Options for continuous high-speed recording?

[dbooksta]

What cameras are on the market that support continuous high-frame-rate recording? I was hoping to find something under $2000 that could do 480p on the order of 1000fps, but the only camcorder I have been able to find that support continuous high-speed recording is the Casio Exilim series, and those only do lower resolution as you increase frame rate -- i.e., 512x384 (300 fps), 432x192 (600 fps), and 336x96 (1200 fps).

[jagabo]

http://www.visionresearch.com/
http://www.photron.com/

[dbooksta]

Those are quite a bit out of my price range -- looks like they start at around $10k.

[jagabo]

I don't think you're going to find anything that does high speed video at 480p for US$2000. 640x480 YV12 video at 1000 fps runs about 600 MB/s. That requires a very fast RAID drive to capture uncompressed. Or a very powerful compression chip for realtime compression.

[dbooksta]

I know it's a challenge, but the technology has been there for several years now:

1. $200 buys a state-of-the-art, mighty powerful image compression processor.
2. A 7200rpm SATA or SSD drive without any tricks can handle sustained writes at over 60MB/s.
3. For my purposes at least, I'd accept reduced color depth in order to boost peak frame-rates.

I'm just surprised that at this point there is nothing between Casio's sub-$1k Exilims and the $10k+ professional options.

[lordsmurf]

It's not a common want-list item.

[Steve Stepoway]

I know it's a challenge, but the technology has been there for several years now:

1. $200 buys a state-of-the-art, mighty powerful image compression processor.
2. A 7200rpm SATA or SSD drive without any tricks can handle sustained writes at over 60MB/s.
3. For my purposes at least, I'd accept reduced color depth in order to boost peak frame-rates.

I'm just surprised that at this point there is nothing between Casio's sub-$1k Exilims and the $10k+ professional options.

It's not a question of whether the technology bits are there; it's a question of whether there's enough perceived market demand to make it profitable to spend the $$$ to roll the technology bits together into a product, and then manufacture, market, and distribute it. That's expensive. As LS says, not enough (perceived) demand.

[jagabo]

Maybe the Time Warp show on the Discovery channel will increase interest in high speed video.

[edDV]

[*]A 7200rpm SATA or SSD drive without any tricks can handle sustained writes at over 60MB/s.

Not continuously over the full drive capacity. 60MB/s would need a 2 disk RAID zero*. RAID 0 starts one drive at the fast end and the other at the slow end for constant average sustained write rate.

[*]For my purposes at least, I'd accept reduced color depth in order to boost peak frame-rates.

Yes reduced color depth or data compression could allow use of one drive. In most industrial or scientific high speed projects, color accuracy isn't required.


* A WD Raptor may be able to maintain 60MB/s at the slow end of the drive.

[jagabo]

Many drives are exceeding 60 MB/s at the slowest edge now.

[edDV]

Some other high speed camera options

http://www.compumodules.com/image-processing/high-speed-camera/

http://machinedesign.com/article/tips-and-advice-on-buying-a-high-speed-camera-for-tro...achines-and-pr

[edDV]

More
http://www.turnkey-solutions.com.au/cam_highspeed_digital_cameras.htm

http://www.bockoptronics.ca/industrial/pages/mikrotron.html

This one looks good
http://www.photonlines.co.uk/cameras-and-image-intensifiers/high-speed-imaging/mikrotr...z-hsc-kit.html