Any external recorder for Sony FS700's 240 fps?

B

BATman

Active member
I just read and watched Philip Bloom's Part 1 of his review on the FS700. He explains how the camera internally records clips for about 8 seconds at 240fps. My questions are as follows:

1) Is it possible to record those 240fps uncompressed externally?

2) Which recorders are capable of recording 240fps(from the FS700 or any other HD-SDI or HDMI source)?

Mr. Bloom recommends the 'Sound Device PIX 240' in his 'Full Frame Shootout Review', but nothing said about 240fps there. I also found the 'AJA Ki Pro', 'Atomos Ninja 2', 'Atomos Samurai' and 'AbelCine Cinedeck EX' are great recorders (the Cinedeck is way way out of my league [More expensive than the FS700!!]).

I believe they are limited to the HD-SDI and HDMI signal which I think is 60i. But again, I just do not know if these recorders mentioned above are capable of recording 240fps some how or if there is any external recorder capable of doing so on an uncompressed form.

Any idea folks?

Thanks very much in advance :thumbup:
 
The FS700 has an internal RAM buffer that can hold 8 seconds (at real time) of footage when shooting at 240 fps. When you start rolling, it starts filling up the buffer and also immediately begins playing back from the buffer (and recording to the SD card) at 60fps. So when you start recording that 8-second, 240fps clip you'll see it play back as a 32-second, 60fps clip through the monitor outputs. You should be able to hook up a recorder to the HD-SDI feed and record it, as long as it recognizes a 1080p60 signal.

That being said, I was at a preview event for the camera earlier this week and the Sony rep there said this is not an officially supported workflow; Sony only supports internal AVCHD recording above 60fps. He didn't elaborate on the reasons why, but he also didn't say it wouldn't work. Seems like we'll just have to rely on the community to test and see if there are any issues doing this.
 
Thank You

Thank You

MaxThomas said:
The FS700 has an internal RAM buffer that can hold 8 seconds (at real time) of footage when shooting at 240 fps. When you start rolling, it starts filling up the buffer and also immediately begins playing back from the buffer (and recording to the SD card) at 60fps. So when you start recording that 8-second, 240fps clip you'll see it play back as a 32-second, 60fps clip through the monitor outputs. You should be able to hook up a recorder to the HD-SDI feed and record it, as long as it recognizes a 1080p60 signal.

That being said, I was at a preview event for the camera earlier this week and the Sony rep there said this is not an officially supported workflow; Sony only supports internal AVCHD recording above 60fps. He didn't elaborate on the reasons why, but he also didn't say it wouldn't work. Seems like we'll just have to rely on the community to test and see if there are any issues doing this.
Click to expand...

Thanks very much MaxThomas for your nice and informative answer. I asked the same question to Mr. Bloom and he answers as follows:

As far as I know if converts to AVCHD in camera then writes to card, you then have to play that avchd file into the pro res recorder. I could be wrong!
Click to expand...

http://philipbloom.net/2012/05/25/240brighton/

Also, see an answer from MattDavis at a different thread here:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...-FS700&p=1986150822&viewfull=1#post1986150822

From the link he shares, there is also an interesting blurb about this from 'alisterchapman':

http://www.xdcam-user.com/2012/05/a-second-look-at-the-sony-nex-fs700/

Read under 'Super Slow-Mo'...


Let's see what happens when someone has the chance to try it first hand :thumbsup:
 
Max is right. I stumbled upon this while testing the 700 and had the Samurai still running.

While writing to the card, the same 4:2:2 8bit signal is present on the SDI/HDMI, like when you record normally.

Frank
 
Postmaster said:
Max is right. I stumbled upon this while testing the 700 and had the Samurai still running.

While writing to the card, the same 4:2:2 8bit signal is present on the SDI/HDMI, like when you record normally.

Frank
Click to expand...

Hey Frank, have you actually tried recording this signal? Bloom had mentioned in his review that the buffer is written off to the internal card at a 3x the speed of the footage (takes 30 seconds to write 90 seconds of footage). I can't imagine the signal you get out of SDI/HDMI while writing the buffer to the card is 24/25p.
 
jetswing said:
Hey Frank, have you actually tried recording this signal? Bloom had mentioned in his review that the buffer is written off to the internal card at a 3x the speed of the footage (takes 30 seconds to write 90 seconds of footage). I can't imagine the signal you get out of SDI/HDMI while writing the buffer to the card is 24/25p.
Click to expand...

Hopefully Frank has personal experience he can share, but from what I've heard it plays back at 60p from the buffer (2.5x 24fps speed), so you'd just need a recorder that recognizes a 1080p60 signal.
 
MaxThomas said:
Hopefully Frank has personal experience he can share, but from what I've heard it plays back at 60p from the buffer (2.5x 24fps speed), so you'd just need a recorder that recognizes a 1080p60 signal.
Click to expand...
Yea, I've seen 60p signal mentioned in a few discussions but I wasn't sure how accurate that info was. Does Samurai even recognize 60p signal (I know it doesn't record 60p)?
 
My understanding is that 1080p60 requires 3G HD-SDI, which limits recorder options. Right now, it may just be the Gemini, CineDeck, and Sony SR-R1 for straight 1080p60 capture. I'd bet that'll change quickly, though, with the popularity of this camera.

In the meantime, I expect AVCHD to hold up well at high framerates, since the slow, smooth movements won't stress an interframe codec too much. Still 4:2:0, but when the alternative is 4 times the price, we'll have to take what we can get.

Edit: Didn't see Barry's response until after I posted
 
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