Ember Media Expander for Freefly Ember S5K and S2.5K High Speed Cameras Announced

Camera Accessories

by Jakub HanNovember 1^st, 2024

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Ember Media Expander offers an additional removable media option for Freefly Ember S5K and S2.5K high-speed cameras. This new bolt-on expansion module brings support for external SSDs with or without pre-record with a size of up to 4TB. It also adds an SDI output to the camera.

Founded in 2011, the US company Freefly Systems pioneered one of the first camera-carrying drones and motorized stabilizers. In 2020, Freefly launched their first camera called Wave, and they chose to focus on the niche market of high-speed cameras (until then mostly dominated by Vision Research).

Freefly’s most recent high-speed camera models are Freefly Ember S5K (up to 5K 600fps), which launched at the end of 2022 and started shipping in mid-2023, and Ember S2.5K, which reduces the maximum resolution but significantly increases maximum frame rates (up to 2.5K 2277fps).

While both Ember models offer fast internal SSD storage, Freefly recently introduced an additional removable media option with the new Ember Media Expander. Let’s take a quick look at the details.

Ember Media Expander

The Ember Media Expander is a bolt-on expansion module designed to fit between an Ember camera and the battery plate (if attached). Weighing 280g/0.62 lbs, the expander does not add much bulk to the overall setup.

The Expander adds support for external SSD media, which can provide longer recording times and flexibility by complementing the internal storage. It is worth noting that you will need a custom SSD media from Freefly to ensure the writing speed is sufficient for the massive data rate. More on the media below.

Another advantage of the Media Expander is that it adds an SDI output to the camera (1080p 24/25/30fps output). Able to send either clean feed or include user-configurable camera UI over SDI, the module enhances the monitoring options of Ember cameras.

The Ember Media Expander is compatible with all existing Ember S5K and S2.5K cameras and works with three SSD models.

External SSD with pre-record

Talking about the compatible external SSD media, Freefly offers three sizes (1.28TB, 2.56TB, or 4TB) and two types of SSDs – with or without pre-record. Generally, the SSDs that are labeled as “pre-record” offer higher write speeds to accommodate the camera’s pre-record feature. They are, therefore, also more expensive than drives without pre-record support.

Each Freefly SSD features a built-in USB 4 / Thunderbolt reader (up to 40Gbps) and comes with a fast USB C to C cable, so no additional hardware is needed for transferring files to your computer. As Freefly claims, the SSD media offers very fast offload speeds with a typical real-world offload speed of 2GB/s.

As an example of how much footage you can fit on the media, Freefly says on the 2.56TB model (2,534GB formatted capacity), you can fit:

• S5K – 5K, 616fps – 22 minutes of footage
• S5K – 4K, 809fps – 28 minutes of footage
• S2.5K – 2.5K, 2277fps – 24 minutes of footage

Price and availability

The Ember Media Expander for Freefly Ember cameras is available now for $399. Currently, Freefly claims that the initial inventory has sold out. New orders are expected to ship in 4-5 weeks from the order date.

The external SSD units for the expander are available in three sizes (shipping is currently expected to be 1-2 weeks from order date):

• External SSD with pre-record (1.28TB) costs $1,899.
• External SSD with pre-record (2.56TB) costs $3,849.
• External SSD (4TB) costs $1,649.

For more information, please visit the Ember website.

Do you use a high-speed camera for your productions? What do you think about the Freefly Ember cameras? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section underneath the article.