did some reading here. Looking for good sensor choice to use in HomeMade HD. I have found, that the only one 2/3 that do electronic snapshot is the ibis5a. Am i wrong here?
And and what do you feel about using rolling shutter sensors with mechanical shutter like http://sunex.com/News/Press8.htm or even homemade rotating shatter?

Yes, for cmos that we consider Ibis5 is the one for snapshot shutter (but lupa series, fast motion micron, and any other expensive ones have snaphot too).

For mechanical shutter, I think noise and reliability VS cost issues (I think you will have to buy an expensive one to get reliability, not best to be homemade). But I see reference to rotating mirror shutter. I have not seen these, but hopefully simpler, more reliable and able to be made at home. But I am sure others here will have better opinion than mine.

Thanks for coming Konstantin

Wayne.

Konstantin,
Watch whether the sensor can overlap the exposure and readout times. With the IBIS-5A, they are sequential. If the max readout time is 1/40 sec (25msec) and you want a frame rate - integration + readout of 1/24 sec (41.7msec) then your max integration time is 16.7msec. Since the sensor isn't too light sensitive, you might have low light problems

This is not the case with some of the other sensors Wayne talks about.
Steve

well, i've got more stupid questions:

Steve: 60 fps chip has lower readout than 40 fps but, how to calculate from sensor data, what readout time is?

I'm curious how white balance is achieved in single chippers. Lets say we cant exposure r-g-b pixels separately isnt it? Rai wrote they doing wb in two steps: first in-chip, second while 10->8bit conversion. mean its more range of 12 bit adc converts into better wb capabilities. right?

and, sensors, i tryed to contact sensor manufactures to get eval kits, ie sensor + board + drivers + docs. At least FF and Altasens offer- still no reply. How do you "testing" this or that sensor, how to get em? Thought i'm a private developer and would not buy more than 1 unit anyway. May be there is some global sensor supersore :)), like bhphoto for video gear?

By the way, i'am not an electronics specialist, more a C programmer with video as parttime biz/hobby. So I like idea of Rai that we can take sensor board, put it into linux mc then write to hdd. I also like to spent some freetime to learn how to make these things to work. But if sensor kits are so rear beasts (oem only?) it may be practical to go with camerahead.

I suggest you get (and everybody else) the documentary DVD "The Corporation". Watch through the film, then watch through the special features, then watch through the second disc interviews (around 7 hours worth all told). You will be progressively more shocked by each of these. This bias and collusion that keeps small people (low profit customers) out of large business is common. You are much more likely to get somewhere if you have big money, or established company that can order big. The market is getting more and more sown up for big players.

What people here do is get cameras/sensor boards from various camera companies to test the sensors. Steve is from Silicon Image, there is Sumix (one of the cheapest), and a bunch of others.

Be careful with Ibis5a, there is various ways to implement it. The SI version appears much better than the Sumix version that Ben had last year, and Rai's implementation is better again. You might find this with other sensors.

Everybody is on the Micron, Ibis, Altasens bandwagon (no 3chip yet) so it might be good to find an new alternative sensor that is cheaper/better rather follow what other's are doing.

Wayne.

Here is some interesting tech:

This is the 300GB optical holographic disc due next year:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...129TX1K0000532

The future is here, but only at 20MB/s so far. At least it is cheap for backup storage or RAW footage. Notice that it uses a camera chip from FillFactory as it's sensor ;)


This is the competitor:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...099TX1K0100486


New HD Mac's:

http://www.betanews.com/article/New_...ase/1113497814

Nab reports: The New Apple stuff:

http://www.tomshardware.com/business...418/index.html

The new Panasonic (note: they are talking about 1440*720p mode, I think I have heard of such a thing, but not on this camera?):

http://www.tomshardware.com/business...191/index.html

Konstantin,
The min readout time is:
(horiz size + horiz blanking) * (vert size + vert blanking) * pixel clock

On many sensors, you can increase the vertical blanking time to keep the readout time fast but the frame time slower (what you want for rolling shutter artifact reduction). On others, you just drop every other frame.

On single chip cameras, some have separate analog gains for each of the 4 (R,G1, B, G2) color channels. These are only rough gains to keep the dynamic range. You will still need to do a color matrix to get accurate white balance after capture.

Sensor companies do not want to support single unit sales. It costs the same to support a single unit sale as an OEM design-in that yields high volume. That is why we will sell board sets to integrators - the volumes can be low but that is OK. Some companies will only do business in the 10K units per year volumes. Our volumes aren't that high but we do have some large commitments to the sensor manufacturers.

The Tom's Hardware info on the Panasonic is very inaccurate. I like Tom's Hardware but I wouldn't trust anything in that specific article.

Yes, I know what you mean, but even Tom's is reporting on HD camera stuff now, which is good news for Rob's $100 software (when it gets finished).

Which software are you talking about?

Rob Scott's capture software for the SI cameras, he was the original one to volunteer to do software. He has been busy for a while. The link to his Wiki is in my first post in this thread.

Thanks

Wayne.

its me Konstantin Serafimov, must be smth wrong with this forum, my old password is not valid anymore, and so does my real name and email :)

thank you Steve, very informative. So i havent got it, is SiliconImage a wholesaler or retailer? Should i consider this respectable company as a potential seller of camera for me?

As far as I still have got no hardware, i'll continue theoretical talk. How image from cmos sensor could compared to ccd one. I remmember Rai used "video-ish" word (or alike) to describe image from ccd, even thought its a larde and quality sensor. Is it there that big difference?

Wayne, i looked for alternative, even in russia, here near my country, but with no paticular result. It seem that FF and micron has simply best technology, (and altasens' webpage is similar to zero, beatifully colored zero, to hell with em).

Konstantin, regarding the wholesaler/retailer issue, that is a very good question. As I have been reading these forums for the last 6-8 months with a great deal of excitement I have however kind of had to temper it with the notion that these cameras may not be available to us on a single unit basis. For example are SI or Summix wholesalers that require you to be a dealer or require one to purchase multiple units? Wayne or Obin maybe you guys can shed some light on this issue. If not SI or Summix are any of the other chip makers disscussed or that either of you guys know about, willing to sell single units. If not then perhaps the best idea is to put together a group who are willing to buy (say 10-15 units total)....i think that someone was trying to do that a while ago if i am not mistaken. Anyhow please forgive the ignorance....i've just come across conflicting info and would like to know the answer once and for all.

thanks,
Omar

Not sumix, they are one of two companies that ever replied me about price and availability of their cameras. Second was elphel which is very, very helpfull if they only had 2/3 sensor cams. They claim their micron 1/2 gives beter picture than FF ibis5.
So sumix, there was additional questions to them. Especially, concerning global shutter implementationa and framerates/bitdebth. As far as they write at their SMX-150M webpage, 24bit 24fps even 1280*720 dont go via usb2. So its either lower resolution, framerate or bits. So i hope ill get clear these questions.

concerning idea of group order, i doubt its possible. Lets say we have 10 ppl that agree to order 10 ideal camera heads, which is at least 2/3 1980*1080 100fps through cheap interface with all api etc etc at $1500. But It doesnt exist. So here start compromise, and everyone has its own priorities.
For example, my dream solution would be to buy 10 Microns M413 (large hi-speed sensor used for rapid cameras with 4Gigs of ram onboard). So then hire somebody to develop sensor board with any common computer interface to put raw data directly to ram buffer, and make it an opensource project (or cooperate between owners) to quickly produce drivers, c-libraries etc. It was written here the micron costs around $900 (which qantity?).

Hi Guys

As far as I know both SI and Sumix sell single quantities (people here have bought). SI is very expensive, but cameras were better.

Micron is better than Ibis5, probably, especially for cheap picture. But IBIS5a version is better than poor Ibis5. Problem is if manufacturer does not implement properly like Rai has, then performance is poor. There is a couple of improvements in implementation, one is using external ADC circuit, and the others, I think Rai may have talked about on thread, but not certain.

The originally author (see the first post here for link to their thread) was negotiate with Sumix for an order of custom made ideal cameras, Sumix went ahead on their own and are still trying to develop ideal camera, at cheap price ;) I have corresponded with Sumix recently and camera is still coming, but they spend time getting camera right.

High speed is virtually more costly than anything else. There has been a few groups come here and post about their hi-speed camera, so i is worth a look (FF has high speed Lupa as well, and Steve commented on which was best).


Their are alternatives out there, but hard to find, and people have to be creative.

Difference between CMOS and CCD, yes there appears to be a difference in how CMOS and CCD respond to image. But as far as I can tell we are talking about higher range (latitude) and less noise, and less blooming, on good CMOS. But if you get good CCD you should be able to get similar, but higher price, higher power consumption, and more support circuitry.

Wayne.

New cameras and Sensors
 

Have been looking over the documents of various sensors. Micron's usually quote db signal to noise ratio figures in the low forties, and usually don't give "well capacity" values (likely to be much smaller than Ibis). Some Micron Sensors give a 43db+ SN ratio. This is equal to 6-7+ upper bits of usable image given ideal lighting with 0 gain.


Here are some new cameras, with programmable RISC processor and FPGA (there is HD 16:9 1080p version too):

http://www.imperx.com/lynx_overview.html


Thanks

Wayne.

NAB news
 

Popped over to hdfor indies to find out what they are doing and found an incredible lot of reports from NAB, well worth the read. There is also a link to an article that talks about the site owners wrokflow solution.

http://www.hdforindies.com/

On this, Toms also has another NAB report about film special effects and rather cool chroma-keying for the low end.

http://www20.tomshardware.com/busine...421/index.html

Interesting camera with a RISC proc. on there. Probably expensive though.
Would be great if you could hook a harddisk directly to it and program the
device to write directly to that.

Yes, just been over at Keith's thread talking about that, basically you might be able to cut the cost of the computer if GigaE, Firewire interface is available, with access to programmable external controls (serial) preview video (as available on some cameras) and lens control port. So this compensates for the price of the camera. If the camera is cheap enough there maybe no penalty for doing it this way.

This reminds me. The Sumix camera might do most of this, with compression, so maybe you could program that to record to Gigabit external drive caddy ;)

I wonder if anybody will volunteer to program that one.

Good to see you back Rob, I am about to cut down my involvement. Please feel free to post any new interesting technical information here that might help. Anybody else please also feel free to post, this is archival for tech links and tech discussion for the core projects here.

Thanks

Wayne.

New Camera Project Thread
 

Keith Wakeham's - Development Platform for DIY cameras:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=42653

Rai Orz's - Rai & Markus' "Drake" HD camera:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=34339

As I can not update the links to the threads on the first post, I would like to welcome anybody with a new project thread to post a link to it here (using the title above will make it easy to find in searches). All I ask is that the project be related to development of the home made HD camera systems discussed in the threads in the first post, and be an native Alternative Imaging Methods forum project (or very closely related exception like the Drake).

Thanks

Wayne.

VIA Opens Drivers
 

VIA has released full source of it's drivers for the Linux community to use. Such a thing should allow significant speed improvements (particularly GPU programming) on supported motherboards.

Server speed compression (multiple formats):
 

http://www.popwire.com/product_info....&products_id=2


Toshiba 3D screen (much better than stereo vision and similar to an idea I wanted to do nearly 22+ years ago):

http://www.physorg.com/news3773.html

Well that is about all the camera related links open in my browser, I, hopefully, God willing, pop in every now and again with updates. I am needing to rationalise my time into more constructive areas at the moment.


Thanks

Wayne.

Here is the release of the latest video game software for anybody that maybe interested in a project based on them. Other stuff follows. They are built for many times the performance of the PC, are cheap, and should be simpler to program (providing you find a way to program like a Linux implementation) at the low level required for good real-time embedded capture software. At the moment it might be possible to program existing systems, but it would be stretching it a bit. PS2 might not be fast enough (and would be a bit difficult) and has custom Hard drive adaptor (I think), game-cube is slightly more powerful, but does not have standard interfaces to use for camera, Xbox is just big (might as well get the next slightly smaller version). The new versions, unfortunately, are 6 months to a year away, which gives enough time to write software but no time for people to get a an unofficial third party software solution to market for you to program with ;) One that I have looked at myself is the Playstation Portable, it has duel 300Mhz processors plus enhanced version of the PS2 software:

PS3, two views
http://news.spong.com/detail/news.asp?prid=8720
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23293

http://news.spong.com/detail/news.asp?prid=8719
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05...y_unveils_ps3/

The Graphics chip
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23277

XBOX2
http://spong.com/detail/editorial.asp?eid=10109290

Revolution
http://news.spong.com/detail/news.asp?prid=8731

The 'competition' releases some more cameras, lets see if these ones have uncompressed component out, like the others:
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/


Another 3D wide veiw format display technology (one day you maybe filming for this).
http://www.physorg.com/news3273.html

Another Atomic battery, that will give decades of life. The previouse one, from he 80's, had 17 year life and was safe enough o use in a camera (it dissapeared):
http://www.primidi.com/2005/05/11.html

The $100 laptop, nothing flash (will have full colour display) but good enough for bottom end camera (if programmed in machine code or etc):
http://www.vnunet.com/news/1163045

Another one, more expensive, maybe less powerful, but Tablet computer:
http://www.techtree.com/techtree/jsp...p?storyid=3755


This one sounds like it was written by one of my critics:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23285

Yeah, right ;)


Technical Personal safety tip, don't spray insecticide around a working Pentium4 capture computer:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23304

Continued PS3 discussion
 

I am not trying to discourage anybody from buying, even though I buy another camera, but advising people that want their own project of options, before I disappear for another couple of weeks. I have deliberately talked with only a couple of people here about working with them (actually that was the other way about). While it is disappointing that more people don't use my thread for their own technical discussions and miss information, I don't really feel that angry about it {:| .

The PS3 has Gigabit Ethernet port. I can guess that it is likely that you can real-time it and all the USB ports at maximum data-rate. There will, undoubtedly, be some custom hardware modification and special configurations required to do this (imagine a USB2.0 raid ;). If you wanted anything above a normal bayer 1080 camera you are going to have to look at adding a special port, or combining outputs from the spare usb's, so not for the faint hearted. But it is just an idea for people to think about. I believe Obin has done a great job, despite what I think otherwise (I don't need the red wine, I am so tired).

Powering the PS3 on the go, I said it was only suitable for big ENG (news type, shoulder mounted) cameras, until the smaller version comes out (or the reduced size circuit board revising, probably within two years). I actually think he Revolution is a better target (though too far away). I think I read it is compatible extension on the game cube architecture (but far to early to tell) so theoretically you might be able to do some development on the cube (but far too sloppy/unreliable of a way to develop).

For the PS2 there was the official Linux computer kit, it is expected that the PS3 will also see some type of OS. As I have told you, there is a free PC based development system and community for the PS2, I expect something similar to become available for PS3. There are a number of Linux ports for all the current generation consoles, and probably unofficial development systems for all of them. Eventually I suspect these sorts of system will be available for some or all the new consoles. You don't need to be an official developer to make programs that run on them, at this moment the hairs on some executives head in Japan is going to be trying to go through the roof read this. But this information is for the benefit of future people with future projects, a seed of an idea, not for myself, otherwise iIwould not mention it. I normally would wait to see what development options come up after the product is on the market, to avoid interference with the development.

The PS2 was clearly ahead of any PC of it's time, the problem was that they rolled out the design and prototypes well over a year, I think, ahead of the hardware, so they were dated and the PC started to catch up in 6 months (Ronald may disagree, I still say the xbox is more powerful than the PS2 Ron ;). This one is way way way ahead in comparison, but still that gap between when design is completed and when it rolls out. With the xbox they had the thing out within months of the GPU being completed, that gave a huge margin between PS2 tech and the xbox tech . With xbox2 the margin could be double in the PS3's favour. In most of these things it is a matter of doing the maths, how much data, how many cycles per bit of data, how many cycles should be required per bit of data, what sort of known wastage and hindrances (that is where the experience really comes in), then test to see how close to that performance you can get. It's all, reasonably, simple if you know what your doing, but most of us don't.

The Latest VIA processor
 

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23788

2GHz, claims 10W.

Highest capacity drives released, perpendicular recording, various formats.
 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06...e_hdd_roadmap/


Stacks for articles at Seagate:

http://www.seagate.com/newsinfo/news...byte_life.html


Windows patch for HD acceleration (GPU load sharing):

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/08/ms_dxva_patch/

everybody may know this but
 

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...422#post323422

not cross-posting
ronald

Ha, what a laugh, that will cost oodles. Might as well get the new Drake ;)

Sumix where are you.

Technical opinion given. I was wondering how things would get funded.


Technical announcement:

Linux will ship with Playstation 3 hard drive as standard. Gamespot has an article that also talks about the PS3's use for HD video editing as an example etc.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/06...s_6127219.html

Apple says they are going with Intel processors now. I say, what is the real story. If you wanted low powered, high performance Power CPU's, they are being developed for Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony CELL, so obviously IBM is still developing the processor. What does Intel have that IBM doesn't? Should have gone with the most powerful CPU of it's day (1080's early 90's) instead of the Power CPU, the ARM, but wait Intel manufactures some of the fastest of those (and Samsung).

Here is some brochures of the new Sony HC1/A1 HDV cameras, that might have recordable uncompressed component out. I have seen screen grabs and the cameras are surprisingly good for what they are. Colour Balance, Latitude and maybe dual slope are better than expected. Maybe not good enough for an expensive feature, but for docos and low budget an interesting option. I have discussed this elsewhere in the HC1 A1 forums.

Under $2000 maybe down to $1500 on the street.
http://hdvforever.com/hdv/hdrhc1/default.htm

$3.5K
http://hdvforever.com/hdv/hvra1j/default.htm

The issue now is trying to put together a low cost component solution, all the component to HDSDi stuff is gong to cost more than the camera. So I was thinking of an cheap component recording solution through an existing capture package (Maybe Cinerralla). Even consumer grade HD recording cards as a starter. Anybody know of anything.


Thanks Ronald.

Wayne.

Apple goes etc
 

dear Wayne

everybody knows
below Apples GUI eq Aqua there is a GNU UNIX/LINUX called MACH,
it is free and can run quite everywhere for shure on Intel. Aqua is
derived from COCOA or vice versa, comming from NEXTSTEP, yes Steve Job and his Next Cube, a great machine 20 years too early. From Nextstep there is a free GUI GNUstep... that all is Linux fun. I'm running Mach, that is OS 10X nucleaus with GNUstep on AMD ...

So what IBM has what Intel will never have....low power CPU
Intel is in the MHZ Race as AMD,
MIPS, ARM, VIA that is maybe a way to go.

Sumix where are you a good one

Playstation with LINUX that's the way to go
Cinerella on it and the renderfarm editing suite is there

Great

Rather than use expensive HDSDI, can just use good inexpensive DAC? Would signal be usable for compression and recording?


Maybe SI or Summix can make nice interface to computer. They could make lot more money than selling cameras.

Radek

I don't know exactly what Sumix is doing, but I think some computer capture solution is needed.

The problem with the ADC, is that somebody needs to make it, cheap. You see all that problem with making capture software. Now the suggestion of the VIA CN400 chipset with HD video input port and, hopefully, recording solution maybe possible (considering future 2Ghz processor, and dual processor systems, but maybe VIA build in hardware recording solution, don't know). But maybe that Component to Ethernet CAT5 adaptor will pay off. But this is up in the air and may not work, and may need work. So a ready made cheap solution would be better, if anybody knows of any. If all else fails, capture device maybe able to be made to work with free capturing software.

Thanks

Wayne.

Dear Wayne
 

for the Sony Cam
would an technical manual be of some use ??

I do mean what do they have for data before they do compression ?

I don't think that they invent the real and that their CMOS pumps out
what an Altasens would do. So why not get the data out and generate AVI
maybe...
Component out would go to HDSDI or so but anyway not cheap
and a dead end.
The best thing on world is the new Quicktime and the fantastic codec now de-facto standard for Streaming and Digital TV.
Merci Apple. Cinarella is HD ready and Quicktime can run ..... I do guess
2006 Apple goes to Intel hardware Mac OS will run anywhere soon so FC will do too...remember on SGI 320 SGI with PC hardware Linux of anyflavour runs fine...only Windows stucks there due to some strange driver problems

Don't quiet get you but, we don't know the details of what is before compression yet, a vector scope and some testing would reveal all. The advantage is nice, cheaper auto/manual doco camera, with detailed uncompressed output. Not best camera, but descent for doco and low end production (with adaptor). I doubt that the chip pumps out as good as Altasens, maybe closer to 1/3inch Altasens, but better than normal CCD. With licensing we don't know what technology they are using. Sony been against CMOS manufacture, they are setup for CCD, I wonder if this chip design is outsourced. That is why I think that the output looks 1/2inch to 2/3 inch CCD chip, much better than PD150. But I think the brochure is indicating maybe dual slope capability, which would be why it looks better than expected. So I would expect half that of Altasens, with terrible low light performance in comparison). In optimal lighting condition CCD might look similar to CMOS, but when things get tough then we see. Also optimal lighting condition for one camera might be different for other. So use optimal range for Altasens on F900, and then we see, same with this chip, but more so in low light. There are many compromises in HC1, that would make me prefer JVCHD100, but on price it is a good compromise.

New QT H264 Codec, this is high compression, do they do lossless version?

But now, we talk about what to get component into something that can cheaply record uncompressed.

Look here, we talking about the issues, over at HC1 forum:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=45963

Here we are talking frame grabs:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=45279

Here we are brochure links:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=45731

See this part of the Sony A1J brochure, rough translation in the HDVforever site:
Interesting Cineform Capture thread:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=40387

Sony does not outsource CMOS design. They have world's largest image sensor R&D group. Canon makes own CMOS too but is not yet able to accomplish frame rate that Sony can. Only Sony so far capable make quality CMOS for video cameras. Eventually CMOS will be more light sensitive than CCD. As of now is not.

Radek

This has nothing to do with Apple ! they didn't invent anything, H264 is the new MPEG4 standard (part 10) of the MPEG.
Their implementation is far from beeing the best, it wasn't even the first, they doesn't even have High Profile, and it's already beaten by the only opensource version around here, x264. And the currently best codec for H264 is the Ateme/Ahead version (which i'm going to beta-test :). They offer a lossless mode, and i'm going to test that thoroughly.

more information : http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=73022

Dear Steve
 

Fine
great
I do know that, even I do have an old eMac
I'm much more Unix, Linux and have to be Windofs as Apple Freak

but..... fine You are the beta tester of a new codec...fine
Opensource great to me
and please tell me wher to look,
to have hands on ?????????????

Radek:

I have seen spec sheets for astronomical CCD's, they would probably be the best CCD's for low light. Can you supply the well capacity, SN and QE on the sensors you are speaking about, or sensor information links for comparison?

The Altasens has very good SN and probably still the best QE in the industry, which determine Sensor low light ability. The Lens also determines camera low light ability, so the same lens needs to be used for comparison. I think the new Altasens maybe twice as good as previous best video CMOS, but a number of these may not even be on the video camera side of the market yet.


Steve:

What lossless compression ratio can the new codec achieve?

PSP Preview & camera:
 

I got to have a feel of the new Playstation portable, the demo unit just came in the local store. Wow, haven't really felt like that since I bought my first Atari Lynx. Pretty awesome machine. The LCD is pretty good, but refresh a little slow.

Since my posts about PSP Camera project history and suggestion were removed, I'll repeat some of the information here.

I was planning on doing a RAW, Lossless or Visually Lossless PSP Camera. But as I couldn't get the right team together, was terribly sick, and Sony were a little reluctant, I had to give it up. Now I have other projects to concentrate on. So I decided to reveal the project as a suggestion somebody else may like to pickup.

The PSP is a mighty powerful little machine (If programmed properly, preferably most inner processing loops in proper machine code, and anything else that may cause pauses in execution, so only for good programmers). It has dual 300Mhz+ processor, I think one might be integrated with full or part DSP circuit (can't remember the details). Perfect for SD or even 720p footage. Put it this way, more powerful than the Playstation 2.

Now the problems: Interfaces are limited. One USB Slave (where their camera and extras go into), at least one card port, and one custom interface port. So connecting a camera and a Hard drive at the same time would be a challenge. I doubt that the USB canbe made to connect to a hub splitter with data being read in and sent out to the drive (but I don't know). This will probably would mean making a custom interface circuit on the card or the interface port. If the camera head recorded directly to drive instead, PSP could be made to be viewer and control. They have temporarily locked the processors back closer to 200Mhz to preserve batter life. It is a surprisingly heavy thing. The only independent home-brew software works on the limited number of early Japanese units with version 1 of the firmware, all other versions don't work yet. I understand they are planning to force users to update the firmware (live update) before they can run certain games. This way they maybe able to keep independent development out.

There is psp development information at the PSP forum on:
http://ps2dev.org/

This links to the Home-brew PC development system for the PS2, I am not aware if there is a PSP version yet.


These details maybe inaccurate, as it has been a longtime since I read the data. Verify if you need to.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Some Sums:

1280*720 24p=22.1184MB/s
or 2:1 compressed=11.0592MB/s
or 4:1 Visually lossless (for instance Cineform Bayer) compressed=5.5296MB/s
(this is pushing processing a bit (for instance Cineform is very intensive) but I don't know what it is like with new DSP functionality)


Interfaces:
USB 2.0=50+MB/s
So feasible for HDD and Camera, only if USB splittable for dual use.

Custom interface:
I don't know, assume a lot.

Memory card (is there a compatible memory card to IDE interface):
I forget, I think some version of this card go upto 16MB/s.
So potentially feasible for compressed data.


Lets looks at Foveon X3, or three chip:
640*480 24p (you can probably go upto near 720*360 24p wide cinema format). If a three chip was used with 1/3rd pixel shift, you could get a theoretical 1920*1440 resolution after filtering upscaling. =22.1184MB/s
or 2:1 compressed=11.0592MB/s
or 6:1 Visually lossless Cineform compressed 3 chip=1.8432MB/s
(this is not recommended, processing, and the visually lossless may not be designed for this).

New, single, 1.8th inch drives might be able to handle 2:1 compression. The largest is supposed to have 90GB, which is plenty, but I don't know about fastest sustainable write rate.

It is possible that much greater than 2:1 lossless can be achieved, there are new codecs claiming much. I suggest nuking the sensor noise in the image, as it is not part of the original image anyway, but electrical errors.

So, interesting isn't it, of course none of us have time or money to work on it, or to go to PSP group and ask them.

Dear Wayne
 

as the PS3 has only... I do guess... 1 Firewire port that's no problem, as known to all I-Mac users that's one solution among many http://www.macuser.co.uk/macuser/rev...ewire-hub.html. What about Sumix and compressed Gige ? But that's another price range. Even the Sony 1800i will be cheaper, has controls and viewfinder, that's a plus. The Sony
either eith component or hopefully uncompressed out.
Sure you can dasychaine firewire drives, but if one goes dead all is dead, and on Windows with 200GB Maxtor 2x Windows tells you sometimes there is no data, Debian Linux told me there is only 2x a raw drive technical possibles but no good at all. Another device http://www.pcpro.co.uk/macuser/revie...ewire-hub.html. I can't wait to get hands on a PS3 and hope that the Linux diks will not be sold only to Japan as they did it last time.
I will talk to the Dynebolic people as they are the most crazy once ones.
Ronald