On Demo, a $25 1080p Camera Module For Raspberry Pi

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by PhrostyMcByte · 2012-11-23 07:13 · Score: 2

Where are you ordering from? Different vendors have different timings -- some will get you a Pi within a week, others (Allied?) don't seem to get much stock and take forever.

First 1080p Cameras Cost A Bunch... by dryriver · 2012-11-23 07:14 · Score: 2, Insightful

Its funny that just a few years back, the very first digital 1080P HD film cameras used by George Lucas and others cost well over 100,000 Dollars a piece to buy - without any (just as expensive) lenses included in that price. Now a cheap 25 Dollar addon to Raspberry Pi can do 1080P video capture. My my, how quickly technology advances these days...

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Re:First 1080p Cameras Cost A Bunch... by PIBM · 2012-11-23 07:34 · Score: 1

Economy of scale.
Beside, I'm pretty sure that the captors used on those cameras are still much higher quality than what 25$ will get you.
Re:First 1080p Cameras Cost A Bunch... by ravenspear · 2012-11-23 07:35 · Score: 2

Um...the quality of the videos this produces would not even by close to what a 100k film camera produces.
Resolution != image quality
Re:First 1080p Cameras Cost A Bunch... by Russ1642 · 2012-11-23 08:11 · Score: 2

Yeah. I was on a movie set the other day and all the cameramen were using only their iPhones. Oh wait, that was at a kids indoor soccer game.
Re:First 1080p Cameras Cost A Bunch... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-23 09:25 · Score: 2, Insightful

Yeah. I was on a movie set the other day and all the cameramen were using only their iPhones. Oh wait, that was at a kids indoor soccer game.
It's still better than anything Lucas has done in the last 30 years.
Re:First 1080p Cameras Cost A Bunch... by petermgreen · 2012-11-23 18:53 · Score: 1

Yeah, high resoloution CCDs and the electronics to drive them at film framerates have come down as semiconductor fabrication has improved and economys of scale have increased.
Having said that this is far from comparable with a proffesional tv or movie camera for a couple of reasons.
Firstly due to the lack of any high speed network or storage interfaces on the Pi and the lack of CPU power for custom processing you are pretty much forced to use the h.264 compressor in the GPU on the video before you can store or transmit it.
Secondly quality is highly impacted by the quality of the lens and the physical size of the sensor. This thing will have a tiny sensor and a cheap lens.

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Re:First 1080p Cameras Cost A Bunch... by robot5x · 2012-11-24 08:09 · Score: 1

I already posted but +1 funny.

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Re:First 1080p Cameras Cost A Bunch... by mikael · 2012-11-24 11:17 · Score: 1

It still flips me out that smartphones do texture mapping, multi-texturing at that, when just 15 years ago, that would have required a $10,000 graphics board on a desktop.

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Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by TheGratefulNet · 2012-11-23 07:14 · Score: 2

if you give it a good solid 5v (or even 5.1v) then it will...

oh wait.

nevermind.

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Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by Osgeld · 2012-11-23 07:16 · Score: 1, Informative

I checked 4 stores, they were all in the 4 week range

Almost sounds like the title of a crappy TV show by ArcadeMan · 2012-11-23 07:17 · Score: 2

The module will be equipped with a 5MP sensor and will plug into the otherwise unused CSI pins of the Pi.

Raspberry Pi: CSI

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You get 1080p video... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-23 07:22 · Score: 1, Interesting

... compressed into an H264 stream and then you're stuck with a CPU that makes first generation Atom netbooks look fast. The Raspberry Pi is yesteryear's phone hardware without the shiny case, folks. It's SLOW.

Re:You get 1080p video... by gmarsh · 2012-11-23 07:35 · Score: 4, Insightful

And in other news, Arduino cards have a 16MHz 8-bit processor with mere kilobytes of both RAM and flash. And despite making a 1980s suitcase computer look fast, they've proven themselves to be fully capable of running all sorts of awesome things that hobbyists have been using them for.
What's your point again?
Re:You get 1080p video... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-23 07:50 · Score: 0

The point is that the Raspberry Pi is much too slow to do anything with the video except storing it, viewing it unmodified or sending it somewhere else. You have no idea how slow that thing is. If it were a car, you wouldn't have enough time to read the number plate of a first generation Atom zooming by.
Re:You get 1080p video... by amorsen · 2012-11-23 07:52 · Score: 1

If only the slowness was the problem. The Pi may not be quite as fast at kernel compilation as a 486DX40 was back in the day, but that is not a major annoyance in practice.
The complete lack of I/O is the problem. Ok, that is not quite correct, the Output part is pretty decent as long as you stick to HDMI, but the Input part is useless. Everything, even ethernet, is USB connected, and the USB controller is broken.
At least this camera is not using USB, so you can use the Pi as some kind of video transformation device using HDMI for the output.

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Re:You get 1080p video... by drinkypoo · 2012-11-23 08:31 · Score: 1

If only the slowness was the problem. The Pi may not be quite as fast at kernel compilation as a 486DX40 was back in the day, but that is not a major annoyance in practice.
If you boot from the SD but have root on something faster (a high-speed flash drive, or a USB HDD) then it's faster than that was back in the day.

The complete lack of I/O is the problem. Ok, that is not quite correct, the Output part is pretty decent as long as you stick to HDMI, but the Input part is useless. Everything, even ethernet, is USB connected, and the USB controller is broken.
Why haven't I had a problem with the USB? I've certainly used it.

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Re:You get 1080p video... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-23 09:31 · Score: 0

With the right video chipset, first-generation Atoms do look fast, or fast enough to play 1080p H264. Small-dick syndrome keeps making me think I need to replace my Atom 230-based HTPCs, but then my brain kicks in and I realize that newer/faster stuff wouldn't really be any better.
Re:You get 1080p video... by dgatwood · 2012-11-23 09:39 · Score: 1

Everything, even ethernet, is USB connected, and the USB controller is broken.
There were some major problems when mixing certain low-speed (10 Mbps) devices with high-speed devices, but that problem was basically fixed with a device firmware update and maybe a kernel update. I haven't had any problems since telling my Pi to update itself.
That said, last I checked, the version of Raspbian that you can actually download in image form was way out of date and did not include those fixes. So you do have to explicitly tell it to update its firmware bits right out of the box.

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Re:You get 1080p video... by amorsen · 2012-11-23 10:59 · Score: 1

Isochronous transfers are terminally broken, and non-isochronous transfers work only by luck and retransmissions.

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Re:You get 1080p video... by Ford+Prefect · 2012-11-23 14:28 · Score: 1

The point is that the Raspberry Pi is much too slow to do anything with the video except storing it, viewing it unmodified or sending it somewhere else.
... and the MSL Curiosity Mars rover is positively bristling with different cameras, and a 200MHz processor behind it all.
The Raspberry Pi definitely isn't speedy, but all kinds of things are possible with it. Where an Arduino has difficulty doing any image processing at all, a Pi will run OpenCV and do plenty of things deeply appropriate to robotics and assorted other hackery.

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Re:You get 1080p video... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-23 17:11 · Score: 0

1080p video is 60 frames per second, 2 megapixels per frame, 3bytes per pixel. That's 360MB/s of uncompressed data per second. I use OpenCV, so I can only shake my head in disbelief when someone tells me they want to use it to process FullHD video (or even just a meaningful fraction of it) on an ARMv6, which doesn't even have NEON instructions yet. That's beyond ridiculous.
Re:You get 1080p video... by Hal_Porter · 2012-11-23 21:50 · Score: 1

You've probably got enough CPU power to detect skin tone, which could be useful for some applications.

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Re:You get 1080p video... by Ginger+Unicorn · 2012-11-24 00:17 · Score: 1

The point is that the Raspberry Pi is much too slow to do anything with the video except storing it, viewing it unmodified or sending it somewhere else.
Then your point is utterly irrelevant.

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Re:You get 1080p video... by dgatwood · 2012-11-24 06:49 · Score: 1

Translation: audio and video devices over USB don't work properly. (And many of them do; AFAIK, the problems are specific to USB 2.0 devices, and probably only in the presence of USB 1.1 devices like keyboards.)
Compared with where things were a few months ago, that's a near-miraculous state. The prior state could best be described as "I plugged in a USB 1.x device through a USB 2.0 powered hub, and Ethernet stopped working until I unplugged the keyboard." :-)
As I understand it, many of the problems stem from serious interrupt latency bugs in other parts of the kernel (e.g. the SD card driver). Until they litter the Broadcom stack with preemption points, you're going to have some of these problems, and possibly even then. Many of the other problems are caused by a horrible USB driver, which I think they're in the process of rewriting. But for non-A/V use, the Pi's USB works quite well as far as I've seen, at least with the latest bits. The split transaction support is dramatically improved, for example, so you almost never see the stuck key problems that plagued the Pi just a few months back.

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Re:You get 1080p video... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-24 11:20 · Score: 0

But when you are doing timelapse, you only need to take a frame at most once every 5 or 10 seconds. And dedicating a 2 GHz desktop system with a 1000-core GPU just to take frames is overkill too.
Re:You get 1080p video... by amorsen · 2012-11-25 01:38 · Score: 1

AFAIK, the problems are specific to USB 2.0 devices, and probably only in the presence of USB 1.1 devices like keyboards.
Great, specific to USB 2.0, that means I can do USB at 11Mbps.
That particular breakage does not have anything to do with the presence of USB 1.1 devices, although those are broken for other reasons.
The USB host controller is just a piece of junk which needs constant hand holding. Plan A is apparently to run a special high priority IRQ handler which overrides everything else. Plan B is to let the graphics core babysit the USB host controller.
They can blame the latency of the rest of the kernel all they want; a properly implemented USB host controller is NOT particular latency sensitive.

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What is up with all the advertisments ? by SilenceBE · 2012-11-23 07:35 · Score: 3, Insightful

Hell I'm all for cool hackable stuffbut there are tons of cool gadgets out their that doesn't get the same attention. Stuff that is more open in every meaning of the world. Is this news ? I can pick up a HD camera (1080p30fps) for the same amount on aliexpress. Seeing that it is developed by RS, delivery from China will be quicker. I can even send it back and let it reship and it still will be faster then RS shipment of RPI stuff.

What is even ironically that the Liz Upton doesn't like Slashdot (look it up) or its community or anybody that has some valid criticism. Seeing how many advertisement Slashdot post it seems just a ridiculous thing to create buzz and post advertisement for people who in all honesty doesn't like your community. But then again sometimes I have the feeling seeing how things are getting edited, even the editors don't like this community... . So let me ask you this honest question timothy, why do you hate us so much ?

Why no attention for other open source products that may even have a more open attitude because openness doesn't only stop with hardware or software... . They ban people on ridiculous grounds (read the examples and make your own mind up if those bans are valid) I even saw people from the RPI foundation attacking luc verhoeven (of the lima driver) because he pointing (rightfully) that their whole Open Source GPU drivers are just PR BS. I have seen companies or groups abusing or misrepresenting open source slaughtered for less.

Sorry to come over as pissed, but it aggravates the hell out of me that projects like these gets ignored when they raise money to create a really fully open system and there is so much non news posted about the RPI. I find these kind of projects a lot more interesting for another RPI add on.

Re:What is up with all the advertisments ? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-23 08:20 · Score: 0

The RPi was built for education first, openness second. You are not the target market for the Pi.
Unless you are going to have a go at the herculean task of trying to convince everybody that lots of young kids want to hack around in low level bare-to-the-metal GPU drivers, your anger is misplaced.
Re:What is up with all the advertisments ? by drinkypoo · 2012-11-23 08:29 · Score: 1

I'd like to go support that project, but R-Pi is 1/4 the price (well, plus shipping which was exorbitant in my case, but anyway) and it's too hard to get excited when there's Dual-core gumsticks for fifty bucks.

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Re:What is up with all the advertisments ? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-23 09:06 · Score: 0

So, I followed your links.
Re: the banning
No forum should have to tolerate a one-person crusade from someone who will continually harp on the same group of issues no matter how you respond (unless, of course, you capitulate). You can only give such people the benefit of the doubt for so long before you acknowledge they are trolling and act on it. It comes as absolutely no surprise to me that Morgaine went running to the echo chamber after the fact to whine and complain. You can hear her screaming how much she doesn't care about being banned.
I'm not really impressed with Liz's response either. IMO, they were both skirting around the hostility between them.
Re:What is up with all the advertisments ? by xaxa · 2012-11-23 10:26 · Score: 2

Sorry to come over as pissed, but it aggravates the hell out of me that projects like these [j1nx.nl] gets ignored when they raise money to create a really fully open system and there is so much non news posted about the RPI. I find these kind of projects a lot more interesting for another RPI add on.
http://slashdot.org/~SilenceBE/submissions
Hmm, looks blank. Can you complain?

Some tantalizing use cases ... by timothy · 2012-11-23 07:42 · Score: 1, Interesting

- Part of a car-puter system; dash cam / dome cam.
- Home security system cam
- video conf system
- video input for rPi-controlled robots

There are some great cases now sized for the Raspberry Pi; would be cool to see the physical equivalent of Linux distros, with rPi cases sized for / sold with various accessories, and a working OS included, including apps appropriate for some particular use. (Things like Zoneminder, say.)

- Lego-based plans (diagrams, lego)
- a case that includes this camera module (or equivalent -- hopefully this won't be the only one) with the camera either fixed, or in a swivel mount.
- Rugged case designed for all-kinds-of-attachment, along the lines of the GoPro camera accessories (magnetic mount, suction cup, strong attachment points for cord/velcro, future gecko-foot-sticky technology ....) basically something you could mount on any window of your car, or the hood, or the undercarriage.

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Re:Some tantalizing use cases ... by gmarsh · 2012-11-23 07:57 · Score: 5, Interesting

Actual use cases I've seen for the Raspberry Pi that I've done myself and seen others do:
- Plug the Rpi into a LAN, and connect it to the serial console of a piece of equipment with a USB to serial cable - old router, telephone equipment, radio broadcast transmitter, fill in the blank. SSH into the thing if you need to get at the console instead of doing a site trip.
- Plug a few sensors into it, run it off a 12V car battery and a +5V automotive USB adapter, and leave it somewhere to log data onto the SD card or a USB stick.
- Plug a USB hard drive into it, and use it as a low power torrent downloader, instead of keeping your desktop PC powered up when you're not home.
It's a tiny, $25 linux machine. Possibilities are endless.
Re:Some tantalizing use cases ... by drinkypoo · 2012-11-23 08:26 · Score: 1

Actually, it would be super-excellent to make a RCX-like brick out of an R-Pi... although I'd probably settle for a MSP or an Arduino

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Re:Some tantalizing use cases ... by dissy · 2012-11-23 09:41 · Score: 2

AdaFruit makes an enclosure that attaches to the wall-mount screw holes of a monitor, that you snap the Pi in. Perfect for an XBMC setup.
I've also interfaced mine to an 8 port relay board and a USB camera. The relays are controllable from levers in my Minecraft server, and the camera is viewable on the web.
Next step is to setup a christmas light scene controllable by the other players online, hopefully in time for chrismas!
Re:Some tantalizing use cases ... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-23 23:42 · Score: 0

It made a decent wireless access point for me, but I had to get too familiar with Linux's IP stack. The benefit is that it comes with more RAM and a faster CPU than many consumer routers, so you can run things like bittorrent. Downside is that it's still a bit underpowered, not being able to keep up with 100 Mbit ethernet even withouth encryption (like SSH)
I should have just remembered that I have a 6 year old Dell laptop in the cupboard, that would have been much better (Tip: check your old hardware before buying something new. as long as it runs Linux you can do anything. Now I wonder if I could run FreeBSD on the Pi... ).
[not very interesting below, you may want to skip and do something else with your Saturday ;) I'll post it anyway ]
To get back on topic, I actually plan on one or two imaging projects. One is for detecting animals with an infrared "barrier" and then taking pictures. For this, I'm a total noob and didn't hook up the IR LEDs and phototransistor to the Pi, I used an Arduino board, and plan to connect them via Ethernet (though USB serial would possibly be easier). The Pi will have the webcam, but I already have an USB one. The second project is similar, but meant for a security application, with just a camera and a computer and a lot of custom motion detection software (not yet coded;). Seems like the camera in the story will not come out in the required timeframe, so I'll have to use a USB camera and maybe the good old Dell laptop
Re:Some tantalizing use cases ... by makomk · 2012-11-24 01:52 · Score: 1

- Plug the Rpi into a LAN, and connect it to the serial console of a piece of equipment with a USB to serial cable - old router, telephone equipment, radio broadcast transmitter, fill in the blank. SSH into the thing if you need to get at the console instead of doing a site trip.
Does that actually work now? I know that for ages USB-to-serial cables were completely broken due to bugs in the USB controller on the Pi, and the RasPi Foundation publicly blamed all the problems on people using the wrong power supplies and banned anyone who suggested they should perhaps be a bit more forward with this information. (USB keyboards and mice were also horribly unreliable due to different controller bugs.)

So basically a sub $50 IP security camera by koan · 2012-11-23 07:48 · Score: 1

Sweet, I am super psyched to see what else comes out this giant little platform.

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Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by 0100010001010011 · 2012-11-23 07:52 · Score: 2

Which means if you actually ordered 4 weeks ago you'd have it by now.

'There was once a CPU so popular that no one ever ordered it any more'.

Next thing for Pi... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-23 07:57 · Score: 0

Maybe they could now look at fixing the utterly awful and broken USB implementation on the Raspberry Pi.

Kind of important given that it's general I/O (keyboards, mice) and connectivity (Ethernet or 3rd party Wifi USB device) relies entirely on it.

They either need to fix the driver (unlikely) or look at a board revision or something, because the state it is in currently makes it highly unsuitable for ANY use, let alone low-cost educational purposes. (Unless the educational purpose you have is debugging terribad USB issues)

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by VVrath · 2012-11-23 08:14 · Score: 4, Informative

I ordered 20 for my classroom last Friday. They arrived on Wednesday. What supply problem?

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by ThePeices · 2012-11-23 08:15 · Score: 1

Oh grow up and stop the whining hyperbole.

I ordered mine a month ago ( on a whim no less) and i got it in 3 days of ordering.

And thats the new rev 2.0 board with 512MB RAM. Ordered from Element14.

Supply issue my ass.

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by spire3661 · 2012-11-23 08:19 · Score: 1

For the first three Pis i ordered from element 14/newark, i would agree with you. Shipped within three days. But my 4th one took almost a month from the same vendor. I think that alot of people switched over to newark after the other vendors starting taking too long and have now bogged them down.

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Re:The Raspberry Pi is open-source hostile. by spire3661 · 2012-11-23 08:28 · Score: 1

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/2221

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Re:The Raspberry Pi is open-source hostile. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-23 08:39 · Score: 0

That link backs up the point of how hostile Pi/Broadcom are to OSS, it doesn't refute it.

Open sourcing a Userland RPC "shim" to a driver is far removed from open sourcing the driver itself.

100% closed source by citizenr · 2012-11-23 08:41 · Score: 0

CSI connector is 100% closed, all code sitting in a blob. JamesH from RPi foundation rejected any pleads basically stating users are TOO CLUELESS to figure out setting up image sensor so they locked it down.
Additionally they will be selling $5 cellphone image sensor at $15 and you wont be able to use any other one. (I wouldnt be surprised if they got special revision from Aptina just to lock it down harder).

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Re:100% closed source by mako1138 · 2012-11-23 10:33 · Score: 1

It's an OmniVision part, but yes, it seems to be all closed as usual. I've never understood why image sensor documentation is so locked down.
Re:100% closed source by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-23 11:20 · Score: 4, Informative

Yup, you are too clueless, because you obviously have no idea of the complexity involved. It takes man-months to really get a camera driver working properly, then man years to tune the sensor ISP to actually produce decent pictures. You get all that work, plus PCB development, for $25. And it is the standard OV sensor, not a specific 'locked down' version - you don't need locked down sensors because the damn things are all bloody different anyway.
But actually Jamesh didnt say that was the reason the GPU blob is locked down at all. The GPU has its own firmware which is closed course, the camera driver and tuning are in that firmware, so are locked down as a result of the entire GPU source being closed, not because people are not experienced enough to make the sensor work.
But full marks for FUD - well done.
Re:100% closed source by citizenr · 2012-11-23 13:10 · Score: 1

the sensor part is open and trivial to set up/communicate with, the communication port on RPI is closed black box

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I love the RasPi... by erroneus · 2012-11-23 08:42 · Score: 1

I don't have one yet as I am more of a user than a hacker, hobbyist or developer, or whatever, but I am keen on putting together a kit which is known to work.

My dream? Car computer!

I want one of these to collect ALL SORTS of data... OBD2 data, environment data (temp, barametric, humidity, GPS and ALL that) and to put it out in some form which can be displayed on a device like an android tablet, web interface or even one of those USB display devices for an awesome digital dashboard.

I don't know why, but I love car data... it's so geeky cool. I want not just engine temp, but transmission temp too. I remember a few years back I was relocating and I was pulling a PT cruiser with a Jeep Cherokee... bad idea I know.. the PT is nearly as heavy as the Jeep, but it was a two wheel drive with a toyota transmission... it could handle it... and did. But I just HAD to add a thermometer to the transmission fluid to keep a watch on things and yes... it helped at certain points.

Anyway, I like gauges and dials and readouts and stuff :)

Re:I love the RasPi... by Nexzus · 2012-11-23 16:31 · Score: 1

The RPi might be a bit underpowered for what you want to do with it, especially the Android idea. And IIRC, they even haven't been able to port Android yet.
Better choice (albiet more expensive) would be a Beagle Board. http://beagleboard.org/

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Re:I love the RasPi... by TClevenger · 2012-11-24 17:54 · Score: 1

I want to be able to write text into the video stream before it's compressed and recorded, so I can record speed, bearing, etc. onto my dashcam video. I found software for Windows, but it drops frames even on a dual core i5 laptop.

You've been deceived by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-23 08:49 · Score: 0

You've been deceived by ambiguous Raspberry Pi Foundation propaganda and the subsequent uninformed rantings of RPi fanbois.

What they actually open sourced was merely the thin shims that convert API function calls into the message protocol that is sent to the GPU.

In other words, it's exactly as "open" as nVidia's equivalent. That is, it's not open at all in any real sense.

Refresh rate? by Half-pint+HAL · 2012-11-23 08:50 · Score: 1

Until they can quote a refresh rate, I don't care.

If they later report that this can stream lightly-compressed 1080p at full frame rate, I will become very interested, but I'm guessing it won't offer any real advantages.

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Re:Refresh rate? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-23 08:57 · Score: 0

In the video they stated 1080P h.264 at 30 FPS
Re:Refresh rate? by Half-pint+HAL · 2012-11-23 09:01 · Score: 1

Oops. I read TFA, but didn't RTF blog post. 30 fps. Not interested. I'll stick with a Flip-clone if I want something like that.

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Re:Refresh rate? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-23 11:23 · Score: 1

Can do 1080p30 at upto about 30Mbits/s encoded stream, 720p60 at the same. Or lower resolutions at higher frames rates up to about 120fps.

Re:The Raspberry Pi is open-source hostile. by drinkypoo · 2012-11-23 08:51 · Score: 2

That link backs up the point of how hostile Pi/Broadcom are to OSS, it doesn't refute it.

You're conflating Pi and Broadcom. Pi foundation is friendly to open source. Broadcom isn't. Somewhere in the middle lies Raspberry Pi, the product.

On the other hand, any claim that the platform is fully open in any particulars is a load of dingo's kidneys.

I still just want Android. They said they had it working. Then nothing, no answers to any questions, just the occasional flip comment telling someone that their concerns are unfounded. I bought the thing only after their announcement, on the assumption they'd release something. Where is my Android for R-Pi?

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Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-23 08:55 · Score: 0

Oh quit whining. I checked last week and I could walk into a highstreet shop a few miles from where I work and buy one off the shelf. What exactly do you want?

Re:The Raspberry Pi is open-source hostile. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-23 09:00 · Score: 0

Yeah, I guess I *am* conflating the two, but then it is hard not to when most of the 'staff' are Broadcom staff 'volunteering' their lunch breaks and most problems are passed off as Broadcom's problems.

I kinda see RPi as just a neat sales pitch by Broadcom to offload a barely functional SoC on a board with some terrible (Power, USB & Ethernet) design issues, the current board should be seen as an alpha test board yet is sold and marketed as a finished product.

Re:The Raspberry Pi is open-source hostile. by drinkypoo · 2012-11-23 09:10 · Score: 1

As far as I know the power and ethernet design issues have been more or less solved, and now it's just USB :)

I am grumpy that the board didn't receive more testing as well, but as I have posted elsewhere on here, I feel I have only myself to blame. I should have known better than to expect it to work properly in the first revision.

I sure would like to know why they've not released ICS for R-Pi when they claimed to have it working so very long ago, but they won't say. It's the lack of openness in this supposedly open project that gets my goat.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"

Ultimate Time Lapse camera? by toygeek · 2012-11-23 09:11 · Score: 1

With a good enclosure and some good storage, not to mention a hefty battery, I can see this spending lots of time taking time lapse photos for days and even weeks on end! I can't wait to see how its packaged, and I hope the lens doesn't stink.

--
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by dissy · 2012-11-23 09:32 · Score: 1

I ordered two monday last week and got them friday.
This monday I went by the local computer store to pickup some more SD cards and they had over 20 on the shelf in bubble packs, so I picked up my 3rd.

Some of the distributers even have over night shipping for $30, including the one I used, which had hundreds in stock.

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by oPless · 2012-11-23 09:32 · Score: 3, Informative

http://www.coolcomponents.co.uk/catalog/raspberry-model-p-1032.html

one left, hurry!

Seriously, Element 14 is a good alternative. But RS were utter rubbish at it!

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-23 10:23 · Score: 0

You'll love your PIs, and at worst need to buy a powered USB hub if you want to power, um, high power USB devices. The previous poster was a moron-biggot.

If you try and use you creditcard-sized PC to drive a USB-powered hard drive, it doesn't work.

If, like anyone, you understand that simply powering it from a hub (or wiring the GPIO power pin to power, as an alternative) it all works fine.

My PI has a wifi USB card, wireless keyboard/mouse and works flawlessly.

Basically, if you're an idiot, and try to power a Prius via the on-board PI USB power, you'll be out of luck. There are a couple of fixes to the problem though, which all indicate that the Pi foundation saved a bit cash at the expense of hi-power USB output.

No biggie, and if it is, you shouldn't be buying a PI anyway - they are for people with brains, or who want to learn - not biggots who criticize minor problems on the first revision of the board.

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-23 10:28 · Score: 0

You're an idiot. I bet you've also posted "When i can drive 10,000 miles on a single charge, they can fly and take off vertically, and are bulletproof to 30mm, that's when I'll buy an electric car - until then, well they are all just crap I could do better making myself."

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by Osgeld · 2012-11-23 11:47 · Score: 1

the problem that every store I check has a 4 week back order

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by Osgeld · 2012-11-23 11:48 · Score: 0

your ass is right, every store is on at least a 4 week back order, glad you happened to buy one when the sparse shipment managed to show the fuck up

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by Osgeld · 2012-11-23 11:49 · Score: 1

I want to be able to buy one without waiting a month, thought that was clear

just cause some hobby shop near you happened to have one, doesn't mean they are available

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by Osgeld · 2012-11-23 11:49 · Score: 1

every single shop I checked has a 4 week backorder, glad you were lucky

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by Osgeld · 2012-11-23 11:54 · Score: 1

you need to understand what biggot means

and yes people are idiots for following instructions provided by the designers

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by dissy · 2012-11-23 12:26 · Score: 1

I bought my first two from CPC http://cpc.farnell.com/
Unfortunately their "check stock" link isn't loading for me, so assuming the worst they may be sold out now.

Checking eBay though, here are 4 of them including a very nice case, for $35 each using buy-it-now (not an auction)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Raspberry-Pi-Model-B-ABS-Case-NEW-U-S-Manufacture-and-Seller-HDMI-/150928193043?pt=US_Computer_Cases&hash=item2324057613

I admit it's getting annoying searching ebay, with all the new case sellers that have popped up.
I hope this helps though.

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by dissy · 2012-11-23 12:30 · Score: 1

Ah my mistake, that ebay listing was just another case seller.
Looks like the actual Pis are all going up in price, $50 or more. Not sure if you wanted to spend that much yet

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by JazzLad · 2012-11-23 12:42 · Score: 1

From link provided:

*Listing is for CASE ONLY

--
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by JazzLad · 2012-11-23 12:52 · Score: 1

Sorry to reply to a second post, but I happened to load the page between your two posts & it took me that long to read down to it :)

(Ignore my other reply)

--
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever

Cult of the Pi? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-23 12:55 · Score: 0

Battery pack.
Android.
GPRS radio.
and now a Camera!

Yet when I suggest adapting a cheap Android phone to do the job... it's Heresy!

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by dissy · 2012-11-23 13:01 · Score: 1

No problems, I felt the same way once I noticed and had to do the same double-reply thing.
Sucks I couldn't edit it or even take it back. With so few left I wanted the parent poster to have a good shot at it.

Never a good deed goes unpunished I guess

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-23 13:15 · Score: 0

First one I tried says they're getting more in 3 days: http://canada.newark.com/raspberry-pi/raspbrry-modb-512m/model-b-assembled-board-only/dp/43W5302?ref=lookahead

I've ordered several of them before from newark and never had to wait more than a week from order to delivery.

Tell me, Mr. Anderson... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-23 16:22 · Score: 0

What good is a Raspberry Pi camera accessory when you can't get a Raspberry Pi?

The foundation has its priorities all wrong. If they put half as much effort into the supply problems as they do on this neverending astroturfing, the world would be a better place for kittens & unicorns.

Re:Tell me, Mr. Anderson... by petermgreen · 2012-11-23 22:28 · Score: 1

What good is a Raspberry Pi camera accessory when you can't get a Raspberry Pi?
There are now at least three vendors in the UK with the raspberry Pi in stock. Things don't seem so rosy in the US right now unfortunately though newark claim "1321 Expected to ship 26 Nov, 2012"

The foundation has its priorities all wrong. If they put half as much effort into the supply problems as they do on this neverending astroturfing
The trouble is with something like the Pi you can't just buy the components off the shelf. The manufacturing partners have to order the SoCs, wait for them to be produced and shipped to the PCB assembly factory, then get the boards made and shipped from where they produce them to where they want to sell them. That takes months so they have to guess how many boards they are going to sell months in advance of actually selling them.
If they guess too high then they have stock sitting on the shelves which locks up capital and which may lead to having to sell the units at a loss down the line. If they guess too low then they have pissed off potential customers like you.

--
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Re:Tell me, Mr. Anderson... by faedle · 2012-11-24 03:17 · Score: 1

It has now been long enough, and the demand has been high enough, that this should be irrelevant.
Look, I know how hard it is to get stuff fabbed. I handled the manufacturing for the P112 project. We use an OBSOLETE component in the mix, one that the only sources are "new old stock" and floor sweepings.
We were able to go from Gerbers to shipping in about a month. Granted, I live in the Pacific Northwest and have access to an awesome board fab and board stuffer.
With the quantity of JIT vendors out there, and now with the length of time the Pi has been shipping, there should be no more supply problems. And it sounds like the supply problems are largely the fault of the US resellers, not on the UK side of the pond.
Re:Tell me, Mr. Anderson... by petermgreen · 2012-11-24 12:39 · Score: 1

I handled the manufacturing for the P112 project.
You mean the one that was recently on kickstarter? The one that was talking about 150 units?

We were able to go from Gerbers to shipping in about a month.
I can believe that. Presumablly all the parts you used (other than the PCB) were bought from stock. Some of them may have been tricky to find but once found presumablly buying them was reasonablly quick.

It has now been long enough, and the demand has been high enough, that this should be irrelevant.
I'd agree it's taken an annoyingly long time and that both the RPF and the manufacturing partners have made mistakes which have delayed things.
Still the backlog basically boils down to "how much are the companies who are paying for the manufacturing prepared to risk", not "how much work are the RPF prepared to do". So saying the RPF shouldn't work on other things while the backlog still exists is silly.

--
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Re:Tell me, Mr. Anderson... by Muad'Dave · 2012-11-26 05:55 · Score: 1

I ordered 5 RPi's from Newark on 11/17, and the latest status on the web site is "Expected Ship Date 10 Dec 2012". Naturally they said they were in stock the moment I ordered them.

--
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by davester666 · 2012-11-23 17:18 · Score: 1

That's just a marketing come-on to get you to order.

Once you order, you are informed of the standard 4-week wait...and if you complain, they just tell you somebody else got the one in stock just seconds before you did...

--
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!

Oh Great...now I gotta redesign my lego case by mandark1967 · 2012-11-23 18:22 · Score: 2

fuck me, right?

Granted, I did go a bit overboard in the powered USB Hub department, what with 28 ports and all, but it almost fit within the confines of a 32x32 lego plate

http://imageshack.us/a/img811/6440/img0191nq.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img59/7307/img0194ct.jpg

--
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by petermgreen · 2012-11-23 18:39 · Score: 1

It also depends on where you are, here in the UK I can find three suppliers who claim to have stock but the US situation doesn't appear anywhere near as rosy.

--
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-23 18:54 · Score: 0

you need to understand what biggot means

Obviously he couldn't look it up in the dictionary.

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-23 22:41 · Score: 1

Neither did any of you morons. It's "bigot", ONE "g".

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by mlk · 2012-11-24 02:58 · Score: 1

Ordered on Monday, getting this Monday. One week is acceptable.

Or if I'm willing to pay a fair chunk more at a Maplin I can have one in my hand this very day.

--
Wow, I should not post when knackered.

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by oPless · 2012-11-24 05:34 · Score: 1

Nah, their stock levels appear to be accurate. Bought two from them recently*, and they're active on twitter.

Ah well you've missed the boat ... someone bought the last one!

*Just before the upgraded Sony units were released.

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by robot5x · 2012-11-24 08:03 · Score: 1

Here in NZ, in the middle of nowhere, I just got my pi from element14 with overnight delivery. They sent me two even though I only ordered 1. Now that's service!

--
Hej! Nasi tu byli!

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by illtud · 2012-11-24 13:01 · Score: 1

I ordered 5 from CPC last week and got them the next morning. This was the bundle with case, debian squeeze on a 4GB SD and PSU, and they're still showing 'in stock'. CPC have always been reliable for me. I've been using them since they were an electronics spares shop in the 80s with a 4-page photocopied stock list. They've grown to a 1000+ page printed catalogue selling just about anything electronic / electric / officy and I can't fault them. They were bought by Farnell at some point in the past decade, but both being northern UK companies that wasn't so painful - they're both great companies to deal with, and I'm very happy about the bringing together of a company I've always liked and a great product in the kind of technology I've championed for a long time.

We'll be using our RPIs as solid-state video looping devices. The commercial offerings in the UK are easily 5x the price, even at the RPI bundle prices ($80) and having used a few in the past, I'm much happier that the RPI solution will work better for us.

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by dissy · 2012-11-24 13:25 · Score: 1

I too was very happy with my CPC order. I placed the order on a Monday afternoon and recieved them Friday, so only 4 days total from UK to the USA.

Right now they are showing having units in stock. The moment I checked before, they must have been overloaded with traffic with all the recent Pi announcements.
I never heard anything back from the original person I replied to about if he finally found one. One can never know on /. if someone was serious about purchasing one or not.

Re:Oh did you fix your supply problem? by illtud · 2012-11-24 15:08 · Score: 1

OK, I don't know what shipping to US is (mine was free in UK) but RIGHT HERE is an answer to us supply problem (I'm assuming CPC don't restrict supplies by country). I'd mod you up (got the points) but I've already posted here (plus I guess I wouldn't want to dry up the UK supply!). Happy RPI hacking. Enjoy your made-in-Wales RPI!

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