As long as he is an Electronics Engineer as well. Then he would still need to learn this niche of the market. Whatever you do, there is preciouse little that you could make into a commercially viable venture on your own (firms like Sumix are much more setup for that sort of exertion), so expect to open source it. And very few engineers would like to work on something in there off time, but there are the extraordinary very few that do these things.

The ITX nano is 1Ghz, at the moment, but in the future expect upto 2Ghz in the future and newer interfaces.

Boards, cheap, cost for a embedded board is probably going to be much more than the ITX, a non PC reference design (ARM + etc) off of many companies might be better in some ways but probably will cost $500-$3000, and a DSP board would probably be cheaper and better tha that. I have nothng against the Mac idea (apart from being a diffrent platform to most users's at a bit of a premium) except that I would like a portable should mounted (even breakable into a camcorder) version for on the fly doco's. I have a suggestion that might solve the problem though and bring the price straight down (I think somebody has also done it to). Wirelessly transfer your video to a normal computer hooked upto a 12volt car battery in your car. But the problem is, what cheap and reliable 1 Gb's+ wireless interface (that uses unregulated international spectrum space) exists, and how far will it, go, ahh the Russian Elvis project, that probably has mophed into one of the telecomunications technologies now (4G or whatever). The problem you still get is how far can it reach through buildings, bush (thick forests/jungle) and EM niosy environments (if only we could, no there is another patentable idea, I'll shutup), and if your doing a car chase, or blowing somethign up will the picture breakup. Realistically you maybe limited to a radius of a couple of hundred metters from your vehicle through these obsticals.

To look at in a more advanced way, Ron's project canbe made to be setup with a variety of hardware platforms. Whatever the small capture unit is, it can still be docked with PC, Linux or Mac, and one common programming and decoding model (for different editors) canbe used accross these platforms. So, in this lego version we have camera connected to a small capture unit that may also be able to act as a editor, that canbe connect to other computers.

Well really I'm not too interested in making a product I can sell to the masses or anything. I'm not even interested in selling at all, just really to a select few, and that's if they wanted it. Becasue it's not like there isn't massive time spent in creating each camera. Selling something at a few grand like most people want would not be cost efficent, nor do I have the desire to be a salesman. I want a camera for me so I can shoot movies, and then cameras provided for the people that helped make it happen, becasue they also deserve one. If someone else wants to sell the thing, let them. Meanwhile, I'll be doing what I enjoy . . . shooting.

Anyway, I was just thinking it might help you guys to have someone experienced at creating finished products, and also maybe he'd have knowledge on where to get cheap parts or what not. Just an idea. Maybe what I should do is suggest it to him as a possibility, and have him check out these threads to see if he thinks it's feasible or even if he's interested at all.

<<<-- Originally posted by Laurence Maher : Well really I'm not too interested in making a product I can sell to the masses ... -->>>

Exactly -- an "open-source" hardware and software design would let people build their own if they like, *and* would allow people to start a (small) business selling cameras if that appeals to them.

I certainly can't afford a $50K camera, but I might be able to afford a few development boards and take some time to work on the software.

If there is enough interest, should we set up a web site where we can gather and share information in a more organized fashion -- start with a Wiki, perhaps?

count me in for the website help! I will be getting the hd camera and 16mm K3 soon I hope! and I can share the help with everyone on that and the 35mm adaptor I jsut made for the dvx100

<<<-- Originally posted by Obin Olson : count me in for the website help! -->>>

I'll be glad to help -- in fact, just today I set up a new web site called "obscuracam.com" ... the domain is still in the process of being set up, though, so it's only available here:

http://66.223.26.77/wiki/wiki/

Obin, you're welcome to begin using it to document your camera. I've already set up a topic that you should see from the main wiki page. Click on the link and then click "Edit" to add text to it. It's also possible to link graphics into topics -- to provide drawings, photos, etc.

I'd love to make this site available to anyone in these forums to use to document various projects -- GG adapters, etc. If you think this is helpful, or have any suggestions, please feel free to contact me -- rob (at) scottclan.cc

(BTW, I'm going to be out of town for a few days, so I may not respond until next week.)

Sorry Laurence and Rob, I have been recovering from flu bouts, and just realised I have been getting you two mixed up lately, my appologies.

Laurence I agree about you girlfreind's father, he would be a great help.

Guys, good on the website idea. There are a number of camera links in the homemade thread that could be put in there.

Great idea for the wiki. Count me in.

Hey Obin, you said you'll be "getting the HD camera". You're still referring to your own or did you say you were going to also purchase one from silicon imaging. Oh, which reminds me . . .

Didn't get too far on that website, but are the silicon imaging cameras too expensive? Do they not use 24p? Seems like the subject kind of came and went.

By the way, I should put out there that I need to get a new editing system up and running some time soon, whether I like it or not. My Digisuite LE has crashed one too many times and I have stuff I need to get done. I was thinking on getting a mac based NLE, but all this various talk about Linux and a bunch of stuff I've never heard of like the free cine . . . whatever it was is kind of pulling me back. I don't want to get something uncompatable with whatever camera system we go with. Truthfully, as far as editing is concerned, I need something both user friendly and stable. I've never touched a linux in my life. Before I buy, maybe you guys should confirm . . . it's okay to get a mac, right? I mean, it'll be compatable here? (Looking at G5 with igniter X HD card, if I go crazy, maybe Cinewave or Kona 2 when it comes out, although this is probably overkill . . . I just want something that kicks ass and still works!!!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!)

Maybe you guys can give me system advice and/or more cost effective advice, but whatever I get, remember I'm no real tech head. It has to keep working on it's own, without the weekly "fix-it" session. Too many hours go down the drain.

Thanks!

P.S.

I'll talk to my girlfriend's dad then (electrical engineer) and keep you posted.

Hi guys!!!
Sumix isn't dead. Here's the update. Send your requests for the MI-MV40 pdf to my mail, I'll be happy to bounce it back as long as you don't come by hundreds :))

Vladimir will be back at the office next week and will contact you.
Please take a look at the attached pdf file for MI-MV40 sensor. We are
considering to use this sensor for two reasons. 1. The format is larger
than the current sensor we use. Wide angle 35 mm objective can be used
with this sensor by losing about 40% of field of view. 2. The 200 frame
rate will extend the application of this camera tremendously. The two
major problems are 1. It is expensive, $1500 small quantities and $1000
for quantities of 1000 or more. 2. We will have tremendous bit rate,
200*4megapixel per second, the interface and storage will be nightmare.

About adapter for 35mm objective to be used with with 2/3" sensors we
had several discussions with our optic engineers. The problem is that
about 80% of light will be lost if we use ground glass. If we do this
without ground glass, then we must make one adapter for each particular
35mm objective. So we do not know yet what to do about this.

Please let me know what you think

Laurence,
Regarding your NLE dilema: I am using both platforms but have settled for serious and reliable work on Macs. I don't want to start a platform war, but I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Good luck,
Valeriu

Laurence

I read that April Linux format (you should see if you can buy it). The problem is that you have to do command line stuff, and it isn't the most freindlist/complete feature list. The only one really that addresses HD is Cinelerra (that I know of). Now that sort of stuff is fine with some people but most it will not be simle enough.

When we find out what Sumix is doing, and decide what we are putting on it, we don't really know what to buy. Some of the guys here though will be able to address the compatabilities issues with you. I advocate we really need to use plugin codec for the capture software and plugins for the most popular editors. This will solve most of these problems and allow us to freely use Mac, Win, or Linux at will. So I personally think there might allready be softare out there to do this on the Mac, but I don't know what it is.

Steve, what is your email, I really would like to read the pdf?

For our Sumix people: GG glass is not the best, but recently the Static adapter thread has been talking of better alternatives: Chemical ground glass, Minolta Microolense based ground glass camera focusing screens, the Reflexite Intenscreen Beattie camera focussing screen (I think an array of microlenses), holographic projection screen (rejected, but I don't know if all avenues where researched). The focusing screens are available cheaply in a plain format. The microlense screens will add upto 1 1/2 stops (more for medium format) of light over a GG screen. They have been condensing the projected light to also increase brightness. The problem with many screens is visible grain, which is worse in HD but the company that does the Beattie screen will do a custom made order, so I imagine the array canbe made smaller. The Reflexite group probably has the broadest optical experience (including LCD backlighting) and should be considered. I have not read all the Static, 35mm and HD10 adaptor threads, but they are a good source for information on increasing light intensity.

http://www.intenscreen.com/

That sensor (but haven't read the PDF) will probably be great in the sub $3K camera, though if it could get within 90% of the performance of the big boys for $800 cheaper that would be even better. About the data rate etc, we could simply use lower resolutions until we can afford the extra storage / newer technology etc. To solve the 35mm adaptor problem, we could have a set of lense convertors for each of the popular or desired formats to connect them to the adaptor.

Nice Wiki.

Wayne, look in my profile, you'll find the e-mail there.
I'll also send you a document detailing exact PC configuration for a particular NLE to edit HD @ speeds 120 MB +.
Regards

Whoops, thanks Steve. I use so many forums I forgot about those little email buttons on some of the posts.

Well Wayne, IMHO, $800 to be knocked down 10% image quality is a bad trade, I mean yes, none of us want to pay any more than we have to, but fudging $1000 or so I think is something we need to be able to stomach. Maybe not 5k, but 1k? There's an old saying that filmmaking is 90% work and 10% talent. Don't kill the last 10% that might get your film on the big screen, I say. When it comes down to it, one advantage we'll have with these systems is that we will be indistinguishable from big boys image wise. I don't know as much technically as you guys, but I've spent a lot of time trying to get my feature sold. The only time I got looks was when they saw my relatively decent image and production value vs. someone else's shady job. Beyond that, it's all star power. So I say fight for that 10%, man. It may be all we have, and unless you have a name, it will also be your film's first impression.

Again, just IMHO

By the way,

So ya, I've been looking at the Kona and stuff. Wayne, I think your advice is solid if I was . . . smarter (lolol) . . . but I'm simply not able to do this code writing stuff. (No background in it at all, I can barely get into dos management) As long as you guys think it will be mac compatable, that's what I'll go for.

Any warnings against it?

Thanks!

By the way,

Got a lead on another possible camera. But so far they say it would be 1280 X 1024p. 24p and a little faster. I guess we could just crop the image for a 16 X 9 720p right?

Thats why we need these plugins, for people like yourself to keep familar simple environments, I wasn't trying to suggest that you write them, but it would be good if the manufacturer, or somebody out there (as an open source project), incorporates the ability in the capture software to use plugins, and maybe write some plugins (if special ones needed).

Most people will not notice the 10% drop in quality, if we were at a movies we would have to look for it. Our perception would probably tell us that it is more like 1-5% drop, as most of these performance issues concern production lighting and only certain scenes will show it, and then we can control the lighting a bit more to get rid of it, and make it nearly identical to the big boys). One of the generalisations in life is that the last 20% costs the last 80%, so if we just go up and nudge the borders we can get great results without a, say $4K, chip. I really want to put it to the HDV market, by offering the next best thing to the $50K ENG class at the same price ;) For me that performance will look credible on screen, though maybe not George Lucas credible.

Okay, I see what you're saying about the plugins. Ya, good show.

About camera:

Perhaps I'm just selfish, but if I can compete (with origin of signal, not effects of course) with George Lucas, for 5 or even 6 k, I'll think I got the right camera. I think most indie filmmakers would agree with me . . . well, I think. Surely they'd rather pay the extra $800 to not have to work that much harder to get the image they want if they're doing say Noir or Horror or extravegantly shot sci fi. On the set, and in post, all of the money you saved will be spent again in hours, sweat, and worst of all, frustration. And that's just with the first feature. After you make your second, third, that $800 you didn't spend at first is now several thousand in payback. Of course, I'm a big perfectionist and I'm also not too savvy on just what constitutes that "george lucas" level as opposed to a film that "isn't lucas". It seems to me when I see one of his films that the image has a (despite the stories recently sucking, lolol) certain "glow" to it that most images don't have. Maybe I'm talking about something I have not enough knowledge of? I couldn't find the chip. What's the specs?

P.S.

Please don't think I'm dizzin on you or anything, just interested in what's best for all of us. You DO have some valid points.

HD camera should ship thisweek...mean while I am working out how to use a beamsplitter to keep the viewfinder on the K3 16mm camera...too bad I have to take it all apart..this is a very tough wellmade camera that is in good working order ;)

I understand Laurence, actually Geoge's camera is a bit inferior compared to regular film ;). I'm just looking for good enough, that $800 sensor will maybe add $2000 to the retail price and another $3000 for 3chip ($1000 each extra and cheap $1000 prism) configuration. I'm interested in good enough for me and us, and cheap enough to drive sales, because that is what will make a product, and bring in bulk discount, so as many people out there can benefit. I think the $200 sensor (only a guess) might be 50% better than what many would accept. We will probably get much greater problem from bayer than from a 10% drop in latitude s/n niose ratio). Realistically the best sensor might be say $10K and only have 10-20% better range than something a tenth or a 50th of the pricee, again a big general market educated guess). But this is where all the good stuff comes in, people wanting a cheap camera could go for the $200 (bulk OEM discount) sensor, people who want the next 10% could use the next level up for double the finale system price, and people who want another 10% can go for a unit that adds 50-100% on the finale price again (or a Kinetta etc). But for all these different after market cameras we could use a common cameralink capture direct to disk/PC editor board (as I have suggested here or else where), and the same plugins. So you get a standard to allow you to put together whatever format, editor, plugin, camera sensor you want with the capture board. I think we can all get what we want, there are a number of different priced camera projects out there.

OK,

That Micron chip brochure leaves me scratching my head, I like it, but it says a lot about nothing using some terminology that I am unfamiliar with, could we get some real explanatios on it.

How does True bit work, how does True color work, and what negative effects do they have on picture quality? Some of these sorts of schemes have proved less than desirable in the past.

The 4MP of the unit is spread accross 4:3, so we will be getting around 20% more pixels than 1080 in 16:9 format, but great 720p footage. 200fps at full res is great, but I don't want to pay much more.

Power consumption, good.

Digital rsponsitivity, what on Earth are those figures? What is the real lux range, min & max ratings, at what gain?

Internal Intra scene Dynamic Range ???, maybe I do or don't underatnd that: 59db. OK, I forget how to read this at the moment, but as far as I know brightness doubles every 6dB, bits double every extra bit, so 10-bits = approx 60db, so you would be able to get accurate pixels?? But what about with gain completely up or compleely in negative (gains not even mentioned) as this can effect the range.

The signal to niose ratio is very improtant, you need 60db +6db (for accuracy below the lowest bit) + the desired gain level (that gives grain free footage at the lux desired 5, 3 or 1 lux) (i.e 30db). So for example 96db, gives a stacking clear good picture i low light.

The respone curves of these, and luminace and color would also be good. Pluss all the other regular artifacts, smearing, interpixel leakage causing blooming etc.

Maybe the specs of sensors are a bit much for us, or others, to accurately understand here without explanation from an expert. Maybe we should specify what we are looking for, even if it is "something cheap within reach of the quality of an CineAltar" something to that nature. We could realistically specify no artifacting, dynamic range, s/n, min grain free lux, min gain, desired perforamnce curves etc, but could we ever agree?

Another piont about upscaling, is that single chip footage is effectively allrady upscaled because of the bayer filter, and trying to upscale that might prove a bit more difficult than normal.

I just rememberd this:
(openware direct to disk RAW HD software) Though, unfortunately, the software is not free, but it gives a nice system like some want, but at a huge price. It's taken me hours to track this down, but I don't know if it was the one I am after. Last year I remembered going to a website that had this software on it, and the Starship Troopers 2 production ref (that uses standard PC components for HD capture and edit, and I remember some cheap direct to disk raw HD recorder. I was looking for a cheap HD raw capture to disk recorder unit. If anybody knows of any let me know.

Thanks

Wayne.


http://www.spectsoft.com/products/ravehd/

http://www.spectsoft.com/projects/

http://www.spectsoft.com/products/sfb/

http://www.creativecow.net/articles/howard_jason/rave-hd_interview/index.html

http://kino.schirmacher.de/article/view/85/1/7/

http://www.pluginz.com/news/1628

http://www.digitalproducer.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=24825

Wayne, you mentioned an $800 chip vs. $200 or so. I haven't seen too many prices yet -- do you know the price ranges of the various chips we've been discussing?

I've been working on the wiki a bit -- check out what I have so far at

http://www.obscuracam.com/wiki/wiki/

Thanks!

from what Steve tells me you don't want that 4mp chip..quality is not high enough...they will have the 1080P chip ready in a few weeks in a camera it will do 1080P at 60fps..that will be a winner....it's the Rockwell chip that JVC may also use

Obin,
I hope you are progressing well with your camera. Beware of the CMOS chips as they are dust hungry. Find a way of protecting the chip with a filter or possible with the prism. From my experience with DSLR stills cameras using CMOS chips, they are a nightmare to keep clean especially when changing lenses.
Remember the "hair in the gate"!!!

hah - thanks for the point! I have a canon 10D and I guess your right about the dirty cmos...I have never checked the 10D - I guess I should!

<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Scott : Wayne, you mentioned an $800 chip vs. $200 or so. I haven't seen too many prices yet -- do you know the price ranges of the various chips we've been discussing?

I've been working on the wiki a bit -- check out what I have so far at

http://www.obscuracam.com/wiki/wiki/

Thanks! -->>>

Yes a number of prices have been mentioned, Steve mentioned a $1000 bulk for the MOS chip, the Russian camera had a $200 cmos on the site, a silicon imaging pricing was mentioned, and somebody mentioned the price of the Panavision chip on another thread, But basically I am guessing as I said.

<<<-- Originally posted by Obin Olson : from what Steve tells me you don't want that 4mp chip..quality is not high enough...they will have the 1080P chip ready in a few weeks in a camera it will do 1080P at 60fps..that will be a winner....it's the Rockwell chip that JVC may also use -->>>

If your refering to me, I don't know but we have to be carefull, we don't want to buy the thing and then decide the sensor is not up to scratch, but we nee a professional analysis of all the options (there was somebody in one of these threads that knew how to do this) basically we have been leaving it upto Sumix to do this. Maybe we should get the datasheets of th best camera we are interested in and compare figures and curves (Cinaltar, Arriflex??). All we really need is the best quality sensor for the price range w are interested in.

I think with single chip you are not going to get the best sampling quality until you go 4* res, so the Micron chip might be good for 720p, and acceptable for 1080, but I don't know whether it can be really great at 1080 and be resoluion upscalable to post 1080 rsolutions. Any opinions?

In a single chip I would be happy with anything that gave accurate 720p or 1080 pictures (a 8mp senors ;).

We still have to address how we are going to get uncompressed (no compression available) 1080 raw 4:4:4 image out of this camera to a cheap capture computer (assuming you don't want to lug a full desktop around on moving shoots). I mean free 3*USB2/3.0, or a couple of hundred doller capture board is great but 1000's of dollers is overkill for somethng that is only a handfull of $! (sepculative figure) USB2.0 ports. We still wait for the gurus at Sumix to trell us what they can do in these areas.


The options I can see:

Some multiple stannard interface link:
1-6 Gigabit Ethernet links (a 10 Gigabit Ethernet might be good). 1=720-1080 4:2:2, 6=8mp 4:4:4 (Sorry couldn't resist ;)

3*USB2.0 (if the seperate port gives another 480Mb's, in either Firewaire or USB2.0 I've been told that doesn't work).

Camera Link to cheap interface board $$ unknown). PCI is like one Gigabit ethernet, PCI-Express is as much as you want (but no cheap portable PC boards with PCI-express, but maybe with AGP).

Camera Link capture board direct to disk, even better if it is based on VIA mini/nano itx reference baord so it can be reconfigured and used as an editor. But nobody has made this tes??

Would not mind an wireless multi gigabit per second interface aswell.

Are there anymore chioces? Dual HD-SDI (for 1080) is nice but don't the interface boards cost thousands each?

Well let's have fun, any more suggestions?

Wayne, from the pictures I have seen the camera I am getting is good but could be better...it's a bayer filter thing...you get CHEAP one chip and low datarate but you loose overall quality a bit...BUT it's soo much better then DV or dvcam or dvcpro that to me it's worth it... after all it's 4:4:4 AND can shoot slomotion...this is enough for me! also you may want to think about this: 1280x720 scaled down to SD 720x480 looks pretty dang good even from a 1ccd Bayer cam

I am going to try and get a demo pic from Steve showing the quality of the 3mp chip...also he says that the capture card needed to capture 30fps at 3mp is VERY high-dollar and you need all sorts of RAID etc and a DUAL Xeon to capture that high datarate

Obin, two different cameras are being discussed. Our 3.2Mpix camera (SI-3170) that runs at 30fps puts out approximately 100Mpix per second. Even in 8 bit mode, that is the full bus bandwidth for PCI-32. The numbers I have for real-time recording from Norpix (our favorite recording software vendor) is about 50MB/sec on a serial-ATA drive, something like 80MB/sec for a 2 drive RAID. These are tested numbers using their software. They can stack up lots of drives in 64 bit systems for fast recording.

This camera has substantially higher noise and lower sensitivity compared to the SI-1300. It is only useful if you can provide lots of light. You will need gain and offset correction to use this for cinematography. There are a couple of people doing that and it is a pretty low cost method to getting 1920x1080x30fps.

http://www.siliconimaging.com/Samples/Color%20Macbeth%20with%20Linda.jpg
http://www.siliconimaging.com/Samples/flower%208%20bit.tif

These are corrected images.
This camera does not compare at all to the Altasens (Rockwell) based cameras for image quality, senitivity or speed.

<<<-- Originally posted by Obin Olson : Wayne, from the pictures I have seen the camera I am getting is good but could be better...it's a bayer filter thing...you get CHEAP one chip and low datarate but you loose overall quality a bit...BUT it's soo much better then DV or dvcam or dvcpro that to me it's worth it... after all it's 4:4:4 AND can shoot slomotion...this is enough for me! also you may want to think about this: 1280x720 scaled down to SD 720x480 looks pretty dang good even from a 1ccd Bayer cam -->>>

This is sort of the opposite of what Laurence wants, and as for me it has to have real 4:4:4 720p pixel information. Bayer produces estimates of 4:4:4, so that is why I would like the 720p to be down converted from higher res on chip. What we really have to compare is that we are getting better images then the HD10, or the new Sony/Canon HD (better than the JVC ENG would be better too), then combined with the RAW 4:4:4 we are really cranking. Until then I imagine that your camera will be really cranking compared to the HD10 or Sharp cameras, and I look forward to seeing the results. But going back to what I said before, a more flexible capture interface could allow each of us to use whatever camera head suits our desires. I could admire your slow motion technique (Matrix style, which I like), you could admire Laurences artistic quality, and I could be roaming the country side with something inbetween.

So I think 3chip 720 to 3chip 1080, or 1080 to 2*1080 (in a 1080 16:9 frame) single chip (so we can extract a true 4*720p image from it).

I would really like to see what www.sumix.com has planned for us, by the look of it we might have to accept excellent 720p, or maybe even 1080 (people were aiming for 3chip) or just acceptable 1080 single chip. The capture problems, if the cheaper interface options are taken with upto 4 drives, we should be fine. I suspect Canon might have direct to disk for their camera too at 50Mbs/+. Let the HD format wars begin.

Yes Steve, I can see what you mean. I think movie cameras get away with bayer because they are using such high resolutions it doesn't matter and doesn't need to be upscaled. If you look at a movie there is so much grain (producing chroma error, while the grainless footage I've seen looks better) that any problems from a bayer will still be an improvement.

<<<-- ... as for me it has to have real 4:4:4 720p pixel information. Bayer produces estimates of 4:4:4, so that is why I would like the 720p to be down converted from higher res on chip. -->>>

If we're building an affordable camera (i.e., 1-chip :-) from scratch, then, we'll want a high-quality sensor such as the Rockwell/AltaSens 1920x1080 chip which will yield an effective horizontal 1440 pixels after Bayer filtering. This should produce an awesome picture after downsampling to 1280x720.

Ya,

Like I said, I won't sneeze at 720, but it sure would be nice to make it 1080p for all of the trouble and hope we're gonna put into it. I'm always a "starting big you can get little, but starting little you can't get big" type of guy.

By the way wayne, thanks for answering the questions I had there. Also, do you know whether FCP sees the input of "DVCPro HD" as a particular codec, or can it take in a 720p signal from a box camera from summix or the like as well? Maybe 1080 via pci?

Just an idea:

I know we don't want to lug around big computers, but maybe somehow with a laptop or something with firewire:

FCP HD offers this at 4:2:2 with 90-160 mbs in 720p

Offers 1080 "uncompressed" via PCI interface, so if we're going that way . . . well.

Does this stink for you guys? Not bad? Good? Probably expensive, but also an edit machine?

web address:

http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/

Check out the specs, give me advice please. I was thinking on getting a mac editor for stability anyway.

Looking at the Canon HD product:

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/bbs/showthread.php?s=&threadid=98264

Same as I've seen here:
http://www.geocities.com/mammacow3/nab2005.htm

I don't think C likes us talking about unverified rumours here, so probably best to talk about i there.

Ron, excellent piont.

movie cameras are using 6mp and up that is why bayer does not matter...my canon 10d is 6mp and it sure is plenty of resolution

Keep in mind that there are many different algorithms for Bayer filter de-mosaicing. Here is one article sifting though them:
http://www4.ncsu.edu:8030/~rramana/Research/demosaicking-JEI-02.pdf

I would think anyone in this industry should be watching the Bayer algorithm used. Since this is a post processing step, speed is not a big issue. I personally think that a good algorithm on a single chip camera might be close enough to be a good compromise versus a 3 chip camera (3x bus bandwidth, 3x recording speed, more complex capture). Is resolution better?

1280x720 is .92MB/frame
3 chip 1280x720 is 2.76MB/frame

1920x1080 is 2.1MB/frame

Of course if you convert the 3 chip to YUV in real time, the data size is reduced - but you are tossing data away. But any real-time processing is costly.

Wayne,

It would best for discussions of Prospect HD to happen here. I much prefer this forum, after all I'm a moderator here (HDV Editing.)

CineForm is very much interested in very high resolution, frame rate and quality image gathering. Our current codec is can compress in real-time (software only) 1920x1080 4:2:2 at 10bit per channel in a visually lossless manner at 30p/60i (using a Dual Opteron.) Increasing compression performance and image depth is planned.

I can see the fit.

<<<-- Originally posted by Wayne Morellini : What I'm suggesting would be a fraction the size of a laptop, more battery life, and cheaper (though more processing power, I don't know). -->>>

Problem is, you really need an array of drives to handle the bandwidth of this much data. If you're using affordable 7200 RPM drives, you'll need 3 or 4 in the array. If you're using VERY expensive 10,000 or 15,000 RPM drives, you might get away with 2 ... but at 3x or 4x the price.

Just as an example, the Kinetta (http://www.kinetta.com) camera's "magazine" uses a custom enclosure with an array of iPod drives -- 12, I think (!) -- to handle the bandwidth.

Thanks David, I just thought to keep everything tight.

As you can tell there is much camera and computer hardware out there, and everybody has their personal likes and dislikes for editing aswell. I have suggested a general capture board on the hardware side (but nobodies biting on that idea) and on the software side plugins for capture and editing which you maybe able to help. What can your software offer in this respect, or will we have to buy a whole editing/capture package (I have not read the information on your site, I have been snowed under recently).

How much comrpession can you get with vissually near loosless, and how much true lossless?

The processing requirements you quoted, how much more improvement can you expect (I guess they are twin 2.8Ghz chips)? Are you using highly optimised C, or have you gone the final speed step to optimised Machine code, as these can give big gains?

I have not really told people too much about this, but there is a potential cheap technology out there that I want to research in the future that could reduce the pocessig requirement greatly.

As you can tell if people take to what we are expecting (and I might aswell go on the record as saying I will only take to a custom camera myself with specific price and visual performance advantages) then there will be a new market using a variety of datarates, resolutions and bit depths. Could this sort of flexibility be offered in your product for that market?

If people like your package what are the options and purchase options, and are there any attractive bulk purchase options that we could get into in private? Some people here would spend thousands, others would spend much much less.

I have allready located a Linux editing system that captures in HD, but it will be too much trouble for most, and a lot of power users probably would prefer something like your system.

Also there have been a few people wanting to find out more on your product here, maybe they can ask questions.

I would like to say I'm a bit of a novice to the issues in videography, but good on the technical side, so I might not understand all the issues.


Well I have to go to bed, so I hope I can pick up your reply tommorrow.

Thanks for turning up.

Wayne.

I am talking with Norpix about a good quality bayer plugin for the norpix software..they are saying that if I buy the software they will get me a good quality plugin...I said if they show me a test image of the filter and it looks good enough I will buy ;) wait and see I guess...I got the 1300 camera today from Silicon Imaging...time to start testing i guess yaaaappeee!!

Using a number of DSLR stills cameras in the last few years, I noticed that the RAW file format generated by them are approximative the same size in Mb as the size of the chip in megapixels. A 6 megapixels bayer pattern chip gives a ~<6 MB RAW file, that converted to RGB tiff will end up as a ~17MB.
A CMOS 1280x720 color bayer chip will give less than 1 MB/frame RAW file. If this data rate is recorded to disk as uncompressed, it needs ~24MB/sec transfer speed, which I can see easy to achieve. Of course, post processing is required to convert the RAW file to a format acceptable for HD with appropriate look-up tables. I think we need to look in creating an algorithm for converting the RAW file to an RGB color space and format, like a PlugIn in AfterEffects or a similar program.
Both Viper and Dalsa require a similar process and these cameras are NOT camcorders. There is a whole travelling circus of equipment and crew around them. The 4x2k Dalsa needs 1TB/15mins!!! That is not a joke and not cheap.

Obin,
If you want to use your 35mm adaptor, I think you should mount the camera upside down and the images should appear in their correct position. I also saw at EdmundOptics some relay/macro lenses with C mount.

big question, can I get a C-mount lens that has very few lens elements that's MACRO so I could use it to focus on a mini35 type adaptor for this rig I am building? if I could get mini35 style images outa this HD camera as far as I care this thing would be as good as film for many productions...4:4:4 with 10bit widescreen and any framerate you want!! so can this be done cheaply and with off the shelf lenses at a low f1.8-f2.x??

Obin,
A bit pricey:
http://www.edmundoptics.com/onlinecatalog/displayproduct.cfm?productID=2352&search=1

...A 35mm adaptor, though I would preffer lenses optimised for 2/3 or 16mm format:
http://www.edmundoptics.com/onlinecatalog/displayproduct.cfm?productID=1459&search=1

...or, Rodenstock macros:
http://www.edmundoptics.com/onlinecatalog/displayproduct.cfm?productID=1416&search=1

... and something cheaper, but I don't know about the macro performance:
http://www.edmundoptics.com/onlinecatalog/displayproduct.cfm?productID=2411&search=1

Recently an old Kilffit macro for Bolex 16mm sold in Australia for about 600.00.

Look at the XL1 adaptors, they use a reay lense to do away with the normal lense, you probably could do the same.

<<<-- Originally posted by Wayne
Now I have another idea, something like a lenticular array could be designed to split the individual direction the image primaries are projected to be read by three chips or three areas of one ;) A bit of single direction image compression would do the trick. This is based on an idea I have had a long time ago (as well as a projection idea): a lenticular array laid over a single sensor could take all the light per pixel area, mix it and split the primaries to 3 ajioning pixels (acting like little prisms). What you get is a completely acurate (less any abreviations) colour, each primary is sent 100% to it's own pixel (no major filter loses), all on a single chip, at very cheap price. The other advantages is that you get near 100% pixel area coverage, not 70% max, like in cmos, so you reduce the fly screen and bayer motion induced luma/chroma artifacts, and increase the used light (if you design it to miss the interpixel spacing. The other benefits of these screens is that they could be used as projection screens for the adaptors. I think I gave up on the idea after the foveon came out. So would this reduce the costs? When done right (with a couple of other adjustments) you could deliver all the transmittable light from a MF lesne right down to 1/2in chip. I have other ideas I am wanting to work on commercially aswell.

thanks

Wayne. -->>>


I remember where I saw something that gave me tis lenticular idea. I seem to remember in the information on Sony's HAD/hyperhad?? that they used a small microlense screen over the sensor to concentrate light on the pixels pads. Now if we could use something like this with a single chip (does Bayer allow this) filter we could get competely accuate colour (less some fidelity). Actaully if they could be an array of splitting prisms then we could get almost 3chip like findelity and light gathering power from a single chip (and the mass produced price of such an array would be a very small fraction of a proper prism), 90% of te benefits for 10% of the cost. What do you think Steve I?

On the macro question, for film scanning you might want to try extension tubes or a bellows with a good lens. You are not concerned with DOF since the film plane if flat. I use a bellows and T mount lens all the time for experimenting with c mount cameras.

Valeriu is correct about image sizes. RAW data is one value per pixel - 8 bit is one byte, more than that occupies two bytes unless the capture device can pack data.

Data rates are a little different. There is horizontal and vertical blanking time so that 24MB/sec number is an *average* data rate. 24fps will take about a 30MHz pixel clock. Drives with 8MB buffers will take care of that at the storage, but you still have to watch the bus bandwidth.
Steve

Hi Steve, nice to see you've joined this forum. I'm sure you're contribution will be invaluble. Please email me with any further developments.

I came across yet another camera the other day.

SPECS: model IPC2M30HC
2 megapixel 8/10 bit HD camera
progressive scan 16:9
1920*1080 resolution
camera link interface
Programmable: resolution, framerate (will do 24p), electronic shuttter, long intergration, external trigger, pre exposure, strobe output, gain and offset!
(seems versatile!)
frame rate is programmable from 15-60 fps although it can only manage a max of 33fps at 1920*1080.

Uses a 1 inch progressive scan interline transfer ccd
can utilise C of F mount lenses

check it out at www.imperx.com

Please post you're opinions.