3 channel 36 bit 1280 X 720 low $ camera - Viper?

[Rob Lohman]

Valeriu: How much do you want to spend on a sensor?

Steve: so basically it boils down to we have no choice? What
is wrong with the MT9V403? That's the only one that you haven't
commented on regarding price or some visual problem.

That still leaves the question whether a physical shutter can
help in any way (motion blur, perhaps => which should hide
rolling shutter artifects?) and if that can be hooked up to the
camera in some form.

[Rob LaPoint]

To be honest the Lupa 1300 intrigues me as well, but I don't know how much more it costs. I might be mistaken but I think most on this board would rather have 720P with a global shutter than 1080p with a rolling. All of this is conjecture however because other than Obins footage I don't have any experience with a rolling shutter!

The way that I look at this whole process is that in the end all any of us are trying to do is get images that will pass for 35mm film or even super 16. Here is a link to a post filter that will apply a motion blur. Is it pefect....no, is it good enough to cover up rolling shutter artifacts if care was taken during shooting....maybe. In the end no camera system is perfect and even working on a big budget motion picture with millions tied up in equipment you still have to make compromises and in the end they all add up to the visual style of the piece.

http://www.revisionfx.com/mblur.htm

In other news I have been trying to think of a way that I could help out the cause of this forum, and when it comes to actual camera/workflow design I can't really think of anything. But what am considering doing for myself is coming up with a sort of universal matte box that would allow for ND, and color plates that would aid in white balancing and color correcting the in front of the RAW output. If that is something you guys would be intersted in putting into your camera systems just let me know.

PS I am getting a chuckle thinking about camera systems that brag how they can fit in the palm of your hand and then slapping a matte box, 35mm lens, ground glass, c-mount lens, and a computer/battery system

[Steve Nordhauser]

Rob:
We are coming out with an SI-640HF but remember, this is only VGA - that is the down side.

We do supply a trigger input and a strobe output that could be used for synchronization to external motor driven systems - but - rolling shutter is always integrating so ideally you want the camera to set the timing for the external shutter.

[Rob Lohman]

That's what I was thinking about, Steve. Have the camera
control the shutter. Or at least allow it to be set at a rate tha
makes sense in regards to framerate etc.

[Eliot Mack]

<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Scott : Thanks for doing that! I think I posted some -- a few of the same ones in fact. When I have a few extra minutes I will try to reorganize the wiki to make it a bit more coherent.I like the idea too, but I'm concerned that we'd just end up at the same price point as the Kinetta.
-->>>

Whoops--I completely missed your hardware page in the Wiki. I went back and put the information I had into the categories you already had.

Perhaps an easier organization method would be to break it down like this:

Current design focus:
-Hardware
-Cameras, lens mounts, and lenses
-Camera-computer connection
-Motherboards
-Storage
-Cases and power supplies

-Software
-General architecture
-Capture software
-Bayer filtering
-Real time compression
-Interface

-Editing
-Potential codecs/hosts
-Premiere + Prospect
-FCP + Blackmagic

Future Stuff
-Cameras (3 chip methods)
-FPGAs
-Compression with various algorithms

This way we have a running storage of all the possibilities that have been unearthed during this thread, but newcomers are able to easily see what the current convergence/focus is on.

I can certainly do some of this, but wanted to see what you thought of it. Other organization methods are great too; I really like the wiki as a running storage of knowledge. Much easier than reading 300 posts as a newcomer.

Thanks,

Eliot

[Rob Scott]

Eliot Mack wrote:
I can certainly do some of this, but wanted to see what you thought of it

I've been meaning to reorganize it anyway, and just haven't had time; so if you're up for it, please feel free!

[Obin Olson]

Rob L count me if for matte box!

[Valeriu Campan]

If a mechanical shutter is required, would this option help?
http://home.teleport.com/~gdi/25pscha.htm.
Vance has done an interesting thing, but his solution is a 25p SD DVCAM D2D recording.

[Valeriu Campan]

<<<-- Originally posted by Rob LaPoint : To be honest the Lupa 1300 intrigues me as well, but I don't know how much more it costs. I might be mistaken but I think most on this board would rather have 720P with a global shutter than 1080p with a rolling. -->>>

Personally, for a start I would be very happy with 720p, global shutter and a LARGE sensor. When first bugs are ironed out, new chips (and cheaper) available, the 1080p would be great.

[Laurence Maher]

I'll take a matte box too when this gets off the ground!

[Wayne Morellini]

The casing would be cheap (the profit most companies would want however would be expensive, so if you got suggestions for cheap companies let me know).

Most Kinetta case features would be very cheap, the detachable head, well I haven't seen a mini-itx board with a camera head on it yet, so we are half way there. I personally would like to look into the prospect of inclunding a remote control robotic head module that could fit inbetween with the camera controlled remotely.

I have further things to cover shortly, as I can't devote too much time time to this project and do the other things waiting for me.

<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Scott : Thanks for doing that! I think I posted some -- a few of the same ones in fact. When I have a few extra minutes I will try to reorganize the wiki to make it a bit more coherent.I like the idea too, but I'm concerned that we'd just end up at the same price point as the Kinetta. I guess my feeling is, if you can put enough capacity in the camera -- 3-5 hours? -- then it should handle a typical shooting day with room to spare. Transfer the data off overnight -- perhaps a customized FTP program to double-check that everything was downloaded properly -- and erase & go in the morning.

OTOH, I would love to see a professional case for this project, dockable or not. Keep me posted on your thoughts!Ahhh ... G'day Bruce! ... another Python fan in the crowd! :-) At my old job, whenever we did job interviews, I would toss out a few Python quotes during the group sessions just to see who would respond to them. It suprised me how many shot something right back (but I also did get a few funny looks). -->>>

As long as they don't call you "Bob" like in Black Adder II ;) .

Rob L

I wrote something about doing 24fps exposure (film does 48th exposure ussually) and reading out really fast (which is good if your interface can take the bandwith, only USB2 would have problems). This would retain all the motion blur, I think Steve said that was the way to do it.

If you two live near each other, thats great you can talk shop, and check out the optical perforamnce of footage from the latest cameras/prototype (like that 6.6Mpixel camera).

Rob L, I have an extremely good suggestion that I have seen in other forums. The ability to let the thread starter (or selected retainer) modify and update the first post (no time out), or updatable pre post (so they don't wipe out what origionally was there). This would allow people in long threads to list all the links, and updated FAQ information at the start of the thread so newcomers (and old hands) don't have to go through every post to find information. For threads like this and the 35mm threads thats a big saving. I could even get to list all home made camera links in the first post. Even just a modifiable portion of the first post, we could even run polls in it.

Universal Matt box sounds really good.

Thanks

Wayne.

[Rob Lohman]

Wayne: as you know that is currently not possible. I'll see what
I can do for such features, but don't count on it. That would
probably be quite a big addon for the software we are using now.

HOWEVER, we do have the Wiki to keep track of things. And, if
anyone wants to collect the links and e-mail them to my I can
definitely add them to any post you want.

The format to send such links (please do collect them into a "big"
bunch) is just plain text (follow the bbCode from the faq please!)
with some explenation, so either:

This is the link to Microsoft:
{url}www.microsoft.com{/url}

-- or --

{url=www.microsoft.com}Link to Microsoft{/url}

Where the {} must be replaced by [] (which I can't do since the
board would otherwise interpret my links).

So if I get such a list of links I can easily add them, no problem!

[Wayne Morellini]

What about just removing the two day time out for re-editing the first post of the thread. It would really gel information links (even to wikis) for new readers? The only problem is that some people might abuse it.

[Rob Lohman]

The problem is that we can only change these settings on a global
scale I think. For now my offer will have to do. I will talk to Chris
about this though, so we'll see what happens!

[Wayne Morellini]

Yeah I fogot, that will have to go on my l.ist of things to do.

Thanks

Rob