High Definition with Elphel model 333 camera

[Les Dit]

I looked at the 200 meg version. Unfortunatly in the use of the DOF adaptor, the resolution seemed to have degraded to DVD resolution. Didn't look like HD/film res at all. The compression ( Xvid ) has also added major blocking artifacts to the blurred video.
The short strobed shutter speed made the womens actions very non-film like. While the DOF adapter helps it look like cinema, the other attributes negated any gains towards that look.
Might there be a clip of longer exposure time without the ground glass DOF adapter ?

ps: A good simple way to determine actual archived resolution is to resize the video to 1/2 res and then size it up again. Then compare that with the original high res. If it does not look different, you really don't have the high res in the first place! Advanced users can subtract the two images in a compositor ( After Effects, etc ) and look for the edges in the difference image. No edges visible = no details at the higher resolution.

-Les

Originally Posted by Serge Victorovich

HD cinema camera Development FAQ (Matteo Pozzi)

You can download the (54MB) file here: http://community.elphel.com/videos/RomainSurMeuse2.avi (it's in Xvid compression)"

or the full resolution version Xvid (200MB): http://community.elphel.com/videos/RomainFULL.avi

[Oscar Spierenburg]

Les, it's all very true what you are saying, but...
on the 798th post on a thread about a camera, it's a bit useless to go into all the reasons for this whole project in the first place. The clip of the film I posted was shot:

-With a camera under development
-With a 35mm microwax adapter under development
-Being the first outdoors test with a camera designed for other purposes

It does not do justice to a project which is developing every day(humm, I wish), to compare it with a HDV cam right out of the store. There are so many aspects that have my attention (and the people at Elphel - and some of the people on this forum) and are being worked on.

One other thing that keeps popping up as a disadvantage is the compression. But one of the reasons why the Elphel camera's are unique is the real time compression. The footage can be really beautiful when the settings on the camera are right. We seem to be a bit obsessed by post color corrections and all of that, while we'd better learn to get the footage (about)right in the first place. When I make a photograph with a traditional camera, I choose the right film type, set the exposure right, set the iris right, focus right. Did we forget about all of that or what?

Stupid thing is, I'm still too busy these days, but I can really begin working with the new 353 model sometime next week. I'll post all my work of course.

[Les Dit]

Ok, OK, you don't want to compare with a camera out of a store. And sure, the store camera that the local house wife is 'filming' her baby with beats the pants off of this kit camera, it seems at this point in time.

But I do understand that this is a hobby. Many people built kit cars for fun, and it is also a great hobby. The local showroom cars are better, faster, etc, but there is nothing like the pride of doing it yourself.
I'm doing such a car project myself, because it will be unique and fun. I'm not going to win road races with it.

However if the end goal is to make a good looking movie, perhaps a little reality checking is in order every now and then, perhaps to steer the feature list in a different direction. I'd recommend high bit depth to seperate this project from the 'out of the store' 8 bit non color correctable HDV cams.

Originally Posted by Oscar Spier

It does not do justice to a project which is developing every day(humm, I wish), to compare it with a HDV cam right out of the store. .

[Jose A. Garcia]

This was shot with the same sensor. It's not the Elphel but it's close. 2K resolution. Sunlight coming from a side window and no color correction at all. It's not tack sharp, but neither is film.

http://www.cus-cus.net/dani/Test02-2k.mov
http://www.cus-cus.net/dani/Test02-2k.wmv

Don't pay attention to the whole clip. It was an internal joke with a friend of mine.

[Daniel Lipats]

Originally Posted by Matteo Pozzi

Hi to all :-)
I've got an Idea to increase the dynamic range of the mjpeg output of the elphel (maybe Andrey can tell me if it is possible or not! ).
the jpg format is only 8bit depth for that reason we all want a raw capture ...to save more data that come from the sensor. so this is only a software trick ;-)
I've read http://www.hdrsoft.com/resources/dri.html and here is my idea:set
the camera to shoot at 1/48 sec and the first frame is overexposed the second normal exposed (a sort of bracketing mode of digital camera) 3° frame over 4°normal...and so on ...the elphel hardwere now take every couple of frame and blend in one jpg frame like what software like Photomatix of photoshop cs2 does
see example: http://www.hdrsoft.com/examples.html
and in the camera control insert a flag for hdr imaging with a slide option for "Strength" to controls how much of the HDR effect is applied.
the output will be a 1/24 sec movie file with more dynamic range and more motion blur
what do you think!?!

I invested a lot of time researching this earlier, trying to put together prototypes. It works great for stills, and I believe its a commonly practiced technique. When I put this to work on the elphel though I ran into trouble.

First, if you are shooting at 24p using this technique you would have to expose for three frames and in fact you are having to shoot at 72p. Sure its possible but only by severely lowering the resolution and quality.

Second, this would have to be done on the camera hardware. Writing client side software that instructs the camera to change settings on the fly like this is not practical because there is a delay. I suspect this delay is due to the web server type of interface.


About the shootout, I have some short films shot on the 333 but nothing ready to present just yet.

Here is the absolute sharpest picture I have been able to get from the 333 using a 35mm adapter thus far. It was shot as a video in 2000x800 at 24p and I think 85% quality or possibly 90%. It has really been a while.
http://www.buysmartpc.com/333/letus/qt.jpg

This is a version with 2 sharpen passes.
http://www.buysmartpc.com/333/letus/qtsharpen.jpg


Im shooting another short film tomorrow with the 333, involving heavy bluescreen work. I look forward to the results. My previous bluescreen experience has all been DV.

<edit>
I just had a thought, if it was possible to have three (or even two) 333 cameras all capture an image from the same lens you could use three sets of settings and get multiple streams at once. The intel core 2 duo quad core processor im ordering for the next camera may be enough to handle multiple streams like this.

[Serge Victorovich]

If you have Bayer RAW from cmos image sensor in this case possible to do 3 picture with different settings to construct HDR ?

[Jose A. Garcia]

If you have RAW bayer from the cmos, you already have the best possible image quality you can get with the camera. Anything else is just playing around with the image to make it look like it has more info than it actually has. It's like trying to get a HDR image from a single photo. You cannot get three different images at the same time with one cmos.

[Jose A. Garcia]

Just a question... Is any of the lenses coming with the Elphel sharp enough for 2K resolution? Which one's the best?

If not, where can I find good (and not too expensive) very sharp C or CS mount lenses?

Thanks.

[Oscar Spierenburg]

I didn't order a lens with the camera, but I think they are not sharp enough for our purpose. I have a standard 'security' c-mount lens (50$ or something) and it is unusable in any way. I hoped to convert it to a macro lens for the 35mm adapter, but it has color and optical aberration.

I did find a c-mount lens on an old 16mm (consumer)film camera and it is very sharp. But the field of view is much smaller because the sensor isn't 16mm.
http://community.elphel.com/pictures/E1.jpg(low light, 80% Mjpeg quality, 333 model)

I also bought a Panasonic TV camera zoom lens (which is almost 2x bigger than the Elphel itself) and it gives a perfect image.
http://community.elphel.com/pictures/tree.jpg (80% Mjpeg quality, 333 model)

[Jose A. Garcia]

Mmm... Not bad, but compression is VERY noticeable! I don't know... When I ordered the Micron demo board it came with a standard c-mount lens but it was quite sharp using full HD or 2K resolution. Even sharper than the examples you posted. At least that's what it looked like. Again, maybe it's the compression.

Anyway, I need to find some online store to buy sharp C-Mount lenses. Even if they're built for scientific purposes, I don't really care. I mean, I'll still use a 35mm adaptor so I just need a tack sharp focus on the ground glass.

[Oscar Spierenburg]

Can you post some of your stills from the Micron demo board?

[Jose A. Garcia]

Here it is. Debayered and encoded using Lossless JPEG, captured and saved to PNG.

I'll probably be ordering the Elphel by next week, but I still have some questions, because with the Micron demo board I had bandwidth problems but I knew the clips were uncompressed and had a great quality. I'm not too sure about the Elphel because everything I've seen so far looks quite compressed and blurrier than the other option. My questions would be:

- Is OGG Theora better than MJPEG? Is it already available with the Elphel?
- I know Cineform codec would be great to get the best out of the Elphel but I also know it'd be expensive. Are there any plans to use lossless JPEG instead of the other two codecs with this camera?
- Does the ethernet interface offer enough bandwidth to shoot 2048x858 pixels at 24fps setting MJPEG codec to let's say 95%?

[Matteo Pozzi]

hi to all any news on the elphel side!?
-Oscar have you tested the 353 with the 35 mm adapter!?

[Oscar Spierenburg]

I have only tested the 353 with the knoppix live cd that came with the 333 model. I didn't wright about it, because it doesn't have advantages over the older model with this software. You can't set the resolution higher than before (even less somehow)
I started using the (k)ubuntu distribution, but didn't get any results yet, because it's in an early stage. I expect an update soon.
I'm also waiting for the hard-drive and the board that allows you to record directly to the hard-drive . That will be a big leap forward.

[Odd Nydren]

Definitely! Harddrive is the main thing I'm waiting for. I've been looking at all sorts of solutions sub $2000...and I just cannot bring myself to buy a prosumer solution. (and I know I'm not alone)

With elphel I can record pretty much any frame size I want...and with any user interface I want...its just the fact that currently it needs a laptop...

..once that is solved - especially if the raw -> separate jpg solution will be in there - whoah - please! :) I'll get a 353! :)