Some high-resolution camera systems have already been commercialized and used widely in the world especially for digital cinema. They all employ CCDs.
1.1 Cinealta
Cinealta is a generic name of a SONY HDTV 24p (24 frames per second (fps)) production system. HDWF900 is the first camera enabling the capture and recording of digital high-definition pictures at 24 progressive fps just like a conventional film camera. 3 chips (FIT CCDs 2/3 inch equivalent) are employed and moving pictures are digitally imaged in accordance with the CIF (Common Image Format) standard, which specifies a sampling structure of 1 920 active pixels horizontally by 1 080 active pixels vertically. Moreover, it can be switched to record at 25p and 30p progressive scan, at either 50 or 60 Hz interlaced. The maximum recording time is about 50 min with HDCAM recording format.
1.2 VariCam
The AJ-HDC27 VariCam is a progressive scan high-definition camcorder manufactured by Panasonic. This is the first high-definition production camera capable of variable frame rate. Individual frame rates may be selected from 4 fps to 60 fps in single frame steps. The camera employs the Matsushita 1 280 720 IT CCDs and horizontal resolution is about 700 TV lines. The camera has the capability to emulate film’s gradual transfer function performance (i.e. cinema gamma) increasing the camera’s usable dynamic range. The maximum recording time is about 46 min with DVCPRO HD recording format.
1.3 Viper
Viper FilmStream™ Camera manufactured by THOMSON has three 9.2 million pixels (1 920 4 320) Frame Transfer CCDs and delivers an RGB 4:4:4 10-bit log output not affected by electronic camera signal processing. Namely, this camera captures raw data directly from CCDs without video-style signal processing. By grouping the 4 320 vertical sub-pixels on the CCDs to map to the desired line rate, popular video formats (native 16:9 or 2.37:1 aspect ratios) can be acquired maintaining full vertical resolution without compromising image quality. Signal formats are 1 080p at 23.98, 24, 25, and 29.97 fps, 1 080i at 50 and 59.94 Hz, 720p at 23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 50, and 59.94 fps.
A hierarchy of spatial resolutions in extremely high-resolution imagery is shown in Recommendation ITUR BT.1201. The hierarchy is based on well-accepted 16:9 aspect ratio and consists of simple multiples of 1920 1 080 pixels in horizontal and vertical directions.
2.1 1920 1 080/60p camera
A 1 920 1 080/60p (60 fps with progressive scanning) camera with three CCD devices for each RGB colour has been developed as an experimental progressive scan HDTV camera [Shimamoto, H. et al., January 2001] in NHK of Japan in 2003. The CCD has a frame-interline-transfer (FIT) structure for interlaced-scanning. However, the camera drives it in a progressive mode by means of FIT interline transfer (IT) driving method. The horizontal and vertical resolutions of this camera are about 1 000 TV-lines each, and the vertical modulation transfer function (MTF) response is about 57% on 700TVL and 30% on 1000TVL.
2.2 1 920 1 080/300p camera
NHK is developing a new high-speed (high-frame rate) HDTV camera system. It can shoot 300 fps by using three built in 2.2M-pixels cmOS image sensors and 24G-byte memories. It can replay good quality pictures due to its progressive scanning (1 920 1 080) and absence of compression (RGB = 4:4:4). The specifications of the camera are shown in Table 1.