EEVblog

Dave takes a look at the 21,000fps Chronos Kickstarter high speed digital camera prototype.
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[@WolfmanDude]

THIS is how you do a kickstarter project! A awsome and original product, designed by one guy in his garage. No bullshit, no marketing wank, just engineering!

[@EEVblog]

+1

[@joblessalex]

Don't turn it on.... Take it ahpaahht

[@TheUlitamateStunt]

If you really want to see the insides of it, you can take a look at tesla500's channel where he literally has slow-motion video of the camera being constructed.

[@joblessalex]

TheUltimateStunt I know I could go there, but this channel has rules and those rules have been broken!

[@fuesel2]

Slow motion of a camera being constructed? How long does it last, three days? (You meant time lapse)

[@ashton1393]

Tesla500 Is such a badass, I think developing something on this scale is insanely cool. He is a legend.

[@WarpedPerception]

I love how your completely honest about the pros and cons, and not a butt kisser like a lot of other guys !!!

[@CookingWithCows]

let the smoke out at 21k fps! for your EEVsmoke segment :D

[@jguth6]

this seems pretty cool! For comparison the Phantom Flex 4K does 5300fps at 720p where this camera does 1500. HOWEVER, this is $2500 and the phantom flex 4k is $110,000. Remarkable pricing for how well it performs

[@Masoudmpo]

Absolutely astonishing. One man with all these skills: Electronics and hardware design, FPGA code, User interface, Mechanical design, machining.

[@taofledermaus]

Awesome review. I'm really loving the unit David sent me.

[@mattymerr701]

I have a question, will this mean higher resolution, Hugh speed shots than the previous camera you used, or is it not quite as good?

[@arcrad]

From my understanding, it is way better than the previous cameras TOAFLEDERMAUS has used. He prefers 'field ready' cameras and that limits the choices. I believe the Chronos fall into that category and blows away the competition.

[@EEVblog]

It works great. I just need a better macro lens solution than my bodged on x10 lens. Any suggestions?

[@mattymerr701]

EEVblog short of buying some lenses off of fleabay or heading over seas to KL or Bali, no idea! I did hear one trick that involved flipping the main lens over then covering the edge with your hand to block out light from entering the unscrewed in hole. You get macro without a macro lense at the cost of not being able to adjust focus on the go.

[@mattymerr701]

EEVblog though I guess what I said doesn't help anyway because it is still just a kludge. Best thing to do would be to just say screw it and buy a "good enough" macro lens

[@SproutyPottedPlant]

Does this mean we can watch the magic smoke escape?

[@kentvandervelden]

Argh, it's 4AM here.. oh well, what's another 24 mins. :)

[@FakirCB]

Happens to me all the time... :)

[@CookingWithCows]

I recently watched your "how I got started in electronics" video and you were talking about the communication revolution and that these days, a single person can change the world of electronics. I think this is exactly what we're looking at.

[@drkastenbrot]

who cares about grip? its gonna be on a tripod anyways

[@EEVblog]

Mostly, yeah. But the "run and gun" mode is designed for handheld use in the field.

[@KriLL325783]

External grip and sun hood would make it a lot nicer to use by hand. A full rail setup with battery, external monitor and SSD over eSATA would be even nicer ofc.

[@foxyrollouts]

Blessed are the makers, maybe he needs a product designer.. a creative, with a focus on Ui. The problem with a one man band is if ur human like the rest of us..or is this the realities of 1 vs 100 engineers working on one thing.. only so many hours in the day. Tech would've changed a lot in the 10 years hes been tinkering.

[@KriLL325783]

Foxy rollins yeah I've yet to meet someone who is good at code and design at the same time, you can't make everything solo.

[@foxyrollouts]

Im kinda trying with a 1 man web design business, but im not passionate enough for the sustained effort required over the long haul. Id like to be a mad scientist in my shed working on prototypes

[@Knight_Astolfo]

That makes me invoke the spirit of AvE; that thing looks skookum as fuck!

[@ellicopter1]

"Frig"

[@azyfloof]

Spanks a lot for watching!

[@Knight_Astolfo]

Great! no one gives a shit. Keep your stick in the ice!

[@vk3hau]

Is he the lawn mower man ? Seen high speed footage slowed down with random shit dropped into an upside down lawn mower blades, good stuff !

[@EEVblog]

Yep, that's him.

[@Spirit532]

The sensor is a Luxima LUX1310.

[@Spirit532]

Yes.

[@mattibboss]

you broke the golden EEVBlog rule.... Tear it down !!

[@naturalorang3]

Don't turn it on! Take it apart!

[@aleks138]

go to the creator's KZbin channel. He takes it apart

[@mattibboss]

aleks138 i know i've seen it already ! Dave broke the own rule, not Tesla 500

[@pacotesan]

Nice to see TESLA500 being here on EEV hehe

[@kaizen9451]

~ @17:10 lovely interface. Being able to scan through the frames like that is brilliant and also at different speeds!

[@DavidLindes]

19:01 - fantastic! My dad had (has?) one of those Accutron watches, and I always greatly admired it. Cool to see it in slowmo! Nice review... I say, 4+ years later. ;)

[@neroxen_]

Dave, when it says "save directory is not writable" that's not a bug, that's actually a bad microSD card (or on it's way). I had issues with my SanDisk Ultra, when I used it with a dashcam, the dashcam just started to stop recording around 15 minutes to a drive and throw out I/O error after a month of use. SanDisk also specifically says that they aren't under warranty when you use them in such cases; (or atleast when it's not purpose made for highspeed cameras or high endurance); www.sandisk.com/about/legal/warranty/warranty-apac "This warranty does not cover use of the Product in connection with the following uses or devices (as determined by SanDisk): (i) normal wear and tear, ... (iv) in-car recording devices/dashboard cameras/black box cameras, (v) display devices that loop video, (vi) continuous recording set top box devices, (vii) continuous data logging devices like servers, or (viii) other excessive uses that exceed normal use in accordance with published instructions. For information on SanDisk products intended for use in connection with the uses and devices noted in points (i) -(vi), above, please visit our product page for high endurance products located here." I was able to continue using the card in a smartphone, but you probably shouldn't continue to use it in the camera.

[@MarkusLaire]

Since this camera doesn't save during filming, SD card is NOT used for continuous recording nor excessively.

[@EEVblog]

It's not being written to at high speed real time.

[@neroxen_]

That's true. It might be that I just lost any kind of trust in SanDisk when my card started to fail.

[@swp466]

I agree -- I used to buy nothing but the top shelf high speed Sandisk until I started having problems with my dahscam locking up and completely trashing cards, rendering them unusable (could not be read from, written to, or even formatted). I thought my camera was defective, but I was given some advice to switch to Samsung cards, and I've never had a problem since.

[@sleeptyper]

I've had a Samsung 64GB in my Lumia 820 since i bought the darn thing (more than 3 years now) and only problem i've had is the Lumia buggering up sometimes and the SD failing to read after reboot - which is easy to fix, just pop the battery out and cycle SD card out of the slot. That phone is still my primary phone and i'm not going to replace it until it breaks. :P I have been using it a lot for videos and pictures, worth hundreds of gigabytes. If you want a good card, get a Samsung.

[@stennisrl]

Really impressive piece of kit! Will be cool to see how the final product turns out.

[@krism3163]

I could even live with those bugs for that price. Brilliant!

[@EEVblog]

For sure.

[@readyrepairs]

did you notice on his kickstarter he shows the motherboard and it has sodimm ram slots? you know.. laptop ram. dear god for tha sake of allthings good please ask if someone buys the 4 or 8gb and happens to have some 8gb sodimms if we can self upgrade to 16gb, or even 32gb

[@readyrepairs]

dave i might have came dave. i just noticed the first 4 gb ( at least, maybe even the first 8gb if you get that one) is soldered on. meaning there are still two sodimm slots left.... oh god dave that could mean maybe 16gbx4 so 64gb of ram later on dave. dave like means over a minute of recording maybe even more if it can start offloading to sd or usb while its still filling up that 64 gb dave. hold me dave im literally shaking right now.

[@clynesnowtail1257]

The onboard ram is for the SoC, the slot ram is for the FPGA, which is where the RAW video is stored from the sensor. The 8 or 16GB refers to the amount of slot ram you get. I would assume the onboard SoC ram is the same in all cases.

[@MarcelRobitaille]

It runs Linux. I'll order 2.

[@PsyDei]

What else would you use?, windows? lol, OSX? LMAO

[@Sekeletu]

+PsyDei Itzamná Android XD

[@IDoNotLikeHandlesOnYT]

Most cameras don't run desktop operating systems-not that Linux is exclusively a desktop OS these days, of course, but it's operating more like a desktop OS here than it does in most embedded devices.

[@randomthingch1970]

@@Sekeletu Temple OS????

[@michaelhawthorne8696]

Great vid, awesome device.... Looking forward to the tear-down. I wonder if the slow mo guys would review this too, see how they get on with it.

[@bdot02]

Been waiting for this video, but now I'm eager to hear your thoughts on the teardown. From the video on his channel it looks pretty well designed.

[@poptartmcjelly7054]

The project has already reached it's goal ! Amazing.

[@Petex90]

This is actually very reasonable priced, considering the price of HW & other things! UI seems really nice & user friendly. Thumbs up! :)

[@pufero1]

Dave which SD did ypu use for salve sound like a 20MB/s wrrite ones. if the samsung evo 32g version.

[@Speglritz]

I really respect the focus and tenacity required to create such a complex device!

[@motivationentertainment9661]

HEY EEVblog Do you know if you need to have any special software to import the video or will any movie editor work? I Know Your busy but a reply would be GREAT!!! THANKS SO MUCH IN ADVANCE

[@Anagkae]

Great vid Dave, comes at the perfect time as well. Me and my collegues have been looking for a highspeed camera for our lab for quite some time, but consumer grade usually doesn't go far enough and professional gear usually starts at 10k. Inbetween is nothing but vast emptiness (and recently a kickstarter or two), which I hope this camera will fill. Since it's Kickstarter we are always carefull, but seeing this vid certainly increased my confidence. we had this one on our watch list as well and seeing a bit more hands on stuff is really great. Can't wait for the tear down!

[@KD0LRG]

I think your the 3rd channel I sub to that has one of these. I can't wait to see the production model and final firmware.

[@DonaldHolben]

Been watching him build this over the last year i have been watching his channel :)

[@maxximumb]

I have absolutely no need for this, but I want one.

[@dhpbear2]

What was the music played at the end?

[@ObviousSchism]

In addition to designing all the electronics and software, he machined the case parts out of solid aluminium on a mill in his garage. He even had to rebuild the mill before it would work well enough for this purpose!

[@LazerLord10]

Can we expect a teardown video sometime soon? :) Oops, didn't see to the end.

[@TurboAdam]

This thing is the GoPro of high speed cameras, a real game changer!

[@NikiDaDude]

Nice, I've been waiting for this.

[@IanScottJohnston]

A proper, genuine, well engineered, with prototype to hand KickStarter...............brilliant!

[@itsGeorgeAgain]

Dave! You turned it on instead of apart?! That interface really looks like a default linux distribution. (not saying it's a bad thing, i'm just wondering what flavor it is)

[@userPrehistoricman]

I thought he was going to rip it open!

[@ashleigh.]

Looks like barebones Linux (maybe a dedicated embedded distro) with Qt on X11, and nothing extra. Lots of embedded systems do that.

[@hi-friaudioman]

I've been following his channel for quite a while now and ive been wondering what he's been up to. it's super awesome to see he's been developing this camera. I was hoping he was goimg to do something with all the high speed teardowns over the years.

[@PilchPlays]

Be the 4 tapped holes in the face of the unit are for mounting a good ring light to the unit.

[@userPrehistoricman]

I was thinking it might be for a really heavy lens

[@shana_dmr]

Usually in photography heavy lenses have tripod mount to use instead of camera's one.

[@BloodSprite-tan]

it's a c mount the lens are not "really heavy" they are dinky.

[@EEVblog]

Could do, but you really need serious light for most stuff and that can't be had from a ring light generally.

[@baseradius3907]

Awesome review! I so want one :) Good on the camera as well ..

[@kevincozens6837]

It will be interesting to see the tear down of this device so we can find out what goes in to making a high speed digital camera. One simple improvement to the software would be the option of having the sliders and buttons on the left or right side of the screen.

[@nikre]

this is the most high end maker product to date. great effort.

[@HungryGuyStories]

Can you take normal video at 24/60 FPS with it so you can use one camera in the field for both normal and high speed recording?

[@mitropoulosilias]

i ve seen the development of that camera and looks nice!! Looks nice a good work!

[@WobblycogsUk]

I sub'ed his channel a couple of weeks ago, he's got some really interesting projects as well.

[@locouk]

It's an amazing bit of kit he's come up with, it's certainly very good value for money.

[@Keith_Ward]

Also noticed when you/Dave had DC power connected there was nothing to indicate charging or running directly from that power source.

[@OneBiOzZ]

So close yet so far away! This is truly game changing and fantastic, i have done a lot of crap alone but nothing like this i hope this starts driving down the costs for everything else and i hope he will do a second batch when i can afford it!

[@redtails]

The highspeed camera is an amazing feat of engineering and electronics. 1500fps is not that much nowadays because even phones do 240fps nowadays, but the lowres options get crazy speeds

[@Cruisey]

4:01 Nice juicy *clonk* of the battery door falling, lovely!

[@shakaibsafvi97]

envy the designer.... hats off Dave !

[@ElectraFlarefire]

Ordered mine. :) First camera I have ever wanted.

[@Gyppor]

I snagged one too, I was so excited I stayed up until it went live. almost 40K raised in 3 hours!!!!

[@ElectraFlarefire]

Now the big problem.. Slight muddy colour sensor.. Or better light handling(slight better resolution) and B/W.

[@Gamer1928]

You are right it should be Khronos. However the Khronos name is already taken by the Khronos group that manages GPU interface software standards like OpenGL and Vulkan.

[@TheSkogemann]

This is epic! I would love to see the BOM on this.

[@EcProjects]

Coooool :) Must say he did a very excellent job! Not that expensive actually, considering how much time he must have put into it.

[@jusaca01]

Does the blur come from the lens? I mean, the resolution is not that high, but I guess the image could look a lot better with that resolution. Otherwise an impressive job, the playback with the knob is awesome.

[@ivanstroganov5458]

jusaca01 could come from the old cctv lens he's using.

[@Slot1Gamer]

It'd be awesome to have a usb mouse input for controlling the GUI when using a large field monitor :)

[@BeginnersTech314]

wow. looks nice. but why does my youtube freeze and stutter when the high-speed video plays and on intros it is annoying

[@revealingfacts4all]

bravo, I'm so impressed with this guy's work. wish I could justify spending the money, personally, which I think is well worth the price. I love how he touts c++ for the performance. an embedded engineer after my own heart.

[@svampebob007]

can you remote start recording? my idea is having two or more of them arranged in a row, that way you could trigger one then the other in between the frames (1/x ) combining the frames would essentially give you more fps though at a cost of some possible distortion.

[@Asdayasman]

svampebob007 That's what the triggering is. Spin a mirror at 21krpm and you can have them both have the same view.

[@voltlog]

awesome project and the fact that is designed by a single guy.. amazing!

[@SuprSi]

Holy shit, I'm blown away by this! Hats off to Mr Kronstein, I hope he goes far :D

[@JimGiant]

The electrons are going to fall out? Are you positive?

[@my3dviews]

Stop being so negative. :-)

[@uthzx]

dad jokes..... shocking

[@johnfranks]

The rubber grip material used on many SLR cameras is available from manufacturer's like 3M. The grip material used by Talon Grips which sells laser-cut grips for firearms is fantastic feeling and should work fine for this application. A 4x8" sheet of the stuff is like $5 on eBay.

[@Slot1Gamer]

who shoots high speed handheld?

[@johnfranks]

No reason you can't shoot HS handheld... I would assume you don't see it often since the cameras are normally tethered.

[@TheRealThisIsAlex]

"All the electrons will fall out" Dave-2016 I laughed harder than i should lol

[@WeAreCameron]

of course the resolutions are too low to be used in something like a film, right? or does scaling up with that many frames of reality still look okay somehow

[@BigMjolnir]

That's an amazing piece of work, even more so for the price. There are 35mm prosumer cameras in that price range. With the right marketing I expect he can sell 10s of thousands of them before the big companies introduce a competitive model. As for the grip, how many people shoot high speed hand held when doing real work, rather than a review? I'd expect nearly all use will be tripod or steady cam mounted, not hand held. If it's really needed hand held, get a grip mount to hold onto. That would let you mount a trigger input button where the grip mount has its shutter button and solve your issue with the on camera shutter button. I wonder if you could mount enough super bright LEDs around the lens to provide light for this? Like a light ring on steroids? Might be a use for those threaded holes on the front. Now to go check out the Kickstarter page... -- Mike

[@mr.iot-tech278]

I like Qt gui menu :)

[@AvaroxCrash]

Dave, i dont know if u take suggestion, but it would be interesting that u made a video about a problem of some LCD monitor that "hum/resonate" when a certain power requirement is asked. (maybe u have already done it xD)

[@TheMechanicalPhilosopher]

I want to see this tear down done in the standard format with Dave figuring it out as he goes and tesla500 shouting "Wrong" over his shoulder and correcting him constantly.

[@caddyguy5369]

That would be a funny format.

[@jfcrow1]

Good Review. I have been following Tesla500 for a while now. If I had the money I would buy one.

[@TheDefpom]

Dave, you might want to fix the "Chonos" type in your description :-)

[@hub937]

Great Scott, it's already reached the goal.

[@therealzilch]

I'm afraid my wife won't get me one of these for Christmas.

[@jort93z]

does it support 128 gb or 256 gb sdxc cards?

[@Horstelin]

Makes you wonder if you could replace the RAM Modules with 2x16GB to get more recording time. I suppose recording directly to an SSD over SATA won't be fast enough?

[@mowhem3952]

The FPGA doesn't officially support two modules, but I think I can make it work :) Just need some time for to work on the firmware.

[@Horstelin]

what about 32GB modules?

[@taofledermaus]

I find (for what I do) that the 4 sec. prerecord time is more than I will ever need.

[@enlightendbel]

500-600MB/s would make the saving of an 8GB file quick enough. I wonder how fast the encoder actually is, could it keep up with Gbit ethernet or a SATA SSD, since it seems all encoding is done on saving.

[@MatthijsvanDuin]

iirc the encoder can do 720p120 or thereabouts (H.264 HP), so I think you can safely forget about real-time encoding of a 720p1500 stream :-)

[@user-lp2op9uu1w]

So so awesome! But it really needs a better lens!(!!!) A lot of the contrast issues and softness/abberation in the picture is probably due to the lens (The bird clip really shows that), I would love to see a take with a good quality lens!

[@stryk187]

I'm curious what type of embedded Linux is running on this camera. Those buttons on the touch interface sure do look like the default modern-version GTK gui elements

[@stuartcole4845]

stryk187 pretty sure the interface is using QT not GTK.

[@samhurley6161]

I like how the video is at 1080p50

[@randywatson8347]

I was wondering if he could make a version that lets you connect to usb and let all the recording, settings and computingpower done by a laptop or other device? At least using a linux distro ofcourse 😊

[@aliengoboom]

awesome! 👏

[@Buy-n-large]

might be too small to get this right, but the jog wheel would be nicer with some weight in it to keep it spinning.

[@frankbuss]

Nice cam, next a teardown?

[@sleeptyper]

Record an electrical arc in slow motion?

[@SpeedLockedNZ]

nice Camera, it would be nice to have a separate side handle so as not to interfere with screen, a cover over plugs attaching to bnc

[@Landrew0]

I wouldn't kick about small cosmetics at the prototype phase. The real deal is whether it works properly, and/or can be made to do so. It's just as hard to develop the prototype as it is to perfect it. They're both Herculean tasks.

[@HDXFH]

Awesome

[@spacejaga]

Surprise surprise, another engineer Dave...... :D

[@vk3hau]

Thumbs up!

[@blainethepilot]

Teardown incoming....wooooo! can't wait!!

[@electronicsNmore]

Nice gift!

[@resmike4444]

i saw that you can record more than 21000 fps on this camera like 38500 fps with less resolution is that true?

[@3800S1]

yes, newer software versions allow higher speed and also better image than when this came out.

[@sbrazenor2]

I would think that the reason he didn't use the name 'Kronos', Dave, is because that's already a workforce application company. (For employee timekeeping systems, for instance.)

[@Graeme_Lastname]

Needs a hand strap and a lens you can screw a polarizing filter onto. :-)

[@andljoy]

I would highly recomend he add SDI in addition to HDMI its the interface most pro stuff uses. Change that mini to a full sized B or USB C too. EDIT, oh and a few connectors for LED lighting , you need loads and loads of light at high frame rate as i am sure you will know.

[@ivanstroganov5458]

Andrew Joy this isn't really a professional camera. the resolution is not enough for commercial (film/video) use. Industrial use, sure but these clients don't care about SDI or not. What do you mean by connectors for led lighting? on the camera? why? Check out tesla500's channel. he has a build video on some massive watercooled led lights for this camera.

[@deszino1]

What a amazing product!