Isn't that 56 MB/s or am I calculating wrong?

Some 2.5" SATA drives can reach 56 MB/s, but only as burst not sustained write speeds.

I believe the best average write speed is about 44 MB/s, will that work with lossless compression so no RAID is needed?


That Pleora board only works with parallel data, maybe they have something else that uses serial... because the Micron is serial, I think?

EDIT: I tried browsing the Micron Datasheet, but I am still unsure if that Pleora will or will not interface.

Does anyone know how the Micron head board interfaces with the dev board?

Ok, I tested it and I can't write 2K frames at 24fps to a 7200 rpm sata disk. It only gets to 18-19fps.

I can get to 24fps with a 10000 rpm HDD.

So we need to find another solution. Recording to RAM allows about 40 seconds per gigabyte in RAW. We can only add 2Gb of RAM to the board, so we'd be limited to about 1:20 min for every take. RAM's not cheap though.

Well... First BIG problem. This is basically where all previous camera projects have failed and where successful cameras have gone from low cost to really expensive.

So... What can we do now? Anything faster than a standard HDD that we can plug to the mainboard?

Well, RAID 0 should allow us to capture and it would be relatively cheap compared to SSD solutions... it just means giving up Firewire with the LS-371.

Here are a couple of other boards that offer additional expansion possibilites, but I do not know any prices.

http://www.aaeon.com/PD_Products_Det..._US_utf-8.html
http://www.axiomtek.com/products/Vie...t.asp?view=490

Also, here are some PC/104 expandable boards that allow up to 4 Gigs of RAM.

http://www.digitallogic.com/english/....asp?id=MSM945

I tried finding a RAID controller that we could build into a "pack" of 2 HDDs, and then connect via either eSATA or external PCIe... but no luck yet. There are a couple of Firewire RAID solutions though.

http://www.g-technology.com/Products/G-RAID-mini.cfm
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10724

This would allow the use of the Firewire mini-PCI card with the LS-371, since it has multiple ports.

http://www.globalamericaninc.com/new...ec2.php?id=691

I was talking about a 3.5" SATA disk, Western Digital SE16 disks have a sustained transfer rate of 60 MB/s. With a large enough ring buffer between the camera and the disk, this is enough.

Huh ? If you are planning to use a decent OS, you can easily compress the video stream with any lossless codec out there and divide the datarate by at least two...

miniPCI expansion addons
 

Maybe this can help us
http://www.globalamericaninc.com/new...ec2.php?id=748

and this also: MiniPCI to 2xminiPCI
http://www.costronic.com/
search for Mini PCI series SK2

Now we can have RAID SATA and FW cards. But they are probably dont have enough bandwith when operating at the same time. There is also question of compatibility to LS-371.

Ok, this is getting a bit too crazy... First of all, I received the pdf I'm attaching to this post from the Omnivision distributor here in Spain. They seem to be representatives of many different companies. What do you think? It looks like a LS-371 with another name.

On the other hand, there're many different options. We need to focus on one so we can put all our efforts on it.

First and foremost, the camera board. I'm reading lots of posts talking about firewire, GigE... And everytime I read them it looks like the camera gets a few more miles away from us. This is complex hardware engineering (I mean, it's not like installing a HDD in a computer) so if someone can do it and also wants to do it, then great, cause we'll have a proper interface. You can get just the camera head from Micron for about $300. If not, then we stay with USB.

Second, recording hardware. There're two ways:

- We encode the stream so data rate is way lower. I think we should try this if it's really possible.

- We find a cheap way to record the full stream.

Now, we're sure we want to go for a mini computer solution. Also we're quite sure 3.5" boards are the way to go. Now, what else do we need?

RAID? Single SATA drive? I tested it yesterday and I can't record full 2k at 24fps to a standard 7200rpm SATA disk. If we want to have just one HDD, it has to be SATA 10000rpm.

We have different solutions. Which one's the most balanced in terms of cost/performance?

I have tested (with Boom Recorder) recording 1800 x 750 x 14bit @ 24fps, on a single SATA 7200 rpm WesterDigital SE16 (250 GB) for 20 minutes as a single take without problems (the ring buffer was 250 MB). This is of course in uncompressed bayer format.

I can record 1920x800@24fps to disk in RAW Bayer, but the problem is getting to full 2k.

Here is what I think.
1. Simplest solution is recording to removable 2.5" SATA HDD like we want. It is not safest way, but good simple and cheap for start. We have a motherboard with probably great potential for everything, even encoding/compresing. But as I can see, here is very few people that are eable to do it ( I can't code at first place.) We need someone that is willing to do software for this, even find someone to pay to do it. This is the biggest milestone as you said in your previous post. ( not enough bandwith for uncompressed bayer )

2. Not so practical, but somewhat cheaper solution is miniPCI SATA RAID 0 add on card. Put two sata 2.5 disks and keep your project going on until something better came up. You are not waisting money because you will need two disks anyway. Download recorded clips thru Glan to your Laptop or PC.

3. Another not so practical is that you can maybe record directly thru Glan on some simple nas or laptop and not have any disk inside your camera. This is the safest way but it has to be field proven. I can go with my server to server Glan board with Intel Pro Glan over 60MB/sec very easy. Other machines goes from 30-45MB/s. SI2K says that they can go thru max 100MB/sec with special software.

Big guys are already done all those solutions. You have your hardware so you have to do testing and decide what is best solution. On the table some stuff will work but you have to fill your disk to the top couple of times to see if all is ok. Dont forget audio, because this will also take you some bandwith.
Firewire is just simple way to put aditional storage but I will toss it out and go for Raid0. 2x2.5" SATA in Raid 0 will give you max what mini PCI can handle anyway. If you have mini PCI on your laptop this is cheapest way to try it.

sbc84830
 

It has special expansion slot that for now has no aditional boards as I can see on their site. But they are talking about PCIe addon card. Seth has already give as a link for it. NO miniPCI and it has ATX for power. LS-371 has simple 8-12V jack.

I think realtime encoding is the best way to do it. If we cut data rate to let's say a half, then we'll have no problem recording it and also we won't need an ultra fast mini computer.

You mean ultra fast storage. You have to have fast computer to do relatime ncoding....

Ah, ok, then you can use two disks in a software raid-0 configuration. No need to spend cash on an raid card (the cheap ones are done in software (in the driver) anyway).

Or look for a 10000 or 15000 rpm SATA disk, which may be able to handle it. The SATA bus is fast enough (3 Gbit/sec).

You may also check the new modern serial attached scsi "SAS" disks. They are used in servers and are a more expensive. But they are incredibly fast because they are 10000 rpm (some 15000 rpm), in a small 2.5" form factor (which increases the bit density and thus speed), and hot swappable. But I think you will need a special extender card or SAS bus on the motherboard.

SATA to SAS
 

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/sas-and-sata/

I dont quite understand this but as I can see from the bottom of this article, you just hook up SAS disk to your existing SATA controller and your inn.
Has anybody try that?

That only works in one direction. You can attach both SAS and SATA devices on a SAS bus. Bot not SAS disks on a SATA bus. See the wikipedia article.

http://www.cs-electronics.com/sas-adapters.htm
Yes, I can see now.

MacMini, has a intel AHCI SATA II controller. I am not sure if it is possible to run two disks on this port using SATA2->eSATA cable connected to a eSATA disk array.

The MacMini also has a AirPort Extreme that is connected to a 1x PCI Express. Probably through a "PCI Express Mini Card" connector.

I couldn't find a Mini Card to PCI Express extender, but it may allow connection with a capture card or firewire 800.

Guys, look at Wearable Computer System for HD Capture

Looks very good. I left him a post in his thread to see if he can come and take a look at our project.

By the way, I've got a problem.

The third week of testing is almost over. I asked Micron for this extra week because I was hoping to have both the Micron and the Omnivision sensors to test them together, but the Omnivision board hasn't come yet.

If I don't return the Micron board this week, I have to keep it. That's about $1300 taxes included that I've already paid but of course I get my money back if I return it.

Should I keep it? Should I buy the Elphel 353? That's about a half of the price, the same sensor and it already has less data rate that's our main problem now.

Does this device help?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812232002

Jose has USB camera with USB port on steroids. So this is probably no go. LS-371 has 2xSATA1 and IDE ports onboard and they probably have enough speed to do what we want. Problem are single 2.5" SATA disks that are portable but have not enough speed to take 2K uncompressed bayer video (and like all sata disks when they pass 50% capacity they are even slower, alot). 3.5" at 10000 RPM are probably OK but those are not for carrying around and hot swaping with out much extra care and alot bigger case. SAS disks has also 2.5" version and hot swap option but this needs extra controler, miniPCI to PCI conversion board (and this is over 350$ extra excluding SAS disk, and you dont know that this is working becuse SAS controlers are mostly PCI-X type ) SAS disks are also much more expensive.
Jose:
Are you shure that you can use 10000 RPM disks?
Why you dont use 1920 size frames if this is OK? (every time someone start project like this he wants max size that is available, and everytime tehnology is almost there but noth enough. Wayne is asking for 720p recorder for couple of years now and we are talking about 2K but no one has succes in DIY 1920 yet, exept you.) I think if you wanna do it now do it with what you got that is close enough and relyable enough. You can always upgrade later. There is alot other stuff unknown in front of you and this will be great expirience. Everybody doing their products like this. You are now already better then HV20, and this is quite good enough for start.
Elphel is Linux. This is for me major "dislike" and you have to wait until is finished. I think also that if you wanna try Omnivision record same things with Micron that you will record with Omnivision. You will lose only your shipping money if you return Micron.

Jose, why don't you return the board and get someone else here to get it back the same way you did? If I understand, the demo boards are to be used for a few weeks, right? Ask someone else on the project to get the same demo board? Just an idea...

Jose,

So far, I think you have captured incredible images with your Micron.

I think the datarate/HDD problem is solvable. As Take has suggested, software RAID may be enough, and would not require additional hardware... or, as Igor suggests, simply using the 10000 rpm disk you can currently record with and upgrading in the future. I think that is how PJ did it with RED, they had only the bodies and used off the shelf drives (though lost a full day of aerial footage because of helicopter vibration).

As for whether you should keep this dev board, was there any further word on the $89 dev board Steven mentioned a while back? $1300 is a lot of money if there is an actual $500 solution out there... but I do not know the specifics about the board Steven was referring to.

Why use software RAID that will hog your CPU when you could be using this CPU to losslessly compress the stream 2:1 and use one single 2"5 disk ? Don't compensate lack of software with insanely expensive and complex hardware solution. (Even more when the software part is quite simple. Everything is out there, you just need to put the bricks together)

For the board i was talking about (atmel ngw100), it's the same, there is everything to interface a cmos sensor (and usb 2, 2 ethernet 100, sd-card slot) but you will need to program everything (it's running linux). Well at least a lot of things (but there is already guy who did it, interfacing a micron MT9P031 with IDE on the board. If you buy the more expensive devkit (500$) you even get a QVGA LCD :))

Well, right now you have to chose either to bet on your project, or to go for the safe choice. If you are looking for a practical solution, I think Elphel would be best. Linux? Does that REALLY bothers?
Or you can bet on your project, and risk a lot of money, and probably get where you want to get (or not).
But (real) 1920*1080 is not really too far from 2K (128 pixels horizontal). You will probably get a very similar image.
Whatever you do I wish you best.

Atmel ngw100
 

Steven, can you post link to ngw100 camera project please.
I have here a guy who has done some programing for Atmel camera that has to be used for film scaning. Maybe he can help us. This board looks intresting...
Sorry Jose this is again miles away from your project, but this same guy can help us with your stuff too. I will try to cantact him ASAP.

Ok, I'm going to return the board. I can always get it back whenever I want. I'd like to know more about that dev board Steven's talking about.

I want to test the Omnivision sensor and would really want to know of other possible solutions out there. There has to be another cmos manufacturer offering demo boards. You guys are great finding stuff, we could spend a week or so trying to find a different cmos+board (not already built cameras). I'll pay to get one for testing.

Also I think the perfect solution would be to low down data rate before recording. That way we won't have to push hardware limits. I'm sure I want 2.39:1 2k and I know it's possible. 1920x1080 is almost 2k. Steven is right. We've got a lack of good software. We need to find someone who can code under windows and wants to help us. Or even better, someone who can program a FPGA to lossless compress the stream before it gets to the computer. We get that, we have our 2k camera without ANY problem.

Take a look at this... Lots of info about hardware encoders and other stuff.

http://videobits.org/general_vendors.html

Here is a link to an open source FPGA resource, they have many "cores" available including video compression cores (second link).

http://www.opencores.org/

http://www.opencores.org/projects.cg...stems/overview

Hey, if the Elphel outputs a 1920*1080 image, maybe it can output a 2048*857 (2.39:1). Maybe that is possible?

Sorry, no links, it just some sentences from the guy who did it in the www.avrfreaks.net forum. Just browse through it, you will find them... As for the board, the main problem is the processor, only rating at 200MIPS (it's like a pentium 266 ;)) which is not enough to do any video processing, so it can only be used to interface the sensor with USB2...

(btw, if you come down to it, the only good solution is similar to the elphel architecture : a general microcontroller that's running linux for easily controlling everything and a FPGA for (customisable) video processing power. My point : if the elphel size is ok for you, just use it, it's the most versatile camera for this project.)

Yes, it is a good point (and timely reminder) that the DIY HD projects inevitably it seems strike some technical hurdle on the road towards 2k. By definition a "cinema camera" needs to create an image which could be shown on a big screen if required, so 2k frame sizes are needed -- as deliverables at least -- to meet this technical threshold (and put enough distance between it and say using an HDV camcorder). There are different methods that people are looking into in order to achieve this within various current limitations.

My experiments with the Sumix cameras is to use a smaller frame size to ease the problem (usually 1600 width and whatever height for the ratio of say 1.85 or CinemaScope). Since the Bayer video recordings are uncompressed, enlargement of an uncompressed still sequence may be acceptable enough (?) for the big screen, benefiting from the power of Photoshop to handle still images (and you can use specialised plugins to help retain enlargement quality, and use an action to automate the process). Larger frames can be shot with RAM recording, though this shortens the shot duration too much to be practical.

The Elphel project seems a bit quiet at the moment, though I assume Forrest and Oscar are still experimenting with the 333 camera, and we await the initial findings of the new 353 when they become available. The realtime compression required to fit within the network data rate of these cameras (with no immediate plans of adopting GigE) is a question mark over big screen quality, and tied to finding the best realtime compression schemes which can be used with these Linux-run cameras.

Price has always been a consideration, and right now spending more than the cost of a Canon HV20 seems like quite a gamble. Hopefully, there will eventually be the breakthrough -- that small computer accessory designed for something else, an overlooked free utility or an industry leap in transmition speed -- that's the final piece in the jigsaw everyone's waiting for. When a worthy project stalls over just one small thing I despair...

I am no software coder like some of the smart people on these threads, so my contribution is less than I would like to be able give; I'm just someone who wants to make HD movies any way I can without enough money to hire the equipment. I used to work professionally in the film industry many years ago, but now I'm a Photoshop user for an art gallery (perhaps that's why my post production tends to be Photoshop-centric!). I have put myself in the hands of the Sumix corporation: the recording software I use is pure unchanged Sumix supplied application, so if I can make this work, anyone else can do the same without hacks or reverse engineering. I must say I am very pleased with the uncompressed Sumix image, and an important consideration are the lenses you use to get your pictures (hunt for your secondhand Schneider and Angenieux C-mount prime lenses and stick to them like glue!). I have delayed starting a thread once again because of the recent possibility of using HDD recording, so I'll be starting from scratch again, finding out what I can do with that form of recording using the updated Sumix application when available. I'll keep you all posted about what I find out.

Jose, your investigation into the Micron board has energised many people; I look forward to reading about what you get up to next and what the others say about it; you have character, sir!

Regards to all,
John.

Thanks John,

First of all I wanted to say that I'm not giving up on this project and I'm looking for new solutions every single day. I just sent the Micron board back. I know what it can do and I'll have no problem requesting it again if I choose it for the first completed prototype.

Now, I've got news...

First, I received a package from Omnivision today, but it seems there's been a misunderstanding. When they told me they were sending free samples after talking with them about the demo board they've got I couldn't believe I was going to have something similar to the Micron board at no cost. But of course they were refering to sample sensors. So that's it. Today I received two sample 1/2.5" sensors and nothing more. I'll contact them about the demo board, cause I cannot do anything unless I've got hardware to plug to the computer. Anyway, we've got two 5mp working sensors for free. If we find a way to make them work, then perfect. This can in fact be a huge oportunity, cause we can design our own boards to 2:1 encode the stream before capturing so we have no data rate issues. I say it again, if someone can do it, we have our camera. I've got two sensors. I'll donate one of them to anyone who can make it work.

Now, something that could be BIG. I still have to show you its datasheet and we all have to see if this can fit in the project, but today I received a mail from another reseller offering Panavision (yes, THAT Panavision) sample sensors. Those sensors can capture up to 30fps in progresive and 60fps in interlaced mode. They've got 4 times HDTV resolution, that's 3840x2160 pixels and they're big enough to use 35mm lenses (33.2mm diagonal). They're called Panavision QuadHDTV sensors and I'm attaching the complete datasheet to this post.

The bad points are:

- I still don't know their price. I do know that I can get one for testing purposes, but I'm pretty sure I'll have to pay for it.

- Don't know yet but I guess they don't have any demo board, so we have the same problem we've got with the Omnivision sensors.

- From what I've read in the datasheet, they're not so flexible to program as the Micron sensors. You cannot choose an exact desired resolution so we'd have to set it higher than 2k and then reduce it. There're a few more issues, so I'll wait for any of you to decide if this can or cannot be a good choice.

So, I'm still searching for more.

By the way, now that we're getting some responses on free sample sensors, it would be nice to find out if there's any simple way to connect them to the computer. I'm talking about some kind of board (maybe the ngw100) that we can program to get images from the sensor.

Hey Jose, great job on getting us so far! If no one else better qualified steps up to the plate on your second omni vision sensor I would be willing to give it a go. I of course can't guarantee results but I would be more then willing to try. Do you happen to know where we can find a datasheet on these chips?

I just requested the full datasheet. For now I'm attaching the brief.

If anyone else wants the other one, just ask for it. That way we'll have more chances.

Jamie, PM me with your address.

Remember our main goal is to build a basic sensor-computer interface with added in-board lossless compression if possible (to low down data rate). Developers have full freedom with the interface but I'd suggest GigE. Then we'll develop the software to control the sensor and capture the stream.

Remember there're many different options. Be open minded. Don't close doors.

By the way, don't forget the Ambarella chip! Wayne said it can be directly connected to the sensor to get H.264 streams to an IDE interface. We'd still need the computer to set up resolution, gain... but H.264 is a completely professional codec and can give very good results.

I mailed Ambarella asking for more info but no response yet.

Your omnivision sensor are on a small PCB, you just got the sensor ??
If you need to make a pcb for the sensor board, well it's going to be hard to manufacture and expensive...

For the amberella chip, i'm note sure if you can get easily a chip that support 1080p real-time compression...

(time to order a fpga board and learn VHDL it seems...)

Yes, I just have the sensor. A square piece of silicon. In a little box. Waiting for a whole system to extract sequences from it :)

By the way, remember we have a link to several encoding cores for FPGAs.