3 New HD Cameras

[Guest Pete Wright]

I've been following the various forums. This is what I was able to gather on new low cost uncompressed HD cameras. They will include hard drive arrays. The least expensive one is 720/60p. The other too are 2/3" 1080/60p.The first one I think is 1/2". There is also info on some inexpensive HD lenses and a ground glass. The ground glass is a basis of a future inexpensive 35 mm adapter. There were posts elsewhere about a Summix $4,000 camera. I don't have any real info about that one. This is Silicon Imaging's product. The $8-10K camera is supposed to have the same image quality as the Kinetta. The $20,000 camera the same image quality as F950.

Could someone post their opinions on this, but politely please. Also it would be nice if the ones, who are interested could post in the DVinfo.net thread. It is listed below. Silicon Imaging development engineer Steve Nordhouser is gathering info there. Also it is possible to open a thread here and invite Steve also to this forum.

LOW COST $4,000-20,000 HD CAMERAS. THESE SHOULD BECOME AVAILABLE WITHIN 3 MONTHS WITH HARD DISC ARRAYS INCLUDED:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?...15&pagenumber=7

720p uncompressed:

Laurence,

I was talking system prices to build one system. The first level - low cost, very good quality would be a micron camera, 720p, capture, PCI-32 computer with a two drive serial ATA RAID. Maybe $4K plus recording software.

 

1080p uncompressed:

The second level would be a PCI-X computer with at least a 4 drive RAID. I don't have real prices yet but around $8K-$10K.

 

3-chip 1080p uncompressed:

The third level involves recording three 150Mpix/sec (300MB/sec for uncompressed raw data) simultaneously. Plus 3x the camera cost of #2 plus a prism. I took a hipshot at $20K. The results should be as good as any commercial HD camera.

__________________

Silicon Imaging, Inc.

We see the Light!

http://www.siliconimaging.com

LENSES:

http://www.edmundoptics.com/onlinecatalog/...D=2411&search=1

 

 

35 MM ADAPTERS:

http://www.edmundoptics.com/onlinecatalog/...D=1459&search=1

 

35 mm adapter planed to be built around Nikon groung glass:

Nikon type D, unmarked matte screen into a 55 mm ring. It's the only completely unmarked view screen I've been able to find - $22. The grain is finer than anything I've yet produced and is completely uniform, but the screen is a bit of a pain to mount and presumably will need frequent slight adjustment to maintain alignment

 

I am not an expert on all this and I wonder what are the experts' opinions. If the cameras turn out to be good, and not too difficult to work with, they may have a strong impact on the high definition market. Affected will be new HDV format, and alsoon the existing HD formats.

 

Pete

[adrianwhite]

I came across yet another camera the other day.

 

SPECS: model IPC2M30HC

2 megapixel 8/10 bit HD camera

progressive scan 16:9

1920*1080 resolution

camera link interface

Programmable: resolution, framerate (will do 24p), electronic shuttter, long intergration, external trigger, pre exposure, strobe output, gain and offset!

(seems versatile!)

frame rate is programmable from 15-60 fps although it can only manage a max of 33fps at 1920*1080.

 

Uses a 1 inch progressive scan interline transfer ccd

can utilise C of F mount lenses

 

check it out at www.imperx.com

 

Please post you're opinions.

[Guest J Jukuzami]

Perfect. Finally two more straight thinking people in the HD forum. The rest of the members generally just get in and put down anything to do with HD, unless it is the Kinetta that was developed in a garage by a DP and even has a hand crank for under- and over-cranking and they all love this absolutely ridiculous feature.

 

Now the cameras that Pete describes are great; that is all I can say. I was following the DVinfo.net forum a little but I missed this info. Thanks Pete.

 

I already commented on Adrian's post in another thread.

[Mitch Gross]

unless it is the Kinetta that was developed in a garage by a DP and even has a hand crank for under- and over-cranking and they all love this absolutely ridiculous feature.

Where do you get this information -- excuse me, mis-information? The Kinetta has just as much real design and engineering behind it as any proper industrial product, likely more than some of the theoretical products you've posted links to in the past. It's a real product coming from a real company. The industry press latched onto the hand-crank feature which was thrown in as an afterthought by the designers and it is certainly not the only way to adjust frame rate on the camera.

 

Why does any one camera concept hae to outdo any other camera concept? They're all vaporware until they become available for people to use. All of these design concepts sound like interesting possibilities, but that's all they are right now and nothing more.

[Guest J Jukuzami]

Adrian,

 

Some more feedback on the camera that you've posted on.

 

This is probably the major breakthrough in low cost HD digital cinema, or at least one of them. I would run to buy your camera, however there are two other manufacturers coming out with similar models. One is Summix; another is the one posted on by Pete. Having these options and the fact that the Imperx camera does not have a standard interface to a PC or a Mac, and an output for a monitor, I'm waiting what are the two other ones going to come out with. Plus there is the Sony X300.

 

I think that the Imperx can be very successful, if they manage to educate people in forums like this, or maybe not in this particular one, but in other ones, how to use the camera, or if they post this info in their site. Another problem is a lack of local adjustments. You need at least control for color correction. You need at least daylight and tungsten settings. Imperx should see what settings the box HD cameras from Sony, Ikegami, etc. have.

 

One can work around these defficiencies, but I would need a help of a computer expert, as computers are not my field. The same goes for most of the people on this field. You need a simple plug in solution.

 

The camera should have a 10 bit SD HDI output to work best with Mac FCP HD, and BOXX RT with Prospect HD. It would also be nice if it had, or if one of the models had. firewire or another interface for 1440x1080p, 8 bit, 4:2:2 to work with Aspect HD, available on BOXX HDV NLE computers, which cost a fraction of the cost of the RT model.

[Guest J Jukuzami]

Adrian, try to post this info on DV, CreativeCow, 2-pop, and CamcorderInfo. The members there are not very knowlegable, as a rule, but are not anti HD as the ones here. Start your own threads, or the info will get lost.

[Jason Rodriguez]

One can work around these defficiencies, but I would need a help of a computer expert, as computers are not my field. The same goes for most of the people on this field. You need a simple plug in solution.

We don't feel like working around these deficiencies.

 

BTW, what kind of lens are you going to use on your Imperix? A C-mount???!!!

 

Are you going to compare a C-mount to an Zeiss prime?

 

You're full of it, and I can't stand you constant drabbling on about "Prospect HD", etc.

 

NOBODY IS GOING TO DRAG A COMPUTER AROUND BEHIND THEM IF THEY'RE SHOOTING A DOC OR A MOVIE ON LOCATION!!!!

 

WHEN WILL YOU GET THAT??!!

 

Have you even worked with Cameralink before?

 

You control the camera through a serial interface-like a command prompt. Not easy.

 

Yah, you'll need a stupid programmer for your stupid camera, and then guess what, you've just spent too much money

 

And your stupid prospect HD compresses the heck out of the footage-go shoot on a Sony for crying out loud.

 

BTW you can rent a very nice Sony package for $3,000 a week.

 

This thing is going to cost you how much???

 

You can shoot a movie in three weeks. That's $9,000, and it's going to be much better quality than your hunk of junk.

 

End of argument.

[Guest J Jukuzami]

Adrian,

 

Ignor Rodriguez comment. He hates anything HD. Typical of people in forum. They are all photographers or wanna be photographers; they walk around with a light meter and the majority of their work is in DV, which they apparently don't mind that much but HD is scary to them because it is job security and there are plenty of people who don't work with film and know HD better than they do.

 

Anyway, I have a little more time. Let me add to my comment. There are some excellent HD primes for 1" CCD's and they cost a fraction of the cost of HD primes, which are for 2/3" cameras. I don't know if you're connected with Imperx in any way, but they need to communicate on their site as to where the lenses can be bought, have pricing and hopefully resolution/contrast tests done, also info on coating and light fallout, min. focusing distance.

 

1" CCD is better because of a significantly more shallow depth of field.

 

As I said already a monitor output and more familiar to the broadcast industry signal output would be extremely desirable. There are format converters. I know that Promax sells some. Otherwise you need to drag a cable to the computer for recording and from the computer to the viewfinder/monitor.

 

Sorry, have to go now.

[Guest Pete Wright]

All this is very interesting. I've been following the dvinfo forum for a while. I don't think that anyone came with all these ideas and arguments.

 

I see the biggest problem the viewfinder that will show non-color-corrected images. Maybe they could use a B/W viewfinder. You also need a color monitor. Here you have the same problem. This is a problem even with the hard disc array cameras. The camera that Adrian talks about will need power cable, viewfinder cable, camera cable, monitor cable, and a computer to drag along. It will have noisy fan and hard drive arrays. What happens if it rains?

 

The computer will be power hungry. Car batteries may not even be legal for this. They include acid that could spill.

 

The cameras don't have sound. They use wierd camera link or something to transfer data. Jason used it and it's a problem.

 

I was very excited originally. Thanks for all the input.

[Valeriu Campan]

Wow,

I have just joined this forum and I see people with big chips on their shoulders. There many cinematographers out there who measure their reputation by the size and price of their rigs, the number of people under their command in the crew, or how shiny and big their SUV is. They wouldn't touch a camera that doesn't scream $500k+, because probably it wouldn't go well as a barbeque stopper when showing family pictures around.

I have seen films - considered by many, masterpieces - shot with a humble Arri 2C of Cameflex, recent seminal works from Lars von Triers, Soderberg, Venders shot with miniDV. Even Storaro was hand holding an Arri 2C...

There are also people out there sceaming that you are not a serious editor if you don't use an AVID that costs $200k+. There is an alternative that costs less than 10k and produced an Oscar nomination this year... yeah, not good enough...

As for computers integration, did anybody see the travelling circus that is involved using the Viper camera?

I followed some of the DvInfo forums and IMHO, what happens there is interesting.

Both Dalsa and Viper are using technology similar with those "low key" projects. Was the Kinetta started in a garage? So what. The same was with Apple computers. I bet that research labs for these prototypes at Thompson (Viper) or Dalsa are not much bigger that your backyard shed. But people there are photographed with coloured lights and in white lab coats. That gives credibility and confidence to shareholders and investors.

The digital stills cameras have all but killed film at professional level. Hardly anything published today is still shot on film.

We should wake up, raise our heads from the sand and look to the future... with less grain but with plenty of salt for the wounded egos.

[Mitch Gross]

I don't think anyone here has their head in the sand with the exception of the individual who believed that cobbled together HD equipment was the panacea to all. We're all open to imaging technologies new and old. There are times when a Bolex camera is the answer, or a DVX100A, or a Panaflex. There's a reason for different discussion topics within the forum and different threads. I'm a firm believer in expanding my horizons and learning about all types of imaging solutions, but I am also a firm believer in knowing the deficits as well as benefits of any technology. To not do this is to stick one's head in the sand.

[Valeriu Campan]

I joined this forum to learn, gain new information, give and get help when needed.

I shoot film, tape whatever format is needed for a given look on whatever budget I have to work with. I haven't worked with HD yet, but it was an option last year for a feature.

There are interesting developments out there and we shouldn't ignore them.

It seems that there is a lot of bad blood in this HD forum. Hope that we are mature enough to agree to disagree and be ready to exchange experiences, ask or be ready to help each other.

[Max Jacoby]

I have seen films - considered by many, masterpieces - shot with a humble Arri 2C of Cameflex, recent seminal works from Lars von Triers, Soderberg, Venders shot with miniDV. Even Storaro was hand holding an Arri 2C...

I recently showed the trailer of my film to a friend who makes short films on video himself. After he had seen it, he asked me what camera we had shot it on. I was a bit perplexed by the question and said: a Moviecam SL and we also had an Arri 2C. Only later did I realize that he liked the look of the film and thought the camera was responsible for that.

 

If you work in film then it really doesn't matter what camera you use (as long at is reasonably steady), because the determinating factors for the quality and look are the lens you put on and the film stock you shoot on. Like you said, many a good film has been shot with an Arri 2C.

 

This is however not the case for video/HD where the camera (along with the lens) determinates the kind of picture you get. And I just don't understand how people can think that a $10.000 camera will give them the same picture quality as a Viper or a F-950. There is a reason why these cameras are so much cheaper and no, it doesn't have anything to do with the goodwill of the manufacturers...

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

I would not relish taking a computer around on set. But on the other hand, I'd contend that it's a lot less gear than's required to service a film camera.

 

Phil

[Guest Pete Wright]

So is this concept of using a computer and one of those inexpensive cameras sound? If it is, could you explain to me please how it would be done?

 

Was Jokozami right at all? He kept on talking about PC's. How about using a Mac, would it work better?

 

I just found this in the dvinfo forum:

 

http://www.redlake.com/high_res/mega2_ES2093.html

 

The Red Lake kit is sold for about $6600. This is for a camera and a controller.

 

The controller may allow better kind of output and a viewfinder connection, color correction, etc. But I don't understand it much.

 

Could someone comment on this please?

[Sam Wells]

The computer will be power hungry. Car batteries may not even be legal for this. They include acid that could spill.

Yeah but if you have a crowbar you'll never be short of charged batteries. Although your sound mixer will hate you if those alarms go off.

 

-Sam

[Jason Rodriguez]

Since when do I hate HD?

 

For crying out loud when you hand me either a S16mm or Sony F900 camera, I'll pick the HD every time (nobody's been handing me 35mm yet, so I won't comment on that :))!

 

I'm just saying that your cobbled together scheme isn't going to work right.

 

You really haven't thought this through enough IMHO.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

My initial reaction to that is that it isn't enough money to be a really stellar camera, but like any of these things, I'm sure it could be made to work. I would expect it to look a lot better than miniDV, and probably a lot better than HDV as well since you're storing uncompressed. I doubt the pictures off the CCD are on a par with an F900 for that price (presumably the 1920x1280 is before bayer) but equally you're not compressing, or at least you have the choice to do a 2:1 MJPEG or something which is transparent enough. One also wonders about the hilight handling (do they have DCC, knee controls, etc) and anti-flare abilities of these little cameras, although apparently they're controllable via the external electronics so there may be some tweaks you can make.

 

Of course ergnomically it's quite horrible, mainly down to the lens - I wouldn't want to try and follow focus with one of those tiny C-mount lenses. Speaking in a wider sense there are several of these little block cameras with normal video mounts, and I would expect that even a fairly basic TV zoom intended for standard def would out-resolve those tiny lenses and be much more suitable for production work. I'd certainly try to do this if I was to shoot with one of these kinds of cameras.

 

It seems to have a DVI output from its controller, so you can monitor and viewfind on any off-the-shelf DVI monitor; I wonder how realtime that is, since it's only a tiny fairly low cost unit and that's a lot of maths. More than a frame or two of delay is unacceptable; witness Steadicam operators' frustrations with downconvertors.

 

Doesn't mention how the material gets out of the controller. As far as I know there's no compression on it and firewire isn't generally fast enough for uncompressed hi-def, unless it's firewire 800 in which case it might be.

 

These are really scientific and machine vision cameras; they're not really made for large volumes of shooting as in dramatic production. There might be other issues which are obvious to us but not to the people who make them.

 

Be fun to try this.

 

Phil

[Wayne Morellini]

Hello

 

I am the Wayne Morellini over at the dvinfo threads involved with homemade cameras. I am not a representative of the group, but I have been involved in the discusssion, and would like to clear up a few things mentioned here. I don't have too long, but I'll give you some comment and invite anybody that wants to help out in this garage, grass roots (semi commercial) movement, to come over.

 

Firstly not much is settled, until we see what Sumix and Silicon Imaging are offering on the hardware Indie side. Secondly there is a lot of "enthusiasm" but few firm directions at the moment. But things are starting to take shape. There are a couple of programmers looking to do custom versions of commercial software for the camera, and openware. A silicon Imagining 1.3Mpixel camera has been bought and is being used as a test subject for developement before the first wave of HD targeted cameras comes through. Both Sumix and Silicon Imaging have expressed an interest in the Indie market, and are observing the forums as a fact finding mission. At the moment, apart from the ones mentioned. There is also an adaption of a 16mm Russian film Camera, and Jaun uncompressed Panasonic DVX100 project. These are all contained in the Alternative Imaging forum that also houses the 35mm adaptor threads.

 

Low Cost Viper

 

Home made camera designs

 

Russian Film Camera Modification

 

Forum: Alternative Imaging Methords

 

Now from my piont of veiw. I would like to see a low end introductory Indie camera that also is usefull for all other styles of commercial work. Something that eclipes the quality of low end HDV, and comes close to the broadcast's $50K market. This with the bonus of RAW 4:4:4 footage. The price would hopefully be from $2.7K to $5K for the basic camera system, plus the capture computer etc. Unfortunately there also seems to be a great interest in cheap 720p bayer single chip cameras as well. There are also people interested in 10K/20K packages, and I've reminded them that Concept HD and Kinetta are comming in that market. The chip options are single chip Bayer, and 3 chip. We have been on the lookout for the best possible, picture perforamnce wise, affordable chip, and people, Sumix and even the SI rep think the new Micron Megapixel chip is good, if anybody knows of a better affordable chip please let us know.

 

I think the reason why we can look at doing this so cheap now is that the rate of technological developement has pushed up the performance of affordable mass produced PC parts into the realms of past, expensive, limited production broadcast equipment. This has been happening while Broadcast manufacturers have been trying to maintain their past pricing, and CMOS manufacturers are trying to catch up from the low priced market and CMOS camera makers have been keeping costs low (100 $1K 1.3MP cameras in a hotel complex is much cheaper than 100 $25K broadcast box cameras).

 

Now, I see that, apart from the existing indie market, there will probably be a great deal of low end professionals, prosummers, novices, and wannabees with their own websites and music bands, wanting to get into something like this, Leading to market possibilities way beyond the Indei market alone. But if you increase the total cost of ownership much more you will probably loose most of this.

 

A seperate peice of software should be able to be made to simply control camera capture and internals, and even be hooked upto external comntrols.

 

For manual controll of the lense, I hope to make a 35mm or medium format still lense lense adaptor for myself, and attached variouse knobs to it to make life earlier. Alternatively I have seen a device that does much the same by clamping to the still lense.

 

What I have been advocating is a system that allows the use of any supported: camera, capture system, OS, format and editor by variouse plugins for each. The idea is to support the most popular combinations that people are familiar with lego style. But this all requires work, volunteers etc. I am mainly illustrating what ideally could be done here, the existing programmers will eventually do what they can.

 

External LCD/Veiwfinder. We are going to have to settle for good small LCD pannel (but much better resolution than you find on prosumer hardware), or head mounted microdisplays with full HD resolution. Colour balance is not such an issue if the external monitor is filtered properly to obtain true white balance (much as newer DVD playback software provides profiling for LCD monitors).

 

Portability, and battery life. I have been pionting towards the use of future high speed cheap Mini-itx (17cm*17cm) or nano-itx (12cm*12cm) mainbaords, that are low powered and fanless (pluss there are a number of minipc's). No car battery required, but would result in something like a small ENG camera, the camera head could be seperate and mounted on a tripod if needed. So it is possible to make a very portable system that could also be used as an editor (as faster mainbaords come along). I have been advocating that a battery of standard cells (cheap) could be fitted in the 5 1/4 inch drive bay of the chassis of a modified case for the unit. So it can be well made for docos and feild work.

 

As far as sound goes, there are a number of suitable systems in the PC recording industry, apart from the cheap mainbaord solutions.

 

HDSDI*2 is very expensive, possibly one camera may have it, as well as possibly component and S-video. To keep cost down we have been considering cameralink capture and Gigbit Ethernet. I have been advocating mutiple channel USB2.0 (1 USB 2.0 could do 2MP Bayer) Gigabit Ethernet, PCI-Express Cameralink (Is there an AGP version??), Ethernet 10G, and I remember some 5Gb's consumer HD serial cable standard. The problem with cameralink is the PCI bus restricts the capture cards perforamnce to just over 100MB/s (could be more) and satuates the PCI bus. The truth is that we don't need broadcast standard interfaces until we want to deliver content, then a standard PC link (or harddrive swap) to the destination computer system may be all that is required to download the file, or an optional SDI PCI card could be used or component (if the camera does not have it a some min-ITX boards do).

 

Now for simplicity, and ease of use, a standard profile, with specially matched hardware, drives, software, custom interfacing software, and camera canbe worked out to provide this functionality, with the user able to change what they wish. If done right it would be little more trouble than the current setups.

 

Over time we can work out more and more of these things, and hopefully bring out the Working mans camera we all want. But it will take time, and effort. It may not be the perfect camera for all jobs, but what I am looking for, inparticular, is a good cheap all round workhorse. Any objections that you may have today could be resolved with future parts releases and developements.

 

If you can steer us into better directions, do programming or hardware electronics/controlls, advise us on sensors, or how to accurately read sensor specs (a few terms in them I'm not familiar with), please come on over and constructive do so. Only some of us are gunho on the technical or video side.

 

 

Thank you,

 

 

Wayne Morellini.

[Guest jack parker]

Actually a bunch of low cost HD cameras are available already. Aspect HD with Premiere is available for something like $1K. Prospect HD is available bundled with Boxx RT. Just plug in and play. Then show at Landmark. They are very reasonable and are in all the major US markets.

[Tim Tyler]

Administrator's Note:

 

Users "jack parker", "J Jukuzami", "Jerry Springfield", and "Ultra Definition" have been deleted by me. Apparently each of these accounts was created with a valid email address and then the user attempts to change to a bogus email address, no doubt to hide their identity.

 

If I have made an error please contact me off the board and I will correct it.

[John Pytlak RIP]

Thank you, Tim! :)

[Nate Downes]

Thank you Tim. If I wanted ill-thought-out plans, I could call some of my dot-bomb buddies and swap war stories.

[danny bartle]

thats great news Tim!!

[Patrick Neary]

hallelujah.

 

this forum seems to have been hijacked for the last couple months-