Sounds nice! Do you happen to have a FOSS/OH solution for PCI-E 3.0 and M.2?

I think we should remove the bottleneck from SATA III to SAS 12 Gb/s so we can get more speed. Because 4K 60fps RAW requires a lot of speed we would need more MicroSD Card for the ability of recording it. And it needs to support UHS-II in every slot. So we need a lot of resources. And MicroSD is more expensive than SATA SSDs actually. $42 for 128 GB MicroSD (Sandisk Ultra 128 GB), Buy 8 and you will have 960 GiB (1024 GB) for $320. It is more or less the same with worse performance (Top speed of the SSD is about 550 MB/s while MicroSDs are about 80 MB/s each with a constant write of about 18 MB/s per card, which in total gives you less than 200 MB/s with a slightly cheaper amount of cards.

I think we should use PCI Express 3.0 x4 with 4 M.2 cards in RAID-0 so we can get RAW Uncompressed in a very high framerate and resolution. Because if we go for SATA SSDs the SATA III would be a bottleneck. We should develop it with PCI Express so M.2 and XQD compatible. We can also add more memory modules for Cache.

On the bright side I actually remember this particular idea being born because of discussion with specific groups at the booths at embedded world. Of course those were specialists in their field and we actively approach them and started the discussion but still :)

Personally I have no problem with that.

Funny thing is, that Bertl is working on a Beta Module like this.

maybe it can be helpful ?

how would it be possible to connect the 2 6gbit connectors of the beta to a pci express 3.0 controller, which should be connected to a M.2 slot?

@Herbert as far as I recall we discussed the possibility of CF to SSD conversion which wasn't that simple because CF uses various modes, I think it was something like - transfer/memory/IO - and all three modes had to work. People have discussed it when trying to get a RAW Stream of Magic Lantern/Canon 5D3 onto an SSD instead of an expensice CF card.

As sebastian explained, UHS-II is electrically different from "normal" SD, so the only way to make this work is through special hardware.

Hi db

Hello all!

@kimbray, definitely look like interesting options!

What about something like this?
http://www.thessdreview.com/daily-news/latest-buzz/samsung-begins-mass-production-of-industrys-first-m-2-nvme-pcie-ssd-for-pcs-and-workstations/
or
http://www.legitreviews.com/intel-ssd-750-nvme-pcie-ssd-review_161829
Both address the write performance needed I believe and are getting cost effective. Wit the NVMe capabilities the latency and queues would be awesome.
Intel SSD750 about $1K for 1.2TB storage.
There are others entering the market too like...
http://www.gskill.com/en/product/fm-pcx8g2r4-960g

@Laoena, what is your suggestion we do with that cable exactly?

Just saw this on Kickstarter: TOB Cable: One cable for everything

The MOX is open source open format and I know Brendan Knows about the Axiom and I think Sebastian et al have been in contact with him about maybe using it. As I understand it, however, MOX is essentially a flexible wrapper - it could be used as a production format, you just need to include an (open source) compression codec in the wrapper.

Hello,
First let me apologize for joining this conversation this late. For starters, my opinion is that working with 3 HDMIs shouldn't be an option. Cables are not solid for long distances, connections even golden ones are not secure, and transferring that amount of data would be a real headache. I've worked as DATA manager and DIT in several production in Spain and Mexico, and SDI is the most reliable cable you can get at the moment. I know it requires implement soft and hard, but in my opinion, 3 HDMIs sounds scary.

@allan
You have right, a Mini-ITX PC is very heavy and makes some noise, if it has fans.

We are in touch with Christophe and just purchased this board from him.

Answer from Christophe

His name is Christophe Carpentier and he has one available for 200USD. Go on the page http://opencores.org/acc,view,chipmaker78. His email address is there.
I gave him the address of the apertus web site and I and investigating how get the board.

Nice! Please investigate how we can get our hands on such a board for testing (in exchange for 200 USD of course).

I found ton opencores.org a project of a PCIe board with Sata connector. (http://opencores.org/project,spartan6_pcie).
External interfaces are not the correct one but the developer seems open to discussion. Board cost 200USD (got feedback from developer)

Obviously no compression is the easiest to manage in camera in terms of processing required (i.e. none) but further down the image pipeline no compression becomes a problem.

Staying within the realms that make for what the axiom beta is, i dont think the recorder solution should be too heavy or loud to handle along with it.

And please someone care to explain what kind of benefits, "No compression image" gives compared to say, lossless compression to half the size.

Yes the size and all the problems caused by the size. Transcoding times, the power of the machines for DI. Cost goes upwards.
I dint mean apertus should use RC ofcourse. Compatibility with the softwares will not be a problem in long run, everything eventually catches up.
\

What's the problem with the BM 4k camera format? The big size? Or not supported by the program? I think the implemented file format should be open, free, and widely supported, compressed or not. The Redcode format is not usable here, it's protected by patents etc. and if you implement an own format, it won't be compatible with the existing softwares...

The no compression solution breaks my heart as well. In a recent shoot, we had to shoot with a Black magic 4k camera (despite my initial choice being red scarlet/one-mx, producers went for BM 4k due to cheap rental prices) . BM 4k data is nightmare to manage, the post production costs multifolded. This made us take a decision to go with my initial choice, a Red scarlet after a schedule.

Compression doesn't really help the lossless path, as you have to plan for the worst case, which is no compression at all.

Fair enough. I was just raising the question as to whether or not own form of lossless compression could be implemented - even if it requires significant post processing to unpack the data afterwards.

@sebastian
Yes, it is also a possible solution. It is very similar to the idea of this HD-PLEX case with passive cooling, maybe he customized it.
For me the layout isn't good, it's too flat.

As usual, the question of using lossy or lossless compression will split the community into (at least) two groups :)

I thought of 2 ways of doing things without reinventing the wheel:

My contribution and I hope I haven’t missed the point.

I am not sure its possible to combine the two use cases:
-) recording footage
-) editing footage (workstation)
together without them contradicting themselves.

Off-topic for Mini-ITX but...

And if at all possible, bypass the need for a "conventional" (x86) cpu and find a way to provide filesystem and sata protocol support from an fpga / arm system for lower power consumption. Pipe dream ?

I will stay on topic.
But I think that if you compare it with the Odyssey and Atomos Shogun, your solution cannot be compared to those soltutions
Shogun :196mm x 110mm x 47mm and 645g 6.8W-11W
Odyssey : 200mmx155mmx25mm, 560g 8W

This was my topic starting post:
"I have an idea about to build a portable Mini-ITX multifunctional PC, which could get the big amount of RAW data from the Beta, store it on HDD + maybe it could work as a system which could process/encode the files and as a workstation too.

I like the idea but I have a lot of questions and remarks.

Hi Surami,