Yes, DV is around 6:1 compression, how is it less comrpessed than DV? I actually don't like the comrpession of DV either, so something twice as good would be good (even if just on the DV motion problems).

Thanks

Wayne.

I think you mixed things a bit. DV is 5:1, the camera above seems
to be 6:1 (higher levels). The end quality is what counts though...

So seriously, we are saying that it is not an enhancement over the DV condec, just more resolution? Lower compression for 720p would be good.

It is lower compression. It's a 4:2:2 codec. It would be impossible, I would think, to have higher compression on a codec with more information. Who knows though.

In any case, there's twice as much color information as in DV which is a very, very good thing.

I understand that this is the 960*1080 one, that puts a bit of an unfortunate sting in the tail.

Wayne.

New fast big hard drive & capture performance improvement technique
 

I have been reading of an 300GB drive that spanks the Raptor drive in performance.

http://www.storagereview.com/php/ben...bench_sort.php

http://www.storagereview.com/article...8D300L0_2.html


I have also figured a new scheme that should help the capture schemes maximise drive performance and get more.

As we know the outer tracks record faster than the inner tracks, as that is the bottle neck the max throughput is number of drives * inner track performance. But if you start recording across all the drives at once, but recording from the inner track on half the drives, and the outer track on the other half, you get a higher average performance in between the inner and outer track rating (which can be quiet high). So you can easily increase the data rate of a 200MB/s system, and do wonders on a two drive systems.

Now the other things is that the benchmark used in some of these max datarate tests looks like a read benchmark, rather than testing write performance. What goes here?

New improved fuel cell, and Terabyte Optical disk.
 

http://www.gizmag.com.au/go/2539/

Fuel cells are the way to go for us, but have been limited and expensive, this looks like a real break through. I don't know their release date, so maybe it will miss the first round of fuel cells (really soon).

I also remember, at the begining of the year (tomshardware news), one company (I think mentioned in the origional Phyorg article I posted here) has shown off a prototype of their 1 terabyte optical drive.

New 320GB drive from Western Digital, fast.

http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/...3200jb-05.html

Wayne:
In a other thread you wrote this:<<<--Looking at the Lupa 4000 as well, interesting.-->>>

We use now the fillfactory 2/3" IBIS5a sensor for our DRAKE camera. We capture 1280x720 at 24fps with it.
One goal for us is (at the end of this year) a real full size 35mm sensor camera with min. 1920x1080. So lets play with the LUPA 4000 data sheet:
max. 15fps!! To slow. No, its a 4M/Pixel ship. At 1920X1080 it runs at round 27fps, global shutter. At 24fps we can capture some more lines (usefull to show outside areas at viewfinders). Is more light sensity, 4 times higher than IBIS5a. But the best thing is the size: It comes with a realy full 35mm size. A sample sensor (not a camera) cost under $ 1000,-. Bad news is: At this time, they produced only mono versions. Okay, with RGB prism its ready for a 3Chip camera. (3x 2Mpixel = 6Mpixel) . This means at 24fps 8Bit = 150MB/Sec, 10Bit = 187MB/Sec, 12Bit = 234MB/Sec.
Well, i see a diffent way: Lets call it a electronic bayer filter. We have 3 Sensors, but we do a software pixel mix, same way optical bayer filter work. At the end we have only 2M/pixel, same as a single color sensor. With those camera we can every time switch to 6M/pixel (or something between it). A feature for the future.

Rai

I wasn't really getting at anything, with that statement, just stating an interesting chip you mentioned. I have done most of the same calculations, and yes, at half res you are cooking for 1080p. I would be interested in a real picture/sensitivity performance comparison between it and Altasens (beyond the aperture and rolling shutter issues).

If you really are going to combine 3 chip to do artificial bayer, then remember my suggestion of getting better accuracy out of bayer (and also as a compression method) by recording the difference in the bayer assumption to the real value as well as bayer. (the assumption being the non tested primary colours at each location, a sort of upscaling). Still, you could also bin to lower resolution, use half, or third, shift to get hi-res, and still get lower than Bayer rate.

I have been working on techniques that could be used to apply a bayer pattern on a monochrome sensor. But a simpler one is, on a DOF adaptor you have a projection screen, on one side you could put a bayer pattern filter for single chip. Problem is thermal/shock shifting alignment, and that you are already using a 35mm chip.

My interest in 3 chip is:

A) With true pixel shift, getting better picture and image/light pickup than Bayer for same datarate.
b) Getting higher resolution for post 1080p cinema picture and Imax type theatres.

This leads to reduced cost and increased performance over 6-18mpixel video sensor. For top end camera, good single chip cameras being mid end product, and something like Micron etc etc being lowend. So I advocate these three levels for different consumer levels out there. I am currently looking into wide aperature problem solutions.

Rai

From the Drake thread about the Ibis performance and previous pictures posted from another Ibis based camera.

I see, I wasn't aware (or forgotten) that the Ibis used was actually the Ibis5, and wasn't aware that global was not on it, as I thought Ben used it on the really bad examples. Well that explained things, I did some calculations that the sensitivity of the Ibis should be upto half that of the Altasens (which also has higher SN ratio). Still, again, are FF's figures for the internal dac, or with an good external dac.

It is interesting FF's FF*QE ratio, I guess this is saying the surface area percentage times QE, where as the Altasens doesn't use all it's area for fill (like traditional sensors) but gets double the QE. So the capacity of both are closer together. But then you get the problem with the secondary sensor function, around the main sensor, on the Ibis, just how good is the information derived from it.

Some new removable cartridge drive systems in the Iomega road map.

http://crn.com/sections/breakingnews...cleId=60402260

New XBOX2 PC
 

http://gamesradar.msn.co.uk/news/def...6&pagetypeid=2

There are other reports of this. I don't know wherever this will be PC based, or based on the xbox2 power pc architecture with an PC emulator, like they make for the Macintosh. It might even hit this year.

Now Microsoft has a cross platform development system (apart from .net) called XNA, so even more efficient code, theoretically, could be made for this system.

This means the Windows capture software, could be run, or even possibly recompiled for the xbox2 pc. Please note that this has over ten times more performance then a high end computer system.

Anybody For Xbox Cam HD, Sony certainly wouldn't be?


Other Platforms:

This brings up another thing, the XNA and .net are used to develop software across different MS OS's and processors (like ARM and probably Power PC). There is also a clone of .net available for other platforms.

http://www.Microsoft.com/XNA/

This allows for software to be recompiled for embedded platforms, handhelds, even mobiles. So we can look at using a small Pocket PC with 720p display eventually.

Wayne.

Will it ever stop.

http://news.spong.com/detail/news.asp?prid=8385

Nintendo has a Sony PSP like Gameboy Advance(d) SP to be released this year. The DS is just a monkier that they hope to make a Palm compatible PDA. They claim it will be based on the Power PC based Gamecube, and be the most advanced game console on the planet. Is this like, yep, will it beat PSP, did the more advanced Gamecube beat the PS2.

So if you want a handheld capture machine with a display to connect a camera and HDD too, here is another.

Thanks

Wayne.

<<<-- Originally posted by Wayne Morellini : Is this like, yep, will it beat PSP, did the more advanced Gamecube beat the PS2.

Wayne. -->>>

To digress for a moment.

It's a different market situation than PS2 versus Gamecube, though. The PS had already made tremendous strides against Nintendo when the PS2 debuted, so they had that brand name going for them.

Gameboy, on the other hand, has been a powerhouse in handheld gaming for 15 years. There've been more Gameboys sold than Nintendos, Playstations, and XBoxes combined. That's brand power. Most of the people (parents) going to look for them don't know its a Nintendo product, they just know they've got to buy a 'Gameboy' It's a name brand all of it's own.

Nintendo has more or less given up the #1 console position for good, but now Sony's coming to play on Nintendo's home turf, and they're not sitting back on their complacent haunches like they did in the 90s. Imagine the battle the first time if, instead of hanging onto the Super Nintendo too long, Nintendo had unleased a 32-bit CDROM based system with a full array of titles at the same time or close to the same time Sony did. We'd be looking at a completely different playing field right now.

Every console maker and his brother has made this attempt - Atari, Sega, Turbografix, now Nokia trying to get into the game - but no one has been able to dislodge Nintendo from this niche. It'll be a battle, make no mistake, and Sony will spend a ton of money to fight it, but in the end, I don't think they'll win.

Thanks Joshua. Game cube was superior to PS2, but PS2 beat it to market, with the right feature set, and the loyalties of the GB owners didn't save them. The DS is an expensive (to make) slap in the face for GB fans, as now they have forked out for the inferior machine (that PSP is already starting to outsell) they are told that there was a better machine they would have preferred just around the corner, and with what discernible difference over the PSP in game play? This might lead people to say "stuff it, I'll just go and buy a PSP, now!" and not wait around with a dodgy (in terms of old technology) DS. The DS (without extra screen) is what the GBA should have been. The game-cube portable was rumoured around the time of the GBA launch. A DS power style model, was talked about before the Color Gameboy came out (being based on advance 3D chip technology from the early 90's). Nintendo has been playing a dangerous game for years, PSP is a wake up call to the real state of play.

The original Playstation design was the 32bit CD version of the SNES. Nintendo decided to go with the Silicon Graphic N64, and Sony decided to advance to the PS design.

Nintendo has maintained it's lead, not only on young games and brand loyalty, but because their technology has long battery life and is very portable. Now the DS is not so portable, and could have been better (in my opinion) while still maintaining he same battery life, things that would have appeased GB fans over a more powerful PSP. The move to PowerPC GB is a mistake. The Arm still maintains the lead in mips per watt, and the game cube was not a success. Either it is going to succeed over the PSP or it is going to backfire.

Now, my post is there to mention the potential of the GBA2 as a handheld capture, view, control and storage device, for the future. So let's stray back there.


Thanks

Wayne.

I hope to be on topic here. I found this one:

http://www.isgchips.com/Templates/t_quadhdtv.htm

and with as much info avail on the net it would have not been hard to have missed it. Hope it helps.

<<<-- Originally posted by Wayne Morellini : Thanks Joshua. Game cube was superior to PS2, but PS2 beat it to market, with the right feature set, and the loyalties of the GB owners didn't save them. -->>>

Yeah, but GB owners don't buy Nintendo consoles, they buy more GBs. GB owners cross over the whole width of the console maket, including PlayStations and XBoxes, because it is seen as it's own seperate thing. That's what the PSP has got to fight against.


<<<-- Originally posted by Wayne Morellini : The original Playstation design was the 32bit CD version of the SNES. Nintendo decided to go with the Silicon Graphic N64, and Sony decided to advance to the PS design. -->>>

I know, and that was their mistake. They decided they could spend FOREVER developing their console and their games and the public would wait for them, because they were Nintendo. The N64 was a better machine than the Playstation, but they took to long to put it out, and then they had hardly any games for it. What games they did have were usually good, but to create a large installed base you've got to have a large library. Nintendo got complacent and they got creamed. They're not going to make that mistake again.

Dan,
there is a Panavision QuadHD™ Sensor inside. Its a very interesting, but also dramatically story behind this sensor, maybe the same story like we will see about altasens.

Panavision wonted build a sensor for HDTV application, for example sports: To capture a whole stadion, and zoom in later. They saw big big, business. See they press releases, but then.... The chip was completed and work, but.....it work only in rolling shutter mode.
They dont understand the different to movie cameras although they wrote it in the technical data sheet. The rolling shutter was not so fast as a movie camera shutter and thats why... no businesss. And now, at the web side, the listed application are only Biometrics, Security, Medical, but no TV.....

Thats the story of a great, but rolling shutter sensor....

http://www.panavisionsvi.com/imagers_Quad.htm

one example of a old press release is here:

http://ultimateavmag.com/news/11262/

I don't want to get too side tracked but.

>I know, and that was their mistake. They decided they could spend FOREVER developing their console and their games and the public would wait for them, because they were Nintendo. ... Nintendo got complacent and they got creamed. They're not going to make that mistake again.

Yes that's also my point, about being complacent with the GB. Making a model that deviates from their low powered small, cheap to produce form factor and falls shorter than the PS2 by such a margin. Maybe the delay for the GBA2 is to bring it closer to this form facrtor. But luring users to the DS along side the old model (as done in times past) when it's so close. PS2 loyality is just enough to steal the market from the GB. But enough speculation, we will see, in time.

The problem with the 64 was going cartridge instead of CD. It restricted the size of games, made the games cost a lot more to produce, and lifted their price. I know there was talk of technologies at that time, that would allow for low priced mass storage of games on cartridges, that never came through. Maybe that is what they were intending.

Dan:

This sensor has been mentioned a number of times.

Rai:
Zoom in lattter, yes I had that idea years ago, big sensor then do pans/zooms. I can still see big use for it (for my original application for it).

<<<-- Originally posted by Wayne Morellini : I don't want to get too side tracked but.

Yes that's also my point, about being complacent with the GB. Making a model that deviates from their low powered small, cheap to produce form factor and falls shorter than the PS2 by such a margin. Maybe the delay for the GBA2 is to bring it closer to this form facrtor. But luring users to the DS when it' so close. PS2 loyality is just enough to steal the market from the GB. But enough speculation, we will see, in time. -->>>

Well, I dont' want to get too side tracked either, so this will be the last bit on this - but I don't think PS2 loyalty will transfer to PSP loyalty. History has proven to date that console loyalty has nothing to do with portable sales.

I'd also point out that the DS, while a mistake as an interim solution, is not a Gameboy and is not replacing the Gameboy. The GBA SP is still available and is still selling strong.

New VIA MB/CHIPSET
 

http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/processors/luke/

Better specs than ever, but still waiting for new processors with dual core. I don't know what they mean by Fast Ethernet (hopefully note 100/10 again) and it does have dual PCI-E. I wonder when there will be cheap cameralink PCI-E cards?

It is meant to be for those panel computers (IE LCD viewfinder). If it does have Gige/s, then it might be suitable for 720p camera going on the (GPU shader assisted) performance people are getting in capture.

Wayne.

XBOX2 Xenon
 

The Xenon will reportedly have 1 Tera-Flop of processing power according to spong, about 5 times more than what I have previously heard (and as much as I have heard for eh Sony PS3):

http://news.spong.com/detail/news.asp?prid=8436

Release date is 2005 holidays, but does that mean Christmas or summer holidays?

1 Tera-flop is 1000 Giga-flops, or over 20 times what we need to compress a HD digital stream live (and somewhere between 20-40 times that of the top Pentium 4, I think). So this should be able to handle capture/compression/editing UHD/IMAX type images, if enough Hard drives can be attached (the big question) and a interface can be made to the camera. At the moment no details of Gige/etc interfaces has emerged, needed for next HD cameras.

Programming for the system can be done on a PC in MS's XNA, and transfered across (so maybe some compatibility with present code). Alternatively, if a PC emulator ever comes into existence for it, it could run existing software (given the interface issue is solved).

There, apparently, is some sort of XBOX PC planned as well.

I am quiet surprised at all this, so I wait to see if it's true.

Finally, dual processor VIA, Gige, SATA, ATA:
 

I expect upto dual 2Ghz processors by the end of the year.

http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20050310_120805.html

Now what do I do, Apple Mac Mini, or dual cored VIA?

Thanks

Wayne.

DUAL CORE

Yes, I believe it is dual core, that is what VIA told me 4 months ago, but this article doesn't seem toi clear, plus I wasn't in a very reading state of mind when I read it.

The thing is their new cores will be 1W @ !GHZ, they could add 4, 8, or 20 cores and still be low powered. 2Ghz will be 7W each core. That is the same reason that ARM embeeded chips are clocked down so much, to give them mvery low powered specs.

Tech Preview: Say Ta Ta.. to hardidks (well almost)
 

Here is an interesting article on IBM Millipede technology:

http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews...11_162423.html

Basically they can put 100GB on a chip sized device (inside a SD card). Now if they can keep the cost comparable to HD (they might be able to undercut it I think) low capacity hard disks, and high capacity SD cards, might have a hard time. Put 10 together you have 1 terabyte is the size of less than a 1.8 inch drive. Triple that and we could be talking about capacity for Ultra HD.

Now the downside, been waiting for this technology for years, and it will still be a couple of more years before it is scheduled to come out. I find it remarkable they did it at all, considering how fiddly the technology is compared to a circuited alternative (and I wonder what happens when you drop one of these).

Obin, dual processor, unfortunately.

Wayne.

DivX 6 HD 6Mb/s
 

Read over Tomshardware Cebit coverage.

Would be interesting to know what you can do with 12Mb/s plus on Dual Layer now days.

Weak announcement of competition
 

JVC and Panasonic are introducing sub $10K cameras. I Imagine they are to be sub $5K too. They are finally moving beyond the limping HDV-1 with 50-100Mb/s. Hopefully somebody can do this at Mpeg2 variable compression with true RAW component output. They could easily record this 100Mb/s to HDD with this.

http://www.hdvinfo.net/articles/jvcp...d100teaser.php

Now a question comes up, is wide aperture (for shallow DOF) 1/3 inch (just question, I prefer at least 1/2 inch) with dual slope good enough? Dual slope provides more range, though not more sensitivity at the low end. So the question arises, like what Rai did with wide aperture lens on Drake, can it be done to make a dual slope 1/3 inch look like a 2/3 inch?

What is dual slope? 1/3" will always be 1/3". You need 35 mm DOF for nice artist pictures.

Dual slope is a scheme to greatly extend a chips latitude, so a smaller chip can get similar latitude to a standard 2/3rd. I believe it is safe to say that this definitely works for 1/2inch in comparison to 2/3rd. It works by double sampling a pixel. If the individual pixel reaches a certain level it resets and samples again, the data is amalgamated into a pixel value and sent.

What Rai did on the Drake was use a very fast lens, 1:0.75 I think. At wide apertures the DOF of field is reduced, thus giving him similar to 35mm DOF of less aperture size.

So what I am looking here, is can we get away with using similar technique to get 2/3rd inch value on a smaller chip.

New Apples Powerbooks / Powerbook HD at NAB
 

http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2005/...30102917.shtml

Others:
http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=973

Interesting.

Just found this link JVC HD camera:

http://www.adcom.it/VisRecord.asp?ID=GY-HD100E

Toshiba 1 minute to 80% charge, 1% drop over 1000 cycles, Lithium Ion batteries, next year

http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2005/...29192959.shtml

Also at Brighthand and similar story over at tomshardware mentioning high discharge capability ( a problem for ordinary Lithiums).

A good laugh:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04...bs_joins_ikea/

That Ikea chair must be Steve Jobs Chair for Bill, certainly reminds me of a certain operating System.

1.8 inch drives are up around 80GB+ now.

This is an Wired article on a Digital Cinema projection:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1...ban&topic_set=

Update:
 

Silent passive power supplies:
http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/20050401/index.html

Magnetic heat exchangers:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=22309

ATI:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04...gen_chip_june/

Extra storage:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04...tachi_storage/
http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews...04_172017.html


More on those 100GB SD millipede stuff (this stuff has been under development for years, so the release dates canbe taken more accurately, though I have seen many other "seemingly" technologies disappear):

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/index.php?p=1143&tag=nl.e539
http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/.../vettiger.html


Camera Developers. Various portable Hardrive benchmarks (please note the 30GB 1.85inch, I suspect faster when the 80/90GB drives get here):

http://www6.tomshardware.com/storage...rocket-05.html


Interesting:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/ptech/0....ap/index.html

Tech tip:

If you are blowing 20 Watts of hot air off a heat-sink, you maybe able to reclaim some of that heat and turn it back into electricity. I don't know what technologies are available nowadays but I think they were at least a couple of percent on human skin, a few years ago. The bigger the temperature difference the more efficient the process, but I don't know if you can get 10 Watt 50% return. But, in design, every little trick can add upto to the 50% saving.

Next tip, if you are blowing the hot air out, be careful not to blow it on people or flammable objects, realising that some warm/dry fabrics spontaneously combust, even on normal warm days all by themselves (minute chemical change/combustion builds up heat leading to fire). This doesn't happen very often, but if you got a 200/100 Watt personal heater (camera) on your shoulder blowing hot air into your collar, you get the point (you get hot, and if you are really unlucky so do your fabrics). Note, you might be able to reduce the heat enough being blown as well, so it is not necessarily a problem.

Finale tip, this is public release to invalidate other people from patenting, but if I do not have to claim this as a public release to invalidate them from patenting, or there is any possibility of personal patent still exists for me, I retain those relevant rights to this IP and limit this disclosure from being general public to private in commercial in confidence to what ever extent needed. (to stop other people from locking up the technology in patent, to stop people from using it):

Lots of civilised countries get quiet cold (unlike here, in this part of Australia), and camera men must as well. So, I was planning (on my case design) to passively (or via fan) vent waste heat onto, or into the clothing, or skin, of the camera operator, to keep him/her warm. This would be done either directly on the operators clothing/skin, into (among) or under layers of cloths, or via venting mechanisms (ie tubes, heat exchanger, vests etc ad infinitum) onto or among the same. So basically the whole process can be well hidden from the casual observers eye, with maybe only as little as a tube showing and connected. To regulate heat, only a portion of the air need be used, it canbe cooled (i.e, by mixing with surrounding air etc) either manually or automatically. It canbe manually, or automatically, turned off/airflow diverted or turned on, fully or partly.

The design I was going to use was simple, so it doesn't require too much, unless you want to make things like vests, that will not kill you from heat stroke or combustion. Done right, it will be very good on a winter's day, and everybody will suddenly like being around you, done wrong that hot heat spot on your otherwise frozen skin/body, will be annoying.

Wayne.

new products
 

hi wayne; this is a link to some new products
It also has the latest ibis chips.

http://www.machinevisiononline.org/p...ex.cfm?cat=193

Good one, that answers some questions. That Lupa looks interesting.

FYI, most of those Fill Factory parts have been available. We ship a camera with the 6600 sensor, the IBIS-5AE and are developing a camera with the LUPA-4000. That part is currently slated to be MONO ONLY.
Steve

Xbox2
 

May launch, Autumn availability:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04..._xbox2_launch/

Two Hard drives (one removable).