Description
The Sony EDC-50, marketed as the "ED CAM," was the only ED Beta camcorder for the Japanese market, released in 1988 at a retail price of ¥730,000. It represented a radical departure from Sony's earlier Betamovie camcorder line, adopting a professional-grade design philosophy.
The EDC-50 used a 2-CCD imaging system with separate sensors for luminance and chrominance signals, achieving 550 lines of horizontal resolution from the camera section — deliberately exceeding the 500-line recording capability of the ED Beta format. The lens mount was interchangeable, with a Tamron 10× zoom lens included as standard. The camera and deck sections could be physically separated and reconfigured, following the modular design approach of professional broadcast equipment.
Body color was gray, with "EDCAM" printed on the cassette insertion lid and "2CCD" marked on the body side panel. A major criticism of the EDC-50 was its poor low-light sensitivity, attributed to the 2-CCD configuration splitting available light between two smaller sensors rather than using a single larger sensor.
The EDC-50 was the basis for the North American EDC-55 and the professional EDW-150.
