Cinemate is a boilerplate cinema camera system for Raspberry Pi 5. builds upon CinePi-raw, authored by Csaba Nagy for enabling 12 bit (or even 16 bit) Cinema DNG recordings using off-the-shelf components.

Cinemate provides a minimal starting point that you can extend with your own controls and accessories.

The project combines a Python UI with a custom fork of cinepi-raw.

• fast uncompressed dng encoder, supporting both IMX 585 color and mono sensors (normal SSD's working well for HD @ 25 fps)
• redesigned HDMI ui
• sound recording activated
• dual sensor support
• punch in digital zoom of preview
• i2c oled module and enum enhanced Redis key handling by tevey
• selection of physical camera port cam0 or cam1
• choose specific HDMI output port, 0 or 1
• adapted to libcamera 0.5/rpicam-apps 1.7

• IMX477 (official Raspberry Pi HQ camera)
• IMX294 (official Raspberry Pi GS camera)
• IMX585 (Starlight Eye by Will Whang)
• IMX283 (OneInchEye by Will Whang)

• CFE Hat
• Grove Base Hat
• Adafruit I2C Quad Rotary Encoder

Apps change settings by updating Redis keys. CinePi-RAW listens for those updates and captures frames accordingly while Cinemate provides the camera user interface.

See the releases section for preinstalled image file and Quick Start Guide.

For manual install, see the documentation.

To try Cinemate you need:

• Raspberry Pi 4 or 5
• Official HQ or GS camera module
• SSD drive such as a Samsung T7 formatted ext4 and labelled RAW
• HDMI monitor or a phone/tablet connected to the Pi hotspot for preview

Buttons, encoders and oled display are optional and configured via settings file.

Full manual installation instructions, configuration guides and CLI reference live here.

Join the CinePi Discord for discussions and sharing builds.

The Cinemate stack is built on top of several open-source projects. Special thanks to all authors!

• CinePi-raw – Csaba Nagy
• IMX585 and IMX283 drivers – Will Whang
• libcamera – Ideas on board
• cpp-mjpeg-streamer – Nadjieb Mohammadi
• lgpio – Joan
• PiShrink - Drew Bonasera

Also thanks to Simon at Altcinecam for support and assistance!

Get your sensors and CFE Hats here: https://www.tindie.com/stores/will123321/