Re: Sony A7RII - FIRST video sample!!!

[Samuel H]

That is largely a hardware issue.

This

Which doesn't mean you can't get 10-bit through a firmware update, but it does make it very unlikely. For this to happen, you'd need to be in a world where Sony put 10-bit capability in the hardware processor (a non-trivial thing which adds cost to every chip they made) and kept it disabled in every camera that has shipped with that processor so far, only to then enable it via firmware. As I said: unlikely.

Yet again, last year Canon was still using the same video processor (the Digic DV III) in all its models, from the $300 vixia cameras to the $15000 C300 (the C500 was the only exception I'm aware of), and had its nice mpeg2 422 codec disabled in basically all of them.

 

[Kilrah]

If Ferrari put in a Prius engine into its body, there'd be a major ruckus about its attitude toward its customers but, when a photo/video company does it, no one utters a peep. That's just sad.

Ferrari don't either put their best and most powerful engine in their entry/mid-range models. Actually software de-rating of engines in the car industry is just as common as disabled features in electronic devices, you'll find cars that can range between 150 and 300hp that actually use the same engine block but with different software curves and settings. In the auto case there are often auxiliary hardware parts that change accordingly, but still.

 

[Simon Shasha]

If 10-bit were possible via firmware (I'm pretty sure the A7RII's hardware is more than capable), I'd be more than happy to pay for it if need be.

 

[paulcurtis]

When he says all that stuff, he's talking about the 1" sensor in the RX10 II and RX100 IV, which are stacked CMOS sensors. The a7R II sensor is BSI but not stacked, the circuitry is behind the phosotites, but it's very basic circuitry, just a few transistors to move the analogue charges around. The ADCs are probably on the edges of the sensor, and there is probably a not-so-great amount of them in the chip (I mean: there must be a lot of them, just not as many as in the 1" sensor, which has an insane amount of ADCs)

I was pretty sure he was talking about all these sensors, including the A7r II, at least i think that's what the interviewer thought too?

I have to say after having spent a week shooting 'properly' with the A7s, the image quality does leave something to be desired compared to the stills. I would want Sony to put all effort into improving that. Noise performance and dealing with artefacts mainly and getting more data out of it. The image appears quite 'thin' compared to what can come off the sensor...

cheers
Paul

 

[paulcurtis]

If 10-bit were possible via firmware (I'm pretty sure the A7RII's hardware is more than capable), I'd be more than happy to pay for it if need be.

I don't know what version of HDMI they are using hardware wise, 10 bit at UHD is quite demanding.

Also lets not forget that the A7s HDMI is xvColor, which in theory packs more data and more colour space then standard 8 bit, and it packs it into the super dark areas of the signal.

One of the questions is finding out more about this and asking whether whatever workflows we're using actually understand it or strip it away. I've never had a full answer to this.

cheers
Paul

 

[DLD]

Ferrari don't either put their best and most powerful engine in their entry/mid-range models. Actually software de-rating of engines in the car industry is just as common as disabled features in electronic devices, you'll find cars that can range between 150 and 300hp that actually use the same engine block but with different software curves and settings. In the auto case there are often auxiliary hardware parts that change accordingly, but still.

I realize that. Add a turbo to your vehicle and you have to reprogram the whole thing. And, you may have to do that, if you upgrade the headers and so on. Or, you can just reprogram the whole thing, as soon as the pro grade software is available for the retuning. Still, these are marginal changes and you can't blame the car company for not providing a given model with turbo.

Getting back to A7R MK II, I guess it all depends on the extent of the FPGA inclusion into the hardware portion. For $3,200, I am sure a few spare circuits are available.

 

[Paul schefz]

Sony is entitled to cripple ... I mean, differentiate their own product from one model to another but it is in bad taste, IMO, to underserve the market on the software. I have the same problem with Panasonic and GH4 because it can shoot at 200 Mbps in 1080p but only at 100 Mbps (if that) in 4K. On specs, if not the layout and full functionality, A7R MK II can exceed FS7. Sony chose to detract from own achievements, however. If Ferrari put in a Prius engine into its body, there'd be a major ruckus about its attitude toward its customers but, when a photo/video company does it, no one utters a peep. That's just sad.

there are so many variables in this....following your reasoning, the FS7 is just crippled and can do the same as F5 or F55....and i would argue that you might have a better point there....
first of all none of the A7 bodies have internal storage fast enough to write the data that the FS7 is capturing.....they are also much much smaller and lighter and i am pretty sure that sony does not just fill all the empty spaces int he FS7 with rocks to make it look more manly....
i have no doubt at all that the sensor in the A7rII is capable, very capable, but at this point, in this camera it is still optimized for stills.... we will see the tech in a F body (probably) next year...
i don't see why anyone could accuse sony of neutering these products....the FS7 would sell as well and would be pretty amazing if sony would have decided to keep the price in line with canon...but they did not.....same goes for the A7rII....it is an insane package for the price....
i also don't like to talk about cameras purely looking at their spec sheets....in many cases it does not mean much....a lot of people prefer the 8bit canon files with much lower DR to 10 bit sony files....i don't care if the GH4 has 16bit files, it can't compete with either....but that would really be weird anyway if it could...
i would be very surprised if someone would hack the A7rII and get a jump in file quality like we have seen with canon....sony is maxing these cameras simply because they know that they will come out with the vIII in 18 months anyway....

 

[ectobuilder]

Ferrari don't either put their best and most powerful engine in their entry/mid-range models. Actually software de-rating of engines in the car industry is just as common as disabled features in electronic devices, you'll find cars that can range between 150 and 300hp that actually use the same engine block but with different software curves and settings. In the auto case there are often auxiliary hardware parts that change accordingly, but still.

There is a quick resolution to this issue. Sony is a public company so we can pool together our money to somehow purchase the camera division of Sony. Then we transform it into a non-profit with the sole mission to advance the film industry. Now we can come up with an A7 form-factor but with FS7/F55 engines.

There would be two possible side effects from doing this:
1) The competition like Canon would be forced to innovate more at lower prices
2) Would force a competitor like Canon to abandon the filmmaking/broadcast market AND sell off their intellectual property such as Dual Pixel AF. We then would purchase these assets in order to put it into our Sony cameras/film-technologies.

 

[Samuel H]

I was pretty sure he was talking about all these sensors, including the A7r II, at least i think that's what the interviewer thought too?

I have to say after having spent a week shooting 'properly' with the A7s, the image quality does leave something to be desired compared to the stills. I would want Sony to put all effort into improving that. Noise performance and dealing with artefacts mainly and getting more data out of it. The image appears quite 'thin' compared to what can come off the sensor...

cheers
Paul

This is the interview. I think what you were referring to is the part that comes after

So we're not talking about the speed of the rolling shutter [Ed. Note: That is, Sony is not focusing on promoting it as a key advantage of the A7R II], but of course when we presented about the 1-inch sensor, rolling shutter was faster there, around five times faster, than before. With the 1-inch sensor, before we developed such a sensor, in A/D conversion, one A/D converter [Ed. Note: Analog to Digital converter, the circuitry that translates an analog signal into digital values] controlled four pixels.

The sensor with DRAM on the back is definitely the RX100 one, you can see a picture of it in the interview, with the two smaller dies on the back (DRAM and basic processing).

And yes, the a7S video is not nearly as nice as the RAW stills, even though it's reading all the protosites. Part of it is the 8-bit limitation, which is probably a hardware thing. But also, following these tests, I think part of the reason is that slog2 is not as flat as this camera could support, and that the ISO3200 minimim is much higher than it needs to be.

 

[DLD]

there are so many variables in this....following your reasoning, the FS7 is just crippled and can do the same as F5 or F55....and i would argue that you might have a better point there....

F5 was crippled with its lack of internal 4K until someone was clever enough to just rewrite the parameters without even doing a hack. So, F5 was crippled itself and FS-7 could have probably had either a higher bit rate recording with a higher grade Sony codec or Pro Res without the extension box.

first of all none of the A7 bodies have internal storage fast enough to write the data that the FS7 is capturing.....

It may not have the guts to go as high as FS7's 600 Mps but it should be capable of JVC LS 300 150 or even GH4's 200. And, since GH4 can do 200 at a much lower price point, I don't see why Sony couldn't do it for the camera that is twice the price (currently, GHH4 is selling for $1,500 and sometimes even less). And this 100 to 200 jump would make a lot of difference.

i don't see why anyone could accuse sony of neutering these products....the FS7 would sell as well and would be pretty amazing if sony would have decided to keep the price in line with canon...but they did not....

It's more like Canon decided not to release an $8,000 4K camera - somewhat depending on what happens with 1D X2 - at this point. And so, we have a $4,000 camcorder in JVC LS 300, an $8,000 camcorder in FS7 and a $16,000 camcorder in C300 MK II. If my "double the price" theory needed more proof, it couldn't ask for anything more.

Of course, having three models from three different manufacturers lining up so perfectly likely means a collusion between all the manufacturers but that's a different part of the game.

 

[CinematicFanatic]

Sony are a bunch of A holes.

Why do they keep releasing new models ever year ... people hardly get the chance to get a return on their investment before a new one is released.

 

[ReelWorksMedia]

Deep down...they hate their customers with a firey passion. Either that, or they like to innovate and shake things up a bit. Given, I'm not a Sony fan by any stretch of the word. I have never actually owned a Sony camera. I come from the RED, Canon, and Panasonic background. I do have to say...its starting to really turn my head. Sony is quickly become the obvious choice over Canon. Canon is turning into Apple in some respects...extremely priced, lower specs, and way behind the curve compared to the competition. (every computer in my studio is currently Apple by the way.) That said, I love Canon colors, build quality, and ergonomics.

I'm at a bit of a crossroads. Recently, I think I might just not buy anything for another year...and just see how things play out.

 

[DLD]

FWIW, Sony has a solid relationship with Apple, being a major (only?) supplier of photo sensors for iPhones, so if they wanted the internal ProRes in FS7, it should have been a piece of licensing cake. XQD cards can easily handle the 422 HQ as well.

 

[Simon Shasha]

Sony are a bunch of A holes.

Why do they keep releasing new models ever year ... people hardly get the chance to get a return on their investment before a new one is released.

A7s - $2500USD. Sony Zeiss 55mm F1.8 - $1000USD. Sony Zeiss 24-70mm F4 - $1200USD. Total = $4700.

If someone can't make $4700 in an entire year in photography/videography, I highly suggest picking another career. Actually, given that the lenses would be used on the new A7RII, they'd only really need to make $2500 to get their ROI. If they can't score enough work to make $2500...then the camera they're using is definitely not the problem, and an ROI should be the last of their concerns. In fact, upgrading shouldn't even been on the radar for people in that position...

 

[Matt Gottshalk]

A7s - $2500USD. Sony Zeiss 55mm F1.8 - $1000USD. Sony Zeiss 24-70mm F4 - $1200USD. Total = $4700.

If someone can't make $4700 in an entire year in photography/videography, I highly suggest picking another career. Actually, given that the lenses would be used on the new A7RII, they'd only really need to make $2500 to get their ROI. If they can't score enough work to make $2500...then the camera they're using is definitely not the problem, and an ROI should be the last of their concerns. In fact, upgrading shouldn't even been on the radar for people in that position...

+1 well said.

 

[DLD]

Sony sez --- (KM - Kimio Maki, MW- Mark Weir)

KM: In terms of video quality the a7R II and a7S should be very much equivalent but it depends on the circumstances. If you’re filming in dark conditions of course, the a7S is better.


MW: The a7S has exactly the right number of pixels to use the full width of the sensor to shoot 4K, with no line skipping or pixel binning. The a7R II can’t do that. […] However, when set to the Super 35 crop, the a7R II sensor has a read speed fast enough to read every pixel and super-sample those pixels into an 8.3MP [4K] frame, without dropping any lines and without any pixel binning at all. So in theory, in that mode, video from the a7R II should be superior to almost any other 4K capture device...

Full DPR interview -

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/07...mer-s-voice-is-the-most-important-data-for-me

 

[harddrive]

I believe it only reads half the rows and half the columns, so, a fourth of the photosites. Because that leaves you a matrix on which you can do a 1-to-1 debayer to get a 4K image. But really, no idea. All I really know is that Sony says it doesn't line skip on APS-C mode, and says nothing about FF mode. From there on it's my speculation.

I think there is something very, very important that is being totally missed here and that is EXACTLY how many photosites we're talking about. Not just "a lot", but the specific number may be highly significant. (And if I'm right, could usher in a whole new era.)

The general assumption seems to be it must line skip in full-frame mode due to the large number of photosites. In general, that would probably be true - but.......

Let's remember what the Canon C300 does - and WHY it can do it. It reads the sensor in 2x2 Bayer blocks - and gets values for red, blue and green directly without further processing. But because the sensor is EXACTLY twice 1920 horizontally and EXACTLY twice 1080 vertically it follows that it reads out R,G,B values for 1920x1080 directly. Result is high quality 1080 video from a 3840x2160 sensor with very little processing. But key fact is this only works because the sensor dimensions are EXACTLY twice the output resolution.......

See where this is leading.......??

What if you wanted to do the same for QFHD? Read direct values via 2x2 Bayer blocks? The main requirement would be a used sensor area of EXACTLY (2x3840)x(2x2160) - 7680x4320. Once you have such, then direct 2x2 read could (in principle) give very high quality QFHD with no line or pixel skipping and with simple processing. That figure relates a 16:9 frame, so we'll assume a vertical crop of a 3:2 frame, which implies a total count of 7680x5120 for 3:2.

So what are the figures for this camera? The max used resolution (in stills) is quoted as 7952x5304 - interesting, eh? It would only need a very small crop to achieve the 7680x5120 figure, and I'd therefore be very surprised if it wasn't doing exactly as described above.

I stress all that is pure speculation, but once you get to this resolution (40Mp for 3:2) it becomes highly logical. And 40Mp is obviously more than enough for quality stills use, whilst 1080 can equally be simply directly read by reading 4x4 blocks instead of 2x2.

In all I've read, Sony have never said it does line skip (or bin) - they simply haven't said it doesn't!! A big difference......

 

[dcloud]

In all I've read, Sony have never said it does line skip (or bin) - they simply haven't said it doesn't!! A big difference......

ive read they pixel bin unless they say its downscaled. thats from sony themselves

 

[Doctor Wu]

If I could I spend $4700 on equipment and only have to gross $4700 to make that back then that would be a super easy way to live. Instead I have to factor in the cost of the gear either as a kit fee, or for something as insignificant as a DSLR, value added gear to a day rate. It is my labor and cost of living, hell even gas, that I have to account for, far more than any piece of gear. Buying gear on speculation of future earnings is always a dicey game, harder than ever to stay on top of. If one lands a corporate contract where you know this gear would be employed, than it's easy to go ahead and purchase gear knowing it's part of the cost and returns on that particular job. On the other hand, without a long term gig, the needs of different productions and producers varies so much, that a much of the time you won't be using the camera you spent so much on. Particularly DSLRs are often NOT appropriate gear for many types of work, either for workflow, quality or just professional appearance. Best thing for everybody is try not to buy anything at all, unless absolutely need to! And if you're at the top of the game (and very few of us here are let's admit it ), you can just rent want you want from the top camera houses because you're dealing with budgets and producers who just lease as part of their business model, or just don't care.

Of course rich hobbyists, dentists and IT guys who love the movies, can buy this stuff without batting an eye. Me - I have to justify everything.

A7s - $2500USD. Sony Zeiss 55mm F1.8 - $1000USD. Sony Zeiss 24-70mm F4 - $1200USD. Total = $4700.

If someone can't make $4700 in an entire year in photography/videography, I highly suggest picking another career. Actually, given that the lenses would be used on the new A7RII, they'd only really need to make $2500 to get their ROI. If they can't score enough work to make $2500...then the camera they're using is definitely not the problem, and an ROI should be the last of their concerns. In fact, upgrading shouldn't even been on the radar for people in that position...

 

[harddrive]

ive read they pixel bin unless they say its downscaled. thats from sony themselves

But there's pixel binning and pixel binning...... It's wrong to simply assume it means "worse", it depends on geometry and exactly what's going on.

It may be considered that the 2x2 method I described (and which the C300 uses to get HD) uses simple binning, as the two green samples get averaged into one for output. But nobody is complaining about the results in the case of the C300. Similarly, binning a 4x4 block to get HD from a 7680x4320 sensor should give extremely good results. It's when binning gets used on unsuitable resolutions you get the problems. Use it on an exact multiple of the desired output resolution and it's a different story.