What is the fastest 2.4MP GigE camera at the lowest price point? Dalsa’s new Nano M1950 / C1950!

Dalsa Nano

Dalsa NanoTeledyne Dalsa has released the latest addition to the Genie Nano family.  Introducing the Nano M1950 and C1950 cameras using the Sony Pregius IMX392 image sensor.  This is a great replacement for older Sony ICX818 CCD sensors.

These latest Nano models offer 2.4 MP (1936 x 1216) resolution with a GigE interface in color and monochrome with up to 102 frames per second utilizing TurboDrive.

What’s so interesting about the Nano M1950 and C1950 models?

2.4 MP resolution with the speed of the popular IMX174, but at the price of the IMX249:  
Sony Pregius image sensors in a given resolution has created paired sensors, one being faster at a higher price and one slower at a lower price.  The Nano M1940 / C1940 cameras use the IMX174 which is a great sensor and historically had the fastest speed at 2.4MP in GigE, but at a premium.  We could opt for the Nano M1920 / C1920 cameras with the IMX249 at a lower price, but sacrificed speed.

Until now! – The latest Nano M1950 / C1950 models with the IMX392 provides the higher speed of the M1940 / C1940 cameras, but at the lower price of the Nano M1920 / C1920 cameras. 

2.4MP resolution using a 1 /2 in sensor format, provides cost savings on lenses.
Thanks to the Sony Pregius Gen 2 pixel architecture, the pixel size is 3.45um, allowing the same resolution and eliminating the added cost of larger format lenses found in the IMX174 / IMX249 sensors which were 1 / 1.2″ formats.

Contact 1stVision to get our recommendations on lens series designed for the 3.45um pixel pitch. 

When would you use the Sony Pregius IMX392 versus the IMX174 and IMX249 sensors? 

The Sony Pregius IMX174 / IMX249 images still have an incredible dynamic range due to the pixel architecture found in the first generation image sensors.  (Read more here on Gen 1 vs Gen 2).  If you need dynamic range, with large well depths of 30Ke-, then use the IMX174 / IM249 sensors.

I’m so confused!   Where can I get the specs on the new Nano M1950 / C1950, understand what sensors are in what cameras and get a quote?

The tough part today, is that there a ton of model #’s in the Sony Pregius sensors lineup and in turn camera product lines.  Here’s a brief table to help with links to spec’s, related image sensors and a link to get a quote.

Sensor          Model 
IMX174         Nano M1940 / C1940          GET QUOTE
IMX249        Nano M1920 / C1920           GET QUOTE
IMX392        Nano M1950 / C1950           GET QUOTE

1st Vision’s sales engineers have over 100 years of combined experience to assist in your camera selection.  With a large portfolio of lenses, cables, NIC card and industrial computers, we can provide a full vision solution!

Contact us to help in the specification and providing pricing

Ph:  978-474-0044  /  info@1stvision.com  / www.1stvision.com

Related Blogs & Technical resources

Imaging Quick ref Poster
Quick Reference Imaging poster download

https://www.1stvision.com/machine-vision-solutions/2019/04/sony-pregius-3rd-generation-image-sensor.html

Teledyne Dalsa TurboDrive 2.0 breaks past GigE limits now with 6 levels of compression

What is a lens optical format? Can I use any machine vision camera with any format? NOT!

Teledyne Dalsa TurboDrive 2.0 breaks past GigE limits now with 6 levels of compression

Teledyne Dalsa Turbodrive

Teledyne Dalsa introduces TurboDrive 2.0 for their Genie Nanos

Dalsa Innovator awardWith the introduction of the Genie Nano came Turbodrive which allowed ‘faster GigE than GigE’ speeds. Turbodrive is a lossless hardware encoding scheme that potentially reduces the amount of data to be transmitted from the camera to the computer.  Dalsa’s Nanos, which are priced identical to the competition, offers the users the ability to go faster at no extra cost.  Note that the user can turn on or off the encoding.

However, the encoding scheme is data content dependent, and therefore if your data varies a lot within an image the compression is minimal.  If your data varies a lot from image to image, then using the encoding means that only certain frames will get a speedup resulting in an inconsistent data transfer rate.

Teledyne Dalsa Nano camera

Teledyne Dalsa has just recently introduced TurboDrive 2.0, a firmware upgrade for all Nanos. The major enhancement is that now TurboDrive offers multiple levels of encoding.  Level 0 is lossless, and each successive level has some potential lossy amount.

The table below indicates quality level,  image compression ratio (absolute worst case scenario)  and effective bandwidth gain

As you can see, at level 6, you have a worst case compression of 0.33, yet a speed up of 3.  Note, this is a worst case situation so you might get a speed up of 3x, yet be at 0.8.  The algorithm is data dependent!  (more about this in the tech primer)

Depending on the application, various compression levels provide minimal degradation.  The following images are shown for comparisons using the varying quality levels.

As you can see, even at level 4, there is very little degradation in the image.  It is easy to imagine that with this image, you can still do your image processing yet get a speed up of 68%!

Dalsa Nano Raw Image
Raw Image

Level 0 “Lossless” to Level 6 indicate the quality level in the images.

Dalsa Nano Turbodrive quality level comparisons
Quality level comparisons

Learn more by clicking the icon below for the comprehensive application note!

Teledyne Dalsa Turbodrive application note
To learn more about Teledyne Dalsa TurboDrive 2.0, please download the application note for full details.

1stVision has a ton of resources to learn about TurboDrive technology in general.  Please visit our dedicated Teledyne Dalsa Turbo Drive resource page HERE  

Contact 1st Vision

Related Blog posts:

How do you get the most pixels for your money? Check out the new Dalsa Nano C4900 camera!

Teledyne Dalsa Nano XL-M4090 cameras – 16MP cameras are now faster, cheaper and smaller!

Teledyne Dalsa Nano XL-M5100 cameras providing 25MP resolution for < $6K!