No, it does not need to be analog. Anything low cost is fine, and I=20 thought that would be analog. But since posting the start of this=20 thread, I've found that there are more interfaces out there. This is great. I'm still trying to get a high-level feel for what what=20 the common and low-cost interface formats are, and what are the various=20 ways to interface with those. Thanks for the info. Cheers, -Neil. On 3/8/2018 9:41 AM, Manu Abraham wrote: > Hi Neil, > > It's not really clear from your mail .. > > If you are looking at an analog camera: > > You would first need a digital video decoder to interface that signal > to a CPU, which can eventually send it to an encoder or stream it > elsewhere. Additionally, you need to check whether your CPU is able to > handle the memory bandwidth required to handle the stream. > > You did not mention what interface you were looking at, so generally, > > Some video decoders that you can look at: > > http://www.sacg.com.tw/sacweb/marcom/epaper/images/SAA7136_Sep04.pdf > https://www.akm.com/akm/en/file/datasheet/AK8854VQ.pdf > http://www.ti.com/pdfs/vf/vidimg/tvp5150_pb.pdf > https://www.maximintegrated.com/en/products/analog/video-products/MAX9526= ..html > https://www.intersil.com/en/products/audiovideo/video-decoders-encoders/v= ideo-decoders/TW9960.html > > These are some of the standard decoders that comes to my mind. There > are of course quite more of them. > The bitstream rate needs to be calculated from the video decoder > output format. The decoders do allow you set different formats with > them. Eventually, you quickly realize that you need to write a driver > for these video decoders. Of course, I 'am fairly certain that quite a > large number of the ARM microcontrollers can handle them. > > If you have a digital camera module, some mid range ARM > microcntrollers they have DCMI, MIPI interfaces to which you can > connect the camera directly to. > > > Cheers, > > Manu > > > On Thu, Mar 8, 2018 at 7:52 AM, Neil wrote: >> I want to record video of at least 1.0MP to SSD (or other memory) for >> about 3-5 minutes. 15FPS is fine. But I really want to avoid SBCs >> because of the OS (and more specifically the boot time), so wondering >> what it would take to do this with a microcontroller. >> I'm looking at camera modules similar to this... >> https://www.aliexpress.com/item/600TVL-1-4-1-8mm-CMOS-FPV-170-Degree-Wid= e-Angle-Lens-Camera-PAL-NTSC-image/32570417705.html >> >> I believe (haven't yet found a clear answer) that these cameras do 24 >> bpp (Is this correct?), and if so I'd need 1 MP x 3 bytes x 60 secs x 5 >> mins =3D 900 MB to store raw data. >> That's no prob with an SD card, but I expect bandwidth will be an issue, >> so I'd need to compress it. This is where I draw a blank... what does >> it take to compress video? >> >> I'm clueless on video, so wondering if a microcontroller (say PIC32 or >> ARM) would be able to accept TTL NTSC video at this rate and compress >> it, and then store it. Or is there a specialized processor I can use to >> accept the NTSC video stream and store it to SD? >> Should I use some other protocol other than NTSC for this perhaps? >> >> Cheers, >> -Neil. >> >> -- >> http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list archive >> View/change your membership options at >> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist --=20 http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .