Messages

31

Software Dev / Re: Chronos V0.3.1 Beta

« on: October 17, 2018, 12:25:57 AM »

Is there something else missing from the CinemaDNG tags? Even Photoshop cannot open the files. No previews in macOS.

I'm having no trouble with the new beta 9 and Photoshop CS5 now.

TIFF files open with no issues. CinemaDNG does not open in Davinci Resolve or in Photoshop CC 2019. Even Lightroom CC 2015 does not want them.
And yes I'm using beta 9.

Could you upload a problem DNG file here so we can investigate?

32

Chronos User Discussion / Re: Moonlit stills, Chronos suitable?

« on: October 16, 2018, 04:44:34 PM »

The noise you're seeing here is actually just dark noise. Black cal won't work below about 60fps, so what you're seeing is an uncalibrated image. Try doing a black cal at 60fps then changing to 10fps.

33

Software Dev / Re: Software Roadmap - 0.3.1, 0.4.x, etc.

« on: September 19, 2018, 08:27:41 PM »

For several of the applications I would like to use my new Cronos 1.4 it would be really beneficial to have the ability to use the "Run-n-Gun" and the "Normal + Continuous" recording modes mentioned in the User Manual. I didn't see any express mention of them in the Software Roadmap and was curious as to when we might see that feature added to a software update?

Unfortunately we don't have a timeline for this right now. Those two modes require the use of dual video ports on the camera's CPU (one for live view, one for saving). We've come to find out that Texas Instruments built in no support for this in their software, even though the hardware has two fully functional video ports. Getting the second port running is a very large amount of effort, and is lower on the priority list compared to major, commonly requested features like Ethernet remote control, image quality improvements, and HDMI.

34

Software Dev / Re: AHD demosaic beta update - Much better sharpness for in-camera h264 saving

« on: September 17, 2018, 06:47:51 PM »

The issue with colored pixels that patrickrebstock is seeing is due (mostly) to a known bug in the new demosaic, see the post after this one for more info.

Nikon1 is still correct, this is an intrinsic issue with bayer pattern sensors, but it's not anywhere near as bad as the video Patrick posted makes it seem. Right now, for difficult scenes like this, the best you can do is save raw and use a very good demosaic such as Rawtherapee's Amaze algorithm, which handles these single pixels better, although our demosaic is pretty good compared to most (once the bug is worked out).

The "proper" solution requires a hardware change; an OLPF (optical low pass filter) placed in front of the image sensor, where the IR filter is. This deliberately blurs the image slightly before it hits the image sensor, smearing the sharp single pixel objects over adjacent pixels, which allows the normal demosaic interpolation to get the true color of the drops instead of the false color you're seeing. After demosaic, a digital sharpening filter undoes the blurring effect of the OLPF. I'm currently looking into having these made, they'd eventually make it into new production cameras, and also be available as a user installable upgrade for existing owners.

35

Software Dev / Re: AHD demosaic beta update - Much better sharpness for in-camera h264 saving

« on: August 23, 2018, 11:39:55 PM »

Can you successfully save video to those USB drives on the camera?

36

Chronos User Discussion / Re: transfer video to computer via code

« on: August 22, 2018, 04:17:04 PM »

I tried to ssh to the camera using Putty and it failed to open the connection. The error message is attached. Any thoughts? Thank you!

Try the following to connect to the camera via SSH and see if this works. If this doesn't, you may need to use an older version of Linux on your PC or investigate the encryption methods supported on your distro. The old Arago Linux build on the camera doesn't support modern crypto, and most systems today by default disallow the insecure modes supported by the camera

ssh -oKexAlgorithms=+diffie-hellman-group1-sha1 [email protected]

37

Software Dev / Re: AHD demosaic beta update - Much better sharpness for in-camera h264 saving

« on: August 22, 2018, 01:59:07 PM »

The card image mentioned above is V0.1, you can directly update to V0.3.0, then apply the demosaic update.

38

General high-speed discussion / Re: OMG I just know there is a high speed camera company near my home

« on: August 10, 2018, 04:05:29 PM »

Thanks Jason!

39

Software Dev / Re: Software V0.3 RC2 (Updated June 11, 2018)

« on: August 06, 2018, 03:21:16 PM »

I can't be the only one who has trouble with these updates.   No matter how I follow the instructions,   it still takes an hour of trying to shift files around until I either give up or get lucky and it eventually works.    I think I am still on version 2.0.   

You have one of the original prototypes which is not compatible with these updates (yet). Check your email shortly, we can upgrade your camera to accept the production firmware releases

40

Software Dev / AHD demosaic beta update - Much better sharpness for in-camera h264 saving

« on: August 03, 2018, 01:02:25 PM »

This beta update adds a greatly improved demosaic for in-camera h264 saving. This brings the quality of saved MP4 files near that of externally processed RAW files. We've been using this regularly without issues, but as always with beta software, don't use it for anything mission critical where you can't recreate a shot.

This replaces the old bilinear demosaic with one based on AHD (Adaptive Homogeneity Directed), with some modifications for fewer color artifacts around single-pixel objects, and lower resource utilization.

Installation
This update must be installed over V0.3.0, if you have not installed that, follow the instructions on the software update page. Once you're on V0.3.0, you can download the attached update, the installation instructions are exactly the same as for V0.3.0 update linked above. Once installed, the application revision will remain the same but the FPGA revision will be 3.9

Let us know how it works!

41

Chronos User Discussion / Re: crash test filming with Chronos

« on: August 01, 2018, 03:37:03 PM »

I'm confident the camera will handle 16g acceleration. If it breaks we'll cover that under warranty. Small lenses such as the Computar primes should be fine but larger lenses would need a support cage.

42

Software Dev / Software V0.3.0 full release

« on: July 24, 2018, 12:28:13 PM »

Update: Software V0.3.1 full release is now available: http://forum.krontech.ca/index.php?topic=460

Software V0.3.0 is now available on the software updates page. No real changes from 0.3 RC2, apart from the version string and some minor capitalization changes.

A 0.3.1 release is in progress to fix some bugs left over from 0.2 that were discovered in testing. V0.3.0 is still considered as stable or better than 0.2.

V0.3.0 changes relative to V0.2

Notable Changes:

    White balance can be selected from 5 common presets in addition to taking your own as you could previously.
    Custom White Balance calibration (via Set White Balance) now works as expected, and produces vastly more realistic colours.
    Colour reproduction is greatly improved, especially reds.
    Set White Balance now calculates against 80% brightness white instead of 100% brightness white.
    File size warning when saving are generally more reliable now. (eg., 4+GB file warning now FAT32-only, since only FAT32 has a 4GB file size limit.)
    Changes to video saving settings are now applied as they are made, not just when the popup is closed.
    Keyboard behavior improved; text is now selected when you tap an edit box.
    UI can be flipped upside-down, or set to display the main screen menu on the left side.
    You can configure the "Unsaved video in RAM" popup that appears when you hit the record button with an unsaved video in memory. It can be set to "Always", "If not reviewed" (default), or "Never". The previous behavior was always "If not reviewed".
    The sliders on main screen the play screen have been made larger for ease of grabbing.
    Trigger I/O's Trigger delay input was moved to the Trigger Delay screen. A slider has been added as a visual aid and an alternate way to adjust the trigger delay. The ratio between post-trigger frames and record length in frames is kept constant between resolution and framerate changes.
    Added Trigger Delay screen and Record Modes screen, accessible from Record Settings. Selectable modes are Normal, Segmented, and Gated Burst.
    Black cal duration reduced by 10s to 15s or so at max resolution.
    Use any SD card. Previously, a class 10 SD card was required. You can now use slower cards. Of course, using a slower SD card means that videos save slower too.
    You can now auto-record after saving and/or auto-save after recording. This can loop if both are used at the same time.


Minutiae:

    Playback screen has 'region to be saved' marked. Each region saved is marked in a different color.
    There is now a Settings tab in the Util pages. This can be used to backup, restore, or reset settings, which does not include black calibration.
    Play -> Settings: bitsPerPixel, maxBitrate, saved file framerate, format, filename and save location are now saved as soon as they are changed instead of when the Close button is pressed.
    Mark In and Mark Out have been renamed to Mark Start and Mark End, probably just until the video seek bar is made horizontal.
    The Enter key has been changed to say Apply, since you have to press it to apply your changes on the record settings window.


Known bugs:

    The first few frames in saved videos are from the end of the recording.
    The camera will freeze after saving approximately 45 videos.  Make sure to reboot before saving approximately 40 videos to ensure the camera does not freeze. This bug exists in all previous releases as well.
    The camera will freeze when saving a video that is over 4GB onto a FAT32 partition, or when storage is full.
    If auto-record is enabled, but auto-save is not, a new recording will not be started.  However, the camera will still auto-record after booting the camera.
    Warnings about filesize (over fat32 limit, or insufficient free space) can still be shown even if autosave is enabled (if autosave is enabled, the user is unlikely to be there to press Yes for the camera to continue saving)

43

Software Dev / Re: Software V0.3 RC1

« on: July 06, 2018, 06:28:39 PM »

- Changes to video saving settings are now applied as they are made, not just when the popup is closed.

It's not set the settings after a reboot anymore though. I set it to save @ 25fps and that works but after a reboot it saves video at the default 60fps. If I then open the save settings it shows 25fps and applies it automatically but that does mean I have to manually go to that menu again after reboot. This does not work in our use case where the camera is up at the ceiling

I'm still getting corrupt frames and more importantly after many sequential recordings a freeze, either just a grey image and not responding or a forever "shutting down krontech.ca" screen (after about 40 video's 1280x720, 800 frames long, using 3.0 RC2).

We've been able to reproduce this on our end as well, thanks for pointing it out. Looking into it, the fix we had reduced the problem but it appears not to be a complete solution. Working on a full fix right now, check back the next few days for RC3.

44

Chronos User Discussion / Re: Two Camera Setup. (help me)

« on: July 05, 2018, 07:41:25 PM »

The behavior you see is normal. The frame sync output is always active on the master camera, even when the camera is not recording. To sync the two cameras properly, you'll need to set up a second trigger as a record end trigger, so that both the master and slave cameras stop recording simultaneously. I would also recommend setting the record length to the same value on both cameras, so that the recordings are of the same length are lined up properly. Otherwise you'll need to sync the two recordings based on the end rather than the beginning.

You'll want to turn off the 20mA pullup on the slave camera, to avoid possible issues with signal levels.

Let me know if this works for you.

Regards,
David

45

Chronos User Discussion / Re: Trigger can just stop recording

« on: July 05, 2018, 07:12:27 PM »

Could you describe what you'd like to do with the trigger? There are usually ways to configure the camera to do what you want, even though the trigger can't start a recording directly.