3:2 pulldown during the conversion. Now, assuming you buy the HDMI to HD-SDI Connect, you connect the Ninja output to the Connect HDMI input and... tara... you have beautiful 24p footage coming out of the HD-SDI output$%£^&£!!! So it looks like you then need to buy a HD-SDI to HDMI convertor to get the signal into your Ninja via HDMI. At ¢250.00 each it'll be expensive... but I'm almost willing to pay that for a proper 24/5p signal. What do you guys think?

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@pixel_pilgrim
This is team topic, use proper HDMI topic please.

Ausboy

Vitaliy - I was wondering how much more goes on under the hood with the HDMI signal between the live signal and the recorded. We have accertained that it has an unusual cadence and also a wierd chroma shift and that it may not even be 4:2:2 ( dvxuser ). None of those issues affect the recorded files so are they deliberately placing some routine in front of the live signal. Dunno if it makes sense. Anyway, the main issue for me is this inability to get the frame rate from 60i to 59.98i. Any ideas?

Going to try the hdmi end routines now

driftwood

I sent an emai to chief engineer in Japan (usuki.naoshi@jp.panasonic.com) and got an immediate call back from UK Panasonic.
I asked why the 720 HDMI output was not operational. Only to be told from Mike at Panny UK via a left msg that the GH2 doesnt support 720 in live view, "unfortunately, the output in live view mode is ONLY 1080, thank you"

Nice fellas arent they!

hammerheadfistpunch

Just tried shooting with a black magic intensity card using Ptools 3.60. I get 1080i60 out and if i shoot in 24pH i can then inverse telecine the footage back to 24.00p. see the vimeo video here. Apologies if this is the wrong thread. It don't post very often.

janceallen

That's really interesting! So no issues with the irregular cadence that apparently cripples 24p material output through hdmi? I wonder if/how it would work with the Ninja? Thanks for the test!

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@hammerheadfistpunch
@janceallen

This is topic located in development category and is for HDMI team members

MarkV

@Vitaliy oh my gosh.. they are blind or what?! you wrote like 4 times that this is a HDMI team topic and they are still posting videos here.. just delete it!

Ausboy

Woah. If the irregular cadence is gone though isn't this a score! Don't you think? I have an intensity card and can test this. Changing 24p to 23.98 is not too difficult after the fact with Cineform.

alcomposer

Hi Guys, Great work so far! And an internet Hi5 to VK!

Just wanting to clarify @HenryO and directed at @driftwood:
Is the cadence issue effected by the new ST:HDMI hack? (Ie working nowish? or towards a solution anyway?)

Cheers!

Ausboy

hi @alcomposer , been a weekend away. Will test Monday and confirm

paglez

Theorically the cadence issue is due a problem with AVCHD codec- HDMI output signal should be a "raw" video signal.

driftwood

Right Ive got my 3 different settings. 44M cbrandin, 132M driftwood, and GOP1 220M driftwood with edited FB Limits. Gonna do HDMI comparisons now. :-)

alcomposer

@paglez
I'm not aware of an issue with the AVCHD codec... I am only aware of the HDMI issues with repeated frames - cadences etc... Just was interested in if driftwoods findings - (ie: video working) translate to - working and fixed... or just working as in Hello World...

I am guessing that this is currently a Hello World phase -considering that @VK has re-written the HDMI code... (The saying: "I want to marry your mind" comes to mind... )

:D

Keep us posted, I'm excited!

sam_stickland

@paglez I believe there are two "cadence" issues.

There's one that seen with the AVCHD codec where it's bitrate can pulse if the buffers sizes, bitrate etc aren't correctly aligned.

But there's a separate issue with the HDMI output where the camera inserts a duplicate frame every seven seconds or so (the interval varies). Some people believe this frame duplication was deliberately added by Panasonic to prevent the HDMI output being suitable for recording.

driftwood

Just for the record, the hdmi outputs to Ninja at 1080 30fps - see Final Cut Pro 7's Item Properties.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

This whole topic turned into some useless thing. Sad.

driftwood

@Vitaliy_Kiselev No. Still doing heavy testing.
The Ninja records from the hdmi out of the gh2 in 24p mode at allegedly 1080i60 but it actually gets 30fps recorded onto the Ninja's hard disc. This is probably the same for other recorders.
The pattern, for arguments sake, is 2 frames of 'interlaced' and 3 frames of 'progressive' (in a repeating pattern lets call it 'i' for lines and 'P' for no lines as in 30 frames from frame 0 to frame 29 = PiiPPPiiPPPiiPPPiiPPPiiPPPiiPP).
This has been tested with a ptools setting of GOP1, GOP3 and default GOP 12. Everything comes out 30 frames. Ditto with your recent ptools HDMI ST settings - no change!

Update: A reverse pulldown has to be used to get the pictures sorted.
"Telecine, Pull-Down, and Reverse Telecine: ...Once the video is captured on disk, software can perform reverse telecine, or reverse pull-down, to restore the original 23.98 fps film frame rate."
Source: http://documentation.apple.com/en/finalcutpro/usermanual/index.html#chapter=E%26section=2%26tasks=true

The Ninja (and some other devices) are not or probably not performing any pulldown by my tests. This has to be performed by the NLE or specialist software. Or we have to perform a reverse telecine to get it back to 24p.

I will be showing a typical example video of HDMI Ninja v SD card recording video shortly.

Basically Vitaliy, out of the hdmi, I see no changes to the material in frame order using the new ptools settings. No switching to other video modes happen either. I will be finalising the chrominance and YUV tests between the two to see if any other changes happen later.
Added Note: Also could the GH2 be performing some kind of overall 'for all modes' conversion with normal pulldown process to spit it out of the HDMI for general TV playback? Which is why 720p is greyed out.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

OK.
I'll try to adjust patches a little.

driftwood

Cool.

misterhu

Sorrrry guys, I was not able to test anything for the last 2 weeks, because my freshly repaired GH2 broke again and I had to send it in again! (not because of any patches, but because it had a hardware defect)

@Vitaliy_Kiselev: Can you send me the new patches when they are ready (or even the old), I can't find the PM with the download link anymore.

Can we maybe all agree on a spreadsheet to organize and share the testing work and results a bit better between us? Its a bit hard for me to see, what already have been tested, and where I should jump in...

driftwood

Incidentally.one of the reasons why I adopted GOP1 on 220M is that the Atamos Ninja recording any NTSC 1080p24 signal encodes at upto 220Mbps so its interesting to match bitrate for side by side comparisons.
Any PAL 1080p24 GH2 recording off the HDMI becomes Apple ProRes 422, 1920 x 1080, 25 fps interlaced, at upto 120 Mbps on the Ninja.

daimon

Have you seen the HMDI SDI recorder from Black magic: http://nycppnews.com/2011/09/09/review-of-blackmagic-designs-hyperdeck-shuttle/

Ralph_B

@driftwood "gettting the 1080p24 gh2 recordings which record at 30 fps hdmi .mov in the Ninja out of post at 24p, as Its probably different for other hdmi recorders I'm wondering if my solution on the GH2 + Ninja thread is quicker than using your AVIsynth variation/less painless for Ninja users?"

The only way to answer this question is you must do some work...

1) Simultaneously record in-camera and to the Ninja for at least one minute. Make sure something is always moving in the picture.
2) Do your pulldown removal.
3) Place the in-camra clip on the timeline in your editing program. Place the pulldown-removed clip on a track immediately above it. Align them so the exact same frame is at the beginning. You can do this by either setting opacity of the upper track to 50% or by simply toggling the upper track on and off.
4) Step through the timeline frame by frame, checking that each frame on both tracks remains identical. If they lose sync, or if you see any interlace artifacts appear on the upper track, then your pulldown removal has failed. A correct pulldown removal will maintain a perfect correspondence between the two clips, indefinitely. If your pulldown removal holds up for one minute, try it for three minutes.

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories

Tags in Topic

Top Posters