Obin,

Are you using two 7200rpm laptop HDs in RAID 0? If so, you should be able to get 1080 @ 24fps in 10bit, but probably not 12 bit, unless you do some kind of compression.

I just can't stand to see this thread so far down the page.. How is the project going Obin? Also I just learned an interesting tidbit for what its worth; the OLED display inside the Kinetta costs $6000!

plowing away at it Rob at this point, hardware is not an easy task..but would I expect it to be at this point? LOL

not much to say at this point..still getting disks to talk with chips..;)

everybody may know deja....but
 

got this from Steve Nordhauser
..................................................................................................
We do have the SI-1920HD which does use the Altasens.
Camera link $3995 USD camera alone
with a 64 bit frame grabber $4995
Gigabit ethernet $4995

We are working on a software package for the SI-1920HD that will work with the gigabit interface, provide 24fps of 12 bit lossless HD recording to disk and a live preview window. It has an exporter to write AVI, sequential TIFF and other formats. This will be released at $1995 but is being sold now for $1495 to early adopters with at least a year of updates.
Regards,
.................................................................................................

it's way cheaper as a Kinetta and not much more $$ as some "high end " DV HD stuff. So what
ronald

Please put into layman's terms. I own FX1E but would like to get better film camera. I don't understand much of technical stuff but I am familiar with picture quality from 1. FX/Z1, 2. F900 and 3. F950, all recorded to tape.

How would overall quality for film out compare? Would it be close to F900, or somewhere between F900, F950, considering all used super high quality lenses? How would low light performance compare? What would I need for complete production package, how much would cost? When would be available? How much harder would work with it be compared to say F900? Does it record directly to hard drive or to computer?

Thanks,

Radek

Roughly 16gs? Not bad, would have to see some samples first of course.

The camera looks to record to a computer and all your other questions can be answered once footage is available to test with.

no "real" news yet...still working on disk writing...


sent our dvx100 out to get a ReelStream HD out 4:4:4 from it...

working hard...lots of work.. ;) oh, almost forgot, I got a wakeboard for the weekends.. ;)

hmmm...Epix sent me an email saying they have upgraded the board so that it does NOT push 16bit images over the pci buss..it now packs to 12bit...arrgg!! and to think that would have been enough headroom for 24p 1080 4:4:4!!!!


arrgg....maybe I should take a look at the "software" again???

Obin thats great news! Get the software working! Having the working software solution won't mean that you can't continue work on your new project, and it will give you results sooner rather than later, not to mention that it will give the possiblity of really seeing what the Altasens is made of. A fully working version of the software could give great insight into the hardware solution, plus I really want to get my greedy little hands on it!

I still think it would be better for Epix to just add , maybe, some little huffman to their board (if they can cause I don't know their hardware), cause if not I fear someone else will do it very soon....:S

Back again. That pricing and new product information was meant to be private information - I don't like to post anything that is not shipping or do sales in this group.

To answer Ben's comment, yes $2K for software. You can ask Obin the challenges of stable real-time recording. It means that you can build an uncompressed 1080p, 24fps, 12 bit HD recording station (not a portable camera like Obin is doing) for $5K (camera), $2K (software) and maybe $1.5K (64 bit computer with SATA RAID). Use a video splitter and bring a video cable back to the camera head to monitor the capture. It is not a Kinetta, but it is under $10K for a recording system.

Could use this computer?
http://eu.shuttle.com/en/DesktopDefa...70_read-11119/

What are system requirements?

What is stream size?

Does system includes compression?

How would quality compare to Kinetta, Sony F900, F950, if we used best lenses?

Could you post links to products?

Will you be able turn off dead CCD pixels?

How much resolution you lose with Bayer filter? I read somewhere that get 25% decrease in resolution, turning 1920 into effective 1440 pixels. Is correct? If not, how many % loss?

Radek

FPGA is the way to go
 

10k is pretty good for an uncompressed 1080p system. But if you go with an FPGA, I don't see why you couldn't get the list price of a complete integrated 1080p camera down to $3500-4500. At that price, you'd melt the whole industry.

Of course, I'm no electrical engineer...

The main issues are bandwidth - camera head to the PC, PC bus in and back out to the RAID and RAID continuous throughput.

1920x1080, 12 bit, packed 24fps is about 75MB/sec average. This is a 64bit/66MHz PC, 2 drive SATA RAID. No compression in recording. Sometime later maybe.

Our camera head should be equal to or better than another Altasens 3562 design. We will have a 3570 when available. Other raw data recorders may have more nice features like OLED viewfinders that add value (and cost) but do not directly influence the quality of the recorded images. We are working on our software to assist post processing right now. For more information, contact me off the list or go to the web address in my sig file.

On Bayer, I've heard the 25% number before, also 30%. It depends on what color you look at. For red or blue primary colored objects, it is much worse. For something with a mix of RGB, it might be nearly zero loss with the proper algorithm. So, I'll give you a very qualitative 'it depends'.

Ben, I am an electrical engineer with an FPGA background. They are not holy water - they bring in as many demons as they exorcise. True, if I wanted to build a very low cost camera with a direct HD interface, fixed res viewfinder, fixed file format - I could do it very well with FPGAs (and the right designer). For a more flexible product, a CPU is nice and I'm not a believer in adding any preprocessing that potentially loses quality before recording. Then you might as well buy a DV camcorder.

I'm not downplaying what you are working on now and trying to bring to the market, but a camera for under 5k with direct HDD recording with some level of compression definitely has a place in this market. If you provide both, you can have a top quality system and a easier to use portable system to offer.

Top quality = uncompressed RGB
Direct to HDD = Huffman, Bayer, Cineform codec...etc

True, if I wanted to build a very low cost camera with a direct HD interface, fixed res viewfinder, fixed file format - I could do it very well with FPGAs (and the right designer).

Yup. I just don't know why you need flexibility. Mark the product up $1000, move a thousand units (which would be easy), make a million dollars. If the needs of the market change, make a new camera. Lather, repeat, retire.

I'm not advocating any pre-processing of the image; do some simple lossless compression on the raw data and pass it off to an in-camera RAID, a la Kinetta..

I'd buy a system for under $5000... at $10,000? No. I'm sorry but if you want to appeal to the type of independent filmmaker who would stray from big established companies like sony/canon/panasonic then you have to be competitive on price.

The thing you have to understand about these camera systems is that they'll never be mainstream. There's too many unknowns. The functionality of this $10,000 piece of equipment is dependent on inconsistent things like the speed and stability of your computer, the compatibility of the software, and the reliability of harddrives which are seen by many to be unreliable. On top of all this, nobody wants to drag a PC around with them on their shoot and people will be hesitant to give $10,000 to some company that they've never heard of. At this pricepoint, the risks start to outweigh the rewards. Sony offers a camera for $3000 that is 1080i, shoots on cheap mini-dv tapes, includes a lens, its footage can be edited in realtime with realtime effects on most NLEs, it records sound, has a shit load of features that will never be available on these cameras and with a $500 micro35 lens adapter shoots some pretty convincing filmlike images.

Your profit margin might be higher with a $10,000 system but I promise you that you will sell so many more if its a few thousand dollars. It doesn't have to be 1080p uncompressed. Honestly, I think the most appealing aspects of a camera system like this are the adjustable aspect ratio, variable framerates (super slow-mo), interchangable lenses, and the opportunity to have something that you just plug into a laptop and you're good to go. The higher the resolution and the less the compression the greater the strain on your system until it bogs the process down.

Offer a camera with software for less then $5000 that can run from a laptop and you will make a killing. I know because I'm your target market. You're trying to appeal to low-budget independent filmmakers. I think the thing you have to realize is that at $5000 you're competing with minidv and mini-hdv cameras. At $10,000 you're competing with 35mm film. You can shoot a feature film on 35mm for less then $10,000.. The other thing is that the technology is moving so fast that in another year or two this $10,000 camera will be obsolete. You have to offer something cheap and quick.

This is just my two cents but independent filmmaking is all about weighing the quality vs. the convenience vs. the price and you have a rare opportunity to offer all three, if you don't get greedy.

Word.

Steve, the indy market is $5k and under. The pro market wants real pro features, and will never be comfortable shooting with an industrial cam. $10k is no man's land.

You can shoot a feature on 35mm for under 10 grand? Please inform me as to how.

I believe he was meaning digital.

Steve,

I'm not computer expert, I'm student filmmaker. Please explain me following:

1. Resolution should be equal to Sony CineAlta recorded to tape 1440x1080p because Bayer is known lose about 25%. Or does Bayer loses vertical resolution too and resulting effective pixels be 1440x810?

2. Color will be better, so will lattitude, because is 12 bit, Sony is 8 bit system. If you record at 10 bit, how better lattitude will you have compared to CineAlta?

3. The shutter is some kind of rolling type, which creates unnatural effect on movement so mechanical shutter must be integrated into camera? How much extra is with the mechanical shutter? What is mechanical shutter reliability, noise level?

4. Sony has X300 and X310 box cameras with HDSDI, even HDV output. You can feed HDSDI to computer with dual compressor chip and compress everything real time 6:1 with Prospect HD. Is there way get 10 bit signal out your comera, use same computer system? Would RAID still be needed? Filmmakers need complete solutions. Why don't offer small factor dual processor computer with Prospect HD with your product, and LCD? I posted info on such computer in HDV main acuisition forum.

5. You have very nice product but are in group of buyers that is buying 3K USD HD cameras, 500 USD 35 mm adapters, makes wedding videos or student type films on most part. That why your low price is not appreciated.

6. I think you should develop your product further. There will never competing products from Sony etc., because they need sell 10x more expensive products, which market bear. If product is less convenient than Sony's product, no big deal, indie filmmakers will buy, if image quality is there.

7. You have finalized system; you should ask DVinfo to give you forum on that product. It seems that here your product not very appreciated.

8. If I were you, I would continue investing in indie filmmaking market segment. It would be very profitable. You just need market it to the segment where buyers are.

9. Is chip 2/3"?

10. You should work with P+S, have them develop series 400 35 mm adapter for it.

11. You will not gain profits by lowering price but by adding features and promotion to different market segment, product improvement, cooperation with DP's who give their opinions.

Radek

Expect to pay 10g more for the product if so.

you can indeed shoot a movie on 35mm film for under 10grand. The movie 'Primer' was shot for around $7,000 on 35mm and it happened to be one of the best movies made last year...

http://www.primermovie.com/

I would not buy P+S. I would buy one of cheap ones but SI needs it if they want attract rather pro customers. That's where their profit will be, once they can start make money there, they can develop better cheaper products to us.

Radek

I couldn't disagree more. At $5000 you are blowing minidv out of the water, and definately not getting what you deserve for your efforts. Maybe at $35,000 we are talking about competing with film (and that's low)...but while a $10,000 film can be made...you should budget the extra $15,000 for therapy.

However more importantly...at 4:4:4 10bit...you are competing with film in image quality and that is really saying something for $10,000. Especially since once you have the equipment paid for (lets not forget that equipment can be rented or financed while filmstock itself cannot) then your tape or other capture media is about 1/100th of the cost of film...litterally making movies for pennies on the dollar.


That's alot easier said than done. These guys have been working on this project for some time...and all that labor is worth something. Personally, I would charge more (but also I'm lazy and getting me to do any work means overpaying me). Also there is the issue of production numbers. Too much demand can be a very bad thing if they were to create such a camera and sell it for $5000. Could a small company fulfill 30,000 orders in one week? Supply and demand curves aren't perfect curves in the real world...they are stair stepped at the various levels of production efficiency that can be achieved with real world machinery. The amount of money it would cost to fulfill the demand a $5000 price point would require the use of a production facility of unreasonable proportions for a risky venture such as this. They aren't Sony....they just have better engineers :}

that was my point. at $5000 you are offering the best option. the thing about these systems is that they're not complete out of the box. a $10,000 camera still requires a very high-end computer and lenses and tons of storage. we're talking close to $15,000+ when all is said and done :(

This is the thing that concerns me about all this. Almost a year ago I saw Obin capturing 14fps from a thousand dollar camera at uncompressed 8bit and that footage video looked excellent. It just looked so much more vibrant and organic then standard high-definition. There were problems with that camera concerning the shutter, etc. but it was close. Now a year later all anyone is focusing on is these $10,000 solutions. I don't know how i'm going to capture 4:4:4 12bit uncompressed. Obin spent a year trying to build a computer that could do it and it still hasn't happened. How about focusing on a data stream that the average person can capture to their laptop? If you could get uncompressed 8bit from a thousand dollar camera, that still kicks the shit out of high-def. Go ahead and mark that one up $4000 and i'll still buy it. Maybe i'm totally clueless to how supply and demand works but I know how much independent filmmakers are willing to spend. I guess maybe a company like silicone imaging would rather sell 10 cameras at $10,000 then 100 cameras at $5000 because its less work to make?

I agree with Matt, developing something like this is an unbelievable amount of work. Just flooding Steve with posts saying "cut the cost in half" is not helpful. The Altasens camera that they are basing this system around costs $5000 for just the box, so unless SI is supposed to throw in the software and buy a capture card from Epix to give away there is no way this camera will cost under $5000.

That being said, it is a very interesting point of what niche this camera would fulfill. I have always considered this project as a 35mm substitute, and when you shoot 35mm many things must be considered. It is not an easily portable solution and it takes 3 people to run a camera. I see this camera being very similar to that. The only real difference between the two solutions is that with this you do not have to pay the extrordinary cost of developing/color timing/printing/ect..

I am a professional videographer and would LOVE to have a shoulder mounted system shooting 1080p uncompressed that ran off a battery for 6 hours, but right now its just not gonna happen. I believe that a totally hardware run solution is the ultimate answer but that takes time and tons of money, Obin is working on it. The software solution gives a solution to us now however. The one thing that I am wondering is the possibilities using the cheaper SI-3300-RGB, then it would be possible to have a solution for around $6000 I am guessing. But the real stitch is Panasonics new baby coming out this fall that will shoot in DVCProHD straight to solid state memory. That camera will be about as expensive as this project and it won't have as nice images, but it will be MUCH MUCH MUCH easier to use.

I am really pulling for this project in whatever way it manifests itself I have been following for over a year. Good luck to both Steve and Obin, but I think it will be a lot easier for people to pay $9000 for an Altasens if they can buy a $5000 SI-3300-RGB solution, try it out, and realize they want the upgrade of the better chip.

Ive mentioned this idea before, but didnt get a lot of responses. Everyone is talking about $5000-10,000 camera systems which would be in the range to compete with the upcoming panasonic and jvc hd(v) cameras, but couldnt it be done a lot cheaper?

Personally I would not spend 10s of thousands on a homemade camera due to the high probability of something not quite working correctly and lack of funds in the first place. Also, it seems to me that there is a point where it becomes exponentially more expensive to build your own HD camera system, that happens when you have to build portable raids or use cameralink. This means if you want to keep costs down use gige and keep it to a data stream that is possible on a single HDD. Tomshardware shows there are plenty of big, relatively low cost 250-400GB 3.5" SATA drives that can run with a MINIMUM practical write speed of 37MBps.

The silicon video 9T001C camera from EPIX uses the same micron sensor as the si-3300 (steve verified this) and it comes bundled with a gige framegrabber and cable and software for $995.

Hook this up to a small formfactor (probably shuttle) computer with an athlon64 winchester core CPU (from what i understand the best power consumption in its class, although i havent looked into the new venice core) which all together is likely to cost around $600 once you add in ram etc. Make that more like $1000 if you add in a 12v power supply and a high capacity heavy duty battery belt.

However, assuming the bandwidth limitations are the 37MBps hard drive and 33MHz PCI and the gige. It should still be possible to get 1920x800 8bit at 24fps for 2.35:1 and you still get the flexibility of programmable framerates, ROI, binning (for better than bayer color?) and 10bit color so you can choose your balance of color, resolution and framesize. Also it gives you compatibility with various really fast c-mount lenses for shallow DOF. So throw in another $500 for a nice set of angenieux f0.95-f1.3 lenses for up to a stop and a half better low light and shallower dof than any 3ccd lens.

The main problem as i see it besides getting used to XCAP (which i havent heard amazing things about) and finding a good resolution to shoot at being limited to 37MBps (although i wouldnt want to have to deal with much more than that in post anyway assuming 3x more data for rgb but then lossless ~2.3:1 compression would bring it to about 50MBps). ROI at 720p would probably leave the usable sensor area closer to 1/3" but would allow more flexibility in frame rate and the ability to use 10bit color and that could be fixed with a $100 homemade 35mm GG adapter (but that would likely introduce a loss in sharpness and a lot of loss in light).

Overall cost ~$2000-2500 for a camera that could run tethered (gige can get pretty long) to the computer or possibly be shoulder mounted. A homemade shoulder mount that could optionally hold the computer case and/or the camera head would be few more $$, but then it might also be possible buy (or use since i have a bunch sitting around) an older CPU and shuttle barebones as I am not sure of the system requirements for capturing over gige in XCAP.

Anyway I'm kind of obsessed with this idea and am seriously considering going ahead with it, but tell me if you see big problems I missed. But I tend to consider 1080p to be more than I need and would probably prefer to shoot in 1.85 or 2.35 aspect ratios anyway. tapeless 10bit uncompressed 24p recording from a 1/3"-1/2" CMOS chip with fast manual movie lenses seems pretty awesome to me especially at a price less than a dvx100. Of course the dvx100 takes less than 30sec to power up... but then it cant double as an editing station :)

Oh yeah and another $200-300 for the 7" touchscreen LCD and whatever shipping charges I didnt take into account in the prices.

eric, I checked out the primer movie website and it says the film was shot on super16mm and blown up to 35mm.... and its only 77min, which im sure cut the cost down a bit. I'm pretty sure shooting a >90min 35mm feature would be pretty impossible for $7000 or even $10,000

this is all off the top of my head, so i am sure i'm not exact on figures, but i'm probly pretty close. 1000' of vision2 is around $600 (something like $.60/ft iirc). 1000' mag of 35mm is roughly 11mins. (90min / 11min)x$600 = ~$4900. So.. even if you already owned all the camera gear, editing equipment, etc.. and got everyone to work for free, with even a 2:1 shot ratio you'd be pushing $10k.

(someone feel free to correct me if my math was insanely wrong.. it is 8am and i havent slept yet)

The Altasens camera that they are basing this system around costs $5000 for just the box, so unless SI is supposed to throw in the software and buy a capture card from Epix to give away there is no way this camera will cost under $5000.

Uh... Altasens doesn't make cameras -- they make sensors. Their sensor costs about $1500 -- NOT in bulk. Forget about software and capture cards -- what we're talking about is a FPGA-based device that streams data from the sensor to a couple of hard drives. It's not rocket science. The parts would cost at the most $3000... You could mark it up heartily from there...

oops.. my bad.

BTW, just because I'm being critical of the direction some people are going in, that doesn't mean I don't wish them well... even if I can't afford these more expensive cameras, if they are profitable, then there will be more chance of someone making something cheaper... I'm just trying to remind people that us low-no-budget filmmakers need a camera too.

JUST MY TWO CENTS:

Through the more than a century of film production there has been always one issue:
Shooting film is Expensive, since the beginning and till the end.There is no other way for it.
Cinema and Film Production isn't/wasn't made for people with no money.
If you are ready to produce a "film" you are also ready to Know and understand that it can't be made cheap.
On the other side digital technology and new workflows opened the gates for much more filmmakers to realize their dreams.Film production became more affordable but one thing still remains:It is not at "Zero Cost".
Of course you can go out and shoot the next blockbuster with your MiniDV camcorder.After that comes Post and may be a transfer to 35mm, and guess what: It isn't cheap!!!!
Lightning is not cheap (just go out and get the pricing of just an HMI lamp), Film negative, development and post equipment is not cheap.Even if you weren't paying anyone for his work, there is still the fact that someone needs to recover the money invested on equipment, eat, and pay the rent.
So I will say again something I wrote long time ago:

If you are a filmmaker and you are not prepared to invest the minimum money on your basic "tools" (which by the way are supposed to generate some profit for you, I mean make some bucks) how on earth are you able to buy a brand new car which just generates expenses ?
Would you trust a surgeon who uses a kitchen knife because he doesn't want to pay the "high" price for a scalpel?

Juan,
In general I agree with you as long as people aren't convinced that great tools make a great film. I'm sure a great filmmaker with a DV camcorder and a PC will produce something more watchable than a ...lesser talent.... with a $200K tools budget.

I've seen this effect in woodcarving. Phenomenal stuff done with sharpened scrap metal vs. the newbie who spends $500 on the best tool set he can find. It is skill and practice that set the bar. Sure, the skilled person can be limited by poor tools and the unskilled person can be assisted by good tools but the talent and practice make the result.

Yes it costs money to make a quality product, but do you really think the people with money want to spend it as much as someone who is trying hard to keep costs down? They're in the same boat.

Price points aside, making either product (the one that SI is working on and the HDD machine we all want) the best they can be is the main goal.

I'm not sure I agree with that. There are people who have money and make money with their equipment who know equipment will pay for itself, seems to me thats a lot of security and big reason to buy equipment. For the student/indy filmmaker its much more expensive to make an expensive purchase since in a lot of people's cases they wont be making any money back because they dont have enough experience. I mean who is more quick to spend money on expensive HD equipment than a production company who has paying clients itching for HD content? Those are the people who have the money, I am the people who are trying hard to keep costs down because chances are I wont be making it back (and by the time i start actually making money with doing this I'm likely to have new equipment) but I still want to make an awesome product in HD now if possible.

I'd buy a camera with problems for $2000 even if it meant having some technical difficulties on the set because production time doesnt cost me much money. People with money and bigger productions would pay $10,000 for a higher quality, less buggy camera system; I wouldnt because I dont have the money.

I couldn't disagree with you more. Movies have, can, and will be made for very little money.

I would trust a talented surgeon with a plastic spork over a hack with a laser scalpel.

For the people looking for HD and without "lots of money"

Just go out and buy the One CMOS HDV Sony camera.It gives you 1920x1080i and costs just 1,800 dollars.

@Eric:
Well, just tell me one good and famous movie made with no money.If it was shown at a Cinema ( I mean not Digital), and not shot on film the least it can cost was around 30~35,000 dollars.(and this means having just one or two final copies with sound).
In case you say 35,000 is cheap, so then 10,000 for a Good camera can't be called "expensive", right?

@Steve
I see you got the idea ;)

@to all others

Ok, it was my fault.I should have mentioned that my comment was based on making the asumption that someone looking for a Full RAW (uncompressed or not) removable lens system with at least 1920x1080 with color higher than 8 bit per channel should be a pro or semi pro.
If you are a film student you don't need this camera.If Lars Von Trier can shoot using MiniDV ,why a film student needs something better if not using it for profesional stuff?
Darren Aronovsky shot Pi using a Bolex, and in my opinion it is a quite good movie.He wasn't using an ARRI 435 or the like.

Footnote: Nothing personal fellows.Just common sense.I work professionaly as movie crew.I also do some post stuff.
So my basic idea would be something like this : "You don't need a War Tank to go to the Supermarket"

juan,
I dont imagine filmmaking to be about necessities but about creativity. People could all be shooting movies on analog video formats and people would still watch the stuff if that was the norm. The norm for mainstream cinema nowadays seems to be 35mm or HD. A student doesnt need to use HD for certain kinds of exercises, but for learning how to increase production value with HD or to shoot HD and learning how to take advantage of variable framerates or a 10bit image? If these are factors that could make a production better, or teach a student more, or get me a job (who is going to hire me to shoot in HD if I havent done HD before?) I dont think it would be reasonable to say students shouldnt have them. Students strive to be professional and want to be seen as professionals as quickly as possible, and its possible that creating images that people think look more like the professional, modern 35mm or HD images normally seen in theaters may help a student to be seen as a professional.

There are of course many other moer creative and more important aspects of filmmaking (varying from project to project), but as an aspiring DP with a fairly technical background, it seems limiting to me to be restricted to one frame size, one frame rate, one lens, and the option of only sensors <=1/3" . Anyway my point is I could deal without it, but if I can have better technology to create images that in some ways are more pleasing and use more flexible technology, especially in the same price range as inferior technology, then I consider it reasonable to pursue that option, especially in a world where its not so unusual for people to not get hired just because their camera doesnt do 24p.

When you say an independent filmmaker needs $30,000 to pay for 35mm prints of their movie to screen it, I think you're out of touch with what's happened in the industry over the past decade. As a truley independent filmaker, your job is to make a movie and get someone to buy it. That's it. Robert Rodriguez's made El Mariachi for $7,000. He shot it on film, transfered it to vhs and cut it on two VCRs. He took that cut he made on tape and from that he sold it. After the studio bought it they spent tens of thousands of dollars cutting it on film and making prints and creating a marketing campaign. But Robert still gets to run around saying he made it for $7,000 because that's all he spent. Imagine if he had been born ten years later and was able to shoot on a borrowed HD camera? His budget would of been almost $0. Well... someone is going to pick-up where he left off. Its only a matter of time before the advances in technology connect with someone talented and ambitious enough to pull it off.

Maybe the technology isn't there yet. These cheap HD cameras might not be good enough and these $10,000 industrial set-ups are still going to be out of reach of most people. We're getting close though and its exciting.