FS7: XDCA-FS7 owners: Are you happy?

J

jshbckr

Veteran
I bought my extension unit right away to take advantage of my Odyssey7Q, but we all know the RAW had issues. Plus, I think many of us weren't sure if we needed an update for the XDCA or an update for our Odyssey's, we just knew things weren't looking right, especially with high fps.

I sold my O7Q before the v3.0 firmware so I haven't used RAW lately but I'm hearing that it's still inferior to UHD HDMI output and even the internal XAVC is higher quality.

I'm frustrated that Sony released this extension unit and then basically failed to follow through with the quality we assumed we would get out of it. I've had mine listed on the marketplace for MONTHS (here, Facebook, REDuser) with no interest due to the fact that we're all aware now what a scam this thing was. I've been hoping someone just really needs timecode in/out with v-mount.

Is there anything to be done here? Or is this just a situation where you have to sit back and suck it up that a mega-huge company charged you $2000 for a piece of junk?
 
This is Sony's trend. Sometimes I think the marketing comes before the engineering.

Sony F3 slog upgrade - $3200 USD. Free S-Log later on.

Sony F5/F55 - $13k extra for internal 4K on F55, later free on F5 with 'all file' hack, or $995 if you want to pay for it.

Sony FS7 - 12-bit RAW (too little bits for sensor DR.. or whatever the technical reason is)

I don't get mad at this stuff anymore... . I get even. :thumbsup:
 
starcentral said:
This is Sony's trend. Sometimes I think the marketing comes before the engineering.

Sony F3 slog upgrade - $3200 USD. Free S-Log later on.

Sony F5/F55 - $13k extra for internal 4K on F55, later free on F5 with 'all file' hack, or $995 if you want to pay for it.

Sony FS7 - 12-bit RAW (too little bits for sensor DR.. or whatever the technical reason is)

I don't get mad at this stuff anymore... . I get even. :thumbsup:
Click to expand...

Right... but the F3 and F5/F55 stuff actually worked, right? Sure it was made free or cheaper later (or the hack), but it's not like they charged $3200 for the Slog upgrade and then it just looked like garbage.

The only one you listed that fails to do what it was advertised is the 12-bit RAW on the FS7.
 
jshbckr said:
The only one you listed that fails to do what it was advertised is the 12-bit RAW on the FS7.
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I think it does as advertised but it doesn't meet expectations because of the technical limitations of 12bit linear RAW.

I wonder if it would be technically possible for Sony to write a firmware update that made the unit output 12bit Log RAW?
 
I had some discussion with Alister and it appears that RAW on Sony (even F5/F55) is not truly linear, and I guess that makes sense.

It has to be that if Sony wanted to they could squeeze 14 stops into 12-bit Log RAW. Even BMD refers to their RAW as "Log RAW" on their website. On it they say; DaVinci Resolve can easily handle the 12‑bit log RAW images from URSA.

If anyone actually did pure linear you'd have 1 bit of data representing your lowest stop. Hard to believe anyone would actually do that.

So what did Sony's last firmware that was suppose to address this do? Anyone?
 
Also, how is it that the FS700 didn't have any of these issues? Because they sent the Slog2 curve instead of linear?

My impression, which I think was the common thought when the FS7 and XDCA were announced, was that it sent out the exact same RAW flavor as the FS700. I think Convergent Design was even under that impression because they lumped it into their FS700 codec.
 
For one FS700 had less dynamic range, less to worry about squeezing in linear RAW curve.

But again this is just theory and I'm not sure anyone has any cold hard facts about it. It's not like Sony will come out and tell us.

Mitch from CD, and I'm putting a bit of words in his mouth, has sort of indicated that they had some problems with the RAW from Sony in the past and more recently. Just to be clear he didn't say there is a problem with Sony RAW specifically, only to suggest that there might be. :shocked: Hopefully he'll chime in but if so I'm sure there is very little he can say about it in a public forum.
 
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jshbckr said:
Also, how is it that the FS700 didn't have any of these issues? Because they sent the Slog2 curve instead of linear?
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(roughly speaking, this is our guesses.... ) Squeezing 12 stops of dynamic range into a 12 bit linear raw container is no problem! Trying to squeeze 14+ stops of dynamic range into 12 bit of linear raw..... uh oh!
 
starcentral said:
Mitch from CD, and I'm putting a bit of words in his mouth, has sort of indicated that they had some problems with the RAW from Sony in the past and more recently. Just to be clear he didn't say there is a problem and confirmed it, only to suggest that there might be. Hopefully he'll chime in but if so, I'm sure little he can say about it in a public forum.
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http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/forumdisplay.php?66-THE-NEW-GUYS
Mitch is more active in this forum

I wonder if someone tested the XDCA with Sony's RAW recorder and compared it to 7Q? I only heard about 7Q/7Q+ RAW issues.
From my experience with the 7Q/FS700 it took almost a year until Convergent Design managed to work it without bigger issues
(FW 5.2015 afair)

It could be that C-D just thought FS700 and FS7 are quite identical and now as it's obviously not they don't have the FS7 RAW on their priority to-do list.
imho their engineering capacities are way behind their marketing power.
 
I'm getting excellent results shooting 4K ProRes out of the O7Q+ both at 25fps and at 60fps. I've done side-by-sides and there is more detail, dynamic range and colour depth using the O7Q+ than shooting internal. HFR in HD is a no go, much better shooting internal.
 
Mitch's recommendation on the FS7 Raw was to expose to the right ... way, way, way, Genghis Khan right.
 
Liam Hall said:
I'm getting excellent results shooting 4K ProRes out of the O7Q+ both at 25fps and at 60fps. I've done side-by-sides and there is more detail, dynamic range and colour depth using the O7Q+ than shooting internal. HFR in HD is a no go, much better shooting internal.
Click to expand...

do you shoot via XDCA / SDI or straight via HDMI?
 
starcentral said:
It has to be that if Sony wanted to they could squeeze 14 stops into 12-bit Log RAW. Even BMD refers to their RAW as "Log RAW" on their website. On it they say; DaVinci Resolve can easily handle the 12‑bit log RAW images from URSA.

If anyone actually did pure linear you'd have 1 bit of data representing your lowest stop. Hard to believe anyone would actually do that.
Click to expand...

Not to derail this thread but I just wanted make a comment on what I know of how BM raw works.

Blackmagics internal camera processing is 16bit linear from a sensor that generates greater than 16bit files.

At the DNG encode stage it's transformed into 12bit log. This then unpacks in Resolve again at 16bit linear. You'll notice this in the media manager where it says 16b against the bit depth. It seems they do a LOG transform to get the file size down that then mathmatically transforms back to linear once you actually use the files.

Sonys F55 raw files are also 16bit linear and they work great.

JB
 
Good insight John, thanks for sharing. I did not know that.

I have the F55 and yeah it's nice but I feel it doesn't have the mojo look of the 4.6k mini without some serious DaVinci Resolve magic. With some help from my dear fellow DVX'ers in the past we've deduced that I may have a mental condition. (grass is greener fever)

From checking out your blog, I noticed you've worked with the F55 on various TV series and I would love to hear your thoughts on how you feel the images (in RAW) from the F55 fair out from any expectations you have of getting that cinematic look and feel from them. I know you feel the images are a bit cold, but maybe you can talk more about how Hook may have helped you get to where you wanted.

This is all really off topic, so feel free to shoot me PM if you like, or we'll just start a new thread. Maybe call it '5 reasons the URSA Mini is better than the Sony F55'? That could be fun.

cheers mate,
 
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I was really disappointed in the FS7 RAW out for the 7Q. I came from the FS700 and really enjoyed the RAW > 4K ProRes 422 HQ. Lovely details and tones.

When I used the FS7 with the RAW out, I didn't see any benefit in it. Not really happy with having to buy a $2000 add-on to enable the feature when the FS700 had the same capabilities through one SDI port on the camera. So I sold my 7Q+ for the time being and strictly use the internal codecs for my productions. Really happy with it and haven't thought about it any other way.

This is one of the reasons why I am interested in the Varicam LT. I love the idea of having compressed formats similar to the FS7 but I can simply add a 7Q+ and record RAW footage with ease. I expect the quality to be quite nice (hopefully) and Panasonic would be smart to work with everyone at Convergent Design to create a solid additional feature for the Varicam LT. I am worried they will cripple it to protect their Varicam 35 customers by limiting the RAW capabilities. Will see. I am not going to buy it for a bit, so I got time to see how the RAW implementation plays out.

Also have considered the Scarlet-W as a natural upgrade to the FS7. The FS7 has paid itself off and continues to work well for me. The way I am going to upgrade is when I start needing the camera. At this moment, it's purely to fulfill my camera desires to get something more than a FS7. I keep telling myself I need to focus my efforts on nicer lenses, tripods, and grip gear. Those are just as important as a fancy new camera.
 
As I mentioned on another thread, it's issues like these that have reinforced my belief that it is not a good idea to purchase virtually ANY camera these days based on pre-ordering. Further, it usually take an additional TWO years before the real issues have revealed themselves and have been dealt with or not, and never will be, because the company has moved on. It's impossible to really know what you are getting before then.
 
starcentral said:
Good insight John, thanks for sharing. I did not know that.

I have the F55 and yeah it's nice but I feel it doesn't have the mojo look of the 4.6k mini without some serious DaVinci Resolve magic. With some help from my dear fellow DVX'ers in the past we've deduced that I may have a mental condition. (grass is greener fever)

From checking out your blog, I noticed you've worked with the F55 on various TV series and I would love to hear your thoughts on how you feel the images (in RAW) from the F55 fair out from any expectations you have of getting that cinematic look and feel from them. I know you feel the images are a bit cold, but maybe you can talk more about how Hook may have helped you get to where you wanted.

This is all really off topic, so feel free to shoot me PM if you like, or we'll just start a new thread. Maybe call it '5 reasons the URSA Mini is better than the Sony F55'? That could be fun.

cheers mate,
Click to expand...

I agree that the 4.6K does have Mojo. And one reason is that it is not as clean as the F55. More noise, but attractive looking noise in my opinion. You once asked what your next camera should be, and I think this could be a good candidate. However, mental condition aside (just look at how much Livegrain was used on Vinyl as well as specialised LUT's from Deluxe to add flavor to the F55) it's still early days. There is already a magenta cast issue which has been found on some 4.6K's and probably a host of other issues which will reveal themselves. And that's normal. All cameras are a work in progress, even after release nowadays. My solution - take two aspirin, wait a SIGNIFIGANT period of time and swoop in when everyone has grown to hate their cameras and are looking for a new one.

Say, how's that global shutter working out for you ? I know a bunch of 4.6K users who are looking enviously at your F55 (which does GS with no loss of DR on top of that), now that BM has announced that they will not be getting this feature after all (and after pre-ordering I might add).

Yes, the grass is always greener, except when it's magenta.
 
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