Well..

They may not have any plans but now that it is shown to be working others will follow and make them.

Happens all the time.

@Adam

It's a working prototype, mate... I doubt styling was foremost in their minds.

<Title>

A high quality, full frame rate, 1080p H264 stream is only about 6mbit/s, so could easily be sent using USB 1.1...

@TeeCee

What would streaming video over the web have to do with a USB3 demo?

@Alan

A high quality, full frame rate, 1080p H264 stream is only about 6mbit/s, so could easily be sent using USB 1.1...

Presumably, if that sort of compression could be done in real time, it would be bigger news than USB3!

To Alan 6

True that a h264 encoded file might be able to do that, but that means encoding in real-time on the camera, before it can be sent to the computer.

That might be vaiable in a few years, but for the moment that would be one heck of an expensive webcam.

Re: "webcam"

@TeeCee,

Yes, it's just a video camera, but I for one welcome the day when amateur film-making isn't tied to closed-platform camcorders.

First up: computer-controlled CCD+lens assembly can be synched with any other audio or video device you can connect to a PC. Currently only high-end cameras contain any synch circuitry, meaning editing of multiple sources is unnecessarily complicated as it relies on the old-school technique of clapper-boards and manual synch.

Secondly: camcorders have restricted storage/compression options. A miniDV tape can only store something like 15 minutes at broadcast quality. Solid-state and DVD cams record at compression ratios that leave the picture well below broadcast quality. HDD camcorders vary, and you're never quite sure what you'll get. If the camera provides an uncompressed HD feed, you're getting ever single thing the camera sees, which means you can rescale, recut, re-edit and compress and still end up with a broadcast-quality video.

Finally: reduction of redundant components. On any film shoot you generally have as many storage devices as input devices (audio recorders & cameras. If your software, your drives and your USB controller can handle the throughput, why not let them control more than one device. You're not only reducing bulk, but you're also making it easier to find related material.

Computer Vision Applications

I'm doing research on computer vision and we have a few point grey cameras. They're not really aimed at consumers, and are definitely not "webcams". Vision researchers like to get uncompressed raw data from the camera at as high a resolution as possible. Good luck to anyone trying to do any significant processing at those kind of rates though...

One thing it could be useful for is industrial measurement stuff - say you've got parts shooting through on a production line that need measuring. By tracking the parts through the image you might only need to process a small region of the image, but the very high resolution would mean you can maintain high accuracy with a large field-of-view.

High-def porn not better

"but it'll make people's amateur porn look a whole lot better."

Actually it may not. I haven't investigated this personally.. yeah... but reportedly, the non-amateur porn industry has had troubles with HD-DVD and now BluRay, because at lower definition a shoot might look fine, while at full definition blemishes, scars from when implants were put in, razor burn, stains, etc. all show up making it really seem seedy. This wouldn't apply for amaeur, but if it's one of those "classy" porns that's supposed to take place somewhere.. it's hard at high-def to make a set look like any particular location instead of looking like a set with a bunch of props stuck on it too.

Anyway... nice proof of concept. I suppose it must be uncompressed video (otherwise, with MPEG-2 compression, a 1920x1080 video will run just fine over USB2, as evidenced by the numerous ATSC capture sticks on the market.)