FS700 + External Recorder camera data display....

C

cameraoperatorsydney

Active member
Hi Everyone,

Just got myself a Nanoflash to pair with the FS700, all good and after seeing XDCAM 4.2.2 come directly out of the FS700 i am very happy with the purchase.

There is one thing that i can't get to work though, it seems such a small issue but when i'm out shooting it is a bit problem for me.

What is your current setup with the fs700 + external recorder? At the moment i have it coming out of SDI into the nanoflash and then looped out of the nanoflash into my EVF. The delay is shocking and quite off putting and when i get the right HDMI cable i will put that into the EVF straight from the camera which should fix the problem somewhat.

What i would like to know is if anyone has found a way to see camera data info on your external recorder whilst keeping the feed to the external recorder clean? I understand this can't changed in the options? I had the idea of maybe keeping the camera display set to 'all out' setting up my shot / checking audio etc and then just before i hit record i press the 'marker' button on the side to get rid of all the data resulting in a clean feed...

I can live with hitting the marker button every time i want to check f-stop / shutter / audio etc and this would work except for one thing.... The bloody timecode doesn't clear the feed at the top right...

What is your setup? Do i have no option but to make the EVF display nothing and just turn my head to the LCD screen every time i want to check something? If that marker button would also clear the timecode from the screen all would be good i think!

Sorry if it seems like a rant and i understand the FS700 isn't exactly a high end camera, i guess i'm hoping someone has found a good way to deal with it?

Cheers

Paul
 
Hi Paul,

There isn't a way to send the data display only to an EVF, had the same issue recording to a Hyperdeck looped through to an Alphatron EVF. If you have a Alphatron though, it has a neat trick where you can turn on Timecode internally through it's menu. It displays above the image area in the EVF. This helped to let me know I was recording without having to look over your shoulder back at the oncamera LCD. As the EVF was downstream of the recorder, I was more confident it was recording an image.
Regarding the delay on the Nano, have you got the lastest firmware? I used to own one and believe the delay was decreased with an update, but that was a long way back...


cheers
 
hello,
this is a really downwer on the FS700. i do not understand sony why they will not do a firmware update. Your really need an external viewfinder with that camera and it is necessary to see the camera data display, specially for the fstop, and if you want to use a clean signal it does not work. i am thinking about so sell this camera, and buying me a canon C300. It seems they are more listening to their customers.
 
I love my FS700. Enjoy your C300. It's all good.
If they gave away free 4K recorders that edited the footage for you people would still find a reason to complain.
 
camboy said:
hello,
this is a really downwer on the FS700. i do not understand sony why they will not do a firmware update. Your really need an external viewfinder with that camera and it is necessary to see the camera data display, specially for the fstop, and if you want to use a clean signal it does not work. i am thinking about so sell this camera, and buying me a canon C300. It seems they are more listening to their customers.
Click to expand...

Sony definitely has it's problems, but saying that Canon of all people listen more to their customers? COME ON? Are you sleeping under a rock? Canon has been the most frustrating, hard to deal with, glacial pace moving and NON-LISTENING camera company of all time. Their DSLRs still suffer from low resolution, no 60fps, Moire and Aliasing after 5 years of people relentlessly complaining. In fact, they sell the exact same DSLR as they have 5 years ago with all the same problems. How is that listening? The C300 and C100 don't even shoot slow motion (Sorry 720p does not count).

That is why so many people (like myself) left them. Compared to Canon (who doesn't listen to S#!T), Sony is like a company wearing the hugest pair of hearing aids ever. Sony may not be the perfect company, but they are compared to Canon.
 
aside from a take on the timeless pc-vs-mac / ford-vs-chev / fender -vs- gibson debate....

I monitor downstream of the external recorder for obvous reasons...

After shooting film for decades i'm not fussed about reading what my stop is in the VF, i kinda know that bit of info already, along with time remaining for the recording media and color temp.. all things i would know before i rolled on a film camera... but with the film camera i could hear the film running through the camera, and know from the sound that it was running well, and that is what i am missing from any digital camera... hence looping my VF from the recorder ;-)

d
 
It could possibly be part of the upcoming hardware upgrade to enable 4K out... Because recording 4K/2K out will need an external recorder it could be the very reason the FS700 would require a hardware as well as firmware update, so as to enable 2 different output streams (4K/2K - HD-SDI, HD - HDMI). This could then allow what you're looking for.

Speculation's fun.
 
Dear CameraOperatorSydney,

Please turn on, in the nanoFlash, in the video menu, the E to E Direct menu option (put a check in the box, then press ok).

This will reduce the delay to an absolute minimum.

With the nanoFlash + FS700 I do not know how to get both a clean feed out of the camera + get a feed with viewfinder information also.

Respectfully,


Dan Keaton
Convergent Design
 
Hi Dan

With the delay, it was quite bad so about a week ago i had a good read through the nanoflash manual and found the fix which is the e to e feature. I'm so glad you put this optioon into the nanoflash. Thank you for this and thank you for your response on this post. I did my first job with the FS700 + nanoflash pairing last week and was thrilled with the result!

My fix with the camera data disply was to shoot primarily with the EVF and have the FS700's LCD facing sideways (camera was on my shoulder) so when i needed to check iso / audio etc i would just look over my shoulder for a second. Not the most comfortable way to do it but it worked.

The job was for German TV here in Sydney and after the shoot the producer said 'that i the stragest looking camera and i have never seen anyone shoot TV like that... ever" haha
 
I'm as frustrated as anyone with the lack of options when it comes to info overlays in the evf. I generally send hd sdi to my Pix 240 and hdmi to my alphatron and thought I could use the tc window in the alphatron just for recording confirmation but that feature seems to only work with the hd sdi stream. I don't really understand that because I know the code is in the hdmi but I guess the alphatron just isn't looking for it.
 
Dear Mark,

We have learned that the timecode is not actually in the HDMI video/audio stream.

It is sent via a subchannel, a completely separate stream, but over the same HDMI cable.

Thus, if the Alphatron is just equipped to receive the main HDMI video/audio stream, it will not see or be able to receive the HDMI timecode data.

Respectfully,


Dan Keaton
Convergent Design
 
Dear Friends,

We have recognized the dilemma: One wants to look at the viewfinder data, but record the clean (viewfinder data) images.

Thus, for our new Odyssey7 and Odyssey7Q monitor/recorders, we have multiple inputs.

The Odyssey7 has two HD-SDI 3G inputs plus HDMI, the Odyssey7Q has up to four HD-SDI 3G inputs plus HDMI.

(Actually the Odyssey7Q has two HD-SDI 6G inputs, two HD-SDI 3G Bi-Directional Inputs/Outputs plus two dedicated HD-SDI 6G Outputs.)
(HD-SDI 6G is not a ratified SMPTE standard yet, but our hardware supports HD-SDI 6G to prepare for the future.)


With these extra inputs we intend to support the following:

1. Accept a clean video stream (no viewfinder data) which can be shown on the monitor if desired.

2. Accept a video stream with viewfinder data, which can be shown on the monitor when desired.

Thus, with one camera and one recorder, one can quickly switch between seeing all of the camera viewfinder data superimposed on the video, or a clean video image.

We know that this will be implemented in the Odyssey7Q and it may be implemented in the lower cost Odyssey7.


Respectfully,


Dan Keaton
Convergent Design
 
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