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Panasonic HDC-SDT750

I’m a bit late on this as I’ve been away, but Panasonic have announced a stereoscopic micro 4/3′s lens for their camera range as well as a consumer S3D camcorder (well it’s actually a 2D camcorder with a conversion lens). The Panasonic 3D lens incorporates 2 lenses and is designed to work with the Lumix G micro system. It’s primarily a stills lens, but with the right firmware the cameras may also be able to shoot 3D video.

Panasonic have also released details of their HDC-SDT750 3D camcorder. This is a 3 chip 2D camcorder that can be fitted with a 3D conversion lens that allows it to shoot side by side 3D images. The left and right images are then squashed horizontally by 50% and recorded as a single 1920×1080 video clip that contains the two squashed images side by side. This has the advantage that when plugged in to a consumer S3D TV via HDMI the TV will show the footage in 3D (or stereoscopically to be correct). The down side is that each view only uses  960×540 pixels during capture, so it’s not full HD for each eye. On screen it probably looks better than this sounds as each eye is seeing slightly different images and this gives the impression of slightly higher resolution than that of a single image. What is exciting to me about this camera is it’s very narrow interaxial of about 30mm. This will make it suitable for POV and handheld video diary type shots, something not really possible with larger interaxials or beam splitter rigs. So even though the resolution may not be there, I can see one of these cameras finding it’s way into my camera kit. I’d certainly love to get one to review.

Anyway these are both very interesting and only goes to show just how quickly S3D is being developed. When consumers start to become used to seeing their home videos in S3D, we professionals are going to have to start producing more and more content in S3D.

IBC is just over a month away and I expect we will see lots more 3D products between now and then, including some more of my Hurricane 3D rigs

Oh… one more thing.. the camera does 1920×1080 50P!!

My 3D rig now has a name, we are calling it the Hurricane rig. It needed a name so that when talking to the design team and factory they know what we are talking about. I have a deal worked out with a well known, high quality brand for production and distribution of the rig world wide. I can’t give away too many details at this point but the rig will work with a broad range of cameras from DSLR’s up to Sony P1 compact studio cameras. It’s ideal for EX’s and Canon XF305′s etc. It’s a beam splitter rig with some clever tricks that make it extremely portable and very versatile. The aim is to produce the one and only 3D rig you’ll ever need. The  base rig will have manual control of interaxial and convergence along with adjustments for camera roll, tilt and height. A series of add-on and upgrade kits will also be available to add full servo control of interaxial and convergence, lens control and optional brackets for the Nano3D and Transvideo Cinemonitor 3D monitors.

A prototype has been built and used on several 3D stereoscopic productions so we know the design works. We are now working on the final CAD drawings and a pre-production unit  before going in to full scale production.

As anyone that understands optics will know the most important aspect of a mirror or beam splitter rig is the mirror itself. The mirrors we are using in the rigs are top quality optically flat mirrors with one of the very best coatings on the market. We have a true 50/50 split with negligible colour shift. Despite the high quality and relatively high cost of the mirrors we hope that the final price of the rig will surprise and amaze. My aim is to produce a rig that will make top quality 3D production available to everyone without breaking the bank.

Included with the rig will be a voucher that will enable you to get a low cost training DVD or discounted training course that will get you up and running very quickly, with as little fuss as possible.

Why use a mirror rig?

While Sony and Panasonic are working on one piece stereoscopic video cameras, these will always have limited applications. The key to good 3D production is the ability to adjust the interaxial or camera lens separation. For the majority of productions the camera interaxial will be below 70mm and very often, for 3D that is easy on the eyes, less than 50mm. For some scenes you may even be down to 25  to 30mm! However for scenic shots you may need greater separation, say 100mm or more. You just don’t get this flexibility with a twin lens camera. In addition a dedicated 3D camera will be an expensive piece of kit and may well not be suitable for conventional 2D. So when your not shooting 3D it will sit on the shelf gathering dust. Meanwhile the cameras from a beam splitter rig, are after all just a pair of 2D cameras so they can also be used for your 2D productions. If you already have a single camera, ten all you need to do is hire or buy a second camera and the rig. This will be far more cost effective than a dedicated 3D camera.

Hello all, I’m having a great time meeting all the blog readers and forum contributors from south East Asia. I’m in Singapore at Broadcast Asia doing some short seminars on XDCAM sensors and media as well as stereoscopic production. i spend most of my time hanging out around the 3D area of the Sony Booth, so if you are at the show do drop by and say hello. next week I will be in Malaysia running some workshops on XDCAM HD and XDCAM EX.

The Chapman Rig Mk3 Stereoscopic Rig at Broadcast Asia

I also have the very latest version of my stereoscopic 3D beam splitter rig on show on the event and I’m pleased to report it performing extremely well even side by side with an Element Technica rig and Speed Wedge Rig, both costing 20x the cost of my rig. I hope to have the rig in production and available for sale very, very soon at a price you won’t believe. It has some neat tricks, is really easy to align and will work with a wide range of cameras. My aim is to make high quality 3d stereoscopic production affordable for everyone. As well as the rig there will be some other very clever items from both myself and third parties that will allow you to buy an innovative package capable of producing anything from a low budget 3D corporate to a full blow 3D movie.

There are very few new products here at broadcast Asia. However I did help launch the PMW-320 into this region yesterday. As there is already a huge number of DSR-300 users in this region the PMW-320 will make a lot of sense here as people are used to using 1/2″ cameras. SD production is still the norm and there is a lot of 4:3, so HD is still very much in it’s infancy. One thing that is appreciated though is the cost savings that can be gained from a file based workflow. As you no longer need expensive VTR’s to play back tapes, so you can save money by using a PC instead. Plus the fact that the cameras have no moving parts so cost nothing to maintain, helps makes solid state very attractive to even the SD production companies and broadcasters. Transferring an hour’s worth of DV material from a PMW-320 to the edit suite via USB takes just 10 minutes! Anyway…. off to bed….. jet lag is grim…. baby Octopus for diner is interesting to say the least, but having a good time, will report more before the end of the show.

I’ve had this monitor for a couple of months now and I have to say it has proven to be an amazing tool. While it can provide a 3D view using shutter glasses, it is at it’s most useful when used in Anaglyph mode. I don’t wear the glasses to view in 3D a lot of the time, but the red/cyan fringes allow me to see at a glance the amount of dissparity I have in my 3D shots. On top of this the monitor can then add a grid that you can set to show the dissparity limits for your production. It just makes shooting 3D so much simpler and easier, especially with the kind of portable, documentary style shooting that I do, where a large monitor would be much harder to use. When your working to very low dissparity limits such as those set by Sky 3D it’s really important that you keep track of what you have.

I have also heard through the grapevine that the NanoFlash 3D is getting pretty close. This will be a revolutionary product that will be invaluable to stereographers. The ability to sync record two HDSDi streams is in itself fantastic, especially in such a small device. But then to be able to play back your footage in 3D, output in a variety of formats to suit different monitors and televisions is just fantastic. It’s these small little boxes from the smaller manufacturers that are making 3D production easier and cheaper. Black Magic design also have some new 3D capable capture and play back cards (for less than $500) as well as an adapter that can take two streams of HDSDi and convert it to DVI or HDMI suitable for feeding a 3D TV or Monitor.

I’m running a free half day workshop to introduce the basic principles of 3D stereoscopic production in Zurich on the 27th of May. Further details can be found by clicking here.

Due to the overwhelming demand for places on the 19th of May, a second date has been added on the 9th of June, this second date at Visual Impact in Teddington is a third full already so don’t delay if you want a place! We have 19 that have registered an interest in the 15 places available on the 19th of May, you may still be able to get a spot if some drop out or swap to the 9th of June. Click Here for more details and to register your interest.

Front view of beam splitter rig.

I have just finished putting together a new beam splitter 3D rig. This new rig replaces an older one that was less flexible and harder to set up. It is designed to work with an EX1 and EX3 or a pair of EX3. It could also be used with any other cameras of a similar size.

A beam splitter rig uses a mirror that reflects half the incoming light to one camera while the rest of the light passes through to the second camera. The advantage is that in effect the cameras can be mounted very close together optically. If you look carefully at the image on the left you can see that the lenses of the cameras appear to overlap. With the mirror box currently fitted to the rig I can go from zero separation to 110 mm separation (interaxial) just by turning a knob and sliding the top camera from side to side. The mirror box can be quickly and easily exchanged for a larger mirror box for wider lenses or greater separation. I’m currently using an old mirror from an old rig, but I have a new color corrected 50:50 mirror on order that should come this week.

The entire rig can be powered by a single V-Lock battery, the battery helps counterbalance the weight of the lower EX3 and mirror box. It can also be used handheld by adding hand grips to the front mount. On the rear I have a pair of NanoFlashes for improved recording flexibility and better image quality.

The monitor is a rather nice Transvideo Cinemonitor HD 6 with 3D View. I have this on loan and I will be sad to see this go back as it’s really excellent. It’s remarkably bright (it has LED back lighting) and very sharp. It allows 3D monitoring via shutter glasses or anaglyph. It can even flop one of the HDSDI inputs, so even with a mirror rig you can monitor your 3D in real time. It also has built in waveform display.

The rear of Alister's beam splitter rig

The Transvideo 3D monitor makes setting up the rig a breeze. The mirror box has adjustments for skew and tilt and the cameras can be adjusted for toe-in/toe-out.

Mirror rigs are not ideal, as you can see they are large and cumbersome. But for any kind of close up work you need a narrow interaxial, often less than the 65mm of our own eyes. There are very few cameras that can be placed this close together, let alone lenses. For Avatar, James Cameron used some specially modified cameras and lenses that could be mounted very close together, but these kinds of modifications are extremely expensive and beyond the means of many productions, so mirror rigs will be around for some time to come. There biggest problem is the bulk, smaller cameras would allow a smaller rig to be built and perhaps in the future it will be possible to use a pair of video capable DSLR type cameras on a very small and compact rig. This is certainly something I am investigating, but at the moment, as well as the image quality issues it is difficult to get the cameras to run in sync. The XDCAM EX3 can be genlocked, so sync with an EX1 and EX3 or a pair of EX3′s is not an issue.

Alister's new beam splitter 3D rig

I will be running a 3D workshop in Oklahoma City, USA at the end of May and another workshop near London in early June if you are interested in learning how to shoot stereoscopic 3D with both mirror rigs and side by side rigs.

For more on the Transvideo monitor please see my review by clicking here.

I came across an interesting article on the importance of having the correct camera orientation when using CMOS cameras for Stereoscopic production with a beam splitter. The problem is that if you don’t get the orientation right, when you pan, one camera while exhibit skew going in one direction while the other camera will exhibit skew in the opposite direction (as the image is mirrored) and this will cause the break down of the stereoscopic image. One of the most common stereoscopic rigs currently in use is the P+S technik rig and unfortunately in it’s standard configuration the cameras are oriented such that after correcting for the mirrored image the skew ends up reversed on one camera.

Click here to go to the full article.

Sky TV have released their tech specs for 3D stereoscopic production. No big surprises perhaps except for the minimum bit rate of 100Mb/s per channel, so this rules out even native XDCAM HD422. Looks like a pair of EX’s with the Nano3D ticks all the boxes though. Click here for the full details. There are also looking for very mild 3D with a maximum 2% positive disparity and only occaisional use of 1% negative disparity.

Taken from the Sky specs….

Content acquisition

Content acquisition where electronic should be by identical camera pairs utilizing a three ½” (or greater) sensor array and:

• with a native resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels and at a frame rate of 25 Frames interlaced with 50 fields or
• with a native resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels and at a frame rate of 25 Frames Progressive or

Record Format

Record format should be at a bit rate no less than 100Mbit/s 4:2:2 for acquisition.

This is from the CD press release. It’s really exciting. I’ve already used pairs of NanoFlashes to record 3D but now they have given us the ability to use them to play back ultra high quality 3D.

nano3D consists of two standard nanoFlashes, plus a nano3D kit, which provides for synchronized 3D recording from two cameras with high quality “Pixel Synced” Playback and much more.

Synchronized “Pixel Synced” playback enables easy, on-set playback of 3D with the proper monitoring equipment.

nano3D may also be used with a single camera for “Redundant Recording”, or simultaneous High Quality and Proxy Mode recordings.

Two standard nanoFlashes plus the nano3D kit are used to create nano3D. Any existing nanoFlashes may be used for nano3D, thus your investment in the nanoFlash has not been diminished.

In addition, a nano3D may be quickly separated into two independent nanoFlashes.

Convergent Design may be reached at www.convergent-design.com, 720-221-3861 or 803-278-0941.