Some of you may be aware that for over a couple of years now I been on the forefront of HDMI capture and attempting to make it easier to do in the field. Well I held off for a few months but last month I eventually succumbed and bought the Nanoflash from convergent design. Capable of recording to compact flash cards the Nanoflash is a dream for anybody wanting to enter the realm of high quality HDMI capture. Of course the product can also capture to HD-SDI. I have made myself a DIY battery that can last a whole day if need be.
The output file is either i-frame or longop – ( long group of pictures ) and I will be recording to 180 mbps longop which surpasses anything the DIY project I did can achieve. The data rate at 8 bit technically has more information than the film scan rate of cineform at 10 bit. This makes it perfect for consumer camcorders like the HFS10.
Have a look at what it looks like in action. Go to Vimeo, login and download the original to get a feel for the detail captured.I was blown away.
I did a few Cineform vs AVCHD comparisons a while back ( here and here ).I have also done an HDMI capture tutorial to help build a rig and highlight the benefits of bypassing in-camera compression to get a clean image from cheap camcorders.Now I have been asked again to do some kind of torture test.I have no time for that so I will just place some first generation files for all to see what the big fuss is all about.HDMI capture surpasses AVCHD in the areas of colour,sharpness and freedom from codec artifacts bla bla bla.Don’t believe – download my sample files below and try them – you will need the Cineform Codec which you can get here.
The proof is in the pudding so I have made available some first generation files for your perusal.Three of them are a comparison of the same scene shot simultaneously.One long AVCHD file and the two Cineform files – sorry – it was snowing here.The rest are well – hopefully a nice selection of different subjects that I hope will put this argument to bed.If you think AVCHD can look this good then sample these.As for me – I think the quality speaks for itself.These are large files so be patient when downloading.
Hope this helps some of you to ascertain the quality.I suggest that for the ones with cinemode (The flat/low contrast Canon in-camera setting) you take them into Cineform’s first light and play with them.Especially the horses in the field.Not the snow field….he he.You will be amazed at the leeway you have with a 10 bit file.It colour grades beautifully.Oh and yes – I know the HFS10 has aliasing and yes the start of each file has some wierd interlacing lines (because Cineform has to guess the cadence and it takes a second or two).A better camera would give better results………but come on – this is turning a relatively cheap consumer camera into an expensive one without forking out the thousands right………………………it’s still a consumer cam…..remember it’s only just on a grand now for an HFS10.
Self contained and portable
Spent an afternoon working with the Magma chassis and a briefcase.Lots of soldering,taping,glueing and binding but managed to get it all in.Laptop,battery,invertor,power supplies,cables – all of it and it works great.Great thing about the magma chassis is that it actually can take pretty much any pci express card out there.HD-SDI,HDMI even camera link.
