I have contacted a supplier who said could build a custom camera to specification. I'm trying to gather information as to what would be the perfect camera head for a cine DIY HD camera.
So far he has offered me one of his cameras with the following:

A framegrabber is not needed, comes with capturing software
2x IEEE1394 ports, (so I think one can be used to capture and the other can be hooked to a converter for previewing.)
25p uncompressed 1080 lines
The shutter is global
It has knee control
video is captured as avi
2/3 image sensor
exposure is 0.04ms/1 second
8bit or 10bit

Is there anythings to add change is this configuration? This is one of their existing models. So if this would be good enough, it would probably be cheaper($250). He told me to tell him any other features I would need and he would try to put a custom camera together to meet my needs.
So, any opinions?

Michael, who is the manufacturer? Who makes the cmos chip...any of the ones discussed here? They do the whole set up, capture and all...uncompressed? Is it true 1920x1080p? How much did you say it would cost you? Sorry for all of the questions I just want to make sure I understand what you found. Is there a website for these guys? Keep us informed.

Omar

I think it's 1280x1080. I have to check it. No website that I know. I only have a phone number. It's in Japan. It's a CMOS chip, but don't know who makes it. Didn't ask it. I'll ask next time. It seems it's all uncompressed and through IEEE1394.

thats really cheap for a camera, most cmos sensors from fill factory are about 100 usd or more and quality ccd are really expensive, so i would suspect it would be quite a bit more than 250.

Well, in my opinion I think 24p is really important for film transfer, but the progressive is more important for "film like-ness". Larger sensor is a good thing too, so larges possible sensor.

Their is no point in having two firewire independant of each other unless your trying to increase bandwidth because since a computer will have to capture it and firewire uses dma so preview shouldn't be a problem and something low end should easily preview.

Ok, correction, the 250 price was a typo. It cost 150,000 yen. I don't know what I was thinking. I think I saw 150,000 and thought 150.00 and typed 2 instead of 1 first. I don't know. I just checked the email again and it states price is 150k yen (accoring to yahoo currency coverter=$1430). It also states the camera does max 25fps at 1280x1080. So if it say max. I assume it also does 24fps?

By the way, Keith, would you mind if I contacted you via PM or email about something?

go right ahead and email me if you want to micheal, i don't mind at all

Edit:

An email address wouldn't hurt
terradestroyer@gmail.com