High Definition with Elphel model 333 camera

Oscar Spierenburg · March 26th, 2007, 05:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wayne Morellini

This runs from CD? There are programs that reproduce the Disks on hard drive, so it can be run from hard drive instead of from disk.

Wayne,
You mean a virtual drive? But could you boot from a virtual drive? Do I need a boot manager or something? It's really something I'd like to do, because an OS from CD or DVD is very very slow.

Wayne Morellini · March 26th, 2007, 01:13 PM

I don't know if they called it an virtual drive (can't even remember the precise definition of an virtual drive these days). It gives me an idea, if an program like that can put the image into an ram drive instead, and run it from there, would that increase performance again, or would that get in the road of Windows virtual memory paging scheme?

Noah Yuan-Vogel · March 26th, 2007, 01:46 PM

As far as i know, running OSes from disk images mounted in virtual disks or ram disks only works if you are talking about booting virtual machines which involves running a guest OS inside of a host OS, each of which take plenty of RAM and in which the performance of the guest OS is usually diminished. There are versions of live CD linux that copy themselves into RAM first (requires 1GB+ of RAM), however, but boot times are pretty long from copying all that stuff from the liveCD. the elphel application doesnt require knoppix does it? Knoppix that boots from USB flash memory does exist, which could be a lot faster and lower profile/lower power than CD. There has got to be a way to run knoppix from a hdd installation, and a way to run the elphel software on something other than knoppix. Right? I guess I'm not familiar with how the software is packaged.

Matteo Pozzi · March 26th, 2007, 03:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daniel Lipats

yes, i agree its far better then SD. I overstated by saying im disappointed, the images are satisfactory.

I neglected to show the worst of the batch.

http://www.buysmartpc.com/333/letus/txt.jpg

I think the text should have resolved better. Its easier to read once you sharpen them in post but this is something im trying to avoid.

Hi Daniel can you tell me what type of cs/c mount lens did you use and the distance from the adapter!? did you use an achromat!? many thanks and amazing result!

Daniel Lipats · March 26th, 2007, 05:28 PM

Here is a picture of my setup. I believe the spacer (pvc) is about 6" long

http://www.buysmartpc.com/333/333.jpg

Richard Andrewski · March 27th, 2007, 12:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wayne Morellini

Here is some main boards with ten * GigE ports you might like.

http://www.win-ent.com/fullcatalog.htm
http://www.win-ent.com/IP-06049.htm
http://www.win-ent.com/PL-01033.htm
http://www.win-ent.com/MB-09015.htm

Do you think they really handle the full bandwidth of 10 separate 1gb ethernet channels like that? That would be amazing if they really could and still carry on a decent amount of other processing tasks including disk i/o, signal processing, etc. Or maybe one of those boards would just be the front end and another board would do actual processing of the signals.

Wayne Morellini · March 30th, 2007, 03:47 AM

Sorry for the delay, my system toast last weeek, and drive and backup this week. So, I might not be around much, using internet place at moment.

I don't know, it depends on hwo the hardware and software is setup. Functions canbe very automated in hardware with GBE and good drivers. But on averaging, maybe they expect most of the tiem the load to be 50% or even less. But when you think of the possibilities for networked security cameras with tehse things, with all the secutity streams combined into GigE streams coming in, poretty impressive. I imaging that server applications is there main focus, here an really big cachem and ram caching on disk, can help things.

Larry Towers · April 6th, 2007, 02:56 PM

I'd like to build a simple quicktime capture compatible solution for this camera. Is this possible?

Andrey Filippov · April 6th, 2007, 08:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Larry Towers

I'd like to build a simple quicktime capture compatible solution for this camera. Is this possible?

We had a problem with Quicktime player for the other OS - we could not get rid of 3 second latency. It is perfectly OK for viewing Internet streams, but is not good for live video. I believe there are versions of MPlayer that run on OSX. Some patches may be needed (same as on Linux) to increase the maximal window size

Oscar Spierenburg · April 7th, 2007, 07:05 AM

Andrey, is it possible to install a Linux version that is dedicated to hard disk installation (I read knoppix is really not suited for that) and install all the necessary files for the Elphel 333?
I don't know Linux very much (only from the Elphel LiveCD) so I don't know if it's easy to get the Elphel to work on another Linux distribution...

Andrey Filippov · April 7th, 2007, 02:12 PM

Oscar,

Spectr (at our company dot com) is working on it. There are several issues to be resolved.

First - you need a customized version of MPlayer and live555 library - they do not support the big frames we need. And there is also a fundamental problem with RTP for MJPEG - RTP header information limits frame width to 2047 pixels (with our hack 0 is treated as 2048). RTSP allows virtually any frame width (while frame data itself is still sent over RTP.

Second - we need Genres Mozilla plugin for MPlayer and we plan to simplify it installation (it now uses compiled code, Perl and Python - too many dependencies). Without that plugin it is still possible to view the video, but not inside a web interface window.

Oscar Spierenburg · April 7th, 2007, 07:08 PM

That's good news. Is Spectr too busy to discuss it here on the forum? I wish I had more knowledge on these issues...

Matteo Pozzi · April 8th, 2007, 07:44 AM

Hi to all I've one question about the new 353...
is it possible with the model with the hd to save a video file without a pc running the live cd? if so what kind of hd is needed a 7200rpn or a 5400 is enough
and last, 353 run with 3.3V power is there a limit for the ampere? so if i plug the camera directly to an external battery are there a limit for V and mAh of the battery?
many thanks Matteo Pozzi
ahh and happy Easter

Andrey Filippov · April 8th, 2007, 12:10 PM

Matteo,

The 353 camera consumes around 3W (same as 333), the internal 48V->3.3V DC-DC converter is 8W so at least 4W (to be safe) should be available for HD. And as it has USB port(s) it should be possible to attach some hand-held directly through USB to control the camera functions and build a complete DIY video camera - no computer will be needed for operation.

On the firmware side - as I wrote before, while porting the 333 code we also update drivers to simplify sensor and compressor control from the PHP scripts - that seems to work nicely and will simplify custom interface software development.

Right now I'm working on an article for LinuxDevices that will have more info on the 353 camera. I plan to finish it in several days so it should be online soon.

Andrey Filippov · April 8th, 2007, 12:16 PM

I have a question for Daniel - is it OK to use his cool image

http://www.buysmartpc.com/333/333.jpg

in the LinuxDevices article? I'm going to write about this forum and that picture is a very nice demonstration of DIY camera development.

April 6th, 2007, 02:56 PM	#593
Larry Towers Tourist Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: n.y. n.y. usa Posts: 2	is there any OS X solution? I'd like to build a simple quicktime capture compatible solution for this camera. Is this possible?

April 8th, 2007, 12:10 PM	#599
Andrey Filippov Major Player Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Magna, Utah Posts: 215	Matteo, The 353 camera consumes around 3W (same as 333), the internal 48V->3.3V DC-DC converter is 8W so at least 4W (to be safe) should be available for HD. And as it has USB port(s) it should be possible to attach some hand-held directly through USB to control the camera functions and build a complete DIY video camera - no computer will be needed for operation. On the firmware side - as I wrote before, while porting the 333 code we also update drivers to simplify sensor and compressor control from the PHP scripts - that seems to work nicely and will simplify custom interface software development. Right now I'm working on an article for LinuxDevices that will have more info on the 353 camera. I plan to finish it in several days so it should be online soon. Last edited by Andrey Filippov; April 8th, 2007 at 02:21 PM.

April 8th, 2007, 12:16 PM	#600
Andrey Filippov Major Player Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Magna, Utah Posts: 215	Ok to use an image? I have a question for Daniel - is it OK to use his cool image http://www.buysmartpc.com/333/333.jpg in the LinuxDevices article? I'm going to write about this forum and that picture is a very nice demonstration of DIY camera development.

March 26th, 2007, 01:13 PM	#587
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	I don't know if they called it an virtual drive (can't even remember the precise definition of an virtual drive these days). It gives me an idea, if an program like that can put the image into an ram drive instead, and run it from there, would that increase performance again, or would that get in the road of Windows virtual memory paging scheme?

March 26th, 2007, 01:46 PM	#588
Noah Yuan-Vogel Major Player Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: New York City Posts: 613	As far as i know, running OSes from disk images mounted in virtual disks or ram disks only works if you are talking about booting virtual machines which involves running a guest OS inside of a host OS, each of which take plenty of RAM and in which the performance of the guest OS is usually diminished. There are versions of live CD linux that copy themselves into RAM first (requires 1GB+ of RAM), however, but boot times are pretty long from copying all that stuff from the liveCD. the elphel application doesnt require knoppix does it? Knoppix that boots from USB flash memory does exist, which could be a lot faster and lower profile/lower power than CD. There has got to be a way to run knoppix from a hdd installation, and a way to run the elphel software on something other than knoppix. Right? I guess I'm not familiar with how the software is packaged.

March 26th, 2007, 05:28 PM	#590
Daniel Lipats Major Player Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 260	Here is a picture of my setup. I believe the spacer (pvc) is about 6" long http://www.buysmartpc.com/333/333.jpg

March 30th, 2007, 03:47 AM	#592
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	Sorry for the delay, my system toast last weeek, and drive and backup this week. So, I might not be around much, using internet place at moment. I don't know, it depends on hwo the hardware and software is setup. Functions canbe very automated in hardware with GBE and good drivers. But on averaging, maybe they expect most of the tiem the load to be 50% or even less. But when you think of the possibilities for networked security cameras with tehse things, with all the secutity streams combined into GigE streams coming in, poretty impressive. I imaging that server applications is there main focus, here an really big cachem and ram caching on disk, can help things.

April 7th, 2007, 07:05 AM	#595
Oscar Spierenburg Major Player Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: (The Netherlands - Belgium) Posts: 735	Andrey, is it possible to install a Linux version that is dedicated to hard disk installation (I read knoppix is really not suited for that) and install all the necessary files for the Elphel 333? I don't know Linux very much (only from the Elphel LiveCD) so I don't know if it's easy to get the Elphel to work on another Linux distribution...

April 7th, 2007, 02:12 PM	#596
Andrey Filippov Major Player Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Magna, Utah Posts: 215	Oscar, Spectr (at our company dot com) is working on it. There are several issues to be resolved. First - you need a customized version of MPlayer and live555 library - they do not support the big frames we need. And there is also a fundamental problem with RTP for MJPEG - RTP header information limits frame width to 2047 pixels (with our hack 0 is treated as 2048). RTSP allows virtually any frame width (while frame data itself is still sent over RTP. Second - we need Genres Mozilla plugin for MPlayer and we plan to simplify it installation (it now uses compiled code, Perl and Python - too many dependencies). Without that plugin it is still possible to view the video, but not inside a web interface window.

April 7th, 2007, 07:08 PM	#597
Oscar Spierenburg Major Player Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: (The Netherlands - Belgium) Posts: 735	That's good news. Is Spectr too busy to discuss it here on the forum? I wish I had more knowledge on these issues...

April 8th, 2007, 07:44 AM	#598
Matteo Pozzi Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Milan, Italy Posts: 169	Hi to all I've one question about the new 353... is it possible with the model with the hd to save a video file without a pc running the live cd? if so what kind of hd is needed a 7200rpn or a 5400 is enough and last, 353 run with 3.3V power is there a limit for the ampere? so if i plug the camera directly to an external battery are there a limit for V and mAh of the battery? many thanks Matteo Pozzi ahh and happy Easter