F5: Pro Res & DnxHD announced for the F's!

F

Fotojorno

Well-known member
http://community.sony.com/t5/F5-F55...upport-for-both-F5-and-F55/m-p/293988#U293988

"Our mission is to continue developing the most feature rich cameras on the market. In so doing we are excited to announce support for ProRes and DNxHD codecs as a future hardware upgrade option for both the F5, and F55 cameras."

Note that it says "hardware upgrade", as in not free probably. Great to have options though!



Edit: 4/7/14
If the ProRes option for the F's is cost prohibitive for anyone(no price yet). Check out this cool new little monitor-less ProRes recorder from Atomos, it's 3" by 1", records to the cheaper CFast cards and is $295. Pretty neat.

http://www.atomos.com/ninja-star/​
 
Last edited:
You guys beat me to it, but this is just ABSOLUTELY freaking UNBELIEVABLE.

ScreenShot2014-03-13at115449AM_zps1259e3af.png


Did I mention it's freaking UNBELIEVABLE?!?
 
This is huge news. I see a collective wince from particular vendors. Sony is really playing the staged firmware release thing well.

All of a sudden your camera package just got lighter and it is using less power, notwithstanding the other obvious benefits.
 
Yeah, huge deal if you have clients that prefer Alexa like I do.

The other day I learned Slog3 and LC-709A are dead ringers for LogC and the Arri provided LUT, so this paired with actually recording in ProRes is a HUGE deal
 
Could this be the reason for the newer AXSM cards that are not SXS slot compatible though? I wonder if it's going to be R5 dependant.
 
Hardware upgrade. Can't help but wonder how much it will (maybe will not!) cost. And when it will roll out. Great news for everyeone

*high fives all the way around*

Have some celebratory F5/Cinedrive Timelapse camera porn!

20140313_132115.jpg
 
slipstrea808 said:
Hardware upgrade. Can't help but wonder how much it will (maybe will not!) cost. And when it will roll out.
Click to expand...

I did some sleuthing a few weeks back and found that the board that does raw preparation for the R5 and has the SR hardware codec is like a $780 replacement.

I suspect this will be a $2-3K upgrade, but that's only based on historical Sony upgrade prices vs. open market prices for external recorders.
 
Well the other option is they go like Convergent Design and you pay to rent to use it, but to be honest I'm quite convinced it will be a a permanent option.
 
I am very happy to see this. My kids food depends on it. ;-)

I guess we should continue to develop for the F5/F55.
 
If you owned an Odyssey 7Q to make use of it's available codecs it would be because the camera you need it for doesn't have the codec you want? So sorry but what you say doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

The camera will have the codecs built in, without the need for any external device, and owners who want it will be more than happy to pay for it. I'd even go as far as saying pay dearly.
 
VinceinLA said:
I'd rather own an Odyssey 7Q than pay for something these cameras should have come with.
Click to expand...

If they include the 12-bit ProRes4444 as an internal recording option, you won't be able to match that colour depth with 10-bit into the Odyssey.

Personally, the internal recording aspect of it is the big deal to my mind - when you're relying on a BNC cable to deliver your images safely to a recorder, there's a lot that can go wrong (dodgy connections, cables getting accidentally tugged and causing damage etc.)
 
Grug said:
If they include the 12-bit ProRes4444 as an internal recording option, you won't be able to match that colour depth with 10-bit into the Odyssey.

Personally, the internal recording aspect of it is the big deal to my mind - when you're relying on a BNC cable to deliver your images safely to a recorder, there's a lot that can go wrong (dodgy connections, cables getting accidentally tugged and causing damage etc.)
Click to expand...

All that is a huge deal. Plus no over cranking. These days every other job needs some off speed work, I have a ton of jobs I would have loved to shoot SR but there was just too much off speed, so had to go XAVC. XAVC is nice but it's not as nice as what you get from Alexa. I did the external recorder thing for a few months, too many headaches.
 
You guys actually have clients that will ask for this codec?

Why is prores so much better than XAVC?

I am pretty sure that sony will sell the new F55/5's with the upgrade installed from the factory- no extra cost - so they should upgrade our hardware free - for being early adopters and financing their ongoing R&D - I think that if enough of the owners think this way, sony will do the right thing - costumer loyalty is huge. Just think of it from the other standpoint as the camera makers - if the next gen of cameras comes out in a few years (i hope it's that far away) and you have a choice to to buy from - don't you think the free upgrades from sony will make you choose to stay with them because of how they treat you. It's business 101. Unless of course everyone is a fanboy and wants to tell them they are willing and ready to pay for it.

I need some explaining here, please tell me what knowledge I am missing here ! :)
 
Someone already mentioned that it is a physical board and that it's estimated cost is $800. They can't just subsidize that - a firmware update for free, sure, but not one like this. I think it's amazing how Sony keeps nailing these features.
 
captainjman said:
You guys actually have clients that will ask for this codec?

Why is prores so much better than XAVC?

I am pretty sure that sony will sell the new F55/5's with the upgrade installed from the factory- no extra cost - so they should upgrade our hardware free - for being early adopters and financing their ongoing R&D - I think that if enough of the owners think this way, sony will do the right thing - costumer loyalty is huge. Just think of it from the other standpoint as the camera makers - if the next gen of cameras comes out in a few years (i hope it's that far away) and you have a choice to to buy from - don't you think the free upgrades from sony will make you choose to stay with them because of how they treat you. It's business 101. Unless of course everyone is a fanboy and wants to tell them they are willing and ready to pay for it.

I need some explaining here, please tell me what knowledge I am missing here ! :)
Click to expand...

Because ProRes is the industry standard codec for post, along with DNxHD.

No transcoding, i-frame based. Drag and drop editing.
 
mcgeedigital said:
Because ProRes is the industry standard codec for post, along with DNxHD.

No transcoding, i-frame based. Drag and drop editing.
Click to expand...

In addition...the industry standard for high end cine work is the Alexa. The Alexa shoots ProRes and won over it's market segment in large part based on that ease for producers and post. At the time Alexa was released, producers had been dealing with (from their perspective), 3 years of post headaches with the Red. Alexa/ProRes as an alternative was a beautiful thing by comparison.

A lot of people, including me, use the 55 as a poor man's Alexa.

Every job, I'm asked if I can hand over ProRes. Producers/post supers are just weary of having to worry about whether they can deal with your files (or what hidden cost there may be getting them ready to edit)
 
captainjman said:
You guys actually have clients that will ask for this codec?

Why is prores so much better than XAVC?

I am pretty sure that sony will sell the new F55/5's with the upgrade installed from the factory- no extra cost - so they should upgrade our hardware free - for being early adopters and financing their ongoing R&D - I think that if enough of the owners think this way, sony will do the right thing - costumer loyalty is huge. Just think of it from the other standpoint as the camera makers - if the next gen of cameras comes out in a few years (i hope it's that far away) and you have a choice to to buy from - don't you think the free upgrades from sony will make you choose to stay with them because of how they treat you. It's business 101. Unless of course everyone is a fanboy and wants to tell them they are willing and ready to pay for it.

I need some explaining here, please tell me what knowledge I am missing here ! :)
Click to expand...

Yes! Many of us do have clients asking for it. I'd say the majority of freelance professional editors are using FCP, Avid, etc.. not "Premiere" or Sony Vegas. I shot many jobs in my F3 days and had to spend the time transcoding into ProRes and being a "PC guy" went out and bought a MACbook Pro so I can run FCP X, Davinci, and transcode at my leisure.

I'm not at all complaining about it, I love my mac and even edited a few on-site jobs for clients in FCP X. The point is, as Matt has already mentioned, the industry standard is ProRes period and "the client is always right".

With the recent news of Sony adding these codecs, it definitely opens up a whole new marketplace for the F5/F55 cameras and was the smartest thing they could ever have done.

I also see a F55-b for sale in the foreseeable future which will automatically include the upgrade, much like the F3 eventually included the $3200 RGB/slog upgrade.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top