Good news about AF100 firmware

yes to better bitrate

yes to better bitrate

Kenny_G said:
I think it is not the bitrate of the Nano that is so important, the fact that it records 4-2-2 from the SDI-output in 10 bits.
The bitrate of the AF100 should be higher to have a better picture IMO.
Barry said that it is allready from x to 35mb/s in the VBR mode with 24 as the average I suppose,
but from x-50 is what we need than. 35 average will be a good boost for the AF100 cam in technical respect and from a promotional point.
If it is technical possible to get a higher bitrate by changing the routines in the firmware - like what happened with the G1 - IMO it will sell a lot more AF100's. So Jan, what do you say, will it ever happen? Not to butter you up, but I hate the thought that Sony might get the better of this new development of affordable big sensor cams.
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my main frustration with the 101 to date is its 'not quite good enough' approach. some observations......
i think panasonic have held the bit rate down within the camera to avoid kicking sales of their other products in the teeth.
HOWEVER, that in itself is probably kicking their 101 sales.

i work in broadcast tv and they really are selling their product short by having such a low quality threshold in in-camera recording.
eg if 35 or 50 bitrates are possible they should go for it....to have this camera capable of broadcast quality (without the inconvenience of a nanoflash or other external recorder) would explode their market and the reputation of the camera. to have this beautiful camera capable of this improved quality without physical expansion would be a joy.
 
drawler said:
my main frustration with the 101 to date is its 'not quite good enough' approach. some observations......
i think panasonic have held the bit rate down within the camera to avoid kicking sales of their other products in the teeth.
HOWEVER, that in itself is probably kicking their 101 sales.

i work in broadcast tv and they really are selling their product short by having such a low quality threshold in in-camera recording.
eg if 35 or 50 bitrates are possible they should go for it....to have this camera capable of broadcast quality (without the inconvenience of a nanoflash or other external recorder) would explode their market and the reputation of the camera. to have this beautiful camera capable of this improved quality without physical expansion would be a joy.
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I hear what you are saying, but Panasonic has been pretty clear that they would only use P2, which would raise the price a lot for the camera and media. It is actually cheaper for the consumer to buy an AF100/101 and then an external recorder. That said, the internal codec looks fine, unless you have some special needs or broadcast requirements.
 
No one will ever be happy with any camera, because even if the bit rate was higher, the next complaint would be the resolving power of the sensor, and then it would be 4:2:2 instead of 4:2:0, then it would be the EVF, then it would be insert next item here. They hit a price point, they had to make concessions. $5k tops out my budget right now on a camera so having a $7k to $9k camera with all these extras doesn't make sense to me. Sure, I imagine that Panasonic will probably bring something along the lines of the F3 possibly, but to me the price point they hit opens them up to a larger market given it's in grasp for a lot of people.

And not to say your desire for the camera isn't valid, but all these concessions they made ALL subtract down to get the camera to the price it is.
 
Rick Burnett said:
No one will ever be happy with any camera, because even if the bit rate was higher, the next complaint would be the resolving power of the sensor, and then it would be 4:2:2 instead of 4:2:0, then it would be the EVF, then it would be insert next item here. They hit a price point, they had to make concessions. $5k tops out my budget right now on a camera so having a $7k to $9k camera with all these extras doesn't make sense to me. Sure, I imagine that Panasonic will probably bring something along the lines of the F3 possibly, but to me the price point they hit opens them up to a larger market given it's in grasp for a lot of people.

And not to say your desire for the camera isn't valid, but all these concessions they made ALL subtract down to get the camera to the price it is.
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More than likely, a lot of the features in the F3 will be coming to the 5-9k range cameras within 3 years or so.

Edit: I at least expect 10 bit and 4:2:2 to be fairly common. The higher end folks are already talking about 4:4:4, and of course greater than 1080p resolution.
 
blackcat said:
More than likely, a lot of the features in the F3 will be coming to the 5-9k range cameras within 3 years or so.

Edit: I at least expect 10 bit and 4:2:2 to be fairly common. The higher end folks are already talking about 4:4:4, and of course greater than 1080p resolution.
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That's my prediction as well. What I like most is that depending on your needs there is a good breadth of cameras available now across the spectrum. Good times!
 
blackcat said:
I hear what you are saying, but Panasonic has been pretty clear that they would only use P2, which would raise the price a lot for the camera and media. It is actually cheaper for the consumer to buy an AF100/101 and then an external recorder. That said, the internal codec looks fine, unless you have some special needs or broadcast requirements.
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hi black cat...not sure about your point. from what i understand from an earlier post is that there is potential to unlock its bitrate and enable higher rates (maybe i misunderstood?). it has surprised me that it has the cutoff that it has.
are you saying that the sd cards would not handle higher rates? but from what info i have gathered sd cards are still improving (it would be great if the forthcoming sd4.0 was compatible!).
an external recorder that costs over 50% of the camera price is exhorbitant for a lot of people and the more cumbersome physical support of eg a nanoflash bracket makes it a bit more unwieldy than its compact design inspires.

here's what amuses/frustrates me in particular...
bbc have accepted it as an hd camera (when used with a nanoflash to enable rates of 50) and when in focus (lol).
because of the quality of the avcam codec, they have stated that 35 would be acceptable - their figure of 50 was based on less efficient codecs.
the last time i worked for them with a pana 101 and nanoflash i was told they didnt want any higher than 50 as they couldnt ingest it in to their system (nb i am talking about bbc scotland here as it has diff tech evaluations from london, which is why most of london went panasonic years ago while scotland stayed sony).
plus, it also turns out that nanoflash doesnt seem currently capable of recording 1080p slo-mo either, another frustration.

thats the logic behind my desire to see the internal recording spec improved (if as has been imoplied) it is possible. if its possible its diff to justify spending another £2500 on a nano.
 
drawler said:
hi black cat...not sure about your point. from what i understand from an earlier post is that there is potential to unlock its bitrate and enable higher rates (maybe i misunderstood?). it has surprised me that it has the cutoff that it has.
are you saying that the sd cards would not handle higher rates? but from what info i have gathered sd cards are still improving (it would be great if the forthcoming sd4.0 was compatible!).
an external recorder that costs over 50% of the camera price is exhorbitant for a lot of people and the more cumbersome physical support of eg a nanoflash bracket makes it a bit more unwieldy than its compact design inspires.
Click to expand...

I was responding to you saying that Panasonic was selling itself short by not including a higher bit rate. The AVCCAM specification is 24 Mbit/s, and presumably it is set there by their engineers for a reason, in addition to whatever marketing decisions. Panasonic doesn't use an alternative to SD cards, like Canon does with CF cards on the XF300. Instead, their alternative is to use proprietary P2 cards, which cost a lot of money, and according to Panasonic anyways, it would increase the cost of the camera itself in the thousands of dollars. It may be true that they are selling the AF100 short by insisting on only SD cards or P2, but that is how marketing works. They have other camera lines that they worry about too.

I don't know what a hack can or can't do. If someone can create a hack with a higher bit rate, more power to them. People used to overclock their CPUs in the late 90s too, and it worked. Those folks also pushed the CPU past where engineers intended, and they risked damaging their system, unless they used creative ways to cool the tower. I thought it was great at the time, and I helped a lot of people set up innovative cooling systems on their computer for fun.

However, if no one can pull off the hack, or if someone doesn't want to risk voiding their warranty on an expensive camera--like me since I resell my gear after a few years--external recorders are much cheaper than the hope that Panasonic will put a proprietary format like P2 on the camera. Expensive P2 cards are the only reason I didn't buy the HVX200 when it came out, and I went with the Canon XHA1. At that time, my main work was documentary, and it was not cost efficient to invest in such expensive media for long recording times.
 
Rick Burnett said:
That's my prediction as well. What I like most is that depending on your needs there is a good breadth of cameras available now across the spectrum. Good times!
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It is possible to do a lot with what is out there right now. Things have gone far with digital cameras. This is also looking like the sad, but predictable, death of film as a medium over the next couple of camera cycles. I guess that is the nature of modernity.

Edit: That is also what makes fights like the AF100 vs. the FS100 vs. the whatever else kind of amusing. Things will change so quickly in just a few years. It makes sense to look at the advantages of what is out there when you are upgrading or investing in something for the first time, but whatever it is won't be the hottest thing on the blogs after too much time.
 
blackcat said:
I was responding to you saying that Panasonic was selling itself short by not including a higher bit rate. The AVCCAM specification is 24 Mbit/s, and presumably it is set there by their engineers for a reason, in addition to whatever marketing decisions. Panasonic doesn't use an alternative to SD cards, like Canon does with CF cards on the XF300. Instead, their alternative is to use proprietary P2 cards, which cost a lot of money, and according to Panasonic anyways, it would increase the cost of the camera itself in the thousands of dollars. It may be true that they are selling the AF100 short by insisting on only SD cards or P2, but that is how marketing works. They have other camera lines that they worry about too.

I don't know what a hack can or can't do. If someone can create a hack with a higher bit rate, more power to them. People used to overclock their CPUs in the late 90s too, and it worked. Those folks also pushed the CPU past where engineers intended, and they risked damaging their system, unless they used creative ways to cool the tower. I thought it was great at the time, and I helped a lot of people set up innovative cooling systems on their computer for fun.

However, if no one can pull off the hack, or if someone doesn't want to risk voiding their warranty on an expensive camera--like me since I resell my gear after a few years--external recorders are much cheaper than the hope that Panasonic will put a proprietary format like P2 on the camera. Expensive P2 cards are the only reason I didn't buy the HVX200 when it came out, and I went with the Canon XHA1. At that time, my main work was documentary, and it was not cost efficient to invest in such expensive media for long recording times.
Click to expand...

3 years ago I did say it: P2 was only to get money out of your pocket just like the Express card from Sony. Luckily for the EXx users someone found a way to use the SD-cards with an adapter. I have used my EX1 and EX3 with the SD-cards for many many hours of recording and I never ever had any form of data loss. P2 is nice, but way too high priced. After their eyes widened, Pana came with a so called cheap version of the P2 and I loved the arguments they launched to tell us that the quality was less than the original P2 and that therefore the price was dropped. Business is all about making money and lots of strategy is created to put sand in our eyes. Of course you have those snobs who like to pay a lot for a product, just to say that it is expensive. By doing so, they put them self in a higher class they think.
Look at the accessory market. It is crazy that you have to pay 300 bucks just for an adapter to connect your lens to the cam. Crazy compared to the prize of the camera.
The same goes for the stuff like matt boxes and follow focus units. They will tell you that the quality is great and that’s why you have to take the bait. And don’t forget our main item to produce the lovely pictures: The lens. Relative also prized way too high, but what can we do. If you want it for a shoot, you have to pay the loot.

To come back to this camera the AF100. I think it is no use try to convince Pana that we want a higher bit rate. They will not do it, because it will be the same as to confess that they implement only the low bit rate just to protect other products in the same line.
The G1 was hacked and they tried to stop it.
Your only hope if you want the higher bit rate, is to wait for a hacker of just sell the camera and wait for the “AF200”.

For myself, Iam trying to do what I have to do with this camera. It is better than a DSLR in many ways, so what the hack, lets use it for a few years and see what the future brings us.
 
We should probably keep this thread on target with the AF100 and not delve into a discussion on GH1 hacking, as I believe there is quite a bit of discussion elsewhere on that.
 
I wonder if a higher bitrate will make the Yellow/purple fringe in overexposed area go away, especially when doing a pan. I also noticed it on my canon T2i shots. Is it codec(avchd h.264) bound?
Never saw it on my EX3/EX1 shots.
 
please quit that 'broadcast' nonsense. it has almost no relevance these days. and yes manesqueeze, if used correctly the af100 has more than enough quality for TV/film, just as almost any of the cameras on this forum
 
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