AF-100 Another DSLR $9,000 4:2:0 is a solution?

[Rick Burnett]

Recent developments seem to show that RED are moving away from CF and have developed/are developing their own pinless SSD solution.

Where'd you get that?

1) They have already announced a 64G Compact Flash that is supposed to be available soon.

2) They developed a brand new CF Red Drive (which I actually ordered but have not received.

3) Didn't they end of life some of their drive solutions recently and haven't released anything in place yet? I saw a lot of complaints about that.

 

[Matt Gottshalk]

http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=49495

 

[Tzedekh]

Full 1080/60p overcranking is possible to the SD card. I don't see how it could work to an external device though, because HDMI/HD-SDI don't support 1080/60p, so I don't know what the monitoring situation would be like.

Really? I was under the impression that at 24 bits/pixel, HDMI has supported 1080p60 since version 1.0.

 

[Vitaliy Kiselev]

Depends on what you mean... a megabit of h.264 from the DSLRs isn't the same as a megabit of AVCHD from an AF100; 24 megabits of AVCCAM is worth a lot more than 48 megabits of DSLR footage.

Barry, it is not always the same.
Most improvements lie in block matching and B frames.
If your footage do not qualify under it (like high detailed static with extra small P frames) or very dynamic scene with bad motion prediction, your AVCCAM is down to same image block compression as in DSLR codecs. And DSLR will win.

All this AVCCAM stuff about superior codec do not hold very well in AF100 target market. As much simpler codec with very high bitrate can be made without any problems, aspecially having two SDXC card controllers.

Ah, I see what you mean. No, it's not necessarily impossible, but it isn't done and it isn't going to be done. AVC-Intra is part of Panasonic's premium line, and part and parcel of that is that it gets stored on P2 cards, which are the most ruggedized, high-performance, bulletproof recording media devised. They're not just memory cards, they're microcomputers with a lot of memory attached, and they're designed to guarantee fault-free performance.

P2 is just LSI with smart RAID controller other simple flash chips.
Modern SSDs have now much better controllers that do the same.
P2 days are over.
And SSD mounted in rugged tray will be much cheaper and much better.

 

[Vitaliy Kiselev]

Really? I was under the impression that at 24 bits/pixel, HDMI has supported 1080p60 since version 1.0.

HDMI support 1080p60 even with DeepColor.
As I understand, latest HD-SDI supports 60fos also.

 

[Rick Burnett]

Yes, but that doesn't mean that they are moving away from CF, it means they have another option available. Many people have said that they like using CF cards, as I am sure that SSD is going to be A LOT more.

 

[Steve Kahn]

Ah, I see what you mean. No, it's not necessarily impossible, but it isn't done and it isn't going to be done. AVC-Intra is part of Panasonic's premium line, and part and parcel of that is that it gets stored on P2 cards.

...

I don't think it's unreasonable for them to record it to SDXC cards though, and I keep pushing for that, but so far not getting any traction

Well, that just goes to the point I was trying to make earlier - and which ties to pallllaaaaa's thread. Panasonic (as well as the other big two) withhold technology at their whim to create their product line hierarchy. In the case with this codec it's not even brand new technology. And, to be honest it would be unfair to release an AF100a in the following year with AVC-intra to all who bought the AF100. That is the point of this thread.

While I understand this makes business sense what doesn't make sense is to not give the end user the ability to pay more to get a firm ware upgrade so they can use AVC-intra 4:2:2 on SDXC. I would much rather pay Panasonic $500 for this firmware upgrade than have to pay 2-3k for an external box I need to power and somehow mount. The whole idea was to get away from the jury rig but now I'm doing just that.

Panasonic should at leaset provide the end user with that upgrade option.

 

[CMcMahon]

engineers know exactly what happened in 100 years later, and they still driving us until we left them.

 

[Homunculus]

damnit. dont post screengrabs like that. i got excited thinking it's a grab from first AF100 footage

 

[dcloud]

Well, that just goes to the point I was trying to make earlier - and which ties to pallllaaaaa's thread. Panasonic (as well as the other big two) withhold technology at their whim to create their product line hierarchy. In the case with this codec it's not even brand new technology. And, to be honest it would be unfair to release an AF100a in the following year with AVC-intra to all who bought the AF100. That is the point of this thread.

While I understand this makes business sense what doesn't make sense is to not give the end user the ability to pay more to get a firm ware upgrade so they can use AVC-intra 4:2:2 on SDXC. I would much rather pay Panasonic $500 for this firmware upgrade than have to pay 2-3k for an external box I need to power and somehow mount. The whole idea was to get away from the jury rig but now I'm doing just that.

Panasonic should at leaset provide the end user with that upgrade option.

Maybe... but for me, they didnt choose those mainly because of reliability. P2 os 100%reliable and they cant risk their products to have flaws.

And i disagree with vitaliy's opinion.

 

[Steve Kahn]

Maybe... but for me, they didnt choose those mainly because of reliability. P2 os 100%reliable and they cant risk their products to have flaws.

And i disagree with vitaliy's opinion.

That's not Barry's opinion. He seems to feel tht SDXC are fine...

I don't think it's unreasonable for them to record it to SDXC cards though, and I keep pushing for that, but so far not getting any traction.

While $4995 is a great price Panasonic should realize that real film makers will be using this camera for real films. A proper responsive company would support their goals.

The AF100 is at the top of Panasonic's narrative camera hierarchy - this is the camera film makers will want to use, none of others in the Panasonic lineup (save the GH1/2) - so if you need that justification to corporate brass for AVC-intra 4:2:2 - there it is.

It would be a shame for Panasonic not to offer an AVC-intra firmware upgrade. I'd pay for that opportunity. I'm sure many would as well.

Come on Panasonic! Listen to your customers!

 

[agcohn]

The AF100 is at the top of Panasonic's narrative camera hierarchy - this is the camera film makers will want to use, none of others in the Panasonic lineup (save the GH1/2) - so if you need that justification to corporate brass for AVC-intra 4:2:2 - there it is.

It would be a shame for Panasonic not to offer an AVC-intra firmware upgrade. I'd pay for that opportunity. I'm sure many would as well.

Come on Panasonic! Listen to your customers!

It takes a $3,245 card to upgrade the AJ-HPX2000 to AVC-Intra.

I don't think it is a simple firmware upgrade.

 

[dcloud]

That's not Barry's opinion. He seems to feel tht SDXC are fine...



While $4995 is a great price Panasonic should realize that real film makers will be using this camera for real films. A proper responsive company would support their goals.

The AF100 is at the top of Panasonic's narrative camera hierarchy - this is the camera film makers will want to use, none of others in the Panasonic lineup (save the GH1/2) - so if you need that justification to corporate brass for AVC-intra 4:2:2 - there it is.

It would be a shame for Panasonic not to offer an AVC-intra firmware upgrade. I'd pay for that opportunity. I'm sure many would as well.

Come on Panasonic! Listen to your customers!

im sure there are more technical reasons and im very sure barry wouldnt know if sdxc is viable.
its probably doable no one is denying that but thats 100mbps streaming. mighty risky if you get a card error in the middle of a shoot.

 

[xmephestox]

Yes, but that doesn't mean that they are moving away from CF, it means they have another option available. Many people have said that they like using CF cards, as I am sure that SSD is going to be A LOT more.

you should reread their SSD thread, CF is getting dropped for good. no 64 gb, and 16 gb is probably gonna be EOL, along with all their drives. Spinning drives have been unreliable, and CF card has hit a wall in speed and efficiency. SSD is gonna be the 1 and only solution for upcoming generations of camera, and will be replacing media on the r1 too.

on that note, with avc intra on CF cards, nobody has any clue other than panasonic if avc intra is possible to record without their hardware card. That card alone is worth several thousand dollars alone, even if they re designed to work with CF. Again, this would push the camera to the 8-10 thousand dollar range, which is a deal breaker for a lot of people. You don't even know of that board will really fit in this small form factor. It takes at least a hpx 370 to hold it as for as everybody else knows.

I'm mostly dissappointed that there's no 10 bit hd sdi, everything else though is seriously the ultimate bang for the buck. Filmmakers have been shooting on everything they've been able to get their hands on since... well film. If I invented a watch that could do 1080p video, you'd see a feature film shot on that. As a post guy, I'd much prefer the 10 bit to give clients, and for my own satisfaction of having better material. But this won't stop content, this won't stop filmmaking. An episode of House (and more to come) was shot on a DSLR. with a fraction of the features of this camera, and that was 8 bit, long gop, commercial grade h.264 that can't hold a decent gradient of black for the life it. Content is king here, and will always be. Shoot something that people love, and that's where it all counts in the end.

 

[Barry_Green]

That's not Barry's opinion. He seems to feel tht SDXC are fine...

No, what I said was -- if they were going to allow it to record to anything other than P2, that SDXC is probably the only one they'd consider. And I say that because they've adopted SDHC/SDXC for their professional line of camcorders, so they must think it's good enough for at least AVCCAM uses.

I would love if they'd put AVC-Intra on SDXC. That'd be fantastic. But I don't expect them to. It's not an a-la-carte menu where you freely intermix sensors, codecs, and recording formats. They're made and marketed as complete systems, and the system integration so far has been that AVC-Intra is recorded to P2.

While $4995 is a great price Panasonic should realize that real film makers will be using this camera for real films. A proper responsive company would support their goals.

And who says they won't? Sheesh, the product hasn't even been released yet. Is it that they should release every possible permutation, in every possible territory, in every possible configuration, simultaneously? Sure, people might love that, but it's simply not realistic.

The AF100 is the first large-sensor videocamera from anybody. Give 'em some time to at least get this one done. We've badgered the hell out of them for a P2/AVC-Intra version. They've heard that message loud and clear. But they're currently focusing on finishing what they've started. There may very well be other models coming later, we don't know, but let's at least let them get this one on the market.

The AF100 is at the top of Panasonic's narrative camera hierarchy

No, the HPX3700 is at the top of their narrative camera hierarchy. The AF100 is at the top of their AVCCAM hierarchy.

Come on Panasonic! Listen to your customers!

They have been. Now their customers have to listen to them -- they're doing what they can, with the resources they have, as quick as they possibly can. They conceived, executed, and will deliver the AF100 in about half the time that Red's been faffing about with the Scarlet. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they had a second P2 version done and on the market by the time Scarlet gets around to launching their S35 version.

And I have no doubt whatsoever that there will be many people who, no matter what the price or the features are on that new camera, will still complain about something else that's missing. That's the nature of how things work.

 

[Rick Burnett]

you should reread their SSD thread, CF is getting dropped for good. no 64 gb, and 16 gb is probably gonna be EOL, along with all their drives. Spinning drives have been unreliable, and CF card has hit a wall in speed and efficiency. SSD is gonna be the 1 and only solution for upcoming generations of camera, and will be replacing media on the r1 too.

I had missed the part of them dropping the 64GB even before it was released. I'm starting the think obsolescence obsolete means "we're not supporting that old technology anymore, time to pay $xK for this new technology". Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the whole modular camera design, but now I shelled out for the Red Station CF reader in April with the hopes of using CF on my S35, and now I am wondering if that is going to be possible if Red EOLs their faster CF cards? They are making my purchase from them, that I have not received, obsolete before I even receive it.

Nice.

Also, pertaining to the change in codec, just because something could be construed as a software change doesn't mean the hardware is fast enough to handle it. The AF100 might not have a fast enough or bit depth deep enough digital side to handle the extra processing and capacity.

 

[xmephestox]

I had missed the part of them dropping the 64GB even before it was released. I'm starting the think obsolescence obsolete means "we're not supporting that old technology anymore, time to pay $xK for this new technology". Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the whole modular camera design, but now I shelled out for the Red Station CF reader in April with the hopes of using CF on my S35, and now I am wondering if that is going to be possible if Red EOLs their faster CF cards? They are making my purchase from them, that I have not received, obsolete before I even receive it.

Nice.

Also, pertaining to the change in codec, just because something could be construed as a software change doesn't mean the hardware is fast enough to handle it. The AF100 might not have a fast enough or bit depth deep enough digital side to handle the extra processing and capacity.

good point, they are having a hard enough time time doing a 1:1 pixel magnification right now...

If anything, having a ESATA CF reader is never "bad" plenty of other CF mediums out there, but since the card reader still hasn't passed FCC regulations yet and isn't shipping it's never too late to cancel. I'm still getting one anyway just cause i feel like fw 800 is becoming a dinosaur of a port, and will take a faster reader any day.

 

[Rick Burnett]

good point, they are having a hard enough time time doing a 1:1 pixel magnification right now...

If anything, having a ESATA CF reader is never "bad" plenty of other CF mediums out there, but since the card reader still hasn't passed FCC regulations yet and isn't shipping it's never too late to cancel. I'm still getting one anyway just cause i feel like fw 800 is becoming a dinosaur of a port, and will take a faster reader any day.

Well I am probably going to rent an Ki Pro Mini to test how different 4:2:0 and 4:2:2 feels to me since I do actually composite a lot of CG and want to see the difference in the pixel peeping If I do end up getting a Ki Pro Mini it looks like it writes to CF and of course I still use my 7D at the moment so it will get use.

 

[Steve Kahn]

No, the HPX3700 is at the top of their narrative camera hierarchy. The AF100 is at the top of their AVCCAM hierarchy.

Panasonic might like to think so.

And perhaps for TV. But for film, this never lit the world on fire like the Red has. As part of the film making community the vast majority turn to Red and would never consider varicam (especially young film makers) - again illustrating my point that Panasonic has not been great at listening to our community.

Finally... why defend Panasonic? They are not making a product to be nice. They are making it to make a buck. Very soon I will be spending 5k on this camera. Joyfully! But, that being said why can't I ask "Why?"

"Why isn't this feature available?"

"Why can't it be possible as a firmware upgrade?"

As a customer these are very valid questions.

It's not an a-la-carte menu where you freely intermix sensors, codecs, and recording formats. .

Maybe this should be if it is possible. Why do we need to hack our cameras to get rid of mud and make a GH13? It is ridiculous that a user can optimize it better than Panasonic could or would. It is ridiculous that they would then go to lock out future GH1s from being hacked when the hack IMPROVES performance!

But Barry both of us are asking for the same codec. It is not an a la care selection. It is one.

 

[Steve Kahn]

Content is king here, and will always be. Shoot something that people love, and that's where it all counts in the end.

Agreed, but every piece in the puzzle matters in film.

As this is a camera board those are the kinds of questions I address here. Doing this I do not mean to minimize any other aspect of the process.