Sony's FDR-AX100 4K Handycam ships in March for $2,000 (hands-on)

tull_power said:
Personally, I'd rather have good, solid 2k then compromised 4k.
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You can get WAY better HD from a 4k cam because you can downsample and get 4:4:4 and get rid of a lot of compression artifacts. You will essentially have a 100mb/s HD camera at 4:4:4. Think about it.

Same thing as you can get WAY better SD from HD cams.
 
maarek said:
You can get WAY better HD from a 4k cam because you can downsample and get 4:4:4 and get rid of a lot of compression artifacts. You will essentially have a 100mb/s HD camera at 4:4:4. Think about it.

Same thing as you can get WAY better SD from HD cams.
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First it's just 60mb/s not 100, and second, if the original 4k material is full of compression artifacts and smeared detail it would look awful even if downscaled all the way to SD. Native 2K at 50mb/s on this camera is a whole different story, but the 4K modes are little more then a novelty.
 
Are there even any unprocessed clips out there? because youtube introduces lots of compression artifacts itself...

4K 8-bit 420 can give you something very similar to 2K 10-bit 444: the 444 because all the color information is there, and the 10-bit because you're averaging 4 brightness values for every final one, and that gives you 2 extra bits
But that only works if the original footage is encoded with very nice compression, and this probably won't be so good: you'll probably end up with something similar to 2K 8-bit 444

I would think HDMI is 1080p only, btw. Any indication that it is actually 4K?
 
tull_power said:
First it's just 60mb/s not 100, and second, if the original 4k material is full of compression artifacts and smeared detail...
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Bah!

The HDV on the first HDV Sony cam HC-1 was GREAT in SD. And that was just 25mb/s at 1440:1080 interlaced. You could get completely artifact free SD at 4:4:4 from that. And you know how of full of compression artifacts HDV was?

I call shenanigans on these allegations. I bet the cam will be great. And who looks at youtube for compression artifacts? You guys serious?

My prediction is that the AX100 will produce absolutely astounding HD. Atleast in resolution and if properly done (that means me doing it, people on the internet generally get everything wrong).
 
maarek said:
Bah!

The HDV on the first HDV Sony cam HC-1 was GREAT in SD. And that was just 25mb/s at 1440:1080 interlaced. You could get completely artifact free SD at 4:4:4 from that. And you know how of full of compression artifacts HDV was?

I call shenanigans on these allegations. I bet the cam will be great. And who looks at youtube for compression artifacts? You guys serious?

My prediction is that the AX100 will produce absolutely astounding HD. Atleast in resolution and if properly done (that means me doing it, people on the internet generally get everything wrong).
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i'm going with this.

Keep in mind, this is marketed as a consumer/prosumer camera. It's not an F55 Lite.
 
vanvideo said:
Keep in mind, this is marketed as a consumer/prosumer camera. It's not an F55 Lite.
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Exactly, that is a reality check this thread badly needs.

On the basis of the little that we know I'm prepared to believe it may set a new standard for a consumer camera. But that's what it is. A consumer camera. A very good one, yes, but don't expect results as you would from one costing 10-20x more.
 
vanvideo said:
i'm going with this.

Keep in mind, this is marketed as a consumer/prosumer camera. It's not an F55 Lite.
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Yes. All of this complicated debate is being done over a camera that only costs $2,000 and produces 4K. It's not going to be perfect for every application any more than a Prosumer HD camera is currently.
 
harddrive said:
Exactly, that is a reality check this thread badly needs.

On the basis of the little that we know I'm prepared to believe it may set a new standard for a consumer camera. But that's what it is. A consumer camera. A very good one, yes, but don't expect results as you would from one costing 10-20x more.
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Nobody in this thread, much less myself, is asking for a professional high-end camcorder at a consumer price. The point I and like minded posters are trying to make is that the predicted bitrate is so low that it will defy the advantages of 4K. It is is no use down scaling the 4k original to 2k if the picture is riddled with artifacts, lacks detail etc. You might as well film directly in 2K at decent bitrate, which incidentally the AX100 does offer, and save yourself the trouble. The demo video posted at the beginning is most certainly stunning, no question, but is a poor benchmark as the shots have been undoubtedly cherry picked to suit the poor codec, with little movement in the frame. Anyone who purchases the AX100, will unfortunately be sorely disappointed when they use it under normal conditions, just like a any other camcorder. As an approximation, it is like recording 1080HD at a mere 15mb/s, even smartphones and point n'shoot cameras offer better quality nowadays.

On the other hand, for 2K 1080p video, this camcorder offers a very respectable 50mb/s in XAVC-S, if the video from the RX10 (which shares the same sensor size and internals) is any indication, it should be simply fantastic. As for 4k for the 'masses', the Panasonic GH4 holds much more potential then Sony's toy, as it should feature a full 200mb/s codec, despite costing about the same, albeit without a lens. It is no coincidence that Sony doesn't give the bitrates anywhere for 4k recording on the AX100, but does give those for 2k, whch DO look good! They know it would dampen the enthusiasm for this new camcorder.

But then, once you write off 4k, one might as well consider the CX900, which is identical to AX100, but costs $500 less and lacks the faux 4k recording modes. Incidentally, the approach of offering cheap but flawed 4k might backfire for Sony. Seeing that one of the main reasons they're pushing 4k camcorders is to sell more 4k televisions, buyers who are disappointed with their new, expensive toys will write off this whole 4k thing as a fad and shrug it off as yet another marketing ploy.
 
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R Hudson said:
Yes. All of this complicated debate is being done over a camera that only costs $2,000 and produces 4K. It's not going to be perfect for every application any more than a Prosumer HD camera is currently.
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Yep, I have rented REDS for some shoots, I have a BMCC, and a GH2 I use for a lot of video work.
I was shooting most of my stuff with an HVX200.
I just used my Sony RX10 for some shoots where I would have used the HVX. The quality out of the $1200 RX10
blows the HVX out of the water. I would imagine the Ax100 would produce better quality than the RX10?
 
@Michael Schrengohst; For 2k, yes, the quality should be much better, as the AX100 records 1080p at 50mb/s, almost double the RX10's rate. Internally, it shares many of the components with the RX10, including the 1" Exmor sensor. Indeed the AX100 looks like being an RX10 in a camcorder body, with 4k added to it.

@R Hudson; $2k (or Eur2k where I live) is not small change for a lot of us. Besides, in my books (civil) debate is positive as it spreads knowledge and counters misinformation.
 
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tull_power said:
@Michael Schrengohst; For 2k, yes, the quality should be much better, as the AX100 records 1080p at 50mb/s, almost double the RX10's rate. Internally, it shares many of the components with the RX10, including the 1" Exmor sensor. Indeed the AX100 looks like being an RX10 in a camcorder body, with 4k added to it.

@R Hudson; $2k (or Eur2k where I live) is not small change for a lot of us. Besides, in my books (civil) debate is positive as it spreads knowledge and counters misinformation.
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I agree and didn't want to discourage positive discussion. I just feel that most of us (myself included) have unrealistic expectations from what is essentially a "prosumer" camera. The foray into "affordable" 4K is still young so I expect a few bumps at first. Remember the first flavors of AVCHD? Personally I won't make a jump to 4K until things have stabilized a bit.
 
Seriously what average consumer spends $2000 on a camcoder anymore? I barely see $300 camcorders to begin with in the hands of the average joe. In fact it's been years. All I see are smartphones or at most DSLRs wherever I go.

This is a camera for semiprofessionals/professionals. People shooting events and weddings. People that really could use a higher bitrate because they actually edit their footage.
 
The lines have become so blurred that classifications of cameras are simply meaningless.
You've got a melange of GH3s, BM cameras, C100s, RX10s, A7Rs, DBs....all of which, while very different in specs and features, can deliver images good enough to satisfy most commercial purposes, if shot well.
We used to shoot with an $80k Sony SD camera and lens system.
I'm quite sure I'lll never buy a camera for more than $10k again in my life, for any purposes, and we produce lot's of different types of work for different mediums.

I'm thinking, when it comes out, that the GH4 will be something like the feature set of the RX10, with 4k, a strong range of codecs and interchangeable lens.
I could see producing with a pair of cameras like that for a long time to come.

I've got a GH3 and an RX10 on a doc shoot right now.
Shooting a TV campaign with a pair of BM cameras the same week.
It's all good considering I spent about 5k to add all 4 cameras to the kit.
 
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Great points. Nobody even shoots with point and shoot cameras anymore. It's all coming down to the smart phones for consumers and even those will be able to shoot a crumby 4K.
 
tull_power said:
As an approximation, it is like recording 1080HD at a mere 15mb/s, even smartphones and point n'shoot cameras offer better quality nowadays.
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I suspect you're deriving 15Mbs as a quarter of the 60Mbs this camera is supposed to use for 4K - a quarter the pixels, a quarter the bitrate?

In practice, they don't scale up in proportion. The higher the resolution, the higher the compression ratios you can use for equivalent quality, . It's not the full story, but think of it as the higher resolution allows compression artifacts covering a greater number of pixels to still only have the same visibility. Same with JPEG stills.

OK, if you're getting this camera with a main focus being on such as extracting a 1920x1080 crop from the full image, you'll be magnifying the artifacts so this may not be a good idea - but this is getting to the whole subject of what puts a "consumer" camera at variance from a "professional" one. This may be considered a rich mans consumer camera, but it's still classed as consumer. I ssupect it will give pretty decent 4K quality as such - just don't expect it to stand up to the sorts of things pros may want to do as well as more professional ones.

And from a manufacturers perspective, they allow for "consumers" being less tech savvy than "professionals". Make the bitrate too high, and expect complaints from people who haven't read the warnings in the book about not using too slow cards. If it's a "professional" piece of gear, then absolute quality may be less likely to be compromised - but expect it to use a more expensive memory system.

And are we certain it is limited to 60Mbs anyway? I thought there were some references to it being 100Mbs?

Since XAVC I-frame only is 250Mbs for 25p/4K, and that's rated very highly (similar numbers for AVC-Ultra), that's only about 4x the bitrate of 60Mbs. Long-GOP versus I-frame only should give an efficiency saving of somewhere round 3x, so the 60Mbs wouldn't be THAT low anyway. Not when you're comparing a full codec codec versus one in a consumer camera.
 
I don't think anyone here is expecting an F55 for $2k... it seems clear that the 4k from this camera will be "good", not great. Certainly this is a more consumer/prosumer camera. However, I think it's interesting to ask how good is "good" -- and specifically is it good enough for me? From what I've seen it might be - for me personally, it's kind of right on the edge - but time will tell.

OTOH if the HD really is 50 Mb/s, that beats the pants of an FS700 (ignoring lenses and NF filters)... gotta say I'm sceptical about that one.
 
roxics said:
Seriously what average consumer spends $2000 on a camcoder anymore? I barely see $300 camcorders to begin with in the hands of the average joe. In fact it's been years. All I see are smartphones or at most DSLRs wherever I go.
.
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The same consumers that buy 4K TVs for $5k... not excatly average, but that's who they are targetting.
 
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