Nikon Z9 update to get Internal 12 bit N-Raw, 8.3K 60 FPS

T

Tom Roper

Veteran
Newshooter Mathew Allard said:
N-RAW will be supported by EDIUS X ver.10.3.2 (by Grass Valley), DaVinci Resolve 17.4.6 and DaVinci Resolve Studio 17.4.6. What is a little strange is that neither Apple or Adobe has announced support for N-RAW.
Other Video Feature Enhancements


With the upcoming firmware update, 4K UHD 60p footage will be oversampled from 8K, instead of the current pixel binning that takes place.
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Seems like a potential game changer to me; Nikon lenses, no more external recorders, HFR. I have no idea how well its video is otherwise but the specs look great. The mirrorless form factor, that's still a problem. You can rig them up, but using a long lens is problematic, the lens foot notably. That and the 1/4-20 hole in the cameras body, neither is very good for long lens video support imo.
 
Vladimir Putin would love to get his hands on Z9 (but also on Z5, Z6 and Z7 ... any Z will do).

However, their DJI drones have Canon cameras.
 
In the past I had little interest in Nikon due to the lens mount and EF being more universally supported with electronic lens control on other cameras. To a certain degree. Not that everything is going mirrorless and adapting may no longer be possible in the future that kind of changes now.

Still Nikon is a tougher sell for me since I don't have any Nikon glass. I would have to start over just like any other system like Sony or Canon. For me Canon still has the advantage since I previously did invest in EF glass. I have a R6 now and despite its many flaws I still love that my Tamron f2.8 zooms work perfectly on it. Its going to take a lot more than internal raw for me to dump everything and start over with Nikon.

Wit that said I'm glad to see them push the industry and hopefully others will follow suit. As cool as external ProRes Raw is nobody likes to use an external recorder if they don't have to. ProRes Raw is an amazing format but unless it starts showing up directly in camera bodies and not just an exclusive Atomos external thing it may never take off. Not when Canon and Nikon are adding their own internal raw solutions now.

Besides not everyone needs raw nor should they use it just because they heard it was better.
 
Nikon's internal ProRes RAW is a pretty big deal, moves the needle.

Another year closer to RED's patents expiring and there will be no compressed of almost anything in 2030+. Or very little.
 
Gerald Undone has tested the 2.0 firmware on the Z9 and has some pretty interesting findings:

1.) DR within N-Raw lost in the conversion to N-Log but revealed using Arri Log-C.
2.) Synergies between h.265, N-Raw and Prores raw.
3.) MP4 proxies created side by side with N-Raw to speed editing on less powerful machines.
4.) Supported by Resolve and Edius, lack of support from FCP and PP (currently).

https://youtu.be/BC_oyujpuDM
 
The biggest drawback I've heard about Nikon is their supply chain. Tony & Chelsea say sometimes they have to wait a year after the release of a camera or lens to be able to get it.
 
FCP had a 'Pro Video Formats' update today which included PR RAW and PR RAW HQ, so maybe it works with the Z9 (can't confirm tho).
 
NorBro said:
well, yeah, it has to be for now - but everyone is inching closer to the purest quality, some sort of RAW data that's uncompressed or lightly compressed
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Actually, the trend is to compress more ... and to leave more in. ProRes 444 HQ - a common codec for high budget pro work - is 764 GB/hour in 4K. The next step is to lower it by a half.
 
DLD said:
Actually, the trend is to compress more ... and to leave more in. ProRes 444 HQ - a common codec for high budget pro work - is 764 GB/hour in 4K. The next step is to lower it by a half.
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Depends on the framerate.

But meant more in terms of IQ reduction. Compression wasn't the best term to use because automatically we think data, naturally.
 
ahalpert said:
yeah, who doesn't want to shoot uncompressed video
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Hopefully you're shooting all of your weddings uncompressed...I know currently you're only doing 8K uncompressed, but do kindly prepare for 12K soon.

I heard all New York weddings will require mandatory 12K+ resolutions by the end of 2023, not sure if that's true though.
 
I don't think we will see true uncompressed video acquisition due to data rate limitations Vs desired features trade offs in Resolution, Frame rates, Subsampling, and Bitdepth.

Sure, I've love to shoot uncompressed 8K 12-Bit 4:4:4 @ 50/60fps but that takes almost 100Gbps. But.... even uncompressed FHD 4:4:4 8-Bit runs at around 5Gbps.... which is about the speed limit we have even for NVME style devices. Put another way, I'd much rather have my compressed UHD 10-Bi 50fps 4:2:2 XAVC stream than uncompressed 480i/576i 8-Bit 4:2:0 which are both around the same sort of data rates.

 
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