Home made camera designs?

Steve Nordhauser · June 3rd, 2004, 10:20 AM

The Micron 720p is available now in camera link and gigabit ethernet our model SI-1300.

Obin just received an SI-1300-RGB-CL. Maybe he can provide some independent feedback. If he wants, I will host a few video clips if he doesn't have a good host.

Other cameras will be announced in the next 8-12 weeks that will be of interest to this group. For specifics on our cameras, please contact me directly.
steve@siliconimaging.com

Richard Mellor · June 3rd, 2004, 11:06 AM

Hi Everyone -

Steve, thank you for all your help. The end result seems to be that for an investment of $20k, we'd have a camera with modular sturdy design and the abilty to upgrade chips as they become available. The repair would be as simple as removing a faulty sound card on a pc; the output would be equal to michael manns current movie shot on a viper, and this camera would easily handle any of the demands for tv broadcast. It amounts to about a month's rental of a viper , but leaves us with a camera we own and are able to upgade. In the upgrade, we'd come here and sell the old chip for someone else who is building a camera ...

this is very very good news

Richard Mellor · June 3rd, 2004, 05:49 PM

obin
I found a great site on the bolex16 camera
http://homepage.newschool.edu/~schlemoj/film_courses/bolex.html

Obin Olson · June 3rd, 2004, 06:09 PM

Richard let me tell you what is very very good news! Steves single cmos 1300 camera!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I got some test images today from this unit by holding a film lens up infront of the camera and I can already tell it's a good chip - very good- can't wait to get the lens from Steve and get some real footage from this beast! I will setup a lit scene in our studio and shoot food/people/objects and also go outside and shoot sunlit stuff for all you boardpeople to take a look at....I will say that cameralink stuff is no childs play but I think that once I get the hang of all the software options things will be good )))))))))))WE NEED SOMEONE TO CODE A SIMPLE VERSION OF CAPTURE SOFTWARE FOR CAMERA LINK((((((((((((

anyone ???

Richard Mellor · June 3rd, 2004, 07:22 PM

obin, that is great news . I have built a agus35 with a piece of ground glass from a optical company . the glass is 1500 grit
It works perfect on mini dv. It might be high enough quality for your new camera.

Obin Olson · June 3rd, 2004, 08:08 PM

man that would be awesome if it is...can you send me info on the stuff?

oolsen1@ec.rr.com

Valeriu Campan · June 3rd, 2004, 08:18 PM

Obin,
I don't know too much about Windows environement, but here is a a link for some video capture software:
http://www.alternaware.com/

Obin Olson · June 3rd, 2004, 10:21 PM

thanks for the post, I contacted Jeff via email asking if he would care to talk about code writing on this project....lets hope he digs the idea !

Wayne Morellini · June 4th, 2004, 12:23 AM

Hi

The 20* to 50* price of the Altasns over the Micro, is what I was getting at elsewhere (but if it is still below $1K single chip, it is good).

The problem with the thread is that the Summix is aimed at a very cheap rate, and once you go above 10K there are several planned commercial pro alternatives (the Kinnetta he most famouse). So really I think the sub 10K stuff is the place still to be developed.

The 720p Micron is doing well, but how is new (unreleased) multi mpixel version compare in picture performance? I notice that the more pixels sensors get the worst there picture performance compared to the lower res models.

I'm curiouse, what is the real resolution of your 1300 camera after filtering? Somebody mentioned a big real res drop to 1440 horizontal from bayer on 1920 chips. That is why I prefer 1080 if a single chip.

To all:

The problem, if the rumour be true, that Canon and Sony are going to use the same sensor out of a Sony Box camera. What ever we do it has to at least match this sensor, because in the end a portable solution (icluding the capture computer) is going to cost at least the same as the Sony HDV (though a single 720p could be cheaper).

Thanks

Wayne.

Wayne Morellini · June 4th, 2004, 12:46 AM

<<<-- Originally posted by Wayne
Now I have another idea, something like a lenticular array could be designed to split the individual direction the image primaries are projected to be read by three chips or three areas of one ;) A bit of single direction image compression would do the trick. This is based on an idea I have had a long time ago (as well as a projection idea): a lenticular array laid over a single sensor could take all the light per pixel area, mix it and split the primaries to 3 ajioning pixels (acting like little prisms). What you get is a completely acurate (less any abreviations) colour, each primary is sent 100% to it's own pixel (no major filter loses), all on a single chip, at very cheap price. The other advantages is that you get near 100% pixel area coverage, not 70% max, like in cmos, so you reduce the fly screen and bayer motion induced luma/chroma artifacts, and increase the used light (if you design it to miss the interpixel spacing. The other benefits of these screens is that they could be used as projection screens for the adaptors. I think I gave up on the idea after the foveon came out. So would this reduce the costs? When done right (with a couple of other adjustments) you could deliver all the transmittable light from a MF lesne right down to 1/2in chip. I have other ideas I am wanting to work on commercially aswell.

thanks

Wayne. -->>>

I remember where I saw something that gave me tis lenticular idea. I seem to remember in the information on Sony's HAD/hyperhad?? that they used a small microlense screen over the sensor to concentrate light on the pixels pads. Now if we could use something like this with a single chip (does Bayer allow this) filter we could get competely accuate colour (less some fidelity). Actaully if they could be an array of splitting prisms then we could get almost 3chip like findelity and light gathering power from a single chip (and the mass produced price of such an array would be a very small fraction of a proper prism), 90% of te benefits for 10% of the cost. What do you think?

Rob Lohman · June 4th, 2004, 06:44 AM

I've been following this thread, the 4:4:4 thread and DVX100
thread with great interest. I really think the current industry
is moving in the wrong direction with HDV (MPEG2) and there
does not yet seem to be support for lots of things.

Most of you will probably know me as one of this boards
"moderators" (or wranglers as we call 'em). What not everybody
might know is that I'm also a professional programmer.

I mainly do pretty large intranet/extranet/website development
on the backend (business logic with connections between
systems and whatnot).

Some might even know me from a little device called the Iomega
Buz which was an analog capture card back in the days that
really didn't got off the ground as it could've been.

I've been dabbling with video (especially computer related)
for 10 years or so now and have programming experience with
a lot of languages including Assembly / C(++). I also have a
thorough understanding about low-level PC workings, protocols,
communications etc. etc.

Since Obin is desperetly looking for some programming assistance
I might be of some help. I do need to say that I only have real
experience with the PC and Windows / DOS / low-level and
not with things like Mac / Linux for example.

I'm willing to donate time to this project since it is of much interest
to myself and the community as a whole. The only problem is
that I do not have the money to but such a system myself just
yet.

What is the cost indication for the 1300 chip? Do you really need
that $500 box to connect the camera or is that just to make it
easy to get started?

Rob Scott · June 4th, 2004, 07:35 AM

<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Lohman :
I'm willing to donate time to this project since it is of much interest
to myself and the community as a whole. The only problem is
that I do not have the money to but such a system myself just
yet.
-->>>

Rob, I'm pretty much in the same boat. I don't have a lot of money, but I am interested in building one of these cameras in the near future. I am also a professional developer and have been thinking about developing software for this project.

I'm assuming we're talking about free/open-source sofware, so I've started to do a little digging to find GPL'd software that we can adapt for this purpose (The Gimp, CinePaint, transcode, Jahshaka, etc.).

I'm probably getting ahead of myself here, but here's a few of the first steps I was thinking ...

1 - Read raw files from SI-1300 camera
2 - Apply Bayer filtering
3 - Write files to OpenEXR format (preserving high bit depth)

The OpenEXR files can then be opened in CinePaint. Once we can do that, we'd have something working and could continue development to ...

1 - Support other file formats
2 - Perform color and gamma correction
3 - Support various lossless and lossy codecs and formats (QuickTime, AVI, Matroska, image sequence, etc.)

At some point, perhaps we should set up a SourceForge project for this...

Just FYI, I've added a page on my wiki to list possible software we can use:
http://obscuracam.com/wiki/wiki/run.php?iRequest=wiki/ViewPage&iPage=FOSS

Steve Nordhauser · June 4th, 2004, 07:45 AM

One thing to watch - the Bayer filtering is a 3x data expansion with no new information added. That is why (aside from the real-time processing concerns) that most recording software records in RAW format. Also, not all Bayer algorithms are equal, so you are frequently better off doing it slowly as a post process.

I was also told (don't know for sure) that recording in AVI format is the only easy way to keep sound synced to video. That may not be a problem with editing software - I don't know.

Someone asked about lossless compression. Expect 1.5 to 2.3x compression for a non-noisy image for truely lossless. And never compress a raw color image - the Bayer will kill you. Point at a green background and you get a perfect checkerboard - completely uncompressable - most algorithms like RLE will expand the data (two bytes used to describe each byte - this color for this long).

If you want to go to YUV space on the fly, then you will have to do the Bayer on the fly also.

Obin Olson · June 4th, 2004, 08:10 AM

guys from what I can see sofar we need a VERY basic capture program that is easy to use unlike the camera link programs like streampix and norpix stuff...this needs to look and act as much as it can like a *normal* video capture app and we also need a way to view the live stream as it's captured on a TV or an LCD that can run by cable or wireless to the camera ..what would really be nice is if we could somehow take the cameralink signal and feed it to a harddisk AFTER we setup the camera settings via computer....

Laurence Maher · June 4th, 2004, 08:19 AM

I agree with obin about the easy to use. I for one am much more an artist than a technician. The more "user friendly, one shot" type deal it is, the more condusive it will be on the set. And the more universal the finished captured footage is, the easier people can apply it to different platforms. Keep in mind most people using this stuff will be technical laymen in your eyes. This sounds awesome guys. Keep it up.

June 3rd, 2004, 10:20 AM	#91
Steve Nordhauser Silicon Imaging, Inc. Join Date: May 2004 Location: Troy, NY USA Posts: 325	The Micron 720p is available now in camera link and gigabit ethernet our model SI-1300. Obin just received an SI-1300-RGB-CL. Maybe he can provide some independent feedback. If he wants, I will host a few video clips if he doesn't have a good host. Other cameras will be announced in the next 8-12 weeks that will be of interest to this group. For specifics on our cameras, please contact me directly. steve@siliconimaging.com __________________ Silicon Imaging, Inc. We see the Light! http://www.siliconimaging.com

June 4th, 2004, 06:44 AM	#101
Rob Lohman RED Code Chef Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Holland Posts: 12,514	I've been following this thread, the 4:4:4 thread and DVX100 thread with great interest. I really think the current industry is moving in the wrong direction with HDV (MPEG2) and there does not yet seem to be support for lots of things. Most of you will probably know me as one of this boards "moderators" (or wranglers as we call 'em). What not everybody might know is that I'm also a professional programmer. I mainly do pretty large intranet/extranet/website development on the backend (business logic with connections between systems and whatnot). Some might even know me from a little device called the Iomega Buz which was an analog capture card back in the days that really didn't got off the ground as it could've been. I've been dabbling with video (especially computer related) for 10 years or so now and have programming experience with a lot of languages including Assembly / C(++). I also have a thorough understanding about low-level PC workings, protocols, communications etc. etc. Since Obin is desperetly looking for some programming assistance I might be of some help. I do need to say that I only have real experience with the PC and Windows / DOS / low-level and not with things like Mac / Linux for example. I'm willing to donate time to this project since it is of much interest to myself and the community as a whole. The only problem is that I do not have the money to but such a system myself just yet. What is the cost indication for the 1300 chip? Do you really need that $500 box to connect the camera or is that just to make it easy to get started? __________________ 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

June 4th, 2004, 07:45 AM	#103
Steve Nordhauser Silicon Imaging, Inc. Join Date: May 2004 Location: Troy, NY USA Posts: 325	One thing to watch - the Bayer filtering is a 3x data expansion with no new information added. That is why (aside from the real-time processing concerns) that most recording software records in RAW format. Also, not all Bayer algorithms are equal, so you are frequently better off doing it slowly as a post process. I was also told (don't know for sure) that recording in AVI format is the only easy way to keep sound synced to video. That may not be a problem with editing software - I don't know. Someone asked about lossless compression. Expect 1.5 to 2.3x compression for a non-noisy image for truely lossless. And never compress a raw color image - the Bayer will kill you. Point at a green background and you get a perfect checkerboard - completely uncompressable - most algorithms like RLE will expand the data (two bytes used to describe each byte - this color for this long). If you want to go to YUV space on the fly, then you will have to do the Bayer on the fly also. __________________ Silicon Imaging, Inc. We see the Light! http://www.siliconimaging.com

June 3rd, 2004, 11:06 AM	#92
Richard Mellor Major Player Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: cambridge ma Posts: 247	Hi Everyone - Steve, thank you for all your help. The end result seems to be that for an investment of $20k, we'd have a camera with modular sturdy design and the abilty to upgrade chips as they become available. The repair would be as simple as removing a faulty sound card on a pc; the output would be equal to michael manns current movie shot on a viper, and this camera would easily handle any of the demands for tv broadcast. It amounts to about a month's rental of a viper , but leaves us with a camera we own and are able to upgade. In the upgrade, we'd come here and sell the old chip for someone else who is building a camera ... this is very very good news

June 3rd, 2004, 05:49 PM	#93
Richard Mellor Major Player Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: cambridge ma Posts: 247	obin I found a great site on the bolex16 camera http://homepage.newschool.edu/~schlemoj/film_courses/bolex.html

June 3rd, 2004, 06:09 PM	#94
Obin Olson Trustee Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Wilmington NC Posts: 1,414	Richard let me tell you what is very very good news! Steves single cmos 1300 camera!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I got some test images today from this unit by holding a film lens up infront of the camera and I can already tell it's a good chip - very good- can't wait to get the lens from Steve and get some real footage from this beast! I will setup a lit scene in our studio and shoot food/people/objects and also go outside and shoot sunlit stuff for all you boardpeople to take a look at....I will say that cameralink stuff is no childs play but I think that once I get the hang of all the software options things will be good )))))))))))WE NEED SOMEONE TO CODE A SIMPLE VERSION OF CAPTURE SOFTWARE FOR CAMERA LINK(((((((((((( anyone ???

June 3rd, 2004, 07:22 PM	#95
Richard Mellor Major Player Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: cambridge ma Posts: 247	obin, that is great news . I have built a agus35 with a piece of ground glass from a optical company . the glass is 1500 grit It works perfect on mini dv. It might be high enough quality for your new camera.

June 3rd, 2004, 08:08 PM	#96
Obin Olson Trustee Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Wilmington NC Posts: 1,414	man that would be awesome if it is...can you send me info on the stuff? oolsen1@ec.rr.com

June 3rd, 2004, 08:18 PM	#97
Valeriu Campan Major Player Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 223	Obin, I don't know too much about Windows environement, but here is a a link for some video capture software: http://www.alternaware.com/

June 3rd, 2004, 10:21 PM	#98
Obin Olson Trustee Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Wilmington NC Posts: 1,414	thanks for the post, I contacted Jeff via email asking if he would care to talk about code writing on this project....lets hope he digs the idea !

June 4th, 2004, 12:23 AM	#99
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	Hi The 20* to 50* price of the Altasns over the Micro, is what I was getting at elsewhere (but if it is still below $1K single chip, it is good). The problem with the thread is that the Summix is aimed at a very cheap rate, and once you go above 10K there are several planned commercial pro alternatives (the Kinnetta he most famouse). So really I think the sub 10K stuff is the place still to be developed. The 720p Micron is doing well, but how is new (unreleased) multi mpixel version compare in picture performance? I notice that the more pixels sensors get the worst there picture performance compared to the lower res models. I'm curiouse, what is the real resolution of your 1300 camera after filtering? Somebody mentioned a big real res drop to 1440 horizontal from bayer on 1920 chips. That is why I prefer 1080 if a single chip. To all: The problem, if the rumour be true, that Canon and Sony are going to use the same sensor out of a Sony Box camera. What ever we do it has to at least match this sensor, because in the end a portable solution (icluding the capture computer) is going to cost at least the same as the Sony HDV (though a single 720p could be cheaper). Thanks Wayne.

June 4th, 2004, 12:46 AM	#100
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	<<<-- Originally posted by Wayne Now I have another idea, something like a lenticular array could be designed to split the individual direction the image primaries are projected to be read by three chips or three areas of one ;) A bit of single direction image compression would do the trick. This is based on an idea I have had a long time ago (as well as a projection idea): a lenticular array laid over a single sensor could take all the light per pixel area, mix it and split the primaries to 3 ajioning pixels (acting like little prisms). What you get is a completely acurate (less any abreviations) colour, each primary is sent 100% to it's own pixel (no major filter loses), all on a single chip, at very cheap price. The other advantages is that you get near 100% pixel area coverage, not 70% max, like in cmos, so you reduce the fly screen and bayer motion induced luma/chroma artifacts, and increase the used light (if you design it to miss the interpixel spacing. The other benefits of these screens is that they could be used as projection screens for the adaptors. I think I gave up on the idea after the foveon came out. So would this reduce the costs? When done right (with a couple of other adjustments) you could deliver all the transmittable light from a MF lesne right down to 1/2in chip. I have other ideas I am wanting to work on commercially aswell. thanks Wayne. -->>> I remember where I saw something that gave me tis lenticular idea. I seem to remember in the information on Sony's HAD/hyperhad?? that they used a small microlense screen over the sensor to concentrate light on the pixels pads. Now if we could use something like this with a single chip (does Bayer allow this) filter we could get competely accuate colour (less some fidelity). Actaully if they could be an array of splitting prisms then we could get almost 3chip like findelity and light gathering power from a single chip (and the mass produced price of such an array would be a very small fraction of a proper prism), 90% of te benefits for 10% of the cost. What do you think?

June 4th, 2004, 07:35 AM	#102
Rob Scott Major Player Join Date: May 2004 Location: Knoxville, TN (USA) Posts: 358	<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Lohman : I'm willing to donate time to this project since it is of much interest to myself and the community as a whole. The only problem is that I do not have the money to but such a system myself just yet. -->>> Rob, I'm pretty much in the same boat. I don't have a lot of money, but I am interested in building one of these cameras in the near future. I am also a professional developer and have been thinking about developing software for this project. I'm assuming we're talking about free/open-source sofware, so I've started to do a little digging to find GPL'd software that we can adapt for this purpose (The Gimp, CinePaint, transcode, Jahshaka, etc.). I'm probably getting ahead of myself here, but here's a few of the first steps I was thinking ... 1 - Read raw files from SI-1300 camera 2 - Apply Bayer filtering 3 - Write files to OpenEXR format (preserving high bit depth) The OpenEXR files can then be opened in CinePaint. Once we can do that, we'd have something working and could continue development to ... 1 - Support other file formats 2 - Perform color and gamma correction 3 - Support various lossless and lossy codecs and formats (QuickTime, AVI, Matroska, image sequence, etc.) At some point, perhaps we should set up a SourceForge project for this... Just FYI, I've added a page on my wiki to list possible software we can use: http://obscuracam.com/wiki/wiki/run.php?iRequest=wiki/ViewPage&iPage=FOSS

June 4th, 2004, 08:10 AM	#104
Obin Olson Trustee Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Wilmington NC Posts: 1,414	guys from what I can see sofar we need a VERY basic capture program that is easy to use unlike the camera link programs like streampix and norpix stuff...this needs to look and act as much as it can like a normal video capture app and we also need a way to view the live stream as it's captured on a TV or an LCD that can run by cable or wireless to the camera ..what would really be nice is if we could somehow take the cameralink signal and feed it to a harddisk AFTER we setup the camera settings via computer....

June 4th, 2004, 08:19 AM	#105
Laurence Maher Join Date: May 2004 Location: denton, texas, usa Posts: 416	I agree with obin about the easy to use. I for one am much more an artist than a technician. The more "user friendly, one shot" type deal it is, the more condusive it will be on the set. And the more universal the finished captured footage is, the easier people can apply it to different platforms. Keep in mind most people using this stuff will be technical laymen in your eyes. This sounds awesome guys. Keep it up.