3D Stereoscopic Capture for Surgical Videos - Gear question

[areosaf]

Hey There,

I'm helping a lung surgeon develop 3D educational videos to help train other surgeons on how to do robotic procedures. Robotic surgery is done in 3D, and the machine has DVI outputs, one for the left eye and one for the right eye each at 1024 x 768. I'd like to capture this stereoscopic output and edit it.

I'm trying to figure the ideal gear needed to capture both DVI feeds, edit them on a computer to shorten length and add appropriate text to point out anatomy, and then produce and view them in 2D and 3D.

Total budget is roughly 5k. I'm looking for help on the workflow, and gear. Blackmagic doesn't have any dual DVI input capture cards.

(1) Capture device for dual DVI inputs? (Should I get a capture card to hook up to computer, or get a separate dual channel recording device, which should I get? )
(2) Software to edit / produce? (mac or pc)
(3) Best way to view videos in 3D? (which monitor, or active/passive 3d with glasses)

Any help is appreciated.

[smrpix]

Someone else is going to have to chime in on the hardware questions.

All the major (and most of the minor) NLEs can handle 3D material - Avid, Premiere, Edius, Vegas. I would point you to Sony Vegas/ Sony Moviestudio, because even the consumer level versions can handle the non-broadcast raster size and the learning curve is (arguably) simpler than the others.

[areosaf]

Thanks for your response. I will go with your software choice, just need help with the hardware now.

Very much appreciated

[Cornucopia]

You don't need dualDVI necessarily. You WILL need 2 capture ports. The benefit of a dual-input device is the (near) assurance of synced clocking. Blackmagic DOES have HDMI capture devices, and since DVI and HDMI are related protocol-wise, a DVI->HDMI adapter might make capturing with those devices possible.

Without synced clocking, you have the possibility of up to ½ frame's worth of delay between the 2 views. This is a MAXIMUM variation, which may not occur to that extent (it's random?), but if it does, it is not conducive to good 3D viewing (IOW, greater eyestrain & fatigue). Of course, the higher the framerate, the smaller this delay could be (and the better for syncing).

As mentioned, all the major Pro NLEs can do some form of 3D.

Note that 1024x768 is a PC-based resolution. For you to make the most of it down the road with consumer electronics equipment, you will need to resize to a CE-standard size such as 1280x720 or 1920x1080. Note also that you are starting with an image that (likely) has an Aspect Ratio of 4:3. The equivalent CE resolutions just mentioned are both 16:9, so you would need to adjust for that (hopefully by pillarboxing). So your material should be prepped & converted prior to editing. I'll assume it is at least already progressive. For the prep work, I'd suggest AVISynth feeding an encoder that creates ~lossless intermediate files for editing.

A look at BMD's site leads me to believe that the problem you might encounter with their equipment is NOT with the DVI->HDMI, but rather that their stuff expects CE-only resolutions & framerates. So a more appropriate device might be something like: http://www.epiphan.com/products/frame-grabbers/dvi2pcie-duo/

Asus & Benq have a number of good 3D monitors to choose from which should work with those NLEs. Plus you would likely want to have a way to test encoding to 3DBD and viewing with a 3DBDplayer & 3DTV. Active & Passive both have their pros & cons. Personally, I prefer having my images synchronized, and with 4K passive 3DTVs, you don't incur the 2D->3D resolution penalty of standard HD passive 3DTVs, so that would be my suggestion, if you can afford it.

That's a start...

Scott

[areosaf]

Thanks Scott,

I like the epiphan DVI2PCIe Duo that you sent, it works with mac and pc. But looks like only one DVI the other is SDI. Would need to be assured I could use a DVI Extender like this one from BMD. I called them and they aren't sure it would work.


What do you think about this:

Option 1: Magewell XI200XUSB: External Box, Dual DVI inputs and USB 3.0 ($1160 on amazon):
http://www.magewell.com/hardware/boxes/xi200xusb/xi200xusb_features.html?lang=en

Option 2: ViewCast Osprey 820e Dual Input Video Capture Card ($1849)
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/881776-REG/viewcast_95_00475_osprey_820e_video_capture.html

I guess I would prefer the external device for portability. Would be nice if there was an HDD recorder that could do this, so I wouldn't have to bring a computer into the operating room, and would have greater portability.

Thanks again,
Areo

[Cornucopia]

The Magewell stuff looks like it would only capture 1024x786 rez material via the VGA input. That is going to be your bottleneck.
Opsrey is known to be good quality broadcast level stuff overall. And it seems that card EXPLICITLY supports the resolution you are looking at.

Now, reading the Opsrey lit brings up the point: you won't be able to cap a stream that has HDCP (without going the grey-market route). Are you sure the stereo output device is HDCP-free?
What does the literature for the robotic 3D device say about it? Maybe they can tell you further what would be a good match for capturing/editing.

Scott

[Cornucopia]

You may also want to look at this: https://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/mkt-medical/resource.latest.bbsccms-assets-mkt-med-lates...robotics.shtml
Don't know how much that costs, though (looks like they won't tell you until you show a concerted interest and sign in)...

Scott