Sony FS700 getting S-Log

starcentral said:
But in terms of high speed frame rates, yes, it does seem the FS700 will do double the frame rates available on the F5 & the F55. lol
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With the FS700, at high speed frame rates, bear in mind it comes at the expense of halving the resolution both vertically and horizontally. Even so, it's still pretty good, which is why you don't get lots of complaints about it, but it wouldn't be good enough for a camera in the market the F5 is intended for. Sorry, you never get anything for nothing!

As far as dynamic range, then it has to be remembered the human eye only has a dynamic range *AT ANY ONE TIME* of about 7 stops. When you look at a scene with a far higher dynamic range your eyes don't take it all in at the same time. They are constantly moving about the scene and sliding that 7 stops according to what is being looked at - without your being aware of it.

Use a camera and the eyes can't do that. The image presented to them has to be compressed in dynamic range terms - which is why 8 bit video is totally sufficient for normal video recording. (And stills, for that matter.)

Trouble is, it relies on the camera deciding at the time exactly how it will reduce the range - and once done, the scope for altering it becomes far more limited. And that's what things like higher bit depth and s-log etc (let alone RAW) offer. The chance to make the decision later, in post, as to how you reduce something 12 stops to less than 8.

Which is why 10 bit in isolation doesn't really bring much of a benefit unless it's being used to record a signal that it can do justice to - one with a far greater "burnt-in" dynamic range. And one which will actually need post manipulation - the equivalent of your eyes moving around the scene and deciding what is the best presentation at any one time.
 
harddrive said:
With the FS700, at high speed frame rates, bear in mind it comes at the expense of halving the resolution both vertically and horizontally. Even so, it's still pretty good, which is why you don't get lots of complaints about it, but it wouldn't be good enough for a camera in the market the F5 is intended for. Sorry, you never get anything for nothing!.
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The resolution is halved only when shooting higher than 240 FPS. At 240 fps it's full HD. With the firmware upgrade it would be 2K at 240 FPS. I don't think F5 can do 240 fps 2K, though F55 has that capability planned in future firmware (F55 can't do it right now either but will sometimes later this year).

F700 after the firmware upgrade would also be able to do 120 fps in 4K resolution in 4 sec burst mode. The F series cameras can't do that (not even in future firmware road map). So it's fair to say that FS700 has better burst mode than F series, especially better than F5
 
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Sumfun said:
It's unclear if you can just get the Slog2 upgrade without the 4k upgrade.
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Thx! This is what I'm interested. If Slog could be had without the hardware upgrade. But seeing how it will be made to run with the different hardware I don't think it's going to work without it...
 
KINOKS said:
Yes, but does it use all of it's pixels for slowmo or does it pixel or line skip or something...? Doesn't it?
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It's a 4K sensor but shoots Full HD right now (before the firmware upgrade). It shoots Full HD regardless if you are shooting 24 fps or 240 fps. The resolution is not halved. There is no difference between 24 fps vs 240 fps. Though 240 fps is in burst mode. In 480 fps mode the resolution is halved, and in 960 fps mode the resolution is halved again (4 times less).

After the firmware upgrade it will shoot 2K RAW at 240 fps (continuous) and 4K RAW at 120 fps (4 second burst) -- all to Sony's external recorder.
 
evilthought said:
It shoots Full HD regardless if you are shooting 24 fps or 240 fps. The resolution is not halved. There is no difference between 24 fps vs 240 fps.
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I think there is a difference in IQ when shooting slow-mo or normal 25/30p. There is more aliasing when shooting slow-mo and I also think that the resolution is not the same. The actual resolution and not the pixel count on the frame raster that is...
I also think that, that is what harddrive was talking about maybe...
 
Dear Friends,

The updated FS700 with our Odyssey7Q will be able to record full resolution 2K Raw at 240 fps continuously (which equates to 45 minutes using our largest SSD's).

I want to stress the full resolution part, this is not half vertical resolution, no sensor windowing, thus no moire problems.

Our Odyssey7Q will also record from the FS700 in 4K full uncompressed (not in 4K raw) up to 30 fps. Sometime in the future, it may be possible for us to record in 4K Raw at 60 fps but this is not guaranteed.

Please note that the Odyssey7Q connects directly to the FS700, the Sony Interface unit is not required.

Please note that the Odyssey7Q and not the Odyssey7 is required for working with the FS700. the Odyssey7Q has a larger "Code Space" to allow us to support more functions at the same time, and we need this extra "Code Space" to work with the FS700 signal.

Respectfully,


Dan Keaton
Convergent Design
 
Dan Keaton said:
Dear Friends,

The updated FS700 with our Odyssey7Q will be able to record full resolution 2K Raw at 240 fps continuously (which equates to 45 minutes using our largest SSD's).

I want to stress the full resolution part, this is not half vertical resolution, no sensor windowing, thus no moire problems.

Our Odyssey7Q will also record from the FS700 in 4K full uncompressed (not in 4K raw) up to 30 fps. Sometime in the future, it may be possible for us to record in 4K Raw at 60 fps but this is not guaranteed.

Please note that the Odyssey7Q connects directly to the FS700, the Sony Interface unit is not required.

Please note that the Odyssey7Q and not the Odyssey7 is required for working with the FS700. the Odyssey7Q has a larger "Code Space" to allow us to support more functions at the same time, and we need this extra "Code Space" to work with the FS700 signal.

Respectfully,


Dan Keaton
Convergent Design
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Can you explain why it can't do 4k60p?

Is it because the xilinx fpga that was chosen doesn't have enough logic cells to handle 4k60p as well as all other functions it performs, and in order to do 4k60p, you would need to remove some of that other functionality?
 
Dan Keaton said:
Dear Friends,
Our Odyssey7Q will also record from the FS700 in 4K full uncompressed (not in 4K raw) up to 30 fps. Sometime in the future, it may be possible for us to record in 4K Raw at 60 fps but this is not guaranteed.
Convergent Design
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Is the 4K 10-bit? 12-bit? 422? 444?
 
Dan since you are recording 4k RAW from the FS700 with the Odyssey 7Q can you tell us if it is still 12-bit RAW as was the original specification of the FS700 camera?
 
evilthought said:
It shoots Full HD regardless if you are shooting 24 fps or 240 fps. The resolution is not halved. There is no difference between 24 fps vs 240 fps.
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No, that's not true, and Adam Wilt published an extremely good series of tests which proves it. See http://provideocoalition.com/awilt/story/high_speed_and_low_light_with_the_nex-fs700/ . Scroll down to the bottom of the page to look at the charts.

Compare the ones for 24fps (60fps is the same) and 240fps (120fps is the same) and errr, notice any difference....? :)

Good enough proof that there IS a (big!) difference between 24fps and 240fps?

[EDIT - This is for the base camera. If you have access to the sensor data directly, then yes, it's quite conceivable that a data bottleneck may be able to be bypassed and full 2K resolution achieved at 240fps. Perhaps Dan Keaton may care to explain further how his system manages to do that?]

For the technically minded, the 24fps image is showing the zone plate roughly how it appears in reality. The spurious circles on the horizontal and vertical axes are aliases, and strong ones at that! Alias centres indicate twice the resolving power of the system - and here they are at 1080lpph both horizontally and vertically. Consequently the resolution is 540lpph in the 120/240fps modes.

Since we know the effective sensor characteristics (3840x2160 Bayer), it's pretty easy to work out roughly what's going on. It's the same as used in many still camera sensors in video mode. The system is reading photosites on a basis of 4x4 blocks, and forming direct R,G,B values (a single resolution unit) from each block - hence a resolution of a quarter of 3840x2160 - 960x540. Exactly how it is doing it is a mystery that likely only Sony know, but possibilities would be binning r,g,b values within each block, or just reading a 2x2 block and ignoring the other 12 photosites. Effectively, as KINOKS says above, pixel skipping and/or pixel binning. This is NOT the same as cropping within the sensor - the whole sensor area is being used, it's just that 3 out of every 4 photosites aren't being taken advantage of in the way they are in "normal" full HD, normal framerate modes.

It shouldn't be a surprise. All the evidence is that it should (and can) read out the entire 4k sensor 60x each second. I wouldn't expect it to be able to have the same performance at higher rates, not for a camera in this class and at this price. At 240 fps, it's reading out 4x as often - but effectively only 1/4 the total no of photosites. What is also noticeable from Adams charts is the absence of any coloured aliasing, and whilst the chart result at 240fps is obviously nowhere near as good as the chart result at 60fps in real life you don't film charts. I'd expect the real life results to still look pretty good, and by all accounts they do. But the charts clearly show the resolution becomes limited to 960x540 and input frequencies above that cause heavy (monochrome) aliasing.

Go to higher frame rates and Adams charts for 480 and 960 show that even more of the sensor photosites have to be ignored to keep the total output data rate manageable. At 480 we're getting the same as 240 - with additional line skipping happening as well, and here it's causing coloured aliasing as well. At 960, well..... But what other camera will even make any attempt at 960fps at anywhere near this price point? :)
 
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starcentral said:
Dan since you are recording 4k RAW from the FS700 with the Odyssey 7Q can you tell us if it is still 12-bit RAW as was the original specification of the FS700 camera?
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As he said, the Odyssey 7Q doesn't record 4K raw from the FS700, at least not yet. But I am curious if he knows how Sony is getting 16-bit raw out of what was originally reported to be the sensor's 12-bit ADC. Does the firmware and/or hardware upgrade add or unlock true 16-bit analogue-to-digital conversion, or are the 4 extra bits empty padding? And would the Odyssey 7Q also record 16-bit raw or, as in the case of 2K, only 12-bit raw?
 
Ah yes I see now he said the 7Q will do 4k "uncompressed". Interesting.

Regardless, i too am curious about the bit-depth since the FS700 is a 12-bit camera. I know however the R5 is 16-bit recorder, so it would seem the HXR module for $2000 is taking 12-bit RAW 4k via 3G-SDI and padding with zeros to fit 16-bit file format.
 
harddrive said:
It shouldn't be a surprise. All the evidence is that it should (and can) read out the entire 4k sensor 60x each second. :)
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Given FS700 (after the upgrade) can do 60 fps 4K continuous, there is no question about that. That part is already on the spec list. The sensor can also do 120 fps at 4K

That's full-resolution using every pixel on the sensor.
 
Dan

I am wondering if you can share the reasons why the 7Q can't record 4K @ 60fps

Is it a limitation of the 7Q hardware?

Is it a Sony imposed limitation?

Is it a matter of tweaking the hardware and software?

Thanks
 
starcentral said:
Ah yes I see now he said the 7Q will do 4k "uncompressed". Interesting.

Regardless, i too am curious about the bit-depth since the FS700 is a 12-bit camera. I know however the R5 is 16-bit recorder, so it would seem the HXR module for $2000 is taking 12-bit RAW 4k via 3G-SDI and padding with zeros to fit 16-bit file format.
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Unless the firmware or hardware upgrade unlocks 16-bit sampling or overrides the 12-bit ADC. That would be cool. But simply padding 12 bits to 16 seems kinda stupid and wasteful of storage space.
 
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True North said:
Dan

I am wondering if you can share the reasons why the 7Q can't record 4K @ 60fps

Is it a limitation of the 7Q hardware?

Is it a Sony imposed limitation?

Is it a matter of tweaking the hardware and software?

Thanks
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Dan Keaton writed that it was a Sony limitation made on purpose.

Another notable difference is that Sony records 4096x2160 Cine 4K format when the Odyssey7Q records 3840x2160, also known as "Quad HD".
 
Not that it makes a HUGE difference but the Cine/DCI norm is 4096x2160 so it could be a bother if you're shooting a feature and want to do a DCP.

BTW, even if I'm complainig about the price of the medias (both from Sony and CD) I still think that the Odyssey's are some great products.

Now, as a lot of other folks here, I'm waiting so see some some real life shots and comparisons with Sony's solution.

If we could also now the bit depth in 2K RAW and 4K uncompressed please, it would easy my mind a bit. Thank you.

Stephane.
 
S.Blanchardon said:
Dan Keaton writed that it was a Sony limitation made on purpose.

Another notable difference is that Sony records 4096x2160 Cine 4K format when the Odyssey7Q records 3840x2160, also known as "Quad HD".
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Dear Stephane and other Friends,

The Odyssey7Q, with the FS700 Option, will be able to record both 4K (4096 x 2160) and Quad HD (3840 x 2160).

(For professionals, 4K = 4096 x 2160, for consumer televisions 4K = Quad HD = 3840 x 2160)

Our agreement with Sony, allows us to record 2K Raw up to 240 fps, and 4K Uncompressed.

Of course we would like to record 4K Raw, then we could offer 4K Raw at 60 fps.

But we are very happy to be working closely with Sony.


We feel that it is appropriate for Sony to announce the bit-depth of the HD, 2K, and 4K, as opposed to our announcing these details.

I can tell you that our team is making great progress on receiving, processing, and displaying the images from the upgraded FS700.

We do expect to show images and make files available for your use. I expect that we may wait until we feel that our code is working perfectly.

Our team is working weekends so that we can finish this project as soon as possible, so that others can start shooting with the FS700 and Odyssey7Q, and show their results publicly.

Respectfully,


Dan Keaton
Convergent Design
 
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