Phantom VEO Now With 10 Gb Ethernet Connectivity

A major update to the entire Phantom VEO product line was just released, and consists of 10Gb Ethernet connectivity for camera operation and download.  With the 10Gb option installed download speeds from the camera are dramatically improved.

Why Ethernet speed is important

By design, high speed cameras capture a lot of data in a short amount of time.  A four-megapixel camera running at 1,000 frames-per-second (fps) for example, will consume 6 gigabytes for every second of recording.  Even if that one-second of footage was all that is being saved, it can still take up to 2 minutes to download over standard Gb Ethernet using a PC or laptop. That is 2 minutes of downtime for every second of footage at 1,000 fps.

In practice, the more RAM memory the camera has the better as the RAM can be divided into several smaller partitions, eliminating the downtime in between shots. A Phantom VEO is available with up to 72GB of RAM which (in this example) provides 12 seconds of 1,000 fps recording at 2560 x 1600 resolution.  This large amount of RAM is great for applications that need a longer duration, or for those running several short experiments in rapid succession.

Once the RAM is full, it must be downloaded before the camera is free for recording again. Using the standard Gb Ethernet the save time can be 20 minutes, and that time is highly dependent on the speed of the disk that the footage is being saved to.  Alternatively, with the 10Gb Ethernet option, the save time can drop to just around 2 minutes for the entire 72GB RAM buffer.. that is quite an improvement.  Again it does depend on the system, and fast SSD drives and/or raided drives are recommended for the best performance.

The 10Gb Ethernet option is all about minimizing downtime and maximizing the time in which the camera is available for doing its job -- capturing high speed images.

How To Upgrade

The option is compatible with all current VEO models and is available as an upgrade to existing cameras. Contact Vision Research support for more information and upgrades can be scheduled by requesting an RMA using this form.