Ember Firmware
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Firmware Update Video Tutorial
The camera firmware can be updated over USB using the following procedure:
Power on the camera while holding down the to enter Firmware Update mode. Continue to hold down the Select Button until the LED flashes green slowly.
Plug in the USB cable. The camera will appear as a USB drive. Allow up to two minutes for the drive to appear, if it doesn't right away. This drive is separate from the one where clips are stored, so your footage won’t be visible, but is safe and not affected by the firmware update.
Copy the new firmware file (EMBER.BIN) into the /fw/ folder.
Click the Select Button. The LED will begin to flash green quickly as the firmware is updated.
Wait for the camera to automatically restart with the new firmware. This should take up to two minutes.
Fix for USB disk access on macOS when CODEX Device Manager is also installed.
Note: For firmware update via macOS while CODEX Device Manager is also installed, you may need to wait up to two minutes for the EMBER FW disk to mount in Firmware Update mode. You can also use another host, such as an iPhone with USB-C, to do the update.
Improved protection and error handling for disk switching edge cases.
Fix for current time not updating when TIME menu is opened.
Fixes HDMI/SDI preview artifact on right edge of frame on Ember S2.5K, and Ember S5K in Binned Monochrome modes.
Fixes settings persistence for new v2.2.x settings when changed from the App.
Improves App compatibility with external pSLC SSDs (updates Pre-Record values).
Add support for setting Date/Time from the App.
Adds support for the Ember Media Expander:
Record to hot-swappable media in the form of U.2 NVMe SSDs.
HD-SDI output with optional clean-feed.
Improves interpolation for higher-quality 1080p preview/playback over HDMI and SDI.
Adds anamorphic de-squeeze options for HDMI and SDI preview.
Includes capture pipeline power optimizations.
Adds a workaround for instances where the camera does not mount as an external drive on macOS. To activate the workaround: Hold down the Select button while plugging in the USB cable. This forces the camera's USB device driver to use a simpler connection method, similar to v1.5.2.
Allow up to two minutes for the drive to appear, if it doesn't right away.
While the workaround is activated, App control over USB is not available.
Bugfix: Clips larger than about 2,000,000 frames (primarily long clips on S2.5K) are now broken into multiple files to prevent sample table memory overflow.
Bugfix: More reliable update/default process for WiFi SSID and password.
Bugfix: Camera now informs App of EF lens disconnect or switch to manual focus.
See v2.0.294 release notes below for the main v2.0 feature list.
Ember S2.5K Support
Expanded Resolution/FPS options for Ember S5K
EF Lens Support (on supported hardware)
Pre-Record (on supported hardware)
App Live Preview
App USB Control
SSD FW Update (performance) and faster Format
Deprecated due to a bug that could cause the firmware to misinterpret calibration data. Replaced by v2.0.294 - see above for v2.0 general release notes.
Support for Stabilization using the latest Ember App. (Wired connections only)
Updates to timed metadata so that it is preserved when trimming clips.
Additional metadata optimizations and bugfixes.
Optimizations to improve USB transfer speed. Expected improvement is 30-50% on USB 3.x hosts. Typical transfer speeds are now 300-350MB/s.
Bugfix to address an issue that could cause dropped frames or software crash with long clips at max frame rate, especially in the second half of the SSD.
See Release Notes for v1.4.14 below for new features introduced in v1.4.x if you are upgrading from v1.3.x.
Support for App Control, Playback, and Export via Ethernet.
Support for App Playback and Export via USB (fastest method).
Improvements to App Playback and Export speed across all interfaces.
Support for Remote Menu Control via UART. See Pinouts and Remote Control for the public interface definition. MōVI Pro/XL/Carbon support via MōVI Controller also coming soon.
Improved timestamp accuracy for frame and IMU metadata.
Restored User FPS all the way down to 1fps.
On-camera UI tweaks including dedicated Play Icon (►) for one-click switch to Playback, HDMI viewport scaling to not be covered by on-screen display, new FPS list w/ speed multipliers.
Bugfix for occasional sensor link training failures on some cameras that would cause magenta blocks to appear until a reboot.
Other minor bugfixes and optimizations.
Fixes a bug that would cause sensor link training to occasionally fail on some cameras, resulting in magenta bars in the image that could only be cleared by power cycling.
This firmware version is still compatible with the Beta iOS Freefly Ember App, which is available on TestFlight.
Fixes a bug that prevented saving clips in native ProRes format after trimming in QuickTime. With the fix, it's possible to open a clip from the camera drive, trim it in QuickTime, and save the trimmed version in native ProRes format to another drive.
The fix also allows trimming in Finder, but only for clips already transferred to a local drive. (The camera's drive is considered read-only in Finder.)
This firmware version is still compatible with the Beta iOS Freefly Ember App, which is available on TestFlight.
Fixes a bug that caused the camera to crash when previewing clips from the camera's drive in macOS while also transferring files off the drive in the background.
Fixes a bug that could cause missing or corrupted frames when starting a new clip immediately after viewing a clip of a different resolution in Playback.
Updates to support factory calibration process.
This firmware version is still compatible with the Beta iOS Freefly Ember App, which is available on TestFlight.
Release Notes
Updates to on-camera UI
Firmware support for Beta iOS Freefly Ember App, Available on Testflight
Enables on-camera Wifi for iOS App Support
Bug Fixes for edge cases related to additional per-frame metadata
Bugfix for playback speed control, some playback issues for clips of shorter lengths
Additional Notes
Fan Mode 'LOW' will now disable active cooling after 30s or when Recording starts when in ideal thermal conditions
Firmware Update instructions are unchanged, but Firmware restart may take up to 120 seconds instead of 40 seconds
Adds IMU and additional per-frame metadata to recorded clips. Metadata format and parsing tools will be released later.
Optimizations for power reduction in color processing pipeline.
Optimizations for sensor link training to improve robustness over wider temperature changes during long clips.
Fan profiles updated to force high fan speed when recording in 5K at 400fps or above. In testing, this was beneficial to reduce large temperature changes during long clips.
User FPS is limited to a minimum of 16fps - lower values were not being properly set up in hardware. They will return in a later release.
UX Improvements: Always show REC when recording, auto-select Playback when opening Mode menu, improve scroll wheel feel for entering custom values (e.g. User FPS).
Back-end setup for iOS App (coming soon).
Increases signal amplitude from image sensor to SoC for improved link training margin.
Fixes a bug that could cause the ProRes Encoder to fail after several minutes of recording at max frame rate in 5K.
Adds on-camera playback.
To prevent media access contention, menus and recording are locked out when USB is connected. USB connection is locked out while recording.
Fixes a bug that would cause artifacts in the middle of the right edge of Ember clips on certain viewers, including Dropbox.
Fixes a bug that would allow the User FPS to be set higher than the maximum value at a given resolution and not match the actual recorded frame rate.
Initial release
Adds level-driven input.
Adds input and output for synchronizing multiple Embers or triggering individual frame captures from an external signal source.
Review troubleshooting guide to rule out other issues.
Adds setting for Project Frame Rate (Time Base). This sets the playback speed of captured video, which gets encoded in the video file. Common settings from 23.976 to 120.000 are available. See for more information on how Project Frame Rate and capture FPS are related. Note: Changing Project Frame Rate may also change the HDMI output frame rate, which will cause monitors to resynchronize.
File system improvements including safe shutdown, SSD TRIM (improves write performance), and reduced delays with many clips on the SSD. Note: may take up to 60s now.