Home page

Hola amigos, February is upon us, and so is another news update for the Apertus Project.

Introducing Apertus
Our new Project Leader, Sebastian Pichelhofer, has created a video introducing the Apertus Project and explaining our intentions. The video has subtitles in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French and Catalan (just press the "CC" button on YouTube's player to choose the one you prefer)


As an Apertus Community member, consider it your duty to share this with contacts, friends and professionals whom you think might find this to be of interest.

The video's URL is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvI7rJ_AZys

Apertus Stereo Rig
Community members Nathan Clark and Winnie Yang have developed a new Apertus rig for stereo 3D cinematography. Needless to say, we've all been blown away by their ingenuity. Congratulations goes out to them and their stunning machinists!!





New Dictator Concept (Dictator II)
Sebastian has started working on a new concept for the Dictator hardware interface. He is currently applying for art sponsorship/state funding (based in Vienna, Austria) to develop a prototype unit.

The new design came about when he started to create a 3D model of his previous Dictator concept. As pointed out by Sebastian, there were several design flaws with the prior design:
- The wheels would always be getting in your way when the operator tries to reach for the buttons next to the LCD
- Having buttons left/right of LCD requires the text on the LCD (showing each button's function) to take up pretty much the entire display.

In the new design, the buttons are located above/below the LCD (in a similar manner to the Arri Alexa layout), which solves the problem of wasting the limited space available on such a small screen.



Sebastian's new design concept is focused on allowing a DOP to also operate the DICTATOR with only one hand when shooting with a shoulder rig.


New Website (launching soon)
Work is continuing round the clock on our revamped website http://dev.apertus.org/

Public access is currently denied whilst the new site is a work-in-progress. Data from the current site has been edited, reviewed and transferred into a layout that is professional, sleek and easier for new community members (and non open-source users) to understand. No release date has been set as of yet, but take our word for it that things are going to be DAMN cool when the new site launches (hopefully soon...)!


Community Map (on new Apertus website)
Apertus is an International Project, and it is simply remarkable to realise just how far our community of engineers, developers, artists and followers extends across the planet. Here is a snapshot indicating where some of the Apertus Team members are situated:




Preparing Apertus for the Libre Software Meeting
The Libre Software meeting is not until July, but plans are in the works for how to best grow our community and spread awareness of the Apertus project at this international summit.

Sebastian has suggested that we make an Apertus film about the event, with the possibility of streaming talks and presentations live to the web with Elphel cameras. Nathan is also interested in having a real-time stereoscopic Apertus rig, setup and functioning in our booth. The awesomeness of all this is still sinking in!

Michael Green has offered to run a workshop on the future of cinema and where our project fits in. This will also give us the opportunity to discuss a wide range of digital cinema topics.

Sasha is then planning on delivering a 10-20 minute presentation examining how we've fostered an international community of engineers, developers, artists and followers through our project website and online forum. The intention is to follow this up with a discussion analysing the success/disadvantages of our forum and whether its implementation is a viable strategy that other open source projects might benefit from.


Following up on the VLC issue from January's newsletter
In last month's newsletter, we mentioned that newer VLC versions were not displaying the data stream generated by the Elphel camera correctly. Following up on this issue, we can now say that the problem has been alleviated. To correctly display a live-stream through VLC (Version 1.1.11 and later), either flash your Elphel camera to an image compiled from the latest source code or manually install the fixed streamer as described here:
http://apertus.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=2190

As a quick fix -if you don't want to rebuild an entire Elphel camera flash image from source- you can replace the camera internal /usr/local/bin/str binary with this one:
http://apertus.org/forums/download/file.php?id=285

Run "sync" on a camera terminal afterwards to clean crc checks with the changed file. If you have any questions or feedback, reply on our forums in the following thread:
http://apertus.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5&start=30


2012: The Year of Apertus
As the next key stage of development approaches, we'd like to thank everyone for providing so much critical support and feedback. Members from Telenoika: AudioVisual Open Creative Community (Barcelona, Spain) have contacted us to express their interest in developing software tools and/or plugins for working with Apertus camera footage in Blender (http://www.blender.org/). All progress here will be reported in the following months.

2012 is already shaping out to be a spectacular year for Apertus. However, we can also foresee that greater contributions will be necessary before we're in a position to release our powerful new prototype. At present, there are but one or two bottlenecks stopping our design from meeting the desires and requirements of industry professionals. To combat this, we're gearing up for a flight that will make Apertus surge on the radar.

Unfortunately, our projected flight-path is also going to take us right through the storm clouds. As this month's newsletter draws to a close, we extend a special invitation. Dear friends, collaborators, radicals and colleagues, help spread the word of our project and join us as we prepare to break through the very roof of the stratosphere. Stay tuned to our forums and website as more information regarding new developments will follow shortly.


Best wishes to you all,
Sasha

We recently answered questions in an interview we did for the Russian website Blackbyrd. Now since we do not speak Russian very well - извините! - we thought it would be a good idea to also publish our answers here to the community as we originally provided them - in English.

I. Company

We answered:
Regarding all above questions:

Maybe the website doesn't state this clear enough: Apertus is a community project and has no direct connection to Elphel Inc. Elphel Inc. is aware of the Apertus project of course and does list it as one way for their camera application. Elphel Inc. also kindly offered to host the Apertus website but Elphel Inc. does not fund the Apertus project. All Apertus community members work for free and on their own.
Apertus is a group of individuals not a company, we do not have an office and we do not have any customers.

II. Apertus Project and Elphel Camera

There are some similarities and some differences. The first thing that comes to mind is that the chip diameter in the Elphel camera is much smaller than the ones in a Red One or HDSLR camera. We are aware of this and are eagerly waiting for the next generation Elphel 373 camera that will sport a new range of bigger diameter sensors.

In terms of video quality the Elphel camera offers RAW recording and resolutions above Full HD what only the around 20 times more expensive Red One offers. Also the Elphel camera is much more flexible than what current HDSLR cameras offer: freely scale-able resolution and framerate as well as control over datarate and the ability to connect external devices like SSDs to record on to name just a few. There are also things were we are currently lacking behind, for example the audio recording capabilities are still experimental. The Elphel camera has no native audio recording support but features a USB port and you can connect any audio device that is supported under Linux (all that we tried so far have worked) and the software (still work in progress) can then record the synced multi channel audio streams in the same container with the video.

2.2 Can you use vintage c-mount cinema lens like bolex, wollensack etc? DSLR cameras has a problem of using c-mount lens (vignetting) and some PL-mount lens (have to eject the mirror)

The Elphel camera only has a c-mount so only c-mount lenses like the ones you mentioned work.

2.3 Aptina CMOS and 2x2 binning are tech. specifications of many cctv's cameras, how much does CCTV equipment affected Elphel?

Elphels main market are scientific and industrial applications. The camera is too expensive and too powerful in terms of resolution, etc for most surveillance applications but of course its possible to use it that way.

2.4. Is there a room for "pushing to the limits" in Apertus Project, for example, increasing mega pixels or coming up with new Elphel camera with high speed recording feature?

Apertus is the project to add everything around an Elphel camera needed for digital cinema work. We have no plans to modify the Elphel camera core hardware ourself.

2.5 One of the "grande" problems of Canon DSLR which I've experienced is trouble with rolling shutter — optical distortion of objects on high shutter's values. Does Elphel Camera have similar problems?

All cameras using CMOS sensors and no mechanical shutter are affected the same way. Global Shutter CMOS sensors are emerging now, lets see what the future will bring. The current sensor in the Elphel camera is also a CMOS.
For the next generation Elphel 373 camera there will be a wider range of possible sensor front ends. Kodak CCDs are currently being considered to be one of them. CCDs do not suffer from Rolling Shutter but have other effects like streaking, blooming, lower dynamic range. What is most interesting for us in the next generation Elphel 373 camera is that the sensor front end could be swapped easily. So you can connect the sensor that fits your needs and applications the most for your next shot - CCD or CMOS.

2.6 As I understand Apertus Project centered on camera and equipment but not focusing on Lenses?

Correct. We are interested in lenses of course and we are very willing to support efforts that for example center around hacking electronic control interfaces of lenses but we currently have no one doing that and do not plan to design and manufacture any custom lenses for Apertus like Red does for their cameras.

2.7 Recently the DSLR community started to play with anamorphic lenses and adapters. But professional pl-mount anamorphic lenses are very expensive and c-mount anamorphic lenses are even more rare and hard to find but less expensive and maybe an interesting solution for digital cinematography. Did you done any examples with these lenses?

So far we have not done any tests with anamorphic lenses. But it sounds like an interesting experiment.
We can select an anamorphic sensor region though and get real native anamorphic footage with a normal lens though.

2.8. Are 5 megapixels enough for fullHD video with decent quality?

Full HD is around 2 Megapixels so 5 Megapixels are more than enough resolution for a decent image.
If you want a 16:9 image you can record with a resolution 40% bigger than FullHD. See http://apertus.org/sites/default/files/AMAX.jpg

2.9 Due to status of "cinema camera" did anyone used footage from the camera to print it on film?

Not that we are aware of yet.

Aggressive question: What is Elphel — a revolutionary ready-to-use non-major-brand good video camera until you turn yourself to Arri Digital or — ordinary Chinese CCTV toy with custom housing and nothing-interesting picture quality?

The Elphel cameras openness offers incredible flexibility. There is no other manufacturer that offers free software and open hardware products like this and it's really incredible how Elphel Inc. managed to keep the prices this low, if you look at other scientific/industrial camera manufacturers (proprietary ones) you will notice their prices are multiples (sometimes tenfolds) of what the Elphel camera costs even for cameras that have much lower technical specs (resolution, framerates, connections, etc.).
Also you shouldn't forget that the Elphel camera already has a harddisk-recorder inside. Cameras like the SI-2K (just the camera part, SI-2K Mini) spill out the data over HDSDI and you need another external device to grab and store the signal.

III. Sales, prices and usability

3.1 Kit price of 880 dollars is 2 times cheaper than Canon 5d mark ii or 7d but very close to Canon 550d. What marketing goals are targets by these price? Is Elphel an alternative to Canon (in terms of shooting video)?

As I said Elphel Inc.'s main business is in different areas so the prices do not "target" any HDSLR or film camera product competition (like Canon or any other competitor) in particular. In addition Elphel produces "open hardware" and so the prices are not set primarily set by marketing decisions but rather by manufacturing costs.

3.2 What software should we use to operate camera? I've got confused with ElphelVision, Piwik etc. Is it possible to capture video stream direct to pc/mac?

Where did you read about Piwik?
You capture the video to a camera connected SSD/HDD and can use any computer (Windows, Mac, but prefered Linux) and ElphelVision connected to the cameras to control camera parameters.

3.3 Does the products comes with technical support?

Not commercial technical support like from a real company but the Apertus community is a rich resource of knowledge and will help each other with any trouble that might occur. In addition you get the technical support from Elphel Inc. when you buy the camera from them.

3.4 What can you tell about future developments? New products, new prices, new features?

Elphels next generation camera called Elphel 373 will be a very interesting new model for Apertus. It will feature Gigabit-Ethernet instead of 100Mbit Ethernet, USB 2.0 instead of 1.0 higher performance in both CPU and FPGA and the most important features for us filmmakers will be that it sports new and different kinds of sensor-front-ends.
Also the FPGA code will get an overhaul for example allowing multiple video pipelines. This will allow streaming a lower resolution preview to our controller tablet/netbook over ethernet while storing the full resolution, high datarate videostream to SSD.