Less latency possible

fifou

Hi All,

I am working with a pianist, who triggers events (videos, sound..) from a midi pedal.
We always wanted to add, sometimes in the show, a live camera filming the keybaord of the piano, but years ago, latency was not acceptable.

I know latency 0 doesn't exists when we use computers but I was wondering if, since faster webcams were found for OSX. The faster I found was the ISight from the macbook pro, but we need an external one.
I tried PS3Eye with MacCam, but it's still not acceptable (That's a fast boogie woogie player !).
I tried to PS3Eye to Syphon, but didn't manage to get it work..

Any advice, experience to share ?

Thanks
Philippe

vanakaru

I find very acceptable camera (2-3frames latency) made from iMac(2005? G5 or intel) camera. It is mac native and will show up as iSight1(or 2;3). It is very easy to fit USB cable to it. And the beauty of it is that tiny size.

ebay

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Apple-iMac-17-Camera-Board-661-3811-820-1836-0A-661-3811-iMac-G5-/181808019096?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a549a3698

Otherwise analog security camera connected with capture card - Blackmagic Intensity/Shuttle, Maxtor mxO2 - depending of the connections on your mac. Very fast and you can fit good optics to the cameras and cheap to get used. Also cameras with HDMI live output work pretty well.

BTW blackmagic has native drivers with Isadora.

There has been quit a bit of talk about best capture options here over time.

Skulpture

This has been an ongoing issue for a long time.

As you've said 0ms is impossible in the digital world.

Apart from USB devices id say the next best bet is an external thunderbolt capture card like a blackmagic? I think some people have delay down to about 4ms.

fifou

I have a BlackMagic Intensity Shuttle USB3.0 and it works pretty well with analogue cameras (in terms of latency). My musician can't afford a video camera and a blackmagic capture card.
I was wondering if any of you had discovered a new superfast usb webcam or something like that.
Maybe i'll give a try to a modified internal mac webcam (i have a dead macbook pro 2007) as you said.

Thanks for the tip.
Best
Philippe

Skulpture

Ah I see.

Ive not looked to be honest but can you get USB3 web cam's? Do they speed up the process? That's the only thing I can think of really.

*edit* - seems not:

http://www.mgraves.org/2013/10/webcams-4-hunting-a-usb-3-0-webcam/

fifou

@ Skulpture : Thanks for your researchs
It seems USB3 webcam are pointless.

I'm not looking for a fast webcam (60fps, 200fps...), not even a 720p one (it would be better of course !), I'm looking for the less latency possible.
I will try modified old internal macbook pro's webcam and compare with my PS3Eye (syphon mode).

Thanks for your feedbacks
Philippe

To be continued

Skulpture

Just another idea....

http://techlife.sg/TLRemoteCamera/index.html

Fred

Any camera with high resolution will be slow, the feed is compressed into an H264 stream on the camera and then sent over USB and decoded at the other end. Without getting to a compressed stream you will be limited to around 640*480 resolution. PS3EYE is a good choice, I get 1 frame latency from input to syphon simple client, Isadora adds another frame. I tested with this software I made for using a PS3EYE cameras on a mac.

https://github.com/fred-dev/ps3EyeSyphon_2/releases

Fred

ioio

For me too, ps3eye is really good and cheap, I use it on windows with codelaboratories driver https://codelaboratories.com/about/
I get 1 to 2 frames latency and fast fps reduce it.
You can get all sort of lenses for it at http://peauproductions.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=137_138_146&zenid=b5bea6ef19422a95756acfe6622000e4

fifou

According to you all it seems i will stay with my ps3eye, thanks to new Fred´s application Ps3EyeSyphon. It seems faster than Isadora live capture via macam drivers. Thanks Skulpture for the tlremote camera link. I didn ´t though it was so easy to make it work, but i get really low framerate (iphone 4 issue ?). All the best. Philippe