An interesting piece of hardware.

[Elodie]

Here are the different tabs accessible via an iMac :

[ZigOtto]

... I have attached a screenshot for PC, MAC will follow.

excellent !
does the Rotation (180°) work with it ?
and the focus setting, can it be fully manual, then locked ?
(I hate auto-focus running during a shoot session)

[Elodie]

(I hate auto-focus running during a shoot session)

That's understandable
I don't know, we will peek an eye (but I don't remember the camera was running with a auto focus).

[Hervé]

and the focus setting, can it be fully manual, then locked ?
(I hate auto-focus running during a shoot session)

The autofocus is not locked.
The 2560*1944 resolution is interpolated, it's pretty slow ( +- 2FPS ) and the quality is not enough for stop motion.
But it's not a problem for a line test.

[ZigOtto]

The autofocus is not locked.

The 2560*1944 resolution is interpolated, it's pretty slow ( +- 2FPS ) and the quality is not enough for stop motion.
But it's not a problem for a line test.

OK, so, what's the (real) best resolution, I mean the max res. the captor can provide without interpolation ?

[D.T. Nethery]

nb : the tech guy at CalArts has purchased 8~10 of those WebCam for linetest. (on MAC)

On MAC, it seems to use the highest resolution, then it's stretched according to the project size.

- - - -
I have invited someone from Recordex in this Topic, so you should be able to ask him about pricing, delivery, etc ...

I hope the representative from Recordex will chime in soon. I have questions. This camera has great potential as a line-test camera , but I need to know a few more things before I would absolutely recommend it to my online students to use with TVPaint.

I am slightly confused what is meant by "On MAC, it seems to use the highest resolution, then it's stretched according to the project size"

In this case does the term "stretched" mean it captures the images at the highest resolution (2560 x 1944 which is more or less the classic "4:3" aspect ratio, not the wider "HDTV" 16:9 aspect ratio) then it re-sizes the image (rather than "stretches" the image ) to whatever is the selected TVPaint project size ... therefore, if perhaps the TVPaint project size is very small , say 640 x 480 for a quick line test , then it downsizes the image to fit within the 640 x 480 "4:3" aspect ratio, with the correct aspect ratio retained , which seems likely as 2560 x 1944 seems to be "4:3 (?) ... or does it mean that if a different aspect ratio is used (not "4:3") then the images will literally appear "stretched" if one happens to be using a wider aspect ratio such as 704 x 480 or 1280 x 720, or 1920 x 1080 "16:9" aspect ratios , so that the image will appear to be distorted/stretched-out to fit within the wider 16:9 aspect ratio ? I hope my questions make sense.

But perhaps I worry too much over the term "stretched" vs. "re-sized" ? (i.e. maybe Fabrice's term "stretched" in this case simply means the same as "resized", but correct aspect ratio is retained ? )


Also, regarding the auto-focus:

The autofocus is not locked.

So , this means no manual control over the focus ? But does the auto-focus stay consistent or does it constantly shift and 'search' for the correct focus point when changing over the drawings ? Based on past experience using auto-focus web cams for pencil testing that can cause problems with some frames being captured slightly out-of-focus as the camera constantly adjusts the focus point, or it can mean that it slows down the capturing process as one must wait for the camera to find the focus and stop adjusting itself before capturing a frame. The main advantage I see to using this camera instead of using a scanner is the SPEED . Scanning always looks better than video camera capture , but it is slow, slow, slow (with a flatbed scanner) . If this unit can capture at true 2K res and the images look sharp (no soft focus due to auto-focus constantly adjusting) , then there is potentially no reason this could not be used to capture final clean-up line drawings, then run the Scan Cleaner on the captured line art , and do final coloring in TVPaint.

[Fabrice]

I'm going to give more details, please be patient, we are upgrading a lot of stuff those days (website, software, resellers, etc ...).

[dperro]

I found a very nice solution for HD capture for under $100. The Logitech C910 HD web cam with Carl Zeiss lens works very well. It connects easily to the computer via USB and TVP works with the controls so you can adjust focus and zoom through the Video In panel in TVP.

The image is full 1920 x 1080 p. and very sharp. I bought five for our line test room but haven't installed them yet.

Has anyone else tried these? For a hundred dollars it's a cheap solution! Almost too good to be true.

[D.T. Nethery]

You can set the resolution on the webcam parameters on PC, or you can set the resolution when starting a new project, then the image will be stretched (or not if both are the same).
So the best is to use the same resolution with the camera settings and the project.

On MAC, it seems to use the highest resolution, then it's stretched according to the project size.

This is also the answer I got from a representative of RecordeX-USA (Jason Ulmer) who replied regarding my questions about resolution and screen aspect ratio:

Regarding Aspect Ratio ("4:3" vs. "16:9") whether it will capture in aspect ratios like 1920 x 1080 ("16:9") Jason Ulmer responds:

The camera simply captures images at the resolution it is set for. The max resolution that we support in our software application that is designed for school classroom use is 2592x1944. This is a 4:3 ratio. If you need to capture work for 16:9 you'll probably need to capture and then crop the images. Perhaps the software you are using is able to automated this cropping/refitting operation ? Our camera will simply capture an image at the resolution it is set for. Anything that happens after that is the software.

So it seems to me that the Simplicity Cam 5e will only capture to 4:3 aspect ratio , otherwise the image will be stretched/distorted to fit inside 16:9 aspect ratio, yes ?

Therefore the workaround for using 16:9 would be to scan the whole drawing at 4:3 ratio , but make sure that all animation is within a "Safe Area" using a 16:9 field guild , so after capturing to TVPaint , then run the Scan Cleaner and Peg Hole Registration , one additional step is to crop the image to a 16:9 project size . Am I correct ?

[ZigOtto]

hi D.T.
if you shoot with a camera mounted, and use a peg-bar to recieve the anim' drawings, your image is correct,
if you don't use a fixed pegbar for the shooting (just aligning the drawing's peg-holes on a black tape f.i.),
and then go to the peg-hole Registration FX of tvp to make them steady, you should have your 4/3 scanning area
including the paper holes .

instead of cropping, I personally use the keyframer (source project = shooting res.,target project = 16:9 HD),
it's quite the same result at the end.

[D.T. Nethery]

instead of cropping, I personally use the keyframer (source project = shooting res.,target project = 16:9 HD),
it's quite the same result at the end.

Good idea.

[masterchief]

I found a very nice solution for HD capture for under $100. The Logitech C910 HD web cam with Carl Zeiss lens works very well. It connects easily to the computer via USB and TVP works with the controls so you can adjust focus and zoom through the Video In panel in TVP.

The image is full 1920 x 1080 p. and very sharp. I bought five for our line test room but haven't installed them yet.

Has anyone else tried these? For a hundred dollars it's a cheap solution! Almost too good to be true.

$59 USD at amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... 7240428-20" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[ZigOtto]

I found a very nice solution for HD capture for under $100. The Logitech C910 HD webcam with Carl Zeiss lens works very well. It connects easily to the computer via USB and TVP works with the controls so you can adjust focus and zoom through the Video In panel in TVP.

The image is full 1920 x 1080 p. and very sharp. I bought five for our line test room but haven't installed them yet.

Has anyone else tried these? For a hundred dollars it's a cheap solution! Almost too good to be true.

$59.99 USD at amazon.com

and 57 € as best price here in France .
http://www.ldlc.com/fiche/PB00104198.ht ... 3godnkP1lg

[Fabrice]

I received this link too :
http://www.hueanimation.com/features/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

But I don't know if it works with TVPaint.

[Fabrice]

david,

I'm going to post my answer to all your questions tomorrow morning.
My apologizes for the delay ... I'm alone uin the office today.