Messages

91

Software Dev / Re: Software V0.3 Beta - Updated Jan 4 2018

« on: January 31, 2018, 10:29:04 PM »

My Chronos has locked up while testing to see if the issues with .3 have been solved.

I was had my camera plugged in on my desk and I was having it simply auto save the whole buffer at the default 1,000 FPS. Once I saw it had finished I would hit record and save the whole buffer after enough time had passed for it to fill.

I left the camera running overnight, recording a few more buffers worth of video as I got ready for work. I leave the camera running during the day on my desk, then come home and start recording more.

After one such save, the camera gives me a grey screen. I try to record, but it fails. I go into the settings and I cannot change the resolutions. I go out to the main screen and the camera gives the "Shutting down" message, but locks up on this screen until I hard power it down.

The card is 64gb and saved video until it was 29.8gb filled of 59.4gb (Don't know if this is relevant.)

...
...
...

Camera works fine after the hard reset.

We believe a memory leak may be causing this, investigating now. Does not appear to be present on V0.2.

Will keep everyone posted. For now, if you're using V0.2.5, don't leave the camera running all the time, make sure to turn it off each day.

92

Software Dev / Re: Software V0.3 Beta - Updated Jan 4 2018

« on: January 31, 2018, 10:14:49 PM »

i was at 15 bits per pixel and 60mbs, i was recomended by david 2bits per pixel and 60mbs just a minute ago so im going to try that again

That would do it! The filesize calculation is based on the bits per pixel setting, but ultimately the resultant bitrate is clipped based on the 60mbps limit. In your case, setting it to 15bpp made the camera think the saved file would be about 20x the size it actually will be. Reducing the bpp setting should fix it.

93

Chronos User Discussion / Re: speed booster for the chronos to reduce crop on full frame lenses

« on: January 31, 2018, 09:52:40 PM »

We actually just prototyped this, not with a BMPCC speed booster however, just a low cost Chinese one, but it works very well. Speed boosters that have an MFT mount seem to be the most common, but it's not possible to convert MFT to C mount. MFT to CS mount is just possible, but no one makes that adapter. We're going to custom make our own once we have some time to design it.

94

Chronos User Discussion / Re: best saving settings for image quality

« on: January 31, 2018, 09:47:13 PM »

Yes, as soon as you go below 1280 pixels width at maximum frame rate for your resolution, there is a drop in quality, as the sensor is configured for a mode that supports down to 640 pixels width. For best quality, run full horizontal resolution and crop your video in post, or alternately, set the resolution to any lower resolution you want, but reduce the frame rate to the value you would get if you were to set 1280 pixels horizontal.

For example, if you want 1024x720 at maximum quality, set the camera to 1280x720, observe the maximum frame rate (1502), set the camera to 1024x720 and set the frame rate to 1502 or lower.

This limitation will be fixed in a future software update, there is a way to configure the sensor optimally for any selected resolution but we need time to implement this change.

95

Chronos User Discussion / Re: best saving settings for image quality

« on: January 31, 2018, 07:34:41 AM »

You can get a slight improvement over default settings by turning up the bitrate limit in the save settings window. Default is 40Mbps, you can set it up to 60. Also make sure the bits per pixel is set high enough to take advantage of that bitrate limit you set, 2.0 is a good setting. Won't matter much at 720p but at low resolutions it will help.

96

Chronos User Discussion / Re: Considering Chronos Purchase -- some questions

« on: January 26, 2018, 02:31:59 PM »

Ethernet remote control is our main focus for software development right now, the API will be done shortly, and we're working on a web browser remote interface once the API is done.

97

Chronos User Discussion / Re: HDMI port - has anyone hooked up an external monitor?

« on: January 18, 2018, 06:38:38 PM »

We're focusing on remote Etherent control right now, HDMI will be priority after that is done. Hoping to have the remote API done around the end of this month or so.

98

Software Dev / Re: Software V0.3 Beta - Updated Jan 4 2018

« on: January 17, 2018, 08:47:28 PM »

Did some more fiddling with the the segmented memory mode and still had no luck. For the sake of having a small video file I set the record frame-rate to 30fps, set the "Record Lenght" to 300 frames and set 2 segments of 150 frames each. I filmed at timer and pressed the external trigger at 10s and 20s then stopped the recording at 30s. I added frame numbers to the result and made the following gif.

...

The recording ended up only being 157 frame long and contained mostly the video that occurred after the second external shutter press. Some of the jumpiness can also be seen. Any idea?

Apologies, segmented memory is implemented in a slightly counter intuitive way. Segmented memory is basically a ring buffer of segments, each segment being a ring buffer of frames. The camera continuously records into the current segment, overwriting any old frames. So, if you set it to two segments and cause two triggers, you've filled all the memory, but because the segments are a ring buffer themselves, the earliest segment is overwritten, awaiting a new trigger, which in this case never comes because you stopped recording. Therefore, your earliest segment in RAM (frames 1-150) is the second trigger (the one you did at 20s), and frames 151-300 (or possibly fewer frames) are whatever happened just before you stopped recording.

There was going to be a "disable ring buffer" mode in this release, which would terminate record automatically after your second trigger, avoiding the above problem. There's a bug present in the FPGA right now that prevents the required record termination at end of memory from working, that's on the todo to fix but we're just starting up production on the next batch so it will be a week or two until I can get around to it.

As a workaround, always select one more segment than needed.

99

Chronos User Discussion / Re: 2nd battery

« on: January 14, 2018, 11:38:55 PM »

I have ordered two of these:
https://www.amazon.de/gp/aw/d/B015FXR6EY/ref=yo_ii_img?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Look for batteries that have a gloss finish case,

Look for batteries with a connector portion that is lighter grey rather than black. There seems to be two different versions that you'll find (apart from the very expensive legitimate Nikon ones), a good one is shown here, and the bad one is shown here. Notice how the connector is grey on the former, look for that when buying batteries. It seems there are two Chinese factories making these, one much better than the other.

We got two batteries in for testing that are of the type Fyodor ordered, and found the same thing, they are tight, the connector is poor quality, they don't meet their capacity specs, and the cells physically rattled around inside the case. The other type are much better quality.

100

Software Dev / Re: Very ugly artifacts after upgrade to 0.2.5

« on: January 05, 2018, 04:06:02 PM »

It would be a good idea to try reflashing the SD card first to see if that fixes the problem, follow the procedure on the software updates page under "Restoring a camera that won't boot". Make sure to back up your calibration data before starting, and don't do step 16.

Let us know if that fixes it.

101

Software Dev / Re: Very ugly artifacts after upgrade to 0.2.5

« on: January 05, 2018, 04:17:47 AM »

I agree, that appears to be unrelated to the software update and is likely a hardware issue. That's covered under warranty, contact [email protected] and we'll get that fixed for you.

102

Software Dev / Re: Very ugly artifacts after upgrade to 0.2.5

« on: January 05, 2018, 03:41:39 AM »

Did you try V0.2.3 previously, and if so, did it work fine? ie. is this a new bug introduced between 0.2.3 and 0.2.5?

103

Software Dev / Re: Software V0.3 Beta

« on: January 04, 2018, 05:06:04 PM »

V0.2.5 Beta posted, see the first post.

104

Chronos User Discussion / Re: external battery charger?

« on: January 02, 2018, 11:51:11 AM »

There are many on Aliexpress, just search "EN-EL4A charger"

One like this should work, but as always with low-cost Chinese products, I would suggest finding your own AC adapter that's known to be safe.

105

Chronos User Discussion / Re: Chronos 1.4 Footage Thread

« on: January 01, 2018, 11:39:31 PM »

I have wanted to get a clip that would be along the lines of the one Taofledermaus has on the main page that would be suitable to potentially use as an example of what the camera is capable of on the main page.



I think I might have done so with this one of my Taurus 445, 44 Special.



If someone is better at making GIF files, I can provide the raw video.

Oh nice! If you have the original file, that would be great.