A Cinema Camera Phone!

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Wayne Steven

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A Cinema Camera Phone!

PostWed Jun 05, 2019 2:20 am

I have finally figured out how to make my cinema camera phone. Now to seek out manufacturing partners.
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rick.lang

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Re: A Cinema Camera Phone!

PostWed Jun 05, 2019 2:46 am

Are you just going to tease us with that!?


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Wayne Steven

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Re: A Cinema Camera Phone!

PostWed Jun 05, 2019 2:57 am

It's very exciting, as it's not just a cinema camera, but the sort of cinema camera design and features I wanted. I wanted to maximise certain performance features, which was the problem before. Making some sort of simple cinema camera phone is not an issue, any real manufacturer could do a fullhd camera that way, to the dynamic range standard of the old pocket camera (these days). It doesn't need to be perfect, it only needs to be of a basic standard useful for no budget features. So, a pocket 4k would be better in many ways. Perfect for family gatherings, parties, holidays, local events, and low grade work. Something also good for YouTube.

Over time the technology possibilities have increased. Where as in 2004/5 I was looking at using condensers (what is now called a speed booster) with true medium format lenses (and true large format lenses but couldn't find a second hand lens any where near f/1.0) to get better low light :) , and trying to design good dynamic range expanding optical technologies (difficult), now we have low light technologies. Where as the Panasonic 4k 15fps cm1 (was it?)/struggled, now good mobile phones do low enough light and can do reasonable pictures.

People are using phones as personal cameras for a wide range of uses exclusively, despite low quality, so there is room for competition. From the industry perspective, people are going buy phones and Pocket4k instead of cheaper consumer cameras anyway. I'm saying this, because I've noticed certain quality hampering in phones, which is not going to stop people buying them.
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Wayne Steven

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Re: A Cinema Camera Phone!

PostWed Jul 24, 2019 9:15 am

aIf you are not truthfully progressive, maybe you shouldn't say anything
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cOften people deceive themselves so much they do not understand, even when the truth is explained to them
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Wayne Steven

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Re: A Cinema Camera Phone!

PostSun Oct 20, 2019 6:22 pm

See this poll:

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=101033

See this licensing Braw to Google or LG thread:

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=101034
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Wayne Steven

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Re: A Cinema Camera Phone!

PostWed Oct 23, 2019 9:38 am

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=101201&p=560556#p560556

Eyeing off the latest top tier cheap phones, there is a rugged phone with big battery and an over 8,000 milliamp hour option. There are a few options suitable if we had the right software. As far as cheap small phones goes, it seems pretty barren for an cheap iPhone SE like option at 4k, even at 2k it maybe stretching it for a suitable option (found a rugged phone, but the sensor is not right). The new palm is also too small, and 720p at a price above a number of 8k phones.


I should state this now. At the moment, without uncompressed recording, recording of 8kp50 10/12 bit at nice quality is a tall order. Getting 8k at basic prosumer quality is maybe an easier fit. However, pro quality is what people are about.


It occurs to me, to crowd source the development of an open version of the cineform codec for Android and maybe IOS that can be installed on most phones as hopefully as a standard codec, but with an open input and output format, allowing the USER to enter the input and output formats they would like (hence input Bayer like Raw, and output 4:2:0 tied to Bayer values, like Braw). People would then be able to use it with standard camera apps. Some chipsets might be able to process the wavelets at full speed, others would use it on downscaled resolutions, at pro quality.
aIf you are not truthfully progressive, maybe you shouldn't say anything
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Wayne Steven

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Re: A Cinema Camera Phone!

PostThu Oct 31, 2019 12:57 pm

Is Arri's Alexa's days limited:

Here is the Samsung 16 stop 12k mobile sensor I told you about, which shoots 6k video. It is under 1 inch, but 1 inch version should be over 16k and do 8l video:

https://m.gsmarena.com/samsung_announce ... -38627.php

The adjustable gain depending on illumination hdr sounds a bit like the autobrite technology my very old camera has which people doubt. Some people are so twigged they can't be challenged with truth, but instead have to stand in front of progress and make an intellectual scene, even when presented with concrete over evidence they demand (Yes, I'm not fond of that sort of prima dona).

Here is a mid range phone that uses it. The finale design of the sensor setup here was fine with Samsung. The optical zoom is 5x.

https://m.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_posts_cam ... -39835.php

https://m.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_teases_a_ ... -39853.php

Pretty good for low resolution versions of the 12k consumer images:

Image

Here is the balcony of the building in the foreground:

Image

Image

Image
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Wayne Steven

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Re: A Cinema Camera Phone!

PostThu Oct 31, 2019 1:00 pm

This should give nice 2k colour.
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Wayne Steven

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Re: A Cinema Camera Phone!

PostThu Oct 31, 2019 2:41 pm

Ok. To give you a little idea of where I'm coming from, I am looking for a phone watch with an 3840+ wide sensor. At the moment I have only found up to 8mp versions (though I thought I saw a 12/13 mp verson, but can't see that. That may give reasonable 2k.
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Now the brain disease is clearing up (on and off a bit too) I am thinking of.all these things to try. But having wisdom, I know I don't want to over reach and can't effectively do much on my own anymore. I also have a big project coming on steam shortly that will require my attention.
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So what can be done. Welcome into my little secret war stratergy room, complete with red like skulls with a throwing dagger through it (because I don't like skulls iconology being used. I'm more an Unreal player rather than a Doom/Quake player myself).
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I claim exclusivity to IP not already existing or at least able to be protected, prior to my coming up with it (this is to have a basis to overturn any external claims on things I come up with, and then interfering. Not too uncommon. This establishes an incident of prior art, but not necessarily an original incident in each part):
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One, is to crowdfund the development of a seperate code base of services for different camera software, including open source camera software. This is seperate the code base from the opensource codebase and it's license. The plugins are general services the other software can use. I came up with this stratergy for my own open OS licensing proposal, to enable commercial entities to have produce some profit to fund business progression and focus, through some exclusivity. It is pretty much like plugins and code for the old Netscape browser, are not in anyway part of the code, but just services that the browser could call. As part of this effort, an upgrade of the open camera software code to handle these services and definitions for compression, image and sound transformations, IO and user interfaces. The software would read an external file or the users can enter things directly. In this, the software does not necessarily have any codecs of transformation or user interface format, the user can load in what they want, and use any competitors stuff. So, a competitor could package the camera structure service with it's compression, transformation and UI services to make a seperate commercial product. However, some of these enhancements would be exclusive lock mechanisms that only allow certain product (anybody could make their own alternstive code version to get around that. So, it is basically a specific end product version exclusivity for a specific brands product. I had a whole working out how such a licensing system would work to foster commercial development of open source products, with retriculating features back into the common pool.

I have tried to get open camera software people to implement definable features to allow others to easily plug in new ui, codecs, and improve filesystem performance, or allow a plugin service, but to no aveil, too much like not easy Street.
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Development of these UI, transforms, compression, and recording services and data descriptions. All this keeps away from other's patents. Only patent owned, licensed or patent free technologies ship with the packages. These are safe margins the court should support.
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Development of cineform open source wavelet codec for phones and x86 OS's.
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Development of cdng into a metadata format with variable compression in a container with old and new codecs,(maybe cineform).
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Extensive deterministic realtime energy/performance coding for cpu you and fpga etc to maximum performance through native coding.
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JavaScript web code version of open camera software, where the performance critical sections are native code to maintain optimum performance. So basically, all the bits that should not really matter to high performance demands are written in this transportable coding format. An implementation for a new architecture would use this codec unless native code was available. The performance sections would also have stand in default transportable code (GPU and fpga etc too) until somebody writes the proper native code. This means, a product on a new architecture, can quickly get up and running without new coding, by transferring a JavaScript engine, and running the code.
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Variable distributed processing functionality. In this, the encoding of compression can be distributed between all available computational and other resources in parallel (a scheme can be defined on how to most efficiently to do that for the compression and or content used). This can be throttled back for whatever reason, such as: heat, power drain, other functionality on system or to make room for other functionality, or otherwise as desired. In this way, as an example, a frame or group of pictures, maybe done on the internal photo or video hardware encoder, while the next frame or gop is done on the CPU and the one after that on a GPU, and another on a dsp etc etc. But, it is likely that each computational resource could handle a different amount of frames compared to each other, so the amounts of each can vary, and a que can.be used. But, they might work on different parts of a gop or frame, at the same time, or with each other on common parts, or any other combination. In this way, the user can obtain maximum performance for their device, allowing higher frame rates, resolutions and characteristics.
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I have been looking at an alternative way to encode Bayer data into a way which is not Bayer.
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As can be seen above, each step is a progressive step that can be done one by one (except the services, cineform or new XDNG etc can be done as their own seperate projects or instead of the other projects). Lot's of options. A cineform codec registered into Android with filesystem streaming, gets you a long way, but somebody has to still write propper filming software to use it. Adjusting an existing open source camera app to use external services, like a codec, is a reasonable thing and allows simple system unregistered code to act as a compression codec. With these sorts of things, industry can supercharge efforts in camera development.
aIf you are not truthfully progressive, maybe you shouldn't say anything
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cOften people deceive themselves so much they do not understand, even when the truth is explained to them
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Wayne Steven

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Re: A Cinema Camera Phone!

PostThu Oct 31, 2019 3:28 pm

Ok, the above is about a software stratergy, but what about hardware? Hardware is too hard. However, there are son avenues.


Use existing platforms:

Mobile, NVIDIA arm, PC, reprogramming speciality chips, like RiscV speciality chips and ambarella.

I am currently searching through phones smaller than the iPhone SE, for a buzz. Screens that small are difficult, so 3-4 inches is a bit on the tiny side.

Getting a phone company to do your bidding (wishful thinking, but possible). I have a lot of advanced concepts that would make using a small phone pretty novel. I used to enjoy using my 3.5 inch Huawei. A phone company can make a lot of street credibility on a product like that, which they can use in marketing to the public. For them, they are small steps, more so if the chipset manufacturer can do the relavent code to drive the chipset.


An independent camera. I say, hit as many markets as you can to drive volumes. So, a small POV product with pro video manual control, and auto, can sell into non pro video markets. The more sales, the cheaper you can organise to make it, the lower the price, the more sales you can get on that lower price. You can sell millions for under $500, even down under $100. When you hit as many markets as you can, you can use normal specuslist distribution channels, or advertising in periodicals. The thing is, word of mouth, and presenting the best value unique/quality product. Companies don't like splitting focus. But if many features are software features that users can just ignore if it doesn't suite them, then there is not much of a split. Seamlessly inserting it into existing workflows reduces support (actually paid help lines), and distributors pick up the slack, or via magazine. But the staff per market to drive the distribution is kept nominal in need. A few people really need to know the market and concisely document what is happening for the next person, and teach, appart from the support staff. These markets are often minimal support for a rugged product. Security camera is one.

Now, another stratergy I'm looking at is support equipment for mobile phone filming.


Above all, there must be a compelling reason to buy, if not, why buy them? Look at Red, they made compulsion, not just on price, but on 4k, which they transformed into quality image this decade. SI, BM, all offered reasons to buy a particular product. If they had released more of the same compared to not great and overpriced products, where do you think they would be? Now, Red and BM also sold on style. The One was a nice look, the logos and the modular replacements had, eventually, so style. The BM original camera had a style, despite how practical it was. The pocket was nice. However, the Mini had a great style, and the micro was nice. But style is skin deep, I could release my purple or Axe SciFi like designs, but if they were useless pieces of rubbish, how much do you think style would matter!? Style sells substance, substance sells a lack of style, but in both cases it's substance that you are selling.
aIf you are not truthfully progressive, maybe you shouldn't say anything
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Wayne Steven

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Re: A Cinema Camera Phone!

PostTue Nov 05, 2019 2:37 am

I hear you brother.

But what are you looking for Oliver, in particular? I've mentioned a lot of options.
Last edited by Wayne Steven on Wed Dec 25, 2019 5:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A Cinema Camera Phone!

PostSun Dec 01, 2019 7:56 pm

Wayne Steven wrote:I have finally figured out how to make my cinema camera phone.


Just in case the wife calls in the middle of shooting Avatar 3, eh?
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Wayne Steven

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Re: A Cinema Camera Phone!

PostSun Dec 01, 2019 9:03 pm

Or the devil gets people to wise crack here. :)
aIf you are not truthfully progressive, maybe you shouldn't say anything
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cOften people deceive themselves so much they do not understand, even when the truth is explained to them

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