starcentral
Veteran
What ever the loop hole / hack is all about, I'm quite certain Sony will address in the next major firmware release so that it becomes a thing of the past.
F5: Reams F5??
- Thread starter morgan_moore
- Start date
Nate Weaver
Veteran
You think?
I think they'll embrace it:
1-cats out of the bag
2-God knows they need something to compete with cheap 4K cameras coming out
3-Choice: Gain admiration of potential F5 buyers (and current owners) everywhere at expense of some existing F55 owners, or lose all those potential new sales
I think they'll embrace it:
1-cats out of the bag
2-God knows they need something to compete with cheap 4K cameras coming out
3-Choice: Gain admiration of potential F5 buyers (and current owners) everywhere at expense of some existing F55 owners, or lose all those potential new sales
joshbinder
Active member
this is a crazy thought, but never know... Sony does have people they enlist for beta testing? It is always possible he's leaking it? Why else would he hold us all off for a Pre-IBC podcast? Maybe there is something tied in with a Sony IBC Announcement.
Just a thought. If i hacked the F5 to do 4k I would get it out as wide and fast as i could. Why give sony's legal team days to catch up if you did do something they wouldn't like, therefore jeopardizing the entire tease laid out on twitter. I mean Wait for another week or day or two? Thats just enough time for Cease and Desist letter to hit Reams.
Why tease unless you are selling something?
4K XAVC is a software damn. The difference in Cost between the two cameras is not double, but probably more expensive for the CFA and the Shutter mechanism/Sensor Block. Those two things alone justify Sony's marketing people to increase cost, plus its inflated for marketing reasons. The rest of the computer is probably the same, most people have said so, many sony people have privately told dealers that this is the case and the 4K XAVC situation is a software dam.
I know a thing or two about processing. If a processor is fast enough to decode and debater a 4k sensor into a 2k file... processing the entire thing down using pixel binning and the other variations of process that the camera offers to get images from the 4K Sensor to the SxS Engine requires X amount of processing power. Meaning its doing some additional math other than parsing the pixies 1:1 into a codec. That being said if its fast enough to do that, its fast enough to record 4K XAVC.
The difference between what the F5 currently does and adding 4K XAVC and QFHD is so minuscule that it would in most circumstances cost Sony MORE Money to be using different hardware in each camera just for THAT SPECIFIC purpose. Processors, RAM, CPUs, GPUs and Graphics Co-processors, math processors, imaging processors... are CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP these days. Cheap to manufacture. Cheap to reproduce and implement.
If you wrote a software program that took 4000 Chickens as its input and produced 2000 eggs as its output, it would require X amount of routines and subroutines to do this math:
-Which chickens were fertile
-Which ones were male and female
-which ones were too old to lay eggs
-which ones had been laying eggs
you get my point... Either way the MATH required will consume Y amount of processing power that would be easily supplied by microchip/processor A, using Coprocessor B.
If you then decided you were going to change the program to let all 4000 chickens produce an egg a piece. You wouldn't need to re-evaluate the processing power required for the subroutines. The computer is already taking in the 4000 chickens and figuring out all the necessary information, outputting a result and then doing some more math. So you would merely just go back into the program and remove the subroutines that figure out how many chickens out of the 4000 will produce eggs, and let them all pass one out.
This is what the F5 does with the 4096x2160 pixels coming off the sensor. It takes all of the data, and then does a whole lot of math before it hits the recorder section.
Let us also remember the camera is essentially built as a few separate components.
Sensor Block
Processor
Recorder
in simplicity thats it. Its like 3 components tied together. Where the F5 and F55 have a different Camera block and processor, the recorder is the same. it wouldn't make sense to make slightly different one.
Just a thought. If i hacked the F5 to do 4k I would get it out as wide and fast as i could. Why give sony's legal team days to catch up if you did do something they wouldn't like, therefore jeopardizing the entire tease laid out on twitter. I mean Wait for another week or day or two? Thats just enough time for Cease and Desist letter to hit Reams.
Why tease unless you are selling something?
4K XAVC is a software damn. The difference in Cost between the two cameras is not double, but probably more expensive for the CFA and the Shutter mechanism/Sensor Block. Those two things alone justify Sony's marketing people to increase cost, plus its inflated for marketing reasons. The rest of the computer is probably the same, most people have said so, many sony people have privately told dealers that this is the case and the 4K XAVC situation is a software dam.
I know a thing or two about processing. If a processor is fast enough to decode and debater a 4k sensor into a 2k file... processing the entire thing down using pixel binning and the other variations of process that the camera offers to get images from the 4K Sensor to the SxS Engine requires X amount of processing power. Meaning its doing some additional math other than parsing the pixies 1:1 into a codec. That being said if its fast enough to do that, its fast enough to record 4K XAVC.
The difference between what the F5 currently does and adding 4K XAVC and QFHD is so minuscule that it would in most circumstances cost Sony MORE Money to be using different hardware in each camera just for THAT SPECIFIC purpose. Processors, RAM, CPUs, GPUs and Graphics Co-processors, math processors, imaging processors... are CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP these days. Cheap to manufacture. Cheap to reproduce and implement.
If you wrote a software program that took 4000 Chickens as its input and produced 2000 eggs as its output, it would require X amount of routines and subroutines to do this math:
-Which chickens were fertile
-Which ones were male and female
-which ones were too old to lay eggs
-which ones had been laying eggs
you get my point... Either way the MATH required will consume Y amount of processing power that would be easily supplied by microchip/processor A, using Coprocessor B.
If you then decided you were going to change the program to let all 4000 chickens produce an egg a piece. You wouldn't need to re-evaluate the processing power required for the subroutines. The computer is already taking in the 4000 chickens and figuring out all the necessary information, outputting a result and then doing some more math. So you would merely just go back into the program and remove the subroutines that figure out how many chickens out of the 4000 will produce eggs, and let them all pass one out.
This is what the F5 does with the 4096x2160 pixels coming off the sensor. It takes all of the data, and then does a whole lot of math before it hits the recorder section.
Let us also remember the camera is essentially built as a few separate components.
Sensor Block
Processor
Recorder
in simplicity thats it. Its like 3 components tied together. Where the F5 and F55 have a different Camera block and processor, the recorder is the same. it wouldn't make sense to make slightly different one.
GaryinCalifornia
Veteran
I was telling a friend... if they let it go cool... but if they fix it so you can't hack it... my luck that's when I'll have the $ to buy it...
joshbinder
Active member
Just to further my rant....
Another company who used to do this stuff.... AVID/Digidesign. Back when i used to be an audio engineer. My first setup i got was Called the Project II System from Digidesign.
It was composed of a Project II PCI card, your choice of Digidesign Interface (The same interfaces used on the high end at the time Pro Tools 24 and 24 MIX Systems) and then your choice of NATIVE based software either Logic or Digital Performer. The whole thing was you could NOT run the actual pro tools software on it. It simply wouldn't run on a Project II card. If you wanted to run pro tools you needed to buy a Pro Tools 24 Core which came with a d24 card.
The whole gimmick was it was like $1500 bucks plus the price of the interface, whereas a Pro Tools TDM MIX or 24 system which came with the same interface was almost $10k just to jump in.
One day we looked at the $6000 Pro Tools TDM d24 Card side by side with the Project II card which cost $1500 or something like that.
IDENTICAL... we even ran through it with a meter. It was exactly the same. But was easy enough for AVID/DIGI to remove a few lines of machine code that banned access from the SRAM chips and the Motorola d24 core by a certain Driver that loaded the latency free mixer.
It allowed for basic functionality but the extra math the card allowed was basically walled off. Its way more cost efficient for companies to do this than make separate components.
Same thing with these cameras. The cheaper they are to make, the more money they make, the less pressure to sell quite as many, the easier it is to provide service expand the market etc... IT makes tons more sense.
Now whether or not this Reams thing is Sanctioned... thats another story. I would love to see that it is. I would reconsider selling my F5 which is now posted all over the place.
Another company who used to do this stuff.... AVID/Digidesign. Back when i used to be an audio engineer. My first setup i got was Called the Project II System from Digidesign.
It was composed of a Project II PCI card, your choice of Digidesign Interface (The same interfaces used on the high end at the time Pro Tools 24 and 24 MIX Systems) and then your choice of NATIVE based software either Logic or Digital Performer. The whole thing was you could NOT run the actual pro tools software on it. It simply wouldn't run on a Project II card. If you wanted to run pro tools you needed to buy a Pro Tools 24 Core which came with a d24 card.
The whole gimmick was it was like $1500 bucks plus the price of the interface, whereas a Pro Tools TDM MIX or 24 system which came with the same interface was almost $10k just to jump in.
One day we looked at the $6000 Pro Tools TDM d24 Card side by side with the Project II card which cost $1500 or something like that.
IDENTICAL... we even ran through it with a meter. It was exactly the same. But was easy enough for AVID/DIGI to remove a few lines of machine code that banned access from the SRAM chips and the Motorola d24 core by a certain Driver that loaded the latency free mixer.
It allowed for basic functionality but the extra math the card allowed was basically walled off. Its way more cost efficient for companies to do this than make separate components.
Same thing with these cameras. The cheaper they are to make, the more money they make, the less pressure to sell quite as many, the easier it is to provide service expand the market etc... IT makes tons more sense.
Now whether or not this Reams thing is Sanctioned... thats another story. I would love to see that it is. I would reconsider selling my F5 which is now posted all over the place.
joshbinder
Active member
For every discouraged F55 user that would exist because of 4K XAVC hitting the F5 for Free, would be 2-3 other F55 users who will now buy an F5 a second or third camera because of it. Its a wash for Sony.
starcentral
Veteran
Yes it's definitely a way for Sony to turn a blind eye to something that has been plaguing them for some time.
As a F55 owner, well I can only say that 4K internally was the main reason I spent the extra $12k on the F55 - but what can you do about it now?
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If that's true Sony can do one of the two options. They can say some jibber jabber that it can fry internal components because that motherboard is not prepared for handling 4K, then lock it with the next firmware OR they can leave it and give some amazing features with the new firmware only to F55 that will justify that extra money. Massive respect and thumbs up if they will go second route.
All in all that 4K possibility is not surprising at all. Hardware is ALWAYS way ahead what software can get out of it. Unified internal components make production cheaper. I would not be surprised if Scarlet could be turned into Epic with some simple hack like:
function enableEpic (mode) {
if (mode == yes) {
return Epic
}
}
All in all that 4K possibility is not surprising at all. Hardware is ALWAYS way ahead what software can get out of it. Unified internal components make production cheaper. I would not be surprised if Scarlet could be turned into Epic with some simple hack like:
function enableEpic (mode) {
if (mode == yes) {
return Epic
}
}
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As much as I'd love to rejoice being a F5 owner, Im not about to even get excited yet. Call me pessimistic but there has to be a technical caveat with all of this. I very much doubt this is Sony sanctioned as just the other day I got a email from Sony Business advertising their 5 to 55 upgrade.
He could of bought the upgrade(even though his lens ring is still black) and this is one giant marketing ploy to drive traffic to his site? Who knows..
He could of bought the upgrade(even though his lens ring is still black) and this is one giant marketing ploy to drive traffic to his site? Who knows..
Nate Weaver
Veteran
Again, save the sensor board, the hardware is identical. So I doubt there is a tech caveat. Only caveats from the nature of the hack, if any. And yes, Sony USA is probably going to be having a fun conf call tomorrow morning.
Paul is a long time contributor on the Sony board. He's not willfully hoaxing people.
In principle, I'd disagree. With a 3840x2160 chip, it's pretty straightforward processing to get a 1920x1080 image - just form an output pixel from a 2x2 Bayer block simply without regular deBayering. (Red value = value of red photosite, same for green and blue.)
DeBayering the 3840x2160 chip conventionally to get a 3840x2160 output requires far more computation - interpolating red values for where there is only a blue or green photosite, and the same for green and blue.
That said, it shouldn't be too much of a surprise if the hardware is the same between the two cameras, for the reasons you say. I'd agree it probably is cheaper to just make one chipset for both cameras and severely throttle it back in one case than develop two separate chips.
As for the future...... well, when it was first found you could record 35Mbs XDCAM on SDHC cards, there was a lot of fear that Sony would block it in future upgrades. In fact they sort of legitimised it (with health warnings) and although not for all it became seen as an advantage of the system that Sony hadn't intended. Who's to say a similar thing may not happen here?
starcentral
Veteran
Paul seems to allude that that loading the F55 firmware into the F5 isn't the ticket.
He posted this however :
https://vine.co/v/MLltpaPIjWq
He posted this however :
https://vine.co/v/MLltpaPIjWq
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I hear ya Nate, just taking a wild guess. If it's not a "simple" 55 firmware load in to a 5 or some other home brew method, why the wait till pre-IBC? Why not tell us today? Could Sony actually have something to do with this? Is it Sony's proof of concept that the 5 is upgradable to the 55?, which I doubt. We already know that and that would mean Paul messing with us. Maybe they're actually going to release a paid 4K firmware upgrade with out global shutter and F55 CFA and they've conscripted Paul to be "Patient Zero".
joshbinder
Active member
Not out of the question that with the release of the A7S they made the decision to open up 4K xavc. End of the day... It sells more cameras. With the GH4, A7S, URSA on the horizon... Albeit different animals... There is still a demand and at the price point they would gain ore loyalty then they would lose.
F55 owners would get over it pretty fast and wouldn't make noise. But sonys promise has been to make obsolescence obsolete. Well there is a myriad of cameras that promise to do just that. If one of their premiere camera blocks is the only 16k body on the market that doesn't do 4K internally say 2 years down the line when they are still planning on supporting the f5/55 as the mainstay Cinealta camera system... Well the have rendered it obsolete.
i for one had just made the decision to dump the camera, the f55 upgrade is too expensive and I would rather have the f5 sensor with 4k anyways. The whole reason I bought the 5 was for a low light documentary camera.
F55 owners would get over it pretty fast and wouldn't make noise. But sonys promise has been to make obsolescence obsolete. Well there is a myriad of cameras that promise to do just that. If one of their premiere camera blocks is the only 16k body on the market that doesn't do 4K internally say 2 years down the line when they are still planning on supporting the f5/55 as the mainstay Cinealta camera system... Well the have rendered it obsolete.
i for one had just made the decision to dump the camera, the f55 upgrade is too expensive and I would rather have the f5 sensor with 4k anyways. The whole reason I bought the 5 was for a low light documentary camera.
Paul just posted this on the Sony forum. Looks like Sony has nothing to do with it.
"seriously guys… three reasons for the delay:
1/ I wanted to soak test it a bit first
2/ I legally need to give Sony time to respond
3/ It’s a nice way to promote our podcast
(The IBC timing is just coincidence - we’re due to record another ExtraShot podcast just before we go)"
"seriously guys… three reasons for the delay:
1/ I wanted to soak test it a bit first
2/ I legally need to give Sony time to respond
3/ It’s a nice way to promote our podcast
(The IBC timing is just coincidence - we’re due to record another ExtraShot podcast just before we go)"
starcentral
Veteran
I don't quite understand "legally giving time for Sony to repsond". With what? A legal injunction?
Yeah, I was a little confused by that but Im not a lawyer. It's his camera, he can do whatever he likes to it. Im sure it'll void any warranty but thats a given.
I look at it like this. A car company makes to nearly identical models and one is faster and more expensive. Someone buys the cheaper one and digs into the car's ECU, turns out the two cars have the same engine components, exhaust and displacement but by custom mapping the ECU he unleashes the power difference between the two, turns out the car company had a digital governor restricting it and the two cars really have the same horse power. There is a entire industry that does this legally, they're called tuners.