High Definition with Elphel model 333 camera

[Wayne Morellini]

Micron sensors continue to get better. How much would a 3D version of this camera setup cost, and is there going to be an PC independent version (flash/drive recorder, display, and micro-controller)?

Have been delving into the Ambarella based $100 hybrid HD cameras, many with Micron sensors, but none with reasonable manual controls or quality output (reasonable rather than high grade consumer).

I think 3D camera (3D security camera) is the last unexplored part of the market on the low end. The prices of these 3D systems can be pretty expensive, and there is now a number of displays with 3D support.

[Wayne Morellini]

Here is a question about the web based graphical interface. Does this mean I can use a PDA, or micro-controller like the beagle board to control the camera?

BeagleBoard.org - default

[Oscar Spierenburg]

Hey Sebastian,

I came across a battery powered phantom power supply for microphones. It's not that expensive (45 euros over here) Since it is 48V, I was wondering if it is possible to adapt this to the camera POE injector. What do you think?

PS to all of you.. I recently bought a 7" UMPC with full tablet function running Ubuntu. I'm in the middle of installing everything necessary for the Elphel camera. Right now I've gotten as "far" as loosing the touchscreen and wireless LAN drivers and still not able to run the camera... but I'm learning working with Ubuntu... so give me a little time and hopefully I'll have some interesting to share :)

EDIT: I've mailed about it, and the power supply works on 9V batteries and weights 500g. Would be nice if it could be used.

[Sebastian Pichelhofer]

We are well on our way to an "external-pc-less" version of the camera.

First Release Candidates (RC1) Version 8.0 of the new firmware was released on sourceforge this week. There are still some bugs and unfinished areas but everything is starting to come together.
This new firmware adds some major new features like pipelines (article coming soon) and a decent performance gain in image processing (150% in some areas) which means the camera can achieve higher overall frame rates.


Andrey mentioned considering a main CPU change in the future to a Davinci based TI ArmCPU (tms320dm6467) with HD video coprocessor. This would mean much more performance some new interfaces as the CPU supports USB2.0, Gigabit Ethernet, LCD controller.

.) Dual Programmable High-Definition Video Image Co-Processor (HDVICP) Engines, Supports a Range of Encode, Decode, and Transcode Operations: H.264, MPEG2, VC1, MPEG4 SP/ASP

.) Video Port Interface (VPIF): Two 8-Bit SD (BT.656), Single 16-Bit HD (BT.1120), or Single Raw (8-/10-/12-Bit) Video Capture Channels, Two 8-Bit SD (BT.656) or Single 16-Bit HD (BT.1120) Video Display Channels

.) Video Data Conversion Engine (VDCE): Horizontal and Vertical Downscaling

Actually it's similar hardware as the mentioned beagle board.


@Wayne, with a little coding effort you can use any microcontroller, PC or PDA that can communicate with the camera via Ethernet, RS323 or USB.


@Oscar do you have link to the battery you mentioned, sounds interesting?

[Oscar Spierenburg]

Yes, I was reading about the firmware update on the Wiki.

Originally Posted by Sebastian Pichelhofer

@Oscar do you have link to the battery you mentioned, sounds interesting?

The one I saw would be very similar to this one: http://www.fatpro.com/images/1fbps_1.pdf

[Oscar Spierenburg]

Yet another thing I came across:
http://www.thomann.de/gb/the_tbone_m...nal Cyberstore

If audio recording is functional on the Elphel (like tested on Camogm2) would the microphone have to be plugged into the camera usb or the pc usb port?
Now, lets say you'd use this to connect a regular mic to record audio and use the 48v phantom power (powered by the usb!) to power the camera. ??

[Andrey Filippov]

Oscar, microphones use very little of the power, it will not be enough to power 353

[Andrey Filippov]

I wrote a script that converts CVS commit logs to a RSS feed that you can use to have a peek into our development activity (at least code-related part of it). It is here: CVS log for Elphel projects

[Régine Weinberg]

Hi all
the last postings sound some promising to me,
thought once the project got lost.

But beware audio is another cup of tea
a recording device should be separate.
They are out dead cheap.

Don't follow the consumer setup.
I do guess Scarlet does no sound either.

[Sebastian Pichelhofer]

Originally Posted by Oscar Spier

Yet another thing I came across:
http://www.thomann.de/gb/the_tbone_m...nal Cyberstore

If audio recording is functional on the Elphel (like tested on Camogm2) would the microphone have to be plugged into the camera usb or the pc usb port?
Now, lets say you'd use this to connect a regular mic to record audio and use the 48v phantom power (powered by the usb!) to power the camera. ??

It might not be a good option for powering the camera but it looks like a promising option for getting audio into the camera via USB with a professional XLR jack and preamp.
Need some research if this is USB1 or 2 and if it there are linux drivers available.

Originally Posted by Régine Weinberg

Hi all
the last postings sound some promising to me,
thought once the project got lost.

But beware audio is another cup of tea
a recording device should be separate.
They are out dead cheap.

Don't follow the consumer setup.
I do guess Scarlet does no sound either.

If you record sound externally there should at least be a way to electronically sync audio and video so we don't have to go back and use a clap for every single recorded clip.

Adding this sync signal is most likely more work than actually recording audio and with the USB option I think it's a very flexible solution.



Here is the camera concept I promised some posts ago:

It's a very modular design which "wraps" around the basic Elphel camera case with HDD.
Still missing is the LCD, Battery Pack and I/O Panel.

What do you think so far?

[Régine Weinberg]

Originally Posted by Sebastian Pichelhofer

If you record sound externally there should at least be a way to electronically sync audio and video so we don't have to go back and use a clap for every single recorded clip.

Adding this sync signal is most likely more work than actually recording audio and with the USB option I think it's a very flexible solution.



Here is the camera concept I promised some posts ago:

It's a very modular design which "wraps" around the basic Elphel camera case with HDD.
Still missing is the LCD, Battery Pack and I/O Panel.

What do you think so far?

very good and I do like the concept
I do have Ardour running on Linux with an RME card, no fan and dead quit.
Doing recording and film the sync would be THE solution for me
regardless the USB option, very good for interview and news,,

[Oscar Spierenburg]

Originally Posted by Sebastian Pichelhofer

Here is the camera concept I promised some posts ago:

It's a very modular design which "wraps" around the basic Elphel camera case with HDD.
Still missing is the LCD, Battery Pack and I/O Panel.

What do you think so far?

It looks very good... the red circle on the back reminds me of.... hmm can't remember :)
It's only a bit different from my own ideas for the rod supports. I'll post something soon.
In your setup, where would you plan the PC to be mounted (assuming you want it to be a PC of some 'small' kind) ?

[Steven Mingam]

By the way, I was reading about the elphel power consumption on the wiki, which is around 6W at full load, am I right ?

If I still remember my electronics lessons correctly, that would be around 125mA at 48v.... in which case this 12v to 48v converter should do quite nicely :
12 Volt to 48 Volt DC/DC Boost Converter (Regulator) - PC12480.8

[Oscar Spierenburg]

That's a good suggestion Steven. I was looking for something like this. I've asked Andrey about it and he also thinks it would work fine. I'll try to find a store where I can order one in my country, otherwise I'll order the one you've posted and test it out.
Let you know when I do.

[Oscar Spierenburg]

I've been testing the camogmgui (developed by Sebastian) last couple of days and it works great. Really great job so far!
Sebastian, I have some suggestions on how things could improve, maybe you've thought about this too..

Because we would be using a small as possible PC, possibly somthing with toughscreen like I've bought recently.. maybe we could avoid typing as much as possible by making everything (that normally would need to be filled in by hand) in drop-down menus . I'm thinking of the title for the recorded footage and folder names etc.
For instance: when you start a session, you could select from a menu the scene number (scene 1 - scene 2 - etc. etc. )and from a different menu the take number.. or better: every take could be automatically numbered (like scene-3-take002,...scene-3-take003) And you could still prompt the user to rename the file when you hit STOP.


One other important thing to make the camera much more user friendly would be to integrate the necessary parts of the camvc to the camogmgui. As I understand... you need to set the camera up (exposure framesize color setting etc.) in the camvc before going to the camogmgui. (for people who don't know what I'm talking about: camvc and camogmgui )
Would this be possible? (maybe in frames if it makes things easier?)
We only need basic things: frame sizes (only video and film sizes I'd say) exposure - brightness or gain and color settings. Color setting can also be basic presets like: warm - cool - neutral - B/W etc. (maybe mimic some film types)
On the format tab we could use the compression quality setting.

These are just suggestions, but I think useful. I wish I could help programming though, but I'm afraid it goes beyond my knowledge (only some HTML coding). What software do you use anyway?

Onther thing: can you delete the recorded files from within the gui?