Wednesday, July 02, 2014

Sony Presents Starvis and Pregius Trademarks

Sony technology page presents two new trademarks:
  • Starvis is a BSI pixel design optimized for surveillance cameras with improved sensitivity and noise reduction, typical sensitivity of more than 2000mV per 1 μ㎡ (color, F5.6, 1s accumulated conversion), and improved light utilization by including the NIR range.
  • Pregius is global shutter pixel technology for APS CMOS image sensors that use a low-noise CCD structure, and realizes high picture quality.
The company's Youtube video shows Pregius global shutter in action:

9 comments:

  1. Is global shutter always using shorter exposure as the left image/video is darker?

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  2. Any info on available pixel size and resolution?

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  3. I tried a PointGrey camera with the Pregius sensor at Shanghai Vision Show. It's very very impressive!
    Bravo to SONY!

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  4. First of all, Sony needs to hire native English speakers to vet these dumb names. Starvis sounds a lot like light starved, and Pregius just sounds pregnant.
    Second, here is another classic Sony statement:
    "Until now, a rolling shutter has been used as the electronic shutter mechanism in CMOS image sensors"
    This is right up there with their recent claim to have invented column parallel ADCs.
    For example, if you go to this presentation:
    http://ericfossum.com/Presentations/2001%20April%20CMOC.pdf
    And go to the next to last slide you will see the Photobit MV-13 color CMOS global shutter sensor from circa 2000. (Along with a lot of other snapshot-in-time slides, incl. col. parallel ADC)
    What is really funny, is that Sony (and many others) copied our idea of taping stuff to the fan blades. It guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
    Come on Sony, your technology is super, so why muddle the picture by such false statements?

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  5. Eric, visibly you have a problem with SONY. Samsung is better since they are consulted by a native american guy. :)- just for joking. Take it easy, no one has invented the world and everyone invents some small bricks so that we have a beautiful image sensor edifice today. Saying that JPL invented active pixel is excessive too. I remember that I visited an exhibition long long time ago, there was a photobit booth. The young guy repeated to every visitor that CMOS image sensor was invented by Dr. Fossum. It was the same strategy, just refreshing the memory with this small story.

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    1. Just to be clear, my problem is with the Sony marketing people. I imagine the engineers know perfectly well what is what, and the engineers probably don't have much influence on marketing strategies. Anyway, I heard in a courtroom that Motorola invented the CMOS image sensor and that Kodak never knew how to make one. So, there seems to be a lot of convenient rewriting of history out there.

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  6. Starvis and Pregius are REALLY badly chosen names. How can any English speaking customers take these products seriously named this way, especially Pregius?

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  7. Do you really think that people stop buying these excellent sensors simply due to the names? I don't believe this. You chose a beatiful name for your 1000e RMS noise sensor, but still you can not sell it at all.

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    1. yes, but why not put a small effort into coming up with excellent names for excellent sensors? Or why not just give them a part number instead?

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