What is an Oxberry Computer Camera?

Geffen Avraham · April 7

Two of these showed up at Community Thrift in San Francisco a few weeks ago, and I picked one up yesterday. American Cinematographer in 1986 says:

Quote

Oxberry has unveiled a 35mm computer camera with 750 frame capacity for unattended downloading of computer graphic images. The Oxberry PC-35 also offers pin-registration guaranteeing high-precision image placement for multi-image (multi-projector) slide effects.

Daylight loading film magazines make it easy to process any length of film and to change film stock when desired. An optional 35mm Polaroid film magazine permits quick testing of computer and film recorder output.

Automatic skip-marking assures accurate separation of 36 exposure strips for short roll processors. Film can also be marked manually to separate specific jobs.

Roll-back multiple exposures are accomplished with forward and reverse jog controls and a digital frame counter. A separate display monitors the film remaining in the feed magazine. Both counters are resettable.

The PC-35 Computer Camera is designed for easy retrofit to Matrix PCR film recorders. No factory alignment or modification is necessary. A simple technique and mounting procedure assure accurate field alignment.

Seems like this was used in the 80s to print CGI to film!

Looking inside, I saw a 2-phase stepper motor with what appears to be a glued-on optical encoder. The magazine feed and takeup are driven by Japan Servo 5000rpm DC motors with 10:1 gear reductions.

There do not seem to be an actual computer inside - this is good! With a bit of help and experimentation, I can probably recreate the original controller, which I don't have, with a common MCU.

Anyone ever worked with one of these, or have any docs for it?

Here is the camera. Is it actually the PC-35 described in ASC mag? What kind of magazine does it take? A standard 400ft Mitchell?

Edited April 7 by Geffen Avraham

Geffen Avraham · April 8

Robert Houllahan · April 8

These are for digital to film recording usually with a older CRT based recorder.

Geffen Avraham · April 8

Thank you! Do you know where I might be able to find any documentation on this camera?

Robert Houllahan · April 9

7 hours ago, Geffen Avraham said:

Thank you! Do you know where I might be able to find any documentation on this camera?

Not likely to be able to find any but it is a very simple camera setup usually driven by an external stepper or servo motor.

Craig Boydston · April 29

I'd love to know more about these, if you do find a way to get them to work.

Geffen Avraham · April 30

have you also acquired one?

i'm going to try and make a new film recorder for it with a 16k LCD used on SLA printers, and perhaps an RGB LED light source.

In theory should be able to improve time per frame quite a bit over the old CRT recorders, and record directly to inexpensive(ish) 2383 print film

Robert Houllahan · May 2

Easy to use to make a new film recorder (I have several at Cinelab for that purpose) it just takes removing the older motor (If equipped with one) and adapting a new stepper or servo motor to the shaft.

Pretty easy to mod and make run, this one in the pic above has the smaller film magazine but some have Mitchell standard 400ft 1000ft and 2000ft magazines also.

The 16K LCD with a RGB LED backlight seems pretty good very high res indeed.

I am using a Micro OLED for the 16mm recorder which has vastly better contrast than any LCD and up to 2800nits brightness.

Are those 16K LCDs available as a part? Will look at that too thanks.

Robert Houllahan · May 2

I found the LCD manuf spec sheet online the panel.

Resolution is great but looks like it is 8bit and 300:1 contrast limits it as being useful in a commercial film recorder alas.

The Mico OLED has a 500,000:1 native contrast ratio.

Geffen Avraham · May 2

If the contrast will present an issue, the Sony ECX344A is a 3.5K x 4K micro-OLED currently shipping for about $1,000.

5000 nits if I'm not wrong, and about the size of a 35mm film frame.

Edited May 2 by Geffen Avraham

Robert Houllahan · May 2

1 hour ago, Geffen Avraham said:

If the contrast will present an issue, the Sony ECX344A is a 3.5K x 4K micro-OLED currently shipping for about $1,000.

5000 nits if I'm not wrong, and about the size of a 35mm film frame.

Quite a bit less than 5000nits for that M-OLED and it is 3840x3552 at 1000nits 20% duty cycle and 1.3" but a great looking chip and very hard to source in small quantity.

500k to 1 contrast and the brightness does not really matter too much in film recording unless you are trying to do real-time recording which there are other solutions like laser D-ILA projectors with 80K to 1 contrast and tons of brightness.

Apple uses that Sony ECX344A panel in the porno vision goggles.

Edited May 2 by Robert Houllahan