Hi

I have been reading about home made cameras, and I wanted to open this thread for people to post links to, and info about, homemade video camera designs. Requirements: it's an practical improvement over, or cost less than, commercial video cameras.

This also includes camera modifications to improve the video output of the camera (see below)., and is open to cheap alternative video and HD cameras.

Please keep this thread alive and post all the designs you know of.


To kick things off:

http://www.geocities.com/researchhd/New_HD_Cameras.html

Here's my 25 fps progressive scan, direct-to-disk 1/2" x 3CCD camcorder:
http://home.teleport.com/~gdi/vancecam.htm

this is exellent thread to start!

i am DREAMING about my own home made camera. so probably thanks to that thread it's closer than one can think - especially if you look to dan's exellent work!

i'm in!


filip

Yes, I rembember this one, I saw it in the Hot Gear section of Pixel Monger.

Here is the Scott Billups Beta SP camera converted to direct to disk:

http://www.pixelmonger.com/hg_cam.html

(Bottom of the page).

The following Russian effort was pionted out to me, it's for sale but shows a lot of initiatives for home made camera innovators to look at.

http://www.elphel.com/

http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT2441343146.html

http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT2171151224.html

http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT9560070658.html

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS5490668192.html

http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT4739871225.html

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS5024081278.html

Dan: can you tell us a bit more about how the camera is holding
up in actual use? As several people have asked by now it would
be great to see some footage from the camera. I'm sure Chris
can be assisting you in hosting such a file.

Don't forget about the VanceCam (http://home.teleport.com/~gdi/vancecam.htm). Dan Vance is a member here as well.

Hey Wayne,

You posted this link:

http://www.geocities.com/researchhd/New_HD_Cameras.html

Man, I've seen this website quoted from a zillion people, been to it a zillion times, and still have no idea who's web site it is. Who's making this camera and when are they coming out?:


" 2. $10K SOLUTION - new camera is being developed with one 2/3" CCD, 1080p, variable frame rate, up to 60 fps, 24p is supported. The advantage of 1 CCD is elimination of color fringing, typical of 3 CCD prism systems. Minimal MPEG2 compression. Interchangable 35 mm SLR camera mount (Pentax PK and Nikon). Low cost 35 mm still camera lenses will be used."


Thanks

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned one of the cameras that has gotten the most press at NAB this year. The kinetta camera at http://www.kinetta.com

Can't wait to see that footage

Ray

<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Lohman : Dan: can you tell us a bit more about how the camera is holding
up in actual use? As several people have asked by now it would
be great to see some footage from the camera. -->>>

I was going to hold off until I could get my 2-minute trailer done and post that, but maybe I'll grab something just to show how the progressive scan looks and post that.

My film is 70% shot now. I have about 140GB of footage (I was paranoid at the start and saved everything!). Partway through shooting, some hot pixels developed in the camera. So far I've been unable to find a replacement CCD block, so hopefully I can minimize them in post.

Most recently I modified the shutter to 150 degrees, so that I can shoot some night scenes under mercury-vapor lights. Because it's a PAL camera, those kinds of lights (and fluorescents) cause a pulsation with a 180 degree shutter. The camera itself does have syncho-scan, but not in frame-integration mode, so I can't adjust the electronic shutter in progressive scan mode, unfortunately.
Overall, it's perfoming great, and holding up well over many weeks of shooting.

Ray-
Thanks for that link. That is a truely incredible camera!! Its obvious in the final design stage but what I couldnt get from the site is the when and how much $ they expect for the camera. Also it mentions that the camera can use 35mm cine lenses but does that mean it uses 35mm film gate size sensor? It doesnt say one way or another. Anyone have any more info then whats already available on the site?

-Brett Erskine

I heard that the Kinetta is going to cost around $20 without lens.

Hi Laurence and Ray, I have been taking a bit of a break at the moment, but I was just going to reference the Kinetta, as well. It's expected price is one reason this thread exists.

Laurence, I don't know who runs that website, I can't even remember where I got the link from, it could have been a link of a link from here, etc etc. I have printed and read all the stuff yet, but I am curious if anybody understands where this guy is coming from, he is equating latitude with compression?? As far as I know he is talking about light lattitude, which has nothing to do with compression, unless the compression routine somehow limits the lattitude (squashs the definition or range of light values).

There will be lots of stuff like this that is thought, but may never actually get finished, or succeed, so it is just a matter of waiting and seeing the results.

But the piont with this one is that the Juan Panasonic DVX100 direct to disk project may yeild knowledge for this guy/woman to do the same with the JVC.

Juan's 4:4:4 12-bit Uncompressed DVX100
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20332

Hi everyone -

I think we are the future of image acquisition! The new modular camera will allow us the lenses of our choice, the chips of our choice (CCD, CMOS), raw capture, and eventual output to the codec of our choice.

All this with repair and upgrade similar to a PC.

This is a link to what that camera will look like: http://www.kinetta.com/home.php

Isn't this the same post that turned up in the Alternative Viper thread a few days ago? The price is still a bit expensive. Maybe if there was a cheap 720p edition with quality sensor, you could charge double for 1080p/i with extra quality and features, and double again for Super HD with more quality and features ($10K ($5K would be much better), $20K, and $40K). But I'm happy that it is mentioned here anyway.

I possibly have another manufactured HD camera for $10K. I don't know if this is related to the HD research site or not:

http://www.geocities.com/mammacow3/nab2005.htm

Round up or NAB/2004 HD cameras:
http://www.geocities.com/mammacow3/index.html

I think I would like cheap commercial alternative HD cameras defined as: cheaper than the performance equivalent standard commerical video camera, and equal or less than:

HD $10K.

Super HD $40K.

Ultra HD ($80K or less).

Special featured cameras: double the prices listed above (Super fast, super adaptable (Kinetta like) etc).

Above this these prices they begin to be expensive.

For homemade, or open source cameras, any cost would be fine.

hi everyone this a link to the chip used in the kinetta.
http://www.altasens.com/technology.html

Thanks Richard.

http://www.geocities.com/indiecinema/Concept_HD_Systems.html

Fits in camera body.

Concept HD looks good, but 'Where's the beef? ' --- i.e.: I don't have much confidence in a company that posts no sample clips, or even stills.
The camera does not exist, I assume.
-Les

what about a contact email address?? I mean c'mon who is doing that thing anyway?

Re-editing:

Have finally got around to reading the Concept HD site. Strange, no contact details, geocities site. But he has turned up at camcorderinfo:

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/bbs/showthread.php?s=&postid=72188#post72188

I don't know if this is finsihed or is preliminary information to see what interest there is.

On our local forum:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25296

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25808

Say everyone,

Somebody tell me the goods/bads possible prices about using something like this.

http://www.fast-vision.com/cameras/camera13.HTM#


Thanks!!!!!

wow looks like you found the ONLY company in the world using the NEW Micron global shutter chip!!! guess I better contact them asap as I think that chip kicks ass!

Well. I'm not going to get into researching the fast vision camera yet, but this is not the only fast camera I have spotted. The problem is that there are just too many options out there to choose from (and research). Maybe people need to work out the backend first, in such a way that any of these cmos modules canbe attached, and a new profile loaded to controll image acquistions? Still people to choose among the cheapest and best sensors is still needed. People in threads mentioned above might like to look into it. I just run out of time.

Note it is saying 4M pixel, is that actual sensor pixels to produce the lower res frame (would be good)?

Here is the Nab 2004, high speed camera, winner:

http://www.visiblesolutions.com/phantomv9.html

Good pictures of speeding bullet, crashes etc on the site:

http://www.visiblesolutions.com/

Fillfatory, that does the sensor for it, and for Sumix, has just released 35mm sensors:

http://www.fillfactory.com/htm/news/news.htm (SHD resolution, but 3fps)

Hey, this may sound really lame, but I was just looking at the tech specs of Final Cut Pro HD, and they make it sound like you don't need any super expensive capture card to edit in HD. Supposedly you can capture 90-160 Mbps 4:2:2 1080p at 10 bit via a normal Mac system with PCI interface (they call it uncompressed, but...).

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

Is this legit? B&H sells turnkey systems for under 5k (Although not PCI I think, so have to work that out). I know you'd be losing some quality because of the 160 Mbps cap, but maybe it would be good enough for a big screen? Maybe a viable form of acquisition with a 1080 24p chip camera connected via PCI? I assume you'd need to integrate some camera software somehow. But you'd have your NLE to boot. Somebody chime in here, tell me where I'm going wrong.

Also, what about this new Prospect HD from CineForm? 1920 X 1080 HD up to 30p and I think only software based? Although it may only come with Boxx Technologies which may be expensive, and I think it's SDI. But give me your input . . . I'm drowning in the Tech world . . . DROWNING AAHAHAHAHH!!!!!!

http://www.cineform.com/products/ProspectHD.htm

FYI fillfactory 1.3mp chips stink, really bad color...I have seen test images and we would not want to shoot what that chip makes for images

more info, that Micron "kickass" chip is good BUT it has a HUGE datarate and that is why almost no one is using it in a camera design...the guys I bought the HD cam from can make a camera from that chip but only in bulk numbers

I thought the colour issue was resolved from the other thread as some form of mistake (plus when I first saw the grey scale mobile phone picture I mistook it for a poor color picture of a grey mobile phone). Is this correct or is there a color problem?

That Micron chip datarate, is it possible to reduce it for a smaller picture format?

Well whatever they choose, as long as it resolves these issues (different fillfactory sensors/colour filter/prism cobinations are going to give different performance in these areas).

I had a quick look at the prospect HD website, expensive, but if you want to pay that price probably well worth it. On top of that you will need an expensive HD-SDI card to capture, probably meant for integration with existing SOny/Pana PRO HD setups. Didn't get down to the specific capture requirements, wherever there is another card for component.

As I understand it they are using a near lossless compression codec. I support this, but If I'm going to go direct to disk I would prefer genuine, lossless compression, as I want to run some particular software filters on all good footage. The system Silicon Imaging near looseless codec (or is that losless), and different camera link technologies maybe worth a look at:

http://www.siliconimaging.com/SPIHT.htm#Lossless

http://www.siliconimaging.com/SI%20Main3.html

Went over to sourceforge.com and printed many pages of search results for camera stuff. I remember noticing something about a video editor in that list, maybe somebody is working o a good HD editor for free.

color on the fillfactory chips suck as far as I can tel. Color on the Micron is very good, that is the chip i bought and am waiting for

a reply email when I asked about the micron:

I say. We have discussed this chip. A lot. Did you notice it is a 10 tap, 10 bit sensor. That is 100 parallel data lines. Over 500Mpix/sec. Even in 8 bit mode, this exceeds a 64 bit/66MHz bus bandwidth.

my reply was:

"but can't you limit the datarate to only what is needed for say 60fps at 1280x720?"


I am waiting for a reply....

Okay, what about the idea of Final Cut Pro HD? It may be good enough if not alot of fx yes?

I don't know much about the different video editors, I can't even remember which of the top companies announced a free standard version recently. But I have picked up Linux Format, with a section on video progams for Linux, whch I will be talking about, after I read the thing over the next couple of days, in the low cost Viper thread:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&postid=181477#post181477

If there is a good freeware editor for Linux, there maybe a free Windows version, and these people might possibly get interested in supporting custom formats for new alternative HD cameras, like we are hoping for.

The advantages of a true, completely, loosless codec, is that it is easiest to add editing support for, as all decompressed footage can be edited raw, and recomrpessed, as many times as you like without generational degregaion.

<<<-- freeware editor for Linux -->>>

There is a free/open-source video (and audio) editor for Linux called Cinelerra.

http://www.heroinewarrior.com/index.php3
http://cvs.cinelerra.org/

I played around with it a few years ago, but haven't attempted a project with it yet. It's not as mature as the commercial NLE packages, but I understand it has a fair amount of power.

Obin,
This seems like a better place to reply since you are asking general information about the monster Micron chip. Yes, you can limit the data rate by slowing the clock and doing a region of interest. The problem is that it only makes it incrementally more interesting than the 1280x720 you can do with the 1.3Mpix Micron.

We are working on a number of new cameras, due in 8-16 weeks that will address HD and global shuttering beyond what we have already. One of the reasons that I want to watch this group is to see what features the Indie market is needing.

Regards,
Steve

<<<-- Originally posted by Steve Nordhauser : One of the reasons that I want to watch this group is to see what features the Indie market is needing. -->>>

so maybe someone should say what is needed...

what I will definetelly need is posibility to work in 1280x720 resolution with faster than normal frame rate - like 50 or 100 or 125 fps (i'm from pal country, so i prefer speeds which are connected with n*25fps formula, but if the option is to work normally in 25p and have 60 or 120fps it's also ok for me as long as typical frame rate for pal (in my opinion) is also possible.

i beleive that in ntsc countries the wishes are very similar but of course connected with 30/60/120 fps solutions.

steve, thank you for watching this community. it means that we are not alone!

filip

Steve the only thing I care about on that chip is GLOBAL shutter..it HAS to be done if you want a product that will sell...I am going to use your chip/camera as a "test" for the whole idea...but I am sure I will want a global shutter camera for a final version and the highframe rate is a very good option..one that I need ALL the time for slomotion work

With most global shutter CMOS sensors there is a leakage even when the shutter is closed. On the Fill Factory, it is about 1.5% - we have seen some smearing especially when the illumination is high and the readout time is fairly slow. Will this be a problem?

The Altasens (Rockwell) HD sensor was made for this market and it is rolling shutter, but at a high frame rate. Is that an acceptable solution? The rolling shutter artifacts (time skew from top to bottom) is reduced at higher frame rates.

Also, I have been wondering, has anyone experimented with using a single sensor Bayer camera with 4x the resolution and combining four values (red/green/blue/green) into one RGB 24 to 36 bit value?

Steve that is a very good idea...if you know how that can be done, it would solve alot of the issues that single sensor cmos/ccds have in color resolution..we need more resolution from the bayer chips. Maybe a 3mp sensor scaled down to 1.3mp? I will have to see the camera your sending me...IF I can set it to shoot 60fps and I capture ONLY 30fps this would work fine, BUT if I have to shoot at 30fps to capture 30fps and then get an image smear from the rolling shutter this will be big a problem

Hi, Steve, thank you for participating in this;

As for outputting R, G, B from a bayer sensor, I think it's much more complicated (I could be wrong, though) than using a single monochrome CMOS chip for the same purposes. Again, I might be proposing something unachievable with this type of technology, but totally utilizing the power of every pixel in an imager would be a huge advantage over 50 + K digital cinema cameras currently on the market. There was a good article in one of the scientific magazines (sorry, can't remember, where I read it) about Martian rover imaging system. They used a similar principle.
The way you could capture R, G, B with only one monochrome chip would be using a digital RGB filter:
http://www.qimaging.com/ccdcameras/sciind/#
http://www.qimaging.com/datasheets/RGBFilter.pdf
The resulting frames could be premultiplied by the corresponding color (R,G,B) on a target capturing system. The same soft responsible for premultiplying would then merge the frames into final stream.
In this scenario, you'd need to triple the number of frames captured on the camera head though - something like 75 fps for a true color representation.
Steve, all this theory is coming straight from pure imagination, - I never experimented with such a configuration; just hungry for pixels :))

Personally, I think 1080p would be the better option if possible. 720 looks good but it's nice to have all the resolution for the big screen.

Hi Steve

Thanks for coming, but it does appear to be a problem as the viper thread is sort of a Sumix project (but they seem to be open as to where they get the sensor from) and this thread was to be a concise list of cameras and improvements rather that technical discussions. But I'll throw it open to this discussion even if I need to open another thread with the camera list.

Most of us are technical novices, so most of the assumptions and technical questions listed in the other two threads would be a good place to start.

About what features, I am interested in inde, documentry, news gathering, and commercals (variety of work). I think one camera can easily do all at a cheap price (compared to a professional HD camera) in higher volumes. I offer the suggestions from the Viper thread, and am interested in your SPIHT adaptive compression routine, as it appears to offer everything from true and near lossless to high compression ratios, which means people could pick what they wanted. If this was included in a independent capture to disk unit (the size of a camcorder body) connected by cameralink, or just the compression routine in the camera head through USN2.0/3.0, then the whole design, and cost, becomes simpler and cheaper. If the capture controller was also a modified Via nano-itx PC reference platform (running at 2Ghz), it could also act as edit unit further reducing cost. A seperate unit could also be used for any camera head.

The number one priority here is quality performance. So for me that includes raw footage (4:4:4 for 3 chip) preferably in true lossless compression form, but for most of us it is the performace of the of the sensor and the optics. We would all love to come close in quality performance to the big boys (your still camera market would feel the same). $5K instead of $50K (though some of us would go for $15-20K). The sensitivity, latitude etc of the camera, and trueness of colours and luminance (apart from all the other image problems), the response curves for the filtered colours, and vlow signal to niose. Maybe you could explain how to read a sensor/cameras data sheet, there are a few unfamiliar measuments in there? With low light performance, it is probably more important for live productions than for inde. I am also worried that using a Bayer filtered single chip will lower this perforamance considerably, and also sensitivity, compared to a 3 chip design, because the filter only transmits some of the light to make the pattern work, is this true? Having said that, a sensor with a feature simular to the latitude of Smal sensor's autobrite technology would be most advantageouse and go a long way to improve single chip performance (not to mention stuff like Foveon's X3 tchnology).

http://www.smalcamera.com/technology.html

For chip size people would like 35mm (though a 35mm lense adaptor is also good), I would even prefer medium format myself, but that is very unlikely. So I would say people would prefer 2/3inch and above (nothing below 1/2 inch as it might be considered a compromise, even with a good 35mm lesne adaptor design).

About super sampling single chip pixels. Is the best way to do it, to sample at each corner of the pixel and in the middle ( to minimise the variations caused by fine features moving withing a pixels zone)?

The resolutions I think people will be most interested in are 720, 1080, and SHD 8mp (pratically in that order). If a single chip could be made good enough, SHD could derive very accurate 720/1080 pixels (because of super sampling etc), and allow the camera to act as a high quality still camera. The higher resoluions are only really practical if compression is available (for true lossless of 5:1 (+), if possible.

For lenses, included adaptors to use any make of cheap secondhand slr manual/auto film lense (for 35mm lense adaptor), and dersired cinematic lenses, would be good.

A top notch 35mm lesne adaptor (if chip is smaller than 35mm), would be good (I think a simple static design could be made good enough). A image flipping mode to correct the orientation of the captured 35mm image would be good.

For the system, most people will prefer to work with nothing but a completely simple to setup and use integrated system. Unfortunately many pople would also like to use their own editors, OS/s, computers and the like. Fortunately most of this could be addressed by using a modular system that captures (if no hardware controller is used, plugin codecs can determine format), and plugins for popular editors and playback software.

Nothing else I can think of for the moment, apart from best wishes and good luck Steve.

Well guys what do you think of that list, anything more?

Thanks

Wayne.

Steve,
The filter idea all works OK as long is it's a still world ( mars , as far as we know ).
Otherwise, you get color fringing when objects move.
-Les

An adapter for still 35mm slr lenses, yes.

OK,
I asked for information. The problem is that not much comes free. There is a threshold where the sensor costs are not the most significant system cost. PCs are getting cheaper but when you start pushing a bus and mass storage above about 60-80MB/sec, there is a cost step. It happens again at around 150MB/sec. Many of the things you want to leave behind - Bayer for 3 sensor, 30fps for 60+fps, 8 bit for 12 bit, large sensor area all increase cost. A 3 chip camera is really 3 semi-independent cameras with a $1-3K prism. 3x the data to store. That is why Bayer is so popular. If you use a good algorithm, the result is pretty nice. Kodak has some excellent algorithms under patent protection right now.

Low cost compression on-the-fly would really help. I will look into Cineform. Our SPIHT doesn't apply well here - very processing sensitive and not much of an improvement over JPEG2K for most applications.

For image lattitude, we have some with dual slope capability (resets overly bright areas part way through the integration) but the result is nice for security - doesn't really extend the dynamic range - it looks strange.

Large pixels cost more - silicon costs are mainly real estate and yield. Big chips are tough on both. Of course you are right - the coupling is better. When I use my Canon lenses on my c mount cameras, the FOV is much narrower due to the smaller sensor. Are there adapters with relay lenses?

Let's see where we can go at the cost/performance level that most people can reach before hitting 8Mpix.
Steve

what you need is a ground glass system like I just made.. that way you can shoot with lowcost sensors that are small/cheap but use the 35mm lens system that gives you the look of film from the DOF 35mm priovides

Thank you, Les; a lot :)

Say,

Don't know, but figured this might come in handy to some of you guys

http://video-equipment.globalspec.com/Industrial-Directory/building_security_camera

maybe?

<<<-- Originally posted by Steve Nordhauser : OK,
I asked for information. The problem is that not much comes free. There is a threshold where the sensor costs are not the most significant system cost. PCs are getting cheaper but when you start pushing a bus and mass storage above about 60-80MB/sec, there is a cost step.
--

I assume this is where a second/third HDD is added, the via boards do have some virtual raid features.

Maybe the answer is to prioritise the requests on cost and performance and then resolution. Of course the trade off for people is wherever to have 3 1/2 720p chips or one 35mm 1080 chip.
---
For image lattitude, we have some with dual slope capability (resets overly bright areas part way through the integration) but the result is nice for security - doesn't really extend the dynamic range - it looks strange.
---

Yes, your right, it has to be done progressively to look right (no big jumps).

---
Are there adapters with relay lenses?
---

Yes there are relay, and condensor/feild lenses, possibly using special directional projection screens, much is being done in other threads recently, I made a bit of a summary of the little that I know over in the Viper thread.

---
Let's see where we can go at the cost/performance level that most people can reach before hitting 8Mpix.
Steve -->>>

Yes, my last post really breaks down to 3 levels 720 1080 and SHD, 1/2, 2/3, 35mm, each progressively more expensive. I have posted a lot of links in the viper thread. By the way what is the maximun average compression ratio for lossless?

About the 2/3rd inch sensors, I would settle for 1/2inch and use a 35mm/MF lense adaptor, but I included it because I think some people would prefer to use straight lense systems.

Thanks for the advice Steve, I had been curiouse about the price range of the splitter prism.

Laurence, really good find.