High Definition with Elphel model 333 camera

Sebastian Pichelhofer · July 30th, 2008, 05:56 AM

Yes, soon I hope.

Sebastian Pichelhofer · August 17th, 2008, 05:01 AM

While I now wait for my Elphel camera to arrive I started working on the next big project:

A new Elphel camera body especially designed for professional filmmakers.
Working title for now is the "Elphel Cinevision"

It will be a lot bigger than the current surveillance like camera body and should have enough room for 2 swapable CF cards and 1.8" or 2.5" HDDs. There will be some custom battery pack solution and an HD LCD display at some point.

The first thing I started to toy around was designing an exchangeable lens mount that is not just an adapter ring.

The image below shows the (not assembled) lens mount parts.
The lens mount plate can contain mounts for C-Mount, PL-Mount, Canon, Nikon, ....
I also had the idea of adding rods to the mount plate.

What do you think of this so far?

Oscar Spierenburg · August 20th, 2008, 05:17 AM

I like the idea. I also liked the camera body for developers they where discussing at Elphel : 10349 - ElphelWiki
Maybe you could keep the idea of an expandable body where you can easily ad a new part.
It's a bit similar to the RED camera.
Otherwise you'll maybe end up with a big square box.

Sebastian Pichelhofer · September 7th, 2008, 01:30 PM

I got my camera (possibly the first delivered model with built in 1.8" HDD) this week, thanks Elphel!

On Friday I did some tests with the harddisk recorder.

I successfully recorded a 1920x1088 movie at 90% jpeg quality and 25 fps. One frame was around 550kb big which resulted in a 100mb quicktime file for 7 seconds.

Sorry but no file upload yet to take a look at yet as the video showed just a dark empty room. But stay tuned! As soon as I shot anything, that I don't have to be ashamed of showing, I will post it here.

In the meantime I did some modifications to the web based camera interface to honor the video filmers choice in framesizes a little more than the old list (see attachment).

I also did a comparison between elphel internal and post applied demosaicing algorithms over at the elphel wiki. -> Demosaic on client side - ElphelWiki

The conclusion was that the certain amount of blur that the elphel shot images still show are the result of a still very basic implementation of bilinear demosaicing in the camera.

Régine Weinberg · September 8th, 2008, 03:28 AM

not dead this thread , way big fun
still alive, way better
take please a look at
Active Silicon Limited - Imaging Products, Systems and Solutions

Core 2Duo
Firewire
Usb2
GIG E
total passive cooling
I bet looks like a wearable portable solution
could do anything the Ephel cam does not have on board

Sebastian Pichelhofer · September 9th, 2008, 11:58 AM

good piece!

But I think I would prefer if the elphel camera itself had everything onboard that I need ;)

Andrey Filippov · September 12th, 2008, 11:49 AM

I'm working hard and hope to have 7.2 software soon (all FPGA and most driver code is written - starting debugging next week) - it will support pipeline operation - coordinated parameters change without acquisition pipeline restart. And - it has multiple modes of encoding, JP4 (JPEG-encoded raw Bayer) in it can run 1.5 times faster, supporting full sensor FPS (i.e. 5MPix@15fps)

Sebastian Pichelhofer · October 7th, 2008, 01:48 AM

I finally was able to shot RAW video with my elphel camera!

Having enough free time, software development progress and good weather finally fell together yesterday.

The image sequence was converted to a DNG sequence and could then be imported into AfterFX.

Video will follow later today.

Check out the image below:

Oscar Spierenburg · October 7th, 2008, 04:37 AM

That's an enormous progress. What frame rate/frame size where you able to capture?
Did you capture to the PC or directly to the cameras HDD?

Sebastian Pichelhofer · October 7th, 2008, 04:57 AM

I recorded 1920x1080 Full HD @ 24fps to camera internal HDD.

The workflow is still a bit cumbersome:
-) Camera writes jp4 encoded jpeg image sequence onto internal HDD (the HDD recorder webinterfaces I wrote simplifies this task greatly)
-) grab the images from the camera with an ftp client of your choice.
-) there is a linux commandlinetool (dcraw author & elphel cooperation) from the past that transforms a jp4 jpeg into adobes digital color negative file (*.dng) which is a raw format. I wrote a small script that batch converts a whole directory
-) batch rename your dng sequence and import it into a software that can read dngs (since its adobes own file format most CS3 Suite tools should be able to open it), I used After FX CS3

Full HD xvid avi (63MB): http://www.oneartplease.com/files/elphel_raw_full.avi

I also uploaded it as 1280x720 video to vimeo but it says its still compressing:
Elphel Raw Test Footage on Vimeo

Igor Babic · October 7th, 2008, 07:52 AM

vimeo says its private video...

Sebastian Pichelhofer · October 7th, 2008, 07:56 AM

Vimeo video is now online, but the avi is much higher quality.

Oscar Spierenburg · October 7th, 2008, 10:17 AM

Not bad at all! There seem to be some artifacts in moving objects in the RAW video. But overall the quality has improved very much, also the mjpeg compressed one (compared to my own test a couple of months ago).
I hope I will have time to do some testing with this soon!

Andrey Filippov · October 8th, 2008, 12:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sebastian Pichelhofer

Vimeo video is now online, but the avi is much higher quality.

Here is a mirror http://community.elphel.com/videos/elphel_raw_full.avi - it may be faster

Matteo Pozzi · October 13th, 2008, 03:30 AM

wow looks good with a very good dinamyc range!
how about the rolling shutter problem!?
have you done something to reduce it?

August 17th, 2008, 05:01 AM	#962
Sebastian Pichelhofer Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Vienna, Austria Posts: 112	While I now wait for my Elphel camera to arrive I started working on the next big project: A new Elphel camera body especially designed for professional filmmakers. Working title for now is the "Elphel Cinevision" It will be a lot bigger than the current surveillance like camera body and should have enough room for 2 swapable CF cards and 1.8" or 2.5" HDDs. There will be some custom battery pack solution and an HD LCD display at some point. The first thing I started to toy around was designing an exchangeable lens mount that is not just an adapter ring. The image below shows the (not assembled) lens mount parts. The lens mount plate can contain mounts for C-Mount, PL-Mount, Canon, Nikon, .... I also had the idea of adding rods to the mount plate. What do you think of this so far? Attached Thumbnails

September 7th, 2008, 01:30 PM	#964
Sebastian Pichelhofer Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Vienna, Austria Posts: 112	I got my camera (possibly the first delivered model with built in 1.8" HDD) this week, thanks Elphel! On Friday I did some tests with the harddisk recorder. I successfully recorded a 1920x1088 movie at 90% jpeg quality and 25 fps. One frame was around 550kb big which resulted in a 100mb quicktime file for 7 seconds. Sorry but no file upload yet to take a look at yet as the video showed just a dark empty room. But stay tuned! As soon as I shot anything, that I don't have to be ashamed of showing, I will post it here. In the meantime I did some modifications to the web based camera interface to honor the video filmers choice in framesizes a little more than the old list (see attachment). I also did a comparison between elphel internal and post applied demosaicing algorithms over at the elphel wiki. -> Demosaic on client side - ElphelWiki The conclusion was that the certain amount of blur that the elphel shot images still show are the result of a still very basic implementation of bilinear demosaicing in the camera. Attached Images

September 8th, 2008, 03:28 AM	#965
Régine Weinberg Major Player Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Bordeaux, going to Bangkok, 2011 Posts: 232	Wow not dead this thread , way big fun still alive, way better take please a look at Active Silicon Limited - Imaging Products, Systems and Solutions Core 2Duo Firewire Usb2 GIG E total passive cooling I bet looks like a wearable portable solution could do anything the Ephel cam does not have on board

September 12th, 2008, 11:49 AM	#967
Andrey Filippov Major Player Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Magna, Utah Posts: 215	7.2 software I'm working hard and hope to have 7.2 software soon (all FPGA and most driver code is written - starting debugging next week) - it will support pipeline operation - coordinated parameters change without acquisition pipeline restart. And - it has multiple modes of encoding, JP4 (JPEG-encoded raw Bayer) in it can run 1.5 times faster, supporting full sensor FPS (i.e. 5MPix@15fps)

October 7th, 2008, 01:48 AM	#968
Sebastian Pichelhofer Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Vienna, Austria Posts: 112	I finally was able to shot RAW video with my elphel camera! Having enough free time, software development progress and good weather finally fell together yesterday. The image sequence was converted to a DNG sequence and could then be imported into AfterFX. Video will follow later today. Check out the image below: Attached Thumbnails

July 30th, 2008, 05:56 AM	#961
Sebastian Pichelhofer Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Vienna, Austria Posts: 112	Yes, soon I hope.

August 20th, 2008, 05:17 AM	#963
Oscar Spierenburg Major Player Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: (The Netherlands - Belgium) Posts: 735	I like the idea. I also liked the camera body for developers they where discussing at Elphel : 10349 - ElphelWiki Maybe you could keep the idea of an expandable body where you can easily ad a new part. It's a bit similar to the RED camera. Otherwise you'll maybe end up with a big square box.

September 9th, 2008, 11:58 AM	#966
Sebastian Pichelhofer Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Vienna, Austria Posts: 112	good piece! But I think I would prefer if the elphel camera itself had everything onboard that I need ;)

October 7th, 2008, 04:37 AM	#969
Oscar Spierenburg Major Player Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: (The Netherlands - Belgium) Posts: 735	That's an enormous progress. What frame rate/frame size where you able to capture? Did you capture to the PC or directly to the cameras HDD?

October 7th, 2008, 04:57 AM	#970
Sebastian Pichelhofer Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Vienna, Austria Posts: 112	I recorded 1920x1080 Full HD @ 24fps to camera internal HDD. The workflow is still a bit cumbersome: -) Camera writes jp4 encoded jpeg image sequence onto internal HDD (the HDD recorder webinterfaces I wrote simplifies this task greatly) -) grab the images from the camera with an ftp client of your choice. -) there is a linux commandlinetool (dcraw author & elphel cooperation) from the past that transforms a jp4 jpeg into adobes digital color negative file (*.dng) which is a raw format. I wrote a small script that batch converts a whole directory -) batch rename your dng sequence and import it into a software that can read dngs (since its adobes own file format most CS3 Suite tools should be able to open it), I used After FX CS3 Full HD xvid avi (63MB): http://www.oneartplease.com/files/elphel_raw_full.avi I also uploaded it as 1280x720 video to vimeo but it says its still compressing: Elphel Raw Test Footage on Vimeo

October 7th, 2008, 07:52 AM	#971
Igor Babic Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Zagreb, Croatia Posts: 171	vimeo says its private video...

October 7th, 2008, 07:56 AM	#972
Sebastian Pichelhofer Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Vienna, Austria Posts: 112	Vimeo video is now online, but the avi is much higher quality. Last edited by Sebastian Pichelhofer; October 7th, 2008 at 03:22 PM.

October 7th, 2008, 10:17 AM	#973
Oscar Spierenburg Major Player Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: (The Netherlands - Belgium) Posts: 735	Not bad at all! There seem to be some artifacts in moving objects in the RAW video. But overall the quality has improved very much, also the mjpeg compressed one (compared to my own test a couple of months ago). I hope I will have time to do some testing with this soon!

October 13th, 2008, 03:30 AM	#975
Matteo Pozzi Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Milan, Italy Posts: 169	wow looks good with a very good dinamyc range! how about the rolling shutter problem!? have you done something to reduce it?