Odyssey7Q February 2014 Firmware Update

Chris Johnston said:
Little confused about the 4K poular codec option...Is it not going to be included because it requires an additional (or separate) legal authorization from the company or is not included because of technical work from CD?
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My understanding is that 4K compressed won't be included yet as they haven't finished coding it yet. They needed to get simple ProRes encoding working first (i.e. take a regular SDI or HDMI input source and turn that to ProRes), and certified. Once they did that, they could start on the various conversions. Due to popular consensus (and I guess because they already had 4K Raw working) they seem to have focussed on getting the 4K Raw > HD working. Which by the sounds of it they have.

Next up, maybe, will be 4K ProRes.
 
Jusgorilla said:
Mitch thank you for the update.

another question for clarity:

Seeing as the first "popcodec" release will be a 30p max flavour, if I record 50p input, but the project settings are set to 25p, will I get a slow motion 25p popcodec clip result? I Hope I'm making the question clear. Basically, I'm hoping I can shoot slow mo from my F35, given the limitation of 25p codec. Will it record the 50p and set it to 25p internally on the 7q?

Many thanks.
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No. Any framerate detected that is above 30p will give a notice of "unsupported format."
 
One step at a time. Our work continues to move forward in many areas, but we had to get the HD compressed recording done first. The 4K compressed is in many way the same thing, just four times as much of it. We're not going to give out schedules we don't know if we can keep anymore, so let's just say that it is next up.
 
Will 720p be supported for monitoring? As outdated as I sound asking that question, I have a specific need for it, and it's currently unsupported. CD said it would be enabled through firmware, but I am wondering if that will be included on this update. Thanks!
 
Geosch said:
Will 720p be supported for monitoring? As outdated as I sound asking that question, I have a specific need for it, and it's currently unsupported. CD said it would be enabled through firmware, but I am wondering if that will be included on this update. Thanks!
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Not in this firmware.
 
Mitch,

just shot a basic event today using multi cameras and using the O7Q in multi monitor mode for just monitoring. It was great, particularly the waveform monitor :)

What improvements should we expect for multi cam monitoring in the next firmware if anything? What are the plans for the quad split and matrix settings that currently don't have any options?

Being able to switch between input A/B without cycling through A/B/C/D would be good.

Cheers,

Paul.
 
Hi Mitch or anyone following things closer,

I'm just about to pull the trigger on the O7Q but wanted to confirm that I can do the following on a shoot end of March which is the only reason I'll buy now, if not I will wait until later.

a) I can record 4K to Full HD popular codec HQ 422

b) waveform monitor is available

c) some sort of LUT can be enabled on the Odyssey to monitor SLOG2

Thanks!

Sami
 
Sami,

B and C are easy as they are already possible on the current firmware for the O7Q. There is a LUT on the device at the moment and it is the one supplied by Sony to view SLOG2 in REC709.

"A" will be possible as soon as the new firmware is released. If you wanted to hold off purchasing the device until probably next week when the firmware is available, that would be the best way to ensure your device will be able to record the 4K signal in HD popular codec 422HQ from day one (though you'd probably have to load the firmware on the device yourself as it'll take a bit I'd suspect for the new firmware-d O7Qs to trickle through distribution channels.).

However, with the wait/shipping times, I personally would bet the firmware will be out before you get your hands on an Odyssey 7Q. Granted, this is no guarantee... but everything CD has been told/is telling us, says that it should be just a matter of days until the new firmware is released.
 
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brazzam said:
but everything CD has been told/is telling us, says that it should be just a matter of days until the new firmware is released.
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And on Feb. 28th they said the same thing:

"To be clear, we fully expect to be able to release this new firmware next week,"

Too bad that next week never comes.
 
brazzam said:
Sami,

B and C are easy as they are already possible on the current firmware for the O7Q. There is a LUT on the device at the moment and it is the one supplied by Sony to view SLOG2 in REC709.

"A" will be possible as soon as the new firmware is released. If you wanted to hold off purchasing the device until probably next week when the firmware is available, that would be the best way to ensure your device will be able to record the 4K signal in HD popular codec 422HQ from day one (though you'd probably have to load the firmware on the device yourself as it'll take a bit I'd suspect for the new firmware-d O7Qs to trickle through distribution channels.).

However, with the wait/shipping times, I personally would bet the firmware will be out before you get your hands on an Odyssey 7Q. Granted, this is no guarantee... but everything CD has been told/is telling us, says that it should be just a matter of days until the new firmware is released.
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Thanks! One more question if you know... Is the firmware user upgradable or do I have to send it in? I assume we do it ourselves?
 
Sami, it will be user upgradable. From what I understand, we will download the firmware to one of CD's SSDs and then install it onto the O7Q via that SSD. Now, the process might have changed by now, but that's the last understanding I have.

rejdmast said:
And on Feb. 28th they said the same thing:

"To be clear, we fully expect to be able to release this new firmware next week,"

Too bad that next week never comes.
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Yet between that day and now, Mitch and CD have been perfectly transparent as to why it hasn't been released. They've taken their licks and are responding responsibly. And on top of that, they've even announced new features for this very same firmware update in the meantime. Never have I seen a company so transparent on these types of forums.
 
brazzam said:
Sami, it will be user upgradable. From what I understand, we will download the firmware to one of CD's SSDs and then install it onto the O7Q via that SSD. Now, the process might have changed by now, but that's the last understanding I have.



Yet between that day and now, Mitch and CD have been perfectly transparent as to why it hasn't been released. They've taken their licks and are responding responsibly. And on top of that, they've even announced new features for this very same firmware update in the meantime. Never have I seen a company so transparent on these types of forums.
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Never paid so much (795$) for a such defective firmware.
Never got so many inconsistency on deadlines, from the initial 7Q purchase that took way longer than claimed, to the hole firmware thing. Wasn't it due to the 31 December? Wasn't February already a really pushed date? Now we're almost mid March, the March firmware (next to the February one, with the 4k compressed) should be out or about to be out, but we're still waiting for bug's fix of the original version.

As a normal person, living in a normal world, I expected the company to meet their deadlines, but above that, I expected to have the already available features working correctly. Man, the issues are so big that this thing should be number one priority.

As you'd noticed, I'm really p*ssed with this as yesterday I had to apolagize to a client for a shoot that couldn't be edited due to the lack of footage, guess what, had "miss matched SSD's" in 2 different times of the day, one because my assistant pressed record in 24p mode, other because it started to create 2 seconds clips randomly. (Lets not talk about boot times and when trying to review shoots, you'd better have a lunch break so it can go back to REC mode)


I don't care if it will serve capuccino already on the next firmware, based on CD background, if its not available to download is worth near to nothing.

Sorry CD, I think that the future buyers should know about this, all the reviews I've read says wonders of this product, have I been the only one that actually shoot anything (besides cats or girlfriend) with it?
I hope everything gets ok soon, but I've never paid so much for something like this.
 
hugofilipe said:
Never paid so much (795$) for a such defective firmware.
Never got so many inconsistency on deadlines, from the initial 7Q purchase that took way longer than claimed, to the hole firmware thing. Wasn't it due to the 31 December? Wasn't February already a really pushed date? Now we're almost mid March, the March firmware (next to the February one, with the 4k compressed) should be out or about to be out, but we're still waiting for bug's fix of the original version.

As a normal person, living in a normal world, I expected the company to meet their deadlines, but above that, I expected to have the already available features working correctly. Man, the issues are so big that this thing should be number one priority.

As you'd noticed, I'm really p*ssed with this as yesterday I had to apolagize to a client for a shoot that couldn't be edited due to the lack of footage, guess what, had "miss matched SSD's" in 2 different times of the day, one because my assistant pressed record in 24p mode, other because it started to create 2 seconds clips randomly. (Lets not talk about boot times and when trying to review shoots, you'd better have a lunch break so it can go back to REC mode)


I don't care if it will serve capuccino already on the next firmware, based on CD background, if its not available to download is worth near to nothing.

Sorry CD, I think that the future buyers should know about this, all the reviews I've read says wonders of this product, have I been the only one that actually shoot anything (besides cats or girlfriend) with it?
I hope everything gets ok soon, but I've never paid so much for something like this.
Click to expand...

I mean no disrespect, but I'm so disappointed by comments like this. I agree its frustrating, and I too have an Odyssey7q with the paid upgrade sitting motionless waiting for the upgrade, but I bought it knowing that the upgrades were coming. Its frustratiing that the estimated released dates weren't met, but I have honestly never seen a company so openly discuss what they are doing in regards to updates and giving approximate dates which help gives us an idea when we can expect it.

If I was Mitch I would never give anyone an indication or timeframe again and simply make the promise (and stand by it 100%) that it WILL be added. Its a shame that the one company that has made my FS700 worth truly owning and improved it considerably, unfortuately exposed themselves to the media by openly discussing what they felt they could achieve with a suggested timeframe, only to not meet it and be critized possible ceasing future discussions. Thats just my 2 cents....
 
Matthew Smith said:
I mean no disrespect, but I'm so disappointed by comments like this. I agree its frustrating, and I too have an Odyssey7q with the paid upgrade sitting motionless waiting for the upgrade, but I bought it knowing that the upgrades were coming. Its frustratiing that the estimated released dates weren't met, but I have honestly never seen a company so openly discuss what they are doing in regards to updates and giving approximate dates which help gives us an idea when we can expect it.

If I was Mitch I would never give anyone an indication or timeframe again and simply make the promise (and stand by it 100%) that it WILL be added. Its a shame that the one company that has made my FS700 worth truly owning and improved it considerably, unfortuately exposed themselves to the media by openly discussing what they felt they could achieve with a suggested timeframe, only to not meet it and be critized possible ceasing future discussions. Thats just my 2 cents....
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+1
 
Matthew Smith said:
I mean no disrespect, but I'm so disappointed by comments like this. I agree its frustrating, and I too have an Odyssey7q with the paid upgrade sitting motionless waiting for the upgrade, but I bought it knowing that the upgrades were coming. Its frustratiing that the estimated released dates weren't met, but I have honestly never seen a company so openly discuss what they are doing in regards to updates and giving approximate dates which help gives us an idea when we can expect it.

If I was Mitch I would never give anyone an indication or timeframe again and simply make the promise (and stand by it 100%) that it WILL be added. Its a shame that the one company that has made my FS700 worth truly owning and improved it considerably, unfortuately exposed themselves to the media by openly discussing what they felt they could achieve with a suggested timeframe, only to not meet it and be critized possible ceasing future discussions. Thats just my 2 cents....
Click to expand...

+1

I wish more companies would operate like CD. Sony was more than ready to hang FS700 owners out to dry with unreasonable 4k recording options. If it were not for options like the CD a lot of us might be putting our 700s up on ebay. As it is they're adding a few more years to it's relevance. CD is trying very hard to make something truly revolutionary and seem to be really interested in pushing that envelope. Already the overly negative feedback has caused Cd to become less transparent in the way they relate to us in that they are now not releasing any new timelines or letting us in on some of the new updates they have in the works, because basically if they did and missed the deadline we would all become winey babies and declare their product to be useless. I would say if you don't like their products or the way they do business then go buy the competitors version, but there is none because no one else is putting in this kind of effort. CD is not trying to sabotage our productions, they are trying to make something amazing to make our productions better. Yes I'm frustrated that deadlines didn't get met and some of the shoots I had hoped to have prores for got the avchd treatment instead. Bottom line though is I'm going to be a very happy camper very soon.
 
Pgale said:
Mitch,

just shot a basic event today using multi cameras and using the O7Q in multi monitor mode for just monitoring. It was great, particularly the waveform monitor :)

What improvements should we expect for multi cam monitoring in the next firmware if anything? What are the plans for the quad split and matrix settings that currently don't have any options?

Being able to switch between input A/B without cycling through A/B/C/D would be good.

Cheers,

Paul.
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Not a lot of changes to Multi-Stream. We got rid of the annoying flashing yellow "DEMO" up top, as technically this is not a demo mode. The improvement to the waveform monitor is in all modes, not just Multi-Stream. We made the reference lines more detailed in full screen mode. The Histogram and False Color modes also got reference marks. And the other big improvement for Multi-Stream is that we got rid of the tearing on the monitor whenever you panned the camera. Or at least so I'm told -- haven't had a chance to test that one yet.

More changes are on their way in future updates. Detecting active inputs and only scrolling through just them is on the list.
 
I buy things when they can help me. So once everything works on the 7Q, I will buy one.
Buying it now when I can't use the features makes no sense to me. I'd rather hold onto my
money until I can actually put the tool to work making money. Why people buy something
before it works, and then complain...well we should all have learned this lesson (Red, BMD
and so on.)
 
The process of upgrading the firmware is quite easy and is explained in a document sent with the firmware (it's also in the manual).

On the Convergent Design website right near the top there is a tab labeled FIRMWARE UPDATES. Click on it and then select ODYSSEY7Q. That will take you to a page with our different level firmware, including old firmware should you ever need to revert back. There is also Release Notes and other information. Click on the firmware to download it. You will download a folder with the firmware and some information about it.

Mount an Odyssey SSD to your computer and drag & drop to copy the new firmware onto the root directory of the drive (don't stick it inside the media file sitting on the drive). Dismount the SSD from your computer and load it into the Odyssey.

After the SSD initializes, a text warning will come up on the screen, telling you that you are about to install new firmware and giving you 30 seconds to cancel. Loading takes about 15 minutes so make sure to run the Odyssey on AC power to be safe. There's a progress bar on the screen to let you know what's happening.

When the loading is complete, an instruction to restart the Odyssey will appear. You should pull out the SSD when you power down. Turn back on the Odyssey and you're loading is complete. Make sure the thing functions and then remount that SSD. After initializing it will go to the screen to load the firmware again, but you can just hit cancel and then reformat the SSD in the Odyssey.
 
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