Odyssey7Q February 2014 Firmware Update

Hey Mitch,

Thanks for posting the update. The Option to remove image analysis tools from SDI & HDMI outputs, sounds nice.

1) So does that mean that a client monitor running from the 7Q will not see the peaking, histogram, zebra, etc...???

2) I noticed there was no mention of the screen flicker. Will the firmware update fix the flicker? It's pretty annoying on my monitor.

3) Also, does February mean early Feb or late Feb? Early Feb preferred obviously :)

Thanks


 
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sunnyjimfilms said:
Yeah I'm pretty sure I mentioned I was aware the 7Q services other hardware. Look, for me it's obviously coming from a personal perspective. What's right for one person isn't necessarily right for another. If you have all the features as promised, it's likely, near as damn it ,going to be right for everyone. I guess ultimately you're trying to achieve F5/ 55 performance on what is effectively a prosumer camera and as good as results are, it's always going to be a compromise. My interest lies in Pro Res purely as I edit in FCPX (shoot me down in flames) then grade in Resolve. The workflow at the moment seems somewhat clunky. For me starting off in Resolve, then going into the NLE, then back to Resolve does not seem an efficient way to work. Anyway, I have one on order so hope to find out for myself soon enough.
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Like everyone else, I would love the true 10-bit 4:2:2 derived from 4K. But until then, transcoding the 2K RAW to Pro-Res is not as painful as I thought it would be. It's actually pretty easy. My workflow has been to just set aside an additional folder for the RAW clips. After transcoding from Resolve, I just let them sit on the drive for a few days, then I trash them for disk space purposes and am left with the Pro-Res transcodes. It works pretty decently and since Resolve transcodes so fast, it's not a huge time hog either.

Of course it depends on what you shoot. If you are shooting a wedding or reality show, RAW is a no go of course. But for any type of controlled project where you are not burning through footage, 2K RAW file sizes are manageable. Like the other day I shot a horror short. I think over the course of the day, we might have had about 50 minutes of footage max, and it was pretty easy with RAW to deal with that. Maybe try it out, and you might not find it as bad as you thought. For me, it's worth it for the huge quality bump.

With that said, please get out the true 10-bit compressed codecs PRONTO! :)
 
The 4k Raw I can live without. Compressed is obviously on the road map and that's fine. What excited me most about the odyssey was the ability to record from the 4k signal. I guess my question is, are we going to see any "True" 12 bit 444, 10 bit 422 in the future. I know we can get that from from 2k raw, but will we get it from the 4k raw? I'm just a little confused, perhaps lazy. The legalities behind it all is what's confusing me most. Not that matters to us, its between CD, Sony and whoever else, I would just like to know what's slated as a definite reality, anything else will be a bonus if it happened. TBH it was the "the perhaps" Mitch said in post #7 that had me question myself. Thanks
 
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Great to see some compressed video coming soon! But like others said it would be great to get 10-bit or 12-bit derived from 4K, That's where we're really going to see the big quality bump from the FS700 at data rates that are very manageable.

Also, any word on user loadable LUT's?
 
gene_can_sing said:
Like everyone else, I would love the true 10-bit 4:2:2 derived from 4K. But until then, transcoding the 2K RAW to Pro-Res is not as painful as I thought it would be. It's actually pretty easy. My workflow has been to just set aside an additional folder for the RAW clips. After transcoding from Resolve, I just let them sit on the drive for a few days, then I trash them for disk space purposes and am left with the Pro-Res transcodes. It works pretty decently and since Resolve transcodes so fast, it's not a huge time hog either.

Of course it depends on what you shoot. If you are shooting a wedding or reality show, RAW is a no go of course. But for any type of controlled project where you are not burning through footage, 2K RAW file sizes are manageable. Like the other day I shot a horror short. I think over the course of the day, we might have had about 50 minutes of footage max, and it was pretty easy with RAW to deal with that. Maybe try it out, and you might not find it as bad as you thought. For me, it's worth it for the huge quality bump.

With that said, please get out the true 10-bit compressed codecs PRONTO! :)
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I will try it out when the thing turns up!
Cheers for advice. Still doesn't sound ideal but I guess you have to adapt out of necessity.
 
gene_can_sing said:
...But until then, transcoding the 2K RAW to Pro-Res is not as painful as I thought it would be. It's actually pretty easy.
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Yes and no..
First of all I am no colorist and my Resolve knowledge is very basic -> I will need spending time on learning and practice.

I don't see your workflow in detail. Do you import all shots in Resolve? Do you correct them and export all files too or do you make a basic editing already in Resolve? And if you have finished editing in FCP X do you come back to Resolve via FCP XML roundtrip?

I don't know whether it's comparable to the BlackMagic Camera? I have a Pocket as B-Cam an use it as handheld camera or I mount it where a bigger camera would not fit. In practice I shoot about 80% ProRes. It's perfect and goes directly to FCP X. 20% of my shots are in RAW when I think I need more DR or flexibility. A BMDPCC DNG has about 2MB, a FS700 has about 3MB. And it's already a PITA that you need on set Resolve for preview because of lack of a simple player for DNG video files.

I second your PRONTO ;-)
 
freshTEA said:
I know both you Mitch and Dan are doing a really good job at trying to keep us notified and for that you have my gratitude.
But in my honest opinion.. One feels a little mislead. Im asking this cause I would have wanted the same questions answered before I actually bought the 7Q, so this might help others to decide whether they should make the investment at the moment.
I just bought my unit and I have to say that ("Popular compressed codec" in 422HQ for HD (1920x1080) up to 30p) is not really floating the boat for the upcoming firmware update. 4k compressed up to 30p we knew was going to be included from the start (it is not included yet) But now not even 60p in regular HD for the firmware, how come?

Following is stated on your webpage: [TABLE="width: 725"]
[TR]
[TD="class: xl73"]Recording Formats (Base Odyssey7Q)[/TD]
[TD="class: xl73"][/TD]
[TD="class: xl74"]Compressed formats: 1080p 10-bit YCC 422 up to 120fps, 1080p RGB 12-bit 444 up to 60fps* Uncompressed formats: 1080p RGB 10/12-bit 444 up to 60fps
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
The info is misleading...
Do we have any idea on how long we have to wait for true 10-bit? Pro-res up to 60p? 4K compressed? Are we talking about weeks or months? Are CD putting their focus somewhere else? What can I as a customer now expect? Is there any guarantee that we will see these options at all?

I apologise if I have offended anyone or if I have been ignorant in anyway, I would likely be corrected if what Ive asked or presumed is wrong.
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I have asked these same questions and all I have gotten is vague conflicting and misleading information. CD has stated yesterday that it may be until the end of the year before DNXHD codec is available and that the ProRes codec will NOT be included in the February FW update, with no information about when it will be available. I really feel mislead at this point. Glad I decided to hold off buying.
 
Clermond said:
Yes and no..
First of all I am no colorist and my Resolve knowledge is very basic -> I will need spending time on learning and practice.

I don't see your workflow in detail. Do you import all shots in Resolve? Do you correct them and export all files too or do you make a basic editing already in Resolve? And if you have finished editing in FCP X do you come back to Resolve via FCP XML roundtrip?

I second your PRONTO ;-)
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Hey Clermond, all I use Resolve for is to Transcode footage. I then edit the Pro-Res in Premiere, then do the final Color Correction in After Effects. I know Resolve is really powerful and all, but the Premiere / After Effects integration is insane. Since I know how to color correct really well in AE, there's no reason for me to jump to Resolve aside from transcoding. Of course it would powerful to grade directly off the RAW clips in Resolve, but I'm not a fan of the Resolve interface and it has certain weird quirks that I really dislike, probably just 'cause I'm old school and too lame to learn new programs, LOL.

Granted Resolve is a lot faster because of the GPU, but I'm just so used to the Adobe workflow so no reason to switch.

So yeah, transcode the RAW, then trash in a few days and I'm left with Pro-Res clips. Try it out, it's not so bad. Not ideal of course, but I like to be an optimist.
 
thanks Gene! I am still in the middle of Denver Riddle's Resolve tutorials ;-)
Thanks for explaining your workflow. I will order some more hard drives and go your way
except AE/PP, I am a Final Cut boy ;-)
 
Am i wrong or was the FS700 ProResHQ always about Raw to HD? True 10bit Video? First time i hear about capturing 8bit Video out of SDI ... oh man this is sad
 
Skyline, you are, in a way, wrong. There have always been two sets of functionality, HD Video -> ProRes (which is great for many cameras that are not the FS700, as it will do higher bitrates). And then RAW -> HD Video, for 10bit 422 ProRes. It's greatly unfortunate that neither the latter or 4k ProRes will be out in February, but it's not as though they're pitching the former option as a substitute, it's simply an additional feature that's making it out before the others--albeit not one that helps we FS700 owners too much.
 
SKYLIKE said:
Am i wrong or was the FS700 ProResHQ always about Raw to HD? True 10bit Video? First time i hear about capturing 8bit Video out of SDI ... oh man this is sad
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You are mistaken. 10-bit 422HQ HD recordings from SDI were always on board first. The 4K-derived HD was always on the books for sometime later (they never gave us a firm deadline).

It's important to remember that the 8-bit limitation is not from the 7Q, but from the FS700 - blame Sony for this lower quality output, not CD. The 7Q has been designed for use with lots of cameras - most of which output 10-bit over SDI. It makes perfect sense for CD to get the HD from SDI recording working first as this helps all users of the 7Q, not just those using the FS700. While the HD derived from FS700 4K will be great for us (and I'm severely looking forward to it), it is of no benefit to users with other cameras.

It's ok to be frustrated with delays, but I'm kind of astounded how quickly this board has turned on CD when they've treated us with nothing but respect. We're early adopters on a new product in a brand-new product category - delays are bound to happen. I second what a poster said earlier... in a year, we're going to have an amazing device with TONS of capabilities and have forgotten the waiting. And, as an early adopter, I'm happy I get to watch it grow first hand.

To those of you who haven't purchased and are waiting for the product to mature before buying, that is a perfectly reasonable and understandable decision. But us first adopters should not have been surprised by this, it's just the added cost of buying early.
 
I think disappointment is comprehensible. Not only this board has turned, also C-D's announcements. I really appreciate their presence and communication here in this forum. You can go back some weeks and see what has been discussed about FW update features, what could be additionally added to planned features. We have been asked for wishes and requests!

What we have now, it mostly bug fixes and it's is disappointing. We don't have an idea what will be next and when. Remember 7Q was originally announced for August 2013. Nobody told us (at least not me) that there will be partly proceeded features. I made my pre-oder in July at it's half a year behind plans. Another postponing is disappointing!

I don't see that in a year from now we all will be happy with TONS of capabilities.
Maybe but maybe not. Maybe FS700 will come to the end of life? Who knows?
 
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By the way,
the ancient Greek hero Odyssey took ten years for his troublesome journey, until he reached his home in Ithaca again. But he finally did!
:)
 
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as far as I remember the guy was called Odysseus or Ulysses. And the 10yrs travel was his Odyssey. But Homer did not mention 7Q at all ;-)
 
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