SecretSquirril

When we tested, we found the Sony Effio solutions to offer better low light support than Monalisa. Less grainy, and more sharp (pun not intended).

Hi Jay, Many thanks for the reply. Shame Eric won't be there - would be good to catch up, but I will pop by the stand to have a good look. Cheers Squizz

Huviron, do you mind me asking what CCD you used with the Effio sample? Also, what is your gen-2 chipset paired with? Assume your chaps will be at CPSE? Will Eric be there? Squizz.

Have heard the same rumor, but cannot find proof as yet. Another suggests that CNB bought the rights to an Isreali designed DSP. It is interesting that several Korean manufacturers released their "own" chipsets within a few months of each other. Perhaps there is indeed a common central theme. After all, many of the larger names in Korea do not actually manufacture directly.... One thing I am sure of - CNB made a major investment into Mona Lisa. The evidense being the relentless push to promote only Mona Lisa based products (at that level, not taking away from Blue-I) - even withdrawing Sony based zoom products for the soon to be released Mona Lisa varients. The zooms are not yet at sample stage. Squizz.

I believe they are manufactured by a UK company called Overview Ltd. http://www.overview.co.uk Squizz

There will shortly be a couple of very interesting alternatives to CNB Mona Lisa hitting the market. Replacing the low price Next 520TVL offerings will come the Nextchip NVP2040 together with the Sony 639 CCD. This will offer 600TVL and reasonable performace - expected to be more competitive than Mona Lisa. The other alternative will be the Effio-E from Sony. Current offerings, sometimes called Effio-E 760 pair the Effio-E chipset with the Sony 639 CCD. The performance was OK, but not great. Latest releases using Effio-E are the Effio-E 960 - pairing Effio-E with the Sony 673 CCD. Offering a much improved IQ, with better sensitivity and quoted at 650+ TVL. Some manufacturers are already beginning to market these as 700TVL solutions which is not strictly true. Pricing for the 960 solution is expected to match HQ1 at the installation level. With regard to Mona Lisa itself, there are rumored to be 2 versions of the chipset. One promoted by CNB themselves, and one passed to the China local market to be assembled by other manufactures. I say rumored, as CNB have directly denied the sale of the chipset to any other manufacturers, but it is openly offered by others in China. Early production using Mona Lisa suffered two major issues - color wash and WB issues. Both have been addressed, but so far the offering has yet to hit the European markets in a major way. Squizz