Panasonic 4K discussion at InterBee 2013

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Barry_Green

Moderator
InterBee is a major show in Japan, and Neil Ugo was interviewed about what Panasonic's plans are.


http://vimeo.com/79362098

Key points --

About 2:00-3:00, the 4K tablet.

About 3:20, talking about how yes, they'd shown a 4K VariCam prototype a year and a half ago (NAB 2012) but back then they just didn't have a sensor that they were happy with. Now they've got a sensor that they're very pleased with (I think he said they're actually "super-satisfied" and "very proud") of the performance of the sensor, so the 4K VariCam is fast-tracked for production. Says it'll be Super35, and 4K 4:4:4 AVC-Ultra. Says other manufacturers are targeting primarily the cinema user, but Panasonic is targeting both cinema, TV, and broadcast users.

Also, at 3:50, said 4K and future 8K "will be very popular in Japan" and that the government had decided to start broadcasting 4K, and that therefore Panasonic has to be "ready with 4K next year".

At about 6:00 they start talking about formats. Says 4K/24P/raw is 1.3 terabytes per hour, showing how that's not appropriate for broadcast. That'd take 2.5 hours to copy one hour of footage. Says AVC-Ultra will be 1/10 the space, one hour is 110 gigs, to copy an hour should be around 10-15 minutes. Because of this, the time- and budget-limited TV market would find this more appealing.

At about 9:00 they talk about gamma, dynamic range, film-rec and video-rec. Says they're targeting getting 14 stops from the sensor.

Should see working 4K VariCam at next NAB in April 2014.

At 10:45, they start talking about GH3 and potential GH4. Says he's from the pro factory and therefore is not in a position to talk about any potential next version of the GH (which kind of pokes all sorts of holes in the rumors that there's going to be an AG-GH4...)

At 13:00, talking about the 4K production monitor BL-4LH310.

At 14:00, talks about a new switcher, AV-HS6000 and 3ME/4ME large-size 4K switcher.
 
I think they will just end up increasing the compression ratio so that it's equiv in bitrate as HD, these manufactures seem to be desperate and determined to push 4k every which way possible.

What's next? 4k Nintendo?
 
Barry_Green said:
At about 6:00 they start talking about formats. Says 4K/24P/raw is 1.3 terabytes per hour, showing how that's not appropriate for broadcast. That'd take 2.5 hours to copy one hour of footage. Says AVC-Ultra will be 1/10 the space, one hour is 110 gigs, to copy an hour should be around 10-15 minutes. Because of this, the time- and budget-limited TV market would find this more appealing.
Click to expand...
I think there is a lot of sense in what he says for many users, but the elephant question in the room is whether it will do RAW 4K *AS WELL* as AVC-Ultra?

Because whilst 4K via AVC-Ultra may be the right way to go for some applications, then for others RAW is more suitable - and it doesn't need to be an either/or choice. He also doesn't acknowledge compressed RAW systems when talking about datarates?
 
mcgeedigital said:
Sounds to me like they aren't interested in RAW at all.

Oh well.
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As nice as RAW is it can be a pain to deal with so it makes total sense to make a camera that can fit into other workflows other than films which have oodles of time to color correct material or deal with that kind of work flow. Film makers are not the only people in the world and in fact make up a very tiny segment of the market. Don't get me wrong I would like to have RAW at times but I'm glad to see Panasonic focus on a format that makes sense for playback, editing and archiving. Jumping up to a higher quality format with 4:4:4 is a pretty big jump in quality overall and should allow a whole new level of quality outside of RAW of course.
 
It's not like RAW automatically equals huge file sizes, they can implement RAW in the same way gopro did, or anywhere in between, it's whatever they'll think people in their target market want.

now that i think of it, i've yet to tinker with the raw on my gopro...
 
Thomas Smet said:
As nice as RAW is it can be a pain to deal with so it makes total sense to make a camera that can fit into other workflows .....
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Indeed - and why I stressed in the earlier post that I'd like to see it as well as the options they talk of. Point is that RAW capability shouldn't add much cost at all to the basic product - even though the recorder and media may be expensive if you do want to make use of it. But then those may be hired just for the occasions they are required, if most shooting doesn't need RAW. We already see exactly that situation with the F55.

But it's early days yet - in that video he's stressing the AVC-Ultra aspect, that doesn't necessarily mean no RAW option. Would have been an obvious question to ask though....
 
harddrive said:
He also doesn't acknowledge compressed RAW systems when talking about datarates?
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I got myself curious and looked up the numbers for this. At 24 fps the Sony version of 4K RAW takes up about 430GB per hour, and I think RedRAW is somewhat less?

Yes, it's a lot more than the 110GB per hour that AVC-Ultra or XAVC would use, but a lot less than the 1.3TB he refers to that would be needed if no form of RAW compression was used. Assuming the same transfer rates, even the Sony form should then take around 45 minutes to transfer, instead of 2.5 hours.

RAW may not be for everyone, but with compression the systems in use don't take up the 1.3 TB/hr that uncompressed RAW would.
 
AVC-Intra-100 with a log profile preserving all the DR would be fine for >90% of users: 10-bit 422 with intra-frame compression only.

Looking at figure 2 here: http://pro-av.panasonic.net/en/sales_o/p2/AVC-ULTRA_obverview_rev1.0.pdf
* It goes at 89Mbps in 1080p24
* From the difference between the datarates at 1080p24 and 720p24, it seems scaling is a bit better than linear: 2.25x pixels takes 2.02x bitrate
* Therefore 4.26x pixels (the difference between 4096x2160 and 1920x1080) should take around 3.5x the bitrate --> 310 Mbps = 39 MB/s (that's half of 5D3-RAW at 1920x1080) = 136 GB/h --> this must be it, and I guess scaling is a bit better from 1080p to 4K than from 720p to 1080p (makes sense, there's less actual detail to encode)

My take: codec is probably more than fine, as long as they implement a good log profile that keeps those 14 stops of DR they're aiming for

Now, I'm guessing this will be >$10K... If they could only bring a 2K version at $3K...

Anyone else wondering about the S35 sensor size? Are they going PL mount? Because I doubt they'll use a m35 mount with a S35 sensor, most m43 lenses would vignette badly
 
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A 4K Varicam for less than $10,000? I don't see that happening, as appealing as that sounds. I'm guessing more like in the $20K range, much like the F55. A regular HD Varicam is pushing into the $30K range.
I suppose it'll still be P2.
Also, the Panasonic spokesman holds up a graphic that says the camera will have a PL mount.
 
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I didn't ask for a 4K Varicam for <$10K. I said this would be >$10K and it seems you aggree, actually you'd say it's even more, around $20K

What I asked for is a 2K camera with great DR and this kind of codec, for $3K
I'm happy with them pushing 4K in the high-end, if that means 2K is useless and gets sold for cheap. Because I know I don't need 4K :)
 
Samuel H said:
* It goes at 89Mbps in 1080p24
* From the difference between the datarates at 1080p24 and 720p24, it seems scaling is a bit better than linear: 2.25x pixels takes 2.02x bitrate
* Therefore 4.26x pixels (the difference between 4096x2160 and 1920x1080) should take around 3.5x the bitrate --> 310 Mbps = 39 MB/s (that's half of 5D3-RAW at 1920x1080) = 136 GB/h --> this must be it, and I guess scaling is a bit better from 1080p to 4K than from 720p to 1080p (makes sense, there's less actual detail to encode)
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If you do the maths according to the quoted figure in the video (1 hour of 24fps 4K occupies 110GB) it works out to a datarate close to 250Mbs. That compares closely with Sonys quoted figure of 240Mbs for 4K XAVC, with all else equal. (Hardly surprising, AVC-Ultra and XAVC have the same basic technology.)

But Sony quote that for 60fps 4K XAVC, the datarate will go up to 600Mbs, and I assume the same thing must happen with Panasonic and AVC-Ultra?

Since the main emphasis here by Panasonic is on broadcast rather than "cinema", I think that's very relevant. The earliest live 4K broadcasting seems to be mainly sports based, and I don't see much point for such as that in moving to 4K resolution, but then going down to 24 fps motion rendition !?!

As far as price goes, then perhaps the best indicator may be the F55, and at B&H a F55 body only is now quoted at nearly $29,000. It remains to be seen whether the 4K Varicam will have a RAW capability, likewise other features like global shutter, high frame rates etc, and I think all else equal, it will have to undercut the F55 a bit anyway to establish itself in the market. So my guess is to expect a selling price of between about $22,500 and $27,500, body only. Nearer the top end if the specs rival the F55, nearer the lower end if such as RAW capability, global shutter etc are missing. We'll see.
 
harddrive said:
I think RedRAW is somewhat less?
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REDRAW at 4k 5:1 is a little under 200gb an hour.

This new Varicam will be interesting. Because while it was used in some cinematic sense the Varicam has always been an ENG/EFP camera and I think that is where its strength is. A S35mm sensor is a strange choice for that application. Maybe this will be a full on cinema camera. Either way I can't see it come in at under 30k and I wouldn't be surprised if it was 50k all said and done.
 
mcgeedigital said:
Sounds to me like they aren't interested in RAW at all.

Oh well.
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Good, most of us aren't. A good log 4K camera with great compression is what works for mostly anything. 1% or less are shooting worthwhile feature material and that's not enough to worry about coddling with raw workflows.

Give me a 4K version of the Alexa with XLR's and sxs cards at half the price and Im done.
 
RAW is not necessarily better, but it is a lot easier to implement. In order to record AVC-ultra, the camera needs to do the debayering in real time, then do the color subsimpling, then compress the image heavily. For RAW, with the same bitrate, you just need to receive the data fromthe sensor and compress it (half as much as with avc-ultra 422, if you want to end up with the same bitrate).

The good thing about RAW is that it can be cheap, because in-camera processing power is expensive, but in-PC processing power is cheap.
 
Samuel H said:
I didn't ask for a 4K Varicam for <$10K. I said this would be >$10K and it seems you aggree, actually you'd say it's even more, around $20K

What I asked for is a 2K camera with great DR and this kind of codec, for $3K
I'm happy with them pushing 4K in the high-end, if that means 2K is useless and gets sold for cheap. Because I know I don't need 4K :)
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Sorry, I mis-read your post. We both agree, it will be over $10K. I expect it to be closer to $30K.
 
Samuel H said:
RAW is not necessarily better, but it is a lot easier to implement. In order to record AVC-ultra, the camera needs to do the debayering in real time, then do the color subsimpling, then compress the image heavily. For RAW, with the same bitrate, you just need to receive the data fromthe sensor and compress it (half as much as with avc-ultra 422, if you want to end up with the same bitrate).

The good thing about RAW is that it can be cheap, because in-camera processing power is expensive, but in-PC processing power is cheap.
Click to expand...

It's important to remember though that broadcast customers buy into a solution, not just a product. It may be easy to implement RAW in-camera, but Panasonic would need to back that up with a proven workflow straight through to distribution– a much bigger task. They already have a tested, proven workflow with P2/AVC, and even if these new products look a bit different they fit into the same workflow their customers already know and trust.


William_Robinette said:
A S35mm sensor is a strange choice for that application.
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I'm surprised at this, too. It will make a good ENG-style alternative to the F55 for existing P2 customers, but it seems to me like there's a bigger opportunity for a 2/3" 4K Varicam that fits much more neatly into the existing broadcast workflow (especially in regards to lenses) and would be, at least for now, peerless in the market. This Super35 version may be the headliner, but I'd be surprised if there's not a 2/3" version coming up soon, too.
 
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