DAL: Dalsa 1" CCD 1080-30p industrial camera

[Radek Svoboda]

Can you convert it for the film production?

http://vfm.dalsa.com/catalog/Pantera...t_00128-09.pdf

[Michael Maier]

The Dalsa seems to be a nice camera. The problem is the price. I think it's almost 10k.

[Radek Svoboda]

That is ridiculous. JVC will have three 2/3" 1080p CMOS camera for $20K, with tape, veiwfinder, audio recording, everything. Dalsa should cost no more than 1/6 JVC camera cost, or about 3,300 USD.

[Keith Wakeham]

That might be ridiculous but it is true. After everything is said and done, that one dalsa camera is out of reach of most people. I contacted them a long time ago and a few others did and it was close to 10k USD. Unfortunate because it looks really sweat.

Keep in mind that that jvc cameras records to hdv which is just mpeg2 at 19.2 mbits compressed on the fly. I don't want to start a debate, but I don't think mpeg2 transport streams are not what most people in this section of the forum are looking for.

[Radek Svoboda]

There is also new JVC 720p HDV camera, uncompressed output for 5,500 USD with lens. Three CCD's. If that one could be made record to hard drive or small PC, it would be winner. It has viewfinder, etc. Uncompressed output is 60p. It records 30p and recorded image is not so good, but uncompressed is superb, per NAB reports. It would be great filmmaking camera.

[Michael Maier]

Yeah but it's a 1/3" .

[Radek Svoboda]

But it close to single 2/3" in area hit by light, it has deeper DOF, when needed you use 35 mm adapter for shallower DOF.

One 2/3" may not better than three 1/3" CCD's.

Radek

[Radek Svoboda]

You guys trying to develop system from 4,000 USD camera, without lens, viewfinder, sound, easy picture settings, etc., when you could develop similar system for HD100. I would much better buy HD100, then use your system when I would go film out, than use offbrand industrial camera. If you develop something for JVC HD100 or Sony FX/Z1, I'm buying, and probably many more would buy too. Your work is pioneering and may be reason for which Sony, JVC Panasonic adding uncompressed output. Thank you. But now is time to stop and reevaluate what market wants. Does it wants industrial camera that hard to use and good for film out only, or it wants more universal, versatile, neater solution. There will 1/2" and 2/3" 3-chip cameras in future from major manufacturers that you could adopt to same system. System Juan built for Panasonic may be way to go and in case of new HDV cameras you need not hack anything. 3 CCD's require more data be recorded, but maybe some light compression could be applied.

Maybe need pole to see what would members here want better, 4,000 USD industrial camera or new JVC, etc. to use with uncompressed recording.

I vote for FX1E/Z1 in 1080-50i mode, to deinterlace later.

[Valeriu Campan]

Originally Posted by Radek Svoboda

I vote for FX1E/Z1 in 1080-50i mode, to deinterlace later.

Radek,
A 720p will look much nicer than 1080i rescaled & deinterlaced.

[Radek Svoboda]

I already have FX1E and I read somewhere that like 35,000 Z1's were already sold. HD100 may be better, but if someone would make such system for FX/Z1, he could make fortune. When Juan started his system, there was DVX, nothing else. Now we have budget HD.

Radek

[Keith Wakeham]

How are you going to capture analog component HD. You Can't directly! No capture device exsists that takes in component into something and saves it digitally. W-VHS is the best you got and the only thing that can do it natively, but that is just an analog vhs recorder with smaller heads.

The only way to capture analog component HD is to convert it to HD-SDI which isn't cheap.

It would be about 3k to get a component to hd-sdi converter, and then you need a computer that could record it or a digital deck and your back to some compression, but if you can afford the deck then you could afford something better than a hdv.

Their is also another technical limitation for the reel-stream mod. Bandwidth. Even if you hack the sensor on these prosumer hd cameras you don't have enough bandwidth over 1 cable. So 3 usb then, but that doesn't work because the controller can't handle the bandwidth. So 3 controller and 3 usb, but this doesn't work because usb is a pci bus (this might not be true, because a lot of usb are embedded in the south bridge but nobody knows the real bandwidth)and the whole pci can't handle that much bandwidth. The next step will be insane, 3 computers, but now you have the problem of trying to sync them. But even if you got away with one computer because of multiple embedded usb controllers, you need a computer with either hugh horsepower to compress on the fly, or pci-x to handle the storage. Its harder to overcome.

I'd suggest you check out my thread on DIY development plateform, which has turned into me developing a hd-sdi camera. I also have plans for an fpga hard drive deck (NO filesystem) that will capture hd-sdi and component and will have hd-sdi out and component out. But the camera head is being developed first. This is not a pipedream, i alread have half the fpga for the camera programmed.

[Radek Svoboda]

Keith,

Thanks for sharing. I don't really understand all stuff you're talking about. But good luck. If someone comes out with better and less expensive solution filmmaking, count me in as customer. I just think that big companies are well aware about what is going here. They could and will overrun you any time you get into their market. If nothing, least you guys will responsible for pushing big giants to give reasonably priced filmmaking tools. I think that it's beginning to happen already.

I just don't understand the politics. You and Juan can make reasonably priced filmmaking camera in garage while giants charge 100,000 USD for compressed 1080p.

Radek

[Keith Wakeham]

I don't know how many people know what i talk about half the time. Right now i had to figure out how an asyncronous FIFO works because of all the different clock speeds in my camera head. I doubt many people know what a fifo is, oh well.

You are so right on the big companies. At any minute they could go and build something like what i'm designing and have it designed, built, and tooled up for production in a couple of months. But broadcast gear has a set price, and within the industry it is a taboo to break that price point to quickly. Give the masses HD to fast and they destroyed 10 years of profit.

If someone came out with a hard drive recorder like the one i have in the pipelines and sold it for less than 10k I think it would be chaos in the industry, and some really large companies would be really angry. I like that though because that is what i want to do. I'm only building the camera head because I need something cost effective for the deck idea now (and learning about the data flow and how to overcome similar problems in the design such as different clock speeds and stuff), but IMO the deck will be the big thing for this design because even if people don't want the head, they can get an ikegami HDL-40 or a sony HDX300 and for 20-25k would have a camera that you destroy all hdcam and dvcpro hd cameras at the same price.

[Juan M. M. Fiebelkorn]

RIGHT!! :).
I had the same idea some time ago.I suggested it to a camera manufacturer but they didn't pay attention to it.
I have the same problems trying to understand asynchronous communications as you.
I just know there is some kind of packet system, handshakings and the like, anyway really weird stuuf for my head right now.
Could you point me to some info about it?

[Rai Orz]

commercial policy:
Big companys will never sell products for low prices if they can sell it with high profit.

FIFO:
First in, first out. Its a waiting queue, or a buffer. Its like a elastic band conveyor. Non continuous datas gos in and continuous datas go out. Each interface, like network, HDD, USB or whatever need FIFOs. Without it, you will lost datas.