The SONY FS-700 & The Odyssey7 - Let´s hope to see some affordable HQ-Output!

Hi Dan,

If I am continiously shooting in one day for 10 hours, I have to buy a "24 hours" activation code.
If I am shooting for 10 days, one hour per day, I have to buy 10 Х "24 hours" activation codes.
In both situations I'm getting 10 hours of recording, but in the second case I pay 10x more.
This is wrong!

Olga
 
Dear Mediaplex,

We have included 1/4" x 20 (tripod thread) mounting points on both sides and the back.

In general, we recommend a Noga Arm, but some may get by with a Hot Shoe Ball Mount.

There is no 1/4" x 20 mounting point on the top, since that is where the SSD's are inserted.

And there is no mounting point on the connector side, as that area is completely full.

We felt that adding HDMI Input and HDMI Output and a BNC for Timecode Input and Output, was important, and with all of the other BNC connectors, they was no more room. The unit is 7.9" wide, 6.1" tall, and 1" thick, and it weighs around 1.2 to 1.3 pounds. I need to get the exact figure.

Again, the Noga Arm or other Cine Arms work great and provide a great deal of flexibility.

Respectfully,


Dan Keaton
Convergent Design
 
Hey Dan,

Any chance you guys would include a 4 pin XLR power option on the Odyssey units. I am pretty sure there are a lot of people out there with 4 pin XLR cables that feed into their respective battery source (i.e. Anton Bauer, V-Lock etc..).

It's a lot easier and less weight than using a dummy battery or adding battery weight to the monitor

Thanks for your involvement and consideration on this, cheers

Rob
 
Dear True North,

I expect us to offer (or include) a 4-Pin XLR to our power input connector for the Odyssey7 / Odyssey7Q.

We do included a 4-Pin XLR cable with our Gemini 4:4:4.
 
olgagroza said:
Hi Dan,

If I am continiously shooting in one day for 10 hours, I have to buy a "24 hours" activation code.
If I am shooting for 10 days, one hour per day, I have to buy 10 Х "24 hours" activation codes.
In both situations I'm getting 10 hours of recording, but in the second case I pay 10x more.
This is wrong!

Olga
Click to expand...

Dear Olga,

If we rented by the hour, the rental rate per hour would have to be higher.

I am curious, are you able to rent cameras and recorders by the hour when you live?

We are trying to make the rental rates reasonable, as opposed to having to purchase a recording option.

I would be interested in other opinons, but I feel that renting by the day (24 hour period) would be fine with most people.

Respectfully,


Dan Keaton
Convergent Design
 
Looks like I sold my nanoflash just in time. Great piece of gear.

When you say "compressed" do you mean 12bit 444 at a lower mbs? Can you expand on this a bit?
 
Whens the 7Q available? the recorder and monitor in one. That alone would make me get rid of the samurai and smallhd AC7. Ill save alot in space and weight.
 
Dan Keaton said:
Dear Olga,

If we rented by the hour, the rental rate per hour would have to be higher.

I am curious, are you able to rent cameras and recorders by the hour when you live?

We are trying to make the rental rates reasonable, as opposed to having to purchase a recording option.

I would be interested in other opinons, but I feel that renting by the day (24 hour period) would be fine with most people.

Respectfully,


Dan Keaton
Convergent Design
Click to expand...
per recording time? you can record up to X amount of hours.
is that ridiculous? lol
 
That would be sweet if your 24 hour rental was indeed 24hours of timecode but from a business perspective, that could be almost a whole indie narrative shot 10:1 with pickups. Rent by the day if affordable makes great sense. It would be nice to have a discounted rate if you actually own the 7Q vs rent. i.e. you shelled out 2.5K for the recorder so it's $20 a day for uncompressed vs your renting the recorder so it's $60. I have no idea if that is even practical to execute though.
 
dcloud said:
per recording time? you can record up to X amount of hours.
is that ridiculous? lol
Click to expand...

I actually think that would be a briiliant idea. Of course you would be paying a much higher amount per hour BUT the user is getting a much more defined period of use. It would also help with budgetting. If you know you are going to need about 2 hours of footage to edit down to your final peice now you have a much easier cost structure to work into your budget. This is especially true if your work is outdoors and the elements can completely destroy your shooting plans. Or perhaps your talent gets sick or injured and you have to delay shooting after you have already started shooting etc..

I hear what Dan is saying regarding Renting a camera per hour but renting a finite physical assett is not the same as renting a theoretically limitless assett like software. Their is no lost opportunity if you rent out software as their is always more available for the next customer.

Why not offer both up to your customers. Some will find the defined use to be a tremendous value while other willfind the daily rate to be more reasonable. In this day and age it makes absolute sense to give your customers more reasons to do business with you rather than finding ways to make them jump through hoops.
 
Dear Olga and True North,

One of the reasons that we announced our Odyssey7 and Odyssey7Q was to get feedback from our customers and potential customers.

We really like to listen to our customers.

I can see where renting by the "Hour of Recording" would make sense for some.

We do have to be careful about adding too much complexity, as this typically resuts in confusion, and frustration.
(I am not saying that this is the case with this suggestion, just in general).

We have tried to be very fair, and very innovative at the same time. Typically, cameras and recorders have to be purchased.

We allow one to rent or purchase most options, thus allowing one to save money by just renting or purchasing what they need.

And if we introduced recording option rental by the "Hour of Recording", this may be inherently unfair.


Consider, for a professional dramatic shoot, one may get two hours (more or less) of recording a day.

For a documentary, one may get well over six hours of shooting per day. Should this cost three times as much?

Or one that is shooting a workshop or series of speakers, totaling about 8 hours. Should this cost four times as much.

I realize that arguments can be made for both daily and hourly rentals.

What should the hourly rate be: The 24 hour rate divided by two, four, six, eight, etc.?

Please let us think about this request for a while.

Respectfully,


Dan Keaton
Convergent Design
 
Dear Dcloud,

I was responding to Olga's post.

Was "Is that ridiculous? lol directed at me?

I am sorry, but I just do not understand. I do not take offense, I just do not understand.

Olga and others have a point about renting by the "Hour of Recording";
where we came up with the original idea of renting our recording options by the 24 hour period.

Please elaborate if possible so I can provide you with a proper answer.

Respectfully,


Dan Keaton
Convergent Design
 
DanKov said:
Looks like I sold my nanoflash just in time. Great piece of gear.

When you say "compressed" do you mean 12bit 444 at a lower mbs? Can you expand on this a bit?
Click to expand...

Dear DanKov,

To the best of my knowledge Avid DNxHD does not currently support 12-Bit.

We intend to add another very popular codec to our Compressed Codec Option in the future.

We have to obtain certification before we can announce it.

Respectfully,


Dan Keaton
Convergent Design
 
Dear Friends,

The nanoFlash is an extremly versatile recorder.

The Odyssey7 and Odyssey7Q do not support the Sony XDCam codecs.

Thus, a nanoFlash can compliment the very desirable Odyssey7 or Odyssey7Q and they can work together.

Respectfully,


Dan Keaton
Convergent Design
 
Dan Keaton said:
Dear Olga and True North,

One of the reasons that we announced our Odyssey7 and Odyssey7Q was to get feedback from our customers and potential customers.

We really like to listen to our customers.

I can see where renting by the "Hour of Recording" would make sense for some.

We do have to be careful about adding too much complexity, as this typically resuts in confusion, and frustration.
(I am not saying that this is the case with this suggestion, just in general).

We have tried to be very fair, and very innovative at the same time. Typically, cameras and recorders have to be purchased.

We allow one to rent or purchase most options, thus allowing one to save money by just renting or purchasing what they need.

And if we introduced recording option rental by the "Hour of Recording", this may be inherently unfair.


Consider, for a professional dramatic shoot, one may get two hours (more or less) of recording a day.

For a documentary, one may get well over six hours of shooting per day. Should this cost three times as much?

Or one that is shooting a workshop or series of speakers, totaling about 8 hours. Should this cost four times as much.

I realize that arguments can be made for both daily and hourly rentals.

What should the hourly rate be: The 24 hour rate divided by two, four, six, eight, etc.?

Please let us think about this request for a while.

Respectfully,


Dan Keaton
Convergent Design
Click to expand...

Getting feedback from potential customers is of course essential and given that companies have the ability to gather information more easily than ever before it is ridiculous not to do so.

As far as the complexity of the decision for your customers is concerned, I really can't see that being an issue with the type of customer you are going to be dealing with. Take a look at the some of the highly technical discussions on this board. Anyone who is interested in using an external recorder is certainly going to have the ability to choose between renting a CODEC on an hourly basis VS a daily basis.

At the end of the day CD has to create a business model that makes sense. I highly doubt that anyone would expect CD to make a quick decision based on a suggestion in an online forum. The fact that someone is listening is all we as customer can ask.

As far as what is 'fair', that is a fairly complex discussion. The Dramatic Shoot VS Documentary VS Lecture Series poses some interesting but certainly manageable challenges. It's a delicate balancing act between gaining maximum market share, while maintaining profitability and customer satisfaction. In my opinion you are dealing in a commodity market where multiple solutions will be available to your customers. To me if you can build a model that gives your customers more reasons to do business with you over your competition WHILE remaining profitable, than that is the direction you should take. The exact hows and whats, I will leave to your boardroom and committee meetings lol...
 
As a potential customer (and a guy who owns a Ninja and a Sound Devices 702T and is looking to buy a monitor), here's my 2c:

Everyone wants a monitor. Everyone wants recording. Proxy option looks great. It seems reasonably priced.

Why don't you just make one thing which does everything out of the box for like $4000?

Keep it cheap. Make it the on-set standard. Sell a ton.

Your upgrade options are confusing and make rental really difficult. EG:
"Here's the Odyssey."
"Great stuff. You got us the Q version with recording, right?"
"Yeah! I almost got the wrong one!"
"Phew. OK, let's hook it up and record slow-mo."
"It's not working."
"$#%#$%!!!"
(Phones rental house)
"We're trying to record slow-mo to our Odyssey"
(15 minute wait while the one guy at the rental house who knows what's going on is located)
"Sorry, that unit has the C500 slow-mo option but not the FS700 slow-mo option."
"$!%@%@$%@$%$!!!"

Versus:
"Here's the Odyssey. It's hooked up and working already."
"Awesome. Let's go. Those things rock. We need one on every camera on every shoot."

Stop treating your product like a niche product and treat it like an essential thing that all filmmakers need.

"I want to monitor from my DSLR and record edit-ready footage with sync sound!" - get an Odyssey
"I want to record DNxHD36 proxies from my Epic and view its RedLogFilm output with a custom LUT!" - get an Odyssey
"I want to record compressed raw from my C500" - get an Odyssey

Make it so that anyone speccing out the shoot just says "I need X camera plus an Odyssey per camera".

Make it so that people are afraid NOT to ask for an Odyssey for every shoot.

Also, sell a box that makes it really idiot-proof for folks to add high-quality audio into the Odyssey. Maybe team up with Zaxcom, since they probably want to compete with Sound Devices in this regard?

I know that this is not you guys' current business model at all but please consider it.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Last edited:
Dan Keaton said:
Olga and others have a point about renting by the "Hour of Recording";
where we came up with the original idea of renting our recording options by the 24 hour period.
Click to expand...

Dan-

as far as my work is concerned, a 24 hour rental period makes elegant sense (though I suppose could end up with some waste when switching between days and nights...) I, for one, am extremely excited about a manufacturer adopting a lease model when it comes to firmware. simple and brilliant. I own a nanoFlash and have used it on a wide variety of shoots with a number of cameras including my FS100 & FS700. it's even flown on a blimp. while other external recorders have failed me on shoots, after years of use, my nanoFlash just WORKS.

that said, I am very excited about the Odyssey 7s (already have a deposit in.) while they obviously include a number of excellent image analysis tools, the question I have is this: will they have other tools critical to its use as an onboard monitor? the main features I would want would be onscreen markers (preset and custom) and aspect control. with 1.3x anamorphics, the ability to get a proper 2.35 on a 16x9 sensor would be really important (currently not possible on the Gemini.) the other usual suspects would be blue only, pixel-to-pixel with panning and some kind of auto scaling, now that more DSLRs are offering "clean" feeds. are these features you plan to include in the Odysseys? thanks for always participating in the community.

- Dylan Sanford
 
bruceallen said:
As a potential customer (and a guy who owns a Ninja and a Sound Devices 702T and is looking to buy a monitor), here's my 2c:

Everyone wants a monitor. Everyone wants recording. Proxy option looks great. It seems reasonably priced.

Why don't you just make one thing which does everything out of the box for like $4000?

Keep it cheap. Make it the on-set standard. Sell a ton.

Your upgrade options are confusing and make rental really difficult. EG:
"Here's the Odyssey."
"Great stuff. You got us the Q version with recording, right?"
"Yeah! I almost got the wrong one!"
"Phew. OK, let's hook it up and record slow-mo."
"It's not working."
"$#%#$%!!!"
(Phones rental house)
"We're trying to record slow-mo to our Odyssey"
(15 minute wait while the one guy at the rental house who knows what's going on is located)
"Sorry, that unit has the C500 slow-mo option but not the FS700 slow-mo option."
"$!%@%@$%@$%$!!!"

Versus:
"Here's the Odyssey. It's hooked up and working already."
"Awesome. Let's go. Those things rock. We need one on every camera on every shoot."

Stop treating your product like a niche product and treat it like an essential thing that all filmmakers need.

"I want to monitor from my DSLR and record edit-ready footage with sync sound!" - get an Odyssey
"I want to record DNxHD36 proxies from my Epic and view its RedLogFilm output with a custom LUT!" - get an Odyssey
"I want to record compressed raw from my C500" - get an Odyssey

Make it so that anyone speccing out the shoot just says "I need X camera plus an Odyssey per camera".

Make it so that people are afraid NOT to ask for an Odyssey for every shoot.

Also, sell a box that makes it really idiot-proof for folks to add high-quality audio into the Odyssey. Maybe team up with Zaxcom, since they probably want to compete with Sound Devices in this regard?

I know that this is not you guys' current business model at all but please consider it.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
Click to expand...

make sense
 
Dear Friends,

It is very reasonable for Rental Houses to purchase very well equipped Odyssey7Q's, ones with the common recording options.

But, they may decide to rent, when they need it, the more exotic recording options, say for the 2K/HD Raw POV cameras.

This is, obviously, up to the rental houses.

But, the entire package with all recording options is so much more economical than other professional options, that the rental house may purchase everything.
We will know more after NAB. And the important date is in May when we release all of the recording option prices.

But, not everyone wants or needs a $4,000 recorder.

DSLR users many want just a great 7.7" OLED monitor.

Others may want a wonderfull compressed codec only recorder at a low price.

Just so you know, we are carefully considering your suggestions, the above are just my preliminary thoughts.


Respectfully,


Dan Keaton
Convergent Design
 
I do agree with Bruce Allen on many of his points. For example I'm in the market for a monitor for my FS-700 at the moment. But should I buy the Odyssey7 or Odyssey7Q? Will I need 4K in the future? I need to know right away before purchase or I will be forced to sell the Odyssey7 and buy a 7Q if I need more features. Thus it's not exactly "adapting to change without invasive hardware changes or costly upgrades."
 
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