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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Edgertronic: "The first affordable high speed video camera"

I'm looking for a little project camera to do some nerdy stuff, ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2QS26ppbc8 - get a glimpse of my unusual world ) and the Red One camera is way overkill for me. But I sure would like to see what the Red camera users have to say about what this camera can do for the money. Some of the results on Vimeo look quite impressive.
 
Yeah, I think the big deal with this is the bang for the buck on bandwidth for 720p at 700fps. Also the shutter speeds go down to ridiculously low numbers that would be great for getting still frames of very fast moving object in bright light. And with interchangeable lenses, I can imagine some zoom-in for super fast sequences where you want to see some fine detail in a small area of space that changes very rapidly (with enough light to see of course).
 
I can see how there might be some scientific uses for this, or it might be fun for some YouTube stuff, but if 1280*1024 is the sensor resolution then at 720p you'll be actually resolving just a tiny bit more than SD. Doesn't really go anywhere near "disrupting the high speed camera market" as the Kickstarter claims.
 
Plus its going to cost $5k. Not exactly a disruptive price either.
 
Jaakko Rinne said:
I can see how there might be some scientific uses for this, or it might be fun for some YouTube stuff, but if 1280*1024 is the sensor resolution then at 720p you'll be actually resolving just a tiny bit more than SD. Doesn't really go anywhere near "disrupting the high speed camera market" as the Kickstarter claims.
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So you are inferring that the full 1280x1024 frame is being resampled at 1024x720 701 times per second? I did not infer that myself, yet I assume you are more knowledgeable about how the camera works than I am. Please explain.

I backed the project today, but if, as you say, I only get "slightly better than SD" at 700 frames per second, that sounds pretty horrible.

You guys know more about these things than I do, so please help me understand what I am missing.
 
Here's the response I got from Michael Matter resolving the comment about quality at 720p701

Mike said:
The camera crops. That's how I get the higher frame rate. This is true for all high speed video cameras. More $ gets you more GBytes/sec. Ours is 1GB/sec and a Phantom is 12GB/sec.

Some forums claim that you can't get 720p resolution from a 1280x720 image array. There is the Bayer grid for sure, but proper image processing can extract 640 resolvable lines horizontal. There will be some color aliasing: more luma resolution = more color aliasing. Everything's a tradeoff.


Note that 720p when run through a codec will reduce the luma and chroma resolution anyway.


Speed costs money. How fast do you want to go? For now, this is the most performance you can get under $30K. I'm not counting the FS700U because it doesn't go above 960fps and it's a rolling shutter.
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I'm not as familiar with how fast the Red One Camera as I am with the FS700U. But I'm not sure if this affects your opinion on things or if there is still something that I am not understanding about this.

As a backer, I earnestly hope your concern is unfounded. As a senior member of this forum, it would be nice if you stated if your statement earlier continues to be worthy of consideration. I think I understand what Michael is saying, and I'm okay with 720 resolution for luma, and half that for chroma as that's just what you seem to get in most cases.

But were you thinking of a different problem, or just that half the chroma width means the quality is more like 640x720 because of the lack of color data?
 
With a bayer pattern sensor, the captured image will (optimally) resolve about 80% of the captured sensor resolution. So capturing 1280*720 (as the Edgertornic does at 700fps) will resolve to about 1024*576. Or essentially PAL SD Widescreen with square pixels. Beyond that any "detail" is most likely aliasing and will not look nice in motion.

Like I said, good enough for YouTube and probably great for scientific stuff. Probably works great as an effect shot in a Mythbusters type show as well. But I wouldn't want to intercut the footage into a movie or an ad that was otherwise shot and mastered at 4K or 2K.
 
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So looking at an actual video, can you point out the problem in terms of actual pixels screen captured from the video. I wish I were as knowledgeable about this as you seem to be, but I don't see how you get to saying that 36% of the data is lost (20% off the width and 20% off the height). My understanding was that you have 100% luma, 100% vertical chroma, and 50% horizontal chroma. So chopping half the color content out of the frame, essentially. Are you saying half the color is 33% of the data, so it's effectively like 36% reduction in data [being YUV data] (close enough to 33% but overshooting a little bit).

I apologize, I'm just trying to follow along with your reasoning. For black and white, it seems, this is full resolution; right? I'm we're just talking about color data.

Here's a 720p700 video from the project's site:

https://vimeo.com/72695346
 
Aaron Hightower said:
So looking at an actual video, can you point out the problem in terms of actual pixels screen captured from the video.
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Assuming the HD version of the "balloon meets cactus" clip on Vimeo is an accurate depiction of the capability of the camera - since they haven't allowed you to download the original file any loss in quality could also be attributed to the Vimeo compression or even possible rescaling on Vimeo's end - you can clearly see the aliasing on the fine details on the cactus. The cactus doesn't move much, but when it does the thorns are basically nothing but aliasing.

Aaron Hightower said:
My understanding was that you have 100% luma, 100% vertical chroma, and 50% horizontal chroma. So chopping half the color content out of the frame, essentially. Are you saying half the color is 33% of the data, so it's effectively like 36% reduction in data [being YUV data] (close enough to 33% but overshooting a little bit).
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But you'll never get 100% luma resolution from a Bayer pattern sensor (without massive aliasing). And luma is what matters for resolving power. There's a number of discussions and posts on the matter here at Reduser, if you're more interested in the subject. Here's one great thread, you can use the search to find more.
 
Yes, you can see the aliasing on the cactus spines. Yes, this is like PAL SD resolution... But hell, the exciting thing about this is that if it can offer SD resolution now for around 5K, in probably under 3 years they or someone else will be offering 1080 capturing pixels for the same price if they get off the ground. It's just the way of things.

Between offering exponential advancements in digital tech through Moore's law type growth, and the internet/kickstarter democratizing the way dreamers can discover if their off the shelf equipment prototypes have a potential audience, we are going to only see more of these - and it'll mean more and more interesting ways to tell visual stories for more and more people.
 
Craig Parkes said:
Yes, you can see the aliasing on the cactus spines. Yes, this is like PAL SD resolution... But hell, the exciting thing about this is that if it can offer SD resolution now for around 5K, in probably under 3 years they or someone else will be offering 1080 capturing pixels for the same price if they get off the ground. It's just the way of things.
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Very true. Next year we'll see something better and the year after that something better still. But what we're seeing right now is something promising that's not quite "there" yet.
 
Thanks

Thanks

Thanks for all the responses. It helps to get the perspectives of those who understand the quality issues in the way you would expect from a user group like this one. My eye (and knowledge) is more tuned to lacking in the frequency domain than the image quality domain, so I need these responses to understand what is missing.

I can't say that I understand everything that is being said, so it would be great to also get perspectives from anyone else here who wants to add anything.

Thanks.
 
Does this use the same sensor as Rule's TS3cine? It, too, has a 1280X1024 500fps and a 719 (not 701) fps 720p mode (to DNG and .mov).

We used one a while ago and it's pretty cool, but the image is not very high res and it aliases a lot. DR is about 7-8 stops. The ergonomics and interface are very well-designed to easily shoot slow motion and I fear that's where the $10,000 difference in price goes, making something even more home-built a difficult proposition on set, but the image from that camera is totally useable and the sensor is usably fast (we ended up rating at 640ISO), it's just no Phantom in terms of IQ.
 
What makes this hard is that small format cameras are getting better high speed capablities, Hero 3 is an example. So is the new iPhone (Seriously, 120fps at 720p).

Now I know this is offering WAY more than that, but the cost is also WAY higher. If this was at a $1500 rather than $5000 price I would say, hey this is an option as a fun toy to mount to things and play with ultra high speed. But at $5000, it's just not going to happen.

I wish him the best of luck, I hope he gets his money, because then maybe the next model will be a better camera, smaller body, lower price.
 
Aaron Champion said:
What makes this hard is that small format cameras are getting better high speed capablities, Hero 3 is an example. So is the new iPhone (Seriously, 120fps at 720p).

Now I know this is offering WAY more than that, but the cost is also WAY higher. If this was at a $1500 rather than $5000 price I would say, hey this is an option as a fun toy to mount to things and play with ultra high speed. But at $5000, it's just not going to happen.

I wish him the best of luck, I hope he gets his money, because then maybe the next model will be a better camera, smaller body, lower price.
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There's a world of difference between 120fps and 720fps.
 
Matt W. said:
Does this use the same sensor as Rule's TS3cine? It, too, has a 1280X1024 500fps and a 719 (not 701) fps 720p mode (to DNG and .mov).

We used one a while ago and it's pretty cool, but the image is not very high res and it aliases a lot. DR is about 7-8 stops. The ergonomics and interface are very well-designed to easily shoot slow motion and I fear that's where the $10,000 difference in price goes, making something even more home-built a difficult proposition on set, but the image from that camera is totally useable and the sensor is usably fast (we ended up rating at 640ISO), it's just no Phantom in terms of IQ.
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Good call! The Edgartronic looks like a less expensive TS3Cine. But at $5k it is still overpriced for its market (hobbyists and amateurs).
 
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