Live View implementation

I searched but didn’t find this anywhere. Live view in SGP with my Canon T2i seems to be little more than a rapid but jittery series of images whereas in BYEOS it is clearly a true live view image as one would see on the back of the camera. Do I have something not set up properly, or is this the way live view is implemented in SGP?

It should be just as live view is on the back of the camera. I’m assuming you’re checking “Live View” and then clicking “Start”?

If you’re using image history you may want to disable it for live view as that could be causing a slow down.

Thanks,
Jared

Jared, thanks. I am using “live view” and clicking “start”, so it must be image history or something else that’s causing it to operate at a very low apparent frame rate. But thanks - all I needed to know is that it “should” be like the BOC image.

Larry

So I finally have a good night to try imaging again this evening. I just tried live view again with image history not enabled and I get the exact same behavior - it simply takes images every few seconds. The pop-up says it uses the ISO and exposure setting of Frame and Focus, but that is definitely not the case. Regardless of the ISO and exposure settings, it takes roughly the same exposure. What I am seeing is not live view from the camera. So, what am I doing wrong?

Sorry, I misspoke, my live view is not as smooth as the back of the camera either (as we do image analysis that takes some time). But it’s certainly not “every few seconds” either. Maybe 4-8 FPS…so certainly not smooth video, but not awful either.

As for the ISO and Exposure that message is just wrong. Live view is just a video stream off of the chip and changing ISO or exposure has no bearing (even changing these on the camera has no affect on the live view from the camera).

Here’s what my live view looks like with a 60D:

Thanks,
Jared

Jared, Thanks for posting the video. I could live with that rat, however, the frame rate in my case is about 1 per 3 seconds or so - much slower than yours. Is there another setting somewhere, like image history, that can affect this?

This is with a Canon 550D.

Larry

Not that I can think of. What are the specs of the machine you’re using? Also are you using a USB 2.0 or better port or a USB 1.1 port?

Thanks,
Jared

Jared,

I use a Lenovo Think Tank T400 with and Core 2 Duo 2.26 GHz processor and 2 GB DDR2. It runs BYEOS live view as well as PHD2, the Gemini controller, and otherwise SGP (though I can’t run SGP and BYEOS at the same time - BYEOS crashes). The camera is connected through a dedicated USB 2.0 port.

Larry

I set up SGP and BYEOS on my Lenovo Yoga (i7, 8gb) and the frame rate is much better, at least as fast as Jared’s. BYEOS might be a bit smoother and faster, but SGP on my faster laptop is sufficiently fast and smooth. I would have thought my Think Tank T400 would be sufficient for this, but I guess it’s time for a faster imaging laptop.

Larry

Likely just the analytics slowing things down some and a faster machine helps. I tested on my dev machine which is an i7, ssd and an obscene amount of RAM.

Jared

Jared,

I know you’re busy with a million other things, but would you consider implementing a version of live view that eliminates the analytics? I’m sure I’m not alone in using live view to center stars for alignment modeling and collimating my scopes and there is no need for analytics in these cases. Having to buy a faster computer is a bit disappointing since BYEOS’ implementation is so much less computer intensive and I have little choice but to use BYEOS for these needs if I want smooth live view video, then switch to SGP for imaging. I would much prefer to just use SGP for everything - and not have to buy another computer just to eliminate one software program for one use.

Larry