SwiftCapture exposure time

UICfilm
UICfilm
in SwiftCapture

Is there a fixed single frame exposure time for SwiftCapture, or is it dependent on CPU/capture card/hard drive? I'm trying to get a sense of how much time I should allot for the capture of each frame.

Paul Dickinson

UIC Moving Image

Comments

  • Ben
    Ben

    Hi Paul, SwiftCapture does not have control over this - this will be determined by the camera itself, usually automatically depending on available light levels. If you are using a Blackmagic camera, then the Blackmagic "Desktop Video" software should be able to control this. Otherwise, for USB cameras, then iGlasses could give you some control.

  • UICfilm
    UICfilm

    Thanks Ben, I should rephrase my question: How much time does the computer need to capture the image from the camera? Regardless of camera shutter speed, etc. I'm programming a projector to trigger a frame capture with each revolution of the motor and I'm trying to determine whether or not I need to build a pause into the timing. Our hardware: Mac Pro 5,1 3.33 GHz 6-core Xeon, 32GB RAM BlackMagic Intensity 4k, 2x4TB Raid capture array, Mac OS Monterey. The projector has a 72RPM Slo-Syn motor, 1 revolution per frame.

  • Ben
    Ben

    I see what you mean now. This is entirely dependent on the processing speed of the Mac, but any relatively modern Mac will be able to handle capturing and encoding 4K video at multiple frames per second. More specifically, your particular Mac Pro can encode 4K video to H.264 format at up to 14 fps. Other formats (JPEG, ProRes) we don't have such exact metrics for, but these formats are likely to be faster to encode, with higher frame rates achievable. But, it sounds like you will be capturing at significantly lower frame rates than these, so you shouldn't be hitting any processing limits.

    Hard drive speed is unlikely to be a limiting factor with your specialist RAID setup, which should be plenty fast enough.

  • UICfilm
    UICfilm

    Thanks Ben!

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