Sony FDR-AX100

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Dennis Freeman

Is it possible to downscale the 4K files within the camcorder?
Denny

Downscale to what and why? You can shoot regular HD with this camera as well.

[Dennis Freeman]

I am trying to determine whether the down scaled HD from 4K is exactly the same as the HD shot in the camcorder. This along with other issues is helping me decide if I am going with the CX900 or the AX100.
I do thank you all for the input.
Denny

[James Manford]

I guess you don't want the headache of bigger files that 4K produce then?

4K downscaled to 1080p will definitely be crystal clear as it will fill all the lines in a 1080p frame. I don't think filming in 1080p on it's own would look as good as 4K downscaled.

Having said that ... Noa from your experience when you're editing 4K in your NLE, is there significant lag or anything? and how much space would 1 hour of footage say from a ceremoney take up on your memory card / hard drive in 4K from the AX100?

[Dave Blackhurst]

Dennis -

If what you're asking is whether the camera can downconvert on export like some HD cameras, I don't believe that's an option, unless you did something via the HDMI as some are suggesting? You should be able to import the 4K clips into most NLE's, and they take a little more horsepower to process, but that's just the penalty for better quality!

I know this thread is one of the most massive (ever?!), but to condense a bit of what users are finding... 4K is more detailed (and generally seems to look better even on 1080 screens) than the 1080/60p XAVCS, but there are a couple reports that the 2.0 firmware makes the differences less noticeable - I hope to test this before I push the update onto my camera... along with the RX10 firmware update that adds 1080/60p XAVCS... I am hopeful that the latest tweaks will bring the image quality close to the 4K level... still trying to devise a quick and dirty but repeatable test to do a "before/after" comparison.

I do know that even the first tests I ran of the "old" AVCHD 1080/60p/28Mbps compared to the XAVCS 1080/60p/50Mbps were pretty convincing that the latter was preferable to the eye... and the 4K was even more preferable, even at 30p (I later sorted out that you can't let the camera decide the shutter speed if you want to avoid stutter!). I'm hoping the XAVCS 1080 will be "good enough" for most situations... just to keep the RX10 "current"!

The CX900 simply doesn't have the option to shoot in 4K, and if you don't "need" it, you "could" skip it. HOWEVER, you probably won't save "much", and if you even think you "might' want to fiddle with 4K, either for testing, or to use the additional resolution to pan/scan/crop while maintaining HD resolution... the AX100 has the advantage.

Honestly after shooting a bit of 4K, and putting a 4k capable computer system together (even if it's "only" 30p), I would find it hard to justify an "HD" camera purchase... but I'll reserve comment until I've seen what the higher bitrate XAVCS "tweaks" can do - there is obviously some "headroom to create "better" HD than what you typically get from a "consumer" camera, and Sony seems to be squeezing a lot out of this particular sensor/processor combo. I'd still recommend a slightly used/discounted AX100 if you can find one, and you can ALWAYS set it to shoot "HD" with the press of a couple onscreen buttons, should you desire!

[Dave Blackhurst]

James -

I just stuck a 128GB card into the AX100, and the camera believes that it can shoot approx 4 hours and 30 minutes on that card... I'm sure that varies a bit, but gives you some idea of what to expect. I come up at roughly 28.4G per hour with that rate - but then again, I've only found 64 and 128G SDXC cards when I went looking... Somehow I thought there were 32G SDXC cards, but not finding any?? You need XC cards for the XAVCS...


I put a new "state of the art" (sort of, it's a "budget" build!) desktop together, primarily to be able to handle 4K, I think the editing would depend somewhat on patience and expectations. I knew that my several year old system was stumbling ing a bit on 28Mbps AVCHD anyway, so it was logical to factor in a computer upgrade...

On the flip side of that, getting everything working smoothly has been an adventure - I still need to put a few bug reports in to Intel that need addressing, and see if I can get tweaked drivers... 4K is definitely a "bleeding edge" proposition, NOT an "everything works out of the box" one, IMO! Totally WORTH IT once you see stills and video on a 4K display...

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by James Manford

Having said that ... Noa from your experience when you're editing 4K in your NLE, is there significant lag or anything? and how much space would 1 hour of footage say from a ceremoney take up on your memory card / hard drive in 4K from the AX100?

When I switch on my camera with a 64gb card in it it says there is 2 hours and 17 minutes of remaining recording time.
I have a i7 3770 processor and as long as I have one stream of 4k footage editing is in realtime, no stutter, even when applying colorcorrection to the clip, only when I apply the stabiliser filter it takes longer to calculate and when I cut clips, press play and scroll on the timeline there is a small lag compared to avchd footage, with avchd everything is snappier but it is still fast enough for regular editing.
When I have one 4K and 2 avchd clips in a multicam that is also still realtime, only when I add a second 4k stream the fun is over and there is noticeable stutter.
Exporting 4k files to a 1080p is also very quick, I believe twice realtime as edius is using the onboard gpu for those renders.

I am trying to determine whether the down scaled HD from 4K is exactly the same as the HD shot in the camcorder.

4k downscaled in a NLE will have more detail though 1080p is still plenty sharp, a few 4K advantages are:
You can crop in a 1080p project without loss of detail, this enables you to reframe shots.
You can extract a frame out of your shots that is far more detailed when you plan to use it on a dvdboxprint.
You can stabilise clips in a 1080p project without loss of image detail.
4k downscaled to 1080p has more detail then shooting in 1080p.
4k downscaled to 1080p has less visible noise because the noise gets smaller as well.

If those advantages is not what you need, you are better of with the ax900, it will take some time before you can burn your 4k files on a 4k blu-ray disc and have a 4k player to play them on your 4k tv at a affordable price. Otoh you can shoot 4K now and render to 1080p but also render a 4k file that you can keep until 4K playback becomes a norm, everything you shoot now could be watched in 4k even if it takes a few years for you to adopt. In that way you can futureproof your films if you plan to one day see them in the highest quality possible and by the time you can do that 8K will be out and we can have the same discussion again :).

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by James Manford

I guess you don't want the headache of bigger files that 4K produce then?

4K files are not necessarily bigger then 1080p files, sony uses it's 50mbs XAVCS codec for 4K and 1080p. Panasonic with their gh4 has a 100mbs codec for 4k but even a up to 200mbs codec for 1080p so there 1080p files could be bigger then 4k files.

[Dennis Freeman]

Thank you gentlemen for your responses. Based on everything I have learned here, I think that the AX100 4K is the way I am going to go. In terms of image quality, and "Future Proofing" the purchase it is really a no brainer. Especially with the price drop at B&H on this camcorder.

Thanks again,
Denny
Sony is coming out with a pair of programs called Catalyst Browse and Catalyst Prepare to convert the files to better import. This site looks interesting http://www.videoguys.com/Guide/RE/0x...0169d7582.aspx

[James Manford]

Thank you Dave & Noa for the response.

Any chance one of you can be generous enough to upload a few raw files from your AX100 for me to have a fiddle with in Sony Vegas in a 1080p timeline ?

[Len Imbery]

I just bought one of these and the instructions on the sony site regarding finding my firmware version are a bit misleading.....they say to look under general settings in the menu...but I can't seem to find that. How do you find the current firmware version?

[Mark Watson]

Originally Posted by Dennis Freeman

I am interested in the workflow for taking 4K video and down sampling it to 1920X1080P. Is this something that can be done in camera? If so what would be the best workflow to accomplish this?
Thanks,
Denny

Dennis,
I haven't sent any of my 4K footage to Blu-Ray yet, mostly just stock-piling it for now. But, I did test the method I have been using for resizing HD to SD. Someone on here recommended using VirtualDub (free) to resize video, saying that Sony Vegas wasn't very good at that function. So, I tried with some 4K and what I did was bring my 4K into Vegas timeline and then render out as an uncompressed .avi file. Then I open VirtualDub and import that (huge) .avi and go to the filter section and choose resize, then input the SD size I want. VirtualDub creates the new file, and that's what I use for burning the DVD. I don't know if this is the best way or not, but going from 4K to SD worked and I would assume going from 4K to HD will work fine. Having said all that, I want to go back and see if Vegas really does a worse job of it. I did not get any "wow" factor when I viewed the down-converted 4K to SD. Still looked like regular SD to me.

It sounds like most guys here are just letting their NLE do the conversion for them and are happy with that.

The HDMI output does not output 4K during recording, but will output 4K during playback, IF it is connected to something that can handle the 4K. I don't have any 4K monitor to see for myself.

I have a BMD Hyperdeck Shuttle 2 and have found that the camera HDMI does output during record if in any mode other than 4K, including 1280x720 120fps mode. I have contacted Sony to see what the HDMI output is and they wouldn't tell me. I'd think that if it were uncompressed, that would be a selling point for the camera, so since they aren't saying, I'm guessing it is not uncompressed.

Canon XF305 manual does not say what the output of the SDI/HDMI ports are either. But sometime after the camera was released, Canon published a series of white papers and in one of them, they give out the specs for these ports, so maybe the info will come out about the AX100 sometime later.

Mark

[Mark Watson]

Originally Posted by Len Imbery

I just bought one of these and the instructions on the sony site regarding finding my firmware version are a bit misleading.....they say to look under general settings in the menu...but I can't seem to find that. How do you find the current firmware version?

Len,

The instructions are wrong in that regard. There's no way to view the version info in version 1.0 firmware. During the upgrade process, but before the point of no return, the firmware installer will connect to your camera via USB and will display your current version number on the screen for you. Once you proceed and get the new version installed, you will then be able to view your version number from the camera's menu, like it says. Go for it.

Mark

[Len Imbery]

I also notice that there is only one small metal loop on the strap that maybe a camera strap could be attached...does anyone have any recommendations for a carrying strap for this camcorder?...(so far loving this camera...I've owned many Sony camcorders over the years and like how they've pretty much got the form factor mastered with the right amount of hard buttons, features, and absence of useless features that used to crowd consumer camcorders....ok...it's just that dumb location of the focus magnifier button)

[Len Imbery]

Thank you Mark!

[Len Imbery]

Originally Posted by Mark Watson

Price dropped to 1,798 at B&H.

Sony FDR-AX100 4K Ultra HD Camcorder FDRAX100/B B&H Photo Video

Walked into Futureshop with the B&H website on my iPad and bought it with a further 10% reduction...also got an SD card marked $229 for $180