FS7: Sony Fs7 incapable of seamless playback?

jasonbrooks said:
Why in God's name do I have to wait for an extremely slow thumbnail creation EVERY time I enter playback mode? Is this the same on the other Sony 'cinema' cameras?
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I would say that 99% of the time I need to playback a clip it is the LAST clip I shot. So I just use Record Review and I never have to go to the playback mode or wait for thumbnails to generate.
 
Program one of the assign buttons for the RECORD REVIEW function. When you stop recording and press the assign button, the final two seconds of the last clip on the card will be played. When you press and hold the button for more than 1 second, the camcorder starts to rewind at 4x speed for as long as you hold down the button. When you release the button, the camcorder immediately starts playing back from that point, and continues playing through all the clips that were recorded after that point. On many other Sony cameras just one simple press of the Rec Review button will start playback of the last clip from the first frame, so this isn't as fast as that, but it's still better than going into the playback mode.
 
Thanks. Had forgotten. And how do you exit it?

I remember my EX1 you hit record review instead of focus mag (which one hits just before turning over) one was stuffed in hell for an age.
 
You can pause playback at anytime by pressing in on the SELECT/SET dial . . . and resume playback by pressing it again.
You can press the CANCEL button to exit the playback mode completely.
 
morgan_moore said:
Thanks. Had forgotten. And how do you exit it?

I remember my EX1 you hit record review instead of focus mag (which one hits just before turning over) one was stuffed in hell for an age.
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... or until you could find the 'stop' button in the vcr buttons area on top of the EX1 camera - after which you get the camera back in less than a second...
 
update

update

JPNola said:
When playing back footage shot on my Fs7 the playback freezes momentarily at the end of each clip. This is an issue when I am "feeding" b-roll to a news channel via fiber optic and they would prefer that the footage be usable as received, without having to edit out the pauses at the end of each clip. As far as I can tell there is no means by which the Fs7 can play back the media seamlessly with only cuts between the clips, without the brief pause at the end of each clip.

An F55 owner I spoke to says that the F55 can playback media out of the camera without any pause between clips. He did not perform a test and was only going by memory. It could be that he is mistaken, that he never noticed the freeze frame at the end of each clip during playback. It is brief and could easily go unnoticed. But it is enough to foil immediate turnaround of the acquired footage and necessitate editing to remove the pauses between clips.

Do me a favor, if you would- fire up your Fs7, insert an XQD card containing some footage that you have shot, and see if the playback freezes the image momentarily at the end of each clip. To be honest I cannot recall if my Fs7 has always done this when playing back video or if I have activated something that is causing this. I performed a full reset and no change- the playback still briefly freezes at the end of each clip. I tried several different XQD cards, I tried playback of video recorded in different codecs, but no change. It still pauses and does not playback seamlessly with only a cut between the clips. The video was all in 59.94i. I did not perform a test of playback of frame rates other than 59.94i.

If it is in fact the case that the Fs7 cannot playback media without the freeze frame between clips, it could be a deal-breaker for certain types of jobs. It seems odd to me that the F55 would not do this but the Fs7 does. An online search yielded nothing regarding this issue. Surely I cannot be the first to have this be an issue.
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UPDATE: I thought I could solve this issue by using a Samurai Blade but nope, the Blade will only play back one clip at a time as far as I could sort out. No way to have it play ALL clips. And even if it could play back all clips I doubt that it would do it seamlessly, without a buffering pause between clips. Is there any external recorder that will play back all clips and play them seamlessly, with no pause between clips / a clean cut between clips?

Anyone know if the PMW 400 will play back the clips seamlessly, in the same manner that the F55 and F5 will playback footage? What about the PMW 350? If the 350 does, it is likely that the 400 does as well since the 400 is just an upgraded ( 50mb + XAVC ) version of the 350.
 
It might be the difference between recording to SxS cards and XQD.. re the F5/55 and fs7 playback.. pretty sure my PMW500 had seamless playback.. actually i dont like it ..I,d rather there was a gap so I know a new clip is being played ..then just straight into another..

Maybe a test would be an XQD card recorded in an SxS adaptor in a F5/55..
 
Black Tragic products tend to have rather excellent functionality and intelligent menus. Their products seem to do things one would expect all cameras to do.

I was on a job where the bcam op had an ursa and his ability to scrub and playback appeared shockingly simple. He was scrubbing through on the touchscreen.

Now I only witnessed this vaguely because I was kind of occupied being A camera operator (but I did log in my head that play back on my 7 was a comparative embarrassment)

In the past I have used my BM Shuttle to do some stunts to enable a fast edit (basically record 'important bits of long takes' from my FS7 onto an SSD which was then thrown onto a comptuer to edit)

None of these things solve you problems but I suggest that..

-It is worth investigating the BM recording monitors (do they call them 'video assist'?) or fiddling with a shuttle (cheap used)
-it might even be worth getting an ursa for these jobs (after testing)
-also BM have a host of other gubbins more suited for live use.

Sound Devcices are also a brand that underspec and over deliver. Their PIX devices while somewhat underspecced are beautiful and probably have depth in their abilities.

S
 
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And of course remember that many of the newer Sony cameras also have a menu feature called 'Clip Continuous Record' -- which basically turns all your shots into a single clip - as long as the camera stays powered on... I personally never understood the need for it, but one of the shows I shoot for demands it.
 
morgan_moore said:
Sound Devcices are also a brand that underspec and over deliver. Their PIX devices while somewhat underspecced are beautiful and probably have depth in their abilities.
S
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Love my Pix-E5. Solid gear. And for JP - I will test this out for you if I get time later today or for sure this weekend... I know the latest firmware added extra playback functionality (the ability to add cue markers while recording amongst other things) but if memory serves, there still may be a slight buffer or pause between clips.
 
Donny 123 said:
It might be the difference between recording to SxS cards and XQD.. re the F5/55 and fs7 playback.. pretty sure my PMW500 had seamless playback.. actually i dont like it ..I,d rather there was a gap so I know a new clip is being played ..then just straight into another..

Maybe a test would be an XQD card recorded in an SxS adaptor in a F5/55..
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I posted earlier in this thread that my F55 plays back seamlessly off of XQD/SxS.
 
morgan_moore said:
The ideal is to mark IO points on the clips and then play it out.. that would be perfect I guess.
S
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A quick update... not good news for you JP. I just tried the PixE5 and it doesn't do seamless playback either. It has about a 1 sec flash to black between clips - this happens playing back clips as they were shot (in sequential order) - and also happens when creating a "play list" of only the clips you want to play back. (to be fair - the existing clips on my pix drive were all shot using the a6300 @ 59.94... but don't think having fs7 clips would be any different in this regard.
 
markfpv said:
A quick update... not good news for you JP. I just tried the PixE5 and it doesn't do seamless playback either. It has about a 1 sec flash to black between clips - this happens playing back clips as they were shot (in sequential order) - and also happens when creating a "play list" of only the clips you want to play back. (to be fair - the existing clips on my pix drive were all shot using the a6300 @ 59.94... but don't think having fs7 clips would be any different in this regard.
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Thanks Mark and all who replied.



So far, thanks to your feedback, we have determined that the PMW 500, the F5, and the F55 all play back clips seamlessly. Or in what might be called "buffer less playback". I asked a highly knowledgable camera tech from VER about this but he had no idea. It isn't the sort of thing a camera tech deals with or much cares about. And it also isn't the sort of thing most people, even owners of the cameras, take notice of.

If anyone reading this owns a PMW 400 or has access to one and can test it, do chime in. I am thinking about purchasing a PMW 400 to answer to my ENG needs. The seamless playback ability isn't make or break, but I would prefer that a camera have it. I don't like that the folks receiving the transmission of my footage are thinking that something is wrong with the transmission because the footage is momentarily freezing up with regularity.
 
Unless staying in the Sony camp is a must, look into a P2 VariCam. Pretty affordable on eBay. You'd have to invest in some P2 cards, but it's an awesome camera and meets the requirement of seamless playback. You can also create playback clip lists and the like. 20 years and six different cameras and it's still my FAVORITE.
 
JP, this doesn't help you at all, but if it makes you feel any better, the $15k-$20k VariCam LT can only playback one single clip at a time before it stops and returns to the playback menu.
 
JP, if you only need to do this from time to time have you thought of renting a PMW-PZ1? It works with SXS cards and XQD cards with an adapter. No gap between clips and it plays all XAVC formats. And you can create playlists. It's a fantastic unit but it does need to be plugged in for power. It runs on 12V so it might be possible to rig up a d-tap cable with the appropriate adapter.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1139427-REG/sony_pmw_pz1_pmwpz1_4k_sxs_memory.html
 
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