Sony X70 looking very interesting

indeed. wondering how compares to an ex1/r in terms of overall quality. realize one is (or will be) 4k capable and the other not, but still dont really understand how image will be different due to 3 1/2" chips vs 1 1" chip (aside from DOF and low light characteristics of course), and lens quality issues between those two cams.
 
+ 1 Josh - another EX1 owner thinking of a brace of these for Corporate Event work. I spent some quality time with its consumer sibling, the AX100, and would choose it over the Z100 in a heartbeat (sorry folks - the AX100 was just so much fun to shoot with, so quick to use, and the XAVC-S quality even at HD blew AVCHD and XDCAM out of the water)

A friend has the X70 and is loving it. However the current issues are:

1) FCPX currently does not like the XAVC Long-GOP files that the X70 creates. FCPX has no problem with XAVC-Intra (F5, Z100) which is recorded to XQD cards, but the X70 uses SDXC cards (hooray) which have a maximum data rate BELOW that of XAVC-Intra. So the X70 HAS to record in LongGOP mode, thus requiring Sony's software solutions to manage ingest (not a happy thought at the moment - come back XDCAM Transfer, all is forgiven!)

Hopefully Apple will release an update to FCPX on Thursday 16th October, which will address this.

2) It's not got CineGamma or HyperGamma - we're back to the world of knees, black stretch and having separate PPs for different lighting conditions (if you're picky). For its target audience, the X70 is probably just fine 'out of the box' but us ex-EX1 weirdos will be sighing over sky detail and moaning about shadow areas, and ex FS100 owners might get a bit twitchy about yet another camera that needs special tweaks for certain lighting conditions.

A weak third point would be to remind us ex-EX folks that this is a one ring camera, and it does slow you down a bit (or makes you slip some automation in).

But having said all that, as a 'low impact' multicam shoot or run & gun solution, I'm told 'it's gold'.

My local dealer will hopefully have one in, and I'll try shooting EX1R and X70 side by side.
 
Great! How do you perceive that codec is better than XDCAM? What specifically do you notice? noise/lack thereof? Real world examples?

I don't even have FCPX! I have FCP7 and Premiere CS6 to work with. If a relatively inexpensive or free tool comes out to convert the footage then not a big deal.

I know about the one ring thing, don't really see it as a huge deal. Used to using a switch/dial for iris from the XL1s/XL2/DVX, seems only "recently" that prosumer cams have had real iris rings at all. Zoom I normally do from the lever or a controller. So keeping it as focus ring should be no biggie.

With the EX, I never really messy with profiles except to make a different white balance preset. Literally turn the PP off and shoot. If you light well (where applicable) and white balance the footage generally comes out very nice.
 
Dude, I am so wedded to CineGamma (3, and 4 when I have to), it's what got me so passionate in shooting. But I was coming from the days of the DSR570, PD150 and the Z1, living in constant fear about burned out highlights and 'tippex skies'. I am known for corporate event coverage, where you can't light, or deal with what you've got, and CineGamma got me a picture I could be happy with. But to each their own. :) But I digress..

As far as XAVC goes, there is significantly less 'mush' in detailed areas with lots of motion.

The following isn't actually XAVC (I haven't put tests online as they were 'paid for' - long story), but it goes to show how LongGOP can be overwhelmed. Look at the lighter branches in AVCHD.


Messier video not only doesn't look nice, it doesn't compress well either. So hooray for XAVC in this instance.

Now let's consider delta compression - the impact of Long GOP, and specifically the IBBP (... BBP, BBP .... and back to I) cadence. This is not an official example but should get you thinking in the right direction:


So, when I examine the differences between frames using an InterFrame codec like XAVC and a LongGOP codec like, say, AVCHD or XDCAM, there is a pulsing as we switch from I frame to a couple of lousy B frames, then a fairly okay P frame, then another couple of B frames. This again tends to make for a trickier encode when you're 'squeezing the pips' to fit a given bitrate. It also crops up in chromakey - the pulsing means that there's a really slight difference, frame by frame, of ideal chromakey settings, and therefore you see a slight 'boil' round difficult areas - we're talking about a bump every three frames, so that's 1/10th of a second in 30p, longer in 24/25 - you can see it. Well, you will now (sorry).

Sure, for static subjects like test charts, it doesn't really make a difference. So film your kids or something with a bit of action, then go and pixel peep. Now, you're not peeping for quality viewed from the web on a laptop screen, you're pixel peeping for the encoders, and more importantly, when you show that web video on a large projection screen in perfect conditions, that boil is perceptible on areas of subtlty, and the scabbiness of aggressive LongGOP (AVCHD) is quite distracting.

Oh - just found another video that compares XDCAM and ProRes - the little key symbol shows the keyframes. This online vimeo version is pointless - click the vimeo logo and download the file I uploaded - and even then that's going to have suffered the LongGOP compression of a LongGOP fault.


XAVC-S (LongGOP) was pretty much free of this effect. XAVC from the Z100 had no issues. The XAVC-LongGOP wasn't out when I did my tests, but with the strength of the XAVC and the efficiency of the LongGOP, I'm pretty sure that it too will be free of the pulsing effect.

BTW - I'm commenting as a producer of corporate cheese - I can't vouch for the messages and the subjects therein, all I can do is try and make it look as nice as possible. You could shoot a hauntingly poigniant drama on a camera phone and nobody would complain (probably win awards), but corporates endevour to 'look expensive' on a tight budget, and this is where my pixel peeping and codec obsessions are directed.
 
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John Foundas said:
Major XAVC L issues with NLE systems. wTH!?
Click to expand...

Well, there's a bit of confusion and catching up to do.

There's XAVC and there's XAVC-S. Most NLEs assume that the former is intra and the latter is Long-GOP.

What's caused the tizzy is that XAVC was updated earlier this year to include Long-GOP, which is required to record onto SDXC. Usual blame game between camera and NLE teams. Sony has since brought out a software utility that transcodes to ProRes, but this is amost a chocolate teapot as there's no theoretical reason why NLEs can't handle it natively.

Comes down to the argument 'whose job is it, and how urgent do they assume it is?'

The main thing is not to accep the transcode option as the solution going froward. It's only a stop-gap.
 
Some X70 footage

Some X70 footage

Osslund said:
Got footage to share?
Click to expand...

A lot of discussion here on the X70 but obviously not many have seen footage from it. I gave it a pretty solid workout and was sufficiently happy with what came out of it to order one.

Bearing in mind that what I was aiming for was a ready rolled 'look' that requires very little or no grading. A quick shoot, edit and deliver set up in other words. To try and get that look I ended up modifying PP4 for my uses. The changes made were to keep the video in the 16-235 delivery range and to try and achieve a natural looking roll off to the highlights and minimise white clipping whilst at the same time being careful to not crush the black levels too much.

All my initial settings were done on the grey scale and color chip charts using a WFM and Vector. Final tweaks were done outside in the real world while still monitoring everything on the scopes. It’s all still a work in progress. At this point I think I can probably squeeze a little more out of the camera to suit what I’m after. I would probably end up with two or three PPs with variations to cover different scenarios. After two days with the camera I was impressed enough with it that I have just ordered one. I can definitely see some uses for it here.

After setting the camera up I shot some XAVC-L 50-mbit 4:2:2 10-bit at 50p with 100th shutter. I purposely chose a high contrast location where I knew I would have extreme whites in full blazing sun along with deep shadows plus some people around for some skin tone colors and exposures. What better place than a marina. Excuse some of the shaky shots at the long end as it was very windy. The modified PP4 settings are listed at the head of the clip. The clip can be downloaded here. Note: It's a 370MB download.

https://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/t9yiwl

A couple of days later I had to cover a presser shooting on PDW XDCam. Then I did a dangerous thing. The dangerous thing was I gave the journo I was working with the X70. I only received mine the day before. Bare in mind this journo is totally not a cameraman. I said "Here, try and grab some overlay footage with this." I think a lot of you call it 'B' roll. Anyhow as the journo was a complete beginner I put the X70 on full auto running my modified PP4. The footage he shot was 1920 50i AVCHD as it had to go straight to the network after the shoot.

The venue was a total mixed light nightmare. Tungsten light with big picture windows with bright daylight and sunlight streaming in. Now bear in mind the the camera was in full auto mode with a totally inexperienced operator. The dangerous thing is that the footage he came back with was totally usable in most instances. Could do myself out of work if I'm not careful.

100MB download here if anyone wants to see how easy it is becoming for a neophyte to get reasonable footage.

www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/7m4ikj

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney
 
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Since this forum seems to be the de facto home for the X70, let me just mention some samples I shot, in case folks missed them from the other thread:

https://vimeo.com/channels/832674

The camera looks and feels very nice to me, and it definitely doesn't have a problem with low light!
 
John Foundas said:
TY for this. I look forward to checking them out. Whats your take on the XAVC-L issue?
Click to expand...

You're welcome! Support for XAVC long GOP is a mess; Sony really should have done better. Particularly since the only problem, as far as I can see, is the MXF wrapper -- the H.264 content inside it works fine in PP CS6, at least. Since I'm a command-line hacker, I'm using FFMPEG to re-wrap the video in MP4, and it works great.

For everyone else, it looks like you can use Catalyst to re-compress the video as ProRes, or XAVC intra, or something that your NLE can handle; but this is a little painful. Then again, Edius or CC can handle it direct.

Where is Sony's support in Vegas? Who knows. Personally I'm hoping that Handbrake will add batch conversion for this, as that would help a lot of folks.

I think it's worth it, though, if you can get a workflow going. I'm really liking this camera -- what it does for the size and cost seems pretty excellent.
 
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I must be the luckiest person owning both th AX-100 and the X-70 regarding the XAVC and 4k codec.

I have SONY VEGAS 13 and the files will not import into my OS without the 'Dog and Pony Show' of converting same via Catalyst.

However, I have a Macrosystem Standalone unit and a Windows version of their operating system and I can import the 4k and downconvert to HD. I can also import the XAVC files without conversion. Go figure that one.

I can't believe my SONY VEGAS PRO 13 does not accept the native files from my two Sony cameras except for the workaround





AtticusLake said:
You're welcome! Support for XAVC long GOP is a mess; Sony really should have done better. Particularly since the only problem, as far as I can see, is the MXF wrapper -- the H.264 content inside it works fine in PP CS6, at least. Since I'm a command-line hacker, I'm using FFMPEG to re-wrap the video in MP4, and it works great.

For everyone else, it looks like you can use Catalyst to re-compress the video as ProRes, or XAVC intra, or something that your NLE can handle; but this is a little painful. Then again, Edius or CC can handle it direct.

Where is Sony's support in Vegas? Who knows. Personally I'm hoping that Handbrake will add batch conversion for this, as that would help a lot of folks.

I think it's worth it, though, if you can get a workflow going. I'm really liking this camera -- what it does for the size and cost seems pretty excellent.
Click to expand...
 
Has anyone testedd 24p? wondering if this cam could be used for low budget movie making. (Does it still look like shot on video...)
 
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