Hmmmm

Interesting Jason. Maybe we can call and ask about the chip as a paranoid "possible customer" or something, and mentioned you're worried about that possibility, and have them explain how they got around it?

Altasens claims on their website that they use a patented technology called "tapered reset", but I'm not sure that has anything to do with eliminating rolling-shutter artifacts. It says it allows for "lower noise and lower image lag than competing alternatives"
The chip can also be timed with a mechanical shutter or electronic gating. And there is mention of something called line-mixing, but that might be for sub-sampling to lower resolutions.

Does anyone know if you can buy these chips individually and how much they run for? Specifically, I want to know about the 2560 since I want to work with a 1280x720 image.

The tapered reset is noise reduction only. There is noise associated with the reset pulse to every line. By removing the high frequenicies (slower edges) you get less noise. It is an unbelievably quiet chip.

The mixing lets you get size reductions that are not 2:1, 4:1, 8:1 - the standard subsamples. They did this specifically to get to 720p - which is not a perfect multiple of 1080i or 1080p. The 1080p Altasens can run at 720p.

I don't know about them but most chip makers of complex parts don't like to sell single chips. They figure the cost to them to get a single camera running (tech support) and the cost to get an OEM going with one chip is about the same.

Looking for FPGA in Google I found this:

"We've implemented the new JPEG2000 Standard
on a Virtex 1000 and required about 2/3 of its resources"

Hope it is of any use....

here is a link to a Jpeg compressor on a FPGA.It has huffman and the rest.Don't know if it could be modified to use some parts of it or.....

http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ee545/f98/swingers/index.html

Here more really interesting links..

HUFFMAN ENCODER

http://vlsi1.engr.utk.edu/~mswiatko/ee552/proj/pres.htm

WAVELET TRANSFORM BASED ADAPTIVE IMAGE COMPRESSION ON FPGA.
(VHDL source code)

http://www.ittc.ukans.edu/projects/ACS/documents/sarin_thesis.pdf (PDF)

REALTIME IMAGE ROTATION AND RESIZING, IMPLEMENTATIONS.

http://www.xilinx.com/products/logicore/dsp/rotation_resize.pdf (PDF)

ESTIMATING FPGA REQUIREMENTS FOR DSP APPLICATIONS.

http://www.hunteng.co.uk/info/fpga-size.htm

REALTIME IMAGE PROCESSING WITH FPGA (source code and diagrams)

http://www.ece.ncsu.edu/imaging/Archives/VideoCard/Report/


LATEST NEWS!!!!!:
I've just did a comparison test between HuffyuvRGB and Morgan J2K lossless compression 4:4:4.
The compresion ratios for a relative clean source are:
Huffyuv(RGB) : 2.3:1
J2K LOSSLESS (4:4:4) : 4:1

J2k took twice the time to compress.To me this looks amazing.
Are these ratios possible?

how is the Altsense camera doing Steve? any news?

Coming along. I will announce it here first. The chips are tough to get right now. We have several camera designs right now that are circuit boards built up except for a big missing component. I may have something else brewing of interest here. More information while I do some testing......

Oh Snap!
I didn't realize that you guys were building cameras using the Altasens chips, Steve. Is that right or am I confused? If so... that's wicked good. And what's this other development? Is it edible? Don't keep us holding our breath.

Matthew: as I understand it they are using Micron chips in the
current camera's and might be offering an AltaSens based camera
in the near future.

so you can run the chip in 720p without cutting the FOV down? that is really good news!

Obin: I think this would always be possible with a line and column
skip algorithm which almost all of these chips implement. I'm hoping
Steve is talking about their test on the rolling shutter "solution".

Rob:
You are correct for the Altasens, but 'always' is a strong word. Most CMOS sensors can do basic subsampling - skipping rows and columns to keep the same FOV with lower resolution. For Bayer color sensors, you need a complex subsampling to keep the Bayer pattern intact (drop rows and columns in pairs). Region of Interest (ROI or windowing) reduces the FOV while keeping the same resolution. ROI always maintains the Bayer pattern but you may have to adust the starting point. Then there is binning - the summing of adjacent pixels, keeping FOV, losing resolution, gaining sensitivity and only useful for monochrome sensors.

The Altasens has a 2/3 subsample - very unusual but will give a 1280x720 60fps output. I think with a unique Bayer pattern, though. This is two pixels on, one off, two on. This means that a row would be GBBGGBBG and the next row would be RGGRRGGRRG. A row is skipped so that the next row is RGGR again. I'm trying to document that now. Hey, I just did!

Rob, guessing at the new info:
Actually, rolling shutter 'solutions' are getting more murky. Obin has found that at higher clock rates, the Micron 1.3Mpix is prone to smearing - bright oversaturated areas don't get reset properly and smear across the line. Micron's official solution is to run at lower rates. The higher resolution sensors in the same architecture are supposed to improve on this (even smaller pixels and less sensitivity, though). There is also a new mask coming out that *may* improve it on the 1.3s. As I told Obin, I will swap cameras if they are better for anyone in this group who buys one now, if the new ones are better.

Always was in context to doing it in our own code. Can always
skip lines and columns, ofcourse. But I see I should have worded
it better.

Steve: the rolling shutter solution was your line that you had
talked to an engineer at SI and he thought of a possible solution
that you would test last week if you had the time.

Rob,
I don't have an SI-1300 around to do that testing - working too hard on the Altasens manual. It does need to be tested though. The other person doing testing for applications is swampeder (new word, I think, but with a clear meaning) than I am. On the rolling shutter thing, I just wanted to give you a heads up that there were some potentially unresolvable Micron 1.3Mpix problems that people in this group need to know about.

You are abolutely correct that upsampling and downsampling in software are much more abitrary than in hardware. There are moire and other artifact issues but scaling can be to non-column based intervals with appropriate algorithms.

Cross post.

Hi guys heres the little secret I mentioned a while back, and was what I was intending to use on my original camera project last year. I was supposed to read up on it and it has been waiting so long I nearly forgot about it. The technology is Processor in Memory modules. The idea is to implement processing elements (or full arrays) inside memory, simular to clearspeed but on the internal bus of the memory modules instead, here greater speeds and wider busses are accessable, and unlike clearspeed, large chunks of memory are directly accessible, which makes it very good for what we want, and indeed it is earmarked for things like compression. I think I have found the article I read last year, I thought it was refering to making standard dram sticks for PC's using the technology for 50% more, but I am unsure now. Production was hoped to be "18 months" (august 5th 2002 article). The speed up for one was upto 25-40 times over workstation performance (potential for several hundred), and for another it was upto 1000 times (Active page) using arrays of FPGA processing elements). The idea is that if they produce pc memory modules with it, you pop it into your PC memory slot and program it and "hey presto" your 1GHz nano-itx board is capable of processing and compressing 8 mpixel SHD streams (maybe a little exageration) but you get this without (maybe) even needing a cooling fan on the main board, low powered, low cost. To make things even better (depending on what Windows API standards are now) I think Windows had an API that allowed DSP's functions in add-in cards to be transparently used in programs (simular to Direct X API calls) to accelerate them. I remember some international meeting they had for this tech, the web site for the meetings would be a good source of contacts. For somebody like Steve in SI a non PC version could be hooked up to an ARM processor to provide a simple to program alternative to FPGA design (not that the programming is as simple as C coding on clearspeed). Normally I would keep this quiet (to stop companies from interfering) until I had researched, approached and negotiated with suitable companies about the possibilities of even using samples, but because of my health this is just not going to happen quick enough. So, if somebody with technical knowledge would like to do this for us it would be most appreciated.

Here are some links.

The only three that seemed to be aimed at intergration into memory modules is Diva, FlexRam, and Activepage (The FPGA solution), but I don't know which one is the standard PC module.. I have only been able to skim the documents due to health, so I don't know exactly the details, and haven't even looked up all the websites for each competing version.

www.isi.edu/stories/31.html
www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,54294,00.html

216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:dXClT-kcKfsJ:chooyu.cs.uiuc.edu/~renau/docs/msuiuc.pdf+FlexRAM+diva+mld+%22active+pages%22&hl=en
216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:pIWrcH1K9TcJ:iacoma.cs.uiuc.edu/iacoma-papers/flexram.ps+FlexRAM+diva+mld+%22active+pages%22&hl=en
216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:9T0-0_lHHD0J:iacoma.cs.uiuc.edu/flexram/publications/flex.ppt+FlexRAM+diva+mld+%22active+pages%22&hl=en

This site was useful finding academic papers:

citeseer.ist.psu.edu/kang99flexram.html
citeseer.ist.psu.edu/context/100858/181563

Say guys, a friend of mine just emailed me an announcement of a relatively new codec from apple called the "H.264/AVC". Is this something we could use?

http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/h264.html

Claims to be some greatly sophistocated codec that can do scaleable HD. I don't know really what to look for that much, but one of you guys probably does. Check it out and tell us what you think.

Laurence Maher wrote:
... a relatively new codec from apple called the "H.264/AVC"The catch in a lot of these codecs is the 8-bit depth issue. For workflows that target 8-bit only, many of the new "delivery" codecs like this (MPEG4, etc.) could be useful.

For a workflow that requires 10+ bits throughout, we'll need codecs that are designed for production, not delivery.

I did run across this H.264 SourceForge project (http://sourceforge.net/projects/hdot264/). It looks like it got started in March 2003 and didn't get anywhere.

<<<-- Originally posted by Laurence Maher : Hey wayne, ya, . . . duh . . . you already posted the fuel type. Not eating my wheaties. Hope your health is good. -->>>

Thanks Laurence.

My Health has picked up surprisingly, looks like it is not going to be long term, I can get around for a few hours now without getiing stuffed, and I can think reasonably clearly before that.


<<<-- Originally posted by Steve Nordhauser : Rob:
The Altasens has a 2/3 subsample - very unusual but will give a 1280x720 60fps output. I think with a unique Bayer pattern, though. This is two pixels on, one off, two on. This means that a row would be GBBGGBBG and the next row would be RGGRRGGRRG. A row is skipped so that the next row is RGGR again. I'm trying to document that now. Hey, I just did!

There is also a new mask coming out that *may* improve it on the 1.3s. As I told Obin, I will swap cameras if they are better for anyone in this group who buys one now, if the new ones are better. -->>>

That is really excellent Steve, thanks for all your support you are giving us.

About the Bayer pattern above, I am worried if there is too many of them NLE companies might not want to support them.

I think binning is the best, but it needs a 3 chip camera for that.

I read the excellent tutorials that you have on your SI website, I'm surprised you mentioned the cathode ray tube memory device, pretty obscue nowdays. What about a page describing how to read the specs of cameras and cmos sensors, I'm a bit lost at the meaning of some of the terms when reading the data sheets (thoug I know what dark current and Quatum efficiency means now)?

Thanks.

<<<-- Originally posted by Jason Rodriguez : Both Ikegami, JVC, and Kinetta are going to be using the Altasens 3560 in their cameras. How come they don't have any problems with rolling shutter artifacting?

In fact I saw the 3560 and some other cameras built on the 3530 at NAB, and again, there were no problems with rolling shutters. I know there must be solution here because these are manufacturers using the same chips, and aren't having any dificulties with slanted lines, etc., because these types of artifacts wouldn't be acceptable to their production-bases markets.

So again, if this the way the chip is built, and these are the manufacturers successfully using it, then there must be solution somewhere (and it's not in loosing the high frame-rates of the chip, because Kinetta is going to use the 3560, and they are going up to 60fps without dropping frames). -->>>

I think I heard something about them having on chip buffering so they could perform global type reads.


<<<-- Originally posted by Anhar Miah : Thats last Century (literally),

Thats old tech, if you really want some thing more advanced you should look up about trapping into the engery from the vacum of free space, just google MEG (or Motionless Electromagnetic Generator)

Its FREE unlimted amounts of Energy to power anything really, (still mostly theory though, which *some* working prototype


=--===----=--=--=-=-=====-==-
----=--=-=-=---=-=-=-==-=-====
-=-=-==-----==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Anhar Miah -->>>

Hmm, I know (but how many years), but seriously you mentioned some working prototypes, can you give examples? I once had an idea for Physical Vacume Energy Sail, I wanted to use in a childrens movie "Johanes Berge and The Space Pirates), and had a few ideas flash around my mind for a method to extract free energy, but with all this camera stuff I've forgotten it :). Of course you know that it has all been done before, I have met some interesting people in my life and know a few things. We even have a local excess energy type engine thing here, and even though I Haven't met the guys myself (as far as I know) I have multiple idependant freinds that know them. The idea sounds a bit simular (no detailed info yet) to the device invented in the 70's in the States, can't remember his name, I have had plans in the past to it, hold it, with modern technology (rare Earth magnets etc) it should definetly have power for a camera? Does anybody have engineering expertese in electrical to give it a go if I could find plans? To state it plainly, I can take statements for or against these devices with a grain of salt, just remaining objective. And before anybody debates this, one of my best freinds is a top young engineer in the nation (actually our UNI also produced the top chip designer in America), he is really negative on the potentiual of the idea, but I would not trust his judgment on the issue, to much flawed logic blindly trusting in the 1% science does know (until the last 10-15 years, they were scratching the surface, now it sounds like a episode of Star Trek). I am waiting for them to go below the quantum level to proper analysis of the structure and properties of space itself, the substance we are written on! By the way, what is the code at the end of your post. Well, bring it on!

OK, furthur omissions to my list of potential camera types.

Power supplies. PC Motherboards run off of AC to multiple line DC power supplies, but batteries are DC. How can we do this with the minium of fuss (without lossing too much power), as it would cost too much to make a multiple voltage line DC power supply for the MB, or does anybody know of cheap DC PC power supplies for ATX/BTX and ITX?

Can anybody discuss this?

Getting dissy, have to quit now, see you latter.

Thanks

Wayne.

For Wayne Morellini

This is a very good site:

http://jnaudin.free.fr/meg/meg.htm

It does have a US Patent, so it is coming along nicely .

And yes it could diffinately be used in Camcorders (needs a some work though).

If you go to yahoo forums and join into the MEG society they have a kinda "builders club" thing and there are lots of helpful fellow "builders" if you want to try.

I'm just passively keeping n eye on these projects, they are very interesting an i feel i break will come soon!!

P.S That crytic code was just fake, but i love the whole crypto scene ---

"Whats that you say?! he broke our 1024 bit random seed dual Laronze quad layered level seven secure line......Hmm.....What!!? hes 12 years old......F*%$£&%!!!"

Wayne:
I think you hit on a good topic for a non-programmer to research. Here is a start:

http://www.powerstream.com/DC_PC.htm
http://www.opussolutions.com/150watt.html

There are DC input power supplies for PCs. This is a better solution than battery->inverter to AC->computer PS back to DC.

To help on the battery sizing, take the power requirements (let's say 200W average (recording and just viewfinder). The two power supplies aren't perfect so maybe 75% efficient. So about 270W in (this is all guess work). Let's say you run on 24V in so you can use a nice scooter charger for $75 (like a Soneil). To run one hour, you need 24V @about 12Ah. Again, typical scooter sizes. Battery choices are sealed lead acid (SLA- either UPS batteries or Hawkers- better for deep cycle), NiCd, NiMh, LiOn. Size and weight go down, cost goes up as you go along the list. You can get bigger batteries or parallel smaller ones for longer run times. Might be better to swap batteries than lug the max.

This is what you guys want "super Polymer Lithium Ion" they have the hightest Power/Volume Density of any current technologies,

Electrovaya (a Canaidan company)

Check out there site:

http://www.electrovaya.com/

Also, if you have time and i know this is out of topic please also visit:

www.evuk.co.uk

I feel very strongly about, electric vehicles, if only you guys/ and gals knew about the advances in techonolgy that have been made you would have converted long ago, but alas the big Oil corps and politics are holding us back to the dark ages:

Factual example:Solectria Sunrise* - 373 miles per charge. ('mpc') (cost - £3.50)

Tzero 0-60 in 3.7 seconds (300 miles range per charge)

Hopes this Helps!

Thanks Anhar, and all you guys.

Sorry but bed time, Less dissy, but things making less sense.

I have some great new, stop the FPGA stuff, we might have a solution (after cameralink).

The head of VIA's processor subsidary:
http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT2656883479.html

Notice the DSP like hardware acceleration in the next chip mentioned down the bottom. My guess is that it might be something remarkable like PIM's or clearspeed. Also notice they work closely together with nerw customers. It occurs to me we have simualr needs to the Blade server market (multiple drives, multiple Gb Ethernet, high speed (through multiple on board parrallel preocessors)). We also have simlular needs to the multimedia, high defintion DVD recorder market (using HDMI/DVI input/output and compression). It occurs to me that one of their potential platforms might over lap with our needs, and if it doesn't they might be persuaded to overlap it. They have many reference platforms and are a nice company to work with.

New alternative low PC powered processor by AMD, but faster:

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoom/0%2C%2C51_104_543~85510%2C00.html

Nice case:
http://www.mini-itx.com/news/archive.asp?date=0405

One of these pages (lost it) on the itx website, under computex coverage had some ITX product running "surveilence" footage on a screen, I only saw a glimps but I think it was multiple video streams on a 16:9 moinitor (only got a glimps before a closed the window).

Been to it website, couldn't find any DC power supply reference.

Thanks

Wayne.

New here and honestly overwhelmed by the hundreds of posts in various threads. I must say I am rather lost.

Anyway, I am most interested in this low cost project in particular. I may have missed this but has a test version been completed? When is a possible release? What cost?

Very interested in this... very.

I am supposed to be away for a week, but here goes.

Go to the 4:4:4 10bit single CMOS HD project thread, most of the action is happening there for the moment. Obin is experimenting with a lowend Bayer 720p design. We are trying to do any camera, Sumix and SI (Silicon Image) are making cameras that specifically suit our puposes, only Sumix is targeting their designs specifically for us.

Prices are vary variable, as we are trying to make it so you can put together a camera to your needs and price.
We are trying to target a $5K system price, but it could be done cheaper or more expensive. This would be camera head and computer systemn priuce. I imagine that you could do it for $2K, but you would end up with either a cheap and nasty $1K camera head or bulky computer (camerass are availble for less than hundreds of dollers, but you get what you pay for). Both companies are aiming for the higher end Rockwell Altsens chip range. The Altsen is at the high end of the mid range market, and as such is good value, compared tot he expensive cinema sensors that would cost $4K-$10K+ just for the sensor (then add price to make into complete camera head).

The software is a work in progress, done by Rob S and Rob L. Recently (the last time I was here) Obin has hired his own programmer to get his project workming for a professional work sooner. We have been approached by another seriouse production at the same time, hopefully something canbe worked out for them.

Goto my Home Made HD Cinema Cameras threads (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28779) for links to information website and threads.

Thanks

Wayne.

I have received an email from the manufacturer that has the low volume distribution rights to Foveon based box cameras. It is as we have expected, there is no HD Foveon scheduled for release.

I have given them something to think about in terms of volume appeal, so hopefully things might change oneday.

Thanks

Wayne.

Thanks Wayne. I have been following the progress in the other threads as well. There are just so many different things happening at once it is hard to sort them all out!

Does anyone have an approximate completion date for any of these cameras? I'm just rather curious as I am going to be shooting a feature (possibly in September, if not then next spring) and would love to go uncompressed HD.

So if I understand correctly there are essentially two different cameras in development both with the same basic goals?

Aaron Shaw wrote:
So if I understand correctly there are essentially two different cameras in development both with the same basic goals?That's correct. Obin has hired developers to complete his project, while I am still (mostly) on my own at this point.

The problem is that it maybe easier said than done. The sort of programming to maximise through put canbe above most programmers. I try to hint at Rob in what to look out for, and who might have the answers, but your average developer is a hack in comparison. Otherwise Windows and applications would be virtually crashless, fast efficent, without massive guidlines to fence in bad programmers who don't care. At uni our studfies covered case studies that showed differences between the best programmers and the worst as 100:1 (I think, from memory), I think most programmers won't get to 10:1.

Yes I know what you mean Wayne. I have done some minor programming here and there and it is very hard to write good code.

Forgive my lack of knowledge - I'm probably just missing something (and this may not be the best place for my questions) but:

1) Have protoypes been constructed and functionality verified? I've looked around but haven't really seen any screen grabs or video tests.

2) Is it likely that a working product will be available in the next few months?

3) Regarding portability; will a self contained camera being implemented (ie a camera that would not require a separate laptop, thus record to some form of internal RAID system)?

I am specifically interested in the possiblity/looking for a portable HD camera that I could take home at the end of a shoot, dump onto a large RAID and then take out shooting the next day/week.

I understand that there are still many problems to solve - I'm just interested in some form of predicted time table for future developments if it is possible to provide such.

Aaron Shaw wrote:
Have protoypes been constructed and functionality verified? I've looked around but haven't really seen any screen grabs or video tests.You can follow my progress here (http://www.obscuracam.com/wiki/wiki/run.php?iRequest=wiki/ViewPage&iPage=DevelopmentBlog) and you'll find a couple of screen grabs -- video frame only, I don't have much of a UI running yet.
Is it likely that a working product will be available in the next few months?Almost certainly. Obin's project may be done sooner, since he has some developers who can work on it full time, but mine is coming along as well.
will a self contained camera being implemented ...
I am specifically interested in the possiblity/looking for a portable HD cameraSeveral people have discussed ways to do that also, but it's obviously a great deal more work to build an "embedded" system. I think it will happen, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Thanks Rob. I really appreciate it and look forward to the progress you guys make.

On a side note - I like the ObscureCam site. You guys have certainly loaded it with information. Is it possible to add these sort of questions to the FAQ? I am sure there are others interested in possible release dates as well (maybe I just missed this).

Thanks.

If you look at the 10 bit 4:4:4 thread of Obin's you will find footage and screen grabs galor (well at least a really lot of MB's of them). His camera protype is working.

Nothing extra special, some new micron models, no Altasens yet.

http://optics.sumix.com/products/cameras/index.html

Wayne.

Dear Wayne thank's for the links. I know you like linuxdevices.com
like me. I know good code is hard to write, too much memory nowadays, anything too fast.

20 years ago all had to fit to 64K up to 640 K, that was the way to write good, fast code. Look at Windows XP ton's of pure waste here.

Go to gentoo Linux anything open to be compiled by you up to your needs, maybe the hardest way to install a Linux OS but fast,slim, if you need

Yes, places like Linux devices and Windows devices, make it easy to do research, they gather news and links in one place ;)

64K of code space, that is luxury, I thought you were 1-4K crowed ;). I once knew a guy that did a whole IDE disk interface code in something like 30-40 bytes, now that is economical. Admitedly that instruction set was 5 bits long packed in 20 bit words, and the guy was a grand master Forth based stack programmer.

That is why I think Linux and Windows is so bloated, and prefer things like Geoworks/Breadbox that can fit a full GUI OS and office in something like 7MB (even that is bloated). Seriously, you should be able to fit that into 1MB ;) I think an objective floor for a fully functional OS is 100KB (1-10KB core) add to that all the bells and whistles and it should be 1MB-10MB. People don't think this way nowdays, they think quick in and quick out, like the military, and "just as messy" ;) Why bulldose a path in with a big big tank, when you can ride a puish bike in and out, lot less damage, a lot less messy ;). They fight themselves (and much code is victim of friendly fire!). Handcrafted code is thought to be no longer needed, and is generally restricted to places that are real about programming, like realtime embedded situations where precision and efficiency is the only way to survive in the consumer electronics market place, or mission critical stuff like Nasa. The truth is few programmers can do it propperly.

Dear wayne and all the others:

http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS4887107636.html

that is only on of the board but is has RAID SATA, GIGE Ethernet, LOW power Fanless usb 2, Firewire, Graphics typical VIA stuff, they do have a dual fanless MOBO too and Linux ready and preloded

Yes this is the stuff Tim from VIA told me about when I spoke to him months ago. As you can see it is a way to get lots of processing for low power (the extra processor could indeed do image processing much more effectively than a second motherboard). But since the announcement of the faster Pent M's people have gone cold on VIA, but thier 2 GHz cpu's will be coming sometime as well, and from some prices I've seen the top level Pent M stuff seems a lot more expensive.

So what was the speed of the CPU's and what is your assesment of the boards suitability Ron ?

Wayne.

For all those still interested in the soon to be released Sumix camera I have posted a new thread, with some updated information.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=45081

Hi, i would like to talk to Steve Ipp about this. but anyone else who might know please reply.

I was wondering about the web cam you were talking about steve.
http://vgear.com/products/list1.asp?ProdID=AMVG1-010-062&SUB_NUM=2030

it is one like this correct? it can do 1280, 1024 at 15fps. and 640, 480 at 30fps. Thats pretty good for a cheapo. and you said it is about $68 USD
It would be awesome if someone knew how to get 1280, 1024, or even 720 out of it at 30fps. CAN THIS BE DONE? whether it requires the right software, hacking, whatever. can it still be done? I know there a bunch of genius's here. Does anyone know how to get 1024 or 720 at 30fps out of this little cheap camera. it uses USB 2 i mean, messing one up isnt a big hit on the wallet either. Im just wondering if it can be done. becuase i would love to make it work for me. Any help?? thank you so much everyone.

I hope Steve replies to this, I would love to hear from him again.

Evey body from the Sensor manufacturer to the camera manufacturers have an interest in making this difficult. So it is either near impossible, or very difficult requiring much expertise. First hunt sensor information down, if they have designed a chip to allow you to do the resolution out at the desired frame rate (probably through windowing and binning) then get programming information from the sensor manufacturer, then from the camera manufacturer. If they won't let you, it might use a systems documented somewhere around the Internet, or by another camera manufacturer. In a rare case a Camera manufacturer might give you hardware design information, but it is probably unlikely. If you don't have any of these things, it is going to be very difficult to reverse engineer the hard ware and software.

If you want to experiment on the cheap, here is a cheap VGA uncompressed RAW Bayer firewire camera based on it's Web camera, for around $119. Make no doubt of it, this is the price a 720p camera could be, but nobody seems interested. They also do cheaper uncompressed web cams. Using pixel shift even these could be made into a hi-res 3 chip camera. The Apple isight is listed, and it would be worth seeing if the newest Apple Isights are hi-res and still uncompressed.

http://www.1394store.com/eshop/product.asp?dept%5Fid=55&pf%5Fid=2059
http://www.unibrain.com/Products/VisionImg/Fire_i_BC.htm

http://damien.douxchamps.net/ieee1394/cameras/index.php
http://damien.douxchamps.net/ieee1394/cameras/search.php

Thank you so much Wayne! Your posts are very straight foward and informative. i am really interested in that camera you showed. this one:
http://www.1394store.com/eshop/product.asp?dept%5Fid=55&pf%5Fid=2059

you stated this could be a 720p. and that noone seems to take interest in it or your idea. well i am interesed. I have no doubts of a persons ability when they put their mind to it. and i want to build a high resoution camera out of this. How would i go about getting a 720p frame signal out. i know it does 480p. is it just require the correct computer speed and special software to get that frame size?. or am i gonna have to hack the camera's components, and try some reel-stream type configuration. If i can figure out how to send 720 video out. I can do the rest. Ill build a camera for you guys that kicks some major butt for cheap. But ill need your help Wayne, to figure it all out first.

Sorry, I meant that manufacturers should do a 720p camera at that price, but don't want to, the camera is only 640*480, but worth playing around with if your interested. If you want HD, you could get three of them and arrange them in a home made 3chip prism with each pixel shifted, that could be processed into a 1920*1460 HD image. I have been thinking
of doing that for a while (couple of years) but am looking elsewhere. It is probably less technical and hard than hacking most cameras without docs. But probably less easy than if you had all the docs. A monochrome sensor would have to be used for the 3 chip, but you will probably get better results.

To do so, you would have to research prisms, first surface mirrors (very important) and birefringence (is that the word very late) filters (will allow one primary through and reflect the other) optics, chromatic aberrations, and Pixel shift conversion methods. The chromatic aberration results might not be perfect, but your working with low 640*480 resolution so maybe we can get away with it. Yes, the board does 30fps max, no 24/25fps, a hack of the board might be able to change that, but if the timing is locked in the chip, that is a different matter.

there are better sensors but trying to get hold of them at such a cheap price is not funny. You could check out the security cameras, but then you need a high performance analogue video recording device, or computer capture (gets messy). I have a few ideas, but have yet to research for the ideal cost effective sensor.

Now the bad side, yes you could probably do it, but you are probably going to have to carry a laptop or a small boxed computer around (maybe less than 10*10cm*5cm. If it could be reprogrammed to respond to keys and output in a format that a generic external firewire caddy could record then you would have a camera. From what I remember they do have camera that can be synchronised and daisy chained together into three cameras. Interesting isn't it? But this will probably turn out optically not any better than many of low end HD cameras, but it has other advantages. This is not the ideal sensor for this sort of thing, just cheap for experimentation.

If anybody ever wants to talk to me privately about anything on one of my threads, or has any proposals, drop a message in the thread and I can use your email link to email you (I am subscribed to over 215 threads).

Anyway, it is very late and I sense I am starting to talk garbage, so I'll bid you bye.


Thanks

Wayne.

Thank you again wayne! i just thought of something that seems like a stretch but it might work. if i use a 35mm adapter. imagine splitting up the image on the ground glass into 4 sections. top-right, top-left,bottom left, bottom right. now, what if i daisy chain the firewire cameras together... explained in their pdf:
http://www.unibrain.com/download/pdfs/Fire-i_Board_Cams/Connections_Fire-iDigital_Board_New.pdf
and focus each camera on their indivudial section of the glass. then later in post add the images together. is this even remotley possible. i thought of this earlier today at school, becuase ive heard of the idea before.

but i am also interested to learn what you mean by pixel shift, and getting an hd resolution output with only 3 cameras. if i can daisy chain 3 cameras, how do i get that size of image? where do the cameras focus? thank you very much.

Forrest, I did something like that on my Double cam (or dual cam, never got a word for it) I used two camcorders to film the left and right part of the GG. It works very good, but as you say, it means that you have to stitch everything together in post.
I know someone who is doing something similar as you suggest. A problem is the sync between the cameras.
Besides this, has anyone of you seen the image quality of that HD webcam? Nothing is posted on the site.
Too bad that 15fps is just too little to work with, maybe 18fps with added motionblur or frame blending could even give a film effect, but I guess you can't go any lower than that.

It seems like a combination fo cameras could create a low cost solution one of two ways.

1) 4 cheap firewire cameras recording 4 sections of the ground glass simultaneously. Couldn't software sync this properly, then you could create an app to stitch them together into one video file.

2) 2 higher resolution firewire cameras with slower frame-rates. Use software to syncronize them so that they record alternately, doubling the frame rate.

i like those ideas alot. especially number 2. now that one seems like it can seriously work.

http://www.alliedvisiontec.com/index.php?p=91&t=produktinfos&o=77&a=selectid

1920x1084
resolution 14bit
frame rate 30 fps
IEE 1394b

cheaper as a viper anyway

awesome, i can only cringe at the cost though. Wayne, i am going to probally get that fire-i board camera. and focus it onto my GG. If i later want to add more, whats the best way to get more resolution out of it? thanks

http://www.alliedvisiontec.com/index.php?p=91&t=produktinfos&o=77&a=selectid

1920x1084
resolution 14bit
frame rate 30 fps
IEE 1394b

cheaper as a viper anyway

How much is it? I couldn't find any pricing info.

we dont even need to check. i can tell that thing is well over $4000 USD. with those kind of features! even industrial cams 1/3 that good are over $3000. i couldnt find any price info either. but i first want to try a cheap solotion. dont get me wrong, if i had the money. id buy that thing in a second