glad to hear the altasense should work.. so is the filter optical or is it a chip??

btw, obin.. any chance of you having a 'do-it-yourself' guide for building your camera similar to the micro-35 deal..?? my hope is to still be able to use alot of your insights to construct something alittle cheaper on my own..

thanks and keep up the good fight.

Obin, can you suggest, how can anybody get a single 3562?

A do-it-your-self guide for a FPGA hardware camera? I don't think so!
that is like asking for a do it your self panasonic varicam system...LOL

if you want a chip all you need to do is order one from any of the chip makers..not hard at all..the altasense chip with nothing to work with it but a serial port is $1500

Thread re-opened (and the other Obin thread has been merged into this one).

I had to remove a lot of garbage from a couple of people. In order to avoid problems in the future, please take note. These are not suggestions -- these are RULES:

1. Do not hijack threads. If you want to talk about something else, then start a new thread.

2. No personal attacks. If you have an issue someone, just use the "Ignore This User" feature in your Controls link on the nav bar at the top. You'll never hear from them again.

3. No personal attacks. No flaming.

4. No flaming. No personal attacks. Get it?

5. If you spot an offensive post that you perceive to be a personal attack or a flame against you, DO NOT RESPOND TO IT. Rather, use the "Report This Post" function. I'll come in and remove the offensive material. If you do respond, then you're part of the problem. I'll boot you as well as the other guy. There is NO JUSTIFICATION HERE for escalating a flame war. We don't do flame wars at DV Info Net. That's what makes us different from other message boards.

6. Re-read steps 1 through 5. Thanks,

every camera has an optical IR cut filter for outdoor sunlight. Altasense is the same, we must buy one and mount it on the cmos

can anyone here help me understand this chart?

it's for the ALtasense color separation

dv3productions.com/qe_rgb.pdf

www.dv3productions.com/Altasense3562-8bit.tif

anyone see any reason from this image (other then it's a lin-bayer filter) not to use this chip? I am about to buy one!

does anyone have a good bayer algorithm to apply on it?

What was the original resolution of that TIF?

1920 x 1080 with bayer filter is the orginal resolution (procam 3562 has active a little more than 1920x1080, but the few extra pixels would likely be cropped).

There's alot of jaggy edges on that image. It appears it was a lower res then resized larger with a bad resizer.

More likely because of the simple debayer algorithim used. Simple debayer can cause colour fringing and all sorts of artifacts between high contrasting areas.

I did not know that the color artifacts are from the de-Bayer..I was thinking it was a lens issue ;)

Keith did you happen to pickup and bookmark any of the links for high quality bayer algorithms in this thread? I can't seem to find them when I search...

we will need to try one of them when we can..

So of the colour fringing between high contrast is easily attributed to bad debay. That looks to be the case for that because the fringing isn't as uniform as it would be as a lens issue, but it is hard to tell.

And unfortunately i never did bookmark any of the debayer.

Obin,
Congratulations and good luck with the new incarnation of your project. Way to go...
Have a loook at this CL script (http://www.cybercom.net/~dcoffin/dcraw/dcraw.c) (dcraw) for Linux to convert RAW images from digital stills cameras by Dave Coffin, or look at this page (http://www.cybercom.net/~dcoffin/dcraw/index.html) to get more info. Could be a starting point.

Jason, have you ever seen footage from the Kinetta camera? I don't know of anyone who has ever seen working images from it..

nothing at all, the kinetta page has never ever changed,
and footage ?? Maybee I'm to stupid to find one
maybe I'm not reading my SMPTE Mag
but nothing found sorry...
Maybe someone know's if there is a worling
prototype out.....

About the board: it is just a development board ($2500).
I think it would be better for you to just make your own.You can find any info you could need about the ADV202 and development boards at Analog Devices home page.
They have good info about the chip.If you need more just ask them and they will gladly help you ;).
They also manufacture a lot of usefull stuff too.Also don't forget to look into Cypress home page.They have lots of stuff included SATA and GigE PHY's...

check out opencores.org, there is a lot of IP for fpga ... like DCT, huffman coding etc ... almost everything to do a JPEG/MPEG encoder.

http://www.opencores.org/projects.cgi/web/video_systems/overview

btw, there is somethings about the Dirac codec on the frontpage, looks like the BBC is really pushing it (already some vhdl code O_O)

http://www.opencores.org/projects.cgi/web/dirac/overview



i found some raw HD sample.
if anybody want it, they are there : ftp://ftp.ldv.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de/dist/test_sequences/

Hello,
This is my first post, but i read this thread over one year.
It is great to see that Obin will have a own camera. Will this be a one ore 3 x 2/3" Altasens ?
And i asked my self, whats about prices?
My next question is why does his mini itx board not work, even though he said more than on times that it is ready in a few days.

Jason, have you ever seen footage from the Kinetta camera? I don't know of anyone who has ever seen working images from it..

Yep :)

It will be shipping end-of-year since they're actually waiting for the 3570.

Also for those wondering if there's a "working" prototype, the answer to that is "yes" too. It's very functional and looks/functions great.

Steven,
I have tried to watch the HD footage (without success) The extension is .yuv
What program will play those files? Thanks.

Dan,
Try GraphicsConverter if you can find it or XnView. Do a search at versiontracker.com for any other image conversion and viewer tools.

Their are convertors listed under the software directory and use commandline to convert thee files i would assume. I'm downloading a file now to try and see if i can watch or convert it

yep, try to use those "yuv2avi" utils listed under "software", but they looks very fishy to me, as i tried them, and got some artefact on the video (or it's wmp9 the culprit and is too lame to resize a 1080p to a 1024x768 display).
If those utilities don't work for you, you can also try to use the ffmpeg project (there is some win32 build) to convert it to anything you want, but if you're not familiar with command line, it will really be a pain in the a** to figure the options out.

You'll need an YV12 decoder too, i use FFdshow for that as it's the best video decoding directshow filter around. With a Xvid/Divx install you should be fine too.


wait, it's the ffdshow resize which gave me artifacts, nothing else.
Those tools work just fine

what is wrong with the 3562 Jason that makes them wait for the new chip to come out? I am looking to buy the 3562 but now you have me wondering...

thanks for info

mini itx boards don't have enough datarate to deal with the images we want to see and save in realtime..ou must have a special pci-x card with a built in hard disk scsi, if not you will never display and save in realtime on a computer

The 3562 is fine, it's just that the 3570 has some more features and some "bug" fixes like any new version of anything. If you're wondering whether there are any show-stoppers, the answer to that is a definite "no". It's a great chip. But Jeff and company have been adding a lot more features, etc. in the meantime to the camera itself, and now I guess they're thinking that they might as well wait for the new imagers to make their package complete.

Dont' expect to get any till sometime next year though-if you want to wait till this time next year for the 3570 then I guess you can wait.

But it would sort of be like waiting for a new Pentium V or something like that, and when that comes around, there'll be something else new.

The 3562 works, and if you want to use it, use it.

Jason IYHO is the 3562 worth a camera being built around it?. From what you have seen would you shoot with it on any project? or just lowbudget stuff?

I need to get some feedback as I can't seem to get any images from Altasens taken with the 3562...


Jason, again thank you so much for your help as you are the only person I know that has seen 3562 images...

BTW we are still working with the ATA spec and getting hard disks to write/read data for the system..no real updates at this time ;)...

Obin,

Are you using two 7200rpm laptop HDs in RAID 0? If so, you should be able to get 1080 @ 24fps in 10bit, but probably not 12 bit, unless you do some kind of compression.

I just can't stand to see this thread so far down the page.. How is the project going Obin? Also I just learned an interesting tidbit for what its worth; the OLED display inside the Kinetta costs $6000!

plowing away at it Rob at this point, hardware is not an easy task..but would I expect it to be at this point? LOL

not much to say at this point..still getting disks to talk with chips..;)

got this from Steve Nordhauser
..................................................................................................
We do have the SI-1920HD which does use the Altasens.
Camera link $3995 USD camera alone
with a 64 bit frame grabber $4995
Gigabit ethernet $4995

We are working on a software package for the SI-1920HD that will work with the gigabit interface, provide 24fps of 12 bit lossless HD recording to disk and a live preview window. It has an exporter to write AVI, sequential TIFF and other formats. This will be released at $1995 but is being sold now for $1495 to early adopters with at least a year of updates.
Regards,
.................................................................................................

it's way cheaper as a Kinetta and not much more $$ as some "high end " DV HD stuff. So what
ronald

We do have the SI-1920HD which does use the Altasens.

We are working on a software package for the SI-1920HD that will work with the gigabit interface, provide 24fps of 12 bit lossless HD recording to disk and a live preview window.

Please put into layman's terms. I own FX1E but would like to get better film camera. I don't understand much of technical stuff but I am familiar with picture quality from 1. FX/Z1, 2. F900 and 3. F950, all recorded to tape.

How would overall quality for film out compare? Would it be close to F900, or somewhere between F900, F950, considering all used super high quality lenses? How would low light performance compare? What would I need for complete production package, how much would cost? When would be available? How much harder would work with it be compared to say F900? Does it record directly to hard drive or to computer?

Thanks,

Radek

Roughly 16gs? Not bad, would have to see some samples first of course.

The camera looks to record to a computer and all your other questions can be answered once footage is available to test with.

no "real" news yet...still working on disk writing...


sent our dvx100 out to get a ReelStream HD out 4:4:4 from it...

working hard...lots of work.. ;) oh, almost forgot, I got a wakeboard for the weekends.. ;)

hmmm...Epix sent me an email saying they have upgraded the board so that it does NOT push 16bit images over the pci buss..it now packs to 12bit...arrgg!! and to think that would have been enough headroom for 24p 1080 4:4:4!!!!


arrgg....maybe I should take a look at the "software" again???

Obin thats great news! Get the software working! Having the working software solution won't mean that you can't continue work on your new project, and it will give you results sooner rather than later, not to mention that it will give the possiblity of really seeing what the Altasens is made of. A fully working version of the software could give great insight into the hardware solution, plus I really want to get my greedy little hands on it!

I still think it would be better for Epix to just add , maybe, some little huffman to their board (if they can cause I don't know their hardware), cause if not I fear someone else will do it very soon....:S

Back again. That pricing and new product information was meant to be private information - I don't like to post anything that is not shipping or do sales in this group.

To answer Ben's comment, yes $2K for software. You can ask Obin the challenges of stable real-time recording. It means that you can build an uncompressed 1080p, 24fps, 12 bit HD recording station (not a portable camera like Obin is doing) for $5K (camera), $2K (software) and maybe $1.5K (64 bit computer with SATA RAID). Use a video splitter and bring a video cable back to the camera head to monitor the capture. It is not a Kinetta, but it is under $10K for a recording system.

Could use this computer?
http://eu.shuttle.com/en/DesktopDefault.aspx/tabid-72/170_read-11119/

What are system requirements?

What is stream size?

Does system includes compression?

How would quality compare to Kinetta, Sony F900, F950, if we used best lenses?

Could you post links to products?

Will you be able turn off dead CCD pixels?

How much resolution you lose with Bayer filter? I read somewhere that get 25% decrease in resolution, turning 1920 into effective 1440 pixels. Is correct? If not, how many % loss?

Radek

10k is pretty good for an uncompressed 1080p system. But if you go with an FPGA, I don't see why you couldn't get the list price of a complete integrated 1080p camera down to $3500-4500. At that price, you'd melt the whole industry.

Of course, I'm no electrical engineer...

The main issues are bandwidth - camera head to the PC, PC bus in and back out to the RAID and RAID continuous throughput.

1920x1080, 12 bit, packed 24fps is about 75MB/sec average. This is a 64bit/66MHz PC, 2 drive SATA RAID. No compression in recording. Sometime later maybe.

Our camera head should be equal to or better than another Altasens 3562 design. We will have a 3570 when available. Other raw data recorders may have more nice features like OLED viewfinders that add value (and cost) but do not directly influence the quality of the recorded images. We are working on our software to assist post processing right now. For more information, contact me off the list or go to the web address in my sig file.

On Bayer, I've heard the 25% number before, also 30%. It depends on what color you look at. For red or blue primary colored objects, it is much worse. For something with a mix of RGB, it might be nearly zero loss with the proper algorithm. So, I'll give you a very qualitative 'it depends'.

Could use this computer?
http://eu.shuttle.com/en/DesktopDefault.aspx/tabid-72/170_read-11119/

What are system requirements?

What is stream size?

Does system includes compression?

How would quality compare to Kinetta, Sony F900, F950, if we used best lenses?

Could you post links to products?

Will you be able turn off dead CCD pixels?

How much resolution you lose with Bayer filter? I read somewhere that get 25% decrease in resolution, turning 1920 into effective 1440 pixels. Is correct? If not, how many % loss?

Radek

Ben, I am an electrical engineer with an FPGA background. They are not holy water - they bring in as many demons as they exorcise. True, if I wanted to build a very low cost camera with a direct HD interface, fixed res viewfinder, fixed file format - I could do it very well with FPGAs (and the right designer). For a more flexible product, a CPU is nice and I'm not a believer in adding any preprocessing that potentially loses quality before recording. Then you might as well buy a DV camcorder.

10k is pretty good for an uncompressed 1080p system. But if you go with an FPGA, I don't see why you couldn't get the list price of a complete integrated 1080p camera down to $3500-4500. At that price, you'd melt the whole industry.

Of course, I'm no electrical engineer...

Ben, I am an electrical engineer with an FPGA background. They are not holy water - they bring in as many demons as they exorcise. True, if I wanted to build a very low cost camera with a direct HD interface, fixed res viewfinder, fixed file format - I could do it very well with FPGAs (and the right designer). For a more flexible product, a CPU is nice and I'm not a believer in adding any preprocessing that potentially loses quality before recording. Then you might as well buy a DV camcorder.

I'm not downplaying what you are working on now and trying to bring to the market, but a camera for under 5k with direct HDD recording with some level of compression definitely has a place in this market. If you provide both, you can have a top quality system and a easier to use portable system to offer.

Top quality = uncompressed RGB
Direct to HDD = Huffman, Bayer, Cineform codec...etc

True, if I wanted to build a very low cost camera with a direct HD interface, fixed res viewfinder, fixed file format - I could do it very well with FPGAs (and the right designer).

Yup. I just don't know why you need flexibility. Mark the product up $1000, move a thousand units (which would be easy), make a million dollars. If the needs of the market change, make a new camera. Lather, repeat, retire.

I'm not advocating any pre-processing of the image; do some simple lossless compression on the raw data and pass it off to an in-camera RAID, a la Kinetta..

I'd buy a system for under $5000... at $10,000? No. I'm sorry but if you want to appeal to the type of independent filmmaker who would stray from big established companies like sony/canon/panasonic then you have to be competitive on price.

The thing you have to understand about these camera systems is that they'll never be mainstream. There's too many unknowns. The functionality of this $10,000 piece of equipment is dependent on inconsistent things like the speed and stability of your computer, the compatibility of the software, and the reliability of harddrives which are seen by many to be unreliable. On top of all this, nobody wants to drag a PC around with them on their shoot and people will be hesitant to give $10,000 to some company that they've never heard of. At this pricepoint, the risks start to outweigh the rewards. Sony offers a camera for $3000 that is 1080i, shoots on cheap mini-dv tapes, includes a lens, its footage can be edited in realtime with realtime effects on most NLEs, it records sound, has a shit load of features that will never be available on these cameras and with a $500 micro35 lens adapter shoots some pretty convincing filmlike images.

Your profit margin might be higher with a $10,000 system but I promise you that you will sell so many more if its a few thousand dollars. It doesn't have to be 1080p uncompressed. Honestly, I think the most appealing aspects of a camera system like this are the adjustable aspect ratio, variable framerates (super slow-mo), interchangable lenses, and the opportunity to have something that you just plug into a laptop and you're good to go. The higher the resolution and the less the compression the greater the strain on your system until it bogs the process down.

Offer a camera with software for less then $5000 that can run from a laptop and you will make a killing. I know because I'm your target market. You're trying to appeal to low-budget independent filmmakers. I think the thing you have to realize is that at $5000 you're competing with minidv and mini-hdv cameras. At $10,000 you're competing with 35mm film. You can shoot a feature film on 35mm for less then $10,000.. The other thing is that the technology is moving so fast that in another year or two this $10,000 camera will be obsolete. You have to offer something cheap and quick.

This is just my two cents but independent filmmaking is all about weighing the quality vs. the convenience vs. the price and you have a rare opportunity to offer all three, if you don't get greedy.

Word.

Steve, the indy market is $5k and under. The pro market wants real pro features, and will never be comfortable shooting with an industrial cam. $10k is no man's land.

You can shoot a feature on 35mm for under 10 grand? Please inform me as to how.

I believe he was meaning digital.