Our friends at Sanstreak Corp, who make the edgertronic hi speed video camera, got us some recent information that may be of some value to our readers.
Production seems to be ramping up and the goal is to reach a 30 day timeframe between order and delivery of the camera.
All the Kickstarter early backers and most of those who ordered from edgertronic.com have received their cameras and are producing amazing footage with the edgertronic. See the links at the end of this post for samples.
Q-Regarding software development and Image quality improvements, Mike Matter the creator, had this to say:
Mike: “So far, we have focused our software resources on stability and usability over image quality. That said, the image quality is really quite good, but we will be making improvements in future SW updates.”
We have to agree considering the latest footage that the image quality is already superb and rivaling cameras costing several orders of magnitude more than the edgertronic.
Q- We also asked how was the initial reception from the first recipients of the camera:
Mike: “Very favorable. We had a few bugs in the first software release, but we quickly fixed them in the 1.1 update. The early adopters were understanding and in the case of one user, very helpful in working with us to reproduce and fix the bug.”
Q- We were also curious about the bit-rate of the H.264 codec implementation being saved in the camera:
Mike: The codec supports a variety of bit rate controls and we’ve picked one that works well for a variety of cases. It depends on the scene, but it’s around 40-80 Mbits/sec. We have it cranked for maximum quality for that once in a lifetime shot.
For a 1280*1024 maximum frame size that is quite a high ceiling for detail retention. There should be no quality shortcomings regarding pixel detail. For example the Sony FS700 which has a maximum of 240p at 1920*1080 compared to the edgertronic of 700p at HD 1280*720 saves the output of 1080p hi speed at 24 Mbits/sec and it is being used in tv and movie productions all over the globe. And the Sony is still not outputting the full resolution due to binning or line skipping.
Q-We asked about the SD cards needed for the edgertronic and if a class 10 or better would be preferable:
Mike: “Class 6 or 10 SDHC is all you need. Beyond class 10, the CODEC is the limitation.”
Since the camera just saves the buffer to the card it seems any SD card class 6 or better will work. No sense in spending big bucks on the latest U3 SDXC cards for this particular camera.
Mike also reiterated the value of the edgertronic compared to other dedicated hi-speed cameras on the market.
Mike: ” Some of our competitors sell a crippled camera at a low price, then ding you for options that turn on features (resolution, frame rate, sync etc) already in built into the hardware. This would be like Chevy selling you a Corvette for $30K, but charging you $10K each for spark plugs 5, 6, 7 and 8.
We don’t do that. Our one price gets the whole enchilada: Camera, lens, power supply, cables, hard case and built-in software. All the user needs to add is a computer with Google Chrome and they are running.”
Q- We also asked if there was anything in the way of surprises in the future regarding the camera.
Mike: “ I’ll just say that it will be unexpected.”
It seems edgertronic is delivering all of what was promised and more. The camera at $5495.00 USD for the color version and $5695.00 for Monochrome with a max frame rate of, 700 fps at 720p and up to 18,000 fps at reduced resolutions, is as of now the biggest value in hi-speed cameras that actually have usable professional resolutions and fine detailed output.
The Sony FS700 does produce 1080p at up to 240fps and less than ideal aliasing and line skipping creeps up when shooting at 480fps and 960fps. Still a great all purpose camera at $7,500 USD but if you want quality at higher frame rates the edgertronic has it beat. edgertronic makes a full sensor readout for the standard resolutions at full quality but also gives the option to the user to skip lines if desired for insanely high speeds like 18000fps. It works well in monochrome where the color aliasing produced by skipping lines is not a factor. The Sony FS700 does not have such option and has many features lacking that the edgertronic sports.
We hope the company continues to disrupt the space with quality products at an affordable price for a long time to come.
Video Samples from the edgertronic camera below… take your time and marvel at the slow motion this camera can create.
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- Water Balloons in Face
- Slowing Time Show 1
- Slowing Time Show 2
- Match 1000fps
- Fire Breathing 700fps
- Farm Animals
- Dogs
- Wood Lathe
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