Meet skoopia 128C42X - single board 42mm x 42mm 13 MP industrial EX-SDI camera
skoopia is proud to announce the 128C42X - a 42mm x 42mm single board 13 MP industrial EX-SDI camera providing 4K digital output, allowing you to use coaxial cable for transmission of the 4K (2160p30/25) video signal without latency.
The OEM camera makes use of the 13 MP Sony Starvis Exmor R IMX226 sensor and the Eyenix EN781 digital signal processor.
The industrial camera is readily available for OEM customers to sample.
Why would one use EX-SDI as video transmission standard for 4K video resolutions?
Excellent image quality (visually lossless video image #4 all animals in this world)
Easy wiring - regular coax cabling up to 100 meters # 1.5 Ghz.
Reliability of image transfer wireless always has issues
Key specifications skoopia 128C42X industrial EX-SDI camera
13 MP Sony Starvis Exmor R IMX226 (1/1.7") sensor
EX-SDI video output - 2160p30/25, 1440p30/25, 1080p60/50/30/25, 720p60/50/30/25
3G-SDI / HD-SDI - 1080p60/50/30/25, 720p60/50/30/25
CVBS - 700 TVL - NTSC or PAL
VISCA protocol, Pelco-D/P protocol for improved productivity (next blog topic)
Digital zoom, 2D/3D noise reduction
Special: EX-SDI video output: 1.5 GHz @ 4K bandwidth
EX-SDI provides you the following benefits:
very low latency (within frame rate)
visually lossless digital signal.
easy cabling due to lower bandwidth.
The skoopia 128C42X is the first industrial camera solution offering flexible usage of regular cable for transmitting streaming 4K video without loss of image quality or latency.
Underneath you find more background information why the development of 4K industrial EX-SDI cameras is a huge step forward for specific application domains. We hope you enjoy the read.
Bandwidth for industrial camera video transmission is always an issue, if an operator or user is using the camera video in OEM integrated solutions
Although skoopia industrial and medical cameras are available having nearly all video outputs, skoopia specialized in OEM cameras that support very low latency video transmissions, preferably over longer distances.
Security industry versus the OEM industrial camera industry.
In security you are pleased if the police arrives within 20 minutes if a burglary takes place in your house or office. Latency of cameras, even several seconds are not so relevant. Bandwidth of the signal is the major obstacle. This is the key reason that IP cameras have become a dominant solution in the security camera business in Europe and Northern America.
However, as soon as you operate tools that require precision and your decisions and/or handling is depending on the video vision you get, any latency should be avoided.
Latency versus storage space & band width
Compression of the signal, particularly IP video signal via H.264 or H.265 is excellent, but provides significant latency. Compression is further achieved using lower frame rates (e.g. 5 images per second). Although this provides sufficient information for settings in which security is the main driver for camera installation, operator assisted solutions cannot work with such latency prone (H.264/H.265 compression) and chopped up (low frame rate) video streams.
The three advantages of IP industrial cameras
No computer or DVR required near the camera. The camera operates as a stand alone unit making direct use of the network infrastructure and can transmit images directly from the industrial camera to the internet, allowing viewing of the video stream at multiple locations across the globe.
Low bandwidth, making it easy to view and stream video across the internet
Low bandwidth, significantly lowering storage space (or increasing the video time that can be stored with a fixed storage space)
No latency applications
Specialty industrial applications in transport (intelligent traffic systems, but also mirror replacement, specific manoeuvring solutions (OEM camera in the forks of a fork lift, reverse drive camera), robotics (pipe inspection robots, metrology (particularly in electronics) robots or in the medical industry (industrial block cameras in operation room lights, small medical colonoscopy cameras etc) require a video signal that cannot have any latency, as direct action from the operator and/or user/medical doctor is based on the video stream information.
Latency in Medical applications.
Do you want to be operated by the best medical doctor who is basing his decisions on a video stream that has a 1 second delay? Do you want to undergo a necessary surgery by a competent medical doctor who is cutting through your body with a scalpel basing his decisions on a video signal having a delay of 0.3 seconds?
In the past 30 years, CVBS (PAL in Europe, NTSC in North-America) cameras have been used to retrieve a signal with hardly any latency (visually no latency, as humans can only respond after approximately 0.1 second on information).
Industrial SDI cameras | Medical SDI cameras
Newer digital technologies, initially driven by the broadcast industry requiring no compression, have been introduced. Initially as a digital replacement for CVBS (SD-SDI) later also adopting higher resolutions such as HD-SDI (1080p30/25), 3G-SDI (1080p60/50), 6G-SDI (2160p30/25, 1080p120/100) or even 12G-SDI (2160p60/50), with next generation broadcast (8K) on the verge of being released (24G-SDI (4320p30/25, 2160p120/100).
All of SDI standards that are coming from OEM cameras show hardly any latency, but the bandwidth limits the factual distance the signal can travel.
For specialty applications with extreme cable length, such as pipe inspection, typically requiring 500 meters of video transport often including a slip ring only recently lower bandwidth solutions offering Full HD (e.g. AHD or TVI) are slowly replacing the OEM CVBS camera which is still dominant in this industrial application.
AHD/TVI offers 1080p30 at a bandwidth of 50 MHz, a factor 30 less than HD-SDI (1.5 GHz)
Read more about industrial AHD cameras of skoopia by clicking this link.
EX-SDI is compressed HD-SDI/3G-SDI or 6G-SDI signal, providing the benefits of SDI (digital signal, so excellent image quality | low latency | coaxial cabling) combined with a lower band width.
Digital signal processor chips supporting EX-SDI are developed and manufactured by the South Korean company Eyenix.
While latency of EX-SDI and HD-SDI/3G-SDI/6G-SDI is identical, the bandwidth of EX-SDI is lower.
Underneath table provides insights in EX-SDI bandwidth versus HD-SDI/3G-SDI/6G-SDI bandwidth in industrial and medical SDI cameras.
video resolution 1080p30 1080p60 1440p30 2160p30
SDI HD-SDI 3G-SDI 3G-SDI 6G-SDI
bandwidth SDI 1.5 GHz 3 GHz 3 GHz 6 GHz
EX-SDI version v1.0 v1.0 v2.1 v2.1 bandwidth EX-SDI 250 MHz 500 MHz 500 MHz 1.5 GHz
Compression factor 6 6 6 4
Regular coax cable used for HD-SDI transmission (1.5 GHz) could therefore be used transferring 2160p30 (4K) video, as the frequency of the EX-SDI video signal is identical in band width.
The next generation of EX-SDI (v3.0) will support two output versions, a video output mode with a visually lossless (2160p30 at 1.5 GHz) signal and a video output mode with limited band width, but having visual losses (2160p30 at 250 MHz) in the video signal. Please continue to read about visually lossless signal compression.
Visually lossless EX-SDI industrial camera
Compression of video signals always comes at a loss. Also EX-SDI compression is an effective video signal loss. However, this video signal loss cannot be detected by the human eye (or even any animal living on this earth). This has to do with the signal to noise ratio of contemporary cameras (skoopia sources source the best in world sensors from Sony).
The Sony Starvis Exmor R series sensors provide a signal to noise ratio of approximately 43 dB, significantly better then old CVBS industrial cameras (typically at 38 dB). While these visual differences can clearly be observed, the difference between an EX-SDI video signal and an HD-SDI or 3G-SDI video signal coming from the same OEM camera (e.g. the industrial camera skoopia 128C42X or the skoopia 21C26S) can not be seen.
How come?
While these cameras receive video input with a signal to noise ratio of 43 dB, the compression of the EX-SDI still has a signal to noise ratio of 56 dB. Effectively, only the identical noise level can be seen, not the image quality difference.
So what about the EX-SDI v3.0 with super high compression (24x).
Next generation industrial EX-SDI cameras based on EX-SDI v3.0 will also offer a video output version that supports transport of 4K (2160p30) at a bandwidth of 250 MHz. Yet, this industrial camera will have a signal to noise ratio of 38 dB. In applications with sufficient light, this is likely a suitable industrial camera for applications requiring long distance cabling for 4K video transmission. Nevertheless, now the noise level of the sensor is lower (43 dB) than the factual video signal (38 dB), and therefore differences between the 6G-SDI signal and the EX-SDI | 24x compressed | signal can be visually seen.
skoopia industrial and medical cameras for OEM integration skoopia industrial cameras are designed to meet OEM product's life cycle.
The industrial cameras are available for 5+ years
Customization of the industrial camera, e.g. special OEM firmware is an option for any OEM looking for a specific camera solution based on a skoopia camera platform
The next generation OEM camera will adhere to form, fit and function.
skoopia will continue to engineer board cameras having higher resolutions, more functions and better performance, while meeting existing OEM integrations, i.e. keeping all dimensions of the industrial camera identical, and even connectors will remain at the same place and have the same pinning.