[PD] Cameras and capture cards.

[Jaime Oliver]

Hi Chris, thanks for your response

Well, color definition is important since the project i am working on
involves color tracking (two mallets one blue one red), so some
resolution is necessary to achieve that. they are between 1.5 and 2.5
meters away from the camera. the camera i have been using is a 3ccd
canon 1080p30, but i am digitizing the svideo output to 320x240 for
the actual tracking. i think the resolution is ok, but i only get
30fps. it would be great to have a camera with a good color resolution
but with better fps, so i think i am looking for at least 720p60.
so... what are the lowcost 1080p60 cameras you mention? how good is
their color resolution?

About PCI cards, i'll check AJA and BlackMagic, I think i'll have to
stick with them since so far they are the ones with least latency and
your comment confirms my experience. I was using a pinnacle card and a
hauppauge card, do you know these? do you know if AJA and blackmagic
are better?? these two are old cards so i suppose more recent ones
should be faster...

Have you tried turtle beach??

http://www.turtlebeach.com/products/vausb/home.aspx

this is the only external card i found with low latency, but didn't
get to measure precisely how much difference this had compared to the
PCI cards.



On 5/26/07, chris clepper <cgclepper at gmail.com> wrote:
> Do you really need good color resolution for tracking?  I've tested a range
> of industrial gear designed for tracking and all of it has poor color
> handling compared to even $500 DV cams.  It seems that determining if a box
> is out of place on the assembly line doesn't require knowing what color it
> is.
>
> PCI cards are the best capture method for latency and high resolution.
> Professional ones from AJA and BlackMagic have 12-14 bit digitzers and SDI
> for interfacing with gear up to Varicam and CineAlta level.  I use these
> with lower cost HDV cameras at 1080i60 with good results.
>
> How high of a framerate do you need?  720p60 and 1080p60 are 60 fps options
> in the HD video field and there are digital film cameras that do 120fps
> although those are still hard to come by (like the RED 'it's not vaporware
> we promise' One). Specialized cameras that record to banks of high speed
> memory can go thousands of frames per second although you cannot get frames
> into a PC at that rate and they cost thousands per day to rent.
>
>
> On 5/26/07, Jaime Oliver <jaime.oliver2 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hello all,
> >
> > I have to determine what cameras and capture cards are best for video
> > tracking...
> >
> > Preferably, i would like them to work with as many platforms as
> > possible (OSX, windows and Linux) and this are the constraints:
> >
> > capture cards: the least latency possible. I have tried some
> > digitizers that used compressed firewire and they are too slow (too
> > much latency). others like the turtle beach are uncompressed firewire
> > and seem to be faster, however, so far cheap PCI cards seem to be
> > faster for me, but the restriction there is that it has to use a slot
> > in a computer and most are for windows only.
> >
> > Video Cameras: good color resolution, option to turn off auto-iris
> > (and preferably more than 30 fps). I have tried a canon 3 ccd that
> > gives good color resolution but only 30 fps. I also tried some CCTV
> > cameras, but they have autoiris and bad color resolution (only
> > composite video out). I briefly tried fire-i and they seemed to have
> > low latency through their firewire out. I think you can hook them in
> > series too which is also great unless latency increases.
> >
> > anyway, if anyone can share their experiences i would be very greatful,
> >
> > thanks in advance,
> >
> > Jaime
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Jaime E Oliver LR
> >
> > joliver at ucsd.edu
> > www.realidadvisual.org/jaimeoliver
> > www-crca.ucsd.edu/
> > www.realidadvisual.org
> >
> > 8693 Via Mallorca No. 19
> > La Jolla, CA 92037
> > USA
> >
> >
> > --
> > Jaime E Oliver LR
> >
> > joliver at ucsd.edu
> > www.realidadvisual.org/jaimeoliver
> > www-crca.ucsd.edu/
> > www.realidadvisual.org
> >
> > 8693 Via Mallorca No. 19
> > La Jolla, CA 92037
> > USA
> >
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-- 
Jaime E Oliver LR

joliver at ucsd.edu
www.realidadvisual.org/jaimeoliver
www-crca.ucsd.edu/
www.realidadvisual.org

8693 Via Mallorca No. 19
La Jolla, CA 92037
USA