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@ucsd.edu www.realidadvisual.org/jaimeoliver www-crca.ucsd.edu/ www.realidadvisual.org
8693 Via Mallorca No. 19 La Jolla, CA 92037 USA
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@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@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@ucsd.edu www.realidadvisual.org/jaimeoliver www-crca.ucsd.edu/ www.realidadvisual.org
8693 Via Mallorca No. 19 La Jolla, CA 92037 USA
PD-list@iem.at mailing list UNSUBSCRIBE and account-management -> http://lists.puredata.info/listinfo/pd-list
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@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@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@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@ucsd.edu www.realidadvisual.org/jaimeoliver www-crca.ucsd.edu/ www.realidadvisual.org
8693 Via Mallorca No. 19 La Jolla, CA 92037 USA
PD-list@iem.at mailing list UNSUBSCRIBE and account-management ->
On 5/27/07, Jaime Oliver jaime.oliver2@gmail.com wrote:
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.
With resolution that low you could switch to an interlaced DV camera and use 60 720x240 fields per second. Certain capture cards under directShow will do this.
so i think i am looking for at least 720p60.
JVC makes HDV cams that run at that but I don't know if the cheaper 'prosumer' ones do it. Panasonic P2 camera does that I believe and that camera is just over $5k.
so... what are the lowcost 1080p60 cameras you mention? how good is
their color resolution?
Oh they aren't low cost. The lowest cost one is about $30k and increase from there. Most of these aren't video cameras but 'digital film' cameras so their resolutions are more like 2048x1536 (which SDI_HD supports). These are all bleeding edge and quite rare.
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...
AJA and BlackMagic are professional capture cards and they are not that cheap. The standard resolution cards are almost $1kUSD and the HD ones are over that amount. The HD ones have a bit more latency.
Have you tried turtle beach??
No.
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.
-
chris clepper -
Jaime Oliver