Panasonic 4K S35 Varicam: More info

Also let's consider how on earth are Broadcasters going to transmit 4K Resolution over the air. Right now they are limited to 21mb/s per sec, and most of them are using 12 -18 mb/s of that bandwidth for their HD signal and the rest for additional SD channels. The stations I am familiar with are using Mpeg2 compression for this. I don't know if the new digital transmitters (costing half a million $$) can accomodate whatever new tech they decide to use but if that means buying new transmitters when their current ones are less than 4 years old...HA HA HA.
Remember, the people pushing the 4K stuff are the MANUFACTURERS. Filmmakers of course want it. Heck, I want it. I hope I can afford it, and if the Blackmagic 4k cam turns out to be as good as I'm hoping I'll buy one, but not a Sony F55, which I'd rather have but can't afford (In the end, all the stuff I will make with it will be HD as a final result anyway). There are definitely advantages and uses for 4K right now, but in Broadcast TV its extremely little and that's not going to change by next year as some on here think.
Those who think HD is old hat and we are surfing into a 4k TV future right now are seriously mistaken. IMO.
 
GaryNattrass said:
They did 4k tests with NHK and the BBC at the London 2012 games but I doubt if very much will be broadcast 4K in Rio as it would involve all the worlds OB vans and the total OBS infrastructure being re-equiped to deal with it.

Yes you may get the odd 4K camera feed from the stadium or limited coverage of set events but to say that the aim is to broadcast the next Olympics in 4k is I suspect not strictly true.
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I worked for the BBC at the London 2012 games and didn't see any 4K. As has been said, NHK had 8K on show using 4-5 cameras and a small OB truck CRAMMED with kit.

I have heard first hand that one equipment manufacturer has been asked to provide all their kit in 4K........now I can't remember if it was for 2016 Olympics or perhaps the 2018 World Cup????

Harddrive, I think we got onto the 'broadcast' topic because the lady in the Panasonic Interview said that's the market they are going after.
 
Two parts to that question, ripupthehwy. Firstly, *IF* 4k was ever going to be broadcast, there are now codecs available that will give the same quality at far lower bitrates than MPEG2, and most talked about at the moment is maybe HEVC - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding

It's also worth making it clear that the bitrate needed for increasing resolution and (especially) frame rate doesn't scale in proportion. So if you quadruple the no of pixels, the bandwidth won't quadruple likewise, it'll be less.

Take it all together and the expectation is that it will be possible to code 4k into existing HD broadcast bandwidths. (In the UK, MPEG2 is used for SD broadcasts but H264 for HD. The result is that HD broadcast datarates are far lower than the 12-18Mbs you refer to.)

But yes, even if technically possible, it means new equipment all the way through - new coders, and new decoders at the receiving end.

But you seem to be assuming it must be an all or nothing change, and I don't think that's the case. As with TV in the UK at the moment, then whilst all the major channels are HD, there are many minority ones which are still SD. But virtually all mainstream production has been HD for a while. With 4k I would imagine you may initially get a few specialist channels starting up (for the early adopters), then a gradual ramping up. Nobody is saying all broadcast TV will be 4k by next year, not by a long way.

But that's transmission. Acquisition is a different matter. And that's what's relevant here. Not run of the mill stuff, but programmes which cost lots of money, and big budget commercials. Expect such to increasingly be made in 4k, even if downscaled to HD for first transmission.
 
vtwiz said:
Harddrive, I think we got onto the 'broadcast' topic because the lady in the Panasonic Interview said that's the market they are going after.
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Ah OK. I've just watched the interview again and frankly much of what she says doesn't make sense. I actually agree with the general sentiment here in this thread that 4k for general broadcast is a long way off, but I do think in high end acquisition it's already coming fast. But she does imply that the focus of their efforts are broadcast, not what she calls "digital cinema"...... Strange....

I get the feeling she's a sales person who has been given a script and got parts of it completely wrong. She talks initially about "only 0.4% of the worlds population own a 4k TV". Considering the premium such screens are at the moment, and the short time they've been available, I just can't begin to believe that figure - 0.0004% may be more like it! :)

And look around 1'35" when she talks about codecs. She talks of "being able to compress data at hugely fast speeds" then goes directly on to say "we're working at about 240Mbits/sec, whereas our competitors are working at roughly half that".

I can't begin to understand what is meant by that. Is she confusing compression speed with bitrate? And which of the competitors are working with 4k at a data rate of around 120Mbs, as she implies? Obvious thought would be Sony - but for them 4k XAVC is 300Mbs, isn't it?

She then goes on to say "you'll be able to process data, that would traditionally take up to 3 hours to transfer 1 hours worth of content, you'll be able to process that in around 10 minutes". Errr, where is that coming from? I can only imagine she is now comparing a RAW workflow with in-camera AVC-Ultra encoding, and talking about the relative transfer speeds. But how does that tie in with the previous comments about competitors data rates of about half 240Mbs? And fails to appreciate that the F55 already offers virtually exactly that! (With a RAW option as well - will the 4k Varicam have the RAW option?)
 
vtwiz said:
I worked for the BBC at the London 2012 games and didn't see any 4K. As has been said, NHK had 8K on show using 4-5 cameras and a small OB truck CRAMMED with kit.

I have heard first hand that one equipment manufacturer has been asked to provide all their kit in 4K........now I can't remember if it was for 2016 Olympics or perhaps the 2018 World Cup????

Harddrive, I think we got onto the 'broadcast' topic because the lady in the Panasonic Interview said that's the market they are going after.
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Sorry Guys you are right it was the 8k that I saw, oh well shows how much attention I was paying at the time but I was working as a commentary manager so I will use that as my excuse as it was at the end of a very long two months.

I stand by what I said though that there will need to be a major OB hardware upgrade on a world wide basis to handle 4k and unless rights holders are prepared to pay extra for it I doubt it will happen by RIO 2016 but I will keep an eye out for 4K in Sochi next year.

As others have said 4k is being pushed from the manufacturers end and I too would love to buy a 4k camera if clients pay me the extra going rate to have it, most of them will be hire kit in the short term and I also doubt if the viewing public will be rushing to buy yet another new TV now that they have just bought into the 3D madness that we have had over the past three years!

Yes 4k will be with us in time but at the moment anyone rushing to buy into it rather than hire kit is a fool as the first expensive cameras will soon be replaced as usual.

As for me well the NEW market is local TV in the UK so it's time to set the HPX301+371 Varicams to DVCPro and dig out the powerbook G4 with P2 card slot to edit on location as its all SD! :laugh:
 
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GaryNattrass said:
Well it looks like the FIFA 2014 world cup final will be in 4K but who will be watching?

http://www.hbs.tv/news-archive/news/article/fifa-tv-and-sony-announce-4k-final-in-2014.html
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Next year, the answer is probably "not very many" - but that's missing the point.

It's following exactly the same curve that HD did not so many years ago, and for that matter colour previously, and even television itself! Simple trials and demos, then used for high prestige events and programming (albeit mostly downconverted for first transmission), then more general usage for acquisition and finally becoming the norm. (Don't expect widespread transmission until acquisition has become fairly commonplace.) HD is only just coming into the last category, and 4k is definitely in the second at the moment. But well..... mighty oaks grow from acorns - they don't just happen overnight. Same with virtually all technological development. A century ago we could have been having a very similar debate over whether the telephone would catch on, or whether the telegraph was good enough!

And nobody is suggesting all HD equipment has to be thrown out overnight. The people I know who are/have bought equipment recently (nearly all F5/55) have done it firstly to get a true professional s35 camera and as part of the natural upgrade cycle. They may be using it in HD mode at the moment - but the 4k ability was seen as significant as it is expected to be called for well within the lifetime of the camera. If anything has surprised me, it's that apparently the ratio of F5:F55 is far more heavily in favour of the F55 than I'd expected. I can only assume that it's ability to record coded 4k via XAVC (not just RAW) is seen as important, together with the global shutter etc.
 
Tzedekh said:
Red, Canon, Sony, and JVC all have released 4K cameras, and BMD is scheduled to release one shortly. Panasonic will be the last of the major manufacturers to do so -- so, yeah, it's late to the party.
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Not whilst there are major motion pictures transcoding their 4K footage to 2K 10-bit DPX files for visual effects compositing (because 4K would be too expensive and too data intensive). How many people do you know that own 4K TVs or projectors?

Surely people have to actually be at the party for it to count as a party? Cold drinks on ice don't mean much if there's no one there to drink them.
 
harddrive said:
Next year, the answer is probably "not very many" - but that's missing the point.

It's following exactly the same curve that HD did not so many years ago, and for that matter colour previously, and even television itself! Simple trials and demos, then used for high prestige events and programming (albeit mostly downconverted for first transmission), then more general usage for acquisition and finally becoming the norm. (Don't expect widespread transmission until acquisition has become fairly commonplace.) HD is only just coming into the last category, and 4k is definitely in the second at the moment. But well..... mighty oaks grow from acorns - they don't just happen overnight. Same with virtually all technological development. A century ago we could have been having a very similar debate over whether the telephone would catch on, or whether the telegraph was good enough!
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I had 'discussions' with plenty of people who used the same arguments for why 3D was going
to be the next big thing. Just sayin.........
 
If you watch 4K next to 1080p, the difference is pretty subtle. Now watch SD next to 1080p. The difference is huge. I think a huge benefit will tend to be adopted a lot faster than a very subtle one, so I think 4K will be gobbled up a lot slower than HD was, not to mention HD was released in an economic boom time the likes of which we may never see again.

1080p is getting close to the edge of your eye's ability to discern detail at comfortable seating distances. Very few shots are F11, perfectly in focus, and don't move - the only kinds of shots where the 4K difference is even discernible, let alone significant.
 
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