I am wondering if there is a way to increase download speed from QHY163M? My download speed is at 20 seconds from end of capture to start of new frame.
I am curious as to what is going on between the following two events highlighted with *** in the log:
What kind of computer are you using? I just received a QHY163M and on my obs computer (i7 3ghz) it downloads in about 3 seconds. However when I connect the camera to my tablet download takes about 10s. I can see if someone was using one of those stick pc’s that it might take longer to download.
Yes I have tried saving to C drive as well. Both C drive and SD card are clocking in at 19.5 seconds. I don’t see any significant difference…
That’s why I want to know what SGP is going between the two log entries… Want to understand if there is anything I can do on this stick PC to improve speed.
I was curious about this as I’ve been using an intel stick myself for a while now and thinking about the 163M camera.
When I download with my 24MP DSLR it converts the raw to fit (for the sgp preview screen) and takes about 14 seconds for the download process. The most cpu resource happens during dcraw. However dcraw should not be needed during a mono camera download so I am not sure what the extra time in your case.
Have you tried downloading in Sharp cap to see how quick it downloads?
Watch your CPU task processes during the download, and does anything jump.
Just tried using Sharpcap. It captures and downloads the FITS files at lightning speed of 4 frames per second (!) compared to SGP’s 14 seconds.
What gives? Please, can this be improved???
Probably not as I don’t think SGP is the bottleneck here. Have you tried using Sharpcap with the ASCOM driver (if that is possible)?
This indicates that SGP thinks that the image should be done but the camera is reporting that the image is still in progress, so we’re essentially waiting for the camera to tell us that the image is complete
So for those 14 seconds SGP thinks that the Image should be done but the camera is reporting that it is still in progress. I would be interested if other applications (while using the ASCOM driver) can capture frames markedly faster than SGP.
SGP: 3 seconds between images with image history Disabled
SGP: 5 seconds between images with image history Enabled
SharpCap: Native Driver 14fps
SharpCap: ASCOM Driver 1fps
Obviously the native driver is much faster, but that is not apples to apples. So with the ASCOM driver SharpCap is faster but not to the amount that you’re seeing.
All tests were done with a USB 3.0 cable and USB limit set to 80. On a 6th Gen i7 w/SSD.
Jared, using Sharpcap I can get 4 fps. This test was done with a USB 3.0 cable as well (no hub) and USB limit was set to 1, the lowest for the QHY163M. So sharpcap is much much faster than SGP…
So why does SGP think that the image should be done at “Entering super dangerous loop to await image completion…”? What prompt SGP to think that image was done at this time?
Did you see if you can access sharpcap via ASCOM drivers? Sharpcap uses the native driver to talk to the ASI cameras. It can also use ASCOM but you need to pick the right camera.
So as it turned out I was using the native QHY163M driver when I measured download at 4 fps.
Using the ASCOM QHY163M driver, I can’t even connect using Sharpcap. It gives an error
Camera could not be started
Failed to initialize ASCOM camera (‘QHYCCD-Camera-Capture’).
But SGP can connect using ASCOM to the QHY163M. Any tip on why I can’t connect using sharpcap, please?
Another program you can try is APT - Astro Photography Tool?
Also did you turn off all unnecessary software, I disabled antivirus on my stick as well just to keep it as fast as possible. You can temporarily disable it see if that helps as well.
If you mean Test Camera 1 (Deepsky) and Test Camera 2 (High Speed), yes, they both work.
I turned off the only antivirus (Microsoft Defender’s real time protection) but the QHY163M download speed remained unchanged.