New $279.99 720p H264 pocket camera, before anybody else (Sanyo?):

Stefan Hartmann · May 12th, 2007, 08:00 PM

This cam uses the new Ambrella AVC H264 codec, so it is
just only 4 to 5 MBits/sec,
at least this is what myMediaplayer Classic says after installing
the newest FFDSHOW.

Rename the files to avi, then they play much smoother
as then the FFDSHOW decoder is used !

But it seems we again have the Jaggies problem.

You can see it very good as the green plant big gras
with its diagonal leaves...
There are these annoying jaggies...

Maybe one can set this camera to manual mode
and thus avoid this sharp image mode with its pretty sharp
contrast and thus get less jaggies at the perepherie surface of
high contrast edges ?

But I must say, for a 300 US$ this camera is still a bargain !

If you convert the footage to standard 720x480 anamorphic
16:9
DVD resolution it will be better than any available
DV camera costing 3 times asmuch money !

So now I have to make the decision, if I go with this one
or will buy a HD2 ?
Hmm, is it really worth to get a bit better picture
with also 10 x Zoom and pay around 400 to 500 US$ more ?

Regards, Stefan.

Wayne Morellini · May 12th, 2007, 10:29 PM

I don't expect the 4-5mb/s H264 stream to be any better than the 9mb/s Mpeg4 from Sanyo, and in some cases it, might, be worse. the 4-5mb/s might be very similar. The low light looks an lot better than the Sanyo normally does. I think it is an good buy for the price, and would be tempted to buy it and chuck it once something better comes out.

Yes it is ambarella, good on you for finding that, their camera chips have an much faster top end, into the professional realm in data rates. The lowered data rate is expected on an consumer SD card camera, as an advantage in card storage. Hopefully there should be at least an 10mb/s-15mb/s mode on more expensive cameras under $1K. But the diagonal problem (is that the one you are talking about?) makes me wonder if the codec, hardware of the HD1 is involved, or Sanyo, bazaar artifacts spotted on an few cameras now. It is almost like an quality downgrade fro consumer cameras?

I theorised that diagonal block problems of the Sanyo might be an problem with interpolation on Bayer, as Bayer is heavily leaned towards the green channel, and the colors are red blue striped, and green striped on bayer sensors.

Stefan Hartmann · May 13th, 2007, 01:13 AM

Yes, the Aiptek camera seems to have simular Jaggies
problems as the Sanyo HD1.

But I wonder, if they are just there, because the sharpening
and contrast is so high ?
Maybe, if there is a manual setting, where you could
control smoothness of the image,they jaggies
would disappear, cause there are then no more sharp
edges anymore ?
So is there a manual setting possible with the Aiptek camera ?

Regards, Stefan.

Wayne Morellini · May 13th, 2007, 08:48 AM

Does anybody have one to test out the settings, and the component output? I would be interested in what happens when the sharpness is turned down on an resolution chart, at what point does it sacrifice resolutions. If only it had 25p for PAL markets.

Stefan Hartmann · May 13th, 2007, 07:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wayne Morellini

I theorised that diagonal block problems of the Sanyo might be an problem with interpolation on Bayer, as Bayer is heavily leaned towards the green channel, and the colors are red blue striped, and green striped on bayer sensors.

So you think it is an artifact of the used CMOS sensor with its internal
RGB colorfilter ?
Or what do you mean by Bayer ?
Thanks.

Stefan Hartmann · May 13th, 2007, 07:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wayne Morellini

Does anybody have one to test out the settings, and the component output?

The one on Steve´s digicam board says, that the component
output works very wellon his HDTV set.

As it has only analogue YUV componet outputs but not HDMI,
surely the HD2 is better in this way.

Also the Aiptek can not shoot still pictures while
recording HD movies...also a minus versus the HD2.

Wayne Morellini · May 13th, 2007, 08:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stefan Hartmann

So you think it is an artifact of the used CMOS sensor with its internal
RGB colorfilter ?
Or what do you mean by Bayer ?
Thanks.

Bayer:

Assuming it is an Bayer sensor, and not complimentary or something. In Bayer every square block of four pixels has red, blue, and two green, the green forms diagonal stripes, inter-weaved by stripes of blue and red. This gives better predictability for interpolation of Bayer images into other formats (the missing colors at each pixel can be reasonably predicted with an good debayering routine). Worse debayering routines will lead to more color misinterpretation, lower resolution, flickering, stair casing, sounds familiar from past experience. I think one advantage of complementary color schemes (if I can say that on an professional site) is that pixels get an wider exposure in more cases, thus reducing noise from dark pixels. Noise from dark pixels is when an pixel is not receiving much light from the image but produces noise that shows up in the image. So an purer red object will make red pixels bright and the noise is not so noticeable, but blue pixels will receive very little light and contribute blue noise to the interpolation. There is also usually some overlap in the color bands of the bater pixels to, but not as much as complimentary color pixels. In interpolation these dark pixels also contribute error. In nature however we are lucky that there is an lot of complimentary color, except for the odd bright thing we like to look at. Also in nature, brightness levels tend to vary an lot more than color proportions, which means the next pixel should usually be similar tot he present pixel unless the brightness has changed, or changed because of an detail, which what debayer interpolation routines use to make bayer work.

Wayne Morellini · May 13th, 2007, 08:50 PM

Forgot, component, does it work live while the camera is recording?

Stefan Hartmann · May 14th, 2007, 04:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wayne Morellini

Forgot, component, does it work live while the camera is recording?

What do you exactly mean ?
If during recording the video will be outputed through its
YUV output ?

I don´t know yet...

Joseph Aurili · May 14th, 2007, 09:00 AM

Does the Aiptek have all the nice manual setings available for the HD1/2?

Stefan Hartmann · May 14th, 2007, 02:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joseph Aurili

Does the Aiptek have all the nice manual setings available for the HD1/2?

We are still waiting for an answer from this guy
at the other forum
who already owns this cam.

But so far there is confirmation directly from the Aiptek support
team, that the cam can use 8GB SDHC chip cards ! ;)

P.S: Where is in this forum the edit function ?
My space key sometimes does not work and I need to edit
sometimes my postings... Why is editing not enabled in this forum?

Many thanks.

Regards, Stefan.
admin of www.overunity.com

Wayne Morellini · May 14th, 2007, 08:58 PM

Edit is usually next to the quote button at the bottom of posts, there is then presented an advance edit button, where you can edit the title.

The forum says you can delete, but delete has not been enabled (edit with a series of "." to get rid of text).

Stefan, yes that is what I meant.

Stefan Hartmann · May 15th, 2007, 10:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wayne Morellini

Forgot, component, does it work live while the camera is recording?

Component = YUV, not FBAS.

Yes, the live picture isrouted to YUV outputnot just during recording
but also without it, just panning the camera around.

P.S: It seems I can not edit my postings.
At the left down there it says:

Posting Rules

You may post new threads
You may post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
vB code is On
Smilies are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Maybe I need more permission to edit my postings ?

Stefan Hartmann · May 15th, 2007, 10:51 AM

P.S. No, there is also no
EDIT button for me...
That is,why I am asking...

Thanks for any help.

Wayne Morellini · May 16th, 2007, 03:55 AM

Forgive me, I had trouble noticing the edit option when they moved it a year or two ago (or was that another board). Doesn't look like you are having time out problems (where you can only edit for an day or so after posting) looks like an administration problem, email the admins and let them know.

May 12th, 2007, 08:00 PM	#16
Stefan Hartmann Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Berlin, Germany Posts: 46	This cam uses the new Ambrella AVC H264 codec, so it is just only 4 to 5 MBits/sec, at least this is what myMediaplayer Classic says after installing the newest FFDSHOW. Rename the files to avi, then they play much smoother as then the FFDSHOW decoder is used ! But it seems we again have the Jaggies problem. You can see it very good as the green plant big gras with its diagonal leaves... There are these annoying jaggies... Maybe one can set this camera to manual mode and thus avoid this sharp image mode with its pretty sharp contrast and thus get less jaggies at the perepherie surface of high contrast edges ? But I must say, for a 300 US$ this camera is still a bargain ! If you convert the footage to standard 720x480 anamorphic 16:9 DVD resolution it will be better than any available DV camera costing 3 times asmuch money ! So now I have to make the decision, if I go with this one or will buy a HD2 ? Hmm, is it really worth to get a bit better picture with also 10 x Zoom and pay around 400 to 500 US$ more ? Regards, Stefan.

May 12th, 2007, 10:29 PM	#17
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	I don't expect the 4-5mb/s H264 stream to be any better than the 9mb/s Mpeg4 from Sanyo, and in some cases it, might, be worse. the 4-5mb/s might be very similar. The low light looks an lot better than the Sanyo normally does. I think it is an good buy for the price, and would be tempted to buy it and chuck it once something better comes out. Yes it is ambarella, good on you for finding that, their camera chips have an much faster top end, into the professional realm in data rates. The lowered data rate is expected on an consumer SD card camera, as an advantage in card storage. Hopefully there should be at least an 10mb/s-15mb/s mode on more expensive cameras under $1K. But the diagonal problem (is that the one you are talking about?) makes me wonder if the codec, hardware of the HD1 is involved, or Sanyo, bazaar artifacts spotted on an few cameras now. It is almost like an quality downgrade fro consumer cameras? I theorised that diagonal block problems of the Sanyo might be an problem with interpolation on Bayer, as Bayer is heavily leaned towards the green channel, and the colors are red blue striped, and green striped on bayer sensors.

May 13th, 2007, 01:13 AM	#18
Stefan Hartmann Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Berlin, Germany Posts: 46	Yes, the Aiptek camera seems to have simular Jaggies problems as the Sanyo HD1. But I wonder, if they are just there, because the sharpening and contrast is so high ? Maybe, if there is a manual setting, where you could control smoothness of the image,they jaggies would disappear, cause there are then no more sharp edges anymore ? So is there a manual setting possible with the Aiptek camera ? Regards, Stefan.

May 13th, 2007, 08:48 AM	#19
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	Does anybody have one to test out the settings, and the component output? I would be interested in what happens when the sharpness is turned down on an resolution chart, at what point does it sacrifice resolutions. If only it had 25p for PAL markets.

May 13th, 2007, 08:50 PM	#23
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	Forgot, component, does it work live while the camera is recording?

May 14th, 2007, 09:00 AM	#25
Joseph Aurili Major Player Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 326	Does the Aiptek have all the nice manual setings available for the HD1/2?

May 14th, 2007, 08:58 PM	#27
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	Edit is usually next to the quote button at the bottom of posts, there is then presented an advance edit button, where you can edit the title. The forum says you can delete, but delete has not been enabled (edit with a series of "." to get rid of text). Stefan, yes that is what I meant.

May 15th, 2007, 10:51 AM	#29
Stefan Hartmann Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Berlin, Germany Posts: 46	P.S. No, there is also no EDIT button for me... That is,why I am asking... Thanks for any help.

May 16th, 2007, 03:55 AM	#30
Wayne Morellini Inner Circle Join Date: May 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 2,762	Forgive me, I had trouble noticing the edit option when they moved it a year or two ago (or was that another board). Doesn't look like you are having time out problems (where you can only edit for an day or so after posting) looks like an administration problem, email the admins and let them know.