Chronos V0.6.0 Full Release

[Nikon1]

I also noticed some Horizontal "Banding" (or whatever one would call that?) when Overexposed Areas are In Frame right next to dark areas. Dont remember them to be this visible in the Last Version, but will double Check, if i find time for that. I also dont really know, if this is just a Flaw of the Sensor itself, or if this is a software thing. Still way more organic looking than the Vertical Lines from the Last version, but if this could be improoved would sure be neat. Here is two DNGs in a .Zip, from me trying to reproduce this Banding.
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 #EDIT#: Forgot to put the Settings that this was shot at here: 35mm 2.8 Russian Lens, 12dB gain, 359° 1kfps

 So i tried to reproduce the Banding in the 0.5.037 Unstable Build, and i CAN still see it there in some Extreme Lighting Situations, but it is WAY less obvious to even Barely noticeable depending on what else is in frame. In fact, i didnt even really notice it was there bevore this new 0.6.0 Software really. In the New software however, most extreme i seen was about 1/3 of the Whole Area of Frame Blacking out (Areas Horizontally next to Large Overexposed Area in an overally pretty dark overall frame) Completely. On the Older Software it at worst just affects Brightness Value of the Whole Horizontal Area next to Over Exposed areas a tiny bit, which is mostly hard to notice, unless you are Specifically looking for it; Most visible on the Older Versions are the "Edges" of Square Overexposed Areas/ the Horizontal Lines that Produces at the Edges (those are still very faint tho). Will Upload some Kind of Comparison, if i manage to get a good recording of that.
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 The whole thing reminds me a lot of the Vertical Smear Phenomenon of old CCD-Sensor Cameras somehow. There Was Some really good full Article about it, what is going on and why, sometime ago; but i cant find it, best thing i found about it rn is this Publication on Page 4, where they talk about it a little bit:
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 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315944464_Stroboscope_Based_Synchronization_of_Full_Frame_CCD_Sensors

[Bian]

I also noticed some Horizontal "Banding" (or whatever one would call that?) when Overexposed Areas are In Frame right next to dark areas. Dont remember them to be this visible in the Last Version, but will double Check, if i find time for that. I also dont really know, if this is just a Flaw of the Sensor itself, or if this is a software thing. Still way more organic looking than the Vertical Lines from the Last version, but if this could be improoved would sure be neat. Here is two DNGs in a .Zip, from me trying to reproduce this Banding.
 .
 #EDIT#: Forgot to put the Settings that this was shot at here: 35mm 2.8 Russian Lens, 12dB gain, 359° 1kfps

 
I can confirm this. In addition, i made another observation - if the white areas decline at 50 IRE it looks like they get pink....

[Nikon1]

Managed to finally set up three MicroSD´s to test all the Versions. Here is a Test for banding at 250fps, 360°, 0+0 dB Gain; 15mm @ f/0,9 with the Camera well warmed up.
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 Software Version 0.5.1 (This file was Run through AE CS6 to compress it from 108MB down to now just 46MB, apart from the Bitrate untouched Footage):

[Nikon1]

And here another one from the New 0.6.0 (also untouched, straight from the Camera):
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 all Three where shot at exactly the same settings with Whitebalance set to the 4600K Preset (Lamp beeing 4000K Color). I did pan not quite at the same Speed every time, so they show different amounts of Motion blur and Ghosting (yes, Ghosting is visible on all Three Software Versions, seems about unchanged across them, might could cause problems for More Technical / Research kind of applications i assume), but should give a pretty good idea of how visible the Banding can be. Didnt quite manage to record some of the more Extreme Light setting with this yet, but it clearly shows here. As Light and Camera/ Lens Settings are unchanged, this test also confirmes, that there is indeed quite a noticeable difference in Light Sensitivity with the New Software compared to recent versions. the Unstable Build is ever so slightly more sensitive than the Stable 0.5.1 Build from what i can tell, and the 0.6.0 Version is quite a bit darker, like half a Stop of Light or so, or even more. Also Highlights tend to be more Pink when Overexposed, as Bian allready said.
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 #EDIT#: Did also shoot the Same thing with the 0.5.037 Unstable Version, but couldnt upload all Three, because Space on the Server was full or something, got an Error Message when trying to upload. So i just uploaded the old and the New Version, as the Unstable and Stable 0.5.xxx Versions looked about the same.

[JamesB]

After my limited testing, it is clear the banding has been reduced a whole lot. It will still show up in the shadows and under exposed areas severely (Shows up as red and cyan vertical bands in shadows mostly).  However, given enough light and taking care to overexpose a bit it is fairly well reduced.   I was able to get Topaz Video Enhance AI to almost completely eliminate the shadow vertical banding after processing which really saved the day. 

I can't attest to the DR loss since I went straight to v6 for my testing but it will be good to try to preserve more of it.   All in all very stable release, no issues with saving multiple clips for about 4hrs.  I was also pleasantly surprised by the good quality h.264 output with lots of detail from the 2.1 camera which is in my view an order of magnitude better than what the 1.4 was able to achieve.  Of course, shooting DNG RAW remains unmatched.   

[Bian]

A little comparison between 1.4 and 2.1 - both with V0.6.0
Outdoors, no clouds.
Framerates: 17391 (1.4) and 16191 (2.1) recorded as TIFF



In my opinion the 1.4 picture looks well - the 2.1 picture is very flat....

[BeSch]

I have a 2.1 but update doesn´t work here.  Using balenaEtcher, W10, W7, MacPro and different SDs. After balena is finished I have only a e:/boot 35 MB partition (!) and nothing else. WINrar doesn´t work either. Do I probably need a  NEW completely unformated card to proceed?

[Nikon1]

did you unpack the File First? i used 7Zip, if you just put the File as is from the Downloader into the Etcher, it wont work.

[BeSch]

Yes, I did.

Chronos-20210205_manualBuild.img  >>>>>> Etcher ... and here is what I got:

Boot E:/  35MB - and nothing else, although another windows says "Flash complete"!

Allright....

But when I inserted the card into the cam and started it nothing happens, no ´column gain calibration sign,´ no update

[Nikon1]

Thats normal so far, you cant easily see the other Partition on Windows. Only the Small Boot one will show up, but there is an invisible other one too. Does the Camera start up with that card however, meaning, you see an Krontech Logo/ Animataion after a bit and later a User interface you can interact with, or is something along the Boot-Process broken?

[BeSch]

Everything is clear now  The microSD card on the bottom, NOT the SD card on the top! 

Thanks to Mostafa Azarbar (opening my eyes).

Read quick, be blind

[NiNeff]

The linked instructions say that special factory calibration files are no longer needed for both the 1.4 and the 2.1, while the first post here only mentions the 2.1 – can anyone please clear this up? Can the 1.4 generate it's calibration entirely on its own or is this limited to the 2.1?
Also, as the update currently cant be done "in place" but requires an SD-Card update, is the existing "factory" calibration data still relevant ion some way (like providing better results?)

[Bian]

The linked instructions say that special factory calibration files are no longer needed for both the 1.4 and the 2.1, while the first post here only mentions the 2.1 – can anyone please clear this up? Can the 1.4 generate it's calibration entirely on its own or is this limited to the 2.1?
Also, as the update currently cant be done "in place" but requires an SD-Card update, is the existing "factory" calibration data still relevant ion some way (like providing better results?)

Thats right - the 1.4 generate its calibration internally - only the 2.1 needed their own factory data. For a new calibration both cameras need te same process now.

[sanjay]

The linked instructions say that special factory calibration files are no longer needed for both the 1.4 and the 2.1, while the first post here only mentions the 2.1 – can anyone please clear this up? Can the 1.4 generate it's calibration entirely on its own or is this limited to the 2.1?
Also, as the update currently cant be done "in place" but requires an SD-Card update, is the existing "factory" calibration data still relevant ion some way (like providing better results?)

A few notes to help clear things up (thanks for the help, Bian!):

Chronos 1.4

• Fully self-calibrating from software versions 0.3.2 onwards
• The old factory cal files aren't required/relevant anymore

Chronos 2.1

• Fully self-calibrating from software versions 0.6.0 onwards
• Required special factory files up until version 0.6.0, aka. factory cal
• The old factory cal files can be kept in case you aren't satisfied with how the image quality works for your preferred resolution/framerate/gain settings, in which case you can safely revert to 0.5.0

Both Cameras

• All calibration data generated by the camera itself can be backed up or restored via the Util -> Storage screen
• It's possible to import calibration data between unstable and stable releases, but we recommend calibrating again after each update, since it's a short and automatic process

[Gregory_87]

Hello,

I've updated my Chronos 1.4 cam from v.0.3.2 to the v.0.6.0. Now I have a problem because my 256 GB SD card is not detected by the camera. Card is formatted as FAT32 and was detected by the camera for previous firmware with no problem.  I've noticed that the same SD card connected to USB/SATA input through SD/USB adapter works fine. After detection as USB/eSATA input device, I've formatted the SD card using camera software. But after this the SD card is still not recognized when installed into the dedicated SD card slot in the camera. From USB/eSATA slot everything works fine.