Just got a new camera - Sony F35

Hunterqual said:
Anyone know how much $ the optional SR-R1 upgrade
to 880 or uncompressed is? That's another thing to factor in with the SR units--only 422/10 bit standard on the device I believe.
Click to expand...

Well, what you're talking about was the original marketing plan... but Sony's roadmap got totally derailed - low cost recorders like the Atomos and Sound Devices units hit the market, and they couldn't sell these SR-R1 units anywhere near like they'd planned to.

In actuality, they've never released a paid firmware/software updgrade for the SR-R1. They have, however, given us some free firmware updates. Using the free firmware updates you can get the 12bit RGB 444 recording (880Mbps i beleive) feature. Uncompressed recording is not available though.

I will say though - I've never had an issue or a complaint with regards to the compression quality. It's excellent.

Here are the codecs as listed for current firmware in a Sony bulletin:
HD SStP 444HQ10bit 23, 24, 25, 29PsF
HD SStP 444HQ10bit S25(25), S29(23), S29(29)
Select FPS (format for S&Q/SR
Motion to connect with PMW-F3)
HD SStP 444HQ12bit 23, 24, 25, 29PsF
HD SStP 3D 422Lite 23, 24, 25, 29PsF, 50, 59i
HD SStP 3D 422SQ 23, 24, 25, 29PsF, 50, 59i
HD SStP 3D 444SQ 23, 24, 25, 29PsF, 50, 59i
HD SStP 3D 444HQ10bit 23, 24, 25, 29PsF
HD SStP 422SQ/Lite 50i ×2, 59i ×2


Costs to anticipate for the Sony SR-R1:


  • Sony SR-R1 Recorder Unit
  • (2) 256GB SRMemory cards
  • Sony SR-D1 Card reader
  • Machined metal plates for docking


Honestly, it's not worth paying retail for. Not with the other options on the market now. That said, it is an excellent recorder, and if you can get it for a comparable price with an alternate recorder, it's worth considering.

It does do some things that other recorders don't, including being capable of recording up to 16 channels of audio, and you can even record two cameras to it simultaneously (using the 3D option). And if you happen to own a Sony F3, you can use it with that camera for S&Q at 1080 - up to 60p.
 
Question about the SRW1 recorder. Can you power it from a V mount battery or do you need the big floor bricks? Where do you mount the v mount battery then? Anybody here has the SRW1? Can you use it to capture the footage or do you need an extra deck?
 
SJX said:
Question about the SRW1 recorder. Can you power it from a V mount battery or do you need the big floor bricks? Where do you mount the v mount battery then? Anybody here has the SRW1? Can you use it to capture the footage or do you need an extra deck?
Click to expand...

I don't have the SRW1, but to the best of my knowledge, the SRW1 needs to be docked to *something*. Practically, that means it can be docked either to the F35 body, or to the SRPC-1 processing unit. In either case, it is supplied power through the dock. The SRPC-1 has a V-Mount built in, so it seems possible to power it that way, although I have no idea on run times, etc.

The SRW-1 can be used as a deck when docked to the SRPC-1. Due to the dock mechanism, you could leave the SRPC-1 at the edit station, fully cabled, and just bring the SRW-1 in, dock it, and start ingesting.
 
Viddovation said:
I don't have the SRW1, but to the best of my knowledge, the SRW1 needs to be docked to *something*. Practically, that means it can be docked either to the F35 body, or to the SRPC-1 processing unit. In either case, it is supplied power through the dock. The SRPC-1 has a V-Mount built in, so it seems possible to power it that way, although I have no idea on run times, etc.

The SRW-1 can be used as a deck when docked to the SRPC-1. Due to the dock mechanism, you could leave the SRPC-1 at the edit station, fully cabled, and just bring the SRW-1 in, dock it, and start ingesting.
Click to expand...

Thanks. It's always you Viddovation. You're a F35 encyclopedia you know? :laugh:

So the F35 would power the SRW1. But where do you put the v mount battery if the deck is on the back? Or you have to have the deck on top to use batteries?
 
SJX said:
Thanks. It's always you Viddovation. You're a F35 encyclopedia you know? :laugh:

So the F35 would power the SRW1. But where do you put the v mount battery if the deck is on the back? Or you have to have the deck on top to use batteries?
Click to expand...

Only the rear dock on the F35 has power input. The top dock only offers communication and power output. So, you either need to input power via the 8-pin Lemo or via the IF box input on the rear dock.

Mind you, you could theortically dock the recorder on the rear, and mount an anton bauer or v-mount plate on the top, with an 8-pin lemo output cable. But then you probably need the L handle.
 
Why not SRW1 on top, IF box on rear with battery plate. I highly doubt a single AB or V mount battery is going to power that beast for very long.

Don't you still need a 12bit 444 capture card dual link to offload footage from the SRW1? I'm sure it will playback off the deck, but without some sort of data transfer interface like firewire, how do you get the 12bit files onto a hard drive? Im sure a recorder will work, but then you are back to the 10bit limitations of recorders.
 
yachacha said:
Don't you still need a 12bit 444 capture card dual link to offload footage from the SRW1? I'm sure it will playback off the deck, but without some sort of data transfer interface like firewire, how do you get the 12bit files onto a hard drive? Im sure a recorder will work, but then you are back to the 10bit limitations of recorders.
Click to expand...

Well, as I understand it, the expectation with a tape based recorder like the SRW-1 was that you would do a real-time ingest into your edit system via SDI of each tape. And for larger projects, you would likely do an ingest to an more compressed codec for offline edit, and the final EDL would be sent to the on-line editor, who would ingest the demanded portions of the tapes to the online edit system. In this scenario, the offline editor wouldn't need an expensive ingest card - even a SD SDI card would likely suffice - I expect the SRW-1/SRPC-1 can downcovert from higher quality encoding on the fly for output.

And you'd only need a 12bit input capture card if you were recording 12 bit footage. Personally, I'd be more interested in the ramp and Select FPS features of the SRW-1, which I understand are supposed to playback at 23.98p if so desired, meaning a single link HD-SDI capture card would be sufficient for most tasks.
 
Viddovation said:
Only the rear dock on the F35 has power input. The top dock only offers communication and power output. So, you either need to input power via the 8-pin Lemo or via the IF box input on the rear dock.

Mind you, you could theortically dock the recorder on the rear, and mount an anton bauer or v-mount plate on the top, with an 8-pin lemo output cable. But then you probably need the L handle.
Click to expand...

Do you mean only the rear dock has power output? To power the deck the dock needs to output power right?

What was the standard configuration when using the deck for handheld work? I wouldn't think they would use the brick for this.
 
Viddovation said:
And you'd only need a 12bit input capture card if you were recording 12 bit footage. Personally, I'd be more interested in the ramp and Select FPS features of the SRW-1, which I understand are supposed to playback at 23.98p if so desired, meaning a single link HD-SDI capture card would be sufficient for most tasks.
Click to expand...

This is basically the advantages of the deck right? 12bit 444 and the incremental frame rates? Other recorders will only do 24,30 and 50p, correct?

For capture it looks like neither AJA or blackmagic offer anything to capture 12 bit. 444 is not the problem as decklink extreme will do. I found only bluefish444 cards that can do 12 bit, but the cheapest is $2k. So if the 7Q ever does the 12 bit 444 like they have been promissing forever, the 7Q would be a better option. Then the deck would be only for the incremental frame rates. Quite a hassle for just that but without it the F35 reverts to basically a normal HD camera in frame rates with only 24/30/50. Hmmm.

Anybody know if this 7Q upgrade is supposed to be free?
 
SJX said:
Do you mean only the rear dock has power output? To power the deck the dock needs to output power right?

What was the standard configuration when using the deck for handheld work? I wouldn't think they would use the brick for this.
Click to expand...

No. I mean exactly what I said.

The rear dock has power input, communication I/O, video output, and power output.
The top dock has communication I/O, video output, and power output. It lacks power input.

This is why if you attach the IF box to the top dock it can be used for video output, but not to supply power to the camera - the on position of the power switch receives power from the 8-pin lemo port, and the the CA position receives power from the rear dock.

Quite in fact, you'll notice the dock and IF box have two separate connectors. The top one, larger and longer, looking something like a parallel port (but not really) contains all I/O excluding power input to the camera. The bottom one, looking more like a VGA monitor connector, is solely for power input to the camera. You'll further notice that the top dock lacks the latter port, and therefore clearly cannot be used for power input, unless someone were to modify the camera.

Both the top and rear dock have power output, so the SRW-1 may be attached to either position. Some people don't bother with the CA power input of the IF box, and fashion battery belts to be worn round the waist that supply power to the 8pin lemo port. The 8-pin lemo port is designed to supply dual 12/24v power, but apparently the primary camera functions will run so long as sufficient 12 volt power is supplied. Of course, it is possible to wire a battery belt to supply the 12/24v as desired by the camera, by using multiple batteries. The 24v power is generated by running 2 12v batteries in serial, as I understand it.

As for handheld work - one could run the camera with the SRW-1 docked I suppose, but the alternative is to run the SRW-1 tethered on a cable, in which case the SRW-1 must be docked to the SRPC-1. If the handheld application is not too vigourous, the SRW1/SRPC1 might be able to sit on house power at video village. Otherwise, it can essentially be worn as a backpack by a Camera Assistant. The remote control on a cable becomes particularly handy in a situation such as this. And again, the SRPC-1 has a Vmount battery plate, and for a longer run time, one might wear a battery belt.

Hopefully this all makes sense.

At this point in time, I think the SRW1 is most useful for it's special features. I wouldn't personally use it as a primary recorder. Of course, one must remember that some of the special features require optional circuit boards, that may or may not come included on any of the units offered on ebay or by rental houses at this point in time. The circuit boards at retail cost may exceed $10,000 USD in cost.
 
So basically if you want to have the deck docked and power everything by battery, the only way is to dock it to the top and have the battery on the back over the IF box? If you dock it to the back, I guess you could have the IF box with the battery on top, but a very long power cable to the back. Or is there another way of powering the camera with the docked deck by battery?
 
SJX said:
This is basically the advantages of the deck right? 12bit 444 and the incremental frame rates? Other recorders will only do 24,30 and 50p, correct?

For capture it looks like neither AJA or blackmagic offer anything to capture 12 bit. 444 is not the problem as decklink extreme will do. I found only bluefish444 cards that can do 12 bit, but the cheapest is $2k. So if the 7Q ever does the 12 bit 444 like they have been promissing forever, the 7Q would be a better option. Then the deck would be only for the incremental frame rates. Quite a hassle for just that but without it the F35 reverts to basically a normal HD camera in frame rates with only 24/30/50. Hmmm.

Anybody know if this 7Q upgrade is supposed to be free?
Click to expand...

In my post I did explain the offline/online edit process that is typical on larger productions. In this sort of scenario, the 12bit part isn't such a hassle - since the offline editor doesn't need to be able to ingest at that bit-rate. So, if you're using 12bit RGB for a client of that sort, the question isn't whether the offline editor has 12bit ingest capability, but whether the on-line editor does. If you're doing smaller jobs, the 12bit RGB is probably overkill anyway.

The Select FPS (very similar to Sony F3 S&Q) and ramping (on-the-fly over and undercranking shifts) are features only to my knowledge supported by the SRW1, and possibly by the OB1 and Codex recorders as well. Under the current market forces, it is very unlikely that any other recorders will ever offer support for these features, as they relied on proprietary protocols, and there is not profit incentive to offer such features. The dark horse here would by the Sony SR-R1 - it essentially has the hardware required to provide these functions - functions enabled for the Sony F3 variation of Select FPS - and would only require firmware coded to correctly recognize these signals from the F35.

The only other way I can fathom of using the ramping and Select FPS features, would be to implement it on a computer capture card, where an SDK might allow one of our community to code such software. I can say though, that the Blackmagic Decklink SDK lacks required components (HANC ancillary data packet access), and in it's current form is not of assistance in this objective.

Also, I would remind you all that the Sony SR-R1 does offer 12bit RGB 444 I/O and recording. Further, it's SRMemory cards can be ingested as media. Therefore, it is one of the most practical ways to currently record and ingest 12bit RGB 444 from the Sony F35. I own one, and was able to fashion a dock connection for it, that makes it essentially a part of the camera body, much the way the SRR4 connects to the F65.

Also - the F35 offers true 24p (as opposed to 23.98p) as an option. This is most useful for true film-out applications. This is a supported record mode for the SRW-1 and SR-R1. I'm not sure if the AJA or Blackmagic products support this frame rate.
 
SJX said:
So basically if you want to have the deck docked and power everything by battery, the only way is to dock it to the top and have the battery on the back over the IF box? If you dock it to the back, I guess you could have the IF box with the battery on top, but a very long power cable to the back. Or is there another way of powering the camera with the docked deck by battery?
Click to expand...

Pretty much. If you dock the recorder to the rear, power input *must* go through the 8pin lemo port. Whether power to the 8-pin lemo port is supplied from a battery on top of camera, from a battery belt worn on the waist, a cine brick on the floor or an AC's back... the camera doesn't care. Of course, if the recorder is on the rear dock, and you wish to put a battery on the top dock with a cable, there's no requirement that you use the IF box to do so - you could use a dummy plate to save weight.
 
yachacha said:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Codex-M-CDX...700?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2ed22f34dc

Is this for alexa only or will it work with the F35?
Click to expand...

You certainly could use it with the F35 - it has HD-SDI inputs, after all. Not exactly sure which features it supports and which it doesn't, though. Of course, if it stays in the price range it's currently at ($50.00 USD), then it's quite a steal, I'd say.

But the catch is, the auction doesn't include the data magazines. Nor an external digitizing station. Without those in the package, I'd be careful, you might be in for quite a bit more to pick those up.
 
Yes, I have seen a few magazines show up cheap. There was a transfer station for $2k a while back. Yeah i would have to avoid retail, but if I could pick up a few drives on the cheap. Also I wonder what the part to connect this unit to the F35 looks like. Hard to find lots of info on this combo.
 
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Codex-256gb...gital_Camera_Memory_Cards&hash=item2c83742f0b

"This unit also has the ability to lock onto and connect with the F35s internal multi-pin connection. The connection itself is not unique but the communication Sony passes through it is. Codex can now talk to the camera and offers both power supply, which enables the recorder to be powered on and off via the F35 negating the need for extra power, and some internal commands direct to the recorder including full recording trigger from the camera, quadlink HDSDI for full 4:4:4 50p recording and recording of Sony metadata packets."

It can do up to 444 50p which I don't know that any other recorder can do besides the SRW1? I know it's going to be hard to track down all the parts but this might be the one I go for. If I could get the codex kit for around the same price as an Odyssey 7q kit, it would offer more options. I can't find if it supports speed ramping, if it did then it would be the one recorder capable of capturing everything this camera is capable of spitting out.
 
The cheap Codex listing you found seems to be missing the remote control though. Perhaps it could be controlled through the ethernet port? And it's only going to dock with the F35 if you can track down that specific kit piece, which isn't part of the two ebay listings you found.

The Codex does support Variframe recording... but I can't find any documentation proving it does so for the F35... most of the mentions are geared towards the Arri cameras.

444 50p... I think the SRR1 may do that, but with the multiplexing involved I'm not sure it's worth the hassle. I don't know that the camera can spit that out over just one dock port, or not.
 
The Codex does, I believe, support all of the F35 features including 4:4:4 12-bit and variframe, but you need the F35 specific interface and that alone is crazy money.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top