CCD swap?

F

fingers515

I'm very new to this whole Digital Video thing, as I'm about to prove. Stay with me on this. When I was in high school, a friend of mine had managed to swap a small-block Chevy V-8 into his little '71 Datsun 510. What a pain! But it worked and DAMN was it fun!!

My question is, what would prevent some fairly gifted electronics-minded person from swapping out his 1/3" CCDs for some 1/2" or, what the hell, some 2/3" CCD's? Certainly, physical space might pose a problem. Re-bending (Re-refracting?) the light entering the camera. Some custom electronics, I suppose, but is it really out of the realm of doability. Are larger CCD's even available for purchase? Seems to me that anything can be hotrodded...right?

The type of car my friend had is referred to as a "sleeper". A boxy little Consumer Video camera with 2/3" CCD's, 4:4:4, High Def? Mini-Viper? Sleeper-cam!

Hit me! :)
 
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This might be possible if you have a one chip camera. Even then it is doubtful. The firmware is designed around the chip used. With a 3 chip camera this would be next to impossible. A prism is used to split the light three ways and has the CCDs attached the the prism via an adhesive. These are very carefully aligned. Change them slightly and you're going to get really bad footage if any.

An excellent idea but I fear it isn't very viable :). For the time and cost you could buy yourself a better camera!

Actually though there are people working on 4:4:4 HD cameras. They are using CMOS cameras designed for use in medical applications etc and streaming the data (simply put) onto a hard disk. Pretty cool stuff!
 
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Shaw said:
This might be possible if you have a one chip camera. Even then it is doubtful. The firmware is designed around the chip used. With a 3 chip camera this would be next to impossible. A prism is used to split the light three ways and has the CCDs attached the the prism via an adhesive. These are very carefully aligned. Change them slightly and you're going to get really bad footage if any.

An excellent idea but I fear it isn't very viable :). For the time and cost you could buy yourself a better camera!

Actually though there are people working on 4:4:4 HD cameras. They are using CMOS cameras designed for use in medical applications etc and streaming the data (simply put) onto a hard disk. Pretty cool stuff!
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i was thinking the same thing such as ghosting or bleeding effect or perhaps 90 degree rotated image since each cameras are designed differently.

I guess it would take a real technician to answer this but my guess is it probably would take more in time and effort to make it worth your while. But if you could save a buck and have fun or learn something very valuable from it then Why not.

BTW Shaw.. any update on the gutted film camera turn digi?
 
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The physics of it are probably, as you say, not terribly complicated for someone with the right knowledge. It would be getting the electronics to mesh with the changes that would prove more difficult. With an engine, you just need to connect some wires and it runs (okay, it's a little more complicated than that, but you get the idea). With sophisticated electronics...
 
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The focal lenght would be different, so the lenses transfer of the image would need to be adjusted. But that would only be secondary to the fact there would be incompatible circuitry in the camera's processing. You have more sensors on bigger chips, you need more inputs on the camera's processor to account for the added pixels.

A car is far easier to modify. You can add a different ignition and fuel management system, and all the other components fill equal functions (with different levels of performance). You can't just slap in more resolution to a digital camera.
 
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Most of the MiniDV modifications are not so much in CCD replacement but in lens system replacement. See this site for example. CCD replacement would be electonically tricky as your are dealing with chipsets/boards specifically tuned for that CCD. (I would not put it past a gifted engineer, however). Better to focus on the lens system in my opinion.
 
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