Status update

[Gert van Loo]

I know the camera is a highly anticipated extension to the raspberry-Pi.
So I understand that there is a continuous stream of "Is it there yet" questions.
The problem is that, as with all the foundation work, it is all done by volunteers in their spare time.
And everybody knows that 'spare time' is a very scarce commodity these days.

An additional complexity is that modern electronic circuits can no longer be manufactured 'on the fly'.
To demonstrate that you find below a photo of the new camera board and well from the connector of the camera itself.
This type of contact can not be reliably soldered using a soldering iron. Instead we have to put down the connector
using a re-flow work station. Which again means the operator has to have some spare hours to set it up calibrate it
and then run a few boards through it, hopefully not wrecking too may of our prototype broads and our prototype cameras.

I will keep you informed when there is more to show.
Until then you are free to ask 'Are we there yet' and I will keep answering NO!

[Lob0426]

Prototype "broads"! Now that is a fiendishly unexpected use of a word in a sentence. Might cause a little problem with the other half................ Or a divorce, charges of human trafficking. Or questions about prototype "Broads".


Or might just be a typo.

[jfornango]

Typos and divorce papers notwithstanding, that's some serious boardwork.
Take your time and do it right. We all appreciate the work you guys (and gals) are putting int this!

[ceteras]

I'm not really looking forward to buy one of these, but I'm looking forward the times when this will be ready for market and you guys free to do other amazing things for the Pi!
Still, that tiny board looks amazing, thanks for the update!

[Nr90]

Must be cool to have your name on a prototype board

[Gert van Loo]

Hi guys. There is an update from a colleague of mine:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... 31#p191089

[virtualas]

Hello,
I am attentively watching your work with camera module. Could you correct me if I am wrong but for this module you are using hardware h264 compression? Also as I think it is made on RPi board B and C will come with only additional camera module?

My plans are to build cheap camera streamer from USB capture device to network (RTSP,RTMP etc) using h264 encoding. As browsing forum in this feature are concentrated many people. Maybe we all could work in parallel? As we would be testing same program code with USB grabbers to encode and later on stream video? I am not very competent in C but I think that there would be a lot of enthusiast people in this community to work together.

BTW There are in market some devices that fulfill our needs (http://www.fastvdo.com/SmartCapture/ this device can encode and stream) but they are very expensive and their price/value is poor. As video encoded ( http://www.fastvdo.com/SmartCapture/ima ... _30fps.mp4 ) is terrible.

[jamesh]

In video mode you can use OpenMAX to encode to H264 (or any of the other supported formats) straight from the camera. You could them with appropriate SW make this available over the ethernet connection. I expect this will be a popular use case! Video quality would be up to 1080p30, and a decent bitrate. 25MBits/s is perfectly feasible, but you might want to reduce that when streaming.

Note the camera module will be a separate PCB to the Raspi itself, connected by a short ribbon cable.

[Gert van Loo]

Hello,
...
My plans are to build cheap camera streamer from USB capture device to network (RTSP,RTMP etc) using h264 encoding. ......

I normally encourage people to do what they want but in this case I strongly suggest you await the camera module.
You will not be able to do much the way you propose it. Your USB camera and your network are all streaming through the one USB port on the 2835.
There just is not enough bandwidth for your video to have anything but very low quality.

The camera module has its own 1.2Gbit channel to the 2835. Next comes a very sophisticated Image Sensory Pipline which
can pre-process that data in full quality at full data rate. (In fact it is a top-notch ISP capable of competing with the ones in high end SLR cameras)
Next you can do H264 encoding on a high quality stream and push it out over Ethernet.

[tovis]

Hi @virtualalas
I have tried grabber based on SYNTEK STK1160 chipset - it is cheap and good enough. I was tried it with easycap driver which is a staging driver in kernel 3.2.22 for raspbian Wheezy, with NO success. Others also played with this, also using stk1160 driver also no success. The reason is that USB interface is too slow (less then 50 MB/sec).
I have tested some web cameras, which are could be by on the market in Hungary - no success. Only my wife's old Genius something camera was worked somewhat
I think the only good solution could be the integrated camera, using integrated interface and firmware for this purposes. Also speed and HD resolution (5M pixel) could be achieved only this way. 700MHz CPU speed w/o floating point not enough for this task, parallel to all other things such as a reasonably fast responding streaming protocol through ethernet or USB (WiFi).

[tovis]

Hi @Gert
I'm completely agree with you.

[Nr90]

Hi guys. There is an update from a colleague of mine:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... 31#p191089

Thanks for that update Gert.
Looking forward to the day it'll be ready.
It will be a nice excuse to upgrade to one the new fancy 512 mb RPi's

[virtualas]

Thanks for your answer! But still, use on-board camera is like use some webcam just with more FPS - I want to connect some semi-pro video camera through component or composite adapter. Maybe there is some way to use the same camera module channel (1.25Gbit) with some converter to HDMI/Firewire/Component/Composite? Maybe something exists in the market?

[jamesh]

Thanks for your answer! But still, use on-board camera is like use some webcam just with more FPS - I want to connect some semi-pro video camera through component or composite adapter. Maybe there is some way to use the same camera module channel (1.25Gbit) with some converter to HDMI/Firewire/Component/Composite? Maybe something exists in the market?

Well, more FPS certainly, but also much better quality and decent HW encoding straight to H264.

I doubt there will be a way to connect component/composite in to the CSI (camera) port.

[virtualas]

Well... There is even a thread in this forum where users found HDMI to CSI toshiba adapter http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... =44&t=2880 and some example code to hardware assisted h264 encoding for files https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware ... e/encode.c

As I guess your team are writing code for camera module using hello_encode but capturing frames not from virtual device but from MIBI CSI i-face? Also I wanted to ask if video feed will be accessible only locally or via network too?

[tovis]

Hi @virualas
There is a lot of ready to use solutions for streaming from /dev/video through the ethernet - vlc, ffmpeg, openRTSP, FlowPlayer - not a complete list.
Other question is about streaming, is the delay, which could be shortened if you have h.264 coded stream.

[virtualas]

Hi @virualas
There is a lot of ready to use solutions for streaming from /dev/video through the ethernet - vlc, ffmpeg, openRTSP, FlowPlayer - not a complete list.
Other question is about streaming, is the delay, which could be shortened if you have h.264 coded stream.

Tovis, I think that you didn't understood my situation. I agree that with vlc and ffmpeg I am able to stream video from /dev/... but they are software based solutions and requires high CPU/RAM. As RPi CPU is enabled to encode video using its own instructions it would be much more efficient. You mentioned mostly solutions that are for playing live media. I am looking for solution to stream media (Camera -> [some interface e.g. hdmi, component, s-video etc] -> RPi [encode to h264 and stream over RTSP/RTMP/UDP -> Distribution server -> Clients [Your mentioned applications]

Also, jamesh, model with camera will be the same model B just including camera connector and board? Will we be able to buy it separately?

[RaTTuS]

....
Also, jamesh, model with camera will be the same model B just including camera connector and board? Will we be able to buy it separately?

the camera will be sold as a addon to the existing RPi's they just connect to the CSI interface

[wallarug]

Hi @virualas


Also, jamesh, model with camera will be the same model B just including camera connector and board? Will we be able to buy it separately?

The camera will be sold Separately to the Raspberry Pi. ie. not on the board/not with it.

[tovis]

Where I can find exact connection schema for RPI PSU? (I have one for 2A but it has jack plug, not micro USB)

[jamesh]

Where I can find exact connection schema for RPI PSU? (I have one for 2A but it has jack plug, not micro USB)

Not the right place for this question, but it's a standard micro USB connection, so http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_connector

[virtualas]

Well... There is even a thread in this forum where users found HDMI to CSI toshiba adapter http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... =44&t=2880 and some example code to hardware assisted h264 encoding for files https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware ... e/encode.c

As I guess your team are writing code for camera module using hello_encode but capturing frames not from virtual device but from MIBI CSI i-face? Also I wanted to ask if video feed will be accessible only locally or via network too?

@jamesh
Could you please confirm me that? Or maybe I could peak to camera code?

[jamesh]

Sorry, I'm not sure what you want me to confirm.

[virtualas]

Sorry, I'm not sure what you want me to confirm.

OK - I will ask another way What camera will be able to do? Will it stream video through internet? E.G. RTSP or something simmilar? Are there will be some example source code?

[jamesh]

It's 5MP hyperfocal camera, capable of upto 1080p30.

Software will be provided to take still images and also to produce H264 encoded streams of video (I believe you can specify resolution and bitrate). By default I expect OpenMAX will be the initial API, but I imagine people will produce easier to use wrapper over that e.g. V4L. What you then do with those video streams is up to you - stream to display, record to SD card, stream over internet.