the X360 Camera

Griffith

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You know that extra USB port on the back of your 360? That's for the upcoming Xbox 360 camera, a handy little gadget that will rival Sony's innovative EyeToy. We got our hands on a brochure for game developers at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose, Calif. today and are excited at what this little baby will do.

With a nine-foot cord, the camera will reach around large TVs. You'll be able to video chat over Xbox Live. There was a concept picture showing a game of poker and the pictures of excited gamers laughing and frolicking in their living rooms. There's of course the obligatory video recording.
But the biggest and best feature will be gesture recognition. Basically, the camera is going to translate your movements in real life and input them in the game. There was a concept picture of two kids playing a snowboarding game, but we really have no idea what this means except that Microsoft may be taking aim at the Nintendo Revolution as well as the EyeToy. Given the success of Xbox Live Arcade, the 360 Camera could be another strong effort to lure more than just hard-core gamers to Microsoft's next-generation console.

According to the brochure: "These features provide developers opportunities for unprecedented levels of innovation and personalization, and enable gamers to customize and socialize in their game worlds in ways they never could before. Additionally, Xbox 360 Camera support is deeply integrated into the Dashboard, making every Xbox 360 console owner a potential customer for the camera and your camera-enabled game."
Also, the camera program will include XDK support for streaming video. The three-dimensional "face-in-game" for which the EyeToy is famous will be available "through middleware providers."

Here are the specs:

# USB 2.0 bus-powered device
# Smooth, near DV quality video: up to VGA 640x480 at 30 FPS
# High-def images: still photos up to SVGA 1280x980 (1.3 Mp)
# Manually adjustable variable focus: 2 feet to infinity
# Field of View: 43 degrees
# On board image processor
# Digital zoom, cropping
# Auto exposure, white balance, gamma correction, sharpness
# Long (~9 feet) cable to reach around large TVs
# Includes a headset for great audio.

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/697/697661p1.html
 
There's nothing technical that would have stopped MS from making the camera do at least 1024 rez at 30fps. USB2 would easily handle the datarate with a bit of simple compression. There's even been USB2 CMOS sensor controller chips capable of such performance available for ages, and instead MS gives us a piddly rotten repackaged PC webcam. I'm not impressed. If they want to like trumpet and shit, they could have advanced specs from the several years old Eyetoy.

I bet they're going to overcharge us for it too. Any takers on a $60-75 sticker price for a $35 PC webcam with a snazzy green ring of light around the (el cheapo manual focus) lens?
 
Guden Oden said:
There's nothing technical that would have stopped MS from making the camera do at least 1024 rez at 30fps. USB2 would easily handle the datarate with a bit of simple compression. There's even been USB2 CMOS sensor controller chips capable of such performance available for ages, and instead MS gives us a piddly rotten repackaged PC webcam. I'm not impressed. If they want to like trumpet and shit, they could have advanced specs from the several years old Eyetoy.

I bet they're going to overcharge us for it too. Any takers on a $60-75 sticker price for a $35 PC webcam with a snazzy green ring of light around the (el cheapo manual focus) lens?

1024 @30 is simply useless, usb2 will easly handle this, but usb2 is not the bottleneck, it's the internet connection
I don't know that exist pc cam 1280x980 with an image processor inside, even ad 35$, could you provide some links please?
 
Griffith said:
1024 @30 is simply useless, usb2 will easly handle this, but usb2 is not the bottleneck, it's the internet connection
The primary function of the camera isn't going to be internet chatting, but rather movement tracking and the like. And ~3x the amount of sensor pixels would have made a huge difference there.

I don't know that exist pc cam 1280x980 with an image processor inside
Don't go and get all hung up on that "image processor" claim. Who knows what that thing really does anyway. For all we know it's little to no more advanced than the realtime compression that pretty much every webcam has.
 
Guden Oden said:
The primary function of the camera isn't going to be internet chatting, but rather movement tracking and the like. And ~3x the amount of sensor pixels would have made a huge difference there.

internet chatting is one of the feature of the camera, 1024@30 is useless
and for moviment tracking, the ms ing. have surely done a lot of tests to go with 640@30, have you done some tests to say that 640 is bad for moviment tracking of big objects as a hand?

Don't go and get all hung up on that "image processor" claim. Who knows what that thing really does anyway. For all we know it's little to no more advanced than the realtime compression that pretty much every webcam has.

dear friend, you are making confusion: realtime compression is done from a dsp,it is not an image processor, this is a whole different thing
but you says now "who knows" but before you say that this is a 35 $ pc cam with a snazzy green ring of light around the (el cheapo manual focus) lens selled for 60-75 $

curious, very very curious
 
I hope this thing has a USB pass-through for those of us with the wi-fi plugged into that slot.

I'm already out of standard slots: usb keyboard, usb wi-fi, ipod dock. Maybe they can include a bus powered hub in the box.
 
Griffith said:
internet chatting is one of the feature of the camera, 1024@30 is useless
With a higher res camera you can downsample for internet video, and compress it of course. That's not a reason to go for a lower resolution camera. I'm not sure of the point of a processor in camera either. Things like white balance and gamma correction should be done on the electronics and capture, not post image processing. And post image processing would be faster and more effective and more versatile on the XB360.

Higher than 30fps might be difficult because of light sensitivity. Any faster and the ability to capture grain-free images would be compromised. I guess for this maybe the image processor comes in and could be something like a hardware noise reduction processor to capture clearer outlines, which are what's needed for motion detection. Maybe a couple of filters like 5x5 median hardwired into the capture process?

I think I'd take lower res at better quality than vice versa. EyeToy has trouble with some situations that a more sensitive CCD would overcome. A decent lens would also be important, and autofocus would be a great idea too.

As for it's rival, EyeToy2, maybe Sony will include the euqipment used in their HDTV camcorder, so we can capture HD movies with theirs? :D
 
Guden Oden said:
The primary function of the camera isn't going to be internet chatting, but rather movement tracking and the like. And ~3x the amount of sensor pixels would have made a huge difference there.

I completely disagree, I think thes e'interactive' eyetoy type games will never become more than a gimmicky niche.

Now, free video chat between all members on your friends list is something that appeals to almost everyone and certainly has the potential to be the primary function of the camera.
 
NucNavST3 said:
I hope this thing has a USB pass-through for those of us with the wi-fi plugged into that slot.

I'm already out of standard slots: usb keyboard, usb wi-fi, ipod dock. Maybe they can include a bus powered hub in the box.

OXM did a test with various USB devices; a normal USB hub worked IIRC.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
As for it's rival, EyeToy2, maybe Sony will include the euqipment used in their HDTV camcorder, so we can capture HD movies with theirs? :D

wow the less expansive 720p camera cost around 5.000$ , they sure are going to to put the same equipment in a 60$ webcam.
 
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Guden Oden said:
There's nothing technical that would have stopped MS from making the camera do at least 1024 rez at 30fps.

ha ha ha yeah sure why the fuck they can't sell a 3.000$ tecnology for 60$ ?
 
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