Cinemartin goes bankrupt

jcs said:
Whether they paid MPEG-LA/Apple et al for codec licenses is another question (a bigger issue if they were based in the US). Note you can also directly link to the libraries that make up ffmpeg and not use the standalone tools (I've done this on Linux). Last I checked it was necessary to cross-compile for Windows on Linux as native compilation wasn't possible.
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THere are at least half a dozen ways to get FFMpeg running on Windows. There is UNIX environment Cygwin (which I use), there is the BSD Unix, HomeBrew is another, there are binaries available and several frontends that can be had for free, there is AVISynth, and so on.

Most of us know how open source works, no lecture required. The point is that Cinemartin took a free app and slapped a truly crappy front end on it, sold it for Hollywood style pricing on it and crippled the free app only allowing use of all the cores on your processor if you bought the most expensive version for 800 euros. Of course there is caveat emptor but who cares. This illustrates how lacking this fellow's moral compass is.

Cinemartin's malfeasance has been known to observers for a number of years and the product Cinec is a great example.
 
Cmon. You know what I meant.

The guy who’s posting in a thread about yet another failed camera company that it’s easy to make a camera when the thread is littered with many examples of how it’s not easy, including those with actual first hand experience with companies we all know.

A picture profile is a gigantic step away from designing a camera.

Hence, he has no credibility to continue to make the claim that it’s easy.


JB
 
Andrew Stone said:
THere are at least half a dozen ways to get FFMpeg running on Windows. There is UNIX environment Cygwin (which I use), there is the BSD Unix, HomeBrew is another, there are binaries available and several frontends that can be had for free, there is AVISynth, and so on.

Most of us know how open source works, no lecture required. The point is that Cinemartin took a free app and slapped a truly crappy front end on it, sold it for Hollywood style pricing on it and crippled the free app only allowing use of all the cores on your processor if you bought the most expensive version for 800 euros. Of course there is caveat emptor but who cares. This illustrates how lacking this fellow's moral compass is.

Cinemartin's malfeasance has been known to observers for a number of years and the product Cinec is a great example.
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Was referring to compiling FFMpeg on windows using the component libraries so code could be integrated into a GUI vs. calling ffmpeg.exe as a command line process (and parsing the text output for GUI interaction: can be done but is very limited vs. directly controlling everything at the code level (which I've done in Linux when working on a real-time AI machine vision project). Last night I worked on the ffmpeg libs on Windows 10 and tested some code (using precompiled libs linked to C++ source), worked OK but not as performant as DirectShow for this particular operation. Also found it's now possible to directly compile ffmpeg on Windows though it's still a lot of extra work vs a Linux/MacOS compile (or even a Linux to Windows cross compile). Also had a chance to test out the newer Windows Media Foundation APIs- it's just as complex as DirectShow (from what I've seen so far) and less docs haha! The example from MS I tested didn't run as fast as DirectShow (same H.264 source file).

If they were able to build a business creating a GUI and selling it for a high price, and did so for many years, good for them. They provided value that wasn't available elsewhere and set the price accordingly. Apparently they sold enough copies to buy some fun toys and lasted a few years- most small companies don't make it that long (ever worked in a start up?). I agree from PBloom's review that the Fran camera that was sent for review was... great for comedic value! That crumpled box, random junk, and menu system, wow, it's what I think Mike Judge would do for an Office Space or Idiocracy style mockumentary for a camera company. Hilarious! Their product videos were funny too- maybe they were just misunderstood or their comedy was over everyone's head? ;)

So many people on this forum having issues with intentional crippling by camera manufacturers, and it's fun to complain about anything, everything, though that doesn't typically yield useful work products or any value beyond entertainment.
 
John Brawley said:
Cmon. You know what I meant.

The guy who’s posting in a thread about yet another failed camera company that it’s easy to make a camera when the thread is littered with many examples of how it’s not easy, including those with actual first hand experience with companies we all know.

A picture profile is a gigantic step away from designing a camera.

Hence, he has no credibility to continue to make the claim that it’s easy.


JB
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What is a modern camera? A sensor, computer hardware (sensor I/O, CPU, custom chips, storage system), software (firmware), and a control system for human interaction: either physical controls such as buttons, wheels, and joystick, a touchscreen, or both.

While I've helped 'bring up' custom hardware/embedded systems such as the first VR headsets and custom graphics hardware, it's true I haven't personally built a camera sensor (I'd license the best available on the market: Sony (if a deal could be made)), I'd hire the best team to build an SOC (if there's a budget for it) and computer hardware, I'd use something like an Intel Myriad 2 or equivalent NVidia AI processor (at least 2 Trillion ops/sec at 500mW! Compare that to the FPGA's in an Alexa haha (hope they're working on something more modern for a future low-power camera)) and the CPU would ideally have an integrated GPU. I've worked with and/or written code for all these systems and am familiar with the pros and cons of each.

Recent iPhones, such as the iPhone X (my current phone) have plenty of power, especially computational power per Watt (very important for a camera system). I looked into USB-3 cameras as a possible option to quickly get a full frame sensor into an iPhone via the Lightning connector. If we could send compressed Bayer data over that connection, the iPhone has plenty of computing power to create top-of-the-line image quality stored in H.265 (probably even 10-bit 422/444 unless the H.265 hardware is fixed to 8-bits).

When I was CTO of a small tech startup funded by a NYC billionaire (it's a bit different than typical venture capital funding), with just myself writing all the camera processing code (including real-time GPU effects for video and CPU DSP effects for audio), a remote iOS developer building the overall app and GUI, and a artist and visual designer (the rest of the team helped with testing and other features), we built the top iOS video capture app on the market at that time (I'm sure you never heard of it (Twrrl)- parent company didn't want to market it for some reason- wasn't my call). Instagram has now caught up in some ways, passed us in others- such as 3D rendering on video with face tracking (we had face tracking but no 3D overlays), what we did have was real-time video compositing with alpha-channel video (in H.264 which doesn't have an alpha channel- how'd we do it? haha).

I did basically the same software process while at MySpace Music (millions of users/viewers) for their online Karaoke recording system. Back then everyone was using Flash- I created custom code with browsers plugins, giving us a far higher quality solution and user experience, including real-time audio effects (relatively low-latency with live monitoring (10ms is good for Windows! OSX was better/easier)), reverb, chorus, echo/delay, etc., format preserving pitch shifting, and even a pitch corrector (similar to AutoTune; wrote my own based on research papers and intuition).

This is 10 years old and webcams weren't very good, however the audio recording quality and lipsync (a really hard problem! (shouldn't be though)) is excellent:

We worked with the top artists of the day, including Taylor Swift. People loved the product, it's a shame we couldn't let people (legally) keep their recordings when it was shut down. They were willing to pay for them and we couldn't get licenses! Knowing the truth about FB and why MySpace really went down is also a bummer but that's water under the bridge. Here's a mashup that we did for a Taylor Swift contest (the team curated the recordings (a LOT of work), I did the final edit):

I also designed a system which allowed 2-4 people to sing with each other (branded Mikksu, around the time we did a Japanese launch), by passing the mixed audio recording to each other, where each copy added the audio of the next person, then all the video tracks where composited and mixed on the back end (I wrote that code too). Some people used it for their own productions:

A lot of people had a lot of fun. Never looked this up on YouTube previously, glad some people downloaded their content before the site was gone:
(Elvis contest- winner got to sing at Graceland)

I set up and made sure the recording session went OK with Adam Levine of Maroon 5, cool down to Earth guy to work with:

We also worked with Pink, Beyonce, and many other top artists. Was a fun gig while it lasted!

iJustine upset we didn't have Mac support at launch:

I relatively quickly ported everything over to the Mac (I was the sole developer)- we listened to customers :)

Someone commented why bother posting here with this much experience (lol everyone complains about something, all good)- perhaps it's a good place to practice waking people up? The more people awake, the better for everyone. Debating cameras and camera tech is one thing, there's a lot more complex and controversial things I've debated and I see repeating patterns when people don't agree. In general it's best to focus on the statements of facts/ideas and debate those with logic and data, vs. focusing on the source (ad hominem), which is where a lot of these discussion end (not a very fruitful exercise). Thus, if one believes that the statement I made about what's really blocking camera (and all good tech) development, why not provide evidence that supports your view that contradicts the statements I made vs. "you're wrong" "you're unqualified" etc. Then everyone can learn something vs. pure drama / entertainment only.
 
There's some Twrrl content on YouTube- all user generated on their phones (with phone tech ~6 years ago):

Concept video for video insertion for something higher end (we had all the tech implemented to do this- didn't get a license to allow it (yeah, even images of jets require licenses for this kind of thing (from Boeing/Lockheed etc.)):
 
"You're unqualified!" "You don't know what you're talking about" "You've never built a camera system".

OK, here's some data with some entertainment value add.

Response:

Paul F said:
Methinks thou dost protest too much.
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Lol, what's the protest? That's more ad hominem...

Remember the Mic on Camera debate? What a wonderful way to accumulate downvotes haha. The point wasn't mic on camera- it was about thinking for oneself, and thinking outside the box (future recording systems will remove echo/reverb quite well).

NorBro and I debated Canon color science till the wee hours of the morning once. It was an epically long (and ultimately silly) debate. I totally convinced him and the next camera he bought was a... Sony A6400 haha! (I think it's a great camera too)
 
It seems the finesse of making a camera is the most difficult part. Throwing bits together and getting an image is the easy part, no?

Look at working cameras that get ridiculed for subtle things. I can’t imagine the RnD that gies into good cameras.
 
James0b57 said:
It seems the finesse of making a camera is the most difficult part. Throwing bits together and getting an image is the easy part, no?

Look at working cameras that get ridiculed for subtle things. I can’t imagine the RnD that gies into good cameras.
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It's true of cameras and any product that's built. The last 10% is really important, and the last 1% can make or break a product. Being able to be agile and adapt quickly separates success from failure. However, 'failure' isn't a bad thing as long as something is learned and carried forward. That's the life of entrepreneurs. Most don't hear about all the failures when something goes big. To get to that 1% means never giving up, including in silly forum debates- it's good practice ;), not thinking it's hard, but rather challenging fun, like playing a game of sport against a worthy adversary. Anyone play tennis, ping pong, racquetball, or pool?

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/327472

Consciousness affects reality in subtle and not-so-subtle ways (cumulatively + see prior links in this thread). That's why it's so important not to think of things as difficult or hard- why? You'll make it harder for yourself (and those around you, and especially your team if you're a leader)!

I understand I'm raining on people's parade who want to rag on Cinemartin- that's not helping you or anyone to be happy or successful. If they committed a crime, provide evidence and hopefully those harmed might get some relief: that would be a constructive result of your action.

I'd still like to hear why people think making a camera is hard: facts and details from their point of view. What are the perceived challenges, what parts or aspects and why? (outside of the elements I listed earlier in this thread that cause drag on building things (patents, people/thought, lack of cooperation between companies etc.)).
 
47385282342_cf69264481_b.jpg

I bet Philip Bloom's cats are peeing in the box it came in.:laugh:
 
jcs said:
... I'd still like to hear why people think making a camera is hard: facts and details from their point of view. What are the perceived challenges, what parts or aspects and why?
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Boring .... Let's get back to Roswell. I don't see how the aliens with the UFO could be a cover story. I mean that whole weather balloon and high altitude research story ... pfft. Obviously, no one is going to do high altitude testing at Roswell. Goddard was too busy with rockets at Roswell. He didn't need any interference from some other project. Let's face it; it was the trinity bomb at White Sands that first signaled to the aliens to check out earth. When they came to check out White Sands, one of Goddard's rockets hit their ship and then the crash and cover up. How else would they get electogravitic technology in 1947 if it wasn't for the aliens? Then John Glenn went on a trip with them back to planet HD40307g (look it up) to get the technology needed for the Apollo program. And don't get me started about Area 51. Talk about a cover story. The aliens went to Los Alamos and spent the next decade helping us with our weapons program. Nice guys. They were good bowlers. Too bad they never made it back to HD40307g.
 
Paul F said:
Boring .... Let's get back to Roswell. I don't see how the aliens with the UFO could be a cover story. I mean that whole weather balloon and high altitude research story ... pfft. Obviously, no one is going to do high altitude testing at Roswell. Goddard was too busy with rockets at Roswell. He didn't need any interference from some other project. Let's face it; it was the trinity bomb at White Sands that first signaled to the aliens to check out earth. When they came to check out White Sands, one of Goddard's rockets hit their ship and then the crash and cover up. How else would they get electogravitic technology in 1947 if it wasn't for the aliens? Then John Glenn went on a trip with them back to planet HD40307g (look it up) to get the technology needed for the Apollo program. And don't get me started about Area 51. Talk about a cover story. The aliens went to Los Alamos and spent the next decade helping us with our weapons program. Nice guys. They were good bowlers. Too bad they never made it back to HD40307g.
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That's the spirit, creativity haha. Maybe Richard Doty was telling the truth by lying about 'telling the truth' about lying?

Speaking of beings who think they're smarter than everyone while actually being really stupid- they fly all the way across the universe and/or between parallel dimensions, only to crash on Earth. Frequently. A lot. They're literally dropping like flies. Really incompetent. One time crashing and blowing up defenseless reindeer in Siberia in 1908 (geez hope Santa and his elves are OK!? Was Santa replaced by a clone?!!). And millions of trees- dead in a flash. Clearly the start of the global warming conspiracy theory (or is it climate change now? I forget, I lost my script. Will I still get paid??). The same aliens who modified human DNA to make man into gold digger slaves (wait, we're in LA- who's the gold diggers haha). And what about the aliens who didn't crash, what did(do) they do when they land in one piece? It's a little deep for this forum, perhaps ask Eric Cartman about the cows and the other thing. That's what makes the whole thing really credible.

I just realized Men is Black was a documentary! haha. Actually the first one was pretty fun.

The NYTimes would never tell a lie- look, it was aliens! https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/unidentified-flying-object-navy.html
How about the Washington Post? https://www.washingtonpost.com/outl...2c125c-22ee-11e8-94da-ebf9d112159c_story.html
Hmm, maybe there's a clue, the Pentagon doesn't care about these "UFOs". What does the Pentagon know haha.

It all makes sense now, Cinemartin were aliens here to make a quick buck then head back to Zeta Reticuli after scamming stupid humans! Think the one guy (the good bowler) was from HD40307g (the clue is the stocky legs and super strength for ball control- also always bowling 300 seemed a bit odd). Explains everything, the weird software, the strange camera, us not "getting" the (alien) humor of their (genius (to aliens)) product video, and random crap sent in the crumpled box to Philip Bloom. Remember on Alf's planet lint is more valuable than gold (don't tell Philip about Alf's favorite food). Anyone notice the Ferrari steering wheel was crooked, think there was a hidden message in there. There's a link to ET and Star Wars too, just need a few more clues, maybe we need Batman or Ironman's AI computers to help us.

Seriously, there's likely intelligent life in universe, however everything we've been shown publicly is most likely BS, including that DoD Navy "UFO" footage. Would be really nice to be wrong on this one, however the Blue Avians... is anyone buying that? I think the people making this s*** up are laughing their *sses off back at the think-tank / command center haha (they're in the office next to the Flat Earth team in the Denver airport underground bunker).
 
@jcs, i’ll make the ergonomics and color science, and you do the engineering, we’ll make a great camera.
 
Building a camera is hard like building a sports car is hard. Yes the general concept is well understood. Yes the individual parts and their interaction is well understood. But the finesse and the craft necessary to lift something from the mundane and functional to the elegant and high functioning is a different matter. Cinemartin products were taking a nice looking box and shoving some basic tractor components inside. There was no elegance and minimal integration. The steering wheel was a wrench clamped to steering column. The result was bare functionality.

If you want to see an example of a nicely finished product of this kind, I give you the original CineDeck. Way back in 2010 when companies like Convergent Design and Atomos were just starting or offering limited level products, CineDeck created an onboard monitor/recorder with a simple and elegant interface that operated on a mini Windows system. Because it was Windows there was a lot of other crap going on in the background which made this a bulky device that sucked its way through batteries, but at the time it was pretty revolutionary. A few years later this device was passed by products that used custom operating systems running on FPGAs or even ASIC chips, bringing the size, weight, power, and cost down dramatically. But CineDeck did it first and was a properly complete product for a professional environment. The Cinemartin products were never close to as finished and functional as the CineDeck. I’ve seen them firsthand, and it’s **** v Shinola. For anyone who knew, Cinemartin was a joke.

Me in my youth, showing the virtues of the CineDeck:
https://youtu.be/VBWIArbKlvI
 
In the popular science book, "Panic in Level 4", author Richard Preston details a very real - but fortunately rare - genetic condition where people with one letter wrong in their DNA are rendered into helpless, compulsive self cannibals, a disease that "forces them to compulsively chew their own flesh - and why everyone may have a touch of this disease."

Draw whatever comparisons you might find...
 
Mitch and Norbro and both right. It is hard to make a camera and anyone with the where-with-all can do it.

I've developed products for the giant companies and start ups. The big guys have the advantage of know-how and capability but they are saddled with bureaucracy and have a hard time thinking fresh ideas. The startups have the advantage and disadvantage of ignorance and are loaded with enthusiasm and energy.

When Panasonic, Canon, or Sony decide to make a new camera, their rigorous approval and review processes throughout the development assure that they will have a top-quality, feature rich, priced-right camera 10 out of 10 times. When a startup makes a camera (unless they are a nice mix of former camera company employees) it's a crap shoot and the odds are they will come up seven. That's why camera development road is littered with attempts to become the next hot camera company.

You don't have to have camera design experience to be a success. Jared Jannard and Nick Woodman are proof of that. But you do have to have either enormous luck (good luck with that) or excellent leadership skills.
 
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