AXIOM Gamma Progress Report and EU Review

A great article with zero information. It would have been interesting for example, what good feedback in particular you got. About what? 'Unique' and 'with potential' is hardly a good feedback. That's like saying 'we appreciate your effort'.

In case you want some feedback from somebody who actually matters (hint: a potential customer), here is some: Of course I'm observing your project from a distant point of view. And I'm really not interessted in getting too much 'behind the scenes'.
That said, the first time I heard about your project, there has been a specific aspect, which got my attention: The idea of being able to purchase a camera with an open firmware. You may or may not know that this is the core feature of your product. If I want to just buy a good camera, then I would have dozens of other and better (and surely cheaper) options than anything your unexperienced company could ever produce. But being able to program the camera's internal processing and outputting sounds very interesting for somebody like me, who a) works with open-source software all the time, and b) likes the idea of giving his personal note to the whole signal- and workflow. At times the only alternative to your product would be to build a camera from the scratch. While sensors and FPGAs do exist of course (for a reasonable price btw), building a case, mount, cooling etc. seems to be a nearly insurmountable task.

So far, so good. But: I'm waiting now for months and months and I'm looking at your site from time to time, to see how the process is. And I'm sure you're working hard and bla bla. But the only things I hear about are problems. I got the clear impression that you are overstrained with your project. And I do not expect anymore to get even close to purchase a product from you in ANY reasonable time. Because, even if you release your first product line, I would never buy this first banana-product. I would observe how the market reacts and how people review it. Then maybe I would buy the second line. I think most people would decide like this - maybe aside from people who do not mind spending around 8.000 € (yeah, c'mon, we know what 'well under 10k' means) for an experimental technology.

So - from my point of view - what could you do / have done? First: You communication is kind of unprofessional. If you need more time than estimated because you discover more problems than expected, then you have to keep me hooked. Tell me about success. Show me prototypes. Show me process and solutions. Show me sample footage (like real footage, not some youtube clips). Give me a sandbox to test software developing on your OS. Tell me about how you successfully installed gentoo on the AXIOM. But you published in fact just a single article about your process, and this was 9 months ago. The rest is redundant and uninteresting blabbering. And Problems. Problems everywhere. Now in this article - for example - you say you need more money. Great. This really supports my believe that you will finish your product eventually.

I cannot understand how you wouldn't expect to disappoint people over time by this behavior. I personally must say I am, and I won't observe your process anymore from now on. Maybe - in a far, far future - I will hear about your finished product somewhere, and then I will have a look at it again. ... But somehow I have a feeling that you will even manage to miss the core feature of your product in the end. For "good reasons". Well ... or I'll be positively surprised ... let's hope.

The article delivers not really much information, but the pictures are interesting. I think with a second crowdfunding campaign for the Axiom Gamma you will not reach a much higher goal, because for a normal person about 10.000 bucks are not very less. Most people have to put aside the money for a longer time to purchase the camera. So I would begin to search for a big investor that is interested in buying your company. The problem with this is you could lose the freedom of choice.

If the beta follow through say anything, is that people are losing interest because of no-progress and the unexpected high-cost.
You project is LOSING TRACTION and yet the Panic Mode seems not kicking in after losing 350out of 500+ Supporters, hope you guys could follow through the project and wish you guys all the best

The problem is always the same - once EU money is involved, satisfying the bureaucrats to get the next round of funding become the prime objective. Product and customers are secondary. In a way VC makes for faster development because the product is the focus. Maybe a camera company will rise out of the ashes of this product, but the Apertus project is falling behind the curve every day.

I'm happy to see I'm not the only one disappointed from the way things are going at Apertus. Lot's of blabla team talks that might only interest speialized geeks. No communication about deadlines, specific expectations, no whens and no hows. Guys, wake up and hire professional people in Management and communication ! I mean every company faces problems while developing a product but I never saw RED or Black Magic diffusing videos about their technical problems, I only see the finished products or prototypes, and I know more or less when to expect new announcments... I understand you guys are informing your crowdfunding community about your progress but I think you are missing something here: the only people excited about your technical challenges are engineers like you not filmmakers like me.

Dear Bertl
Don't disguise your insult in a polite manner, if you want to insult me, at least have the guts directly attack me, I have nothing to lose, on the otherhand you are representing a group of people.
I don't ever tried to devalue the Axiom Project, it doesn't make sense to me, at the end, everyone else profit from the open platform.
But in the end, I am expressing my worry on the project, just like Edmund said it seems like the project seems falling behind(correct me if I am wrong, but the appearance of idea imitators should really really lit the red lights, despite their non-open nature).

Countering your arguments, this project however isn't like any free open source project out there, you are not developing a software with no hardware, you have to build hardware for it, it is a platfrom, it is a business, where everything needs money money money. I am no software developer, but yet I can vote with my wallet where the companies needs to stay afloat with them. Insulting me and others expressing worry does no good to the project AT ALL. Notice my arguments, most of them are questions, not really statements, the goal is to invoke discussion, and yet you see me as a enemy for no apparent reason.

Maybe that's me misunderstanding the entire situation, maybe this project is really a open source project and nothing else. Maybe this is a different one, or maybe THE ONE.

But, I am pretty disappointed with "they don't want discussion" attitude. This is just like indie devs for gaming, venting their anger towards someone else because someone wants the project to be better. The worse thing is, we are expressing genuine concern instead of some random internet trolling.

Making enemies with potential friends does not make you look cool, instead you look immature by posting the last few paragraph that insults us for no apparent reason. You can always save it for genuine trolls and people who despises, but at least, certainly not me

hI everybody,
I would like to react to some comments.
I'm filmaker and i had buy a voucher in the campaign.
After read some news after the campaign, i was a little bit frustrated because i didnt understand how to help the team.
But one day i was going on the irc channel just to say "how i can help you".
And what i understand is if you are a killer in communication the community can found a task for you.
And you can help them at the same level than you.

I'm pretty sure that everyone had buy a voucher, if he can speak and read, can help the community. And more we are to do that, more the project will be fast and big.

Other thing i understand is that we will have maybe the same camera in 20 years, just with changes components and sensor, we will have a plugable camera for life.
So i'm not disappointed about the time of process because in all cases this camera is already one step forward to the others camera i know (also craft).
It's also very interesting try to understand how a camera it's make, and for sure i will not understand everything about "geek task" but i'm sure that all i understand now will help the community and me in the future.

Last thing is since i come on the irc channel, i never seen before guys working hard like this on a project, and i'm pretty sure that most of others company doesn't work like this. Maybe some of them work hard to make money but nothing more to satisfy durably their customers and this is why i'm here !

If there is one thing that immediately strikes me from the images above it's camera dimensions and ergonomics. Maybe I haven't understood your prototyping/design process but as a professional film maker I can immediately see that the current design as illustrated in the images makes most, I emphasise MOST, types of filming outside that of pure studio work - difficult, problematic and cumbersome. Which is a shame as the rest of the promised design features are exactly what I'm looking for.

You are doing great engineering work but as a potential buyer (I came close to getting the BETA) I still don't know what the final device is you are offering.
Please communicate the product goals more effectively (what is definite, what is wish list)
For example I still don't know what recording medium (SSD, CFast etc) you are aiming for if at all (external recorders) on release.
Another example, in my mind, when a camera suggests it's "Modular" that means one can add/remove sections of the camera the body gets bigger or smaller (very useful) as suggested in your promotional material but the current images suggest a fixed and large body size with slots (not so useful - in fact a hindrance) Now this maybe part of your prototyping process but as a potential buyer not knowing makes me nervous/cautious.

Overall the camera is on paper a great idea if fact it is exactly what I'm currently looking for but get the ergonomics right and the documentation needed for development post release and you are onto a winner.

Sorry if this post seems over critical I'm looking forward to see what happens - so keep up the good work.

All the best