New DIY HD Cinema Camera Project

Steven Mingam · August 2nd, 2007, 05:12 AM

Well, this altera board is cheap (280$ with the sensor board and shipping) and you have to do one step at time. So, for the moment, i'll play with the sensor, learn how to interface it and controlling it, record to sd card and try to write come compression algorithm. With the xilinx board i would need to solder pins and solve some purely mechanical problem, which i can't do it right now as i'm working abroad and don't have anything but a computer to work with. So for the moment, i'll focus on the software, and once everything will be working, we'll see for using another interface.
The real world struck me somehow ;)
(and as the dev board is using a 1.3Mpixels Micron sensor, i'll ask the company for an eventual sensor upgrade, the pinout should be quite similar)

Jose A. Garcia · August 2nd, 2007, 05:49 AM

Ok, anyway you know you have a full Micron 5mp head for about $300. It could be useful for the final design.

Serge Victorovich · August 2nd, 2007, 07:00 AM

May be these documents from TI will be usefull for developers:
Interfacing a CMOS Sensor to the TMS320DM642 Using Raw Capture Mode

HD Video Encoding with DSP and FPGA Partitioning White Paper

Matteo Pozzi · August 2nd, 2007, 01:35 PM

Hi to all I’m Matteo from the Elphel thread and I've finished reading this big thread only now. I think you're doing a great job! I'm doing an hd camera also but because I’m not an electronic or software engeneer,(I'm a civil engeneer) I do not know how to design hardware and software so, I stay in the elphel side ...is small is not so expansive and it can make amazing things, is open, supported by a factory that develop camera and last Andrey is very kind with us (he take an eye every day ) so the camera will increase in function every day
I’m designing all the other part of the camera…matte box , rail system, follow focus and a medium format spinning adapter! ….all those things will be made in DIY mode so it will be heavy at the end and use a in camera pc will increase more….but there is always a but….for a movie what is more important , yes more important than the image, is how you have shoot the film…or better you have to look at lights setup ,sound and an anti shake system for fluid pan! The last one is, I think, the most important thing, yes fluidity! Take a look at 28 days later …thay shooted it with the first XL1 an SD camera!
So in the end, to stay cheap, we have to take a look at the final weight …I’ve taken a fluid head tripod by vinten (one of the best factory ) and I think that all our project have to stay under 6 Kg with that weight you could take a good tripod for less than 500 dollar….double the weight and you have to invest 2000$ for a very good one …That’s why I think that the best way we can follow is a camera like the SI mini2k camera and the pc , battery and so on… to put on the ground 

I’ve seen that you’re looking for quality c-mount lens …take a look at this: Computar H2Z0414C-MP spec is here http://www.rmassa.com/specsheets/H2Z0414C-MP.pdf and here is the link http://www.rmassa.com/manu/computar.htm or this one http://www.rmassa.com/specsheets/HF125SA16SA-1.pdf but is more expansive! http://www.rmassa.com/manu/fujinon.htm

And if you need an Idea on the design of the graphic user interface for the camera I’ve developed some ago these for the elphel in flashMX
http://www.webalice.it/teo.poz/elphel_GUI/
http://www.webalice.it/teo.poz/elphel_GUI2/
but cause is very difficult to get access to the camera for now are in stand-by …until Andrey will implement php access to every single aspect of the 353 

have a good luck from Italy! Matteo

Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn · August 2nd, 2007, 02:39 PM

I'm still waiting to get an email from you Jose

(Todavia te estoy esperando Jose. Que pasa? No te interesa en Absoluto?

Esta persona es un investigador Uruguayo que vive en Madrid y trabaja para varias instituciones españolas, muchas sin fines de lucro.Es el inventor de muchos algoritmos de tratamientos de imagenes que se usan el lugares de postproduccion High End. )

Gottfried Hofmann · August 3rd, 2007, 04:08 AM

Why are you all going with an FPGA solution and not with Software compression? If this camera records directly to a harddisk then why not let the processors on the board do the compression etc.?

The first thing would be to compress the Bayer raw and add Metadata so that the Debayering and all the other stuff can be done in postpro.

Other features like a modus where debayering takes place before compression could be added afterwards if we stay with software. It just leaves so much more options than the FPGA solution.

Man, I wish I had some spare time right now to write a simple entropy coder for the Bayer raw in Windows :/

Steven Mingam · August 3rd, 2007, 04:40 AM

What make you say that we are not doing any compression ?
It's planned from the start, and i've already wrote some VFW codec for raw bayer lossless compression and a good quality debayer avisynth filter (which also used in the decompressor) but you need a FPGA to interface any sensor with a PC anyway.
The problem with software compression is that you need huge bandwidth to transfer data from the camera to the pc. Which is not really available with cheap hardware, not to mention that some people here (me) doesn't want a computer and that FPGA can perfectly do the job with way less power consumption.
I think you've read this thread a bit too quickly...

Jose A. Garcia · August 3rd, 2007, 04:47 AM

Of course I'm interested Juan. I just sent you an email. Sorry I didn't do it before. I was a bit busy these days.

Jose A. Garcia · August 3rd, 2007, 05:01 AM

Steven's right Gottfried, with any solution we ever choose, a FPGA is needed to interface the sensor with the computer. In fact, the Micron demo board has the sensor head and a FPGA with USB output, which leads me to the next question:

If we have the Micron board, we already have a FPGA. Ok, it doesn't have GigE out, but if we add the lossless compression codec to the FPGA internal code and we compress the stream to get a data rate that's easy to handle by USB 2.0, why would we need anything else? I mean, the camera would still output raw bayer, but with a much lower bandwidth.

I know I'm making this question a bit late, since you already ordered the other FPGA, but do you think it would be possible?

Gottfried Hofmann · August 3rd, 2007, 05:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jose A. Garcia

Ok, I tested it and I can't write 2K frames at 24fps to a 7200 rpm sata disk. It only gets to 18-19fps.

I can get to 24fps with a 10000 rpm HDD.

So we need to find another solution. Recording to RAM allows about 40 seconds per gigabyte in RAW. We can only add 2Gb of RAM to the board, so we'd be limited to about 1:20 min for every take. RAM's not cheap though.

Well... First BIG problem. This is basically where all previous camera projects have failed and where successful cameras have gone from low cost to really expensive.

Well, actually I thought the current problem was to record full 2K with a 7.200 rpm HDD. This can be done in software, Steven already wrote a VFW Codec so you can actually have the 2K camera you wanted to build by using it...

Jose A. Garcia · August 3rd, 2007, 05:35 AM

Yes, but the Micron tools don't allow the use of a codec so...

If we're going for the software solution, we need someone to write a tool to control the whole camera and compress the stream in real time. If it can debayer and compress in real time, even better. I can design an interface, but I can't program anything else than action script so we need a windows programmer who has enough time to do it.

If we find one, then I'll buy the Micron board and the 3.5" computer.

If not, then we have to wait for Steven and Jamie to finish.

Wayne Morellini · August 3rd, 2007, 11:51 AM

Here is some new Microsoft picture compressing codec that they are trying to get ratified with Jpeg, said to be twice as good and comparable to Jpeg2000, and some sort of open source offer.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,13...1/article.html

I wonder if PNG can be made any good, and if anybody has done Open core for it?

Serge Victorovich · August 3rd, 2007, 03:38 PM

I've 100% agree with Gottfried Hofmann.

CMOS->RAW BAYER->FPGA->COMPRESSED 5:1 RAW (alike CineformRAW)->HDD(SSD)

ELPHEL camera is sensor agnostic and only need a good codec to encode bayer raw at 5:1. Best codec for this task today is CineformRAW - NOT FREEWARE.
But David Newman (CTO of Cineform) also have interest in new cameras based on Cineform RAW.
http://dvinfo.net/conf/showpost.php?...31&postcount=4
http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=71873

Jose A. Garcia · August 3rd, 2007, 05:44 PM

Yes, the Elphel is still a good solution and it does everything we want, but can you choose any codec you want with it? I thought you were limited to MJPEG.

Of course, Cineform is the best raw lossless codec out there, or at least that's what I always read, and of course David Newman is interested in cineform based cameras. Mainly because the camera manufacturer has to pay a lincense to use their codecs. Just ask at Silicon Imaging. I supose that's why Red developed their own codec and that's why we should develope our own or use an opensource one. We just need 2:1 in real time. Anything more than that will be even better cause it'll be much easier and faster to record.

And Serge, Gottfried was saying exactly the oposite: CMOS>FPGA>RAW>COMPUTER ENCODING LOSSLESS>COMPUTER HDD. Steven and Jamie are working on the solution you said.

Serge Victorovich · August 4th, 2007, 03:20 AM

Jose, sorry, my mistake. I want to say "100% NOT agree" :)
Capital letters and logic of chain an image processing said also "NOT AGREE"

Now two big questions is "free wavelet codec for bayer raw" and "implementation this codec into fpga of Elphel cam".
Cineform as payware alternative good too. I'll pay $500 to have best codec than use average codec for free. A lot of people happy to use Cineform for ingest through HDMI and fast editing.

August 2nd, 2007, 05:12 AM	#316
Steven Mingam Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2004 Posts: 91	Well, this altera board is cheap (280$ with the sensor board and shipping) and you have to do one step at time. So, for the moment, i'll play with the sensor, learn how to interface it and controlling it, record to sd card and try to write come compression algorithm. With the xilinx board i would need to solder pins and solve some purely mechanical problem, which i can't do it right now as i'm working abroad and don't have anything but a computer to work with. So for the moment, i'll focus on the software, and once everything will be working, we'll see for using another interface. The real world struck me somehow ;) (and as the dev board is using a 1.3Mpixels Micron sensor, i'll ask the company for an eventual sensor upgrade, the pinout should be quite similar)

August 2nd, 2007, 05:49 AM	#317
Jose A. Garcia Major Player Join Date: May 2007 Location: Sevilla (Spain) Posts: 439	Ok, anyway you know you have a full Micron 5mp head for about $300. It could be useful for the final design.

August 2nd, 2007, 07:00 AM	#318
Serge Victorovich Major Player Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 376	May be these documents from TI will be usefull for developers: Interfacing a CMOS Sensor to the TMS320DM642 Using Raw Capture Mode HD Video Encoding with DSP and FPGA Partitioning White Paper

August 2nd, 2007, 01:35 PM	#319
Matteo Pozzi Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Milan, Italy Posts: 169	Hi to all I’m Matteo from the Elphel thread and I've finished reading this big thread only now. I think you're doing a great job! I'm doing an hd camera also but because I’m not an electronic or software engeneer,(I'm a civil engeneer) I do not know how to design hardware and software so, I stay in the elphel side ...is small is not so expansive and it can make amazing things, is open, supported by a factory that develop camera and last Andrey is very kind with us (he take an eye every day ) so the camera will increase in function every day I’m designing all the other part of the camera…matte box , rail system, follow focus and a medium format spinning adapter! ….all those things will be made in DIY mode so it will be heavy at the end and use a in camera pc will increase more….but there is always a but….for a movie what is more important , yes more important than the image, is how you have shoot the film…or better you have to look at lights setup ,sound and an anti shake system for fluid pan! The last one is, I think, the most important thing, yes fluidity! Take a look at 28 days later …thay shooted it with the first XL1 an SD camera! So in the end, to stay cheap, we have to take a look at the final weight …I’ve taken a fluid head tripod by vinten (one of the best factory ) and I think that all our project have to stay under 6 Kg with that weight you could take a good tripod for less than 500 dollar….double the weight and you have to invest 2000$ for a very good one …That’s why I think that the best way we can follow is a camera like the SI mini2k camera and the pc , battery and so on… to put on the ground  I’ve seen that you’re looking for quality c-mount lens …take a look at this: Computar H2Z0414C-MP spec is here http://www.rmassa.com/specsheets/H2Z0414C-MP.pdf and here is the link http://www.rmassa.com/manu/computar.htm or this one http://www.rmassa.com/specsheets/HF125SA16SA-1.pdf but is more expansive! http://www.rmassa.com/manu/fujinon.htm And if you need an Idea on the design of the graphic user interface for the camera I’ve developed some ago these for the elphel in flashMX http://www.webalice.it/teo.poz/elphel_GUI/ http://www.webalice.it/teo.poz/elphel_GUI2/ but cause is very difficult to get access to the camera for now are in stand-by …until Andrey will implement php access to every single aspect of the 353  have a good luck from Italy! Matteo

August 2nd, 2007, 02:39 PM	#320
Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn Major Player Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Buenos Aires , Argentina Posts: 444	I'm still waiting to get an email from you Jose (Todavia te estoy esperando Jose. Que pasa? No te interesa en Absoluto? Esta persona es un investigador Uruguayo que vive en Madrid y trabaja para varias instituciones españolas, muchas sin fines de lucro.Es el inventor de muchos algoritmos de tratamientos de imagenes que se usan el lugares de postproduccion High End. )

August 3rd, 2007, 04:08 AM	#321
Gottfried Hofmann Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Erlangen, Germany Posts: 30	Why are you all going with an FPGA solution and not with Software compression? If this camera records directly to a harddisk then why not let the processors on the board do the compression etc.? The first thing would be to compress the Bayer raw and add Metadata so that the Debayering and all the other stuff can be done in postpro. Other features like a modus where debayering takes place before compression could be added afterwards if we stay with software. It just leaves so much more options than the FPGA solution. Man, I wish I had some spare time right now to write a simple entropy coder for the Bayer raw in Windows :/

August 3rd, 2007, 04:40 AM	#322
Steven Mingam Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2004 Posts: 91	What make you say that we are not doing any compression ? It's planned from the start, and i've already wrote some VFW codec for raw bayer lossless compression and a good quality debayer avisynth filter (which also used in the decompressor) but you need a FPGA to interface any sensor with a PC anyway. The problem with software compression is that you need huge bandwidth to transfer data from the camera to the pc. Which is not really available with cheap hardware, not to mention that some people here (me) doesn't want a computer and that FPGA can perfectly do the job with way less power consumption. I think you've read this thread a bit too quickly...

August 3rd, 2007, 04:47 AM	#323
Jose A. Garcia Major Player Join Date: May 2007 Location: Sevilla (Spain) Posts: 439	Of course I'm interested Juan. I just sent you an email. Sorry I didn't do it before. I was a bit busy these days.

August 3rd, 2007, 05:01 AM	#324
Jose A. Garcia Major Player Join Date: May 2007 Location: Sevilla (Spain) Posts: 439	Steven's right Gottfried, with any solution we ever choose, a FPGA is needed to interface the sensor with the computer. In fact, the Micron demo board has the sensor head and a FPGA with USB output, which leads me to the next question: If we have the Micron board, we already have a FPGA. Ok, it doesn't have GigE out, but if we add the lossless compression codec to the FPGA internal code and we compress the stream to get a data rate that's easy to handle by USB 2.0, why would we need anything else? I mean, the camera would still output raw bayer, but with a much lower bandwidth. I know I'm making this question a bit late, since you already ordered the other FPGA, but do you think it would be possible?

August 3rd, 2007, 05:35 AM	#326
Jose A. Garcia Major Player Join Date: May 2007 Location: Sevilla (Spain) Posts: 439	Yes, but the Micron tools don't allow the use of a codec so... If we're going for the software solution, we need someone to write a tool to control the whole camera and compress the stream in real time. If it can debayer and compress in real time, even better. I can design an interface, but I can't program anything else than action script so we need a windows programmer who has enough time to do it. If we find one, then I'll buy the Micron board and the 3.5" computer. If not, then we have to wait for Steven and Jamie to finish.

August 3rd, 2007, 11:51 AM	#327
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	Here is some new Microsoft picture compressing codec that they are trying to get ratified with Jpeg, said to be twice as good and comparable to Jpeg2000, and some sort of open source offer. http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,13...1/article.html I wonder if PNG can be made any good, and if anybody has done Open core for it?

August 3rd, 2007, 03:38 PM	#328
Serge Victorovich Major Player Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 376	I've 100% agree with Gottfried Hofmann. CMOS->RAW BAYER->FPGA->COMPRESSED 5:1 RAW (alike CineformRAW)->HDD(SSD) ELPHEL camera is sensor agnostic and only need a good codec to encode bayer raw at 5:1. Best codec for this task today is CineformRAW - NOT FREEWARE. But David Newman (CTO of Cineform) also have interest in new cameras based on Cineform RAW. http://dvinfo.net/conf/showpost.php?...31&postcount=4 http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=71873

August 3rd, 2007, 05:44 PM	#329
Jose A. Garcia Major Player Join Date: May 2007 Location: Sevilla (Spain) Posts: 439	Yes, the Elphel is still a good solution and it does everything we want, but can you choose any codec you want with it? I thought you were limited to MJPEG. Of course, Cineform is the best raw lossless codec out there, or at least that's what I always read, and of course David Newman is interested in cineform based cameras. Mainly because the camera manufacturer has to pay a lincense to use their codecs. Just ask at Silicon Imaging. I supose that's why Red developed their own codec and that's why we should develope our own or use an opensource one. We just need 2:1 in real time. Anything more than that will be even better cause it'll be much easier and faster to record. And Serge, Gottfried was saying exactly the oposite: CMOS>FPGA>RAW>COMPUTER ENCODING LOSSLESS>COMPUTER HDD. Steven and Jamie are working on the solution you said.

August 4th, 2007, 03:20 AM	#330
Serge Victorovich Major Player Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 376	Jose, sorry, my mistake. I want to say "100% NOT agree" :) Capital letters and logic of chain an image processing said also "NOT AGREE" Now two big questions is "free wavelet codec for bayer raw" and "implementation this codec into fpga of Elphel cam". Cineform as payware alternative good too. I'll pay $500 to have best codec than use average codec for free. A lot of people happy to use Cineform for ingest through HDMI and fast editing.