So...once finished, what's my ballpark cost to buy one from you ;)

LOL, I didn't think someone was going to be THAT interested. I'll post the final costs and parts when I finish the camera.

We're all looking for the promise of 35mm with no film and painfully affordable. I'd love to get a RED, but my budget doesn't touch it yet.

I know what you're talking about. In fact this project started after seeing what the RED was capable of. If I was able to build something a bit closer to film than the rest of the usual cameras out there I'd be happy.

Well, that and my personal dislike for interlaced video and the lack of narrow DOF you get with prosumer/pro cameras.

After reading lots of posts here I started mailing different manufacturers expecting huge prices, and answers like "we only sell stuff to big companies demanding thousands of units" but I got replies actually telling me the prices for just one sensor, one board... Many of them were in fact expensive but there were others which I could actually pay for. Suddenly everything was possible. The world was not limited to "Hey you, get yourself a Canon/Sony/JVC/Panasonic and consider yourself lucky or sell your soul to get $20,000 and buy a RED one".

I'm very happy this is turning out so well (for now) and don't worry Cole. If everything works as expected, you like what you will see here in a couple of weeks and you're still interested, I'll build one for you.

These are exactly my sticking points.

This thread gets better every time I read it :)!

During the previouse projects, Sumix was aware of the USB problems and was working on software that would deliver frames on time. But followup information we often get in the projects is usually very scant. Didn't they sort this issue by the time you got your camera Noah?

Wayne and Noah, I have info that streampix has solved direct to disc recording with sumix M73, so there is no longer short clips only and recording to ram with their software (and also with sumix software).

I also hope Jose that jour software that is coming with your micron board is capable of recordind to dics instead of ram.
Jose, I have give up because this is very time consuming process (Unless you are trying to make a product that you can sell...) and I need a camera for my curent projects. (but this also hasn't stop me from making other cool stuf, and I think I will have something that you can use in your project, very soon).

Those are great news Igor. One of the worst points of the Sumix was the unability to record long clips at high resolutions.

I'm also looking forward to knowing more about that new project you mention.

If everything goes ok, I'll have my board tomorrow!

Well... The board is here!

First impressions? Good news and bad news.

Good news: Very simple to use, so programmable you can almost get lost with so many parameters, great image, low noise, the rolling shutter is almost unnoticeable at 96Mhz...

At first I got scared cause I couldn't get more than 15fps at DV resolutions and 720p was like 8fps. Then after an hour or so trying out different configurations I got to a point where 720p was displaying at 40fps or even more. Debayering takes place in real time and you can capture directly to AVI. I haven't tried capturing RAW yet.

Now, bad news: I haven't been able to stablish a stable configuration (I have been playing with it for an hour more or less, so I need more time) but the worst part of it is that capturing video slows down performance dramatically. If the camera's displaying at 30fps it goes to 7fps when capturing. I hope I can find a way to solve this but I have to say I'm already thinking about the Elphel. It may be so slow cause it's trying to capture directly to AVI. I'll try different configurations and I'll tell you.

Ok, I haven't been able to configure a fixed frame rate yet, but I've got my first clip at 720p and about 30fps.

I really like the image quality and motion feel. It's much more cinematic than anything else I've ever tested before but I still think I'll choose the Elphel after all. When shooting full HD and 2k it goes to 17-18fps. What the people at Micron told me was true. The sensor goes at about 30fps when configured at full HD but the bottleneck here is the USB interface. Besides that the only way I can capture at full speed is by choosing RAW capture or capturing to RAM, just like the M73 before the last upgrade.

The Elphel is also an upgradeable cam (I asked Andrey) and if I stay with this one the only thing I can upgrade is my computer.

I'll do a few more tests though. I have two weeks and I want to know everything I can do with this cam.

Jose,

Instead of recording full HD, have you thought about recording HD with 1:2.40 ratio, like 1920 x 800?

Cheers,
Take

Of course I have. In fact I like that ratio more than 16:9. It looks more filmic. But I'm afraid till now anything more than 720p (or 1280x533 if you want 1:2.40) can't get to 24fps.

I'll try to optimize everything so the board doesn't have to do anything else than capturing (by avoiding all automatic calculations and setting everything manually).

I forgot! One of the greatest things that I've noticed is that this sensor is 1/2.5" but you can actually see it has a narrower DOF. Of course nothing compared to film, but still looks better than video.

Well, that and real progresive!

Jose,

I believe RAW will be the only way to limit the bandwidth so you can capture on disk. You can do the demosaicing in post.

I have a 250 GB disk that will handle 60MB/sec continues transfer rate.

Cheers,
Take

It's getting better! 1920x800 at 20fps! And it captures at that speed.

As I understand you are using the SLR lenses you got. I didn't really get the process there, how do you send the light coming through the lens to the GG (this part is easy to understand:)) and then to the sensor (this is tricky)? Do you have some kind of a lens between GG and the sensor?

Btw I appreciate your work, and I would love to see some screengrabs and pictures of your setup maybe.

Have luck!

No Orkan, I'm not using the slr lenses yet. The board comes with a C-Mount lens and that's all I'm using right now.

Great, how much does it cost to get the grade of stream-pix that does this? Has Sumix improved their software to do this as well?

Well... Definitely I have to look for other solutions. I have the Elphel there in case nothing works.

Wayne, I know you've been researching on this for quite a long time. I also know you were looking for a complete independent solution but I'm just looking for something to plug to the computer. Is there anything out there with good image quality and global shutter (if possible) that's able to deliver 2k 1:2.40 or 1920x800 at 24fps? I don't care if it's GigE, CameraLink... As long as the whole package's not more than $1,300-$1,500.

Thanks!

Wayne, this is what my friend got from sumix support team:

"Re: [sumix.com #8710] Question regarding SMX-M72 camera
Dear
Good news.
We almost finished testing the fast recording mode. According to prelimenary experiments it allows to write app 30-32 frames per sec directly to HDD at resolution 1920x720. The recording is limited only by HDD capacity. The recorded file contains some simple header and sequence of RAW (bayer) frames.
We need to prepare new tools for conversion this format to avi or to a set of separate files (bmp, jpg...)"

This was on 15. May 2007. This came to late for us bacuse we have already started our production. Their site shows nothing new about this. So if anybody is interested please contact them, they are very responsive.

Jose, sory for offtopic, but there is one thing in this sumix email for you to consider:
"Direct recording to HDD can not getting on smoothly. From time to time there will be jerks and stops. The effect is due to Windows and incompatibility of data transfer speed of USB2 and HDD"
I dont know if this applys to your camera...

Too bad... We need constant frame rate for this. Damn! Almost there! 1920x720 at 30fps!!

Hey! Did you think I was going to let you all without any clip from the micron board?

http://www.cus-cus.net/dvinfo/Video03-1280x533.avi

The three clips are 1280x533 (1:2.40) 24fps. This of course is me. Please don't pay attention to that and focus on the camera. This was recorded at about 2 in the afternoon. No color correction. In fact the camera has a white balance and color correction option but these three clips are just what the camera actually sees. Debayered, Mjpeg encoded and uploaded.

http://www.cus-cus.net/dvinfo/Video04-1280x533.avi

Very slow pan. It's not smooth, I know :). It was also 8 in the evening so it was a bit dark. A bit of noise too.

http://www.cus-cus.net/dvinfo/Video05-1280x533.avi

My hand. More darkness. More noise. I'll record something better tomorrow.

So... As I said, I'm looking for another solution. In fact I'm looking for two different solutions:

- One would be a 1" sensor (or 36x24mm to match exactly a 35mm frame) able to deliver 1280x720p at 24fps. In fact the Pike camera (with a 1" ccd) does it and delivers full HD but it's $5000

- The other one would be a smaller chip (about 1/2.5" or 1/2"... or even 1/3") but able to deliver 2k or full HD at 24fps so I can add an adapter.

If anyone knows about something like that...

Hello Jose,

Your clips show good promise, I didn't find it too noisy.

I myself am working with the Pike.

It does not handle full frame HD @ 24fps. The firewire bandwidth is the limitation. Currently It can handle 1800 x 750 @ 24fps, 14 bit (transfered as 16 bits) pixels. It will do full HD at 8 bit per pixel I guess.

I have heard that they will release new firmware this month that does packed 12 bit transfers. So that it will do 2048 * 854 @ 24fps, 12 bit.
There is a Pike that has a 2048 x 2048 1.2" sensor, I myself have the 1920 x 1080 1" sensor.

Currently my Pike has a noise problem that I am not yet investigating. I am confident that I can get rid of it somehow (cooling, battery power, electrical isolation). But I need to get the software of high enough quality first.

I supose the 1/2" version will cost more than $2000 too and it will also have those noise problems you mention. I thought CCDs were better than CMOS handling noise.

Wow, I thought the video looked great. Nice job!

Hello Jose,

I think CMOS actually handles noise better as it can handle much lower light conditions. It only becomes a problem with very large shutter times (30 minutes) and very low light like in telescopes.

But I am not sure what is going on in my camera. First there is some static noise (non uniformity of the pixels), strange thing is it doesn't seem to go away with a simple flat field calibration.

Also there is some weird non linearity going on, which shows up in the waveform as dark stripes. At first I thought it was an error in my part, or some weird LUT (which are disabled), but they are different from the left and right part (the sensor is divided through the center) which means the non linearity is caused before the AD converter. It seems to only show in the dark part of the image, so it could be the non linearity of the transistors in the amplifier, maybe with the bias I can skip above this non linearity part.

All-in-all, there is a lot to figure out.

Cheers,
Take

I've just been contacted by Omnivision. They'll send me a demo board in a few days.

Take, I know this can be too obvious but, have you thought about the possibility of your camera being damaged?

Hello Jose,

It could be a possibility, I have thought of this, but I thought that normal sensor data would look pretty bad without calibration.

I will have to contact the support department with some of the images I have taken.

Cheers,
Take

Well... You can see it's not true. As I said, the clips I posted were completely untouched. I didn't even use the internal white balance included with the camera.

I've also seen images taken with other Alliedvision cameras and they don't look bad at all.

Hey... Alliedvision has the Marlin F-131C with a 2/3" GLOBAL SHUTTER color CMOS sensor delivering 720P at 25fps. That's the sensor size of the SI-2k Mini. It's not 2k, but it's HD, global shutter and it doesn't need an adaptor to get a very nice DOF. You can add a C to F mount converter if you want.

It also has less pixels than the SI-2k with the same size. That means more light, less noise... and for 900euro!

The only bad point I see is that it doesn't deliver full HD.

The Marlin F-131C uses the ibis-5a sensor. Search the board for info. Ibis-5a is an "industrial type" sensor used by sumix, avt, silicon imaging, pixelink, etc. in some of there cameras.

Not very good color performance, but global shutter and shallow DOF are a plus.

Anyone know if the ibis-5a sensor itself can be purchased in single quantities?

Edit: Never mind, I guess digikey sells them.

You are using CMOS? It partly sounds like the CCD split sensor window CCD scanning problem, where because of technology speed restrictions, they use different AD converters for the two halves of the sensor. To get around that problem they simply calibrate them. The rest sounds partly similar to what we have seen on Sanyo HD1 in dark noise, and fix pattern noise (which is removed with fix pattern noise removal). I suggest contacting the supplier and ask them about the problems.

I stopped too long ago with the research. Go through my thread technical thread and you will find links to lists of manufacturers and cameras. By sensor, Micron had some sort of global reset mechanism that helps. Cypress Ibis and Luma (was that the name) had global shutter. Some Kodak had global shutter, and I don't remember much apart from that. Altasens has an heap of new sensors. Sumix and some other manufacturers do cheap Ibis cameras, and Elphel and some others Micron.

Now, here is the rub with the Ibis5a cameras, do it wrong and you land up with an worse sensor, do it right and you land up with an better camera, problem is many seem to do it cheaply, without good external Analogue to Digital converter, and other external support circuits they put in the Drake version.

But the problem with the research, was that I was in too much ill health to do the research for everybody, who were more than prepared to be erratic and not do much research. Even getting good camera companies to do the simple software changes to enable video streaming and control would have been good. If we had all gotten together and done the research consistently we would have been TEN times further on, cheaper price/better camera. Sumix was going to make an cheap camera for us, but we let them down and ran after Silicon Imaging, Micron and Altasens, that only delayed us for years and gave us cameras at 4-6 times the price, and Sumix let us down and went away. Now we have Elphel, and I have got to admit, I am less than cinematically appealed to it, it is community only, and everybody keeps disappearing from it and alternative projects keep turning up. We will get what we deserve. We really need to pull together to get an company to support us.

Having said all this, here are the simple options, under $500 webcam+optical adaptor. Under $2K Elphel, or HD camera plus Intensity HDMI/Component. Red is coming out with an cheaper camera. As Sumix is no longer interested, why not ask Silicon Imaging about an cheap Ibis5a/new 1/2inch Altasens/Kodak/hopefully not Micron 720p, camera based on their cineform Digital Cinema POV, for $1000+ (you supply computer/hard drives). Such an camera, based on an improved version of their Ibis5 camera, can't hope to compete with the top end Altasens, so they can afford to cut us an break, and sell it as an industrial camera too. Of course, it could be GigE direct to hard disk. The Ibis and I think, new altasens, offers latitude extension technologies, however, it is preferable to be able to do at least 50fps 100% shutter for transfer between different media formats, which is where the Ibis and many others fall over.

This USB problem, is what they were supposed to be going to solve, around 3 years ago. Performance depends on main board with good USB interface, windows configured for realtime, alternative USB interface driver, and efficient third party windows realtime core. With some, or all, these factors they should be able to easily get stable performance. However, trying to get it to work on all systems, without any enhancements is probably the problem. This doesn't matter so much, as long as we can get an range of regular hardware to work properly with the software. You could ask them about this.

My technical thread I mentioned, lots of tid bits in it:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...425#post694425

I was maybe misinformative. Later statment of USB problems was from one of previous emails. In their last email they say that they solevd this or about too.

No, I am using a CCD, indeed a split CCD which I knew already and can compensate for (except for the large temperature depended drift).

It looks like fix pattern noise but I am unable to remove it using a normal flat field image. If I take a compensated picture (per pixel intensity multiplier) from the same flat field it indeed is clean, but when I look at something lighter or darker it appears again. It seems there is no linear correlation between light intensity and the fix pattern noise.

I will post some pictures in my own thread "Mirage Recorder" tonight, maybe you can take a look if this is normal fix pattern noise (and I am doing something stupid) or if the camera is bad.

Cheers,
Take

Wayne:

First of all, I've already spent time and money on this and I'm not giving up. I want my camera and I'll do whatever I have to.

Besides that, you're right. We have to stick together to get what we want. You can count me in but I need your help. I've already visited all the urls on your list and have sent emails to everyone offering a 720p/1080p/2k solution. Too bad there were only two or three appart from Micron, Altasens, Omnivision... you know, the usual ones.

Micron doesn't offer anything larger than 1/2.5".

I was also thinking about contacting Silicon Imaging about a 720p big sensor solution. If I have to go for 720 instead of full HD, I want real DOF. No adaptors. We can't ask them for another 1080p solution cause they already have one and it's an expensive option, whether it's their HD1920 camera or the SI-2k Mini.

Altasens doesn't support small projects, as I said and I don't think we can gather like 10K people.

I already have a 720p solution here at home. Working and giving great image and motion feel. At 96Mhz and 1/48 you can't really notice rolling shutter but it's USB and it's a small chip (1/2.5"). As I said, if I have to stay with 720p, I want 2/3" at least. Of course, I don't have to say that the image you get at 720p with this camera is far better than the one you get with a HDV cam at full HD.

I'm ready... Now, where do we start?

What about some Cameralink product from Epix? I've seen many full HD color cameras and Cameralink framegrabbers are about $500.