Custom Board Cameras

I am not sure if this is the right place to post this question but I am working on a DIY project that uses a Sony IMX322 sensor. It is HD 1080p, has good low light (0.001 lux), decent Dynamic Range and has an SDI output. My question is, is it possible to modify this or similar sensors for a custom menu and have HDMI output and WIFI? When I say custom menu I mean removing all the cctv options and just leaving a few essential options like Gain, shutter and flip.

I got the sensor from AliExpress, and contacted a few suppliers/manufacturers but pretty much their answer is that they can not do that. But I see a lot of final products that have HDMI and WiFi like GoPro knock offs and car cameras. I am not an electronic engineer so I don't even know where to start. How hard is to custom make a camera sensor to specific needs?

I can not find board sensors with HDMI outputs either, there are some that have WIFI tho. And I found some companies like **broken link removed** that offer HD sensors with HDMI but with not so good low light capabilities and these are expensive.

Thank you so much,
Hugo

Is it the CMOS sensor only or does it include a camera module? Directly connecting to a sensor you can always add the custom menu stuff in (if you know enough to design such a system). If it's a camera module then it might require knowing H.264 decoding/encoding to insert menus as the output is likely already encoded. The required skill level is probably way beyond the typical hobbyist and is not something that even the majority of electrical engineers have.

But I see a lot of final products that have HDMI and WiFi like GoPro knock offs and car cameras. I am not an electronic engineer so I don't even know where to start.

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There are products like that because there are a bunch of electronic/computer/software engineers that work at those companies that designed and developed those products and made custom hardware to interface to the CMOS sensor directly.

Thank you so much for your reply. It is a camera board similar to **broken link removed**

Is the difficulty on modifying the menu or on adding the HDMI output and WIFI? If at least I can get one out of those three it would be a great improvement. I obviously can not do it myself, but if I find an electronics engineer that can help me with that we could discuss the cost on doing so.

Thanks again.

Given that the video output doesn't appear to be encoded (SMPTE 292M HD-SDI ) the menu could be added by overwriting the correct pixels as they are output using a custom design (perhaps in an FPGA). That same FPGA could be used then to interface to a HDMI phy and a WiFi module.

The problem isn't so much the difficulty it's the fact that you don't have an electronic engineering background (or perhaps any engineering or physics background). Knowing about ohms law, transmission lines, currents, voltages, signal integrity, etc are all part of that engineering that needs to be done to have a design that you expect to work.

If you expect to get someone to contract for you to do the work. Expect to pay quite a bit. A typical "competent" engineer around my area SoCal will cost you upwards of $100/hr. If you find someone for less, don't expect a real expert, you also might end up with someone fresh out of school claiming they can do the job for far less, but don't expect a robust working design.

Good luck finding someone, interviewing someone for this job is going to be a real challenge if you don't know engineering yourself, you won't know if they are BS-ing you or not. :thinker:

What I am doing now is using an SDI to HDMI converter like this one. which works but even tho it is small it is still larger than the board camera and i am trying to keep the whole project as small as possible.

I also was thinking if I use an HDMI to WIFI adapter, would that be ok for monitoring the camera on an iPhone or Android device? an adapter such as **broken link removed**

Thank you

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Thank you so much! You are totally right, this is definitively not an easy thing, and my knowledge is so minimum that I could totally be BS-ed. Despite the risk, even if it is for the purose of learning more and meeting people, do you know where could I find capable engineers that could be interested in something like this? $100/hr could be reasonable depending on the amount of time that would take to resolve something like this, but of course I have no idea. I am located in SoCal as well.

Thank you so much for pointing out the FPGA and HDMI phy. My project is only for monitoring, video doesn't need to be recorded anywhere, which hopefully simplifies things. And I choose that camera board but it could be any other as long as it supports 1080P and the minimum low light is around 0.001 lux.

What you have to decide is this a one-off project or is this something you plan on making into a sellable product? If it's a one-off you probably can get away with minimal costs with someone who can help with integrating various off the shelf components like you've seemed to have found already, this will of course result in a rather expensive one-off item that may not be as small as you would like, but hey if it works just stick it inside a larger nice looking enclosure, paint it black, and put a cool looking logo on it and tell everyone it's a "custom" product. But if your objective is to productize this then you'll definitely need a more experienced person to design a real custom board and buy the individual parts not off-the shelf products and integrate them into a actual design architected from the ground up to do exactly what you want in the most direct fashion possible (this is what companies that produce GoPros and such do). This will definitely cost more up front in the design of the product (depending on the complexity it may take a few months to accomplish), but in the long run will cost less when amortized over the cost of the actual product produced in quantity.

Thank you so much. I thought that if I could have a working prototype I could maybe raise a Kickstarter campaign to develop a sellable product. That way I could get the funds to pay an engineer to develop a more serious custom board or if I pay an engineer in advance I could recover the investment.