Home Made HD Cinema Cameras - Technical Discussion

Laurence Maher · September 30th, 2004, 09:45 PM

Hey Wayne,

Isn't this SI-3170 the camera we've been looking for? Am I correct it can accomplish 1080p widescreen, can run 24fps and over, can run between 40 and 100mhz (should give mega lattitude), is 12 bit? I thought this was pretty much our hopes in a camera.

The only thing I question is the rolling shutter. I can't remember, did we want the rolling or global shutter? One of them was good and one bad.

Anyway, give me the lowdown, man.

Thanks!

Wayne Morellini · September 30th, 2004, 10:00 PM

I can't remember. It is either 3170 or 3300. Obin has been using it so it is best to go to that thread and look it up. All I can remember is that it needs lots of light (standard issue for a movie set anyway), don't know about smearing and flare (I think much reduced from previouse 1.3Mp) or stop range (sample footage in other thread). Unless you want cheap, Altasens is what we are looking for. I'm not keeping up at the moment I am doing research into really cheap sensors for low end cameras, and custom prism for three chip etc.

Rolling shutter is bad, but Global tends to reduce integration time (light gathering power).

Wayne Morellini · October 3rd, 2004, 07:36 AM

Some, people, ask about the sort of things I dabble in and can do, things like this:

http://www.tomshardware.com/business...e_future_today

I had design concept for the same thing (and a few more) stick that folds out into square display (this ones has camera, but mine would be much cheaper (try well under $100) because of my display system and doable now). Pretty good design anyway. What annoys me is that now it's defintely going to be patented territory, while I still don't have the money to do it.

Wayne Morellini · October 3rd, 2004, 10:10 AM

And the bell rings, I just got a brainstorm:

I have known about these cameras for sometime and their Autobright adaptive dynamic diode technology (120db range, but SN, QE, etc??), but have been at a loose as how to use them effectively, as they are like near 16:4. Well it hit me, pixel shifting three of them through a prism (or string three of them Bayer style through a simpler split plane prism like the Olympus SHD camera does) would do the trick. In an optical search last year I also found an optical manufacturer in India (ones in Asia too) maybe somebody like them can do cheap prism for batch order (just stupidly, and wishfully, thinking ahead).

The problem is this I don't have hard tech data on them, they don't post much and aren't very communicative. The security camera shots don't look anywhere near as good as the sample shoots from the still camera (maybe the autobright technology is better controlled in the still cameras).

It may not be a top camera, but an interesting alternative. I am working through to find cheaper/better alternatives though. Take a look, do your analysis magic and tell me what you think (objectively, it may not be an Altasens, but if it is a good Fillfactory allternative, we have hit gold)?

http://www.smalcamera.com/pictures/index.html
http://www.smalcamera.com/w3000wide.html

Here another PAL camera, if anybody is interested in SD.
http://www.smalcamera.com/v1000camera.html

Hmm, just figured out I can click those sample pictures (blush), had a closer look they look impressive, but I have noticed a couple of things that might be worrying, but might be filtering/compression/lens.

Thanks

Wayne.

Wayne Morellini · October 3rd, 2004, 10:32 AM

Just examined most of the rest of those images, it seems I picked a pretty good batch the first time. But most of the ones with problems look like they are done with another sensor/camera/lens (maybe the $69 camera) or have had bad photographic technique on exposure levels. Still even those are pretty good, especially for the price range (except for the one with lines in it, defective circuite I think).

Anyway, over and out, have a good day.

Wayne Morellini · October 4th, 2004, 11:44 PM

Something unexpected came up. Sometime ago I sent email to Fillfactory enquiring what they had. Recently I recieved another reply from them saying they were surprised anybody was considering the IBIS5?, and that the new IBIS5-A version had improved performance (as we knew). They gave me some links to different companies, and though most won't run at 24fps, some the Phillips cameras were quiet a surprise, and I think they are "inspirational" at least:

A mixture of on camera interfaces: firewire or Ethernet 100, VGA output, CVBS, RS232. The twin Firewire camera though doesn't have most of these.

What is most interesting though is the, likely, high end Volante vision processing cameralink PCI 32 capture board (so most likely out of our price range, but it shows what is out there). It has 1.2MB frame buffer for 500Fps, it also has Trimedia image processor with 32MB of ram but apart fro it's own 4 FPGAs for image processing it has optional FPGA/DSP module. Apart fro t hat it has external triggering, SVGA, RS232 etc. Makes me wonder, is anybody ever going to do a low end PCI capture card with memory, media processor or redefinable image processing FPGA?

http://www.cft.philips.com/industria...n/products.htm
http://www.cft.philips.com/industria.../products2.htm

I'll have to read through the data from the other manufacturers some other time, a bit of a mess.

Altasens is still the way to go, but IBIS is cheap.

Steve Nordhauser · October 5th, 2004, 02:08 PM

Wayne, you are right, I think everyone using the IBIS-5 switched to the 5A about 9 months ago. It is "better crappy" for cinematography. We haven't heard from Ben in awhile - he bought a Sumix and might have opinions. The trouble you get into is that it is not very sensitive so to get the frame rate up and have as long an exposure as possible to get a reasonable exposure (sequential with the read cycle) you want to read at a high clock rate - bad for interfaces and image smearing. Micron's TrueSnap global shutter does simultaneous exposure and readout, improving this quite a bit.

One of the reasons I like our gigabit version is that it has a big memory buffer and an FPGA - not user accessable yet but sometime. The cost isn't bad if you take out the FG requirement.

Ben Syverson · October 5th, 2004, 06:10 PM

Hey guys, sorry for the inactivity -- there's been no news to report for a while, and I've been busy with other projects... Sumix finished the new camera and offered to ship it to me, but I wanted to wait for the updated software to take advantage of it. That should be done in the next month or so, at which point I'll definitely give you guys updates.

From what I understand, the new cam will output 10 (12?) bit. I'm not sure on the IBIS-5/5A issue, but I assume they'd use the latest chip in the update, if not the original cam that I have.

I'm excited to check out the new version, especially if I can leverage the higher bit depth, but the camera I'm really excited about is their FW800 Altasens model. From what they tell me, they're concentrating on that cam now, and should have something pretty soon.

Right now, I'm working on some scripts that I've planned for a while but haven't attempted due to the crapulence of DV... In my opinion, sub-$5k industrial HD cameras are really going to shake things up in the next 12-18 months...

- ben

Aaron Shaw · October 5th, 2004, 07:21 PM

I hope so!

I'm really looking forward to the day when I can get RAW HD video from a decent chip utilizing good glass!

Ben Syverson · October 5th, 2004, 07:24 PM

That day will come in the next month or two -- it'll only take 12-18 months for other folks to catch on. :)

Wayne Morellini · October 6th, 2004, 06:16 AM

<<<-- Originally posted by Steve Nordhauser :Micron's TrueSnap global shutter does simultaneous exposure and readout, improving this quite a bit.-->>>

Steve I wasn't aware they had global shutter, is that new tech for them and what has it?

I have been told of one guy that got a IBIS5A camera much better than the Sumix, but I don't know which company. As the AD convertor is the only component to really affect this performance I wonder does a better AD allow it to lower the niose floor and register lower light levels?

Ben:

A big welcome back buddy glad to have you around.

I am eagerly waiting to see what they do, have they shared with you what capture solutions they are using (capture software in particular)? As far as I know they haven't been in contact with Rob, so I am interested in what pro video/cinema solution they are going to present, and at what cost.

Thanks

Wayne.

Steve Nordhauser · October 6th, 2004, 07:04 AM

Wayne on Micron:
At their web site:
http://micron.com/products/imaging/
They have a column for shuttering - ERS is rolling shutter.
They have the 1.3Mpix 12 micron screamer (500fps, 10 tap) and the VGA 250fps (we have a camera with this one).

On the analog pipe, some of the more interesting sensors require an external analog pipeline - amp, programmable gain amp, A/D and there is quite a bit of differentiation in the camera's image quality from one manufacturer to another. Other sensors include the image pipe right on the silicon - like the Micron. Then, the only image differences are in clock generation, power supply design and camera control. A few, like the IBIS-5A have the analog circuitry built in but bring the analog signal out in addition to the digital output of the A/D. On that one, we put a faster 12 bit A/D to replace the internal 10 bit.

Wayne Morellini · October 6th, 2004, 07:51 AM

This post has links to a codec comparison test, lossless codecs are covered, including sheervideo and microcosm.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...658#post229658

Steve:
Thanks

Rob Lohman · October 7th, 2004, 05:00 AM

Transmeta 2GHz: SSE3

2.0 GHz: 25W, 1.5 GHz: 7W, 1.1 GHz: 3W

Dual CPU VIA Mini-ITX (Epia) mainboard
Eden-N processor, DVI, ethernet, USB one PCI

Wayne Morellini · October 7th, 2004, 06:41 AM

Good Rob! This is what VIA told me in confidence before. We also know that 2Ghz+ CPU are coming, and 64-bit with beter FPU processing powers, is coming (mentioned on that page what else I can't remember). It has Gigabit Ethernet this time.

I'm still curiouse what the extra processing functionality (mentioned in previouse article at Linux Devices) in the system will turn out to be. They have encryption, HD signal dycrption etc, I just wonder how far it will go.

Here the 64bit article:

http://www.via.com.tw/en/resources/p...fpf-isaiah.jsp

I just accidentally tripped over another article, looks like big processing improvements:
http://www.mdronline.com/rh/edn/watc...85000000000000

Update: Dooh, 2006!

But here is an article on up coming Image Sensors/stuff, unfortunately it is to big to read at the moment, but it looks good.

http://www.reed-electronics.com/ednm...c=staffFeature

Thanks

Wayne.

October 4th, 2004, 11:44 PM	#186
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	Cameras/capture with features. Something unexpected came up. Sometime ago I sent email to Fillfactory enquiring what they had. Recently I recieved another reply from them saying they were surprised anybody was considering the IBIS5?, and that the new IBIS5-A version had improved performance (as we knew). They gave me some links to different companies, and though most won't run at 24fps, some the Phillips cameras were quiet a surprise, and I think they are "inspirational" at least: A mixture of on camera interfaces: firewire or Ethernet 100, VGA output, CVBS, RS232. The twin Firewire camera though doesn't have most of these. What is most interesting though is the, likely, high end Volante vision processing cameralink PCI 32 capture board (so most likely out of our price range, but it shows what is out there). It has 1.2MB frame buffer for 500Fps, it also has Trimedia image processor with 32MB of ram but apart fro it's own 4 FPGAs for image processing it has optional FPGA/DSP module. Apart fro t hat it has external triggering, SVGA, RS232 etc. Makes me wonder, is anybody ever going to do a low end PCI capture card with memory, media processor or redefinable image processing FPGA? http://www.cft.philips.com/industria...n/products.htm http://www.cft.philips.com/industria.../products2.htm I'll have to read through the data from the other manufacturers some other time, a bit of a mess. Altasens is still the way to go, but IBIS is cheap.

October 5th, 2004, 02:08 PM	#187
Steve Nordhauser Silicon Imaging, Inc. Join Date: May 2004 Location: Troy, NY USA Posts: 325	IBIS-5A Wayne, you are right, I think everyone using the IBIS-5 switched to the 5A about 9 months ago. It is "better crappy" for cinematography. We haven't heard from Ben in awhile - he bought a Sumix and might have opinions. The trouble you get into is that it is not very sensitive so to get the frame rate up and have as long an exposure as possible to get a reasonable exposure (sequential with the read cycle) you want to read at a high clock rate - bad for interfaces and image smearing. Micron's TrueSnap global shutter does simultaneous exposure and readout, improving this quite a bit. One of the reasons I like our gigabit version is that it has a big memory buffer and an FPGA - not user accessable yet but sometime. The cost isn't bad if you take out the FG requirement. __________________ Silicon Imaging, Inc. We see the Light! http://www.siliconimaging.com

October 6th, 2004, 06:16 AM	#191
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	Re: IBIS-5A <<<-- Originally posted by Steve Nordhauser :Micron's TrueSnap global shutter does simultaneous exposure and readout, improving this quite a bit.-->>> Steve I wasn't aware they had global shutter, is that new tech for them and what has it? I have been told of one guy that got a IBIS5A camera much better than the Sumix, but I don't know which company. As the AD convertor is the only component to really affect this performance I wonder does a better AD allow it to lower the niose floor and register lower light levels? Ben: A big welcome back buddy glad to have you around. I am eagerly waiting to see what they do, have they shared with you what capture solutions they are using (capture software in particular)? As far as I know they haven't been in contact with Rob, so I am interested in what pro video/cinema solution they are going to present, and at what cost. Thanks Wayne.

October 6th, 2004, 07:04 AM	#192
Steve Nordhauser Silicon Imaging, Inc. Join Date: May 2004 Location: Troy, NY USA Posts: 325	Wayne on Micron: At their web site: http://micron.com/products/imaging/ They have a column for shuttering - ERS is rolling shutter. They have the 1.3Mpix 12 micron screamer (500fps, 10 tap) and the VGA 250fps (we have a camera with this one). On the analog pipe, some of the more interesting sensors require an external analog pipeline - amp, programmable gain amp, A/D and there is quite a bit of differentiation in the camera's image quality from one manufacturer to another. Other sensors include the image pipe right on the silicon - like the Micron. Then, the only image differences are in clock generation, power supply design and camera control. A few, like the IBIS-5A have the analog circuitry built in but bring the analog signal out in addition to the digital output of the A/D. On that one, we put a faster 12 bit A/D to replace the internal 10 bit. __________________ Silicon Imaging, Inc. We see the Light! http://www.siliconimaging.com

October 6th, 2004, 07:51 AM	#193
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	Comparison between codecs. This post has links to a codec comparison test, lossless codecs are covered, including sheervideo and microcosm. http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...658#post229658 Steve: Thanks

September 30th, 2004, 09:45 PM	#181
Laurence Maher Join Date: May 2004 Location: denton, texas, usa Posts: 416	Hey Wayne, Isn't this SI-3170 the camera we've been looking for? Am I correct it can accomplish 1080p widescreen, can run 24fps and over, can run between 40 and 100mhz (should give mega lattitude), is 12 bit? I thought this was pretty much our hopes in a camera. The only thing I question is the rolling shutter. I can't remember, did we want the rolling or global shutter? One of them was good and one bad. Anyway, give me the lowdown, man. Thanks!

September 30th, 2004, 10:00 PM	#182
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	I can't remember. It is either 3170 or 3300. Obin has been using it so it is best to go to that thread and look it up. All I can remember is that it needs lots of light (standard issue for a movie set anyway), don't know about smearing and flare (I think much reduced from previouse 1.3Mp) or stop range (sample footage in other thread). Unless you want cheap, Altasens is what we are looking for. I'm not keeping up at the moment I am doing research into really cheap sensors for low end cameras, and custom prism for three chip etc. Rolling shutter is bad, but Global tends to reduce integration time (light gathering power).

October 3rd, 2004, 07:36 AM	#183
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	Some, people, ask about the sort of things I dabble in and can do, things like this: http://www.tomshardware.com/business...e_future_today I had design concept for the same thing (and a few more) stick that folds out into square display (this ones has camera, but mine would be much cheaper (try well under $100) because of my display system and doable now). Pretty good design anyway. What annoys me is that now it's defintely going to be patented territory, while I still don't have the money to do it.

October 3rd, 2004, 10:10 AM	#184
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	And the bell rings, I just got a brainstorm: I have known about these cameras for sometime and their Autobright adaptive dynamic diode technology (120db range, but SN, QE, etc??), but have been at a loose as how to use them effectively, as they are like near 16:4. Well it hit me, pixel shifting three of them through a prism (or string three of them Bayer style through a simpler split plane prism like the Olympus SHD camera does) would do the trick. In an optical search last year I also found an optical manufacturer in India (ones in Asia too) maybe somebody like them can do cheap prism for batch order (just stupidly, and wishfully, thinking ahead). The problem is this I don't have hard tech data on them, they don't post much and aren't very communicative. The security camera shots don't look anywhere near as good as the sample shoots from the still camera (maybe the autobright technology is better controlled in the still cameras). It may not be a top camera, but an interesting alternative. I am working through to find cheaper/better alternatives though. Take a look, do your analysis magic and tell me what you think (objectively, it may not be an Altasens, but if it is a good Fillfactory allternative, we have hit gold)? http://www.smalcamera.com/pictures/index.html http://www.smalcamera.com/w3000wide.html Here another PAL camera, if anybody is interested in SD. http://www.smalcamera.com/v1000camera.html Hmm, just figured out I can click those sample pictures (blush), had a closer look they look impressive, but I have noticed a couple of things that might be worrying, but might be filtering/compression/lens. Thanks Wayne.

October 3rd, 2004, 10:32 AM	#185
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	Just examined most of the rest of those images, it seems I picked a pretty good batch the first time. But most of the ones with problems look like they are done with another sensor/camera/lens (maybe the $69 camera) or have had bad photographic technique on exposure levels. Still even those are pretty good, especially for the price range (except for the one with lines in it, defective circuite I think). Anyway, over and out, have a good day.

October 5th, 2004, 06:10 PM	#188
Ben Syverson Major Player Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: chicago Posts: 434	Hey guys, sorry for the inactivity -- there's been no news to report for a while, and I've been busy with other projects... Sumix finished the new camera and offered to ship it to me, but I wanted to wait for the updated software to take advantage of it. That should be done in the next month or so, at which point I'll definitely give you guys updates. From what I understand, the new cam will output 10 (12?) bit. I'm not sure on the IBIS-5/5A issue, but I assume they'd use the latest chip in the update, if not the original cam that I have. I'm excited to check out the new version, especially if I can leverage the higher bit depth, but the camera I'm really excited about is their FW800 Altasens model. From what they tell me, they're concentrating on that cam now, and should have something pretty soon. Right now, I'm working on some scripts that I've planned for a while but haven't attempted due to the crapulence of DV... In my opinion, sub-$5k industrial HD cameras are really going to shake things up in the next 12-18 months... - ben

October 5th, 2004, 07:21 PM	#189
Aaron Shaw Major Player Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 587	I hope so! I'm really looking forward to the day when I can get RAW HD video from a decent chip utilizing good glass!

October 5th, 2004, 07:24 PM	#190
Ben Syverson Major Player Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: chicago Posts: 434	That day will come in the next month or two -- it'll only take 12-18 months for other folks to catch on. :)

October 7th, 2004, 05:00 AM	#194
Rob Lohman RED Code Chef Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Holland Posts: 12,514	Transmeta 2GHz: SSE3 2.0 GHz: 25W, 1.5 GHz: 7W, 1.1 GHz: 3W Dual CPU VIA Mini-ITX (Epia) mainboard Eden-N processor, DVI, ethernet, USB one PCI __________________ Rob Lohman, visuar@iname.com DV Info Wrangler & RED Code Chef Join the DV Challenge \| Lady X Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Buy from the best: DVinfo.net sponsors

October 7th, 2004, 06:41 AM	#195
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	Good Rob! This is what VIA told me in confidence before. We also know that 2Ghz+ CPU are coming, and 64-bit with beter FPU processing powers, is coming (mentioned on that page what else I can't remember). It has Gigabit Ethernet this time. I'm still curiouse what the extra processing functionality (mentioned in previouse article at Linux Devices) in the system will turn out to be. They have encryption, HD signal dycrption etc, I just wonder how far it will go. Here the 64bit article: http://www.via.com.tw/en/resources/p...fpf-isaiah.jsp I just accidentally tripped over another article, looks like big processing improvements: http://www.mdronline.com/rh/edn/watc...85000000000000 Update: Dooh, 2006! But here is an article on up coming Image Sensors/stuff, unfortunately it is to big to read at the moment, but it looks good. http://www.reed-electronics.com/ednm...c=staffFeature Thanks Wayne.