Sony F35 at 12bit 444

The reason for SR-R1 is the 1080p/50 capability in 12 bit. For some, that's a big plus. For example, the Pix 240i can only do slow motion speeds of 12bit 1080i/50 or 720p/50.

I'm curious to read more about the Codex recorder, though, and see if that could be a real solution for handling everything the F35 is capable of.
 
SJX said:
Good points Viddovation.

But if I really think, SR-R1 set up will end up costing at least 3 times more than 7Q or other similar recorder and you end up with something much bulkier, heavier and still get no trigger recording, no ramping and no variable frame rates. It also looks much more power hungry.
Quite a lot to pay in money and weight only to have 12 bit since other recorders will record 10 bit 444. It is worth it for the extra 2 bit? Maybe but I get the feeling most jobs we in these boards do would be more than fine with 10 bit 444 and even 10 bit 422.
Not everybody is resourceful like you and can customize the SR-R1 to make it less bulky and without this the recorder is kind of a beast.
The media is very expensive and not easy to find used.
Codec not as popular or flexible as Prores, Dnxhd or even Cineform.
Don't know. If I think deep it's not worth it for me for all the trouble and money.
But it's a good recorder.

Thank you for the chat anyway.
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To each their own. In the past 48 hours as we've been having this conversation I tracked down and bought a second SR-R1, complete with two cards. Total cost? $2,575 coming used from Alan Gordon, the rental house. They had it listed for $2,695. I called in, offered $2,500. By the time credit card fees were added, we were at $2,575. That's with two 256GB cards.

Mind you, I nearly threw up a thread to let everyone here know instead of buying it myself, but ultimately this answers some of my desires.

The larger point though is that the asking price is not always the going price. In the same way that those of us on this forum bought F35 cameras at a very steep discount off retail, buying this recorder for a discount is also very possible. I've done it twice. The first one cost me $3,750 with two cards, this one is over a thousand less a year later. Carefully shop for a Kona 3G, and you could be offloading for as little as $300 more. There's a price gap between what you pay when you need something immediately, and what you pay when you can afford the time to stalk a deal.

The codec is plenty flexible, whether it's popular depends on what type of clients you're working with. If all your clients want is ProRes 422, the Atomos Samurai is dirt cheap.

As for being resourceful and modding, well, I don't mind sharing what I learn or develop. My current dock, which would cost you under $250 is very secure, and really only requires machining one plate, which, for the record, I didn't do myself, but paid to have done. There's no wiring in this version, and it works well.
 
Hunterqual said:
The reason for SR-R1 is the 1080p/50 capability in 12 bit. For some, that's a big plus. For example, the Pix 240i can only do slow motion speeds of 12bit 1080i/50 or 720p/50.

I'm curious to read more about the Codex recorder, though, and see if that could be a real solution for handling everything the F35 is capable of.
Click to expand...

Well, keep in mind to do that you'll need two IF boxes and a two dual link to 3g SDI multiplexers. But yes, in theory possible.
 
I actually saw that recorder for sale. The pictures looked like it is a bit beat up. But the problem is too many if's. If you find the right parts for cheap and second hand. I don't like counting on if's. Also the bulk, weight and power hunger and it doesn't solve all recording problems from F35. But yes to each his own.
But I'm wondering why you bought a second one?
 
SJX said:
I actually saw that recorder for sale. The pictures looked like it is a bit beat up. But the problem is too many if's. If you find the right parts for cheap and second hand. I don't like counting on if's. Also the bulk, weight and power hunger and it doesn't solve all recording problems from F35. But yes to each his own.
But I'm wondering why you bought a second one?
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Well, at retail the cards cost $1,400 each. That's $2,800 for two. I just paid less than that and also got a spare recorder... if nothing else, I could sell the recorder alone for something (even $1,000) and save money on the card purchase. Not that I plan on doing that.

Also, I've considered picking up a second F35 at some point... in which case the second recorder has an obvious purpose. And I do currently own a Sony PMW-F3, so there's that too.

But there's another benefit to having the spare. And it really comes down to a speed on set issue. I want to wire one recorder as I described to be fed SDI through the dock, no external wiring. This should be very convenient, will eliminate weight, reduce wiring, etc. However, this mod would mean the inputs ports on the SR-R1 would be disconnected (as that's now coming from the dock port). If you suddenly needed to record on a different camera, or reduce weight even further and run the SR-R1 on a cable, you'd have an issue. One solution might be to build a custom dock receptacle, but that's even more engineering hassle. Also, for the SR-Express workflow, having a second recorder solves the issue of not being to offload while recording. Use one deck to record, the other to offload.

And finally... spare parts down the road, and redundancy in the field. If one breaks we can keep shooting, without changing codecs or workflows.

A luxury, but the price was right.

And it's solid state? Why care if it looks beat up? Also, the panel that looked the most gummed up comes off anyway the moment you want to put a battery plate on.


Oh, and I also just acquired an Anton Bauer DT-500 (still in transit) that is the officially approved 8-pin Lemo power source for this camera. So, that's going to solve the majority of my weight and power issues anytime there is a gennie or wall power. No more batteries on the camera unless we're truely in the field.
 
Mitch, I think you could sell a 7Q package that enabled full F35 recording almost every one of us with an F35 here, but what is that 20, 25 tops? Speed ramping would be awesome, and the information you posted about how the camera sends it over the SDI Viddovation is fascinating, your knowledge of the camera is always impressive. But if we are being honest, it is probably a lot of work for something we all would love to play with and rarely use. 12-bit Prores however could be useful all the time, development is feasible because there are a lot more 12 bit 444 cameras out there than F35's. Even without a special F35 mode, 12 bit I think would sell to most.

Holy Crap Viddovation I noticed an older post of yours about the IF box and what parts you need to keep. I thought you needed that big circuit board but all it needs is the small one that sits inside the CA joint! I don't know if anyone else cares as much about this, but that is very very exciting to me. Not only is the IF box an expensive audio multiplexer, just the parts to get Dual Link out of the F35 can still be bought from sony for a fair price. The IF box is not needed ever! the dual link is a simple cable and so is the 12 volt power input which all can be contained within the CA joint.
 
yachacha said:
Mitch, I think you could sell a 7Q package that enabled full F35 recording almost every one of us with an F35 here, but what is that 20, 25 tops? Speed ramping would be awesome, and the information you posted about how the camera sends it over the SDI Viddovation is fascinating, your knowledge of the camera is always impressive. But if we are being honest, it is probably a lot of work for something we all would love to play with and rarely use. 12-bit Prores however could be useful all the time, development is feasible because there are a lot more 12 bit 444 cameras out there than F35's. Even without a special F35 mode, 12 bit I think would sell to most.

Holy Crap Viddovation I noticed an older post of yours about the IF box and what parts you need to keep. I thought you needed that big circuit board but all it needs is the small one that sits inside the CA joint! I don't know if anyone else cares as much about this, but that is very very exciting to me. Not only is the IF box an expensive audio multiplexer, just the parts to get Dual Link out of the F35 can still be bought from sony for a fair price. The IF box is not needed ever! the dual link is a simple cable and so is the 12 volt power input which all can be contained within the CA joint.
Click to expand...

Not sure if i misspoke or you misunderstood. My testing concluded that of three circuit boards in the IF box, the only optional one is the audio one. The large one is needed. However, the SDI signal itself can bypass the large board, and be fed straight to output from the origin board. But without the main board, the camera won't output the SDI signals.
 
yachacha said:
well I've have tracked down the total pieces of a codex M recorder, from what it looks like the Codex will be able to to 12bit 444 out of the F35 dock up to 50p, speed ramping, rec button. Seems the Codex delivers what the SRR3 promised. Perhaps I'm speaking too soon but BandPro had the F35 Interface plate for $750 used, this was the part I was worried wouldn't exist anymore so I am excited to have the parts I need.

So far I've bought:

Codex M Recorder : $600
2 256gb Codex Drives: $500
Codex F35 Interface Plate: $750

Still need:

Magnetic Remote
Transfer Station (One for 2k on ebay but it's huge)

I'll post results soon.
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But codex is uncompressed only no? You need supercomputer for this? I hate offline online workflow.

What about SR-HQ 880 12 bit 444 from SR-R1? Can you online or you need supercomputer?
 
A basic RAID setup can handle uncompressed 4:2:2 which I believe is around 1.5gbps - perhaps a little less. The same setup should be able to handle HDCAM SR 4:4:4 just as easily.

With these files, it is not processing power you need, it is disk speed.
 
My system can handle highest type of DNxHD without any RAID. What type of HDCAM can you do without RAID? SR-SQ?
 
SJX said:
My system can handle highest type of DNxHD without any RAID. What type of HDCAM can you do without RAID? SR-SQ?
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SJX, I'm not sure anyone on this board can answer this for you... not sure anyone but me is shooting it, and I'm on a 2008 Mac Pro tower. My money gets spent on field upgrades, not edit upgrades.
 
SJX

Download the Blackmagic Design driver for their cards. Doesn't matter if you have a card, they have a disk testing app that tells you what speeds your drives can handle and the equivalent frame rates/formats.
 
Viddovation said:
SJX, I'm not sure anyone on this board can answer this for you... not sure anyone but me is shooting it, and I'm on a 2008 Mac Pro tower. My money gets spent on field upgrades, not edit upgrades.
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Your 2008 Mac handle SR-HQ 12 bit no problem or you must offline?

About nobody shooting SR besides you maybe in F5 F55 forum?

But now that they can record Prores in camera probably nobody use SR? Why would they?

I think maybe sony can stop supporting or developing SR if they now invest in Prores too? In 2 or 3 years may be that SR is dead or you think there is something to support it wont?
 
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JMtheDP said:
SJX

Download the Blackmagic Design driver for their cards. Doesn't matter if you have a card, they have a disk testing app that tells you what speeds your drives can handle and the equivalent frame rates/formats.
Click to expand...

Ok I will do this. Thanks.
 
SJX,

I think what you're asking is one of the things you must experiment with and find out by yourself. Everyone has different needs and no two projects are the same. Same thing for computer configurations, there're just too many variables. Maybe get your hands on an actual F35/HDCAM-SR footage and play with it.

Also HDCAM-SR and Prores are not the same thing. I believe they both exist for many reasons.
 
SJX said:
Your 2008 Mac handle SR-HQ 12 bit no problem or you must offline?

About nobody shooting SR besides you maybe in F5 F55 forum?

But now that they can record Prores in camera probably nobody use SR? Why would they?

I think maybe sony can stop supporting or developing SR if they now invest in Prores too? In 2 or 3 years may be that SR is dead or you think there is something to support it wont?
Click to expand...

My edit system of out date, and was never upgraded to be a speed demon to begin with. So yes, if the shoot was 12bit HDCAM-SR, I probably offline. But not all of my shoots are HDCAM-SR, and not all of those are 12bit 880Mbps. And most of what I shoot is edited by the client or their contractor - most of what I edit is demo reels of what I shot. I don't do much work charging for editing anymore. So, with all of the above notes, it's not made financial sense for me to invest in a newer faster edit system yet.

The F5/F55 forum may have some HDCAM-SR shooters, but I don't think they have the 12bit codec? But certainly ask them.

ProRes is not perfect. And it's not considered by everyone to be ideal in a Windows/PC environment. ProRes also has a notorious clipping issue in the superwhites. While there are work arounds, this is a recurring issue that plagues people shoot S-Log.

Sony and Apple are two different companies. They have to pay license fees to one another to use codecs developed by the other. Sony has numerous financial and pride/honor reasons to back their own pony (HDCAM-SR) instead of ProRes.

HDCAM-SR is part of Sony's high end broadcast level tapeless workflow. They have $50k decks built around HDCAM-SR. HDCAM-SR can easily carry 16 channels of pristine audio. It is a visually lossless codec that performs excellently under pressure and is ideal in broadcast environments. It may not find great love with small budget videographers, but it will remain a part of the professional ecosystem for television and broadcast.
 
I got my hands on 10 bit 444 SR to play with thanks to nice people here. My system have no problems playing and grading it in Resolve. You think 880 will be much different?
 
SJX,

My knowledge might be limited but I think for higher bitrates what you need is higher hard disk speed. Also like James said the Black Magic hard drive speed tool is pretty accurate and it takes away the math.

Also I don't think 12-bit files would require more horse power than 10-bit files IF bitrates are about the same since Davinci Resolve does its processing in 32-bit floating point. AFAIK there are three things that drastically affect playback and grading performance: 1st it's resolution (graphic RAM) and the 2nd is bitrates. The jump from 440mbps to 880mbps would likely slow things down with hard drive speed being the bottleneck. Compression scheme also affects playback speed but it's unlikely that you'll be slowed down by HDCAM SR 880 since it's less compressed than prores anyway.

The system that we have here has a RAID5 array of SSDs and 2x 590gtx and we can do simple grading (5-6 nodes) of 10bit 444 DPX (1300mbps) in realtime. That is until noise reduction and OFX were thrown in.
 
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