It seems Hanvision's only working with Foveon sensors now. I just mailed them. Let's see what they can offer.

Any other Altasens distributor? You're right, maybe we can get small amounts that way.

I think Toshiba has an camera, but slow and costly, have link on my technical thread. But wait, they have announced they are working on things, so it should turn up further into the year. I think there was another company linked from the Foveon, or the hanvision site before (complicated to find some links on these sites).

Reading the Red digital cinema site ( http://www.red.com/index.php ) I've found that people that have tryed it is amazed by the dynamic range of the camera that is 66dB so I've downloaded (once again) the data sheet of the micron 5mp sensor ( http://download.micron.com/pdf/flyers/mt9p001.pdf ) and I found that elphel have 70dB cool ...isn't it!?!

Hi Mateo,

If you take a look at the New DIY HD Cinema Camera thread you can download clips captured with that sensor.

I am very dubious of dynamic range claims. There is an document I saw an long time ago over at Dalsa, I think, that explains how these figures are not as good as they make out.

I used to think this dynamic range was basically reflective of the bit depth than actually latitude, but people seem to be saying differently. But all the time the db matches bit depth. Another thing is, what binning is the max being measured. I suppose somebody like Andrey would be able to clarify these things, what are they really meaning here by 70db. The 5mp shot I saw looked no better than an Sanyo HD1 camera in latitude, an lot of burn out. Of course, we expect better from binning.


With latitude I tend to look at well capacity (ceiling), noise factors (floor), QE/fillfactor, and any latitude extensions schemes first, to get an idea of what it might turn out.

I think you're right Wayne I've seen a document that combine bit depth only to dB latitude not othe spec of the sensor ! but I hope that the final result will be better than a Sanyo ....reading the Jose's thread I've found that rolling shutter issue is minimal if the sensor is set to 96MHz but looking at the image on the elphel wiki in particular this one: http://wiki.elphel.com/index.php?title=Image:10353_sample_01.jpeg you can notice the problem looking at every car ...hope that the sensor was set at a lower refrash rate ?48MHz?

Yeah, those cars do look more sporty than usual, but not too bad.

The larger version has more definition in the highlight detail.

That is more the contrast I would be looking for (you can brighten and stretch post color correction) not to much detail lost in the shadows, and not too much lost in the top end. Problem is that sun is shining through an cloud, so you have an big density filter over it. Look at the blue car down the bottom and you can see it's reflection. Car looks nice, can see inside of it and out, under somewhat and ther disk break mechanism, natural enough. Something bright/reflective next to the drain is burnt out. So it is probably dealing with half the stops of what it seems to be, then again, what aperture was used. Looks better than the 3 micron sensor from an few years back, but I will take an guess, is it 8 stops?

There is still the lowish SN, but if it could deal with harsh tropical midday, mid summer sun like that, it would be great to use.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3616515426451811910&q=user%3A%22Google+engEDU%22&total=333&start=0&num=10&so=1&type=search&plindex=0
That was (and still is) keeping me really busy

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3616515426451811910&q=user%3A%22Google+engEDU%22&total=333&start=0&num=10&so=1&type=search&plindex=0
That was (and still is) keeping me really busy

Thanks for posting that Link Andrey!
It was real cool to see and hear the guy who made elphel! :)

Is there any news on internal camera harddrive support? Just curious!!

//O.

Thanks for posting that Link Andrey!

Is there any news on internal camera harddrive support? Just curious!!
//O.

We just received some (factory built) 10349 boards while in California but the first one has some hardware problems I could not resolve while in a trip. I do not think it is serious as the prototypes worked. Actually our developers have 2 prototype hard boards with hard drive for several months, so some software is already developed.

Andrey, Micron sensor MT9P401I12STC (http://www.micron.com/products/partdetail?part=MT9P401I12STC) can be used ?
Product Flyer PDF (http://download.micron.com/pdf/flyers/MT9P401%20Flyer.pdf)

Probably yes, but from the brief look over the "Product Flyer" I do not see differences from the MT9P001 we are using now. Maybe they have some bug fixes (we noticed in MT9P001)

Price wil be the same around $150-200 in volume?
This sensor is only one marked as HD and for HD camcorder.

Actually our developers have 2 prototype hard boards with hard drive for several months, so some software is already developed.

ah! Interesting!!
I really look forward to hear any details on their progress!!

thanks for the update!

//O.

hey everyone!

i've just spent the last 4 hours reading all i can about this camera. it sounds awesome!!

Andrey, when do you think the hard drive/CF module will be ready?

and will the camera still need a computer to be setup and adjusted, or will it have a control module as well?

if you're planning on separating it from a computer entirely, will there be a video-out of some sort?

thanks
patrick

Patrick you can find a lot info there: http://wiki.elphel.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

Patrick you can find a lot info there: http://wiki.elphel.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

i've pretty much read all that. it doesn't say anything about video-out or a computerless control module... so i guess that's a no....

the reason i asked is, if you still need a computer to control the camera, would there be any use for having onboard hard drives or CF?

Hello everyone,

I've been away for some weeks, but now I'm back and I'll try to find as much as time I can to 'dive' back into the Elphel 353 development.

Patrick, I don't think Andrey originally planned the 353 to be controlled from something else than a PC. As I remember, he told me it might be possible, but I guess he meant it for independent developers on this forum to build something themselves.
We also spoke about the hard drive module and I hope I will be given the opportunity to test it when it's ready. First of all, I'll start with the 353 itself.

I've got 3 working 10349 boards on hand and I'll send 2 of them to Switzerland on Monday - one will stay there and the other I would like to send to Oscar.
Currently out of the box it works with 1.8" HDD with zif-type (flex cable) connector - they say it is the same as in i-Pods. USB is also tested as well as rs-232.
Right now you still need computer to control the camera, but Swiss guys are trying to use USB-to-Blue Tooth adapter so cell phones could be eventually used to control the camera.

that's awesome news.

can the 1.8" drives cope with full quality MJPEG at 2058x1536 25fps ?
i did some rough calculations and it seems the MT9P001 can handle that.
I'm just worried about bandwidth limitations.

in the roadmap section of the wiki, the audio part is bare... but i found this http://wiki.elphel.com/index.php?title=PCM2903
are there still plans to implement audio?

also, if we can record directly to a hard drive and control the camera from a phone, what will we use to view the footage? video-out anyone?

cheers

Right now you still need computer to control the camera, but Swiss guys are trying to use USB-to-Blue Tooth adapter so cell phones could be eventually used to control the camera.

Sounds familiar. Who are these Swiss guys, sounds interesting? You can fit an primitive video feed over BT, but that would need the camera to generate an low res preview feed. Sounds like an good scheme, any more information.

Forgot to add:
http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=13284
http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=13177

For $200 good display and Linux PC processing solution for Elphel, plus flash. It is an shame they did not include DVD+DTV and FPGA model for the port DVD market.

Wayne, do you really think the Eee will have enough power and bandwidth to store 24fps HD clips from the Elphel?

Does this camera offer any cinema camera *must have* features, such as more bit depth than all of the consumer HD cams ?
Sorry to sound a bit brash, but other than using alternative codecs, I would really like to know if this project/thread is more than an excellent hardware and software project to tinker.
-Les

Yep, attaching hard drive or flash might be an negative, but if storage is in the camera, than all the Laptop has to do is use it's media processor to display the frames, and control the camera. When you look at it, PDA or phone could be sued, but then again hard to get something as good for the price of the PC. It is not an good solution, ergonomically, just cheap.

An good idea, would be any device that can be programmed to display and control with LCD and compatible IO, in an form factor that more suits camera use. Can anybody think of any, lie an media player?

Did anybody ever try out lossless grey scale compression of bayer on the 333?

Does this camera offer any cinema camera *must have* features, such as more bit depth than all of the consumer HD cams ?
Sorry to sound a bit brash, but other than using alternative codecs, I would really like to know if this project/thread is more than an excellent hardware and software project to tinker.
-Les

No, the camera has only 8 bits/component in the output file format. On the other hand (we discussed it earlier - see http://www.elphel.com/actualbits.html) for many sensors 8 bit is enough provided you encode them non-linearly (as is possible with Elphel cameras - 5 MPix sensor has 12 bit ADC). You may just use appropriate gamma, it is possible to add custom "curves" as in the FPGA such processing is implemented using 256-element (per color) programmable tables with interpolation.

BTW - we restored raw Bayer encoding where in each 16x16 macroblock each of the 4 color components is grouped in individual 8x8 block before JPEG compression (parameter "j" - http://wiki.elphel.com/index.php?title=Ccam.cgi#opt)

A nokia N800 ? it's an "internet tablet" but with wifi only (so you need a ethernet>wifi adaptor, does that exist ?). I read about a guy controlling is Nikon with it for auto-bracketing without moving the camera (HDR shooting).

The screen resolution is quite nice (800x480) and it's running linux so you can hack it at will.

Lossless compression of 333 ? Do you mean in the fpga or just as a test on pc ?

Andrey, that's great news about the 10349 board. (also, interesting video of the Google tech talks)

Steven, I really like the development of the camera controlled by something like the Nokia n800.
Maybe it sounds strange, but don't forget that film cameras used to have optical viewfinders. If we forget the real time preview part, and leave that to an optical viewfinder, which i.m.o. still is the best way to focus and frame your shots.
This way you only need the 'camera controller' to show the actual exposure levels, white balance, gamma, contrast etc. Either show them as numbers or as simple graphics. If you know what you are doing, you know what the image would look like. You can also use some auto settings and hit something like 'hold' when you want to lock the settings at some point. It would be something like the left part in the Ajax interface (http://www.linuxdevices.com/files/misc/elphel_camvc.jpg), but even more simple.
Now lets really consider this, because the real time preview will always stay a problem and skipping it will also reduce the computing power of the camera controller.

The reason for 10 bit and digital viewfinders, is convenience and increased professionalism. With 8 bit you have to be more careful in filming, because there is less room to correct post, what only looked good during filming, or to enhance. With digital viewfinders it is easier to find focus thru res enhancement, cues, and exposure through zebra.

The camera would be used by an lot of people that are not high paid cinematographers that are good and experienced at picking them by eye.

I know all that of course. I just mean that real time preview would not be the first problem to look at. If you integrate the Elphel in a 35mm adapter it would be easy to build some optical viewfinder. The camera controller would be used as a enhanced exposure-meter and camera control.
If we have everything working, we can solve the preview than.

I understand.

I've got a question... What would be the minimum specs for a computer to control the Elphel if you want to get 2048x858 pixels @24fps fixed?

Here are some more of my thoughts on real-time preview during shooting.
From my experience with the 333 camera hooked up to a laptop, I'd say this: You would think you like to have all the controls you can think of (from exposure to color controls etc), but when you are actually shooting, especially outdoors, you'd prefer some basic presets with minimal control over exposure time. Another thing is... you don't see anything on most lcd screens in bright sunlight. So you don't have more benefits from digital preview than an optical one.
Right now, the ajax interface provides a full res. preview which updates about once a second. This is absolutely fine if you want to set you're exposure and color adjustments. You'd know exactly what your footage is going to look like and you can't adjust anything while shooting anyway.
EDIT:(excuse me if I have repeated myself, I'm just thinking out loud, making clear priorities for this project)

So to add to Jose's question, if we are looking for a small portable controller for the Elphel 353, what would be the minimal specs, when you only need what I described above.

A nokia N800 ? it's an "internet tablet" but with wifi only (so you need a ethernet>wifi adaptor, does that exist ?). I read about a guy controlling is Nikon with it for auto-bracketing without moving the camera (HDR shooting).
The screen resolution is quite nice (800x480) and it's running linux so you can hack it at will.

Would something like this be suitable? Does someone has more thoughts on this one?

The last few weekends I have been shooting some short films with the my old integrated 333 design, it works pretty well and is helping me plan the next revision.

I have been building a Linux distribution that runs form the hard drive and is optimized for filmmaking with the 333. The boot time is pretty quick, much better then the cd. I'm also coding custom software that shows a real time preview while recording and provide other camera controls. Once the interface loads the camera is automatically configured to my filming presets. Most of it is working already, just needs some optimization.

My goal is to make the camera boot right up and to record at the hit of a single button. No messing with any other software or typing in numbers. I bought an avr board and some other hardware to put together an analog interface to the camera settings.

As for the rest of the hardware, I was able to find a good micro atx board which will make the camera a much smaller integrated package. The next camera body will be fiberglass, stronger and lighter.

Yes, I agree, visually lossless is good enough, but with Bayer, lossless would be preferable because of the knock on effects of color deviation during de-bayering. Otherwise, I think lossless is only of much use in movies for green screening, and computer graphics, even though I find it more pleasurable to look at than visually lossless.

Is anybody working on the choice of down converting 4:4:4 binned pixels to Bayer pixels before compression, to reduce compression and data rate?

Will the Dirac wavelet FPGA project be of any good to you, or is there any other wavelet FPGA codecs out there (2D-5D)?

Pete Bleackley do implementation the Dirac (http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/projects/dirac/implementations.shtml) Open Source video codec in VHDL.
His work in progress can be seen on Opencores. (http://www.opencores.org/projects.cgi/web/dirac/overview)

A 3 years ago David Newman (Cineform CTO) and Rob Scott discussed about Dirac codec and wavelets compression :) http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/archive/index.php/t-25808-p-2.html

Just "Groundhog Day" :)

The last few weekends I have been shooting some short films with the my old integrated 333 design, it works pretty well and is helping me plan the next revision.

I have been building a Linux distribution that runs form the hard drive and is optimized for filmmaking with the 333.
My goal is to make the camera boot right up and to record at the hit of a single button.

That's all good news Daniel. I've also spoken to Alexandre Poltorak from Elphel who is working on an Ubuntu based distribution which also installs to the hard drive. This is all very crucial to make the Elphel a very usable cinema camera.
It's just bad luck I had no time at all to spend on the project these last months, but that'll change.
I am working on improvements on my optical parts (35mm adapter, macrolens etc) while waiting for some better power supplier for the 353. (Anyone got a good idea on how to make 48v DC portable. Can I make some sort of voltage quadrupler(?) on a 12v battery? )

(Anyone got a good idea on how to make 48v DC portable. Can I make some sort of voltage quadrupler(?) on a 12v battery? )
They are called "DC-DC converters" you can find them at places like www.rs-online-com

Cheers,
Take

With the harddrive option in view and the sensor-switch option, how about a system that alternately captures and compresses a left and right eye Micron sensor image with a camera body similar to this:
http://www.3dworld.cn/show_product_detail_en.asp?id=65

Hi to all :-)
I've got an Idea to increase the dynamic range of the mjpeg output of the elphel (maybe Andrey can tell me if it is possible or not! ).
the jpg format is only 8bit depth for that reason we all want a raw capture ...to save more data that come from the sensor. so this is only a software trick ;-)
I've read http://www.hdrsoft.com/resources/dri.html and here is my idea:set
the camera to shoot at 1/48 sec and the first frame is overexposed the second normal exposed (a sort of bracketing mode of digital camera) 3° frame over 4°normal...and so on ...the elphel hardwere now take every couple of frame and blend in one jpg frame like what software like Photomatix of photoshop cs2 does
see example: http://www.hdrsoft.com/examples.html
and in the camera control insert a flag for hdr imaging with a slide option for "Strength" to controls how much of the HDR effect is applied.
the output will be a 1/24 sec movie file with more dynamic range and more motion blur
what do you think!?!

Won't work if the image is moving. Works great for still pictures.
You are right, 8 bits is very limiting for color correcting.
With all due respect, might as well get a canon HD camcorder and shoot 1440 x 1080 HD video for $950 ? But I do think it is fun playing with home brew alternatives. Making it 10 bits would really make it worthwhile, and better than the $950 camcorders. Before long, the consumer camcorders will shoot 10 bits, I predict. Elphel guys better be planning ;)
-Les

Hi to all :-)
I've got an Idea to increase the dynamic range of the mjpeg output of the elphel (maybe Andrey can tell me if it is possible or not! ).
the jpg format is only 8bit depth for that reason we all want a raw capture ...to save more data that come from the sensor. so this is only a software trick ;-)
I've read http://www.hdrsoft.com/resources/dri.html and here is my idea:set
the camera to shoot at 1/48 sec and the first frame is overexposed the second normal exposed (a sort of bracketing mode of digital camera) 3° frame over 4°normal...and so on ...the elphel hardwere now take every couple of frame and blend in one jpg frame like what software like Photomatix of photoshop cs2 does
see example: http://www.hdrsoft.com/examples.html
and in the camera control insert a flag for hdr imaging with a slide option for "Strength" to controls how much of the HDR effect is applied.
the output will be a 1/24 sec movie file with more dynamic range and more motion blur
what do you think!?!

I was going to say exactly the same. If you shoot an image 1/48 of a second and then another one and blend them together, you get a double image, not more motion blur. In fact with 1/48 you get the exact amount of motion blur you have with standard film. That "extra" motion blur is useless.

The only way to get more color info on the image is shooting lossless. You still have 8bit but something more similar to 4:2:2 in terms of color compression instead of 4:2:0.

Is the Elphel better than shooting with a HDV prosumer camera? IMHO yes.

Why? Well, just think about all different stretching and sharpening processes you get when shooting HDV and the fact that you're also compressing the image after all that. Let's say you're shooting something you want to look more cinematic, so you turn on the famous "frame mode". Now, the sensor captures 50 fields per second (1440x540 active pixels each). As you're in frame mode, each other field gets deleted. That 1440x540 image is then stretched to 1920x1080 and sharpened. After all that it gets interlaced again so it can be compressed in HDV and seen in non-progresive equipment.

That's what you get when shooting something you want to look like film with something that was designed to maximize compatibility with old TVs and standard non-progresive stuff.

Now with the Elphel and all different real progresive cams (like SI2k and RED) every single pixel you capture is where it has to be. You can capture a 2048x858 image and the sensor really uses all those pixels, appart from the fact that you're actually shooting progresive, just like a film camera does. Of course those cams are not perfect. You still have problems with rolling shutter and you end up compressing the image anyway but again, IMHO, the image and motion feeling you get is way better than shooting HDV.

Just in case someone points it out, yes. With the HV20 you get better image quality than other HDV cams, but I think the Elphel still beats it in terms of cinematic feeling, appart from the fact that you can actually shoot 2K with the Elphel (2.39:1).

Perhaps there should be a little footage 'shoot out' to compare against a HV20 with the proper de-interlacing done. It's fun to talk about all the image processing steps involved in the HDV cameras, but the end result is what really matters, isn't it?

Here is a practical question: Where can I download some sample Elphel HD footage from, to start ? Surly there is an active link somewhere !
-Les



Just in case someone points it out, yes. With the HV20 you get better image quality than other HDV cams, but I think the Elphel still beats it in terms of cinematic feeling, appart from the fact that you can actually shoot 2K with the Elphel (2.39:1).

Here is a practical question: Where can I download some sample Elphel HD footage from, to start ? Surly there is an active link somewhere !
-Les

HD cinema camera Development FAQ (Matteo Pozzi) (http://wiki.elphel.com/index.php?title=HD_cinema_camera_Development_FAQ)

You can download the (54MB) file here: http://community.elphel.com/videos/RomainSurMeuse2.avi (it's in Xvid compression)"

or the full resolution version Xvid (200MB): http://community.elphel.com/videos/RomainFULL.avi

My 353 is at your disposal, as soon as I buy it. Have in mind that I'm talking about cinematic image quality and motion feeling here.

I looked at the 200 meg version. Unfortunatly in the use of the DOF adaptor, the resolution seemed to have degraded to DVD resolution. Didn't look like HD/film res at all. The compression ( Xvid ) has also added major blocking artifacts to the blurred video.
The short strobed shutter speed made the womens actions very non-film like. While the DOF adapter helps it look like cinema, the other attributes negated any gains towards that look.
Might there be a clip of longer exposure time without the ground glass DOF adapter ?

ps: A good simple way to determine actual archived resolution is to resize the video to 1/2 res and then size it up again. Then compare that with the original high res. If it does not look different, you really don't have the high res in the first place! Advanced users can subtract the two images in a compositor ( After Effects, etc ) and look for the edges in the difference image. No edges visible = no details at the higher resolution.

-Les

HD cinema camera Development FAQ (Matteo Pozzi) (http://wiki.elphel.com/index.php?title=HD_cinema_camera_Development_FAQ)

You can download the (54MB) file here: http://community.elphel.com/videos/RomainSurMeuse2.avi (it's in Xvid compression)"

or the full resolution version Xvid (200MB): http://community.elphel.com/videos/RomainFULL.avi

Les, it's all very true what you are saying, but...
on the 798th post on a thread about a camera, it's a bit useless to go into all the reasons for this whole project in the first place. The clip of the film I posted was shot:

-With a camera under development
-With a 35mm microwax adapter under development
-Being the first outdoors test with a camera designed for other purposes

It does not do justice to a project which is developing every day(humm, I wish), to compare it with a HDV cam right out of the store. There are so many aspects that have my attention (and the people at Elphel - and some of the people on this forum) and are being worked on.

One other thing that keeps popping up as a disadvantage is the compression. But one of the reasons why the Elphel camera's are unique is the real time compression. The footage can be really beautiful when the settings on the camera are right. We seem to be a bit obsessed by post color corrections and all of that, while we'd better learn to get the footage (about)right in the first place. When I make a photograph with a traditional camera, I choose the right film type, set the exposure right, set the iris right, focus right. Did we forget about all of that or what?

Stupid thing is, I'm still too busy these days, but I can really begin working with the new 353 model sometime next week. I'll post all my work of course.

Ok, OK, you don't want to compare with a camera out of a store. And sure, the store camera that the local house wife is 'filming' her baby with beats the pants off of this kit camera, it seems at this point in time.

But I do understand that this is a hobby. Many people built kit cars for fun, and it is also a great hobby. The local showroom cars are better, faster, etc, but there is nothing like the pride of doing it yourself.
I'm doing such a car project myself, because it will be unique and fun. I'm not going to win road races with it.

However if the end goal is to make a good looking movie, perhaps a little reality checking is in order every now and then, perhaps to steer the feature list in a different direction. I'd recommend high bit depth to seperate this project from the 'out of the store' 8 bit non color correctable HDV cams.









It does not do justice to a project which is developing every day(humm, I wish), to compare it with a HDV cam right out of the store. .

This was shot with the same sensor. It's not the Elphel but it's close. 2K resolution. Sunlight coming from a side window and no color correction at all. It's not tack sharp, but neither is film.

http://www.cus-cus.net/dani/Test02-2k.mov
http://www.cus-cus.net/dani/Test02-2k.wmv

Don't pay attention to the whole clip. It was an internal joke with a friend of mine.

Hi to all :-)
I've got an Idea to increase the dynamic range of the mjpeg output of the elphel (maybe Andrey can tell me if it is possible or not! ).
the jpg format is only 8bit depth for that reason we all want a raw capture ...to save more data that come from the sensor. so this is only a software trick ;-)
I've read http://www.hdrsoft.com/resources/dri.html and here is my idea:set
the camera to shoot at 1/48 sec and the first frame is overexposed the second normal exposed (a sort of bracketing mode of digital camera) 3° frame over 4°normal...and so on ...the elphel hardwere now take every couple of frame and blend in one jpg frame like what software like Photomatix of photoshop cs2 does
see example: http://www.hdrsoft.com/examples.html
and in the camera control insert a flag for hdr imaging with a slide option for "Strength" to controls how much of the HDR effect is applied.
the output will be a 1/24 sec movie file with more dynamic range and more motion blur
what do you think!?!

I invested a lot of time researching this earlier, trying to put together prototypes. It works great for stills, and I believe its a commonly practiced technique. When I put this to work on the elphel though I ran into trouble.

First, if you are shooting at 24p using this technique you would have to expose for three frames and in fact you are having to shoot at 72p. Sure its possible but only by severely lowering the resolution and quality.

Second, this would have to be done on the camera hardware. Writing client side software that instructs the camera to change settings on the fly like this is not practical because there is a delay. I suspect this delay is due to the web server type of interface.


About the shootout, I have some short films shot on the 333 but nothing ready to present just yet.

Here is the absolute sharpest picture I have been able to get from the 333 using a 35mm adapter thus far. It was shot as a video in 2000x800 at 24p and I think 85% quality or possibly 90%. It has really been a while.
http://www.buysmartpc.com/333/letus/qt.jpg

This is a version with 2 sharpen passes.
http://www.buysmartpc.com/333/letus/qtsharpen.jpg


Im shooting another short film tomorrow with the 333, involving heavy bluescreen work. I look forward to the results. My previous bluescreen experience has all been DV.

<edit>
I just had a thought, if it was possible to have three (or even two) 333 cameras all capture an image from the same lens you could use three sets of settings and get multiple streams at once. The intel core 2 duo quad core processor im ordering for the next camera may be enough to handle multiple streams like this.