4:4:4 10bit single CMOS HD project

Steve Nordhauser · May 26th, 2004, 10:11 AM

Hey people,
Steve Nordhauser here at your service. I'm VP of Product Development at Silicon Imaging and the one Obin has been dealing with. The camera he has on order is the SI-1300-RGB-CL. As has been assumed, this is using the Micron 1.3Mpix sensor.

First, the picture I sent to Obin of my daughter was done with our GigE version of the camera. There is no capability to do color balance or anything else with that software so I know it wasn't pretty. For 32 bit systems, we typically ship an Epix PIXCI-CL1 frame grabber because it has great tools. You can do an auto color balance using a Macbeth target. Very cool.

I will do my best to follow Alternative Imaging Methods and answer whatever questions I can. I am pretty knowledgable about sensors, camera link, PC bus bandwidth and RAID issues. Mostly I'm working with OEMs but have been in contact with Indies since we released a 1920x1080@30+fps camera a few years ago.

Regards,
Steve

Obin Olson · May 26th, 2004, 10:43 AM

Steve!! cool dude! how you hear about this thread??

oh ya I have not heard anything as to when your shipping me my product?

http://www.dv3productions.com/test_i...spinning35.jpg

check this! spinning 35 adaptor with a 28-135 zoom! even looks like real film grain! and the DOF is just AWESOME that lens is set at about 30mm and I was about 2 feet infront of him

the dvx100 shot it

Laurence Maher · May 26th, 2004, 09:38 PM

obin,

you think all things combined will give you an HD image? Or at east good enough to blow up to theater release prints?

Obin Olson · May 26th, 2004, 09:52 PM

when juan gets the 4:4:4 output yes I am sure we will have a quasi-HD system on our hands...it's above SD in size and WAY above ANY SD format in RAW quality..with a spinner35 and a good 35mm lens on the front I see no reason to think it would not be great for a HD blowup and project....BUT i am still building a TRUE HD camera from scratch using a 16mm Russian film camera and some HD chips..everything is on order..waiting now to get it and start building

you just can't beat resolution and RAW output when it comes to image quality ;)

Les Dit · May 26th, 2004, 11:03 PM

Well, if that DVX gives an HD image, then will my HD10 in raw mode give me IMAX ? ;)
Kidding aside, pixels are pixels.
-Les

Obin Olson · May 27th, 2004, 12:02 AM

uhh well Juan is getting more then SD out of it now...I think like 780 or somthing instead of 720

Wayne Morellini · May 27th, 2004, 06:55 AM

I read a post in there (don't follow the thread, but have scanned it) that said the frame returned was 859 pixels (or something) across). A HD camera should give better results again. I veiwed some side by side DVX100 and HD10 cinematic footage (in a thread on some board) and the HD10's was better than even the uprezed DVX100 footage in res terms.

Valentin Wegerth · May 27th, 2004, 08:03 AM

hi obin,

just a thought: you mentioned the cmos chip you ordered being 12mm x 15mm. why not use two of them next to each other in your camera setup? that would give you 2 chips covering a total of 15mmx24mm which is even SUPERIOR to 35mm film (uses 17mmx22mm). and even better: since you'd cover the total 35mm film plain there's no need for a DOF adaptor since you'd get the natural DOF of 35mm anyway.
the drawback of such a setup would clearly be the doubled cost for the chips and you'd need a software (and capable hardware) that joins the two seperate frames 'on the fly'.

valentin

Steve Nordhauser · May 27th, 2004, 08:14 AM

Nice idea. There are very few chips packaged so that they can be edge butted without imaging loss. I think some of the specialty CCDs for applications like astronomy can be butted. All of the CMOS chips that I have looked into have the sensor with bonding pads on the edge, with wires to a carrier. I'm guessing that the space between two adjacent sensors is about 50% of the chip width.

Now you could take two adjacent cameras with the same lens and angle them slightly outward so that the insides of the cones were parallel and just overlapping - this would be true out to infinity. Of course you are taking the worst part of the lens where the MTF curve falls off and putting it in the center of the image...... could that be done with a single lens? No, because the sensors must be flat at the focal plane. Focusing the two would be hell.

For ease of processing, it is much easier to just go to a bigger, faster sensor as long as someone makes one.

Obin Olson · May 27th, 2004, 08:52 AM

bigger faster sensor! bigger faster sensor!

;)

Steve Nordhauser · May 27th, 2004, 08:59 AM

Now Obin, don't pop a blood vessel over this but:
http://www.panavisionsvi.com/imagers_Quad.htm

Key Features:
· 4 times resolution of HDTV 1080i, 1080p standards
· 60 fields/second interlaced
· 30 frames/second progressive
· 3840 x 2160 optical resolution
· 3888 x 2192 total pixels (including black pixels)
· 28.80 x 16.44 mm active area
· Compatible with 35mm optics
· 16:9 Aspect ratio
· On-chip correlated double sampling
· 7.5 µm X 7.5 µm pixel size
· High Sensitivity
· Wide dynamic range
· Ultra low FPN via patented ACS® technology
· On-chip Integrated Timing and control logic
· Multi port video, eight 37.125 MHz ports
· Easy to use and integrate, single 5 volt supply and simple clocking

It should be the sensor used in the JVC quad HD camera:
http://www.towersemi.com/press/apr0402.html

Obin Olson · May 27th, 2004, 09:03 AM

steve what chip is that?!

can you use it?

Steve Nordhauser · May 27th, 2004, 10:11 AM

There you go with that blood vessel thing....This is a very expensive chip (I'm guessing $10K) that they only want to sell to a potential high volume customer. Right now I know JVC is the major customer. I'm sure JVC has enough clout to discourage them from selling to potential low end competition.

I just tossed this out to let you know where things were going. This chip was working about 1.5 years ago.

So, the short answer is that we will not do a camera with this anytime soon.

Wayne Morellini · May 27th, 2004, 11:52 AM

http://www.olympus.co.jp/en/news/200...522p8megae.cfm

http://world.altavista.com/babelfish...j.cfm&lp=ja_en

They use a "4 plane imaging system" to split the image over 4 chips. Is this expensive to do?

Wayne.

Valentin Wegerth · May 27th, 2004, 05:36 PM

well at least a "2 plane imaging system" could be done easily and wouldn't be expensive. only thing you'd need besides 2 chips is the body of a slr camera. any slr cam has 2 image planes. if you take a picture the mirror that normally rests in a 45° angle is removed and thus the image (or focal) plane is at the very point the 35mm photo-film usually is transported. if the mirror rests in its 45° postition however the image is reflected to the viewfinder (2nd image plane).
i hope you get the point... now if you'd just remove half of the mirror, half of the picture would reach the 1st plane where our 1st cmos chip would be placed and the other half of the image would be sent in a 45° angle to the 2nd image plane - given the viewfinder removed . and could be captured there with our 2nd cmos chip. once again we use the merits of 35mm DOF (see my last posting). now if we put both images together there should be no noticable 'cut' or breach because either the image - actually the light - passing the lens is sent to the first cmos or reflected in a 45° angle to the second cmos.

any comments on my thoughts appreciated ;)

May 26th, 2004, 10:11 AM	#61
Steve Nordhauser Silicon Imaging, Inc. Join Date: May 2004 Location: Troy, NY USA Posts: 325	Hey people, Steve Nordhauser here at your service. I'm VP of Product Development at Silicon Imaging and the one Obin has been dealing with. The camera he has on order is the SI-1300-RGB-CL. As has been assumed, this is using the Micron 1.3Mpix sensor. First, the picture I sent to Obin of my daughter was done with our GigE version of the camera. There is no capability to do color balance or anything else with that software so I know it wasn't pretty. For 32 bit systems, we typically ship an Epix PIXCI-CL1 frame grabber because it has great tools. You can do an auto color balance using a Macbeth target. Very cool. I will do my best to follow Alternative Imaging Methods and answer whatever questions I can. I am pretty knowledgable about sensors, camera link, PC bus bandwidth and RAID issues. Mostly I'm working with OEMs but have been in contact with Indies since we released a 1920x1080@30+fps camera a few years ago. Regards, Steve __________________ Silicon Imaging, Inc. We see the Light! http://www.siliconimaging.com

May 27th, 2004, 08:14 AM	#69
Steve Nordhauser Silicon Imaging, Inc. Join Date: May 2004 Location: Troy, NY USA Posts: 325	Nice idea. There are very few chips packaged so that they can be edge butted without imaging loss. I think some of the specialty CCDs for applications like astronomy can be butted. All of the CMOS chips that I have looked into have the sensor with bonding pads on the edge, with wires to a carrier. I'm guessing that the space between two adjacent sensors is about 50% of the chip width. Now you could take two adjacent cameras with the same lens and angle them slightly outward so that the insides of the cones were parallel and just overlapping - this would be true out to infinity. Of course you are taking the worst part of the lens where the MTF curve falls off and putting it in the center of the image...... could that be done with a single lens? No, because the sensors must be flat at the focal plane. Focusing the two would be hell. For ease of processing, it is much easier to just go to a bigger, faster sensor as long as someone makes one. __________________ Silicon Imaging, Inc. We see the Light! http://www.siliconimaging.com

May 27th, 2004, 08:59 AM	#71
Steve Nordhauser Silicon Imaging, Inc. Join Date: May 2004 Location: Troy, NY USA Posts: 325	Now Obin, don't pop a blood vessel over this but: http://www.panavisionsvi.com/imagers_Quad.htm Key Features: · 4 times resolution of HDTV 1080i, 1080p standards · 60 fields/second interlaced · 30 frames/second progressive · 3840 x 2160 optical resolution · 3888 x 2192 total pixels (including black pixels) · 28.80 x 16.44 mm active area · Compatible with 35mm optics · 16:9 Aspect ratio · On-chip correlated double sampling · 7.5 µm X 7.5 µm pixel size · High Sensitivity · Wide dynamic range · Ultra low FPN via patented ACS® technology · On-chip Integrated Timing and control logic · Multi port video, eight 37.125 MHz ports · Easy to use and integrate, single 5 volt supply and simple clocking It should be the sensor used in the JVC quad HD camera: http://www.towersemi.com/press/apr0402.html __________________ Silicon Imaging, Inc. We see the Light! http://www.siliconimaging.com

May 27th, 2004, 10:11 AM	#73
Steve Nordhauser Silicon Imaging, Inc. Join Date: May 2004 Location: Troy, NY USA Posts: 325	There you go with that blood vessel thing....This is a very expensive chip (I'm guessing $10K) that they only want to sell to a potential high volume customer. Right now I know JVC is the major customer. I'm sure JVC has enough clout to discourage them from selling to potential low end competition. I just tossed this out to let you know where things were going. This chip was working about 1.5 years ago. So, the short answer is that we will not do a camera with this anytime soon. __________________ Silicon Imaging, Inc. We see the Light! http://www.siliconimaging.com

May 26th, 2004, 10:43 AM	#62
Obin Olson Trustee Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Wilmington NC Posts: 1,414	Steve!! cool dude! how you hear about this thread?? oh ya I have not heard anything as to when your shipping me my product? http://www.dv3productions.com/test_i...spinning35.jpg check this! spinning 35 adaptor with a 28-135 zoom! even looks like real film grain! and the DOF is just AWESOME that lens is set at about 30mm and I was about 2 feet infront of him the dvx100 shot it

May 26th, 2004, 09:38 PM	#63
Laurence Maher Join Date: May 2004 Location: denton, texas, usa Posts: 416	obin, you think all things combined will give you an HD image? Or at east good enough to blow up to theater release prints?

May 26th, 2004, 09:52 PM	#64
Obin Olson Trustee Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Wilmington NC Posts: 1,414	when juan gets the 4:4:4 output yes I am sure we will have a quasi-HD system on our hands...it's above SD in size and WAY above ANY SD format in RAW quality..with a spinner35 and a good 35mm lens on the front I see no reason to think it would not be great for a HD blowup and project....BUT i am still building a TRUE HD camera from scratch using a 16mm Russian film camera and some HD chips..everything is on order..waiting now to get it and start building you just can't beat resolution and RAW output when it comes to image quality ;)

May 26th, 2004, 11:03 PM	#65
Les Dit Major Player Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Southern Cal-ee-for-Ni-ya Posts: 608	Well, if that DVX gives an HD image, then will my HD10 in raw mode give me IMAX ? ;) Kidding aside, pixels are pixels. -Les

May 27th, 2004, 12:02 AM	#66
Obin Olson Trustee Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Wilmington NC Posts: 1,414	uhh well Juan is getting more then SD out of it now...I think like 780 or somthing instead of 720

May 27th, 2004, 06:55 AM	#67
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	I read a post in there (don't follow the thread, but have scanned it) that said the frame returned was 859 pixels (or something) across). A HD camera should give better results again. I veiwed some side by side DVX100 and HD10 cinematic footage (in a thread on some board) and the HD10's was better than even the uprezed DVX100 footage in res terms.

May 27th, 2004, 08:03 AM	#68
Valentin Wegerth Tourist Join Date: May 2004 Location: Vienna, Austria Posts: 3	hi obin, just a thought: you mentioned the cmos chip you ordered being 12mm x 15mm. why not use two of them next to each other in your camera setup? that would give you 2 chips covering a total of 15mmx24mm which is even SUPERIOR to 35mm film (uses 17mmx22mm). and even better: since you'd cover the total 35mm film plain there's no need for a DOF adaptor since you'd get the natural DOF of 35mm anyway. the drawback of such a setup would clearly be the doubled cost for the chips and you'd need a software (and capable hardware) that joins the two seperate frames 'on the fly'. valentin

May 27th, 2004, 08:52 AM	#70
Obin Olson Trustee Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Wilmington NC Posts: 1,414	bigger faster sensor! bigger faster sensor! ;)

May 27th, 2004, 09:03 AM	#72
Obin Olson Trustee Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Wilmington NC Posts: 1,414	steve what chip is that?! can you use it?

May 27th, 2004, 11:52 AM	#74
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	http://www.olympus.co.jp/en/news/200...522p8megae.cfm http://world.altavista.com/babelfish...j.cfm&lp=ja_en They use a "4 plane imaging system" to split the image over 4 chips. Is this expensive to do? Wayne.

May 27th, 2004, 05:36 PM	#75
Valentin Wegerth Tourist Join Date: May 2004 Location: Vienna, Austria Posts: 3	well at least a "2 plane imaging system" could be done easily and wouldn't be expensive. only thing you'd need besides 2 chips is the body of a slr camera. any slr cam has 2 image planes. if you take a picture the mirror that normally rests in a 45° angle is removed and thus the image (or focal) plane is at the very point the 35mm photo-film usually is transported. if the mirror rests in its 45° postition however the image is reflected to the viewfinder (2nd image plane). i hope you get the point... now if you'd just remove half of the mirror, half of the picture would reach the 1st plane where our 1st cmos chip would be placed and the other half of the image would be sent in a 45° angle to the 2nd image plane - given the viewfinder removed . and could be captured there with our 2nd cmos chip. once again we use the merits of 35mm DOF (see my last posting). now if we put both images together there should be no noticable 'cut' or breach because either the image - actually the light - passing the lens is sent to the first cmos or reflected in a 45° angle to the second cmos. any comments on my thoughts appreciated ;)