4:4:4 10bit single CMOS HD project

[Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn]

So the SI1920HD is a camera based on the Altasens???
I'm getting lost....

Anyway the SI 3300 looks quite good for me looking for a 1920x1080 camera at 24 fps, if it is cheap enough Anbd can hace a 1/24 exposure it is right for me, I like the mechanical shutter solution.

So, What is the problem with SI 3300?
Low sensitivity??

I'm not getting it, sorry, got lost with your other posting....

If the problem is sensitivity, can't any of this things be used to improve the camera for our requirements???

http://www.o-eland.com/faceplate.htm

[Rai Orz]

Wayne, >Thank you. You say: "Is to make a low cost camera system that is suitiable for independent film production and low end, and prosumer, video production...

As you know we have NOW the chance to make a movie with those camera. My company had make a real working 35mm DOF Solution for HDTV and we have a focus follow system for every still camera lenses, also we can make a movie-camera-like-case. This is our vision of a low-cost camera design:

HD camera head as part one. The second part is the controller+computer+HDD+power unit. This two parts can connected together to a single unit, but if used on a steady cam, it is a very low weight steady system, if the controller+computer+HDD+power unit is used as the counterweight.

This two-units-design brings some advantages. The head (with SI-1300 inside) with all optical and mechanical parts can made NOW. It will have a 35mm movie-camera-look. With this unit the cameraman will work. This design will not change. The second unit is at the beginning a PC on the end of a 10m cameralink cable. This unit are changed, but with this system they can start make the movie NOW.

We will work together with all people here. But my problem is, we need a working system now. As i say, it can be a PC, but what hardwre?

Who had make test with a industry camera (SI-1300), except obin?
Silicon Images sell the SI-1300 camera with the Epix PIXCI-CL1 grabber card. This card have no memory. There also sell a card from matrox, with 32MB. What is about lost frames? What hardware will work. I need answers.

And i need short videos, not still frames, to see what picture quality the software can write on HDD 24fps/10Bit).

[Ben Syverson]

Juan,

The processor itself consumes less than (for example) a Pentium M, but I think the motherboard as a whole consumes more than a laptop motherboard. Laptop components are lower-power and higher-price....

- ben

[Rob Scott]

Rai Orz wrote:
Who had make test with a industry camera (SI-1300), except obin?
And i need short videos, not still frames, to see what picture quality the software can write on HDD 24fps/10Bit).

I have been getting live video capture with my own software, but I haven't concentrated (yet) on putting it into a standard format.

I believe Obin has posted some footage.

Silicon Images sell the SI-1300 camera with the Epix PIXCI-CL1 grabber card. This card have no memory ... What is about lost frames?

It uses system memory to buffer the frames, not on-card memory. As long as the software is efficient enough, there should be no lost frames. The hard drive is the most critical piece there (for captures over a few seconds, anyway).

[Rob Scott]

Ben Syverson wrote:
Here's how it would work for a 1280x720 image.

I'm already doing all four of those steps, Ben, but I don't currently have a suitable lossless compression algorithm, and I'm not experienced at writing them myself. I've looked at LZO but I'm not sure if it will be usable for this application. Any ideas?

[Wayne Morellini]

Lots of non FPGA discussion happening here, a fair bit covered in the other threads. So I'll have to drop in here as well. The Cinema threads are available if you want to keep non FPGA discussion out of this and the 10bit thread.

Have a good day.

Thanks

Wayne.

[Wayne Morellini]

<<<-- Originally posted by Rai Orz : Wayne, >Thank you. You say: "Is to make a low cost camera system that is suitiable for independent film production and low end, and prosumer, video production... -->>>

Thanks for pionting out that error, it should have been "low end professional, and prosumer".

As for the rest, it is a work in progress. I don't think much thought, and research has gone into investigating which disks and setrup produce the best performance. the problem is that working out this for real systems was supposed to happen when the software was out in a few months.

If you want to do something talk to the Rob's and Obin privately for now. If you are a month away talk to Steve N, if you are ends of the year (which it doesn't look like) talk to Sumix. Then do research to find the best Motherboard and highest speed disks. It will require detailed look aty the specs and reall world tests from reveiws. Fortunately gamers and overclockers are obsessed about this, so many reveiws are on the web. But it also pays to have an assesment done by a server oriented site.

Another unrecognised problem here is that modern Hard Disks are now using plastic busings, they will fail quickly compared to models a few years ago. The fail times will probably be thousands, maybe tens of thousands of ours, but check the rated fail times. When using this for raw capture, virtual memory does not help, so you will be using the HD hundreds of times more than normal. For a production that should not be a problem, but upto a year maybe a different matter (that is why warrantees moved down to the year).

I think major productions, like yours, don't really need portability, so you can select very fast convient hardware, and power sources, until portable options become available.

If you do go portable, for a battery pack can I suggest a vest with batteries inbuilt (easier to balance than a belt), but not acid batteries (for obviouse reasons).

Maybe there are some people who could volunteer to scientifically research system parts and disks for you and the rest of us.

Thanks

Wayne.

Previously written replies:

Originally posted by Rai Orz : Rob, Obin, Joshua and all others,

It was my idea to shoot a movie with those silicon images Cam. I know the work time for the movieprojekt that just now beginns. And so, it also was my idea to shoot now, at the beginning, with the unsuitable silicon images software and a pc in a car. I know/hope a better software will come soon and also small hardware. I spoke with producer and director, and they say okay, it can be good for movie marketing (and i think also for CAM marketing), but it must work. And now, they want see pictures.

Yes, this is why I am eager to see you here. We haven't figured a name or logo yet, but I have suggested privately to the Rob's and Steve I, the name Computer Cam, or Custom Cam. People here might want to suggest Cinema Cam instead.

From your other post I gather that you want to put this camera project in the credits. Could I suggest that you have a picture of your camera on black with the title/sub-title "Shot with" whatever name and logo we come up with, or "DVinfo.net Alternative Imaging HD Cinema Camera project" with link and DVinfo logo (provided they agree).

Originally posted by Steve Nordhauser : Wayne:
Norpix is getting a facelift fairly soon to make the GUI more intuitive. We shall see - I suspect this group will be way beyond there by the time it is ready.

Here is a suggestion. Rob's, Steve, why not approach these capture software companies with a sample pro video capture front end interface graphic, and ask them to implement it? Piont out that we are trying to make a new market, and maybe they will do it.

[Wayne Morellini]

Originally posted by Eric Gorski : does anyone know if recording to ram is a good idea? this would allow a laptop to be an all in one capture device?[

With Rob's idea of processing during pauses it is very good, saves can be done during filming and pauses. Ram is also much cheaper and faster than normal flash.

Originally posted by Ben Syverson : Les wrote:
People willing to play with non standard and somewhat self made hacked together hardware are more likely PC people.

Yes, most definitely. I'm talking directly to the vendors: if you wanted to, you could develop an HD system that didn't need to be "hacked together," one that could be a much more mainstream solution. Think of all the FCP jockeys out there begging for a better format than DV or HDV. The filmmaking market is at least as big as the scientific market -- trust me. And a lot of those people are Mac users.

- ben

I've been trying to discuss with the Robs and Steve I about approaching vendors and sponsors, but have not heard back anything yet.

Originally posted by Obin Olson : are all using $100 agp cards that could do EVERYTHING in realtime even HD ..yet not a program uses them but games...shame...it would be Apple that changes that ;) and I am a windows person

I have suggested this to Rob. The current generation of Direct X cards shaders can accelerate compression, but future generations of Direct X will result in complete compression capabilities. Some versions of these cards also have DVI input, which is HDMI compatible, which would be a good alternative to cameralink and Gbe.

Originally posted by Obin Olson : jason I am working on design for a standalone camera very "Kinetta" like but simple and easy to use ...do you have any idea what that new microboard chipset is? i need hardware that will run with Linux for the UI of this stand-alone Rig ;)

If your doing a Linux program, why not approach the Cinelerra NLE, I'm sure they do capture, they might even do all the Cameralink modifications for you free just to support us.

http://www.digitalanarchy.com/micro/micro_faq.html

This compression algorithm, posted earlier, is claiming: "it's completely lossless, but gives you file sizes that are about 2-4 times smaller than most similar lossless codecs"

<<<-- Originally posted by Ben Syverson : Thanks Les!

I've read the paper, but I'm going a different route. I'm developing a logic-based (as opposed to mathematic) de-zippering routine. I'll posts some results in the next hour or so.

- ben -->>>

Yes, Logic, not slight of hand maths. This is my design approach too.

Even though Ting (the paper's author) has done integer based Minimial Instruction Set computer processors (I have one here), he has all ways had a maths bent.

Thanks

Wayne.

[Rob Scott]

Wayne Morellini wrote:
...The current generation of Direct X cards shaders can accelerate compression, but future generations of Direct X will result in complete compression capabilities.

This project looks interesting -- http://www.gpgpu.org/

[Wayne Morellini]

OK, lets call it. Rob can we use onboard AGP 3D coprocessors to replace the need for FPGA? Still can we use a AGP card with DVI input (for a DVI camera)?

I would like to find the lowest cost Cameralink card to.


Rob's and Steve, I have an idea to easily achieve comrpession on a 3chip camera.

Steve told us sometime ago that colour channels follow each others in real life (meaning main adjustment is in the luminance), allowing Bayer to achieve good results.

What about if we save 3chip input as a bayer pattern with variations from the pattern.

So what we end up with is:
GR
BG
Then the variations, which can be any combination of following selection bits that best suites the individual frame:
1 bit variation exists yes/no
.- 3 bits variation exists in R, G or B channel.
....- 3 bits*2 (RB) which pixel is the variation in
....- 2 bits (G) which pixel is the variation in

then

.......- variations:
1 bit negative/positve variation or full/small variation.
+ Variations (full=full value (ie. 10 bit) small= 5bit (or whatever). (Negative=all bits required to subtract to 0 value, positive = all bits require to get to full value).

Or whatever system makes more sense (I've been up all night). With this hopefully we can reduce bandwidth to half easily.

What do you think?

Thanks.

[Rob Scott]

Wayne Morellini wrote:
Rob can we use onboard AGP 3D coprocessors to replace the need for FPGA?

Possibly. I'll investigate it when I'm done with this phase of the project.

can we use a AGP card with DVI input

DVI input? I thought most cards had output only.

3chip input as a bayer pattern

Sorry, Wayne, I didn't follow at all. Are you talking about a 3-chip system or a 1-chip Bayer system? Or are you talking about saving the 3-chip data as a Bayer pattern? Why would you want to do that?

--- edit ---

I looked at some of the resources on the GPGPU site, and it appears that a GPU won't do what we want. Transferring data from GPU into main memory appears to be too slow to be useful for real-time applications.

[Wayne Morellini]

Sorry, some consumer cards (more in the HD future) have DVI input.

I am talking about saving the three chip output as a Bayer pattern (as alledgedly hue changes less then luminance) for three times less data. So the bayer pattern is now used to predict the value for each channel, as the blue, red, or green hue component would stay the same accross multiple pixels.

If there is a variation from the predicted bayer value, then we record that an individual channel on an individual pixel is different, and by how much. The layers of bits is to reduce the wastage of having a bit for each channel not addressed at each bayer pixel to register variations from the predicted value. The layers also allow smaller values to be sued to represent the variation value.

The indentation represents the inner nesting of the data. Oh...the stupid forum board has taken away my nesting.

If, statiscally, hue remains the same most of the time we save storage space. But then again it could all be rot, and what I originally thought was true (that it is rot).

A bit complex, but maybe usefull. What you end up is simple lossless compression.

[Les Dit]

I had my programmer implement a bi cubic rescale to 1280 x 720 in the GPU of a late model Nvidia card. He was only able to get it running at about 4 fps, for some reason.
He did however learn how to code the GPU, for what it's worth.
Programming it was a Beech, he said.

-Les



<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Scott :

I looked at some of the resources on the GPGPU site, and it appears that a GPU won't do what we want. Transferring data from GPU into main memory appears to be too slow to be useful for real-time applications. -->>>

[Ben Syverson]

Bicubic is a pretty processor-intensive operation. You need a neighborhood of at least 4x4 pixels to compute each pixel, and the weighting function is pretty complex.

A simple linear interpolation doesn't need to see a neighborhood. Even with my edge logic, I'm positive it can be done in real-time, especially if you leverage the GPU, either via pixel shaders or CoreVideo.

But the real question is: why bother to do it in real-time? I'd rather capture footage 100% raw, so that the CPU can focus on channeling data to the hard drive. Then afterwards you can do your post processing...

If you spend all your time optimizing code to be realtime, you don't have any time to make films.

[Jason Rodriguez]

BTW, how come you never seen any mention of bicubic interpolation for Bayer images? I've heard and seen Bilinear (doesn't look good), but nothing about bicubic (like Photoshop, etc.).

Is this something too hard to do (slow), or is it simply not good looking/impossible because of the bayer pattern?