Thursday 23 October 2014

Apertus Axiom Alpha Footage : Vimeo Link



http://vimeo.com/groups/274679/videos/107801527

I had the opportunity to play in post with some footage provided by the Apertus team. The footage was shot by the Apertus team with an early Axiom prototype.

I was really impressed with the footage and with what the Apertus team has achieved so far. There is some FPN in some shots ( in the Beta there are already plans how to eliminate it entirely). I am more than excited to see what the Apertus team is preparing for the following months. The fact that they also teamed up with the Magic Lantern team, makes things even more exciting.

indiegogo.com/projects/axiom-beta-the-first-open-digital-cinema-camera/x/8764138#activity

I think that for the first time, filmmakers will have the opportunity to choose the specs they actually want or need.

Tuesday 21 October 2014

Axiom Camera Teaser : Hollywood Loves Open Source



Link to video : 

http://vimeo.com/106452874

A teaser for the upcoming short-form documentary about the Apertus AXIOM, the first Open Source Cinema Camera. The doc will run at around 10 minutes and encompass Open Source, Open Hardware and Hollywood's relationship to technological progress.

The crowdfunding campaign for the Apertus AXIOM is live until October 8, 2014: New extension has been placed.....
indiegogo.com/projects/axiom-beta-the-first-open-digital-cinema-camera/x/515086

An open source movie format for video and film production : a review

An open source movie format for video and film production

San Francisco, California, United States Technology


Let's create a movie format that addresses all the needs of professional users, now and into the future. MOX will use existing open source technology to create a new file format that is:
Professional
MOX will store audio and video using lossless and near-lossless compression, allowing users to maintain quality when moving media between applications. It will support high sampling rates, bit depths, and frame sizes, and hold all relevant metadata such as color space and timecode.
Cross-Platform
MOX will read and play consistently on Mac, Windows, Linux, or any other platform. This is because MOX will be an open format, based on open standards. It will include an open source C++ library, ensuring that any program will be able to easily support MOX files, now and forever.
Movie
As a movie format, MOX will store audio and video together. It will leverage technology used in existing audio-only and still-image formats to make the first professional movie format that is open source and patent-free.


The Problem with Existing Formats
There are already movie formats aimed at professional users, but they each fall short in one way or another. Some are not cross-platform, making them difficult to hand off to colleagues. Others do not support key features like higher bit depths and lossless compression. Few have well-designed APIs so that applications can take full advantage of them. Most require developers to pay licensing fees.
The source of these failings is that the formats are not open. Controlled by video software companies, their inner workings are shrouded in mystery. If users need the format to add a new feature or support a different operating system, it is entirely at the company's discretion to do so.
Compare this to an open format like JPEG, which can be read by any program on any device. Or see how OpenEXR has evolved to add features for today's visual effects artists. There's no reason we can't have the same freedom with a movie format.


What We're Planning to Do
Good news! The core technologies we need have already been developed and released as open source. All that's left to do is corral them together into a cohesive format that's easy to use. Specifically, we need to:

Create a specification for MOX

Write an open source software library

Write open source plug-ins for popular video apps

The initial release will require some dedicated programming work, followed by years of part-time developer support and maintenance.


Funding Goals
The MOX software will be free to use, but it will not be free to create. A programmer (me!) will need to work on it full-time for several months. Programmer time will consume 100% of the MOX budget.
The average salary for a software developer in San Francisco is $1,800 per week. Working for half that rate, $20,000 pays for about six months of development time.
The primary $20,000 goal will allow me to create the spec, open source library, and write an Adobe Premiere plug-in. At this point, any application will be able to support MOX easily, and will have working code demonstrating how to do so.
But if we can write more plug-ins, that will only speed up the adoption of MOX. The more money is raised, the more software can be created, so we have some stretch goals:


$20,000: Adobe Premiere plug-in (primary goal, also works in Media Encoder)
$25,000: Adobe After Effects plug-in

$30,000: Nuke plug-in
And should those goals be met, we have no shortage of additional stretch goals ready to be revealed.


Technical Details
MOX is going to use the MXF container (SMPTE 377M) to hold a specific list of open source, patent-free audio and video codecs. Many of the video codecs will actually be embedded frame sequences, allowing frames to be copied in and out of a MOX as if it were a Zip file.
Video formats will be Dirac, OpenEXR, DPX, PNG, and JPEG. The sum total of these codecs means that MOX will be able to store video at 8-, 10-, 12-, and 16-bit integer, as well as 16- and 32-bit floating point. Each bit depth will have both lossless and lossy compression options.
Audio codecs will be FLAC, Opus, and raw PCM to do lossy and lossless audio compression at 8-, 16-, 24-, and 32-bit.
Both audio and video will support any number of channels. Depending on the codec, this means that multiple compressed video streams may be present in a MOX, allowing for alpha channels, Z-depth, stereo views, etc.
MOX will support file-wide and frame-specific metadata. Color space metadata can include ICC profiles, named color spaces like Rec. 709, gamma & chromaticityvalues, OpenColorIO configuration information, and embedded LUTs. MOX will clearly differentiate between importing pixels in their native format and viewingpixels, which may involve a display transform.
The open source library and plug-ins will be programmed in C++, hosted on GitHub, and available under the permissive BSD license, allowing commercial and non-commercial software programs to use them freely.


Other Ways to Help
Spread the word! Send an email to the other video and film professionals you know. This project is for them.
And tell companies that make the software you use that you want them to support MOX! Many programs do not have plug-in architectures so we can't do it for them, even if we had the resources to do so.


About the Author
I got my start in visual effects working for The Orphanage, doing matchmoving on Jeepers Creepers II (23% on Rotten Tomatoes!). While at The O I worked on a number of films and commercials, my personal favorite being Sin City. Somewhere along the way I learned to write plug-ins, one of the first being eLin, a system for doing linear compositing inside 16-bit After Effects.
Since The Orphanage, I've written a number of other plug-ins, many of them offered for free on my website and blog. In 2007 I released the ProEXR package, which provides full OpenEXR support in Photoshop, After Effects, and Premiere. The AE plug-ins have shipped with After Effects since 2008, and the code for them is freely available up on GitHub. I'm even in the AE credits!



Other open source projects include an OpenColorIO plug-in for After Effects, and a tool for DCI color space conversion. More recently I've worked on Theora and WebMplug-ins, which made me realize that all the necessary pieces for MOX were finally in place.

An open source movie format for video and film production

An open source movie format for video and film production

Video link below :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3Vf9Z6G2O80


Technical Details


MOX is going to use the MXF container (SMPTE 377M) to hold a specific list of open source, patent-free audio and video codecs. Many of the video codecs will actually be embedded frame sequences, allowing frames to be copied in and out of a MOX as if it were a Zip file.


Video formats will be Dirac, OpenEXR, DPX, PNG, and JPEG. The sum total of these codecs means that MOX will be able to store video at 8-, 10-, 12-, and 16-bit integer, as well as 16- and 32-bit floating point. Each bit depth will have both lossless and lossy compression options.


Audio codecs will be FLAC, Opus, and raw PCM to do lossy and lossless audio compression at 8-, 16-, 24-, and 32-bit.


Both audio and video will support any number of channels. Depending on the codec, this means that multiple compressed video streams may be present in a MOX, allowing for alpha channels, Z-depth, stereo views, etc.


MOX will support file-wide and frame-specific metadata. Color space metadata can include ICC profiles, named color spaces like Rec. 709, gamma & chromaticityvalues, OpenColorIO configuration information, and embedded LUTs. MOX will clearly differentiate between importing pixels in their native format and viewingpixels, which may involve a display transform.


The open source library and plug-ins will be programmed in C++, hosted on GitHub, and available under the permissive BSD license, allowing commercial and non-commercial software programs to use them freely.

Funding link below : 
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mox-file-format

Monday 20 October 2014

4rfv news Rogue & Axiom : Rogue Element Provides Open Source Digital Camera Solutions

http://www.4rfv.co.uk/industrynews/188455/rogue_element_provides_open_source_digital_camera_solutions

Rogue Element Provides Open Source Digital Camera Solutions




Rogue Element has become one of the first digital cinematography firms in the UK to take on an Open Source policy for its rental division by providing Open Source Digital Camera Solutions.

The Soho-based company is ensuring that 4K cinema is fully open to everyone by making AXIOM Beta Open Digital Cinema Cameras available to its rental customers.
AXIOM Beta cameras are the first products to be developed by apertus°, an Open Source cinema organisation founded by film makers and financed through crowd funding. The people behind apertus° were galvanised into action when they became concerned with the expensive and limited tools they were forced to work with every day. Instead, they wanted access to affordable devices and technology that delivered the highest possible image quality and could be customised to exactly suit their needs.
Since its formation in 2007, the apertus° project has applied an Open Source philosophy to everything it has developed. As no patents have been filed, anyone can access the technology behind its cameras and people are actively encouraged to adapt, modify, repair and even replicate them. To date, reaction has been very positive. Not only has the company achieved – and exceeded – its initial crowd funding target but it also has the backing of some very important film makers and cinematographers.
ASC and AIC Cinematographer Roberto Schaefer, who was responsible for films such as Quantum of Solace, Finding Neverland and Stranger Than Fiction, says: "I believe than an Open Source camera will allow us to customize the digital camera to our personal liking. That should include ergonomics and hopefully give the ability to get rid of the shoebox, front heavy trend of current designs. I look forward to using custom elements to create the new Digital Aaton, even though they are no longer in business. The design possibilities that I've seen from the apertus° project are exciting, as are the image creation possibilities. Not being locked in to any one company’s idea of what the images should look like is a breath of fresh (film) air. Currently in order to switch film stocks we have to change camera systems. The AXIOM will hopefully change all of that and allow us to change stocks with a physical switch."
His views are shared by Emmy and Academy Award-winning DOP and Visual Effects Supervisor David Stump, who says: "The spirit of Open Source frees up the creative spirit to do something that no one else thought of," while IMAX cinematographer Lee Ford Parker adds: "Open Source cameras are a step back toward the dark room, in which making the tools is part of the joy of making the art."
The AXIOM Beta camera has just been released and is currently only available at cost to the community that backed the initial crowd funding campaign. Rogue Element was one of those backers and Managing Director Dan Mulligan says: "Open Source is a fantastic concept and we are delighted to be supporting apertus° by making this format available to the UK rental market. In taking on the Open Source philosophy, we hope to facilitate unfettered access to the technology and free up the creative spirit so that the cinema industry can engage in practices that encourage freedom of expression and is no longer limited by who can contribute."
Established by Mulligan in 2001 firstly with camera rentals, Rogue Element then pioneered tapeless and file-based digital workflows and onset correction with 3D LUTs, S.two & Codex data recorders and Filmlight colour timing suites until 2011.
Now starting an Open Source operation for 2014 onwards Rogue will offer new camera solutions and options for the Broadcast & Features markets.
Rogue Element can also provide dailies and workflows for Arriraw (Alexa 16:9/4:3 sensors) RED RAW (RED Epic & Dragon 6K),Sony S-Log3 (Sony F65), Canon RAW (Canon C100/300/500), Cinema DNG (Blackmagic), GoPro and many other of today's professional and niche camera systems. With this new operation for 2014 we want to pursue new avenues for the market.

www.rogueelementdigital.com

Broadcast Magazine 2014



Friday 17 October 2014

2014 Open Source Press Release








PRESS RELEASE

Rogue Element Embraces an Open Source Philosophy 

The digital cinematography company is one of the first in the world to rent out apertus° AXIOM Open Digital Cinema Cameras.

London, UK. October 17th, 2014: Rogue Element has become one of the first digital cinematography companies in the UK to adopt an Open Source policy for its rental division, providing Open Source Digital Camera Solutions.

In a move designed to unleash and encourage creativity, the Soho-based company is ensuring that 4K cinema is fully open to everyone by making AXIOM Beta Open Digital Cinema Cameras available to its rental customers.

AXIOM Beta cameras are the first products to be developed by apertus°, an Open Source cinema organisation founded by film makers and financed through crowd funding. The people behind apertus° were galvanised into action when they became concerned with the expensive and limited tools they were forced to work with every day. Instead, they wanted access to affordable devices and technology that delivered the highest possible image quality and could be customised to exactly suit their needs. 

Since its formation in 2007, the apertus° project has applied an Open Source philosophy to everything it has developed. As no patents have been filed, anyone can access the technology behind its cameras and people are actively encouraged to adapt, modify, repair and even replicate them. To date, reaction has been very positive. Not only has the company achieved – and exceeded – its initial crowd funding target but it also has the backing of some very important film makers and cinematographers. 

ASC and AIC Cinematographer Roberto Schaefer, who was responsible for films such as Quantum of Solace, Finding Neverland and Stranger Than Fiction, says: "I believe than an Open Source camera will allow us to customize the digital camera to our personal liking. That should include ergonomics and hopefully give the ability to get rid of the shoebox, front heavy trend of current designs. I look forward to using custom elements to create the new Digital Aaton, even though they are no longer in business. The design possibilities that I've seen from the apertus° project are exciting, as are the image creation possibilities. Not being locked in to any one company’s idea of what the images should look like is a breath of fresh (film) air. Currently in order to switch film stocks we have to change camera systems. The AXIOM will hopefully change all of that and allow us to change stocks with a physical switch."

His views are shared by Emmy and Academy Award-winning DOP and Visual Effects Supervisor David Stump, who says: "The spirit of Open Source frees up the creative spirit to do something that no one else thought of," while IMAX cinematographer Lee Ford Parker adds: "Open Source cameras are a step back toward the dark room, in which making the tools is part of the joy of making the art."

The AXIOM Beta camera has just been released and is currently only available at cost to the community that backed the initial crowd funding campaign. Rogue Element was one of those backers and Managing Director Dan Mulligan says: "Open Source is a fantastic concept and we are delighted to be supporting apertus° by making this format available to the UK rental market. In taking on the Open Source philosophy, we hope to facilitate unfettered access to the technology and free up the creative spirit so that the cinema industry can engage in practices that encourage freedom of expression and is no longer limited by who can contribute."

Established by Mulligan in 2001 firstly with camera rentals, Rogue Element then pioneered tapeless and file-based digital workflows and onset correction with 3D LUTs, S.two & Codex data recorders and Filmlight colour timing suites until 2011.
Now starting an Open Source operation for 2014 onwards Rogue will offer new camera solutions and options for the Broadcast & Features markets.

Rogue Element can also provide dailies and workflows for Arriraw (Alexa 16:9/4:3 sensors) RED RAW (RED Epic & Dragon 6K),Sony S-Log3 (Sony F65), Canon RAW (Canon C100/300/500), Cinema DNG (Blackmagic), GoPro and many other of today's professional and niche camera systems. With this new operation for 2014 we want to pursue new avenues for the market.

Dan Mulligan, who has recently returned to Rogue Element after a three year stint at Technicolor, says: "The Arriraw format is now well established and there are a raft of high-end products catering for this market. We are still providing our customers with access to these workflows as they continue to develop, but thanks to our investment in the apertus° project we can now bring a very high quality Open Source 4K camera to the market at a much lower entry cost."

Mulligan adds that for many film makers, cost can be an ongoing issue and the price of using high end equipment does bar many talented people from entering the market. 

"This is why it is good to see the appearance of an Open Source camera system that has a much lower entry point," he says. "The ability to create your own 4K camera and your own workflow is hugely beneficial for the film and broadcast industry because it will encourage content creation and allow people to get involved at much less cost."

Rogue Element is not initially consider charging for the rental of its AXIOM Beta cameras. Instead, it will make its income through consultancy and through supplying additional new sensors, lenses, tripods etc., and add on services such as storage and workflow.

"We want people to try them so we are making them as easily available as possible," Mulligan says. "With the Axiom Open Source we now have a camera solution coming from an opposing end of the release spectrum with a differing approach to its target audience. There should be more than enough room for both this and the higher end systems."

-ends-

About Rogue Element:
Rogue Element provides digital cinematography filming services plus data and dailies, to the Film and Broadcast industries. A pioneer in tapeless and file-based digital workflows and on-set colour correction, the company's growing rental division also supplies and supports a wide range of professional Digital Cameras including RAW camera systems and workflows, apertus° AXIOM Beta Open Source cameras and new solutions for RAW workflows.

Tel:  +44 (0) 7957 588293


Press contact:
Sue Sillitoe
White Noise PR
Tel: +44 (0) 1666 500142
Mobile: +44 (0) 7798 621891



Open Source - Thoughts


New platform for open source.

Rogue Element wants to help promote the use of open-source software in the public and private sectors. Initially we are looking at Open Cinema but would look to broaden this in time.

Open-source software is software that does not conform to traditional software licensing models and can be used and distributed freely.

We believe open-source software is good for economies and costs and for the empowerment of the practitioners.

The Rogue website will make information available to allow those wanting resources or support for open source-software. We would love to be the central point for all conversations about open source and particularly its place in modern digital film craft.

It is not only servers and cloud-based applications where open source has a place, but also in the software that those craft principles can use every day. Most potential users would perhaps focus on a tiny subset of a softwares functionality.

Most computing devices now run on some form of open-source software. Google’s Android is a good example. Some smart TVs also run on Linux

Adopting and moving to open-source software will allow also allow developers to fill the gap left by the transition and long term move away from licensed to open-source software. With open-source software, it is not about limiting anyone, we just want to ensure that the majority of the computing we do happens on open-source software. Its very good for skills, and it allows us to write our own story and encourage development of skills.

Thank you,
Daniel Mulligan
Rogue Element

Thursday 16 October 2014

Early RAW DNG file example and download



The next step is to record an image. Many questions, possibilities can arise from the actual method of capture. True RAW uncalibrated images can be recorded but look very unappealing and need full processing to create useable versions, but you do have the full images sensor information to play with.

Less processsed, or as we see them RAW images already pre-processed, can be delivered with encoding applied such as Log curve, making the images available instantly to be worked on.

Plus the wrapper that then contains the image. This example uses DNG but you can create your own .abcd file format (say .axi) to then record/save your image sensor data inside.

Below is a link to a RAW DNG download as an example of a 4K image that is captured directly from the image sensor. It is a DNG file and may need to be converted via DNG convertor as the Axiom does not at this stage record full metadata which would allow the file to be seen via DNG SDK software. I converted this non metadata DNG to a new DNG again and the image then became available to me in software such as Resolve 11.1 and Assimilate Scratch Lab.

Download link :

https://apertus.org/merry-christmas-2013


RAW DNG unprocessed example followed by graded version below it :











Updates



Hi,

As the Axiom Camera is on this blog it feels like a good time to outline the progress so far and what should in store for the next year of its development.

As explained this is an entirely open source development and allows anyone to examine and participate in that development, and also to add any suggestions or ideas to how it could develop even further.

Due to the nature of the digital industry new developments are taking place fairly rapidly so seeing how everything continues for the Axiom will be interesting. Coming up soon will be further explanations regarding the sensor and its capabilities, plus also a look at how the images will be recorded and to what degree a strongly considered and implemented workflow will be developed for the system.

More to come soon,

Daniel Mulligan

www.puredigitalservices.com

Axiom Dimensions


HDMI recording Axiom 4K



Interfaces
AXIOM Beta will have a wide range of Input/Output "Shields" (as we call modules for this purpose). A shield with 3x HDMI ports will be completed first, more shields for 3G-SDI, Timecode, Genlock, etc. will then follow soon depending on what the community is most interested in. Worth noting is that the three HDMI ports are fully independent from each other and can be configured to output completely differently processed images. Remember that anything is possible as this is entirely open source. This should allow some interesting configurations, here is one configuration example:


4K DNG Downloads

Here is a link to the RAW DNG file allowing you to play and grade yourself :
Here is a link to the 4K graded file, 4088x3064 1.6mb size :
I copied a small JPEG as an upload for a visual check in the previous post, the banding is there due to the compression from 1.6mb original to 266kb for easier upload bandwidth.
Dan Mulligan

Axiom RAW 4K DNG download



Here is a link to the RAW DNG file allowing you to play and grade yourself :

4K raw DNG Download

Here is a link to the 4K graded file, 4088x3064 1.6mb size :

https://images.indiegogo.com/file_attachments/914986/files/20141008121257-AXIOM_Alpha_4K_RAW_Still.jpg?1412795577

I copied a small JPEG as an upload for a visual check in the previous post, the banding is there due to the compression from 1.6mb original to 266kb for easier upload bandwidth.

Dan Mulligan

www.rogueelementdigital.com

Sunday 5 October 2014

Sony 8K processing

Sony 8K processing : Super Resolution De-Mosaicing Processor

The Super Resolution De-Mosaicing Processor is a complete solution designed to generate the highest quality motion image from F65 raw data up to 8K x 4K. A cutout function offers free resolution, free aspect ratio live-action contents.

Availability is scheduled for October 2014 and more information will be provided soon.

8K x 4K, 6K x 3K, 4K. 2K super resolution de-mosaicing from F65 raw data

Free aspect ratio, free resolution cutout

Export to standard file format

Task control and batch processing

Link : http://www.pro.sony.eu/pro/lang/en/eu/product/broadcast-products-camcorders-option-boards-modules-plug-ins/super-resolution-de-mosaicing-processor/overview/


Saturday 4 October 2014

Axiom Open Module Concept


Axiom Alpha


Apertusº website



Please find below the website for the 4K Open Source Cinema Camera system.


https://www.apertus.org






The goal of the community driven apertus° project is to create a variety of powerful, free (in terms of liberty) and open cinema tools that we as filmmakers love to use. The idea of building an open cinema camera using an Elphel camera for this particular purpose was born in 2006, found many followers over the years and ultimately resulted in this project entitled "apertus" (word definition) and this website.


Learn more about the apertus° project and about the apertus° history. Our latest efforts are to build the first ever open hardware and free software digital cinema camera from scratch.

Apertusº 2014 blog



Hi and welcome,

This new blog for 2014 will concentrate on the new open source camera being built through the Apertus programme.

There are up and coming visits to the development centre and updates as this new 4K camera system releases capabilities, specs, recording options, workflows and other new information.

It is an open source system, thus allowing for anyone to participate, aid development and even through crowdfunding invest a little.

This will be a very interesting journey and hope you will enjoy this along with us as the new camera develops and becomes fully available.

Thank you,

Daniel Mulligan













Friday 3 October 2014

Axiom updates October 2014