F3: New Convergent Design "Odyssey"

Don't think so. Sony's RAW comes out serious edged pin connector on the back. The 4 SDI ports as I understand it are a lower bit rate / color space signal. Definitely not "raw". It will however very likely support RAW from the FS700 which is 12-bit RAW over single 3G-SDI.
 
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DNxHD/Quicktime is a very patchy codec at best. It's been buggy for ages. Simply take some footage into a non 8bit environment (AE, Nuke for example) and watch those highlight turns into random coloured noise. This bug has existed for years and multiple versions and still not addressed. A simple google will show you that. Avid appear to have no interest beyond their own products (which work fine) i wouldn't trust it as a non avid centric acquisition codec just because the pipeline beyond can be a nightmare.

(On on a soap box now with 4 weeks of footage to deal with and i've tried every alternative to transcoding everything yet again)

Just be warned...

It's also limited to 1080p AFAIK, so begs the question with 2k acquisition, let alone 4k

cheers
paul
 
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starcentral said:
I know its 12-bit out the 3G-SDI... But if it bolts on some other way maybe they will get 16-bits from it. Also it could be 16-bit wrapper to 12-bit data which would be stupid to take up 16 times more data (hence file size 16 times larger) for absolutely no reason.
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The mathematical descriptive power is 16x but it's not 16x the size. It's only 25% larger.
 
starcentral said:
Ah yes, not enough coffe this morning and typing while driving not very smart for a few reasons.

:S
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Dennis, Where are you driving this morning, ill be sure to stay clear....lol

4k 12 bit Raw out of my FS700 is more than enough image for me......actually.....it's waaaay more image than I need, but very cool to have at my disposal. I am still extremely curious what the costs on the CODECs will be. We already know the Convergent SSD's are egregiously over priced but depending on the cost of the codec and how much, if anything, Sony charges for the 4K output upgrade, it could still be an amazing deal. It's still a llot more money than a Blackmagic but at least its in stock and you are getting a bigger sensor etc..
 
paulcurtis said:
DNxHD/Quicktime is a very patchy codec at best. It's been buggy for ages. Simply take some footage into a non 8bit environment (AE, Nuke for example) and watch those highlight turns into random coloured noise. This bug has existed for years and multiple versions and still not addressed. A simple google will show you that. Avid appear to have no interest beyond their own products (which work fine) i wouldn't trust it as a non avid centric acquisition codec just because the pipeline beyond can be a nightmare.

(On on a soap box now with 4 weeks of footage to deal with and i've tried every alternative to transcoding everything yet again)

Just be warned...

It's also limited to 1080p AFAIK, so begs the question with 2k acquisition, let alone 4k

cheers
paul
Click to expand...
I have AE and Media Composer. If you give me a source clip, I'll check it out for you. ;) (I suspect the issue is with one of AE's color management settings.) But it's true that DNxHD is not greater than 1080P, and the 4:4:4 version is 10-bit, not 12-bit like ProRes 4:4:4:4.
 
True North said:
Dennis, Where are you driving this morning, ill be sure to stay clear....lol

4k 12 bit Raw out of my FS700 is more than enough image for me......actually.....it's waaaay more image than I need, but very cool to have at my disposal. I am still extremely curious what the costs on the CODECs will be. We already know the Convergent SSD's are egregiously over priced but depending on the cost of the codec and how much, if anything, Sony charges for the 4K output upgrade, it could still be an amazing deal. It's still a llot more money than a Blackmagic but at least its in stock and you are getting a bigger sensor etc..
Click to expand...

You can bet ARRIRaw for example is going to cost some serious pennies, but depending on how often you need RAW if may cost you less to go with Convergent. Personally, I'm done with frankenrigs with external devices cables and power that can even fail or prove to be unreliable from time to time. If it were me and I was keen on FS700 I'd probably still opt for the pure Sony solution. Well heck, its why I went for a new F.
 
Dear Friends,

I am Dan Keaton, of Convergent Design.

I will try to address all of your questions.

We announced this now, in order to get the word out before NAB.
If we wait till NAB, then some would miss our announcement.

To be clear, we are very excited about our new Odyssey7 and Odyssey7Q and want people to come to our booth, C6713, at NAB.

We did not announce this due to anything Atomos may announce. We do not know their plans. Nor do we know the unannounced plans of any other recorder or monitor manufactuer.

We will release the recorder option pricing in May, and this will include option purchase and rental prices.

Our 2.5" very high performance SSD's will be priced fairly. These are high reliability 500 Megabyte per second write speed SSD's, so they can't be the lowest cost SSD's on the market. We will offer 240 GB, 480 GB, and 960 GB Versions.

One option that we will have is a "Compressed Codec" Option. Initially we will offer Avid DNxHD.

But, we want to add another very popular codec, but we cannot announce it until we have it finished, tested, and approved. So, we do not mention any other codecs.

Our Odyssey7 and Odyssey7Q will be great for DSLRs, indie projects, professional projects, and studio projects. You get to pick and choose the options that you want, and you can rent them for a project if you wish.

We did not build an EVF/Recorder, but we could add a Viewfinder hood with the appropriate lens to do so. This may not solve the need, but it might suit your needs.

Yes, our Odyssey7 and Odyssey7Q will be able to record the Super Slow-Mo from the Sony FS-700, just as our Gemini 4:4:4 is able to do so today.

One comment stated that we have not been able to get ProRes up and running on our Gemini 4:4:4.

We have not started a project to get ProRes up and running on our Gemini 4:4:4 yet.

Yes, one will need to use our SSD's.

There are a few very high performance SSD's on the market now, those that can support 500 MBps+.

But, there is only one that is also very low power and that is the one we use.

But, most importantly, the Gemini 4:4:4, Odyssey7 and Odyssey7Q are professional recorders. It is important that the unit AND the SSD work. Dropped frames are not acceptable.

Thus we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to qualify the SSD and to ensure that each and every one works, at room temperature and at 70C, we test each and every one. Not all of them pass the tests.

We do not want anyone going out on an important shoot with untested media, thus we limit which SSD's that can be used to those that we have tested (individually) and approved.

There are low cost SSD's with generally low to medium performance. Ultra high performance SSD's cost more. But you should find our new 2.5" SSD prices to be very fair. The price will be announced in May.

On our nanoFlash, we provided a list of qualified CompactFlash cards. We had way too many calls from those that decided to use other CompactFlash cards, knowing that they were not on the qualified list, and problems arose. We wanted to avoid these situations with our Gemini 4:4:4 and now with our Odyssey7 products.

I hope this helps. I will be happy to answer other questions.

Dan Keaton
Convergent Design
 
Thanks for the reply Dan

As a business owner, I know what it's like for people to second guess my cost of doing business but I only brought up the SSD's costs as your current SSD's are three times the cost of the highest performing SSD's available today. This is certainly not unique to your company as most in this specialized market segment tend to charge well above 'the going rate' for their products. That being said, it would be great to see some SSD's that are priced a little closer to what is currently available in the market. It's good to know some of the reasoning behind charging a premium for your SSD's, it's also good to know that the premium brings greater reliability to go along with it.

Some further questions

When is the monitor portion available for purchase?

When you say you will release the 'recorder option pricing' what are your referring to? From the video it look as if all of the recorder slots and connections are already part of the unit. Will this unit require a firmware update to become a recorder ? If so, will that Firmware come with any CODEC's or will each CODEC be priced in addition to the recorder firmware update?

Thanks for taking the time to discuss.
 
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