F55: F5/F55 firmware V7.01 - great changes

starcentral

starcentral

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Official: http://community.sony.com/t5/F5-F55/NEW-VERSION-7-01-FIRMWARE/m-p/550117#U550117

Quick Summary:

- They've finally extended the IRE range of the zebra patterns on the camera's from 50% IRE all the way down to 0% IRE now. This is really great.

- Simultaneous recording to the same SxS Pro+ card of MPEG2 50Mbps 4:2:2 and 10 bit 4:2:2 XAVC in either 3840x2160 or 4096x2160.

- On F55 only, you can bake in REC2020 color space on 4K XAVC in custom mode.

- Improved image quality when User Gamma is used: When you apply the User Gamma created for the HDC series to F55 and F5, picture quality has been improved by adjusting the pedestal level.

- Bug fix with R5 that sometimes didn't stop recording when recording stopped,
 
Any experience with 7.01 yet Dennis?

I have an F5 here to update tomorrow and run through its paces.

Ned
 
I'm in the middle of doing pickups for a previous job so will probably wait until completed before taking the update. Just incase.

I'm eager to play around with REC2020 a bit, overall it's pretty amazing a now 3 year old camera is still getting substantial updates.
 
I've done some workflow testing with REC2020 on my F5. That's made possible by shooting in CINEEI/Slog3, applying a 3D Slog3->Rec2020 LUT (generated in LUTCalc), and looking at the results. One of the big problems with any attempt to analyse REC2020 footage is that there aren't any monitors that display REC2020. It is possible to emulate REC2020 on a REC709 monitor. I've done that with my FSI monitor, which has an expanded color space, but, it still isn't Rec2020, it just has an emulator LUT built in. I'm not sure how these emulators work, I assume they remap the out of range chroma info to fit into the available color space of the monitor. True Rec2020 displays would simply show increased saturation.

Having said this, my results show that any attempt to display Rec2020 material on a Rec709 display monitor simply shows what appears to be a desaturated image(because the color information is clipped at the limit of Rec709, or whatever extended color space the monitor is capable of)). At any rate, it's impossible to accurately view Rec2020 images on any available monitors.
 
REc2020 is not enabled for the F5. This is strictly for F55. The reason is that the F55 sensor has the wider color space so Sony felt that this is the camera suitable for Rec2020 work rather than the F5.

Ned
 
One thing I just noticed is to switch between Custom and CineEI modes you still need to go into the menu through the VF or dirty external monitor.

Poked around in both standard side display as well as Quick Menu and found no option. Confirmed with Sony that this shooting mode switch needs to be done through camera menu.

Ned
 
Ned...
I'm afraid you are mistaken, sir!
Despite the fact that the latest v7.01 firmware has included an ITU BT.2020 (hard wired) profile in the F55 Custom mode, both the F55 and F5 have long been able to produce REC2020 footage, in the CineEI mode. If a camera can record Sgamut3, it can output Rec2020, because the Sgamut3 color space is larger than the Rec 2020 color space. See attached....

It is true that the F55 has a capability of recording a larger color gamut than the F5, however, BOTH cameras exceed the Rec2020 color space. This has been confirmed by Alister Chapman ( http://www.xdcam-user.com/2016/01/pmw-f55-and-pmw-f5-firmware-v7-01-released/ )
. I would suggest, that if you have some kind of need for Rec2020, you avoid using the hard wired profile provided (as that bakes the profile into your recorded file); and, generate it via the CineEI mode, which is possible with either the F55 or the F5. The only prerequisite is that you select Sgamut3 (not sgamut3/slog3.cine) To suggest that the F5 cannot record Sgamut3 is to suggest Sony has been deceptive and fraudulent in calling it Sgamut3 in the F5.Now, suggesting that the F55 provides more chroma headroom for Rec2020 than the F5, is reasonable. But to flatly declare that the F5 cannot do Rec2020 is just wrong.
colorgamuts2.jpg
 
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Per Sony, the Rec 2020 is for F55 and I am basically repeating what I was told. I would hope that it would be incorrect and that F5 would be able to take advantage
 
You are correct in that the Rec2020 profile provided for the F55 in CUSTOM mode is only for the F55, not the F5. However, both cams can still record Sgamut3 in CineEI mode.
 
Took 7 minutes to update to 7.01, but it finished without any problems.

I really like the lowered zebra stripes, as for REC2020, I enabled it in menu, then disabled it and chuckled.
 
cuervo said:
You are correct in that the Rec2020 profile provided for the F55 in CUSTOM mode is only for the F55, not the F5. However, both cams can still record Sgamut3 in CineEI mode.
Click to expand...

Just because the SGamut3 spec can be recorded to with an F5, doesn't mean it's filling it up with useful chroma info.

The ole putting 7lbs in a 10lb bag analogy again.

I'm not weighing in on whether the F5 can usefully capture chroma out to the limits of the 2020 spec, but understand the difference between recording a signal that can be mapped into a spec (you can take any camera and map its output to a Rec2020 spec), and a camera that captures info close to the limits of the spec.

Just because a camera records a 4K codec doesn't mean it's resolving 4K, etc etc etc
 
Nate Weaver said:
Just because the SGamut3 spec can be recorded to with an F5, doesn't mean it's filling it up with useful chroma info.

The ole putting 7lbs in a 10lb bag analogy again.

I'm not weighing in on whether the F5 can usefully capture chroma out to the limits of the 2020 spec, but understand the difference between recording a signal that can be mapped into a spec (you can take any camera and map its output to a Rec2020 spec), and a camera that captures info close to the limits of the spec.

Just because a camera records a 4K codec doesn't mean it's resolving 4K, etc etc etc
Click to expand...

Doesn't mean it won't, either. It's all conjecture. What does it really matter? There's no way to display it, anyway. So, who really cares?
To quote Alister Chapman, who probably has the most definitive opinion of all the pundits, "The F55 camera also gains the ability to record Rec-2020 color in custom mode for compatibility with future TV standards. This gives baked in rec-2020 color in the same was as you have rec-709 color when you shoot with the camera set to rec-709. In Cine EI both the F5 and F55 can be set to S-Gamut or S-Gamut3 to record color ranges compatible with rec-2020 ".
 
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