http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&postid=183804#post183804

<<<-- Originally posted by Valentin Wegerth : well at least a "2 plane imaging system" could be done easily and wouldn't be expensive. only thing you'd need besides 2 chips is the body of a slr camera. any slr cam has 2 image planes. if you take a picture the mirror that normally rests in a 45° angle is removed and thus the image (or focal) plane is at the very point the 35mm photo-film usually is transported. if the mirror rests in its 45° postition however the image is reflected to the viewfinder (2nd image plane).
i hope you get the point... now if you'd just remove half of the mirror, half of the picture would reach the 1st plane where our 1st cmos chip would be placed and the other half of the image would be sent in a 45° angle to the 2nd image plane - given the viewfinder removed . and could be captured there with our 2nd cmos chip. once again we use the merits of 35mm DOF (see my last posting). now if we put both images together there should be no noticable 'cut' or breach because either the image - actually the light - passing the lens is sent to the first cmos or reflected in a 45° angle to the second cmos.

any comments on my thoughts appreciated ;) -->>>

I said:

<<<-- Originally posted by Wayne Morellini : Good idea, you could simply keep going with this to get as many mirrors as you want. The edge of the mirror would have to be machined smooth and tappered to the front to reduce distortion (but will it cause diffraction?? patterns). It would have to be sealed air tight, it would be bad to clean.

This gives me an idea. If you had a half mirored surface (no backing) then half the light would be reflected to the veiwfinder and half to the film plane, going one step further the mirrors could be coated to only reflect an individual range of primary colour, using two mirrors, who needs a $1-3K 3 chip prism splitter? I'm going to bring this up in the Home made camera thread. -->>>

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.

Say guys. How would a 1280 X 1024 chip do us as long as it ran 24p I guess we'd crop the image to a 720p image right? Got a possible lead on a camera that will do this.

I'm waiting to see what comes out in Bayer masked cameras. I'd like to see something that has 2048 across , and maybe has some data reduction on chip if that's possible. I don't like the complexity of 3 chip cameras, I think the Bayer cameras will eventually make the 3 chip guys fall into the video tube category.
I actually have three ccd cameras that are Bayer and are 3500 by 2300 pixels, but they are about 3 frames a second max. I'm converting two of them to mono ccd's for some new film scanning equipment for my company.
When can someone post a still Bayer pic from one of the current cameras, at 10 bits ? Even better, two images of the same scene so we can see the noise figure.
The CMOS cameras and sensors are cropping up like mushrooms lately, it's going to be interesting.
-Les

Laurence,
If it is a CMOS chip, it will probably have Region of Interest (ROI) capabilities built onto the chip. One of the advantages of CMOS is that the process is the same as IC manufacture which allows gates (registers, counters, comparators, A/D) to be put on the same chip as the sensor. This means that the window size and location (digital panning) can be dynamically changed.

In most parts, windowing in the Y direction will allow a faster frame rate. Some parts require the full line to be shifted, regardless of ROI.

This speedup can be used to your advantage, even if you want to go 24fps. I think it was Obin who suggested that to minimize the rolling shutter tilting artifacts, you want to readout as fast as possible. If you readout at 2x the required frame rate, you can toss every other frame. It still isn't global shutter, but it is cheap and available.

Interesting.

Yes, it is CMOS. Hmmmmmm

larry, maybe you want to check out my thread called 10bit 4:4:4 I am building a CMOS 1280x1024 camera right now..

Update:

got the K3 16mm camera today...hmm a well made unit I must say...not like a plastic toy... very heavy like a russian tank ;)
anyway i see a big issue ...if I remove the shutter then I remove the ability to see the image in the viewfinder....any ideas for this problem anyone?


when the shutter is open you see nothing in the viewfinder when it is closed it has a mirror on it that shows you the image in the viewfinder


I guess I could try and use a 2 way mirror but then how many f-stops would I throw out??

what mirror or beamsplitter should I look at if any?

http://www.thorlabs.com/SelectGuide2.cfm?Guide=51&Section=2&Ref=3&GoogleAdwords=1&Keyword=beamsplitter

maybe the amount of light coming in with a beam splitter would be ok because 3ccd cams have beamsplitters right? so should I look at 50/50 splitters or?

Obin, I think you are really determined to use a real camera body for this, even though you will probably end up with using it as a metal box and nothing more ! Form follows function, and you are making function fit the form.... hehe.
Some of the best and highest quality photographs come from 8x10 cameras, and they are nothing more than a wood box with a lens screwed on the front. Thats all a camera is, really.
It's all good, as long as it works... go for it !

...if I remove the shutter then I remove the ability to see the image in the viewfinder....any ideas for this problem anyone?

I guess I could try and use a 2 way mirror but then how many f-stops would I throw out??

Obin,
Have a look at 16mm Bolex cameras. They employ a beamsplitter (60/40). Maybe you can find somewhere one as a spare part...Their shutter is in the focal plane of the film gate.

I would also second Les' point. Why do we have to look at a design based on film technology requirements?

why? because when you pick this thing up it feels like a camera not a toy and I don't want to shoot with a toy. It's a great lens and lens mount and has lots of room inside for the HD board camera to fit...Why is this wrong? Would you have me build a square box to shoot clients big budget spots with??

The Bolex uses a beam splitter...can you send me a link so I can see how this works? 60% to the film and 40% to the viewfinder?

what is a good optical beamsplitter ? anyone know about them?

Obin,
Have a look here for the Bolex manual:
http://www.evergreen.edu/media/pdf/Bolex_Manual.pdf

awesome...bolex uses a 20/80 beamsplitter...i will look for that

I have seen simular suggestions in the static adaptor link. We allready have a light loss, and now we have even more, it makes more sense to use an external monitor (or the magnetic monitor flipping technique, external mirror depending on camera) and correct in post, as whenever you do these things you get optical compromises.

Now Steve wanted to discuss the issues in this thread that was to list just camera and camera mods, so how is it going Steve (when you get back from work tommorrow).

Thanks

Wayne.

Where would I find a lens mount for a custom-built camera? Is there a supplier for components like this?

If I'm going to use 35mm SLR lenses, I could just buy a non-working camera body from EBay ...

A Ballows lense system was one suggestion (or make your own rail pack) there are links to others in the 35mm adapter thread.

hi everyone

I saw this ultra mini pc at The Vision Show East. It may not suit our needs, but the size is perfect...

http://www.fase.co.jp/IEEE1394en/PC-CUBE/

It is a slick computer, no doubt about it. The big failing for these applications is the lack of a good RAID interface. Under "IDE interface" they list one CF slot. The same box with the chipset that supports serial ATA RAIDs off of the southbridge (ICH5R) would be great. That keeps the data off of the PCI bus, where most of the limitations show up. That would be the ticket to a low cost, fast system.

sent them an email asking about SATA on the system...will let everyone know what happens...Steve it has gigabit...whynot pipe into that network port and record direct to disk on the PC-cube? the hard disk inside is not fast enough?

Hey Wayne,

Is he talking about the Summix camera? One thing I was curious about is wheather or not FCP HD could actually use the stream coming from whatever camera is being talked about here. It was my assumption that "DVCPRO HD" was a specific standard that the FCP would identify and therefore could interface with, as opposed to a generic 960 X 720 stream. I figured a generic stream would not register the same and thus would not be compatible, or am I wrong? If I'm wrong, then you could also use the same system for the 10 bit 4:2:2 1080p, but if I'm right, well, then no. Am I correct in assuming it's a specific codec that must be used? What's the status of the summix camera anyway?

For that matter, I'm getting kind of lost in all these different alternatives. Maybe you could make a quick summary of all the solid possibilities for me? (I know, I ask so much, but I'm just a little filmmaker in a big, scary world).

Thanks!

Laurence

As far as I know he was talking about the Sumix camera originally (I haven't read it lately). There are at least 2 cameras going in threads here (I think some individuals are also getting their own heads to make there own). If you look at the viper thread I address some of the alternatives, problem is it is in Sumix's hands and we don't really know what they are doing yet. One thing for certain they were going to sell a camera box, no comrpession, everything else has to be settled by the buyer. Maybe he knows something we don't, or he is talking about another camera.

I have personally said to Steve that maybe we should just settle for a compresed 400Mb/s steam (if available, simply giving up on higher than 720p RAW 4:4:4 streams. Maybe Firewire 800, or 1 Gigabit ethernet streams). I share your bewilderment.


Richard
Cute, I wonder how many people would confuse it with a power supply if I left it on a desk ;)

Here is one of the cases I was looking at:

http://www.eyo.com.au/details_G-3688BK.html

I also was thinking of using another cube case and using the drive bay to house the battery.

But case modders make their own (and guess what I want to do).

About the limits of transportable computer:

Steve N,

I have heard of software RAID, or Virtual Riad (VIA), but haven't had time to research them, how pratical are they for what we want to do with upto 4 drives (the consumer IDE limit).

About processing, you maybe able to get two future VIA processors at 2 Ghz running in parralell (but in main baords), at a lot cheaper and more portable, lower power cost than a twin Intel server soluton, would that be able to help the situation? Your site advocates Cameralink as an interface, but unless we have a cheap card for that, would a multiple link USB2.0/3.0, Firwire, or Ggabit Ethernet be a viable cheaper solution for users. There is talk of satuating the PCI bus, but many advanced internal PC bus architechtures go beyond that (I think VIA/s internal bus was 266MB then 1GB/s and I don't know where it went from there, and AGP, Intel's PCI-Express and AMDs greatly exceed this) so if these interfaces by pass the PCI bus it need not be a problem.

Thanks

Wayne.

Here is a link with tests regarding a RAID O array with 4 SATA drives (they claim a 200M/s Read - Write sustainable speeds):
http://www.barefeats.com/hard35.html

<<<-- why not pipe into that network port and record direct to disk on the PC-cube? the hard disk inside is not fast enough? -->>>

Yes, I think that's the basic problem. The SATA 150 standard will run at 150 MB/sec, but IIRC, most desktop drives won't handle above 50 MB/sec or so.

For uncompressed HD, we need between 80 and 120 MB/sec, depending on the bit depth and frame rate. We will also be limited by the sustained throughputs of Gigabit Ethernet (approx 115 MB/sec) and Firewire 800 (approx 80 MB/sec).

Valeriu's link shows that a relatively inexpensive 4-drive array can handle 184+ MB/sec on a sustained write, which should be plenty. (A 3-drive array might be enough.)

Wayne,
There are two reasons why we are proponents of camera link at the high end (we do USB 2.0 at the low end and GigE for medium speed). First, honestly, most of our applications are industrial and camera link is *the* standard in non-cinema connectivity. Second, it is very fast and extendable. Base camera link has 3 8 bit channels which can be used as two 12 bits. 64 bit frame grabbers are available with dual base or full interfaces which doubles that. Data rates are high - the standard clock goes to 66MHz (at 24 bits) but the newer cards can do 85MHz. This means that you could run the AltaSens chip - 12 bit, dual tap 75MHz over to a single frame grabber.

Cost isn't so bad - our basic bundle with a camera (32 bit frame grabber, 2m cable, power supply and cable and some basic GUI software) is $500. The 64 bit/66MHz frame grabbers start at $1200 but will be dropping soon.

I've been talking to Xilinx (FPGA manufacturer with an HD-SDI demo board) about HD-SDI based on suggestions in this group but the spec maxes out at about 75MHz of data - you could do 1920x1080x30fps but not the 60fps the AltaSens is rated at. The design uses a Virtex II part - pretty expensive. This would be more cost than camera link. I'm not sure how 12 bit support works - the apps guy was talking 10 bit.

You can also get a cardbus camera link interface, but then you need to solve the disk recording rate if you go to a portable. There is also a PC/104+ frame grabber available to make a small card stack portable recorder.

GigE has its benefits - the best being 100m from camera to PC. Some of the latest chipsets from Intel put a gigabit interface off the southbridge - no bus bandwidth as you suggested. Still only 800Mbps continuous. Again not up to 2MPix x 12 bit x 60 fps, even with data packing. Not even 8 bit. Maybe 12 bit packed x 30fps but that will be close.

<<<-- Originally posted by Steve Nordhauser : Wayne,
First, honestly, most of our applications are industrial and camera link is *the* standard in non-cinema connectivity. Second, it is very fast and extendable.

Cost isn't so bad - our basic bundle with a camera (32 bit frame grabber, 2m cable, power supply and cable and some basic GUI software) is $500. The 64 bit/66MHz frame grabbers start at $1200 but will be dropping soon.
-->>>

Yes that is why I like the camera link interface, it is a good alternative standard to the very expensive SDIHD, but how expensive is it really (I know that it is limited and that is why I don't personally like it). If we can start up an alternative standard in interfacing (anybody that wants to interface to standard TV industry interfacing can pay the extra fo it, but we don't need it to do work). Most of my suggestions of late piont to an alternative work flow to the industry standard.

Now that $500 price cameralink (which I take is if you buy a camera as well), is still $500 more than USB2.0 ($100 I would not even care). So what about my suggestion of multilinking USB2.0, Gigethernet (but wht main board will; do that), SATA RAID/virtual; RAID/Software RAID, or cameralink board on PCI-Express, or AGP, is that possible? I personally have seen a reference to some new consumer HD serial interface that does around 5Gbit/s. Then there is the 10 Gigabit ethernet standard, is that comming to a motherboard chipset anytime soon? Sorry to harp on about it, just thinking of the whole market, top to bottom, would probably be good for industrial applications aswell. Look forward to seeing example footage from your cameras here in the near future.

I personally think that single chip true 720 and acceptable 1080 is good, which works along the data rates you mentioned. When these things get blown up big screen true is better unless you are going above 1080. If there is a propper cheap interface/software workflow solution I think there is market for single and 3chip boxs.

If you go to the link at the begining of this thread tot he Russian network camera, he has some cheap opensource FPGA compression designs for gigbit erthenet in his cameras.

Sorry for this bulk of writing Steve, it is late.

Thanks

Wayne.

<<<-- Originally posted by Steve Nordhauser :

64 bit frame grabbers are available with dual base or full interfaces which doubles that. Data rates are high - the standard clock goes to 66MHz (at 24 bits) but the newer cards can do 85MHz. This means that you could run the AltaSens chip - 12 bit, dual tap 75MHz over to a single frame grabber.

Cost isn't so bad - our basic bundle with a camera (32 bit frame grabber, 2m cable, power supply and cable and some basic GUI software) is $500. The 64 bit/66MHz frame grabbers start at $1200 but will be dropping soon. -->>>

OK, just for clarification -- will one of your existing frame grabbers handle the full resolution/full frame rate of the AltaSens 3560 -- 60 fps? Which one and how much does it cost?

Also ... you mentioned that you have new cameras coming out soon. Can I assume that one of them will be based on the AltaSens 3560 chip? Any idea about price range?

Also also ... I notice that some of your frame grabbers come with an SDK. How is the SDK licensed -- can we develop GPL'd software with it?

Thanks!

Steve I need you to call me asap I have your camera and need help!
thanks!

<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Scott :
Also ... you mentioned that you have new cameras coming out soon. Can I assume that one of them will be based on the AltaSens 3560 chip? Any idea about price range?

Also also ... I notice that some of your frame grabbers come with an SDK. How is the SDK licensed -- can we develop GPL'd software with it?

Thanks! -->>>

Yery good pickup Rob. You know that those ITX boards have PCI, I am wondering how many pixels hor/vert to get an effective resolution 1080 picture, and can we squeeze it through one cameralink PCI frame grabber card?

I also would love to see what type of cameras they release shortly in their HD range.

Does anybody have an updated list of the best lowcost sensors, I would like to veiw them, their has to be a stand out value sensor out there somewhere? Wonder what Foveon is doing?

Wayne, seems to me that Micron is doing the best lowcost chips..I have the Silicon Imaging camera and am going to start some tests! foveon is 4fps I think and the fillfactory chips suck ass in image quality the rockwell chips are great but cost alot

<<<-- Originally posted by Obin Olson : Wayne, seems to me that Micron is doing the best lowcost chips..I have the Silicon Imaging camera and am going to start some tests! foveon is 4fps I think and the fillfactory chips suck ass in image quality the rockwell chips are great but cost alot -->>>

Yeah, I'm really disappointed that Foveon hasn't come out with something suitable for HD. Their 10 megapixel (actually 2268 x 1512 x 3 layers) sensor could be perfect if it had a decent frame rate. The diagonal size is 25mm which is getting close to 35mm.

I'm curious -- How much more do the Rockwell/AltaSans chips cost vs. the Micron chips?

That's what Foveon has on their website at the moment, but who knows what might be coming. I'll make some private enquiries.

What is this Altsens (Rockwells??) chip and how does it compare in cost. I still hold to my 80/90% auguement, but not 50%. There must be more manufacturers out there, though I would still like a pro opinion on the perforamnce of all the chips. I'm walking aroud like a sensor with an inkblot on it at the moment, in respect to their true performance.

Rob,
The chip cost is the tip of the iceberg. The data rate from the Micron is 60Mpix/sec, the Rockwell is 150Mpix/sec. I suspect most people will use the Micron in 8 bit mode, the Rockwell in 12 bit (unpacked so 16 bit) mode. The system costs for the acquistion, wider PCI bus and disk bandwidth will chew up much more than the camera costs.

A person could buy a Rockwell/Altasens based camera and use a 1280x720 window initially to keep the cost down I suppose......

On sensors, I agree with Obin - Micron is the leader right now in low cost, low noise chips. Fill Factory is full frame shutter. It is like saying that a mustang is better than a humvee because it accelerates better. Low noise, high sensitivity is not what Fill Factory does.

Sorry, I am proprietorising cost sensitive issues down the line. There is a miminal cost for a miniminal (or desired) resolution/datarate, that we accept and is why we are willing to go three chip if cheap enough. When it comes to splitting hairs on chip perforamnce/cost, I'd rather go with the one that is much cheaper, or much better, and get much better value either way, just pragmatic.

So Steve, for a cinematic sensor you would chose the Micron that was suggested in the Viper thread, over all others, a week ago? I must say I think my upper limit for a sensor would be $1K single chip (divide by three for three chip).

Still wish I could read those techncial specs properly.

<<<-- Originally posted by Wayne Morellini : What is this Altsens (Rockwells??) chip and how does it compare in cost. -->>>

http://www.altasens.com/products.html

Aspect ratio - 16x9
Resolution - 1936 x 1086
Size - 2/3"
Up to 60 fps progressive (for the 3560 model)
Depth - 12 bits (Bayer)

It's the chip used in the Kinetta camera (http://www.kinetta.com) I haven't been able to determine the price range yet.

Steve -- Thanks for the info. You're right about the chip cost. What it boils down to me, though, is I really want a 10- or 12-bit 1080p solution that will provide 40+ fps. I'm really trying to determine the cost of an entire system that meets this critera and then decide what direction to go. That's why I was asking about the various frame grabbers and upcoming cameras from your company. Perhaps I should wait 8-16 weeks and see? :-)

It would be a fine thing to wait 8-12 weeks for an announcement. I'll do it here. You will be the first to know. I don't have exact numbers but the Altasens is something like 20x to 50x the cost of the Micron.

I think there are three groups here:
Low cost, very good quality - the Micron 1280x720 @24-30 (or 60)fps single chip will be fine.

Medium cost, excellent quality - Altasens, single chip

Hey, commercial cameras with recorders are $100K+, so $20K is a great deal - 3 chip, the Altasens.

Almost all of the discussions in Alternative Imaging Methods can be viewed this way. Each requires a different camera and system.

well,

this is extremelly well explained, i mean the three main (and different) needs what Steve Nordhauser just noted here before.

personally - i will start with the cheapest solution and therefore learn (i hope! :)) something - and not spend tons of $$$. especially if there is also solution for slomo.

just a thought.

by the way - Steve, thank you for your help. i suggest you officially for the first DVinfo community medal! :))

filip

Hmmmm

Okay, I guess I'm a little confused. For some reason, I thought it was between medium 720p at around 3-5k and high quality at around 10k. Not sure 20k will work, but then if that covers the whole NLE as well, I guess not a bad wrap. If not, can't do 20k for just a camera. but beggars can't be choosers, I guess. Either way, thanks for everything, we love ya steve.

Laurence,
I was talking system prices to build one system. The first level - low cost, very good quality would be a micron camera, 720p, capture, PCI-32 computer with a two drive serial ATA RAID. Maybe $4K plus recording software.

The second level would be a PCI-X computer with at least a 4 drive RAID. I don't have real prices yet but around $8K-$10K.

The third level involves recording three 150Mpix/sec (300MB/sec for uncompressed raw data) simultaneously. Plus 3x the camera cost of #2 plus a prism. I took a hipshot at $20K. The results should be as good as any commercial HD camera.

Steve,

So are these real-world cameras that your company is offering right now, or are they cameras that are coming to market?

For instance, the Micron 720p camera or the Altasens 1080p camera, were are those currently in the production/release cycle?

Also is there anywhere we can see moving samples of these chips? Still shots are nice, but they don't tell the whole story, especially when you're wanting to evaluate motion characteristics.

Thanks.

The Micron 720p is available now in camera link and gigabit ethernet our model SI-1300.

Obin just received an SI-1300-RGB-CL. Maybe he can provide some independent feedback. If he wants, I will host a few video clips if he doesn't have a good host.

Other cameras will be announced in the next 8-12 weeks that will be of interest to this group. For specifics on our cameras, please contact me directly.
steve@siliconimaging.com

Hi Everyone -

Steve, thank you for all your help. The end result seems to be that for an investment of $20k, we'd have a camera with modular sturdy design and the abilty to upgrade chips as they become available. The repair would be as simple as removing a faulty sound card on a pc; the output would be equal to michael manns current movie shot on a viper, and this camera would easily handle any of the demands for tv broadcast. It amounts to about a month's rental of a viper , but leaves us with a camera we own and are able to upgade. In the upgrade, we'd come here and sell the old chip for someone else who is building a camera ...


this is very very good news

obin
I found a great site on the bolex16 camera
http://homepage.newschool.edu/~schlemoj/film_courses/bolex.html

Richard let me tell you what is very very good news! Steves single cmos 1300 camera!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I got some test images today from this unit by holding a film lens up infront of the camera and I can already tell it's a good chip - very good- can't wait to get the lens from Steve and get some real footage from this beast! I will setup a lit scene in our studio and shoot food/people/objects and also go outside and shoot sunlit stuff for all you boardpeople to take a look at....I will say that cameralink stuff is no childs play but I think that once I get the hang of all the software options things will be good )))))))))))WE NEED SOMEONE TO CODE A SIMPLE VERSION OF CAPTURE SOFTWARE FOR CAMERA LINK((((((((((((

anyone ???

obin, that is great news . I have built a agus35 with a piece of ground glass from a optical company . the glass is 1500 grit
It works perfect on mini dv. It might be high enough quality for your new camera.

man that would be awesome if it is...can you send me info on the stuff?

oolsen1@ec.rr.com

Obin,
I don't know too much about Windows environement, but here is a a link for some video capture software:
http://www.alternaware.com/

thanks for the post, I contacted Jeff via email asking if he would care to talk about code writing on this project....lets hope he digs the idea !

Hi

The 20* to 50* price of the Altasns over the Micro, is what I was getting at elsewhere (but if it is still below $1K single chip, it is good).

The problem with the thread is that the Summix is aimed at a very cheap rate, and once you go above 10K there are several planned commercial pro alternatives (the Kinnetta he most famouse). So really I think the sub 10K stuff is the place still to be developed.

The 720p Micron is doing well, but how is new (unreleased) multi mpixel version compare in picture performance? I notice that the more pixels sensors get the worst there picture performance compared to the lower res models.

I'm curiouse, what is the real resolution of your 1300 camera after filtering? Somebody mentioned a big real res drop to 1440 horizontal from bayer on 1920 chips. That is why I prefer 1080 if a single chip.

To all:

The problem, if the rumour be true, that Canon and Sony are going to use the same sensor out of a Sony Box camera. What ever we do it has to at least match this sensor, because in the end a portable solution (icluding the capture computer) is going to cost at least the same as the Sony HDV (though a single 720p could be cheaper).

Thanks

Wayne.

<<<-- 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?