Odyssey7Q April 2014 Firmware Update

Prendi said:
The downfall to your moronic post is the premise that we bought the 7Q for the features already installed. Of course we didn't and of course you know that. We bought it for the already installed features plus the future features that we're promised to be delivered in a timely fashion. By no stretch of the imagination has that happened. Just out of interest, do you own a 7Q and is it you primary source of income?

To me it's simple. The only answer to the question (how do you keep missing your own deadlines?) is A) we are incompetent or B) we are liars
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HEAR HEAR!!!

Ready the pitchforks!!! Stick a fork in CD as they are cooked, lost me as a customer. I bought it knowing I would wait a FEW months, not nearly a year for these features. eBay here we come, thank you Atomos
 
I don't understand. If you guys are so enraged with your 7Qs, why don't you sell them and buy the other recorder that does everything you want?
 
It doesn't terribly matter whether or not another 'perfect' device exists, it's the feeling that 7Q owners have been deliberately and repeatedly misled with respect to originally and expressly promised (and, in many cases, reasonably relied on) features. Had those features been more precisely qualified with a more realistic time frame, or unlisted at time of sale, I imagine complaints would be far more minimal. Really, the whole thing is far more of a marketing boondoggle than anything else, which, unfortunately, distracts from the things the 7Q does exceedingly well.

Sure, caveat emptor definitely applies (and in this industry, reliance on anything not firmly in pocket might very well be a fool's errand), but it doesn't excuse CD from misleading customers (if not knowingly, then, at this point, certainly negligently). I'd hope the solution isn't radio silence from CD, merely a more honest (and perhaps advisedly pessimistic, time frame-wise) appraisal of feature releases.

In the end though, as great as it is to see Mitch et al. on the boards, CD is still a for-profit entity that's been in the game for some time, so I'd imagine they have a reasonable handle on the extent this sort of blow back has on their bottom line. And it's probably minimal (see Gemini). We are, after all, still hanging on Mitch's every post for even the faintest whisper of a firmware release!
 
I'm not trying to tease or torment anyone. At some point this week we will know enough of where we stand in order to tell you more details. Until we have reached this point the development is not clear enough to make a qualified statement.

I was going to write a long paragraph here on the process of firmware development, but really your honest response should be "who gives a crap" and "not my problem." We know that. We're getting there. I won't bore you with meaningless details. Only state that I will have information for you this week in some form.
 
"I was going to write a long paragraph here on the process of firmware development,"

I think that would be very beneficial. Then we would have some idea what the engineers are going through and
why certain things take so long.
 
rejdmast said:
"I was going to write a long paragraph here on the process of firmware development,"

I think that would be very beneficial. Then we would have some idea what the engineers are going through and
why certain things take so long.
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+1.

We need to know what is going on. Since 4K compressed isn't going into the next firmware, will we at least get 60fps 4K2HD? One of the major selling points of the 7Q. Some transparency please, then maybe 7Q users will be a little more sympathetic.
 
Thank you, Mitch.

We are looking forward to see, wether the uncertaincy reflects having a good leap forward against having a giant leap. Or, if we have any leap at all. The worst case would be a rollback of development to an early point. Keeping fingers crossed you will not have to check that out.

This forum should not be the place to beg for infos and post complaints. It should help to improve. You received a storm of feedback. And I guess it adds up with feedback from the retail channels and other insiders. There is much light and there is shadow. I am not writing about development processes or corporate structures to get feedback in detail. It's about pointing the direction, if things have to change, where to change. It's not an issue of communication.

If the expected message will disclose significant further delays, there will be great disappointment. And we will read a lot of weird Postings again. My biggest disappointment would be, if there are no actions taken to improve the structure. Of course, it's your problem. But in some way, it's also ours, if we miss important features, can not deliver production value as expected, and keep hanging on the CD path. Mike needs to fix something.
 
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Thank you Mitch and the Convergent Design Team!

I've been lurking around this forum for 7Q updates, news and technical guidance for quite some time and have been really taken back by the amount of complaining that goes on here. I have been using the 7Q for about two months now and I can honestly say my FS700 is an entirely new machine thanks to this team. My 7Q hasn't skipped a beat with 24 hours of operation clocked and the added bonus of being able to shoot 4k raw opens a world of possibility for my work. The ratio of usability/features X cost is truly remarkable considering the price tag on most equipment in this industry (especially in the broadcast world). If more features are added down the road, awesome. This would just be icing on the cake for what is already an incredible tool. I think it would be insightful to post detailed dev info from the engineering team with what goes into a firmware cycle, would be an interesting read to say the least. Thanks again, I wish you the best CD.
 
austinmartifilms said:
+1 (I'm forced to create a new post entirely instead of upvoting your post since someone decided to give me negative reputation for calling out their bickering)
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+1 I wouldn't give the whiners much attention. A lot of them are prima donnas that see themselves as some kind of gift to production. Let them negatively rank me, i really don't care. Very early on, I complained, bitterly, about false and misleading ads by C-D. My complaining was founded in the belief that it would have a positive effect on C-D's behavior. C-D has proven to be totally unresponsive to the complaints. It's, seriously, just time to accept what it is and move on. Buy their products or not, C-D is not going to change; and, repeated slandering and slamming them is pointless. I don't believe C-D is malicious or intentionally misleading. I think that sometimes their hopes are bigger than their reality or their ability to deliver....and, maybe, this is just the nature of being first to market and willing to take risk.
 
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Mitch Gross said:
Appreciate it guys. I know how you all feel and also know enough to step back and let you express it.

For the outputs from FS700, let me clarify the roadmap:

1- 2K RAW up to 240p (current)
2- 4K RAW up to 60p w/120fps burst (in imminent firmware update)
3- HD video recording in popular codec 422HQ, up to 30p and sourced from camera video output not RAW (in imminent firmware update)
4- HD video recording in popular codec 422HQ, up to 60p and sourced from camera video output not RAW (in later release)
5- 4K RAW converted to 4K video, supersampled to HD and recorded in popular codec 422HQ (planned for this release, may push to ensure optimum image quality -- we are tweaking now)
6- 4K RAW converted to 4K video, supersampled to HD and recorded in popular codec in 444 (in later release)
7- 4K RAW converted to 4K video, recorded in 4K in popular codec 422HQ (in later release)
8- 2K RAW converted to 2K video, recorded in 2K in popular codec 422HQ up to high frame rates (in later release, currently testing data rates)

Eight different recording format options on just one camera. The only change listed above to what was previously announced is in #5. We are adding additional tweaks to our supersampling conversion from 4K to HD to optimize the picture quality. You can look at the image we deliver right now that converts the 4K to HD; you can hook your Odyssey7Q up to a large monitor and see it. We think it quite nice but it was really designed just for monitoring, not as a final recorded master. So we have dramatically improved it. But as one only gets one shot at a first impression, we want it to be as good as possible so we may need to hold back on that one a bit to tweak it as we can. I will note that if we release the firmware update and then have this function finished a week later, we're not going to make anyone wait until our next round of planned firmware updates to add it in. We're all tired of the waiting game.
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This is nothing to do with being happy with what the product already does. It's about the business contract that we entered into when we bought the product. We expected the functionality that the 7Q already had PLUS the roadmap promised by Mitch in the post above. This post was the reason for my purchase. Accountability has to be taken when you're the head of communications. Nowhere in his post does it say that these may or may not happen or that it's wishful thinking and if you look at the wording, it is suggested that these functions are near completion, when they clearly weren't.

What would you suggest, we all just give CD an indefinite deadline for delivering the promised product?

You can slate me (and others) for the so called whining. I entered into an agreement with CD and I expect them to uphold their end of the deal.
 
Prendi said:
business contract that we entered into when we bought the product.
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I understand the frustration but we don't have a contract with Convergent Design. That is super misleading and false especially considering a contract needs definitive terms i.e. deliverable dates. Why do you guys keep throwing out veiled threats in the form of incorrect legal jargon?
 
My company has a purchase contract with our dealer, which has a purchase contract with CD's European distributor and they have a purchase contract with CD themselves. Our dealer promoted the device 1:1 using CD's product description, even keeping English language, leading into a third-party-relationship through the chain under German commercial law. There is a second purchase contract, regarding the FS700 option to leverage the O7Q. It's between CD and our company and CD has to comply with law based on European Directives, as they market the Sony option to European Union countries. This option has been marketed having a "popular codec 4K recording mode" by Q2.2014 in official CD documents, right?

Established law practise in the United States sometimes seem to be quite obscure from a continental European perspective. Putting cats into micro wave ovens and sueing the manufacturer for not warning mis-use, making him pay crazy amounts of money for the cat and the embarresment. Funny stuff like that. The Angloamericans use case law, they do not follow an systematic approach as countries, that have been conquered by French Emporer Napoleon. He established abstract law, right hand traffic and the metric system in his territory (200 years later: German legal contract: 5 pages. U.S. contract: 50 pages. Rule by hand, law firm billing the same ratio). May be the U.S. micro wave oven industry has suffered some bad cases at courts, enforcing them to behave, and the digital media recording industry not? May be postings of corporate spokesmen in a public forum or statements on corporate websites do not have any legal meaning in the U.S.? They certainly do under German law, which has effects in regards of CD's Sony paid option.

Anyway, this is not something on a legal level. My company will not sue our dealer or Convergent Design. We will have some words with our dealer and will change our production setup, if CD will not be able to deliver in a reasonable time. Tick tock goes the clock.

I can understand people, that are fully empathic about the improvement of their FS700, using the HD path only. If you need up to 30 FPS, your use case is fullfilled. Be happy, it's the perfect device already. Buy more devices. But please show respect, that other users still need those missing recording modes and are quite annoyed about this repeating pattern of delays.

New 4K solutions are pressing into the market, soon, and the Sony FS700/Odyssee7Q combo will loose its competetive advantage. I am very sorry about CD having issues. They will not disappear if we stop pointing fingers upon.
 
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rheinturmblau said:
Anyway, this is not something on a legal level. My company will not sue our dealer or Convergent Design. We will have some words with our dealer and will change our production setup, if CD will not be able to deliver in a reasonable time. Tick tock goes the clock.

I can understand people, that are fully empathic about the improvement of their FS700, using the HD path only. If you need up to 30 FPS, your use case is fullfilled. Be happy, it's the perfect device already. Buy more devices. But please show respect, that other users still need those missing recording modes and are quite annoyed about this repeating pattern of delays.

New 4K solutions are pressing into the market, soon, and the Sony FS700/Odyssee7Q combo will loose its competetive advantage. I am very sorry about CD having issues. They will not disappear if we stop pointing fingers upon.
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I disagree with nothing you've said. I had the BMC and the firmware update took even longer with nothing in between for the original camera. I also strongly agree with you about the 4k solutions coming to market. Kinefinity is going to kick some ass in the coming months as production ramps up. I've seen some eye popping footage from them and they offer two flavors of compression cineform as well as compressed cinemadng. Mine should arrive in a couple of weeks.
 
As I said in my previous post, I will have more information for you very soon. Very soon means this week. When that information is properly locked down and we as a company have full confidence in it, that is when I will share it. We are in the process of that right now.

I know that an announcement of an announcement is not what you're looking for, but right now it is what I have.
 
There is no doubt that CD will share new information.
Two more business days to go and a weekend.

And I guess, you already know our wish list, Mitch.
:)
 
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