Sony FDR-AX100

[Peter Siamidis]

Originally Posted by Jack Zhang

I'd much prefer H.264 for now. HEVC throws away a lot of data during it's compression and it would certainly not pass generational testing. (re-encoding over and over again) It doesn't even have a High Profile yet.

HEVC will be for final delivery while acquisition will remain in the RAW domain or H.264 one for quite some time. Consumers may see HEVC camcorders, but I guarantee it will not hold up as good as H.264 if you're planning to do lots of post-production on the footage (Grading, VFX, etc.)

Interesting I didn't know that, I was actually expecting h265 to creep into the camera world next year. Well I guess that means at some point I'll have to accept 100mbps or so for 4k 60fps as I presume 60mbps wouldn't be acceptable for 60fps 4k video. Although I guess the first realistic step is to see how the AX100 handles 4k 30fps to begin with.

[Ken Ross]

Originally Posted by Peter Siamidis

Everyone's needs are different, so to make a definitive "basic" list isn't really possible as my list will quite likely be orthogonal to yours.

So very true Pete. This is why I would not want to be a camera designer. One guy will say you were totally ignoring the pleas for most of what was on Cliff's list and the next guy will say as you did, I don't need that, give me the things that I want. I'm kind of amused when people are totally dumbfounded because something was left off of their list as if 'their list' should have been the only consideration of Sony.

Obviously Sony was not listening to ME, because I wanted 4K@60p. What the hell were they thinking!!! :)

You'll never please everyone.

[Ron Evans]

Originally Posted by Peter Siamidis

Interesting I didn't know that, I was actually expecting h265 to creep into the camera world next year. Well I guess that means at some point I'll have to accept 100mbps or so for 4k 60fps as I presume 60mbps wouldn't be acceptable for 60fps 4k video. Although I guess the first realistic step is to see how the AX100 handles 4k 30fps to begin with.

For the HDR-AX1 , 4K@60P ( 59.94) is 150Mbps. At 24P ( 23.98) or 30P (29.97) you have a choice of 100Mbps or 60Mbps. The data rate on the PXW-Z100 10bit 4:2:2 is 4 times as much with the XAVC codec.

Ron Evans

[Peter Siamidis]

Originally Posted by Ron Evans

For the HDR-AX1 , 4K@60P ( 59.94) is 150Mbps. At 24P ( 23.98) or 30P (29.97) you have a choice of 100Mbps or 60Mbps. The data rate on the PXW-Z100 10bit 4:2:2 is 4 times as much with the XAVC codec.

Oh yeah, it is 150mbps for 4k 60fps with h264 isn't it. Hmm, if it's true that h265 isn't coming to cameras any time soon then I may have to deal with mass amounts of data archiving if I want 60fps. Ugh :( Or I guess I can stick with the AX100's 30fps longer than anticipated assuming it looks ok.

[Ron Evans]

For my FDR-AX1 a 64G QXD card last about 50 mins at 60P so a 2 hours show takes about 150G. For my NX5U at 60i that would be about 25G!!! So backup for a 2 hour show with AX1, NX5U, NX30U and CX700 ( all but NX5U shooting 60P ) almost 200G. About half a LTO3 tape at $25. I used to be able to backup all source and finished projects 4 to a tape now it will be more like 2 to a tape. Still way cheaper than keeping DV tapes and faster to transfer to PC and backup to tape too.

I do not like the judder of slow frame rates so its 60P or nothing for me. I tried 30P on the AX1 as it was for YouTube anyway but could still see the judder even though almost no one moved !!

Ron Evans

[Ken Ross]

Ron, if you have a display that is capable of doubling or tripling frame rate, this almost becomes a non-issue.

I've tried it with cellphone videos as a test. Played at the normal 30fps on my plasma, it was tough to watch with any rapid movement or panning. However as soon as I implemented the frame doubler (as most modern displays have...especially LED/LCDs), the motion was hard to distinguish from 60fps.I did this same test on my 60" Sharp Elite, local dimming LED display, and the results were the same.

These are the same circuits that result in the dreaded 'SOE', Soap Opera Effect, if used while watching movies. So I would only use that circuit for video.

[Jack Zhang]

Modern Internet video delivery has never went beyond 30p, and we are growing up in a generation that only sees 60p/60i from broadcast. 60p also doesn't render well on computers, requiring perfect vertical sync to deliver it properly.

Unless there is actual effort to optimize 60p display on computers, (which none of the video card manufacturers are doing) everyone of the computer-tied generation is going to be watching 30p.

Stage6 back in the day was a DivX codec driven website that allowed you to upload raw DivX encodes without it being re-encoded. Back then, you could actually upload 60p and it would render it relatively well. That no longer exists, and so is the notion of 60p on the internet. Netflix even converts 60i content to 30p, and worse yet, if it's a PAL source but the conversion is sourced from a NTSC DVD that has already had a frame rate conversion, it tries to render 30p for internet delivery, resulting in extreme amounts of strobing and motion artifacting.

Even worse, people would have used the "original file download" feature of certain websites to deliver 60p, but that notion died as well, since that would take massive amounts of bandwidth. Only Vimeo Plus allows you to give away the original file download, and that's $60 a year.

[Peter Siamidis]

Originally Posted by Ron Evans

For my FDR-AX1 a 64G QXD card last about 50 mins at 60P so a 2 hours show takes about 150G. For my NX5U at 60i that would be about 25G!!! So backup for a 2 hour show with AX1, NX5U, NX30U and CX700 ( all but NX5U shooting 60P ) almost 200G. About half a LTO3 tape at $25. I used to be able to backup all source and finished projects 4 to a tape now it will be more like 2 to a tape. Still way cheaper than keeping DV tapes and faster to transfer to PC and backup to tape too.

Yeah that's what worries me. To put it in perspective with a real world example, I did a few shoots last week and ended up with about 228gb of data. I archive everything on 3 magnetic hard drives and on optical blurays spread out at two different banks. Yeah I'm paranoid about losing my data :) So that 228gb of video data becomes 912gb of archive data in total for a few days of shoots last week. That's with my Sony NX30 that records at 28mbps. So switching to the AX100's 60mbps means that 912gb of archive will now become 1954gb in size. If I switch to the AX1's 150mbps then that 912gb of archive becomes 4885gb of data. I think I can manage the jump to the AX100, but going to the AX1 would be quite painful. Hence why I was hopeful of h265 becoming a reality in the camera space.

Originally Posted by Jack Zhang

Modern Internet video delivery has never went beyond 30p, and we are growing up in a generation that only sees 60p/60i from broadcast. 60p also doesn't render well on computers, requiring perfect vertical sync to deliver it properly.

Unless there is actual effort to optimize 60p display on computers, (which none of the video card manufacturers are doing) everyone of the computer-tied generation is going to be watching 30p.

Fortunately that doesn't apply to me :) I have my own websites that people sign up to and watch or download the videos, so it's been all 60fps for me for years now along with lower quality 30fps versions as well. That's also why I'm chomping at the bit to go 4k since many of my customers already have displays > 1920x1080 resolution. Most every computer has been able to play back my high bitrate 1920x1080 60fps videos for years now without issue, but 4k 60fps might challenge some at first. Things move fast though in the computer space, and 4k 30fps shouldn't be an issue for most anyways.

[Ron Evans]

Originally Posted by Ken Ross

Ron, if you have a display that is capable of doubling or tripling frame rate, this almost becomes a non-issue.

I've tried it with cellphone videos as a test. Played at the normal 30fps on my plasma, it was tough to watch with any rapid movement or panning. However as soon as I implemented the frame doubler (as most modern displays have...especially LED/LCDs), the motion was hard to distinguish from 60fps.I did this same test on my 60" Sharp Elite, local dimming LED display, and the results were the same.

These are the same circuits that result in the dreaded 'SOE', Soap Opera Effect, if used while watching movies. So I would only use that circuit for video.

My issue isn't playback as I have a Sony 240Hz interpolating display. But my Panasonic plasma shows the issue immediately. I want to edit and produce a nice clean smooth 60i SD DVD from the source so need those missing frames/fields that 60i or 60p provide. Yes I feel we are degrading most things in video and audio. We end up listening to mp3 and watching poor 30p video .... Sad.

Ron Evans

[Ken Ross]

Ron, your Panny doesn't have a frame doubler? My Samsung plasma does as well as my Sharp LED/LCD. Is this an older Panasonic model?

For me this isn't an issue and I'm really just using the AX100 for my personal use. If your Panasonic doesn't have it, at least for playback you could use your Sony for smooth motion. Of course that won't help in producing 60i SD DVDs.

But that's painful, taking 4K and turning it in to 60i SD. Makes me want to cry. I go through such gyrations to ensure the most lossless end-product just for my own use.

In doing customized training videos for clients, they all want SD since the product winds up, more often than not, on either their intranet or a DVD. So for that I used my trusty Sony VX2100. SD in, SD out.

As for 'degrading', that's surely not what I feel is happening with 4K. Even with the AX100, if the video looks anything like the demo, I'll take that kind of 'degrading' every day of the week. ;)

[Jack Zhang]

Originally Posted by Ken Ross

...that won't help in producing 60i SD DVDs.

But that's painful, taking 4K and turning it in to 60i SD. Makes me want to cry. I go through such gyrations to ensure the most lossless end-product just for my own use.

In doing customized training videos for clients, they all want SD since the product winds up, more often than not, on either their intranet or a DVD. So for that I used my trusty Sony VX2100. SD in, SD out.

I tried to use my NanoFlash on some of my EX1R gigs, but knowing the output was DVD, I know there's no difference between internal 1080p 4:2:0 and external 4:2:2 if it is going to DVD.

[Ron Evans]

My only interest in 4K is to crop/pan /zoom to 1920x1080 so that I can produce a Bluray and SD output fro the one source both at 60i. And there is a difference between downscaling the AX1 and source from my NX30U or CX700 or even the NX5U. The AX1 is sharper and cleaner with enough light. I would like to get the to point where I can shoot a show wide and edit multicam from the one source or at least have just one other camera for really closeups. So I would like good low light but with large depth of field. The AX1 does not do low light that well so will keep a look out for what comes next but a really large sensor will not really fit the requirements for large depth of field in most cases.

Ron Evans

[Ralph Gereg]

Originally Posted by Ron Evans

My only interest in 4K is to crop/pan /zoom to 1920x1080 so that I can produce a Bluray and SD output fro the one source both at 60i.

The AX1 is sharper and cleaner with enough light. I would like to get the to point where I can shoot a show wide and edit multicam from the one source or at least have just one other camera for really closeups.
Ron Evans

Hey Ron, from your experience, How close can you get zoom wise when cropping AX1 4k fooage down to 1080? Also, typically how far is the camera from your subject when shooting wide with this intention?

I'm wondering how well I could "zoom" on say a Jack Russel Terror from 50 feet away across an Agility field at at dog show, before the picture begins to lose enough quality to render this method unacceptable?

[Ron Evans]

UHD is 4 times 1920x1080 so you can zoom in 4:1 without loosing any pixels for 1920x1080. After that you will be interpolating and will loose sharpness. Of course for SD you can go in even more, close to 16:1. I shoot theatre so want to frame actors sensibly in the frame so do not need to go in very much. More like center/crop the frame on the actors so 4:1 is just fine. I did this when HDV first came out using my FX1 to edit to DV and it worked just great and so hope to do the same thing with 4K. It was almost 4 years before I actually used the FX1 in a HD project when I eventually got a couple of AVCHD cams to use with it for multicam.

So far I have shot with the AX1 and backup with CX700 to make sure things actually work but it has worked just fine in this unattended semi auto mode. Fixed focus/white balance/shutter speed and exposure in AE shift just like the CX700.

Ron Evans

[Dave Blackhurst]

There are two issues, one is the resolution of individual frames, which should be fairly good for the pan/crop part of the equation, but the second is the temporal motion of 30 vs. 60 of these sharp frames per second is the part that we'll have to see about when the camera comes out.

Once seeing 60p vs. 60i, you see the advantages of "more frames", but we're talking about a new compression scheme... will 30 be "enough" is the question that remains? The reasoning behind it is obvious, it's effectively the same reason that film went with 24 frames per second many many years ago - the limitations of the medium, vs. the "minimum acceptable" display when it's all said and done.

It'll be interesting once the AX100 releases to see if the compromise is "acceptable" when compared to say the 60p output from this camera (or other 60p cameras). I'm not worried much about "sharp" in general, just motion handling... I'm in the pan/crop "crowd" for general uses of such a camera, but also thinking of "future proofing" some footage.