My little DIY camera project

Wayne Morellini · July 1st, 2006, 03:10 AM

Pity more motherboards do not have component in as well, apart from some of the VIA ones, just a few cents/dollars motherboard costs, not $1K. Pirates have really blown it for the rest of us, and played us right into the hands of manufacturers.

Noah Yuan-Vogel · July 1st, 2006, 08:21 PM

John - Wow good luck with your project, I'll be very interested to hear how things go for you. It sounds like you are just using their camera application? I would imagine the 25 still frames per second is a pretty big limitation since I dont think it will store those in RAM like with the RAM capture option, and even with lossless TIF (which they now support), youre looking at some pretty high data rates since BMP and tiff i believe are RGB so that triples the data right there, and the cpu requirements for real-time lapacian debayer seem pretty high especially for more than SD res. But i suppose a nice dual core cpu and a fast HDD might be all you need.

Wayne - Actually I've been surprised to see component HD out on quite a few motherboards especially with the new integrated intel and nvidia 6150 gpus. I'm not sure I get what you mean about pirates. Do you mean people pirating movies? I would guess it probably has more to do with demand.

As for my progress, I'm finally back in the US and getting back to work on the software. So far my tests are good, less cpu utilization with my faster computer i left here, looks like i may need to change my disk writing method again since ive been using a little test program to try different methods of writing data and it seems .NET filestream can get 52MBps on a linear write as long as i dont give it more than 256KB to write at a time (weird, huh? maybe a disk cluster size thing... it benchmarks only about 30MBps running one 1MB write operation and 52MBps with 4 separate calls to write 256KB). I think I will play with non-threaded writing more and hope that will give me good results with this new revelation. I wasn't too happy with my many-threaded disk writing implementation anyway, it was great at avoiding dropping frames on my slow system but when pushed too much no good at writing them in the right order and I dont think im programmer enough to fix it right now :P

Wayne Morellini · July 2nd, 2006, 11:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Noah Yuan-Vogel

I'm not sure I get what you mean about pirates. Do you mean people pirating movies?

I meant component in for recording from cameras. I wish they would all go to HDMI now, and HDMI in on the motherboard. 10.2Gb/s, HDMI 1.3 (upto 16bit colour and mega resolutions) would make an excellent camera head interface, it has the digital structure that could be made to handle head commands. I would like them to replace short haul network, USB/Firewire, hard drive and VGA with HDMI, it would make an excellent data interface (please note, the extra cost limitation for slow cheap devices can be over come by having the interface conform to lower data rate USB/2.0/go version (automated requiring little CPU interaction, like firewire) standard for these devices, and repackaging the data stream at the hub. What a beautiful world that would be, don't matter how many ports you have on your computer you can simply plug anything into anywhere and it will instantly work. It could even replace many forms of PCI, and even the external PCI express desktop bus (what happened with that).

Quote:

Pity more motherboards do not have component in as well, apart from some of the VIA ones

John Wyatt · July 3rd, 2006, 05:06 AM

Noah –- you’re right: single and sequence still image recording to HDD (using the supplied software) is a simultaneous conversion to RGB, and therefore very heavy on data rate. Since my desktop is faster than my expected laptop (along with a faster 7,200 rpm drive), I thought I’d experiment with this though. I mentioned to the Sumix support team that it would be highly useful to be able to record RAW sequence frames (to bring the data rate down to one third), and they said they would consider this possibility for a future upgrade. Until then, for me normal laptop operation would involve RAM-recording the Bayer video file. Is there any possibility for the user to change the still image format to Bayer? I’m always interested to hear about your extraordinary modifications –- any conclusions yet on the electronic anamorphic image quality?
John.

Wayne Morellini · July 3rd, 2006, 10:05 PM

That is incredible, I thought there was always a save to bayer option. They should have included capture to disk with customisable interface (that allows control through the PC keyboard and any external controls connected to the PC) in the default package by now. It would be good to suggest this to them, as they have sold a number of cameras to video people that have not been useful because of the lack of these things.

John Wyatt · July 6th, 2006, 10:33 AM

Noah -- I made a few RAM recording tests on my desktop computer which usefully has 2 GB of RAM. I made an avi version of the smx file with SMXView, but this avi can not be imported into After Effects. The 16:9 frame size was 1280 x 720 at 25 fps. Is this a case of getting the Sumix codec into After Effects so that the Sumix avi will work? How would this be done? Obviously it is important to be able to import the avi footage into other software: any advice would be gratefully accepted. It's a shame Bayer tifs can't be recorded to RAM and converted to RGB (everything can read an RGB tif!).
Regards,
John.

Noah Yuan-Vogel · July 6th, 2006, 12:35 PM

Hmm I vaguely recall having some issue with the way sumix implements containging uncompressed RGB video in the AVI wrapper. I never went to far checking it out, but chances are you might be able to open the avi in virtualdub and just stream copy it into a new file maybe thatll fix whatever went wrong with it (maybe avi header is not done right or something). I guess i can test a few things out for you, see what the deal is with their avi sequences. I'll tell you if i find anything.

John Wyatt · July 6th, 2006, 02:32 PM

Many thanks Noah; greatly appreciated. I seem to remember a couple of years ago reading that Ben Syverson (who was then using a Sumix 150C camera) converted the Sumix Bayer file using his own software called linBayer, which was a 16-bit After Effects plug-in. Does anyone have a recent contact for Ben? Is linBayer still available anywhere?
John.

John Wyatt · July 6th, 2006, 04:38 PM

Noah -- I tried VirtualDub and this played the Sumix avi! For your information (makes no sense to me of course!) the two VirtualDub warnings given for the clip were: "* AVI: index not found or damaged -- reconstructing via file scan. * AVI: invalid chunk detected at 2764810056. Enable aggressive recovery mode." From VirtualDub I was able to make an avi copy which imported into After Effects without problem, plays in Windows Media Player, etc. Thanks for the tip.

One of the things I wanted to do in After Effects was export a few particular tif frames to check image quality, and I was able to do this directly from VirtualDub as well -- bmp or tga (targa) files are the still image choices: I chose targa, and in Photoshop I was able to look at the frames as planned. Many thanks.
John.

Wayne Morellini · July 9th, 2006, 09:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Wyatt

How would this be done? Obviously it is important to be able to import the avi footage into other software: any advice would be gratefully accepted. It's a shame Bayer tifs can't be recorded to RAM and converted to RGB (everything can read an RGB tif!).
Regards,
John.

John, you could also try reading through that Obin thread, these sorts of things were discussed there.

John Wyatt · July 10th, 2006, 08:54 AM

Wayne -- do you know what Ben Syverson is doing now? I was wondering about his linBayer plug-in. Google seems no good on it...
John.

Wayne Morellini · July 11th, 2006, 06:46 AM

Don't know, people come and go at a crazy rate. Look at his profile and send him message. If you can't send Chris a message and ask him to ask Ben to contact you.

Have you looked at that thread, he had a website with his software, there might be upto date contacts there. If it is no longer there, try google, and click on the cache option. If that is not there go to archive.org (thewayback engine) and search for the sites history there and see if you can get an email address. He's not to bad, he might like to look into this, he has a Sumix camera too, so he would probably be a good person to contact. Actually, I think, the last time I saw him, was on my technical thread.

If you are out of luck, drop a message in a thread he should still be subscribed to, or in other forums that he would still check.

John Wyatt · July 16th, 2006, 09:12 AM

Noah -- I'm writing up my initial experiences of the camera -- ok if I post it here, to keep the M73 stuff together (as Oscar is doing on Forrest's Elphel 333 thread) ? Since RAM recording to a laptop using the supplied camera application is different to your re-coded/self-build computer project, perhaps you'd prefer to keep this thread focused on that?
John.

Noah Yuan-Vogel · July 17th, 2006, 10:55 PM

You may post what you like, but it might be worthwhile to start your own thread since it might get confusing otherwise. But I certainly dont mind either way.
I probably wont be able to post too often since I now have a regular job and unfortunately dont have too much time to work on the camera (hopefully i will find time). When do have time I seem to end up getting distracted thinking about building cool mini custom computers to run the camera off of (which is obviously not a priority for the camera at the moment, since there is a lot of programming to be done), but I sort of need a new computer anyway. But now that I am done moving and settling into my new job/surroundings, I might be able to start messing with my M73 again.

Rob Scott · September 12th, 2006, 08:18 PM

Noah, any progress recently? I've recently started my project back up and I'm looking seriously at supporting the Sumix M72/M73 cameras, mainly because of the low cost compared to the SI cameras.

Have you been able to get anywhere near 48 fps? I'm hoping it might be possible to get 1280x720 @ 48 fps (8 or 10 bits) to cut down on the rolling shutter issues.

Also, do you know of any reasons to avoid the M72? For 1280x720 it looks like it might be a better choice. Just curious.

July 3rd, 2006, 05:06 AM	#109
John Wyatt Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: West Country, UK Posts: 141	Noah –- you’re right: single and sequence still image recording to HDD (using the supplied software) is a simultaneous conversion to RGB, and therefore very heavy on data rate. Since my desktop is faster than my expected laptop (along with a faster 7,200 rpm drive), I thought I’d experiment with this though. I mentioned to the Sumix support team that it would be highly useful to be able to record RAW sequence frames (to bring the data rate down to one third), and they said they would consider this possibility for a future upgrade. Until then, for me normal laptop operation would involve RAM-recording the Bayer video file. Is there any possibility for the user to change the still image format to Bayer? I’m always interested to hear about your extraordinary modifications –- any conclusions yet on the electronic anamorphic image quality? John. Last edited by John Wyatt; July 3rd, 2006 at 07:47 AM.

July 6th, 2006, 10:33 AM	#111
John Wyatt Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: West Country, UK Posts: 141	Sumix avi files Noah -- I made a few RAM recording tests on my desktop computer which usefully has 2 GB of RAM. I made an avi version of the smx file with SMXView, but this avi can not be imported into After Effects. The 16:9 frame size was 1280 x 720 at 25 fps. Is this a case of getting the Sumix codec into After Effects so that the Sumix avi will work? How would this be done? Obviously it is important to be able to import the avi footage into other software: any advice would be gratefully accepted. It's a shame Bayer tifs can't be recorded to RAM and converted to RGB (everything can read an RGB tif!). Regards, John.

July 6th, 2006, 02:32 PM	#113
John Wyatt Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: West Country, UK Posts: 141	Thanks... Many thanks Noah; greatly appreciated. I seem to remember a couple of years ago reading that Ben Syverson (who was then using a Sumix 150C camera) converted the Sumix Bayer file using his own software called linBayer, which was a 16-bit After Effects plug-in. Does anyone have a recent contact for Ben? Is linBayer still available anywhere? John.

July 6th, 2006, 04:38 PM	#114
John Wyatt Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: West Country, UK Posts: 141	VirtualDub Noah -- I tried VirtualDub and this played the Sumix avi! For your information (makes no sense to me of course!) the two VirtualDub warnings given for the clip were: "* AVI: index not found or damaged -- reconstructing via file scan. * AVI: invalid chunk detected at 2764810056. Enable aggressive recovery mode." From VirtualDub I was able to make an avi copy which imported into After Effects without problem, plays in Windows Media Player, etc. Thanks for the tip. One of the things I wanted to do in After Effects was export a few particular tif frames to check image quality, and I was able to do this directly from VirtualDub as well -- bmp or tga (targa) files are the still image choices: I chose targa, and in Photoshop I was able to look at the frames as planned. Many thanks. John.

July 1st, 2006, 03:10 AM	#106
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	Pity more motherboards do not have component in as well, apart from some of the VIA ones, just a few cents/dollars motherboard costs, not $1K. Pirates have really blown it for the rest of us, and played us right into the hands of manufacturers.

July 1st, 2006, 08:21 PM	#107
Noah Yuan-Vogel Major Player Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: New York City Posts: 613	John - Wow good luck with your project, I'll be very interested to hear how things go for you. It sounds like you are just using their camera application? I would imagine the 25 still frames per second is a pretty big limitation since I dont think it will store those in RAM like with the RAM capture option, and even with lossless TIF (which they now support), youre looking at some pretty high data rates since BMP and tiff i believe are RGB so that triples the data right there, and the cpu requirements for real-time lapacian debayer seem pretty high especially for more than SD res. But i suppose a nice dual core cpu and a fast HDD might be all you need. Wayne - Actually I've been surprised to see component HD out on quite a few motherboards especially with the new integrated intel and nvidia 6150 gpus. I'm not sure I get what you mean about pirates. Do you mean people pirating movies? I would guess it probably has more to do with demand. As for my progress, I'm finally back in the US and getting back to work on the software. So far my tests are good, less cpu utilization with my faster computer i left here, looks like i may need to change my disk writing method again since ive been using a little test program to try different methods of writing data and it seems .NET filestream can get 52MBps on a linear write as long as i dont give it more than 256KB to write at a time (weird, huh? maybe a disk cluster size thing... it benchmarks only about 30MBps running one 1MB write operation and 52MBps with 4 separate calls to write 256KB). I think I will play with non-threaded writing more and hope that will give me good results with this new revelation. I wasn't too happy with my many-threaded disk writing implementation anyway, it was great at avoiding dropping frames on my slow system but when pushed too much no good at writing them in the right order and I dont think im programmer enough to fix it right now :P

July 3rd, 2006, 10:05 PM	#110
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	That is incredible, I thought there was always a save to bayer option. They should have included capture to disk with customisable interface (that allows control through the PC keyboard and any external controls connected to the PC) in the default package by now. It would be good to suggest this to them, as they have sold a number of cameras to video people that have not been useful because of the lack of these things.

July 6th, 2006, 12:35 PM	#112
Noah Yuan-Vogel Major Player Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: New York City Posts: 613	Hmm I vaguely recall having some issue with the way sumix implements containging uncompressed RGB video in the AVI wrapper. I never went to far checking it out, but chances are you might be able to open the avi in virtualdub and just stream copy it into a new file maybe thatll fix whatever went wrong with it (maybe avi header is not done right or something). I guess i can test a few things out for you, see what the deal is with their avi sequences. I'll tell you if i find anything.

July 10th, 2006, 08:54 AM	#116
John Wyatt Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: West Country, UK Posts: 141	Wayne -- do you know what Ben Syverson is doing now? I was wondering about his linBayer plug-in. Google seems no good on it... John.

July 11th, 2006, 06:46 AM	#117
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	Don't know, people come and go at a crazy rate. Look at his profile and send him message. If you can't send Chris a message and ask him to ask Ben to contact you. Have you looked at that thread, he had a website with his software, there might be upto date contacts there. If it is no longer there, try google, and click on the cache option. If that is not there go to archive.org (thewayback engine) and search for the sites history there and see if you can get an email address. He's not to bad, he might like to look into this, he has a Sumix camera too, so he would probably be a good person to contact. Actually, I think, the last time I saw him, was on my technical thread. If you are out of luck, drop a message in a thread he should still be subscribed to, or in other forums that he would still check.

July 16th, 2006, 09:12 AM	#118
John Wyatt Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: West Country, UK Posts: 141	Noah -- I'm writing up my initial experiences of the camera -- ok if I post it here, to keep the M73 stuff together (as Oscar is doing on Forrest's Elphel 333 thread) ? Since RAM recording to a laptop using the supplied camera application is different to your re-coded/self-build computer project, perhaps you'd prefer to keep this thread focused on that? John.

July 17th, 2006, 10:55 PM	#119
Noah Yuan-Vogel Major Player Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: New York City Posts: 613	You may post what you like, but it might be worthwhile to start your own thread since it might get confusing otherwise. But I certainly dont mind either way. I probably wont be able to post too often since I now have a regular job and unfortunately dont have too much time to work on the camera (hopefully i will find time). When do have time I seem to end up getting distracted thinking about building cool mini custom computers to run the camera off of (which is obviously not a priority for the camera at the moment, since there is a lot of programming to be done), but I sort of need a new computer anyway. But now that I am done moving and settling into my new job/surroundings, I might be able to start messing with my M73 again.

September 12th, 2006, 08:18 PM	#120
Rob Scott Major Player Join Date: May 2004 Location: Knoxville, TN (USA) Posts: 358	Noah, any progress recently? I've recently started my project back up and I'm looking seriously at supporting the Sumix M72/M73 cameras, mainly because of the low cost compared to the SI cameras. Have you been able to get anywhere near 48 fps? I'm hoping it might be possible to get 1280x720 @ 48 fps (8 or 10 bits) to cut down on the rolling shutter issues. Also, do you know of any reasons to avoid the M72? For 1280x720 it looks like it might be a better choice. Just curious.