NEX-FS700R (NXCAM Super35mm Sensor Camcorder) - YouTube

Decent bit of kit !

Yeah, but what are the differences - the motorized 18200 zoom in the kit, and firmware v.3.01 from the factory? Is that all?

The way I'm reading it, all of the previous v3 firmware changes provided by the paid upgrade back in June are now directly incorporated into the camera at the factory... in other words, what used to be optional on the FS700 before has now become standard equipment on the FS700R. To wit:

4K RAW output over HD-SDI
4k/120 and 2K/240 slo-mo (RAW over HD-SDI)
SLog2 and Rec 709 gamma curves
onboard 4K recording no longer requires AXS-R5

-- am I getting that right? Haven't seen an english press release yet and Google's translation tools are less than perfect.

onboard 4K recording

Very much doubt it, Chris...

I'm pretty sure it can't record 4K in the camera. It would need 4 SDHC cards, like the HMQ10, to handle all that data.

D'oh! Of course. Like I said, poor translation, plus I haven't had my coffee yet. Thanks, fellows.

"Onboard" doesn't belong on that line; my error. What's meant by the rest of that statement is that 4K output is now included; previously it was provided with the purchase of the AXS-R5. That's why the translations I'm reading are saying "4K no longer requires AXS-R5." They mean, no longer requires the purchase of that unit. And I'm up after only a couple hours of sleep. Zzzzz.

D'oh! Of course. Like I said, poor translation, plus I haven't had my coffee yet. Thanks, fellows.

"Onboard" doesn't belong on that line; my error. What's meant by the rest of that statement is that 4K output is now included; previously it was provided with the purchase of the AXS-R5. That's why the translations I'm reading are saying "4K no longer requires AXS-R5." They mean, no longer requires the purchase of that unit. And I'm up after only a couple hours of sleep. Zzzzz.
I think you're still getting it wrong. You never needed to purchase the AXS-R5, only get it to Sony to do the €500 hardware/firmware upgrade to 3.0 and it outputs 4K. But the only ways to record it is to the AXS-R5 or the yet to be released Convergent Designs OdesseyQ7...

CVS (Belgium?) has it listed for €5.695 +VAT, CVP in UK has the old one for €6.229 +VAT (no price on the R yet). Is that a price drop or have CVS always been cheaper? (prices for the non kit lens version)

The price you quote already includes VAT at CVP.

The price you quote already includes VAT at CVP.
Nope, and now it's gone up to €6.248 + VAT... It's £6.270 inc VAT, the page defaults to Pounds, you have to change it to Euros in the top right corner...

Oh, indeed - I stand corrected.

Oh, indeed - I stand corrected.
How much is it in Zloty's? Going to Warszawa tonight! :)

I think you're still getting it wrong. You never needed to purchase the AXS-R5, only get it to Sony to do the €500 hardware/firmware upgrade to 3.0 and it outputs 4K. But the only ways to record it is to the AXS-R5 or the yet to be released Convergent Designs OdesseyQ7...

Very well, I should learn not to post without being fully awake.

Previously, when you bought the AXS-R5, it included the 4K output upgrade at no extra charge.

I did not mean to imply that this was the only way to get 4K output, but it seems I have done just that. Of course you could buy the firmware upgrade without the recorder. But, if you bought the recorder, the upgrade was included at no extra charge. Now it's included directly in the FS700R camera, no upgrade required.

And I'm still on my first coffee. Apologies for the senior moment(s).

I know the coffee depravation feeling all to well! :D

How much is it in Zloty's? Going to Warszawa tonight! :)

You can get it for PLN 30k (body only, including 23% VAT)

So looks like I was right - nothing new:

NEX-FS700R (NEXFS700R) : Product Overview : United Kingdom : Sony Professional (http://www.sony.co.uk/pro/product/broadcast-products-camcorders-digital-motion-picture-camera/nex-fs700r/overview)

No not much new.

FS700R is the same as FS700 with firmware version 3.0.1.
FS700RH is the same as FS700 with firmware version 3.0.1 and comes with the SELP18-200mm servo zoom lens.

Sony have discovered a bug in FS700 firmware version 3.0, so if you had a 3.0 update you will need the camera to go back to Sony for an update to version 3.0.1. Sony Prime support will be in touch in Europe to arrange this free of charge.

If you are going to IBC you can take your FS700 to the show for a free, while you wait update. After IBC Sony Europe are reducing the price of the update to 250 Euro. You can't do the update yourself as it requires a special programming device to be connected to a special port inside the camera, there are only 3 of the programming devices in Europe at the moment.

I think all the FS700s I've seen for sale (U, E etc) have been '4K ready', saying they're updated and ready for an external recorder. (at least I think that's what they're saying)
So presumably ones with the new firmware will be coming out of the factory as well from now on?

No not much new.

FS700R is the same as FS700 with firmware version 3.0.1.
FS700RH is the same as FS700 with firmware version 3.0.1 and comes with the SELP18-200mm servo zoom lens.

Sony have discovered a bug in FS700 firmware version 3.0, so if you had a 3.0 update you will need the camera to go back to Sony for an update to version 3.0.1. Sony Prime support will be in touch in Europe to arrange this free of charge.

If you are going to IBC you can take your FS700 to the show for a free, while you wait update. After IBC Sony Europe are reducing the price of the update to 250 Euro. You can't do the update yourself as it requires a special programming device to be connected to a special port inside the camera, there are only 3 of the programming devices in Europe at the moment.

I suppose at IBC they will upgrade to version 3.0.1. and not to 3.0. ??

Sony Professional: IBC 2013 - Answering your questions on the FS700R/RH camcorders on Vimeo

This should have been delayed to support SDHC/SDXC UHS-II and XAVC-S. This is being offered too soon as a minor upgrade. a 4K XAVC-S upgrade without XQD (meaning somehow they make XAVC-S work on SD cards) would totally work.

UHS-II cards are starting to be offered with 300MB/s peak read and write speeds. It shouldn't be hard to support the additional pins on the UHS-II cards compared to redesigning it for XQD.

No not much new.
... After IBC Sony Europe are reducing the price of the update to 250 Euro. You can't do the update yourself as it requires a special programming device to be connected to a special port inside the camera, there are only 3 of the programming devices in Europe at the moment.

Alister,

Do you know if Sony is going to reduce the price of the update in the US too? If so, when?

Aloha,
Jr. Pascual
49 Productions

Sorry, I don't know about the USA pricing.

The XAVC codec as in the Z100, F5 etc uses a new two stage hardware encoder chip. The first stage analyses the incoming scene so that the second stage encoder can be adjusted for the optimum settings for that particular image. This is quite different to most conventional encoders that use a fixed encoding scheme. The differences over the default encoder settings are then encoded within the video streams metadata so that when the video is decoded the decoder can adjust it's parameters so that the video is correctly decoded. I doubt very much that the FS700 has this dedicated two stage XAVC encoder chip, so I doubt we will ever see an XAVC capable FS700. That would need new hardware.

Alister, that is pretty interesting.

So, the decoding process seems to be very complex. What does this mean for XAVC editing on the NLE side? I have not edited XAVC yet but will this decode process cause a huge CPU overhead on the desktop/post side?

Anyone know where I can download short XAVC samples? (or even XAVC-S?)

CT

I was thinking at least XAVC-S would be a board swap so that you can have both AVCHD and XAVC-S recording on the same board, but from what it sounds like, that's not looking likely.

So it looks like a EA50 reboot with 4K may be more plausible.

Decoding XAVC is not too processor intensive. It's I frame so no need to store long GoP's or calculate what should be in a frame using motion vectors etc. I find XAVC very easy to work with.

XAVC-S on the other hand may be a very different story. Not sure what the support for XAVC-S will be, at the moment XAVC is gaining momentum (Adobe Premiere will soon be able to write to XAVC), but XAVC-S is a very different beast and I think it may take a while to get supported properly.

Well at least Sony XAVC Long GOP is supported natively in the upcoming Premiere Pro CC release in October. Adobe Premiere Pro CC October 2013 Release (http://blogs.adobe.com/premierepro/2013/09/adobe-premiere-pro-cc-october-2013-release.html)

But back to the FS700R...could a couple 700RH's conceivably be able to cut together nicely with the upcoming PXW-Z100? I know there's a DoF difference, but via picture settings somehow could it play nicely with the smaller sensor but higher bit rate Z100 primarily for event coverage? I know the Z100 isn't even out yet so this might be a guess, but I'm still curious.

And I still want to know if Sony has lowered the price of the FS700R compared to the FS700E?
CVS (Creative Ventures Shop) has the FS700R for preorder at €5.695+VAT while CVP has the FS700E for €6.200+VAT. That is a €500 difference! I hope the price is lowered and not just CVS trying to cash in on early buyers... Anyone know?

I expect the 700's 4K will have less CA right off the bat and less bayer artifacts if you use a good de-bayer algorithm to process the 4K RAW from the camera. I compared Alister's summer footage with the daylight footage from the AX1 from the sample video, and the CA and noise was certainly higher in AX1. Nighttime bayer bloom is very present in nighttime footage from the AX1.

The very least they could do without a codec swap is HDMI 2.0. Uncompressed HDMI 2.0 with 4k60p support would allow a single connection to external recorders without several SDI connections going to an external recorder. (since 4K RAW is disallowed to everything except the AXS recorders)

Alister, that is pretty interesting.

So, the decoding process seems to be very complex.
Not necessarily - it may not be a very precise comparison but think of 1 pass versus 2 pass encoding. In 2 pass, the first analyses the data to determine the best way to allocate bits - the second does the encoding according to that pattern. The resultant is no more difficult to decode than encoding via one pass.

Yes, that requires all the file to be available before encoding can start (so not much good for real-time.... :-) ), but the principle is that just because encoding is intensive, it doesn't necessarily follow that decoding also will be. In this case, if it stores information about how a frame is encoded, it's conceivable that may let the decoding be easier, as well as giving coding efficiencies.

It doesn't surprise me that XAVC coding is done by a dedicated chipset - so no, don't anybody expect it to be available to any other camera as an upgrade.

Question for Alister (which maybe needs a separate thread?) - I'm getting a bit confused by all the different flavours of XAVC (differing colour spaces, bitdepths, framerates etc) and the datarates each requires. Do you have a reference to any table that lists such? So is it possible to define a given bitrate for (say) 3840x2160 10bit, 4:2:2 50/60 fps XAVC?