Alternatives to SI and Sumix

[John Nagle]

Hello everybody,

Everyone seems to have settled on SI or Sumix as the only box cameras that could be used to build a HD system.
From reading all the threads I have noticed that some people raise the question of other possibilities but get lost in the hustle so I thought it might be useful to start a thread where people can discuss and post links to other possible solutions.

[Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn]

Good Idea.Anyway people is interested on SI and Sumix because they have given us their support, just that.

[John Nagle]

Hi Juan,

I know what you mean I emailed Steve at SI and found him to be very helpful. I just thought I would start this thread so if anyone wishes to discuss alternatives they can.
I have seen it come up a few times in the other threads but those are really more about getting working systems together. I don’t know if this will be of any use but I am not a programmer and I felt a need to try to contribute something.

[John Nagle]

I know the monochrome version was posted before but Pixelink have a new colour version out next month

http://www.pixelink.com/products_info.asp?id=43

maybe an option ?

[Laurence Maher]

Wow,

Says good resolution and variable frame rate. Global shutter which is good. Do you know about the Mhz, or transfer rate, ? I assume you can do full resolution all the way up to 105 fps. (Awesome). C-mount is cool. Does it record to a PC? Mac? Does it matter as long as it is firewire? Mentions Camera control without software. Is it on-camera? Is it progressive or interlaced framing?

Thanks for the post. Very curious!

[Valeriu Campan]

There is a frame rate calculator here:
http://66.148.40.196/uploads/pl-a74x_frame_rate_cal.xls.
Steve N mentioned in a post that the kit is based on a IBIS-5A camera. The SDK seems to be for Windows only so far.

[Rob Lohman]

Weren't there issues with most "machine vision" camera's that
would render them useless for cinematography? Like smear or
noise or something like that? I think I remember someone talking
about that.

[John Nagle]

I was looking at the Xcap web site and I found this camera and board package. I know some people here have had problems with Xcap but would this be a package that might be worth looking at?

http://www.epixinc.com/products/sv9m001.htm

The price seems good if the package is up to scratch.

[Rob Lohman]

Xcap does what it says, but it is hard to use for cinematography.
That's why some people are writing their own "capture" software
so get it more in line with how we want to use a camera.

[Jason Rodriguez]

Also Xcap isn't very efficient at writing to a Hard-drive, like maybe 40-50MB/s max. So for 1080p, you'll need to write to RAM, which isn't cheap.

[John Nagle]

Thank you guys,

About how many seconds of footage could I realistically record with 1 gig of ram?

[Rob Lohman]

That totally depends on:

1. the resolution of the frames coming in

2. the bitdepth of the images (8, 10 or 12 bits)

3. the framerate

4. the output format (uncompressed bayer, packed bayer, uncompressed RGB etc.)


But to give you some ideas:

1280 x 720 x 8 bits @ 24 fps in bayer = 21.09 MB/s (48 sec. for 1 GB)
1280 x 720 x 12 bits @ 24 fps in bayer = 42.19 MB/s (24 sec. for 1 GB)
1280 x 720 x 12 bits @ 24 fps in packed bayer = 31.64 MB/s (32 sec. for 1 GB)

1920 x 1080 x 12 bits @ 24 fps in bayer = 94.92 MB/s (10 sec. for 1 GB)
1920 x 1080 x 12 bits @ 24 fps in packed bayer = 71.19 MB/s (14 sec. for 1 GB)

1920 x 1080 x 12 bits @ 48 fps in packed bayer = 142.38 MB/s (7 sec. for 1 GB)
1920 x 1080 x 12 bits @ 48 fps in RGB = 569.53 MB/s (1 sec. for 1 GB)

[Wayne Morellini]

John, people just don't care, thats their funeral. I have been in discussions with people from other companies that would love to be involved, but if nobodies ionterested, wel (sorry bit ticked off today).

I have listed this in my technical thread (and the 10 bit threads), and you will find links to lists of many many cameras and systems there just waiting for somebody to wade through them all and acess them for suitability. I don't know if you are likely to find suitable replacements for the SI and Sumix cameras, and the Altasens is far better. I have suspicions on two. But I would suggest hunt down the mobile phone and digital camera sensor makers and see if any of their products squeeze accross the 720p line (actual throughput/bytes per pixel (depends on the send format) /1280*720/desired readout fraction of a second=1) then check if that is below the actual max frame rate.

Now you will need very fast readout (that is what that desired readout fraction of a second was about), or you will need global shutter.

[John Nagle]

Wayne,

I know on your other thread you were talking about the possibility of really cheap alternatives, I don’t know if you will be interested in this but I will post it anyway.

I know this is not what we are after but it might give some ideas.

http://www.astrosurf.com/astrobond/ebrawe.htm

[Régine Weinberg]

Great work
that is a nice page
and the Linux stuff
on a french page
I can not believe it
WOW