Sumix 2/3" 1920x1080 CMOS

[Paul Curtis]

Originally Posted by Farhad Towfiq

As I earlier said the bottleneck is GigE. We are implementing in firmware transfer of every other frame to PC, so camera can output at 75MHz and 12 bit (only skipping every other frame.) Also we are thinking about compression at 10 or 12 bit

I would consider 10bit log (via a LUT) an ideal solution. What would the max fps be under those circumstances?

cheers
paul

[Jose A. Garcia]

They're all very good ideas. Xpress Card or CF recording is perfect. That way the computer just has to control the camera and you have an easy way to transfer what you shot to another computer.

Silicon Imaging uses the "every other frame" option to achieve 24p 10bit film look because if the sensor is capturing 48p and you discard every other frame, you have 24p at 1/48 sec, which is the standard in film. Also you can dramatically reduce rolling shutter by doing that.

Lossless compressed 10bit RAW also sounds great.

[Solomon Chase]

Jose, I took your "semioutdoor35mmf2" clip and did the following:

- gamma correction
- highlight recovery and magenta shift
- highlight diffusion
- slight vignetting
- S-Curves (warmer)

http://solomonchase.com/sumix/semioutdoor35mmf2_CC.avi (format is Cineform 720p)

I think the diffusion and gamma correction helps the highlight clipping look better.

[Daniel Lipats]

Solid state storage has its benefits. Its potentially much faster then a hard drive, resistant to shock, and also use much less power since it has nothing to spin or move.

I have a few videos here recorded with the smx. A 13 second video is 1.7 GB. At this rate 60 seconds of video will be ~7.8 GB. This camera has absolutely no mercy on drive space. CineForm codec really helps drastically reduce it but I still think you still need some good numbers as far as storage way beyond 8-17-32gb. Something like sets of swappable 250gb 2.5" hard drives.

I really lean towards a hard drive design because its a practical, proven solution. Yes, solid state cards are used in cameras but for compressed formats. I think we can learn a lot by looking at what the guys at RED and Silicon Imaging have done. Even with the CineForm codec they record to HDD. We are trying to build a very similar camera and should not ignore their design choices.

I don't mean to discourage people trying to implement solid state. If there is a practical way of doing it, I'm all for it. I would like nothing more then to get away from the power hungry unreliable hard drives.

[Jose A. Garcia]

Solomon, that clip looks more like a SI2K example. Very good!

Highlight diffusion is a bit high for me though. But that's just me.

[Solomon Chase]

Originally Posted by Jose A. Garcia

Solomon, that clip looks more like a SI2K example. Very good!

Highlight diffusion is a bit high for me though. But that's just me.

Here's a version that is corrected with just color curves (no post diffusion etc)

http://solomonchase.com/sumix/cc1.jpg

The dslr image definately has more dynamic range.

[Farhad Towfiq]

Solomon,

Thank you for this example. It shows that green is bleeding into red. but red is not bleeding into green as much. A color correction must subtract a fraction of green from red. Wherever there is green there is extra parasitic red that must be subtracted. Our automatic matrix color correction must take care of it.

[Daniel Lipats]

Threw together a prototype using whatever I had laying around the garage. Everything came together nicely at ~7lb and its not very big at all.

http://www.dreamstonestudios.com/per.../prototype.JPG

Unfortunately the T7200 processor used in this system is too slow. I'm going to have to return the computer. To encode CineForm in real time you need a quad core processor. This is bad news because its going to use a huge amount of power and running off batteries will be a challenge.

I have a production tomorrow and will work more with this setup over the weekend. Hopefully it will give me a better idea on if I want to continue investing in this project.

[Gottfried Hofmann]

Originally Posted by Jose A. Garcia

They're all very good ideas. Xpress Card or CF recording is perfect. That way the computer just has to control the camera and you have an easy way to transfer what you shot to another computer.

CF cards can't go beyond 50 MByte/sec. It's a limitation in the interface, that's why the guys behind the CF-Standard are actually thinking about switching to SATA.

The XsX-Idea is good, but what are the prices? The standard is now 1 year old now but I did not hear a lot about it since it was published.

If you want to go the no-noise and low power consumption flash way I currently recommend Solid State Drives with SATA2. OCZ has thrown one on the market that writes with 100 MByte/sec and costs "only" 400 Euros for 32 GByte (or 800 Euros for 64 GByte respectively). I will have my hands on a few SSDs in a month and can post benchmarking results if anybody is interested.

Jose: Did you have any problems with the customs? How much Euros did you pay in total for the Sumix?

[Jose A. Garcia]

About 712 euros in total, but exchange is changing almost every day. Taxes were about 50 euros.

[Gottfried Hofmann]

Did you recieve any special discounts? Because the $2.000 I heard earlier would be roughly 1.270 Euros...

[Farhad Towfiq]

Originally Posted by Gottfried Hofmann

Did you recieve any special discounts? Because the $2.000 I heard earlier would be roughly 1.270 Euros...

Gottfried, The discounts given to Jose and Daniel reflect the true value of the product, as the product is new and there is risks of unknown bugs. We are sold out for now and we can not extent this extra discount to others

[Gottfried Hofmann]

When will the cam be back in Stock and what will be the price of it?

[Jose A. Garcia]

According to Farhad, in a week they'll receive new sensors and cameras will be ready to ship within 5-8 weeks.

I supose the price will be the same as always, that is $2,000 for filmmakers.

[Farhad Towfiq]

Gottfried, Price Will be the same. We try to be consistent. It will be first places order first served with priority going to our existing customers and distributors.