Sony F3 Firmware v1.5

Andrew Stone said:
Steve don't forget that Sony had the F5 and F55 under development for a LONG time, including when they made their pitch to F3 owners a few months back asking them for workflow and feature improvements to roll into the 1.5 version of the F3 firmware which BTW they haven't released yet.
Sony would not be so fickle as to give deliberate false expectation on this particularly when they got people like Ned Stoltz and Alister Chapman to be the messengers of this. The amount of bad faith they would generate out of this would be significant to their key user base, to say the least.
I don't think it is time yet to dump on Sony Professional.
Click to expand...


Just wondering if there's any news or rumours on any forthcoming firmware updates for the F3 ?
 
With all the talk on RED vs. Sony Are they forgetting the promised v1.5?
I'm sick to my stomach of hearing about it while the camera we already have an investment in gets put to the side before it's time.
 
I'm right there with you Douglas. You can see I've posted on the Sony site...which is completely worthless by the way, also tried to send messages to Peter directly but no response. Really nice of them to tease 1.5 then fall off the face of the earth.
 
1080/60p ... That's all I want. (Before everyone turns into engineers on me...yes I know it might not be possible, but we've all seen more surprising firmware updates on some gear before)
 
The F3 *is* capable of outputting 1080p VFR over dual link or 3G. You can record 1080 17-60p frame rates to the Sony SR-R1 recorder.

Single link is not possible though, so for the Ki Pro Mini it's just not possible. A recorder with dual link might be able to do it, but would need the correct firmware to understand the SDI flags sent by the F3.
 
The only F3 feature that could be added by firmware that was confirmed by Sony to be hardware impossible was adding different codecs (See the Sony community forum posts). Was there any other features that were confirmed by Sony to be impossible? I am not aware of any except for the feature to make the camera help actors act better or the flamethrower option. Otherwise all other opinions about what a firmware upgrade can or cannot do, unless backed by proof from the horses mouth, is speculation. As of right now I speculate that 1080p 60fps is possible, until Sony tells us otherwise. What about 10 second bursts? A new algorithm to enable 1.5g 60fps? Who knows? Nothing wrong with continuing the speculation until Sony pipes up and follows through with the 1.5 tease. :)
 
What was Sony thinking? They put 1080/60p on the FS-100 and only 720 on the F3.
I know someone is going to defend Sony saying that it is not possible on the XDCAM codec. So why use an old codec? What is the benefit of XDCam 8 bit 420? Was it just for pride of using their own codec? or, was it for profits and selling more SxS cards that are now becoming obsolete?
You do what you want. Buy a new F with features yet to come who knows when. I did that before and all I can do now is complain.
My next camera is not going to be anything hot off the over. I want something proven. Those getting those used F35s are on the right track in my book.
 
Last edited:
Richard Allen Crook said:
The only F3 feature that could be added by firmware that was confirmed by Sony to be hardware impossible was adding different codecs (See the Sony community forum posts). Was there any other features that were confirmed by Sony to be impossible? I am not aware of any except for the feature to make the camera help actors act better or the flamethrower option. Otherwise all other opinions about what a firmware upgrade can or cannot do, unless backed by proof from the horses mouth, is speculation. As of right now I speculate that 1080p 60fps is possible, until Sony tells us otherwise. What about 10 second bursts? A new algorithm to enable 1.5g 60fps? Who knows? Nothing wrong with continuing the speculation until Sony pipes up and follows through with the 1.5 tease. :)
Click to expand...

I assume the codec is hardwired into a chip. The Nanoflash uses two Sony codec chips and they said it will always be 8 bit. However, the Nano was able unlock a wide variety of data rates through custom firmware. The F3 already has variable bit rates and can record faster than 35Mbps. The SxS cards are not a bottle neck. They are used on much more data heavy cameras.

We are locked into 8 bit recordings, but really that's not an issue until you get into really heavy color changes.

4.2.0 we might be locked into, but I'm not sure of that.

I'm reasonably sure that data rates we are NOT locked into.
 

720p 8 bit 420 may fine for most people, but I like to create images that don't resemble reality. For that I have to relay on pushing gamma & chroma. 720/60p 10 bit 422 is easily done with the KiPro Mini and the results are not bad on a 720 timeline. However when you blow it up 50% to include it on a 1080 timeline, you can see a difference.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top