SvBony SC571CC has landed

[Ardsley Astro]

I've been lucky and managed to grab the new SvBony IMX571 early. It looks very much like a Touptek variety of camera with the same gain settings as the Touptek.

Its Missing the Low read noise and High Fullwell Depth Options and I've asked SvBony if they can include those in the drivers, if that's possible.

Running sensor analysis runs either against LGC or HGC modes, but not both together. I believe this would require a software change by Dr Glover.

Otherwise it looks like a standard IMX571 based camera. I'm very much looking forward to first light.

Cuiv did a video stating he doesn't use darks with the IMX571. What is the current consensus on Dark Frames with these camera's?

[admin]

Hi,

good news that the SVBony IMX571 is working already

Low read noise and High Full Well will need an API and SDK update from SVBony, but if that arrives then I will add support. I must admit that I'm not really convinced that the HFW modes are useful, but now one manufacturer has done them, the others all feel that they have to follow or miss out on a 'feature checkbox being ticked'.

SVBony have gone with the ZWO approach of wrapping the LCG/HCG changeover into the gain, so there is no manual control of LCG/HCG right now. That's SharpCap's preferred approach too, even on cameras like the ToupTek ones that give manual control of LCG/HCG. The idea is to remove a barrier (needing to know about LCG and HCG and what they mean) to getting good results.

On the subject of darks for the IMX571, they are *less* useful than for older cameras - hot pixel removal will go a long way with these cameras. To expand on that a bit, darks only work if the pattern of hot/warm/cool/cold pixels stays largely constant over time. You can measure this by taking two sets of darks and correlating the master dark frames with each other to see how strong the correlation is. I high correlation indicates that the cold/cool/warm/hot pixel patterns are staying the same over time, lower correlations indicate that the patterns are changing and that darks are less effective. I did some testing on this a year or so back and the irregularity in the darks for the IMX571 was much lower than for older sensors (this is good - the sensor is more uniform), but the correlation was also lower, meaning that darks are less effective.

In the end though, with enough total exposure you will get to the point where the sensor noise is the biggest noise left and darks will help reduce that. The deeper (and darker skies) that you go, the more you are likely to need them.

cheers,

Robin

[Ardsley Astro]

When I did the sensor analysis I had to select either LGC Or HGC modes and do them separately. I don't think the switch over is in the gain settings.

Interestingly though when I just installed latest version of Sharpcap the camera is now listed as Touptek.

The driver installer from SvBony replaces the SvBonyCam.DLL file. I can copy this back in and it will list it as an SvBony Camera again.
Correction, I get both SvBony and Touptek listed

[admin]

Hi,

ah, OK, that's interesting... The camera is then a ToupTek manufactured one (you were right when you said it looked familiar) with a few modifications like the USB-C connection rather than USB3.

For the ToupTek derived cameras, SharpCap will do the work of putting LCG/HCG into the gain if it recognizes the camera model and sensor - so far it doesn't, so you get a separate read mode option appear. Can you let me know the exact name of the camera in the menu in SharpCap (both names if it is different in the 'SVBony' and 'ToupTek' sections.

The good news is that all the work for high full well and ultra low noise is already done on my side for ToupTek manufactured cameras - an SDK update should bring in those features automatically.

I will see if I can get official versions of the new SVBonyCam.DLL file to put into SharpCap.

cheers,

Robin

[Ardsley Astro]

Hi Robin,
The Camera is Listed under SvBony and Touptek as SC571CC.
I'm really interested to see if the Ultra low read Noise and HFW become available without the need of a firmware update or anything.
I assume the current Touptek SDK won't Be able to present the Ultra and HFW modes for the SC571CC?

Anthony

[Ardsley Astro]

Here is the menu in Sharpcap

Screenshot 2026-01-23 211300.png (28.03 KiB) Viewed 1398 times

[admin]

Hi,

I emailed my contact at SVBony to see if they have an official version of the SDK yet to put in SharpCap, but haven't received a response yet, so no update on that front this week. I have added the mapping from the model name to the IMX571 sensor, so that SharpCap will (by default) merge the LCG/HCG into the gain from today's update (you can go back to manual control in the 'Camera' settings page of the main settings).

The ULN and HFW are both probably things that need to be enabled in an SDK update rather than a firmware update - I think the main job of the firmware is to provide a channel by which the SDK can configure the sensor chip and a way for the data to flow back. Since both of those modes are down to changing the sensor chip configuration, a new SDK should be able to do that without the firmware needing to change.

It's certainly worth trying the ToupTek option as that *does* give HFW and ULN options for ToupTek IMX571 cameras. Basically SharpCap asks if the camera supports those modes and if the response is 'yes' then the code will make the relevant controls available. If you are not seeing those showing up then the SVBony SDK must be saying 'no' at the moment.

cheers,

Robin

[Ardsley Astro]

Hi Robin,
I really appreciate the detailed information, I've had the Touptek and SvBony sdk in HEX editor to see why the Touptek SDK was showing the SvBony Cam and it's clearly listed in the DLL. I wondered if there were flags inside the DLL detailing what capabilities each Camera has.
The Ultra and HFW modes do not appear using either SDK. What does appear using the Touptek SDK is an option to turn the power LED on and off, so there is a difference between them.

The SvBony SDK I have that has the SC571CC is the one contained in the ASCOM / NINA / Sharpcap driver download on the SvBony site.

Thank you for the LCG/HCG change, I will do another sensor analysis later this evening.

Anthony

[Ardsley Astro]

Hi Robin, I tried yesterdays Sharpcap build and it still showed the option for LCG and HCG modes.

I've been digging around trying to to see what Ultra Low read noise actually does. It look like it's basically a lower speed readout of the image data. Presumably between the sensor and the FPGA device reading the data over the SLVS-EC bus.

I have a suspicion Touptek may have not included that mode in the FPGA itself.

As the SvBony SDK is essentially a carbon copy of the Touptek SDK with most of the Touptek Camera's removed, I fear SvBony can only get updates for the SDK from Touptek. If the Ultra Low read Noise and HFW have been removed as a cost cutting exercise I doubt Touptek will just add it back in. And if it requires an FPGA update then that may also need updating to add the mode back in.

If all the above is the case SvBony may need to lower there price for the SC571CC to be competitive in the market.

[admin]

Hi Anthony,

I *think* I found the download you are talking about for the camera software at the bottom of the product page on the SVBony website, but I couldn't get those download links to work - very odd...

I suppose it is possible that there is a missing ULN mode in the firmware, but the ToupTek own brand cameras and the other OEM makes that they produce all have it, so that would be odd. Mind you, this is the first USB-C model I have seen, so maybe the firmware for the FPGA has to be different to support that? I must admit that I am not convinced over the use of USB-C as it is a less secure connection, so it doesn't add much. Mind you, if someone made one that could draw the cooling power over USB-C then that would be interesting for a one-cable solution (although I suspect that electrical noise would be an issue as the cooler usually runs PWM).

Anyway, I will hold on for now until I can either download those files or get a response from SVB.

cheers,

Robin