Hello everyone,
While looking around for the latest and greatest in digital nightvision i came across this, the x26 &  x27 HFIS camera sensors. It is produced by a company called SPI. Apparently they use some kind if bespoke cmos sensor and from what i see in their videos it looks impressive.

They go as far as to make the very bold claim it is superior to highend gen 3.
I am wondering what other peoples take on it is, BS or is it worth further investigation?
https://youtu.be/8QP0cNOZNRI
https://youtu.be/uFcN2qjnGGs
http://www.x20.org/x26-hyper-fidelity-intensified-sensor-hfis/

 
Well, they appear to be using deceptive language. It's as simple as that. Even if we accept the video ( which looks like a full-moon condition ) we have the name of the product.




HFIS.




The I stands for "Intensified".




However, they make clear it's not an intensified product... EBAPS and EBNOCTURN are intensified products. Products that have a photocathode and a significant voltage to intensify the signal.  Yet these guys brag how they don't need it. Not to mention you can't see a photocathode in their pictures.




So which is it? Intensified or non-intensified. This tells you that their product cannot be trusted. If they say it's not "Intensified" in the marketing and then they claim in the name it's "Intensified" then it's pretty clear they are marketing this stuff to suckers.




Don't get me started on the otherwise complete dearth of technical information about it, other than 1100nm operation and can see 1.06 lasers.




Regards


David






 

Thanks David,
Yeah i was leaning towards it being total bollocks, i found it while looking around for info on ebcmos, it's amazing how your brain can switch off logic when it sees something you find new and exciting.

X20 has a long history of doing stuff like that - It takes a pretty dedicated effort to pick up on what they are saying because they use so much jargon. I spent several days some time ago debunking some of their pictures, which were literally photoshopped images made green to look like they represented how the product worked, so I spent time tracking down the originals and, in most cases, managed to find them. This was before image search too ! Just hard work to find original pics of a faked image.

 

Anyway, when they start making claims that camera/display systems use less power than tubes as they do, it really kind of highlights that they are good at marketting.


Mind you, this doesn't mean it's a complete scam or anything - the cameras are still probably pretty good in low light - just not the light levels you're hoping for.


I saw an EBCMOS system go down to 300 uLux last week (NL5) - It wasn't as good as a tube, but I'd be lying if I didn't say it impressed the heck out of me - There are only two companies ahead of the curve here - Intevac and Photonis. Both have different products with different specifications, and I'm still wondering just what Intevac did to achieve their outcomes, because some of their claims don't fit their marketing either, but then I'm gaining hints from their documents as to what the real state of technology might be.  EBCMOS is more impressive than I imagined. It will be up with tube technology soon, and once they add digital processing, will surpass it. Intevac have been making a lot of noise lately about selling a huge bunch of tubes for Apache helicopters.


David.

Wow, you are a lucky man to see and handle this tech first hand David, the future is looking bright (almost sounds like a marketing pun lol) As far as digital night vision is concerned EBCMOS looks very promising, since Sony are ceasing CCD production to focus purely on CMOS i can only see the state of this technology accelerating rapidly over the next few years, looking forward to any insights you have into these advancements in the future.