The first 4K “webcam” will costs $945

The video above FullHD resolutions is popular among professionals, especially the Ultra HD 4K format is one of the main attractions – the margin of the script or the actors / directors involved – many new Hollywood productions such as The Hobbit, by Peter Jackson. The equipment necessary to make such video resolutions is available to a privileged few because of its high market price, the result of some exorbitant production costs, so that is why it is not accessible to the average “citizen of the street”. But technology advances and prices begin to fall as systems get better and reducing manufacturing costs. Still much remains to see 4K cameras reach the “consumer” sector, but a small Canadian company has stepped forward to make it happen.
Point Grey Research, a Vancouver-based firm that prides itself to have in its base city all the infrastructure – research and development, design and production – has been developed which can be described somewhat as the first 4K Webcam of the world, a discreet camera called Flea3 that connects via USB 3.0 and can take advantage of 5Gbps bandwidth interface to seamlessly transfer the video bitrate so high that you can record at 4096×2160 pixels at up to 21 frames per second. The label of “webcam” he is very, very limited, but the fact that it can be connected to a host computer for processing the signal that it captures becomes very similar to a camera for computer communications, or of course a cutting edge security camera unit that can very unique on the market.

The oddest thing about this camera is that despite having an advanced CMOS Sony Exmor R sensor – yes, 8.8 million pixels – and the necessary hardware to adapt and provide the ability to record 4K video, it is being marketed by the company for less than $1000 – specifically $945 – a seemingly impossible barrier to lower at least right now. Flea3 can also record video in FullHD, obviously, and it does at no less than 150 frames per second, a rate that can offer excellent fluidity or capture great “Slow Motion” video.

Fans of new technologies and especially the videophiles out there with an interest in video recording at high resolutions may see this small Flea3 as a gateway to this unique scene, and although we are still talking about very high prices its acknowledge the effort that Point Grey has done with this camera, one of the first, if not the first 4K camera under $1000.

Los aficionados a las nuevas tecnologías y especialmente los videófilos con interés en la grabación de vídeo en altas resoluciones tienen en esta pequeña Flea3 (literalmente, mosca3) una puerta de entrada a este exclusivo mundillo, y aunque todavía estemos hablando de precios bastante elevados es de agradecer el esfuerzo que Point Grey ha hecho con esta, una de las primeras, si no la primera, cámara 4K por debajo de 1000 dólares.