Odyssey 7Q + FS700 = 4K compressed & 2K RAW @ 240fps

jamesc

Well-known member

Convergent Design announced today a very interesting Sony FS700 external recording option. 4k (compressed) and 2k RAW recording at up to 240fps (for up to 45 minutes continuously) . This is fantastic news for FS700 users adding new features that we never thought were possible with this camera. The recording codecs for the FS700 will be available to both rent and buy. You do not need any other adaptor to make use of the Odyssey 7Q . A straight output from the FS700 to the Convergent Design will enable 4k, and 2k RAW. Being able to record 240fps continuously for up to 45 minutes in full 2k RAW really takes the FS700 to a whole other level.
One quick note the Odyssey 7Q is required for these features to work. They will not work with the Odyssey 7.

45 Minutes of 240fps at 2K RAW. Insane. As an FS700 owner, this makes me very, very happy. Can't wait for the 7Q's to ship.

Previous Odyssey 7 threads on dvxuser:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?304805-New-Monitor-Recorder-from-Convergent-Design/
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?304792-New-Convergent-Design-quot-Odyssey-quot/
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...Let%B4s-hope-to-see-some-affordable-HQ-Output!
 
2K RAW @ 240fps? well thats insane! i will drop some money on this one! i wonder why it's "just" 30fps in 4K, since sony stated that it would be up to 60fps?
 
He said continuous 240fps 2K raw... eg no buffer. That's nuts.

So... is the quality of the 240fps 2K raw OK? When you shoot 240fps normally on a FS700 it is rather low res.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
I'm sorry to rain on the wonderful parade here, but there is no way the FS700 is ever going to output 240fps continuously at 1920x1080. That would be a data rate of 24 GIGABITS per second (with 4:2:0 sub-sampling), and 3G-SDI only goes up to 3. The only way the FS700 can capture 240fps is to its internal RAM buffer, and that's limited to 8 seconds. An external recorder can only get the 240fps footage when it is played back from the RAM buffer after capture.

Anyway... even just 8 seconds of capture translates to 1 minute 20 seconds of playback. Does anyone really want a slow-mo clip longer than that?

And BTW, it's HD, not 2k.
 
i bet convergent design wouldn't say that it is possible to output 2K @ 240fps if it is not. why should they do that?

i wonder why there is only an compressed option for 4K? maybe sony wants to save the "big 4K option" for themselves?
 
I'm sorry to rain on the wonderful parade here, but there is no way the FS700 is ever going to output 240fps continuously at 1920x1080. That would be a data rate of 24 GIGABITS per second (with 4:2:0 sub-sampling), and 3G-SDI only goes up to 3. The only way the FS700 can capture 240fps is to its internal RAM buffer, and that's limited to 8 seconds. An external recorder can only get the 240fps footage when it is played back from the RAM buffer after capture.

Anyway... even just 8 seconds of capture translates to 1 minute 20 seconds of playback. Does anyone really want a slow-mo clip longer than that?

And BTW, it's HD, not 2k.

I believe you are incorrect on the amount of data. Also remember, it is raw, so there is no chroma subsampling.

2k is 2048 x 1080, there are 3 colours, and each colour is 8 bit. So the formula would be 2048 * 1080 * 3 * 8, that is the number of bits per frame, divide that by 8 and you get the number of bytes. It comes out to 6.63MB per frame. At a frame rate of 240fps, that would be 1.59GBps or 12.74Gbps.

However, that isn't what is happening, because in the raw file, it is 8 bits per pixel, not the 24 bits per pixel as you would get from an interpolated image where each pixel has 3 colours, interpolation happens later as the raw file was being processed on your computer, so the data stream would be even smaller, 1/3 the size. In the above formula, that 3 would become a 1, just remove it.

2048 * 1080 * 8 is 17.7Mb per frame, or 2.2MB per frame, making it 530MBps or 4.25Gbps at 240fps.

Then on top of that, this is all uncompressed. Sony is compressing it, and the Odyssey is uncompressing then recompressing before storing.

I believe this is why it is possible for them to stream it over the single 3g SDI connection, and for the Odyssey to then store it to SSDs. That is, if my math is correct.
 
i bet convergent design wouldn't say that it is possible to output 2K @ 240fps if it is not.

I bet they didn't say it. Some loose reporting going on here... yes, they can capture 240fps, by catching the replay of the 8 second buffer. And yes, they can record for 45 minutes continuously. Someone has put 1 + 1 = 4.
 
I bet they didn't say it. Some loose reporting going on here... yes, they can capture 240fps, by catching the replay of the 8 second buffer. And yes, they can record for 45 minutes continuously. Someone has put 1 + 1 = 4.

The guy in the video specifically says it at 8:25, 2k raw at 240fps for 45min on 2 960gb SSDs.
 
I bet they didn't say it. Some loose reporting going on here... yes, they can capture 240fps, by catching the replay of the 8 second buffer. And yes, they can record for 45 minutes continuously. Someone has put 1 + 1 = 4.

Watch the video. This functionality isn't based off the current firmware of the FS700, so not the same as catching the replay of the buffer like the Samurai/Gemini currently do.

Convergent Design is supposedly working with Sony engineering directly and this new functionality will most likely be linked to the 4K firmware upgrade Sony pushes out. I'm guessing there's a licensing cost involved, but hopefully not too much. The CD spokesperson claimed a Sony press release about it soon. So that should clear things up.
 
Hi, sorry, I'm afraid I did get my math wrong...

2k is 2048 x 1080,

Right, but the FS700 can't capture that. Its sensor is 16x9, and captures 3840x2160, which it can divide by 2 to get 1920x1080. Scaling by a non-integer is much harder.

or there are 3 colours, and each colour is 8 bit. So the formula would be 2048 * 1080 * 3 * 8, that is the number of bits per frame, divide that by 8 and you get the number of bytes. It comes out to 6.63MB per frame. At a frame rate of 240fps, that would be 1.59GBps or 12.74Gbps.

My profuse apologies, I looked at the wrong column in the spreadsheet. You're perfectly correct, and 1920x1080 240fps with chroma subsampling comes to 6Gb/second. Still, as I understand it, single-link 3G SDI is limited to 3 Gb/s.

However, that isn't what is happening, because in the raw file, it is 8 bits per pixel, not the 24 bits per pixel as you would get from an interpolated image where each pixel has 3 colours

My bad again... I thought that there was more data than that per pixel in Bayer.

Then on top of that, this is all uncompressed. Sony is compressing it, and the Odyssey is uncompressing then recompressing before storing.

That's the bit I have a hard time with... really??? The FS700 has the guts in it t do that? Just sitting idle all this time?

So sorry I srewed up. But I can only say I've gone as far as sceptical. If I'm dead wrong in the end, believe me, I'll be delighted.
 
Well I just got the video to load -- I'm way up in the far north of Scotland here -- and damn, he's really saying that. Wow.

This functionality isn't based off the current firmware of the FS700, so not the same as catching the replay of the buffer like the Samurai/Gemini currently do.

Got it, right, but there's a limit to what a firmware update can do by itself. So it seems the FS700 has had some hardware sleeping in there that Sony have been keeping quiet about. It can't just be a bit of spare CPU bandwidth, not to compress 500 MB of data per second. Since I've owned one for close to a year, that's pretty amazing; I never thought we would (or could) get this kind of stuff.

Starting to believe here...
 
Well I just got the video to load -- I'm way up in the far north of Scotland here -- and damn, he's really saying that. Wow.



Got it, right, but there's a limit to what a firmware update can do by itself. So it seems the FS700 has had some hardware sleeping in there that Sony have been keeping quiet about. It can't just be a bit of spare CPU bandwidth, not to compress 500 MB of data per second. Since I've owned one for close to a year, that's pretty amazing; I never thought we would (or could) get this kind of stuff.

Starting to believe here...

It most likely isn't a processor at all, but an FPGA with space left to develop a more robust and powerful hardware encoder.
 
Anyway... even just 8 seconds of capture translates to 1 minute 20 seconds of playback. Does anyone really want a slow-mo clip longer than that?

I shot with my fs700 at the us open tennis last year and was definitely limited because of the buffer. To shoot a continuous clip will be very helpful for sports.
 
Anyway... even just 8 seconds of capture translates to 1 minute 20 seconds of playback. Does anyone really want a slow-mo clip longer than that?

I shot with my fs700 at the us open tennis last year and was definitely limited because of the buffer. To shoot a continuous clip will be very helpful for sports.

Yeah, 45min of footage at 240fps played back at 24fps would be 7.5h of footage. However, if you can set it up so that it continuously records the last x seconds, longer than 8, that would be very handy.
 
raw data does use less space than YCbCr which is why they can get 12-raw down a single 3G-SDI to begin with.

Either way, the Odyssey does sound very promising.

One caveat though is the built in codec I was told by Convergent Design will only support AVID MXF wrapper, I had asked about MOV QT wrapper but they said they would not be doing it.
 
What? That can not be right?


From thread: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...y-quot&p=1986297476&viewfull=1#post1986297476

Hi Dan, same question, sorry I didn't see the answer. A quicktime version of DNxHD aside from only a pure certified AVID DNxHD codec will make sure other NLE software can use the file format. Similar to what BlackMagic Design did on the hyperdeck shuttle 2.


From thread: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...y-quot&p=1986297476&viewfull=1#post1986297476

Dear Dennis,

I am sorry that I forgot to answer your questions.

Our original plans were to offer Avid DNxHD in a Quicktime wrapper. But, I had one phone call that suggested that this is not the best option.

So, this is to be decided. We need to do more research.

Dan Keaton
Convergent Design
 
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