The status of the camera is that I have tickets for Moscow on 27th of October. As I was told the camera is ready, they just had some problems with Decklink card either because they mesed up the operating system in the computer they use or their own drivers screwed up. Camera is recording without problems to any uncompressed HD video recorder thou.

But the last file I posted a link to, was not impressive at all, actually it was shot from the window (maybe tinted), or something, but the picture seems to be so unclear. What do you think? It could be the window, and they worned me, that the picture is thru window, I just asked them to send me anything in normal speed so that I could evaluate the motion of the picture. Well in terms of the motion I am happy but the picture is kind of colorless.

Today or tomorrow I am expecting some more clips from them and I will post right away. But please comment, I want your opinions.

Bayer cameras all have low color to start with, I think that the camera needs processing to look good, I have never seen a raw camera that looked good till you pos it. as long as your getting true raw 10bit out you should not worry, unless they are using a crappy chip.

But then, how can I know if I am getting true raw 10bit and is the chip crappy? The only thing I can evaluate is the picture I get. What you think about what you have downloaded, does it look ok? I am not worried about the filmic look as overall in terms of DOF and motion blur, and 24p and so on, the only thing was that the colors were so low, but more than that is that it was kind of unclear picture, but maybe I am wrong.

?

what is the model and brand of CMOS? is it Kodak? Micron? etc?? FIllFactory?

Levan, it should be a Fillfactory chip, right? You said that they told you it was the same manufacturer as the one for the D-20 (only a smaller chip) and I believe that Fillfactory makes that one if I am not mistaken.

Bayer cameras all have low color to start with, I think that the camera needs processing to look good, I have never seen a raw camera that looked good till you pos it. as long as your getting true raw 10bit out you should not worry, unless they are using a crappy chip.


"True raw 10-bit" sounds limited. As sensors are linear use need at least 12-bits of linear data to get reasonable (low noise) log or gamma corrected 10-bit output.

David Newman
CTO, CineForm

right you are David, my bad ;)

maybe it's the LUPA4000 chip by fillfactory?

Levan please ask for a 50mm lens shot of a person with a light on them...I want to see DOF and also skin from that chip ASAP

thanks!

Levan please ask for a 50mm lens shot of a person with a light on them...I want to see DOF and also skin from that chip ASAP

thanks!


Hi ALL,
Obin, You may ask me Yourself-))),
about camera status: this week we’ll have new body case,
and start testing new demosaic soft, with linear we have a lot of artifacts and focusing problems.
(as You may see on our pictures-))))
I think in two days we’ll be ready with new pictures,
Levan, sorry for delay, first- we need to test Blackmagic for receiving Bayer from camera for offline demosaic and color correction. (our one -dead, we waiting new one)
we started new project with photo lenses, any ideas? first I want to discuss- do You need optic converter or it’s ok without, what resolution is enough?


Best Regards,
Alexander Kitaev
www.ctt.ru
info@ctt.ru
kit@1tv.ru

@ Kitaev
It is nice to see you here. I hope you can answers this main question about the sensor:
- What is the optical dimension of the sensor. We all need the exact size in mm x mm. (Please not only the round 1" diagonal)
- What is the exact size of one single pixel in ym
- What is the max res. in pixel x pixels (the sensor, not the camera output)
- Is it a 4:3 or a 16:9 Sensor
- Is it possible to get out 12 Bit
- What is the max. frame rate per second with max. sensor res.
- What is the max. frame rate at 1920p, or 720p

We understand your camera can run also at higer speed, but with lower res.
- Use the sensor for high speed (and low res.) a smaller optical size (a little window, so the view of range is different) or use the sensor in all cases the max sensor size

Last question: What do you mean with a optical converter ?
Thanks

Is your chip APS sized? or smaller..you said 20% crop, is this with PHOTO lens or with 35mm cine lens? Photo 35mm is much larger then cine 35mm...

yes I would like to see a shot with a 50mm ..what type of lens mount do you have?

can you use OLED for a viewfinder? how is the resolution on your current viewfinder...problem is when your outside in brihgt sunlight a LCD is usless..I hate to say it but it's true. I have shot like that and had WORTHLESS footage from not knowing what I am shooting due to the sunlight hitting the LCD. We NEED a viewfinder for a real product

...
can you use OLED for a viewfinder? how is the resolution on your current viewfinder...problem is when your outside in brihgt sunlight a LCD is usless..I hate to say it but it's true. I have shot like that and had WORTHLESS footage from not knowing what I am shooting due to the sunlight hitting the LCD. We NEED a viewfinder for a real product

Obin, look at eMagin Z800 OLED product:
http://www.emagin.com/html/consumer_products_product.htm

I have seen that product, can you use it? its only $800, but it's 3d...how can your camera hook up?

also your images look nice, I see a really low quality bayer, are you using linbayer?

what about static pixel noise? looks like you have some of that, can you filter it out??

Hi all, Hi Alexander, glad to see you here and glad to see this questions I would never know to ask. :*)

Alexander, No problem with the delay, of course I don't need the camera that is not tested and is working properly, I'd rather wait. The only thing is that I realy have a need for the camera and sooner I have more cost effective it is for me. I also hope that me being so intended for your camera makes you also more up to finalize it sooner, and I am also a good feedback to make your product finer and hopefully comments of this great people in this forum will also help you. I honestly wish you success and there is a great market worldwide, for your product if you make it good. At least I know for sure that you will have about 5 of them potentially sold in Georgia, that is only companies I know of. But also there is a point of beeing late on the market, the first one to make a good camera will be successfull.

I agree with Obin, viewfinder is an important factor and to tell you the truth I prefer to have a very similar to normal viewfinder. As with camera I would prefer it to be very like the film camera, same with the viewfinder, but this is not the crutial thou.

"50mm lens shot of a person with a light on them..." is also very interesting.

To sum all of this, I hope I will have the camera ASAP, I am ready to buy one or even two, shortly, and I don't know technical discussion of the chip and other things, I can tell how good it is in Real World, the bottom line is when I do the real shoot of the commercial and get the result, that will be the best way to evaluate it.

www.ctt.ru/files/demo/supermotion_rugby.rar

White color is clipping too much I think. But there are colors to the picture, that is good. And also it seems a bit out of focus. Well actually I think it might be what Alexander said about the focusing.

Comments

http://www.illunis.com/
and there
XMV2001 and XMV 2020

Specs at a Glance:
Active Pixels: 1600 x 1200
Pixel Clock: 40 Mhz
Pixel Size: 7.4um x 7.4um
Sensor: KAI-2001, KAI-2020
Frame Rate: 33.6 Fps (Dual Tap) 18.3 Fps (Single Tap)
Bit Depth: User selectable 8, 10 or 12
Dynamic Range: 55dB
Power: 12VDC - 4.7Watts
Interface: Camera Link Base Mode
Dimensions: 37 x 57 x 57mm

http://www.illunis.com/Files/XMV-2M.pdf

well it is cameralink
but there are boards like the expresso and so on
not knowing what's wrong,
maybe the price,
it's Kodak CCD
I do know the imager very well
did know that's a lot of work to do
they've done
so what ?

Hi ALL,
first- about sensor, it has 4M, 16x12mm, 6,9pixel, 2400x1700 it’s CUSTOM sensor, real 10bit,
max speed –1GB/sec- it’s about 350fps on HD resolution, or ~800 on SD
it’s first use in space, but now we try to make cinecamera…
(our next one will be with 12M resolution, 12-14 bits, but 2-3 years later…)
about other sensors- we tested ALL of them- all have motion bugs on rolling shutter (if it has speed less then 120fps) or problems with noise or sensitive.

About viewfinder- You are all right, small one is good too, but for use our 8” monitor- you also have some reasons- first- more detail on more size and more resolution-we have real 1024x768
monitor, on HD you may se ½ picture without any artifacts, as well , max resolution of 0.8” OLED display- 800x600 with resizing you will have a lot of bugs on screen, (we tested same device - http://www.i-glassesstore.com/) looks not good, but if you want- no problem: special order- 3 month. and if you want to work on sun- use http://www.hoodmanusa.com/H789.asp .

about our bugs: we have real bug with “focus” – it’s not real focus problems- its bugs of linear demosaic-we use it for viewfinder on high speed – this project was for Super slow motion broadcast camera,
and we tested it with SONY cameras –(that’s we have such colors)
- now we testing new soft, and I think to show new pictures later this week.

and last- we work on this project more than 6 years, this is 4’th generation of “low cost” camera.
fist time we show our prototype on NAB2000 as HIMT inc USA,
and of course, after 6 years I may say- this is NOT easy- we have a large team and work for 6 years-
I may say – if You want to make you own camera- welcome, but you need large team, science support and a lot of investments,

Best regards,

Alexander Kitaev

www.ctt.ru
info@ctt.ru
kit@1tv.ru

This is my new TV commercial for one of the construction companies in the city. Never mind what the idea is, it needs to be translated. Just look at the picture and slow motion effect.

I shot it with Photron camera, I meet with the company in Las Vegas. It records up to 4000fps. www.photron.com

It is black and white and only yellow color is left on purpose. It needs some final color correction thou. It is compressed thou, later I will upload an uncompressed version.

www.pepsi.ge/axis/axis.zip

What do you think?

I may say – if You want to make you own camera- welcome, but you need large team, science support and a lot of investments,

Best regards,

Alexander Kitaev

Yes, doing a complete camera is pointless without that. That's why we were trying to get a custom version from Sumix, or customise an existing camera ourselves.

Thanks

Wayne.

This is my new TV commercial for one of the construction companies in the city. Never mind what the idea is, it needs to be translated. Just look at the picture and slow motion effect.

I shot it with Photron camera, I meet with the company in Las Vegas. It records up to 4000fps. www.photron.com

It is black and white and only yellow color is left on purpose. It needs some final color correction thou. It is compressed thou, later I will upload an uncompressed version.

www.pepsi.ge/axis/axis.zip

What do you think?

I really liked it! Very nice job. Did you buy or rent the Photron? Which model was it? And how much did you slow the footage down by?

Great work...what was your budget on that? looks really good....

It looks indeed very nice. I looked at their site a long time ago. But it was mostly low res stuff.

Is it a big setup?
Is it flexible?

Would you have the kindness to post a behind the scenes picture?

No, I rented it didn't buy. The total budget for the commercial was around 14000 USD. Well, in most scenes you see 1000fps or 2000fps, except for the first shot of the ball, it is 4000fps. It is not very flexible but you can do the job. Actually it is a camera head, connected to a box with all the processing power and the memory and 2 cables between is around 10meters long. Since you can not move the camera during the shot (pan, tilt or anything) it is flexible, because you only need to setup the shot and then not touch the camera. When I say you can not move it, I mean you can but if you do, even a very smooth movement (if it is not a motion controled) will look very unsmooth when played in slow motion. So basicly if you consider this fact, it is very flexible.

The camera is Ultima APX and the guy I rented it from said that this one is much better than newer versions of APX, like APX-RS.

Right now I am away, when I am back I will post the behind the scene pictures. That will be in 10 days.

Congrats Levan! Any up-date of your ctt.ru camera experience?

Hi ALL,
(...)You may ask me Yourself-))),
about camera status: this week we’ll have new body case,
and start testing new demosaic soft, with linear we have a lot of artifacts and focusing problems.
(as You may see on our pictures-))))
I think in two days we’ll be ready with new pictures(...)When? I'm very interested in your camera but I'd like to see a regular up-date of your web site in ENGLISH, please! Because I'm interesting in a real purchase.

Hey Drake folks! I've been following this thread - it's your thread, remember? - since January and now you're... How is it possible? So much work and NOT EVEN A WORD here?!...or in your web site. It's a weak point, indeed!

I was interested in a purchase of your camera - and maybe yet. It depends on you! As we know, there are several silent guys following your camera announcement. But this silence - a word will be enough - is more a liability than an asset... C'mon guys!

Hi Levan, have you gotten the camera? How is it, what are your impressions. Any clips to post?


@ Alexander. Any clips posted yet on the site? Cant wait to see some.

thanks,
Omar

Hi ALL,
first- about sensor, it has 4M, 16x12mm, 6,9pixel, 2400x1700 it’s CUSTOM sensor, real 10bit,
max speed –1GB/sec- it’s about 350fps on HD resolution, or ~800 on SD
it’s first use in space, but now we try to make cinecamera…
(our next one will be with 12M resolution, 12-14 bits, but 2-3 years later…)
about other sensors- we tested ALL of them- all have motion bugs on rolling shutter (if it has speed less then 120fps) or problems with noise or sensitive.


Somethings right, others wrong...
Custom Sensors cost min. 500tsd USD. With those budget the case (and web side) design would be better, so i do some research, also on dvinfo, and now i am shure that the sensor is not custom design. It is a very old sensor, first for space, yes, but now you can find it in some camera heads (most with less frame rate, because most use only camera link). Do a google search for "PB-MV40" or "micron" + "MV40".

So this camera will never build with 12Bit.

Can someone tell me some info about rolling vs global shutter.

I mean, I understand difference in terms of how it works. but in final picture how is rolling shutter inferior to global shutter.

Is it true to say that when rolling shutter has a higher fps it is same as global shutter?

(I know there will be a question about it, so here is an answer: I am expecting camera next week, and I will share the experience, and you would guess that this question is because the camera has a rolling shutter)


So waiting for your feedback.

Can someone tell me some info about rolling vs global shutter.


rolling shutter at high speed is the same like global shutter at low speed. I saw pictures from global and rolling shutter cameras, all at same variable speed. At 120 or more fps i so no differents. At lower fps... igit... You need extrem short exposure time (the same like at 120fps), otherwise the clips "shake" at all side by side motions. So at the end i can say with rolling shutter it is impossible to get movie-like motion blur, because you allways need high speed shutter.

PS: I had a meeting with one frome the drake team (Rai Orz). Yes, the team is split of. I understand now whats going on. But Rai found new (bigger) partners and i heard (and also saw) very, very interesting news. Mutch more than only the old drake camera.

Frank,

What is happening? How is Rai going, can we expect anything soon, and what happened to the other team?

Thanks

Wayne.

Wayne, what other team do you mean exactly. Ctt.ru ??? or someone else that i'm unfortunately forgetting.

Only the two split Drake teams, the other one being the one without Rai.

First of all, when the team where Rai is going to present something if you know? I am very interested. Why don't they post here?

Second Question:

You say that with rolling shutter over 120fps, you get the same result as with global shutter, and then you also said that with rolling shutter you can never get film like motion blur. Does it not contradict? Please tell me in details, it is important for me now and I want to understand.

Thanks in advance.

On the other hand I will post some new clips with russian camera, and would seek everybody's opinions. :*)

Levan,

All sensors read out 1 pixel at a time (depending on the number of outputs but normally 1) one line at a time. So no matter what type of sensor you have it reads out this way.

On a sensor of any type a shutter means to reset either a line or the entire array, essentially wiping all charge so you start with a black "image" and the photosite accumlate charge to create your image.

When you read out a line in any type of sensor the charge is lost, but their is residual charge that can add a lot of noise very quickly so the pixels have to be reset. This resetting is the shutter. Rolling shutter does this one line at a time several lines behind the line being read out. While Global shutter resets the entire array in one pulse.

So with rolling shutter when you read out the top line of the sensor it will be an entire frame away (so 24fps, it will be 1/24th of a second) from the bottom line. So that action that took place on the top line occured almost an entire frame before the corrosponding one on the bottom.

You should search for some pictures. The HC1 camera actually presents this artifact and you can see it on some sites and I think it was posted here once.
http://www.sonyhdvinfo.com/showthread.php?t=2688

The club in the picture shows how things distort with the rolling shutter. Once its in video its harder to notice since the top line corrosponds to the bottom of the previous frame but still pictures show it badly.

Ah! Thank you, Keith. Interesting as engineering can be (when it's explained clearly), I love this kind of posts. 'That's right,' answer many others.

I too want to give three cheers for you website.

Great post. I understand it now clearly. and I understand why at higher shutter speeds, rolling shutter becomes close to global.

Keith, is there any sensor that has on sensor memory to parallel readout the sensor outputs at one time, or make for very fast rolling shutter?

Wayne,

Dont' quite know if I understand what you mean.

Do you mean store the charge that was built up somewhere else while the sensor gathers more charge. This is how an IT or FT CCD works.

Or do you mean like read out every line simultaneously. This would be a really big problem. Lines x bits = really big number of pins.

Could you clarifiy what you mean a little more? (It might make perfect sense but my brain is shuting down from writing final exams so not much is making sense right now)

I guess he is trying to say that, seeing that most high end CMOS sensors are in fact some kind of SoC, there could be in theory one which had integrated memory to store every line at the same time on an internal memory line buffer.That way I guess there wouldn't be a need for having lots of pins to get the stored data out of the sensor.
Only problem I see is that for something like an Altasens you would need 2.8 kilobytes of memory per line....

Keith I mean digital memory per line or per sensor pad, so that the parallel operations can happen on chip and make for Global readout or very fast rolling read out, it then can be transmitted out of chip over a few pins while the charge for the next frame is accumulating (on the cheapest chips, the number of pins can become the major cost item).

I am pretty sure now that I remember sensors with on chip memory, but I don't know if they were used this way or not.

3MB of memory is relatively low (unless it is static, but static is not required here).

In theory it could be done, but in practice it gets more difficult. As of yet I haven't seen any cmos that has a full frame of memory to do what you want. 3mb isn't a lot but you have to consider that these sensors are made on a process much larger than current processor and ram chips so the physical size of rame gets a little larger then what we are used to.

To be honest the only real global shutter that is easy to operate is IT ccd and FT ccd. Both have charge storage areas that the build up charge is shifted to and then read out from. I think CCD's have gotten a bad rap here from people looking for "The Cmos Look" while ignoring the benefits available from CCD's and the fact that they don't suffer from the rolling shutter. Where as with a global shutter cmos you need to intergrate, readout, then shutter, so if you want long intergration times you need to read out very fast. Whereas the intergration in a ccd is takeing place during the readout of the previous frame.

I'm aware of the process issues, but 3MB, is long past history process wise (unless your using static memory that can use at least 6 transistors per cell (it can be done for less, but those schemes are not as good as the high transistor count schemes)). The problem is setting themselves up to have access to those processes, is difficult (maybe it has changed now days). There is Camera/Web/etc sensors with frame buffers, but they would be using a separate buffer/micron-controller/encoder on chip, not integrated in the sensor pads. So I doubt they are setup to solve rolling shutter issues.

It is interesting that the Rolling shutter issue was a CCD problem before it was a cmos problem, but the newer sensor technologies you mentioned solved that. The interesting thing is, does this memory effectively handle overcharge smear/streaking and does it still accumulate noise on it's travels to the A/D circuit?

Actually there are CMOS sensor with memory on them, and that's how you get global shutter.

For instance, that's how the IBIS5A and the LUPA sensors from Fill Factory work. They use a 4T and a 6T (transistor) pixel structure that allows them to have "memory" to store the pixel charge so that the entire sensor can be reset at once. The only problem with the more transistors per pixel, is that you can have problems with column non-uniformity and fixed-pattern-noise. That is why all high-quality CMOS sensors you see are 3T pixel structures of some type (or at least they try to keep it very low, either 3T or 4T with non-global shutters), meaning that they will more-than-likely have rolling shutters.

Rolling shutter though is no longer an issue when the read-out of the sensor goes at 1/60th of a second or higher, and the shutter is not faster than 1/60th of a second. If you don't believe me, go get a Ikegami CMOS camera, set it to 1080/24p, and wiggle it around like mad-you're going to have a hard time to see any rollling shutter at the "normal" settings. Now those guys over on that Sony forum are setting their shutters at 1/200th or greater-and yes, at the read-out speeds of the Sony CMOS chip (which I'm assuming are at 1/60th of a second since it's NTSC compatable), when you "stop-motion" like that, you're going to see some bending on objects. But if he had his shutter set at a "normal" speed, then this wouldn't be an issue.

DSLR's get around the problem by having a mechanical shutter. Same thing with the Arri D20. But other cameras like the Kinetta, Ikegami, etc. are NOT using any mech shutters, they are simply clocking the chip higher, and then reading out every-other frame; or at least something along those lines. And I've seen both series of cameras, and tried to induce visible rolling shutter problems by shaking the cameras around wildly, and have been unsuccessful in producing anything "offensive" or even noticeable for that matter.

DSLR's get around the problem by having a mechanical shutter. Same thing with the Arri D20. But other cameras like the Kinetta, Ikegami, etc. are NOT using any mech shutters, they are simply clocking the chip higher, and then reading out every-other frame; or at least something along those lines. And I've seen both series of cameras, and tried to induce visible rolling shutter problems by shaking the cameras around wildly, and have been unsuccessful in producing anything "offensive" or even noticeable for that matter.

...And thats why it is not possible to get movie like motion blur with it. It may be god for sport but not for films.

PS: As i heard the other people from the drake team do there business like before. I dont know if drake ever will sell, but if, than like the fist version. All what i saw, the main parts, ideas and also solutions come from Rai, and without him there will be no new developments. But i think it was a god idea for Rai (and also for us) to search new partners, because now with bigger partners he have mutch more possibilities. I had a long conversation with him and he show me whats going on. I can not post it here, but i think i can qoute what Rai wrote here at dvinfo "...my goal is a real 35mm size camera..."

If you have contact with Rai, then tell him that if he wants, he can contact me, and I have partners here that can fund and invest in the development of the camera theoretically, if he want I would discuss this issue with him.

my e-mail is: levan@sarke.ge

I think that is a great idea, getting together on custom commercial cameras is good for development at this stage.

Tell him to contact me as well. But I really like to know what the direction of the two companies is, and website/business name for both.

For instance, that's how the IBIS5A and the LUPA sensors from Fill Factory work. They use a 4T and a 6T (transistor) pixel structure that allows them to have "memory" to store the pixel charge so that the entire sensor can be reset at once. The only problem with the more transistors per pixel, is that you can have problems with column non-uniformity and fixed-pattern-noise.

Has every pad on the IBIS5A have a AD converter and not a memory capacitor to store the charge, I thought it was a signal one that could be bypassed to an off chip AD? Explains a bit.