4:4:4 10bit single CMOS HD project

[Wayne Morellini]

I agree with you Jason, we are just coding and getting Obin's camera working at the moment. All the other stuff is just research for when we get around to doing it.

On third party manufacturers, most of the stuff is allready made, and the computer side will be mass market components, just requiring Rob's software. We are putting together the simple and reliable version. If any companies want to offer better parts, or software, tailored to us, great.

If the software and system is simple and reliable enough, we can then get the people, even the directors, and it won't be too hard to make it that simple.

I am allready discussing with the Rob's and SteveI, about aproaching companies.

12 channels of audio at 24bit/96khz.

12 channels, yumm.


Thanks

Wayne.

[Richard Mellor]

In the day, the only way the student or poor indie film maker
could hope to begin would be with 16mm film. Now, with a pc, vegas video, Obin's camera, an Agus 35, and 35m still lenses, the indie film maker gets a foothold. When added to film look techniques, you could begin your education and make a credible movie. To me this is the real breakthrough.


this would lower the barrier of entry for this form of art
and that would always be a wortwhile goal

[Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn]

@Steve

At the begining of this thread there are many links to FPGA designs included the Russian camera.Haven't you seen them??
There are also a bunch of other interesting cores and designs,etc.

http://www.elphel.com/3fhlo/index.html

Thank you, as always, for your support!!

@ everybody

I'm not saying that the Eden processor will do the compression part.That's why we still need the extra power of a dedicated FPGA design to do the trick ;).
I don't know, but, Does any kind of PCI card with a CPU on it exists ata reasonable price?
The Eden could well perform the task of showing a realtime video on a display using a really simple DeBayer method.
Also remember that to record a realtime RAW Bayer video of 1280x720 there is no need of a RAID configuration.You can use a 10,000 RPM IDE Drive.
And that for a more or less safe RAID system you'll need at least 3 disks.


A couple of FPGA tutorials:

http://klabs.org/richcontent/Tutoria...A_Tutorial.htm

[Rob Lohman]

I have split that off into this new thread.
Continue the discussion there if you want. No XL2 talk in here please.

[Wayne Morellini]

For Steve,

I am interested in your camera products, and I think most people are. Can I ask a few questions:

How much does the Altsens sensor cost? Is there any prospect of a cheap 3 chip camera using this, or even the 1/2 or 2/3rd inch Micron sensor (even the 1.3Mp version), I've heard of cheap prisms?

About the new HD camera. Is it really too much worse than the altsens version, and in which ways? There was a 2/3" Micron MI-MV40 4MPixel micron sensor, what happened to it, and would it be better? Is your new camera the SI-1920 version mentioned by Adrian White, a while back? Will it have Gigbe, or the Serial-ATA he mentioned?

As you will be integrating Gigbe on cameras in the future, will you be using simple pixel packing to maximise it's throughput? Can we get 800Mbps thoughput to a integrated PC Gigbe port?

What is the problem in getting a natural image with dual slope (is that the same as Smal's "Autobrite" technology)? Could we allign the range of both slopes so that it looks natural?

Sorry for all the questions, but I have been asking them for a while.


Thanks

Wayne.

[Steve Nordhauser]

Wayne on Altasens:
We are getting new pricing on the sensors - I don't know the current answer.

Wayne on 3 chip:
We have considered a 3 chip. The Micron 720p is probably out - the color smearing with oversaturation will be too big an issue to invest $20-50K in a new optical path. The 3.2MPix Micron (new camera - the SI3300) sensor is color only. That leaves the Altasens. We want to figure out what to do with 300MB/sec on a single channel first. It is a possibility though.

Wayne on GigE:
We release on camera link first. Fewer data rate headaches since it can handle the bandwidth. We will move cameras to gigE as the opportunity arises. No serial-ATA support at the camera. We can do 800Mbps on Intel Pro1000 based interfaces with a custom driver. If you can't use the custom driver, your rate drops to 200Mbps and uses more CPU time due to the windows drivers.

Wayne on dual slope:
Fill factory is the only vendor with dual slope. Back to IBIS-5 or our SI-6600 (pretty noisy). Yes, with enough tweaking in a scene you can get a respectable image. I wonder if you could take a micron sensor and alternate frames of long exposure and short exposure and combine them to do an artifical dual slope..... I haven't tried to change parameters every frame but you might corrupt the following frame with a change to the exposure - it would have to be checked. We know the micron can run at 48fps at 720p. More thinking says this probably won't work with a rolling shutter.

Wayne on MI-MV40:
I talked to micron about their MT9V403 and they told me it was expensive, noisy and made for high speed - not to use it for cinematography. My guess is that they use an entirely different pixel architecture. I don't have pricing on the MI-MV40 but it was originally a Photobit design - it puts out almost a GB/sec of data - this is a money is no object part and is rolling shutter. Here is the datasheet:
http://www.fast-vision.com/cameras/PDF/PB-MV40_Product_Specification.pdf

[Rob Scott]

Bad news ... my PC died last night. It appears to be a failed CPU or defective/damaged motherboard. I have a copy of the source code on my laptop, but it doesn't help much since I don't have any other systems that will take the frame grabber card.

[Obin Olson]

<<<-- Originally posted by Richard Mellor : In the day, the only way the student or poor indie film maker
could hope to begin would be with 16mm film. Now, with a pc, vegas video, Obin's camera, an Agus 35, and 35m still lenses, the indie film maker gets a foothold. When added to film look techniques, you could begin your education and make a credible movie. To me this is the real breakthrough.


this would lower the barrier of entry for this form of art
and that would always be a wortwhile goal -->>>

very true

[Rai Orz]

H E L P !!!
We need a working HD solution NOW. At the beginning, it can be a camera head in a shoe box with the cameralink cable going to a PC in a barrow, car, or whatever. We need 24fps, 10bit (or more), 1280x720 (or, 1920x1080 a dream?) and loss less or loss free HDD storage, because all pictures go to post. No audio, no viewfinder, no touchscreen, etc.

If this really work what i read here, we need 2 to 3 sets NOW, because this is the chance to shot the first big movie with it. I work together with a filmproducer and a director and i have the okay to try it. They also think it is a great idea to shot at the beginning with a adventurous new cameraset, develop and change it during the shots and end with a new HD camara. (The only thing that may not change is the picture quality)

We developed since years parts you never saw before, also a 35mm GG solutions work up to 1920x1080 with wireless controlled focus follow systems for every kind of lenses and so on. At the end, we will make a camera case like a 35mm movie camera and we can make all parts in series and in high quality. We can bring our parts together with orbins´s cam.

Steve Nordhauser wrote in a email:
"...System bandwidth - to do 1920x1080x24bits@10 bits per pixel, unpacked you get about 100MB/sec. This will take a split backplane system (one pass to memory from the frame grabber, one pass to the RAID). 8 bit is still pushing it (50MB/sec) but possible. 1280x720 is easier - 23MB/sec in 8 bit, 46MB/sec in 10 bit - probably fine for recording on a 32 bit machine with Streampix and a two drive serial ATA RAID - maybe OK on a single drive..."

But now, the time go on and we need help. What hardware/software is tested and available, now?

So please help. I have the okay, but thats the Condition: We must found (low cost?) parts, hardware and software for a system to storage loss free or near loss less on HDD in the next days (Post ist not the problem, it can wait, but the actors can´t). Ones more, We need information about working parts, not theory, not maybe. It must really work (otherwise they kill me). If we begin shot the film with it, all our manpower move on to develop further the system.

[Wayne Morellini]

Thanks for the quick reply Steve.

So the MI-MV40 is the MT9V403?

I'm not familiar with that Gigbe Intel part, is it the integrated one?

So Smal must be using something else for autobrite. I think Movement would probably wreck double exposure because of dual exposure lengths.

<<<-- Originally posted by Steve Nordhauser :
I wonder if you could take a micron sensor and alternate frames of long exposure and short exposure and combine them to do an artifical dual slope..... I
-->>

For me, and hand held case design, Gigbe versions with extra capacity through pixel packing are the best. In this I could fit 1 chip 1080, or three chip 720p in handheld.



Thanks

Wayne.

[Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn]

@Steve N.

At SI's Home page there is a Mechanical shutter called DSC Mechanical Shutter (SHT914).
It says it has a frequency of 133 Hz.
Can it be used for this project?
If no ,Why?

What's the problem with the SI3300 at this moment, Isn't it working yet?


@ Everybody

Has anyone thought about using a RAID 0 with 10,000 RPM disks??

[Rob Scott]

Rai Orz wrote:
... software for a system to storage loss free or near loss less on HDD in the next days

The sofware I'm working on sounds like it's exactly what you want, but unfortunately I'm nowhere near a production version. Exactly how many days are we talking about? :-)

[Steve Nordhauser]

Wayne:
Sorry for the confusion - they are different sensors - both high speed from the same company. There was a lot of talk about the MT9V403 awhile ago by people really wanting global shutter. Micron told me not to go there. The MI-MV40 is a rolling shutter.

Wayne on GigE:
I'm inclined to agree with you - pixel packing and maybe lossless compression at 2:1 (visually lossless at 6:1??) could really extend GigE and we will probably go that way in a bunch of months. This is mostly useful for remote head cameras (remote from the PC) although we could possibly migrate the FPGA into a simple digital interface or camera link. That might make the 3 chip Altasens make some 'sens'.

[Wayne Morellini]

Rai, the other guys know more about putting together an actual system than me, but I am the person looking at doing cases. If your people would like to work with me on commercial cases for these cameras please let me know, I need the help. I was planning on doing designs and finding a low cost enclosure manuafcturer to take them on and finish them.

Thanks

Wayne.

[Rob Scott]

Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn wrote:
Has anyone thought about using a RAID 0 with 10,000 RPM disks??

I think we've thought about it. At the moment, I'm focusing on a software equivalent of RAID 0 using more affordable 7,200 RPM disks. Or I was until my system died on me.