FS7: 7Q owner with Extention unit to buy or not to buy

[Taycuphach]

Hi Guys,

I already ordered Fs7 and would get them in early 2015.

Now I am undecided whether I should invest $2k to buy extension unit and get Raw/Prores footage (I already own 7Q with Fs700 Raw license) or I just simply invest less than $1k to buy media & battery (I already have some Vmount Battery)

Would the raw/prores quality be trade off in this case, as I heard that internal footage is more than enough for most of the case and with extension unit & 7Q would make Fs7 a little to big but for me having 240 fps is also very interesting feature.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Cheers,

Cuong

 

[Gene Sung]

If you don't have V-Mount batteries, it more like $3k since V-Mount batts and charger will be about $1K.

I've had some decent network jobs lately - full crew, good locations and clients staring at the video feed all day. My biggest fear is corrupted media or some fluke disaster since a lot is riding on shoot day. I definately would feel a lot better with dual recording to the 7Q in Pro-Res and internal XAVC as backup.

The extra peace of mind is worth $3K right there.

 

[jshbckr]

If you don't have V-Mount batteries, it more like $3k since V-Mount batts and charger will be about $1K.

I've had some decent network jobs lately - full crew, good locations and clients staring at the video feed all day. My biggest fear is corrupted media or some fluke disaster since a lot is riding on shoot day. I definately would feel a lot better with dual recording to the 7Q in Pro-Res and internal XAVC as backup.

The extra peace of mind is worth $3K right there.

One major bummer I've found (and I'm not sure it can or will ever be changed by Sony) is that if you are sending out RAW (to the Odyssey) the FS7 will only let you record 1080p XAVC internally. I was really hoping for 4K on the 7Q + 4K XAVC internal as a compressed backup.

 

[Mitch Gross]

For the high speed work there is a fairly significant difference. Not only is it 240p v. 180p, but 2K RAW v. 1080 compressed into a long-GOP version of XAVC. There is a definite difference in quality.

I would also suggest looking at the price per Gig and price per minute costs of the Sony media, which is dramatically higher than that of the Odyssey7Q when shooting ProRes even in 4K. I don't know what you have in your current Odyssey7Q kit for SSDs, but 2TB equals 5.5 hours of record time in 4K ProRes at 24p. Do the math to see how much that record time would be using the Sony cards and you might be quite surprised at just how expensive the FS7 media really is.

If you do go with the extension back, I would suggest getting a brand of V-mount battery that offers a P-Tap on the brick itself. That way you can power the Odyssey7Q directly and keep the kit slim and light. Personally I find the accessory back and a V-mount brick helps the camera balance much better on my shoulder. Cost for the batteries and charger depend on how many hours of runtime you need. Here's a sample basic Switronix kit with two bricks (with P-Tap) and a charger for $770. That's enough to run the kit for at least 4-5 hours in continuous recording.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...nix_xp_l90s_v_mount_battery_two_position.html

 

[HD Gear Guru]

Yeah josh, dual 4k would be cool. Not sure if the processing ability in the camera will allow for that.

 

[Viddovation]

Hi Guys,

I already ordered Fs7 and would get them in early 2015.

Now I am undecided whether I should invest $2k to buy extension unit and get Raw/Prores footage (I already own 7Q with Fs700 Raw license) or I just simply invest less than $1k to buy media & battery (I already have some Vmount Battery)

Would the raw/prores quality be trade off in this case, as I heard that internal footage is more than enough for most of the case and with extension unit & 7Q would make Fs7 a little to big but for me having 240 fps is also very interesting feature.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Cheers,

Cuong

If you already own the 7Q and the necessary license, I'd say it's probably wise to get the Sony extension unit.

For people who don't already have a 7Q or the Sony gear, I'd say it really comes down to frequency of use. If you have enough clients paying for these premium features, then sure, buy that stuff, but if not - places like www.lensrentals.com (I'm not affiliated) and plenty of other rental houses can rent you these items on an as needed basis, to be charged to the client.

 

[nsoltz]

I have ordered the Sony Extension unit not just for the raw output but for the ability to use brick batteries, balance of camera, internal ProRes when not using external recorder and the potential of needing genlock and other such features.

I have a ton of A-B batteries, so will just use a V-mount to gold mount adapter, which has a Dtap to power external recorder.

Ned Soltz

 

[Gene Sung]

One major bummer I've found (and I'm not sure it can or will ever be changed by Sony) is that if you are sending out RAW (to the Odyssey) the FS7 will only let you record 1080p XAVC internally. I was really hoping for 4K on the 7Q + 4K XAVC internal as a compressed backup.

Yeah, dual 4K recording would be amazing. But at least the backup is a high quality 1080p XAVC 10 bit. On the FS700, the backup to the 7Q was 8 bit 420 S-Log which is almost useless, and only to be used in desperation mode.

 

[Viddovation]

Yeah, dual 4K recording would be amazing. But at least the backup is a high quality 1080p XAVC 10 bit. On the FS700, the backup to the 7Q was 8 bit 420 S-Log which is almost useless, and only to be used in desperation mode.

By the way, the dual recording isn't just useful for a backup - it's also valid for an offline edit. You can do the offline edit using the 1080p XAVC files, then move to the raw for the final online edit and color grade. No need to debayer and process all of the raw - just the shots you actually decide to use.

 

[Gene Sung]

If you do go with the extension back, I would suggest getting a brand of V-mount battery that offers a P-Tap on the brick itself. That way you can power the Odyssey7Q directly and keep the kit slim and light. Personally I find the accessory back and a V-mount brick helps the camera balance much better on my shoulder. Cost for the batteries and charger depend on how many hours of runtime you need. Here's a sample basic Switronix kit with two bricks (with P-Tap) and a charger for $770. That's enough to run the kit for at least 4-5 hours in continuous recording.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...nix_xp_l90s_v_mount_battery_two_position.html

Hey Mitch,

Do you think we can get by on 2 V-Mount bricks for an entire 12 hour shoot day powering the FS7, back unit and the 7Q? I was thinking of the Swit S-808s2 which has 95wh.

Edit: I mean a 12 hour set day where the camera is not continuously recording - the occasional on / off to save batteries, set ups between takes, camera off for lunch, etc...

 

[jshbckr]

Hey Mitch,

Do you think we can get by on 2 V-Mount bricks for an entire 12 hour shoot day powering the FS7, back unit and the 7Q? I was thinking of the Swit S-808s2 which has 95wh.

Edit: I mean a 12 hour set day where the camera is not continuously recording - the occasional on / off to save batteries, set ups between takes, camera off for lunch, etc...

I think you'd be fine. I've done some shoots with the FS7 (occasionally powering the 7Q off the same v-mount for part of the day) on a single (massive) 190wh v-mount battery. At the end of the day I would still have a significant amount of battery life left, probably around 30%. If you're using the 7Q for the entire shoot, I would maybe get a third battery as a backup.

 

[Ebrahim Saadawi]

Yes if you already own the 7Q and the License, get the Raw interface. 2K is a good deal to get all that extra capability. Marketing 240p, and Raw will be beneficial for your clients perception, they love that Raw word!

 

[Mitch Gross]

Hey Mitch,

Do you think we can get by on 2 V-Mount bricks for an entire 12 hour shoot day powering the FS7, back unit and the 7Q? I was thinking of the Swit S-808s2 which has 95wh.

Edit: I mean a 12 hour set day where the camera is not continuously recording - the occasional on / off to save batteries, set ups between takes, camera off for lunch, etc...

You would likely be fine, and if there was a place you could plug in the charger while shooting then there shouldn't be a problem at all. I would say to try a couple of bricks and a charger as an initial setup and see how it works for you. A third battery will only set you back around $250 should you need to add it later on.

 

[starcentral]

My opinion is that ProRes is going to be better for grading than XAVC period. On the F5/F55 we have SR codec which is very high quality, I think ProRes on the FS7 will be that equivalent.

V-mount batteries are expensive at first but they offer advantages from wH (watt hours) to taps, etc.. again, the F5/F55 has hirose DC output connectors but on the FS7 with a V-mount you can have a d-tap to power accessories like monitor, wireless FF, etc..

Talking about RAW vs ProRes - no they are not the same. Arguably very close, but not the same. I would argue that 12-bit RAW to 7Q is still going to be better than ProRes internally with the unit but it depends on what you shoot, how you shoot, how you intend to grade, etc.. so it can become a moot point.

Since you already own the 7Q you just use it as a monitor and record with ProRes internally on the Sony, or you can buy the ProRes license for the 7Q which will probably offer higher quality than Sony's internal version ie. 4444 vs 422 LQ or something to that effect. Mitch can answer if the 7Q will let you do 1.89 because I'm pretty sure the Sony internal ProRes will be regular HD aspect ratio.

Then also if you do need RAW you can use the 7Q to record it. 12-bit yes, but still very nice to work with.

 

[Gene Sung]

Talking about RAW vs ProRes - no they are not the same. Arguably very close, but not the same. I would argue that 12-bit RAW to 7Q is still going to be better than ProRes internally with the unit but it depends on what you shoot, how you shoot, how you intend to grade, etc.. so it can become a moot point.

On my 7Q, RAW is definitely better than Pro-Res in many respects. However, on the 7Q it's uncompressed so it's almost useless for anything besides camera tests or really short projects. The file sizes are massive.

Mitch has said that it's impossible for the 7Q to record compressed RAW due to hardware limitations. If the 7Q+ could, I would seriously considering upgrading.

Is that possible Mitch for the 7Q+ to record compressed RAW?

 

[nsoltz]

One of the marketing lines that Sony uses for the AXS recorder is that their MXF Raw files are compressed at about 3:1 and as a result have smaller files sizes. CD could just as fairly respond that the price of the 7Q vs cost of AXS-R5 + media (and in the case of the FS7 and FS700, the cost of the IFR interface) still makes Odyssey the lowest cost option. For the difference between Odyssey and Sony solutions, you can buy a lot of SSD cards and data storage. BMD Ursa now offers a 3:1 compressed Cinema DNG. I have tested it and I see no noticeable compression artifacting.

Ned Soltz

 

[starcentral]

Not to mention the ergos of 7Q more practical since it's a monitor as well as recorder vs bazooka R5 on F7S..

 

[Andrew Stone]

Ned your post brings to the surface several things. One, the possibility of hooking up a Sony RAW recorder to the FS7 with the IFR interface & the Sony RAW Recorder. Expensive nonetheless but there. Two, the storage versus quality considerations betweeen 3:1 compressed RAW versus CinemaDNG (uncompressed from what I understand). People should also be thinking about their edit suite and will it capable of handling these formats. If not, what are the software and gear implications.

 

[Viddovation]

One of the marketing lines that Sony uses for the AXS recorder is that their MXF Raw files are compressed at about 3:1 and as a result have smaller files sizes. CD could just as fairly respond that the price of the 7Q vs cost of AXS-R5 + media (and in the case of the FS7 and FS700, the cost of the IFR interface) still makes Odyssey the lowest cost option. For the difference between Odyssey and Sony solutions, you can buy a lot of SSD cards and data storage. BMD Ursa now offers a 3:1 compressed Cinema DNG. I have tested it and I see no noticeable compression artifacting.

Ned Soltz

Ned has very salient points. Of course, if your project is serious, you really need redundancy in your data storage, meaning at least two copies of the footage, if not three. That doubles or triples your storage requirement. So the 3:1 Sony compression becomes an advantage then, in reducing the storage footprint, as well as the time cost in making the copies.

The cost of ownership is higher certainly - but for the FS7 I really see three levels of ownership:
- Base package, just the body, for people doing fast turn-around work who don't need max bit-rates or extension features
- ProRes Extension package - for people who see internal 4k and 1080p ProRes as fitting the needs of their clients most of the time.
- Raw Owner Package - Atomos, Sony, or CD, owners who can justify raw. These people typically either do a lot of their own editing and like raw, or have a significant client base that pays for raw footage delivered. Also, some prestige owners here who don't really have the client base for this package, but like it - may be projecting future desired sales or think it helps them build a reel.

And here's where I'd like to point out that this camera design is excellent for rentals. Buy the base package, or the ProRes Extension package, and rent the raw recorder when your clients actually ask for it. And the Sony package may be much more expensive than O7Q to buy, but at rental they may be closer.

Also, a lot of us do small projects that are run'n'gun where the tether to the Sony unit would be a hassle, but at least for me those aren't the projects or clients where raw is a serious requirement. I get the raw requests for narrative and music video work where I have assistants and video village, etc. And on those shoots the tether is really not such a big deal.

And the post people just might love you for that 3:1 compression.

 

[Mitch Gross]

My opinion is that ProRes is going to be better for grading than XAVC period. On the F5/F55 we have SR codec which is very high quality, I think ProRes on the FS7 will be that equivalent.

V-mount batteries are expensive at first but they offer advantages from wH (watt hours) to taps, etc.. again, the F5/F55 has hirose DC output connectors but on the FS7 with a V-mount you can have a d-tap to power accessories like monitor, wireless FF, etc..

Talking about RAW vs ProRes - no they are not the same. Arguably very close, but not the same. I would argue that 12-bit RAW to 7Q is still going to be better than ProRes internally with the unit but it depends on what you shoot, how you shoot, how you intend to grade, etc.. so it can become a moot point.

Since you already own the 7Q you just use it as a monitor and record with ProRes internally on the Sony, or you can buy the ProRes license for the 7Q which will probably offer higher quality than Sony's internal version ie. 4444 vs 422 LQ or something to that effect. Mitch can answer if the 7Q will let you do 1.89 because I'm pretty sure the Sony internal ProRes will be regular HD aspect ratio.

Then also if you do need RAW you can use the 7Q to record it. 12-bit yes, but still very nice to work with.

Taking Dennis' excellent points one by one:

Yes, I would agree that ProRes is roughly equivalent in quality to the SR codec, and ProRes exceeds the quality of the XAVC codecs.

V-mount batteries are more expensive per watt than the smaller U-series batteries, but have distinct advantages. Longer runtimes, less taxing drain on the cells which means longer lifespans, Ability to power accessories via P-Tap, better balance on shoulder. Suffer the expense once and enjoy the pleasure of shooting using a professional power system.

RAW is of course better than ProRes if you know how to take advantage of it or are so inclined to do so. It requires a lot of memory, computer power, and most importantly your colorist skills and efforts in order to get the best results. If you are looking for a simple LUT or plug-in that will get you to a god ballpark from where you can then tweak the image, well frankly that's what ProRes does for you and it is a lot less work all around. But if you are working on a project where you can expend the time and energy required to really utilize what RAW has to offer, then you can definitely achieve superior results. But it does mean flying the plane all the way into the hangar.

To clarify Dennis' statements on the use of the Odyssey7Q recording ProRes v. the FS7 recording it internally: The Odyssey7Q records ProRes in HD, 2K, UHD, and 4K. It does so out of the box with no additional cost if the signal fed to it is a video signal. If the signal is a RAW data signal then the Record Option to interpret that RAW data signal is required. As of the December Firmware Update, the FS RAW Record Option will accept the 4K RAW signal and all the user to select recording it in HD, 2K, UHD, or 4K.

Currently the Odyssey7Q offers ProRes recording in 422(HQ). Other variants of ProRes are planned for the (near) future, and will be added at no additional cost via free firmware update. The Odyssey7Q enjoyed six free updates in 2014. To record ProRes internally on the FS7, the accessory back is required. The function is not yet enabled, but Sony says that it will be in the next month or so. The RAW signal will route into the accessory back, be turned into ProRes and then sent back into the FS7 to be recorded onto the camera's internal media. While Sony has not indicated what level(s) of ProRes will be included, it has made clear that this will be for HD use only. Not 2K, not UHD, and not 4K. If one looks at the cost per gig of the internal Sony media compared to that of the Odyssey7Q SSDs, there really is no comparison as the Sony media is more than four times the price and not available in as large a size.

As for 1.89 (aka 17x9, available in 2K & 4K) v. 1.78 (aka 16x9, available in HD & UHD), the FS7 will ONLY internally record in 1.78. It will output 1.89 via HDMI (true 4K video up to 24p, recordable by the Odyssey7Q+ but not by the original Odyssey7Q) or it will output 1.89 in RAW via the accessory back (in 2K or 4K, which the Odyssey7Q can then capture directly or transform into ProRes in 2K or 4K, or choose to chop off the sides for HD or UHD).

There is absolutely no question that the Odyssey7Q offers far greater performance out of the FS7 then the camera does alone, and does so in all areas.