Odyssey7 & Odyssey7Q Status Update

paulcurtis said:
As i've said i'll reserve judgement until i see more footage - but everything i've seen, either from the O7 or the Sony solution has issues when things get sharp. Even the noise is aliased (looking at the two brick samples from CD in 2K and 4K). Some of the footage is shot with quite shallow DOF and that hides a lot.

Dunno, maybe it's just me!

cheers
Paul
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I definitely see your issues on the 2K if I pixel peep. But I think for most real world use, it's pretty dang good. The stuff Filipo and P. Bloom shot with it looks really nice overall. For me, even on wide shots, I rarely go over f5.6 because it starts to look super sharp and video on the FS700, so I usually have a shallow-ish DOF which hides the aliasing a bit more.

For me, I love the 240fps and good HD 4:2:2 10-bit is more important than the 4K, so I guess everyone has different priorities. From reading much of the Black Magic people experiences, everyone was so excited by the 2K RAW until they had to deal with the drive space issues. Then it seemed like reality kind of set in. And the 4K Compressed sizes are even larger than the 2K RAW. So for me, most of the time it's probably going to be HD. Even on short form projects, I routinely shoot 100 minutes of footage. Do 1 back up and that's the equivalent of 1 TB hard drive which costs about $80 a hard drive. For every project, that adds up quick.

Don't get me wrong, I plan on using the 4K and RAW for the more special projects, but for the day to day projects, camera tests, etc... that's a lot of cash for hard drives.
 
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paulcurtis said:
I'm very much looking forward to the monitor and all that functionality, it looks like such an awesome piece of kit that will last me a while. You know sometimes you just have kit thats done 'right' - dedolights for example! Hopefully I'm fair high in the waiting lists here as i ordered it back in June i think!

I have to say i'm a little disappointed with the 4K support or lack of, it doesn't appear on the roadmap til next year, potentially 6 months away? Is that right or will there be some uncompressed 4K as originally proposed prior to that? I would use 4K day one, whether it's compressed or uncompressed.

IMHO It's only the 4K support of interest to most 700 users (whether it's recorded as 4K or down sampled), it sorts out aliasing issues, 1080 scaling quality and gives the full quality of the sensor. Unless someone can convince me otherwise (or i see footage to the contrary) the 2K RAW on the 700/F5/F55 simply isn't good enough for everyday production (unless you're a shallow DOF demon!) and that's because of the way it comes off the sensor, not the way it's being recorded.

Day one i get a really nice monitoring solution but no real benefit over a shuttle recording wise.

I don't know whether there's an internal list of priorities at CD, or whether i'm alone in this, so i'm posting this to demonstrate my belief that the 4K recording is the absolute killer feature here, not 2K RAW. I think when people work with scaled 4K it will open eyes as to what this little cam can do...

just me?

cheers
Paul
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i'm with you 100% on this - although being able to record HFR for more than 12sec at a time is nice, it's not really something I see as having much demand and I have absolutely no need to shoot sub-HD footage (which is what raw 2K is) beyond this and neither do any of my clients.

As it stands I'm thinking I might as well cancel my pre-order of the 7Q since it sounds like there'll be plenty of stock available by the time 4K is going to be implemented and I might as well leave the money in the bank earning interest until then.

in fact, hearing this I suspect there'll be something of s surplus of units available as more people like me cancel their pre-orders and wait for 4K to be delivered.

I have to admit I really don't understand why it's not going to be implemented day 1 after they've already showed it working: is this just a licensing issue with Adobe or something?

Colin
 
gene_can_sing said:
I definitely see your issues on the 2K if I pixel peep. But I think for most real world use, it's pretty dang good. The stuff Filipo and P. Bloom shot with it looks really nice overall. For me, even on wide shots, I rarely go over f5.6 because it starts to look super sharp and video on the FS700, so I usually have a shallow-ish DOF which hides the aliasing a bit more.

For me, I love the 240fps and good HD 4:2:2 10-bit is more important than the 4K, so I guess everyone has different priorities. From reading much of the Black Magic people experiences, everyone was so excited by the 2K RAW until they had to deal with the drive space issues. Then it seemed like reality kind of set in. And the 4K Compressed sizes are even larger than the 2K RAW. So for me, most of the time it's probably going to be HD. Even on short form projects, I routinely shoot 100 minutes of footage. Do 1 back up and that's the equivalent of 1 TB hard drive which costs about $80 a hard drive. For every project, that adds up quick.

Don't get me wrong, I plan on using the 4K and RAW for the more special projects, but for the day to day projects, camera tests, etc... that's a lot of cash for hard drives.
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The 10 bit HD would be derived from 4K anyway (actually it should be 10 bit log to give the full 12 bit linear data), so whether you choose to store actual 4K or the scaled HD version, the O7 needs the same 4K support. I'm just hoping to ding a few bells so that the powers that be know that 4K support is really, really wanted. I hear people saying, oh but i only want HD or 2K and that's fine, i agree. But i want the best HD or 2K that this camera can deliver and CD have the solution and will be doing it.

I'm just too impatient :)

As you say different people need different things. I know that i wouldn't be able to get away with the 2K in the stuff i've shot recently. I struggle sometimes with the scaled 1080p because everything goes into post and vfx and pixel accuracy is vital for tracking and other vfxy stuff, trying to pull a track from a high contrast buzzing edge is a non starter. If your delivery doesn't involve much post perhaps it's a lot easier.

cheers
Paul
 
paulcurtis said:
I'm just too impatient :)
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I feel you on the impatience!. I know 240fps is overkill for most people, but for me besides the handful of Network jobs I did this year, I shot a number of music videos and skateboarding things and the 240fps thing is almost a must.

But yeah... I'm with you Paul. I wish we could have it all right now. I'm going to be a Glass half full person and hope that Q1 2014 means January or February :) Mitch knows how impatient we all are, so CRACK the whip Mitch :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)
 
I also thought 4k was coming much sooner than 2014. I figured a month or so, just to get licensing issues ironed out. I thought the 4k recording was basically finished and ready to implement. I have clients wanting to shoot in 4k and telling them I have it coming, but not until 2014 means losing out on some work. It is a great recorder with great features, I just hope they can roll out 4k or 1080p scaled from 4k sooner as I think that's what a lot of us are waiting for
 
Why would anyone cancel their order to wait for 4k? It's been stated that it will take until the end of the year to fulfill all the preorders so right there you are into 2014. At that point there will be a lot of reviews and tests already out and if the 7Q is as amazing as it seems to be then I don't see how there will be a glut of them on the market. Besides, if you decided not to keep yours you could turn around and sell it right away to someone who didn't want to wait and make a much better profit than letting it sit in the stock market a couple months.

I'm looking forward to 4k but in reality continuos 2k raw at 240 is probably a bigger deal for me as I shoot a lo of outdoor high energy productions and I've generally found the aliasing to not be distracting. HFR has always been this cameras edge and anything that will enhance that is ok in my book.
 
waefre said:
Why would anyone cancel their order to wait for 4k? It's been stated that it will take until the end of the year to fulfill all the preorders so right there you are into 2014. .
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Er, i think you've answered your own question: because they would have fulfilled all the pre-orders by the time 4K is implemented, so there will be no penalty for waiting. Instead I will be able to keep £3k in the bank earning interest, rather than sitting on a shelf gathering dust.

i think you'll be surprised how little interest there will be for people to shoot 240fps continuously when you tell them it will cost an extra £100/day to do it. Most of the time they'll just turn around and say 'oh, we'll probably just work buffered then' - and that's before you tell them about the extra data requirements and post processing required of the 2K Raw.

you seem to forget: the FS700 is a popular HFR camera because it is so cheap. Shooting 2K Raw on a 3k recorder makes it substantially less cheap.

4K compressed I could definitely sell, especially with 10bit 422 colour and an extra stop of latitude - but not sub-HD raw.

You're also making a massive assumption that CD won't drop their price in a couple of months time - Like Sony did with the 4K upgrade. I must admit I was pretty pissed off to find that people that waited an extra month to get the upgrade paid half the price. Then I was absolutely LIVID when I realised I had to send it back a second time because the first firmware was faulty (losing money both times from losses jobs).

As it stands the O7Q is still an unknown quantity: sure, it looks good on paper, but who knows what sort of problems will be discovered when it goes in the field?

The point is: buying early is a risk. One I was prepared to take when I thought it would make a massive difference to the basic image quality of the camera. But I'm not sure I'm prepared to take that risk otherwise.
 
Colinelves said:
so no 4K at all from the FS700, not even CNG, until Jan 2014 at the earliest, possibly not until April?! That sucks, I thought you guys had 4K working already. Haven't you already posted some footage?
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There is a difference between what we technically can do and what we are allowed to do. For one company it is permission for access, for another it is certification on output. There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle.
 
sunnyjimfilms said:
Yes Mitch, cheers for all the info. One question - when do you think we'll actually see the HD derived from the 4K? This and some form of 4K (ideally raw in the near future, licensing agreements permitting) is my main requirement. Sexy as it is, limited use (for me) until then.
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As noted in the breakdown, within the firmware updates that will take place in the first quarter of next year. Can't be more specific than that.
 
paulcurtis said:
I'm very much looking forward to the monitor and all that functionality, it looks like such an awesome piece of kit that will last me a while. You know sometimes you just have kit thats done 'right' - dedolights for example! Hopefully I'm fair high in the waiting lists here as i ordered it back in June i think!

I have to say i'm a little disappointed with the 4K support or lack of, it doesn't appear on the roadmap til next year, potentially 6 months away? Is that right or will there be some uncompressed 4K as originally proposed prior to that? I would use 4K day one, whether it's compressed or uncompressed.

IMHO It's only the 4K support of interest to most 700 users (whether it's recorded as 4K or down sampled), it sorts out aliasing issues, 1080 scaling quality and gives the full quality of the sensor. Unless someone can convince me otherwise (or i see footage to the contrary) the 2K RAW on the 700/F5/F55 simply isn't good enough for everyday production (unless you're a shallow DOF demon!) and that's because of the way it comes off the sensor, not the way it's being recorded.

Day one i get a really nice monitoring solution but no real benefit over a shuttle recording wise.

I don't know whether there's an internal list of priorities at CD, or whether i'm alone in this, so i'm posting this to demonstrate my belief that the 4K recording is the absolute killer feature here, not 2K RAW. I think when people work with scaled 4K it will open eyes as to what this little cam can do...

just me?

cheers
Paul
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Believe me when I tell you that some version(s) of FS700 4K is high on our list. There is a reason you see me posting on an FS700 forum. Nothing on that roadmap is six months away, and most of it is a LOT sooner.

It should be noted that the Odyssey7Q will record Canon C500 RAW 4K from day one. It is not a technical limitation.
 
Colinelves said:
As it stands I'm thinking I might as well cancel my pre-order of the 7Q since it sounds like there'll be plenty of stock available by the time 4K is going to be implemented and I might as well leave the money in the bank earning interest until then.

I have to admit I really don't understand why it's not going to be implemented day 1 after they've already showed it working: is this just a licensing issue with Adobe or something?

Colin
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From purely a practical standpoint you are talking about $4 of interest, not exactly something to be getting too worked up over :)

But overall I agree, I think that the timing is unfortunate and if 4k support for the FS700 doesn't come out until a month or two before NAB 2014 it hurts FS700 users and Sony. As Mitch has said, the recorder can do 4k for the Canon C500 out of the box. It really seems like a Sony licensing issue. I started a thread over on the Sony forum for users to ask Sony to please cut the red tape and let this happen. If you are annoyed about the delayed 4k support, please add your voice there! http://community.sony.com/t5/FS700/...dyssey-7Q-with-the-FS700-R/m-p/227203#U227203

Personally I think the Odyssey 7Q is a much more exciting product then the FS700 - but then again I've been using OB1's and Codex units for the past few years, so these features in this size and price range are incredibly impressive.

The FS700 could be an amazing camera with Odyssey 7Q support, but without 4k from the 7Q for me it isn't worth the money. It's a matter of tying a really promising camera in with a cumbersome, deal-breaking record solution, or letting it work with what looks to be the new standard in onboard recorders and having it be, even if it's only for a few months, the top camera in its price bracket.

-FDP
 
Mitch Gross said:
There is a difference between what we technically can do and what we are allowed to do. For one company it is permission for access, for another it is certification on output. There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle.

It should be noted that the Odyssey7Q will record Canon C500 RAW 4K from day one. It is not a technical limitation.
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I think Mitch can't really come out and say it, but it seems like the 4K release is more of a Sony red tape issue at this point. Seeing the big communication effort Sony has made with the F5/F55 crowd and near total silence with the FS700, I really get the sense that they just don't really want the FS700 to live to it's potential.

How much longer is Sony going to make us wait for a real 4K Solution. Sorry, but the FS700 + Interface + R5 + Large battery is just not a real solution for the FS700.

BTW, everyone here should add their voice to the link FDP listed above. I just did.

http://community.sony.com/t5/FS700/...dyssey-7Q-with-the-FS700-R/m-p/227203#U227203
 
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Mitch Gross said:
There is a difference between what we technically can do and what we are allowed to do. For one company it is permission for access, for another it is certification on output. There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle.
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Again, reading between the lines here... it might not only be a Sony issue. 4K compressed recording cannot be done using DNxHD, so clearly it has to be done using the "popular codec" *cough*ProRes*cough*... it could be that they are being conservative on their timeframe estimate as the 7Q has not been approved for ProRes support just yet. Until ProRes becomes a possibility, they can't release 4K recording.

I'm sure CD is doing everything they can to get this functionality to us ASAP... I don't see a need to cancel my preorder - I'll have an awesome monitor for a month or two that will suddenly become a great recorder one day. I won't say I'm thrilled about waiting, but that's just my impatience talking. I have faith in CD.
 
I've added my voice to the Sony page. I implore everyone in this thread to voice their concerns there as well. It may be a drop on the ocean, but a drop can become a wave.
 
Mitch Gross said:
Believe me when I tell you that some version(s) of FS700 4K is high on our list. There is a reason you see me posting on an FS700 forum. Nothing on that roadmap is six months away, and most of it is a LOT sooner. It should be noted that the Odyssey7Q will record Canon C500 RAW 4K from day one. It is not a technical limitation.
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I'm sure it's not technical, and i'm very pleased to hear that - reassuring. I'll happily take dpx files at the moment, something that doesn't require licensing if thats an issue.

brazzam said:
Again, reading between the lines here... it might not only be a Sony issue. 4K compressed recording cannot be done using DNxHD, so clearly it has to be done using the "popular codec" *cough*ProRes*cough*... it could be that they are being conservative on their timeframe estimate as the 7Q has not been approved for ProRes support just yet. Until ProRes becomes a possibility, they can't release 4K recording.

I'm sure CD is doing everything they can to get this functionality to us ASAP... I don't see a need to cancel my preorder - I'll have an awesome monitor for a month or two that will suddenly become a great recorder one day. I won't say I'm thrilled about waiting, but that's just my impatience talking. I have faith in CD.
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I believe it is possible to do 4K with DNxHD but only AVID can do that at the moment. Cineform would have been a great choice IMHO.

+999 on everything else. I'm super impatient, i've been subconsciously pushing shoots back just in case... I ought to stop that.

cheers
Paul
 
you're wasting your breath and your bandwidth to try to get sony to do ANYTHING. The only way you'll ever get their attention is if sales start lagging in favor of a competing brand at the same price point.
 
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