F35 14-bit 2.8k Linear Raw data stream

Hunter Hampton said:
Something like...

"Hi Peter-

Im a friend of Ed David who passed over your email. Im writing to you because a bunch of cinematographers over at dvxuser have fallen in love with the ccd from the "old" F35. Many of us have puchased used Sony F35's from Otto Nemez and other larger rental houses and repurposed them with various solid state recorders. There was mention of some firmware updates from a sony press conference to enable 2K recording as well as other features. I was just wondering if there is anyway to help us out or if you have some information on who to contact for this.


The f35 had some serious mojo that just isn't in the more modern offerings, were hoping to bring this baby back to life and get it the attention it deserves : )


Many Thanks,


-Hunter"
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I don't know but if I wanted to get something from company like Sony I would not give them impression that this may jeopardize F5 and F55 sales. So I would not say F35 is better than modern offerings. I would take guilt trip angle and make them feel guilty for abandoning a $200,000 camera and it's buyers. Would also not mention buying used second hand or dvxuser. Sony has not pity and empty. It's numbers or maybe guilt. Numbers we can't compete and they can't make enough money from us. My opinion.
 
SJX said:
I don't know but if I wanted to get something from company like Sony I would not give them impression that this may jeopardize F5 and F55 sales. So I would not say F35 is better than modern offerings. I would take guilt trip angle and make them feel guilty for abandoning a $200,000 camera and it's buyers. Would also not mention buying used second hand or dvxuser. Sony has not pity and empty. It's numbers or maybe guilt. Numbers we can't compete and they can't make enough money from us. My opinion.
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There is some logic here.

Part of why I've always focused on asking them to upgrade the firware of the SRR1 for Select FPS and ramping - the hardware is capable and already exists, and if they write the firmware they can sell more units of their own recorders, card readers, and SRMemory cards.
 
Unless you are taking hostage members, you are not going to make a senior member of one of the world's largest electronics giants feel sorry because you bought a last-gen product second hand.

The F35 started life more finished than the RED ONE ended it.
 
JMtheDP said:
Unless you are taking hostage members, you are not going to make a senior member of one of the world's largest electronics giants feel sorry because you bought a last-gen product second hand.

The F35 started life more finished than the RED ONE ended it.
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You think telling them how much better their old camera is than current ones and ask to make it even better is better idea? They already made money on F35 they now want to sell F5 and F55.

Complimenting their old camera wont make sony feel cozy and giving to us.

I also said not to say second hand.
 
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Hey, I'm in favour of seeing if we can get these updates - I just want people to be realistic. This is a done product, it's finished, its over. Rental houses hardly stock the F35 anymore.

I would be extremely surprised (in a very good way) if Sony feel the need to suddenly release an update for this lovely old beastie. I think the 12-bit option and CINE-EI is quite nice.
 
He got back to me - maybe to you guys too. I sent the email before I saw all your thoughts so i think I mentioned that I got it used - and I was very vague about the firmware, but just basically being like don't abandon the camera, please release any features that may have not been released to us as this camera is inspiring to us.

His response -

"Hi John,

Thanks for the email, great you love the camera. I am not aware of any F35 updates. Let me dig around and get back to you

Regards

Peter"

So who knows!
 
Sent the following:

Mr. Crithary,

I believe you've received a recent slew of emails from fervent Sony F35 owers who've caught wind of possible capabilities not unlocked by the most recent firmware. I'd like to add my voice to the crowd, but with a specific nod towards making the F35 more fully functioning with the Sony SR-R1 recorder.

As I expect you're aware, Sony had at one point been developing an SR-R3 recorder, which would have been to the F35 how the SR-R4 is for the F65 - an integrated docking VTR using SRMemory cards. Ultimately, Sony never released the SR-R3, and the closest option left is to use the SR-R1.

Of all the shortcomings of using the SR-R1 with the F35, the most frustrating is that it doesn't support the ramping and Select FPS output of the camera (up to 50p) - and yet, clearly the hardware is capable as the exact same features are supported on the Sony PMW-F3 (up to 60p!).

I realize that the Sony F35 isn't part of Sony's roadmap to the future, and it's difficult to dedicate resources to projects unlikely to generate additional revenue. While I'd love to see any number of features developed in the F35 ecosystem, I believe that firmware upgrading the SR-R1 to support all recording modes of the F35 (including ramping & Select FPS) will generate the most new sales in terms of SRR1 recorders, SRMemory cards, and SRD1 card reader units. The F35 has incredible output capabilities that exceed the input specifications of most recorders, and I'd love to see Sony's SRMemory recorder as the perfect companion to handle them all.

Thank you for your time.

James Houk
 
Viddovation said:
Sent the following:

Mr. Crithary,

I believe you've received a recent slew of emails from fervent Sony F35 owers who've caught wind of possible capabilities not unlocked by the most recent firmware. I'd like to add my voice to the crowd, but with a specific nod towards making the F35 more fully functioning with the Sony SR-R1 recorder.

As I expect you're aware, Sony had at one point been developing an SR-R3 recorder, which would have been to the F35 how the SR-R4 is for the F65 - an integrated docking VTR using SRMemory cards. Ultimately, Sony never released the SR-R3, and the closest option left is to use the SR-R1.

Of all the shortcomings of using the SR-R1 with the F35, the most frustrating is that it doesn't support the ramping and Select FPS output of the camera (up to 50p) - and yet, clearly the hardware is capable as the exact same features are supported on the Sony PMW-F3 (up to 60p!).

I realize that the Sony F35 isn't part of Sony's roadmap to the future, and it's difficult to dedicate resources to projects unlikely to generate additional revenue. While I'd love to see any number of features developed in the F35 ecosystem, I believe that firmware upgrading the SR-R1 to support all recording modes of the F35 (including ramping & Select FPS) will generate the most new sales in terms of SRR1 recorders, SRMemory cards, and SRD1 card reader units. The F35 has incredible output capabilities that exceed the input specifications of most recorders, and I'd love to see Sony's SRMemory recorder as the perfect companion to handle them all.

Thank you for your time.

James Houk
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This is a great email. I also think is more realistic than give 2K recording because they can make money.
But most basic feature is trigger recording. It needs this.
But F3 has ramping?
 
No, the F3 doesn't have ramping. Perhaps that's a slight inaccuracy in my wording. But if you look at the basic hardware requirements on the recorder side, if they already can choose to ignore/drop frames for Select FPS, it should also be possible to drop frames for ramping.

Here's the funny thing about trigger recording - it does have it - but only if there's a VTR connected, and then it will send a trigger through the monitor port for secondary recording. But I agree, a patch for trigger recording without VTR would be excellent.
 
The thing to remember if tapping into the camera's sensor linear data is you might gain access to higher bit-rate linear sensor data but lose the color science that is programmed into the camera beyond the camera's linear sensor data - which in essence is what makes the F35 the F35 and probably what made it a $200K + camera at some point.

You'd have RAW data from the F35 sure but you'd need to re-invent the wheel in post to make it look any good. Not sure that would be worth it without someone who could really be up to such a task.
 
well this isn't 2.8K but I saw a new product that has me thinking. One of the problems with the F35 is that the 12 bit HD format can easily be messed up and isn't widely supported. On the other hand, if we are shooting to go to 4k on the F35, we want to squeeze every bit of information out of the camera before the up conversion.

F35 4k workflow could look like:

Shoot 12 bit 444 onto 12 bit capable recorder. Have enough drives to shoot all day or another recorder to playback footage.
(Can the SRR1 playback 12bit 444 out of the dual SDI ports?)

Hookup recorder capable of 12 bit playback to one of these new blackmagic up converters: http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/teranexexpress - seems to be limited to 10bit on the specs, maybe aja will go for 12 bit.

On the backside hookup your 4k capable recorder, could be a 7Q to get 4k Prores files. I imagine the point of trying to up convert to 4k is to get the camera to match files format with a 4k workflow.

I am not under the impression that this will somehow add quality. But it might be one of the benefits of the 12 bit color or at least 10 bit 444 of this camera that we are starting with the very best HD image possible to up convert to 4k.

Gotta wait until Christmas so I can get a UHD TV at Walmart for 399.
 
yachacha said:
well this isn't 2.8K but I saw a new product that has me thinking. One of the problems with the F35 is that the 12 bit HD format can easily be messed up and isn't widely supported. On the other hand, if we are shooting to go to 4k on the F35, we want to squeeze every bit of information out of the camera before the up conversion.

F35 4k workflow could look like:

Shoot 12 bit 444 onto 12 bit capable recorder. Have enough drives to shoot all day or another recorder to playback footage.
(Can the SRR1 playback 12bit 444 out of the dual SDI ports?)

Hookup recorder capable of 12 bit playback to one of these new blackmagic up converters: http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/teranexexpress - seems to be limited to 10bit on the specs, maybe aja will go for 12 bit.

On the backside hookup your 4k capable recorder, could be a 7Q to get 4k Prores files. I imagine the point of trying to up convert to 4k is to get the camera to match files format with a 4k workflow.

I am not under the impression that this will somehow add quality. But it might be one of the benefits of the 12 bit color or at least 10 bit 444 of this camera that we are starting with the very best HD image possible to up convert to 4k.

Gotta wait until Christmas so I can get a UHD TV at Walmart for 399.
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While I'd be curious to see the output of such an upconvert, I don't think your workflow makes sense, for a couple different reasons.

Even if you're going to acquire on the F35 in 12bit RGB 444 and upconvert to 4k for distribution, there's no need to do the upconvert to all the raw footage. Instead, simply record and edit in 1080p, and then apply the upconvert to the finalized EDL or XML - that way you're only upconverting the footage that is actually getting used, and you're not complicating your on set workflow, or adding to your storage requirements.

Second, because of the F35's fairly unique RGB stripe pattern, a customized upconvert process might yield even better results than a generic one. If you record RGB 444, you're actually recording values mapped to a specific spot on the sensor. Instead of each RGB pixel representing one spot in the image, it can be interpreted as representing Left, Middle, Right. This means you have 3x horizontal resolution when considering each color value as a separate spot on the sensor. To keep par in vertical resolution, it would make sense to triple the rows, adding two new rows between each original row. If you then carefully interpolate the color values into each of these new positions, while also performing edge detection (abrupt shifts in color/brightness) you might get an interesting result.
 
yachacha said:
well this isn't 2.8K but I saw a new product that has me thinking. One of the problems with the F35 is that the 12 bit HD format can easily be messed up and isn't widely supported.
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What you mean easily messed up?

Viddo says SR-R1 records it fine.


yachacha said:
on the other hand, if we are shooting to go to 4k on the F35, we want to squeeze every bit of information out of the camera before the up conversion.

F35 4k workflow could look like:

Shoot 12 bit 444 onto 12 bit capable recorder. Have enough drives to shoot all day or another recorder to playback footage.
(Can the SRR1 playback 12bit 444 out of the dual SDI ports?)

Hookup recorder capable of 12 bit playback to one of these new blackmagic up converters: http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/teranexexpress - seems to be limited to 10bit on the specs, maybe aja will go for 12 bit.

On the backside hookup your 4k capable recorder, could be a 7Q to get 4k Prores files. I imagine the point of trying to up convert to 4k is to get the camera to match files format with a 4k workflow.

I am not under the impression that this will somehow add quality. But it might be one of the benefits of the 12 bit color or at least 10 bit 444 of this camera that we are starting with the very best HD image possible to up convert to 4k.

Gotta wait until Christmas so I can get a UHD TV at Walmart for 399.
Click to expand...

What is advantage of this over just outputting 4k from Resolve making the 4k bump inside Resolve? I don't see.
 
The largest hurdle to 12bit RGB 444 is recording it in the first place - most recorders don't support it. But once you have a recorder that does support it, you're in the clear - the files open on a computer just like any other. So you might as well base your workflow around the acquired masters in 1080p, then export the completed project to the desired final output.

Under some circumstances a hardware upconvert may prove superior to a software based one, but you can still do it in the final online edit instead of on set or during the rough edit.
 
I agree with you Viddo.

But you know what yachacha mean with 12 bit HD format can easily be messed up?
 
SJX said:
I agree with you Viddo.

But you know what yachacha mean with 12 bit HD format can easily be messed up?
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Honestly not sure. Perhaps he's suggesting it's not supported by many NLE's and other post software.

But that's not really true. Granted, many non-linear editors work in 8 or 10bit space for their own effects, but you should be going to something like Resolve for final color anyway.

Of course, you can store 12bit RGB 444 in more than one codec, but I'll relate based on the SRMaster codec:
-FCP7 and FCPX support with free plugin
-Avid support with free plugin
-Sony Vegas support native
-DaVinci Resolve support native

I don't have an exhaustive list for other programs, but you'll likely find that high end software for major motion pictures supports SRMaster, and low end software for consumers and prosumers lacks a great deal of support. It wasn't meant as a "Videographer" codec, but as a broadcast and cinema codec for high end work.

Use professional software, and you'll likely be just fine. As always, one should talk with the Editor and Post Production Supervisor prior to prinicipal photography if possible, and provide test footage for them to verify compliance with the post equipment.
 
Viddo have you found anything about this with your testing with F35?

14-bit 2.8k would be nice.
 
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