Anthony -

When you use D90 and "broadcast quality" in the same sentence, I have to scratch my head and laugh... you say my "analysis is limited and childish"... not to worry, duly noted, keep it up and you'll find out where it ends up. Or was that the third swing and whiff?

I think you've already lost ANY AND ALL credibility you may think you have, so you go right ahead and adjust that tinfoil hat, please do yourself a favor and keep the conspiracy theories to yourself, along with the condescension and insults. OK?


We all know there is a difference between 30p and 60p - DUH! What we are discussing is what the practical implications of that are, not some crazy theory that the manufacturers could give us such a camera right now, and aren't doing it out of some whacky evil conspiracy to deprive us of the "perfect" camera of our dreams that they could sell to us for "peanuts"...

Think for a moment, if they COULD release this theoretical "dream" camera with "every" feature, don't you think they'd sell in huge #'s, right NOW, no need to trickle cashflow in over multiple years by selling "deficient" products improved incrementally here and there to try to sell product!?! Sign most of the DVi'ers up for three or four of these "dream cameras"... at least. I'll sell a few of my "crippled" cameras right away! Or NOT... I'm sure we'd all probably buy the "deficient" AX100 that didn't exist 10 years ago over the "deficient" HC1 that did, aside from the simple fact it DIDN'T EXIST... now it does, for the same MSRP... and the HC1 was not bad, in it's day!


30p 4K may turn out to be more usable (or less) than expected... many of us have come to appreciate/prefer 60p, at least as far as 1080 goes, so we have reservations. Until cameras are in hand and tests run, we can't know for sure. There are numerous practical (and factually based) reasons that have been discussed here for the "limitation"... and practical discussions of how to deal with it (or not). You might consider that's what it's about, using the equipment that's available to the greatest extent possible...

60p is fine. Yes, it's cool for doing slo-mo effects and all that. And, yes, if you are shooting sports were you are using faster shutter speeds, you can see some nice motion with it.

For me? 60p is not that important. For me, 29.97p is the sweet spot. (I dont like 24p)

I shoot allot of indoor events. Many times I'm stuck in low light situations, or situations where I'm not allowed to control the light. Other times, I just want to run with the lowest gain that I possibly can. So,..a 1/30 shutter is my speed of choice. This of course, renders 60p completely useless to me.

Where do you play TRUE 60p? Youtube?, Vimeo?, Blu-ray?, iPad?, Android?, Projector?

Anything run over HDMI 1.4 and lower is likely running 60i. This is where 29.97p shines. (29.97 PSF inside a 60i signal looks great)

Unless you have a specific "motion" need for 60p to use slo-mo effects or you really want to shelf stuff for future use, than I don't see a huge need for it. For today, you are really just going to drop that 60p down to 24p, 30p or interlace it to 60i anyway. (This is a "general" comment and yes, there are some exceptions out there, I know)

CT

Hi

There is some sample footage from https://vimeo.com/groups/226931/videos/87997397 where the original can be downloaded.

Note that it has been via an editor and re-encoded, and is some strange hybrid of frame rates, on checking the file it has original frame-rate at 25fps, and frame-rate being played at is 23.976fps, this coupled with high shutter speeds (no 180 degree shutter rule here) I found it nauseating to watch due to the juddering and strobeing. 4K at slow frame-rates in the hands of someone who doesn't know what they are doing is not pleasant to watch.

There is a very strange jelly like affect over the whole image, a mixture of rolling shutter and hunting focus maybe, it gives the impression that nothing is solid, like it's all printed on a sheet of flat plastic pulled tight but not enough to stop a breeze from causing slight undulations. I'd like to see some footage shot with the camera on a tripod and imagine stabilisation turned off as it could be that causing it.

Lots of compression artifacts over complex scenes and moire, although these may have been added by the re-encoding.

Be interesting to see what others think, however I'm getting tired of watching juddery 4K at 24fps already.

Regards

Phil

Phil, can you provide a timecode for where you're seeing compression artifacts? Many who have seen this video have not seen these artifacts you're mentioning. I believe only Cliff mentioned it too and I also asked him to provide a timecode, but I haven't gotten one from him.

I looked at the new downloaded version and saw no compression artifacts. Even the numerous tree limbs swaying in the breeze in front of the fir tree, showed no breakdown at all...and man, I watched carefully on my 23" HD monitor.

I just took another look, this time specifically looking for moire. I don't see any here either. There's plenty of brickwork where this might show up, but I see none. None in the foreground, none in the background. I'm baffled. I've been plagued with a number of cameras that suffered from moire, but in this footage I just don't see it. Again a time code and reference to an object would help.

So either I've totally missed this or I'm totally insensitive to it even though I've seen breakdown in numerous other cameras on this same monitor and setup.

As far as the jello is concerned, again I see it only at the end. I think it was mentioned somewhere that the shooter hand held it throughout and was not feeling well when he shot it. So perhaps what you're seeing is a shaky hand, but I see no jello until he began to frenetically wave the camera back & forth. Even with his hand shaking, I can't say I see evidence of jello...until the end. We don't even know if he used OIS.

I'll hopefully have the camera a week from today, but I see no signs thus far that I'll be impacted by artifacts. My biggest concern remains the stability of the OIS utilized in the AX100. To me that's the weak point of my RX10.

My reason for using 60P is to get the smooth motion of 60i. I find 30P is better than 24P but at a slow 1/30 has too much motion blur for me. I shoot 60P with most of my cameras even though output is always 60i as this is the same temporal motion just half the vertical resolution.

Ron Evans

I seem to have a love/hate opinion with this video. At times is very VERY eye popping. while other times it seems to have a very "un natual" motion to it.

So here is what I see:

0:07 - 0:14 Straight vertical lines on the tall building on the left. It has what I could call a "micro-wobble". A very fast "fludder" on the long vertical edge wall.

0:30 - Vertical line in the dead center of the screen when the camera moves.

2:01 - "heat" shimmering affect appears to be amplified in a "synthetic" way by rolling shudder? It just seems very like an odd distortion that is more than a "normal" heat shimmer. (if that makes any sense...lol)

Overall,..the best way I can describe it is "un natural motion" with a "micro wobble" or even "micro skew"

Could this be just the frame rate conversion? Maybe.

I'm not going to judge the camera on this one video. I need to see allot more in true 29.97p first. I need to see it raw off the camera and not converted for the web.

I'm getting one!

CT

Hi

Just watch the first 30 seconds, it is as clear as day the encoding is suffering. Note that watching it downsampled will hide a lot of the issues.

Use VLC Media player, play the download clip, right click on on the playing video and unselect 'Always fit to Window' and it should now be playing at full size.

You can clearly see the encoder struggling and see detail vanishing then reappearing. At around 24 seconds look at the stair case and the detail coming and going with very slight camera movement, look at the balcony edges detail come and go, because the encoder hasn't enough bit-rate to cope with the movement.

The fruit at the 1 minute mark, you can watch the mosquito noise all over the fruit.

At the 1:27 mark look at the railings and bricks, covered in compression artefacts that flicker in and out.

Look at 1:47 with the building with scaffolding and the crane, looks a complete mess.

Look at 2:19 with the trees, a complete mess of compression artefacts. I've attached a 100% crop from 2:19. I could go on.

If this was HD no one would be interested, it is horrendous. Because it is 4K that most people are viewing on small monitors and downscaling everyone is having some sort of mass hysteria for it. It's laughable really to hear people go on about this, no compression artefacts, really?

It is what it is, 4 screens of poor quality 15Mbits/sec HD stitched together and shrunk down to hide all the nastiness.

As for the funny wobbling effect, it's all over the place, you'll see it more at full screen resolution.

Regards

Phil

I'll repost what I posted earlier because it's still applicable.

I can definitely see a shaky hand, but the user admitted to and apologized for it saying he had a cold. I don't think the OIS was enabled either, my take.

Shaky hand =/= jello effect.

Looking at the cat around the 3:22 mark, that's just shaky cam footage, zero jello. I've actually never seen that effect unless the camera was panned too fast and that isn't happening in any of the footage until the end again. Meh.

I'm downloading the 4K version and I'll take into consideration the possibility of a jacked up encode error for what could be considered a newbie in the 4K arena. I'll watch it on the Samsung F9000 4K set and I'll post my findings.

I can't wait until this thing comes out so we can put all this middle-man stuff and differences to bed. Talk about beating dead horses and there are SOO many factors to take into consideration when judging the footage so religiously. One of the biggest if the software/hardware that's it's being played back on.

Again I'll reiterate that it looks like the OIS wasn't enable for the handheld stuff. I own 3 Sony Cams (TRV-25, FX-1000, HD-70U) and Sony does a great job with OIS on it's handhelds and although I don't have a 4K cam other than my Galaxy Note 3, I can't see Sony missing the mark on OIS this bad. I'll pose that question to the original shooter as well.

The first time I watched the "cat" video (You Tube IIRC) there was some seriously nasty "stuff" starting at around 2:16 - where the trees were moving around in the wind. I've since watched it on Vimeo, and it looks fine in those same spots. I saw similar artifacts one other time, then couldn't replicate 'em.

There are LOTS of points in the "data chain" to goof something up or for something to not work as expected, and 4K is "new". I'm only set up to "properly" display 1080, and even then run into problems sometimes with one program or another "acting up"...

THIS is why a camera that can shoot 4K is a "toe in the water"... which will no doubt be followed ay another "toe" (new computer build to better handle the higher res clips), and another "toe" or two (4K capable screen(s).... another "toe" (big honking HDD's to store clips).... and so on! I remember how the HC1 wasn't an "isolated" purchase, nor were AVCHD cameras... this round, I'm trying to plan ahead for the entire set of "investments" that are no doubt coming!

If the quality turns out to be "good enough" with 30p, it might be a bit of a blessing in disguise, I've been spec'ing out new components for a computer build, and expect 4K to require some serous "muscle", even at 30p - with phones and tablets having reduced computer sales, high end components don't come as cheap as they used to!!

Hi

The facts are we have 4K with each HD quadrant only getting 15Mbits/sec on the AX100, and that is exactly the quality I see, perhaps worse given the encoder can't make as much savings in motion search given it has to encode the equivalent of 4 HD images at the same time.

The main problem is everyone is viewing 4K down the wrong end of a telescope essentially, you can take anything and shrink it down and it appears to look sharper and more detailed. 4K isn't about shrinking down though, it's about a future of much bigger screens and enlarging.

It astonishes me that people are saying there are no compression artefacts in this Sony AX100 footage, but clearly it is riddled with them, again it is looking down the wrong end of the telescope.

Hopefully the original footage is better and the worst of the compression artefacts are due to poor encoding later, but we still can't get away from the facts. To have AVCHD quality but in 4K would require 28Mbits/sec * 4 = 114Mbits/sec encoding, and many would argue that AVCHD quality is already pretty poor. As the encoders are little more than HD encoders with the LSI overclocked (we've not seen new silicon yet, that will arrive with H265 hardware encoding), on 4K they are even less efficient.

So 15Mbits/sec per HD quadrant, it is what it is, and was always going to be a struggle for any camera. Perhaps the GH4 will be a little better with 25Mbits/sec equivalent per quadrant, then again, that still isn't that many bits per second.

Given the Sony AX100 will record HD in 50Mbits/sec at a smooth frame-rate of 60fps, that will probably be a lot more pleasing.

Regards

Phil

Cliff and Phil have some valid points where "something" seems to be happening, hard to say what that "something" is... High zoom (and we don't know whether CIZ or digital is involved) seems to show more "issues" - some of which could be, as Cliff suggests, "atmospheric" distortions you'd never "see" until you start shooting super high resolutions and high zooms over distance.. Things you normally wouldn't "see" with your nekkid eyes will definitely look "un-natural"...

I've wondered a bit about how well say a wedding video will be received when EVERY detail (and flaw) will be glaringly apparent. That's one instance where sharpness might be a liability!

I think that that section with the tree branches in the wind would probably stress a codec quite a bit, sort of a "worst case scenario", which leads me to a different take on all this...

What sorts of things might be interesting enough to shoot that would stress a codec to the breaking point?
Are really "busy" scenes what we will be shooting? Or will "real life" shoots be a bit less stressful and more forgiving? If using a tripod or monopod vs. handheld will help, that should be easy enough to resolve.

I'm trying to think in terms of "real life" shooting situations, and real life image quality expectations - I see FAR worse artifacts and noise all the time - the news is a BIG "offender", despite being a "big city, network" news station in a brand new facility... While WE might see every possible flaw, will anyone we're shooting for (other than ourselves) even notice? At the moment, I'd say if camera work is good, and the content is of value or interest, most people won't be picking the image apart looking for the few "bad" seconds in a clip. It's like having a couple out of focus still shots out of dozens of GOOD ones - doesn't make for a "bad" camera, as long as it's not a big pattern or persistent problem.

I seem to have a love/hate opinion with this video. At times is very VERY eye popping. while other times it seems to have a very "un natual" motion to it.

So here is what I see:

0:07 - 0:14 Straight vertical lines on the tall building on the left. It has what I could call a "micro-wobble". A very fast "fludder" on the long vertical edge wall.

I don't see it. I see just a bit of movement that I'm attributing to hand holding. Nothing that I haven't seen with every camera that's hand held.

0:30 - Vertical line in the dead center of the screen when the camera moves.
Again, to me it looks like nothing more than hand held movement.

2:01 - "heat" shimmering affect appears to be amplified in a "synthetic" way by rolling shudder? It just seems very like an odd distortion that is more than a "normal" heat shimmer. (if that makes any sense...lol)
This one I replayed 4 times before I saw anything resembling what you saw. I saw a trace of it, but the lens looks like it's at full telephoto. I often see effects like that at full telephoto with a number of cameras, though it's usually much worse. I also noted vents on the roof of that building, so it could well have been heat waves.

Overall,..the best way I can describe it is "un natural motion" with a "micro wobble" or even "micro skew"

Could this be just the frame rate conversion? Maybe.

I'm not going to judge the camera on this one video. I need to see allot more in true 29.97p first. I need to see it raw off the camera and not converted for the web.

I'm getting one!

CT

Yeah, man, I don't want to say you guys are truly, really, micro-analyzing this stuff. I mean do you guys actually watch your videos like this??? If so, you'd never see the content you shot! :)

I'll repost what I posted earlier because it's still applicable.

I'm downloading the 4K version and I'll take into consideration the possibility of a jacked up encode error for what could be considered a newbie in the 4K arena. I'll watch it on the Samsung F9000 4K set and I'll post my findings.

I can't wait until this thing comes out so we can put all this middle-man stuff and differences to bed. Talk about beating dead horses and there are SOO many factors to take into consideration when judging the footage so religiously. One of the biggest if the software/hardware that's it's being played back on.

Again I'll reiterate that it looks like the OIS wasn't enable for the handheld stuff. I own 3 Sony Cams (TRV-25, FX-1000, HD-70U) and Sony does a great job with OIS on it's handhelds and although I don't have a 4K cam other than my Galaxy Note 3, I can't see Sony missing the mark on OIS this bad. I'll pose that question to the original shooter as well.

I've spoken to two guys who viewed this on 4K TVs, one on a 65" Sony UHD TV (the other I'm not sure) and both saw none of what Phil is reporting. I know Phil has never been a fan of this cam, that's no secret, but again, I think this is micro-analysis that no camera would stand up to. When watching on a typical large screen UHD TV, we sit at a normal viewing distance of 8-10' for many people. I watch my HDTV at that same distance. At that distance you just don't see this even if it did exist and was of the magnitude that Phil is claiming. I just don't get the concept of pixel peeping with video. Who does that? Not me at least.

And good God, the 'wobbling all over the place' is precisely the effect of hand holding a camera and not doing a good job at it. I see it with every single camera that's hand held and either the OIS is off, there is no OIS or the shooter just has a shaky hand. This is nothing to do with 4K. This has nothing to do with jello and it has nothing to do bitrates. It has everything to do with a steady hand or lack thereof. No mystery in my mind.

This camera is not perfect, no camera is, but as bad as Phil thinks...I don't think so. Phil continually refers to the bitrate per quadrant as if we're using the same codecs we always have. This is a different codec, that's more robust and doesn't need the bitrate of past codecs used in cameras like this. ;)

One more reason for 30p vs. 60p - 30 frames per second should be less data than 60 frames (for instance the RX10 has a top bitrate of 24Mbps for 24p vs. 28Mbps for 60p, the next step is a 17Mbps 24p - not far off from 15...). It may not be a LOT less data, but it should reduce the load somewhat? I think it's safe to say "there's no free lunch" when you start dealing with a lot of data bits. You either have to accept some compression losses, or deal with huge files and data handling issues.

I'm sure this is also part of the design tradeoff that went into this camera, and will of necessity go into every other 4K camera. I'm not sure it's "fair" to judge a camera that's a first of its kind on where it "fails" vs. what it does do? So far what I've seen looks promising, and if it's half as good as the RX10, it'll make a nice dedicated video complement to that camera. I'm sure there will be a few "open box returns" available at discounts when some people discover it doesn't bring them a chilled beer on demand...

That IS true Dave and something I forgot. This IS 30p and requires less of a bitrate to avoid artifacts as would a 60p video.

Coupling that with the fact this a new codec, more robust than AVCHD, more efficient than AVCHD and you can begin to see why it's simply not fair to say it's a fail because it's 15Mbps per quadrant. Apples to oranges.

When watching low bitrate stuff like this, it's hard to seperate what the camera is really recording and what the highly compressed YouTube codec is showing.

The official Sony demo, if you rip it from YouTube is h.264 - high level at a 5.2 profile. But here is the kicker...it's only 15 mega bits per second!!! It looks realy damn good at 15Mbp/s...better than I ever dreamed imaginable for 4k so low.

The Cat video is nice but the official Sony demo has almost non of the problems that the cat video displays.

I can find literally nothing at all wrong with the Sony demo. (I hope it really was an AX100)

I'm going to hold all judgement untill I can see a raw AX100 60 Mbp/s clip straight from the SD card.

I should also note that we're assuming the 60Mbps is a constant data rate and not a variable one.

Now granted this video was edited, but I observed data rates going into the mid 90Mpbs area during the complex scenes. So if this actually occurred during the original recording, we have a variable encoding bitrate and not a constant one. So who knows?

A new youtube video
????4K????????? - YouTube

Looks good except for all the camera movement. Looks like the shooter thought this was an 'artistic effect'.

Not bad! No real Jell-O to speak of. I feel better now. We can all see the macro blocking in the high detail, fast moving scenes but then again, this is highly re compressed for the web.

It's still a bad idea to judge from this internet streaming stuff. It's nowhere close to the original camera bitrate.

The camera work was gritty and artistically shaky but that was good to see because that would have revealed vertical skew like crazy if the AX100 was prone to it. I think it held up well in that regard.

What do we have? 1 more week to wait? I'm also waiting for the Sony Pro sister to this camera to be announced any day now.

CT

Cliff, this is why I think some are way too quick to find flaws with this camera based on very poor 'evidence'. I saw the same thing prior to the RX10 release.

Based on that insane camera 'Shake & bake' at the end of the cat video, some were condemning the camera as useless because of the jello. I said the 'test' was ridiculous and it proved nothing. This latest video, although I didn't care for the shooter's style, shows this is not the issue that some claimed.

I totally agree that the very obvious macro blocking was due to the YouTube compression. It had that signature throughout.

Prior to the release of some cameras, there always appear to be a few that almost hope these cameras fail. I see it time and time again. Very weird.

Man, I have to say that this is also a Sony promotion. They have some very badass guys to do the post processes and never mentioned anything about it when posting the videos. I believe that they also paid Google to have advanced codec compressing to make the stream bigger for the users watching the video, the waves of sea are much clearer that what I have posted onto Youtube. The actual picture quality into customers' hands are not going to be like this good, and possibly never will be. I also noticed there are some jelly parts in scenes involving fast movements (like on public transit), plus they also intentionally evaded some high contrast part and low light circumstances. At 0:47 when the sunshine comes in the colour noise just becomes way too outrageous, with jellies.
The bottom line is that, if you complain to Sony that you can't do this or that with a camera, they will show that the camera is fully capable to do it and it's just the user's fault. Not to mention what expensive stuff (including post processing filters) and how much time they have used to make it. Sort of like a 'buyers beware' but true.

Consumer malfunction, AKA user error, is a common failure mode for high tech and even many low tech items... If you've ever worked retail or repair in a tech environment, you just laughed...

As Ken stated, the RX10 was criticized for video issues, based on horrible reviewer camera "technique"... it's turned out to be a winner. Not "perfect", but not bad for most purposes once you get to know it... We'll have to see how the AX100 turns out when released into the "real world".

I'm sure there will still be "complaints" (see above), there always are. I'm just fascinated by all the "tinfoil hats" popping up of late... I'm not surprised that a manufacturer will put their gear in the best light, and it's not surprising that they use pros that make the most of it... not even surprised that it might take some extra effort or expense to get "closer" to that level of results... not even shocked that next year, they might have improved performance!

After taking some much closer look on the Retina screen of MBP 15" I just feel that Youtube video's terrible to watch in details. Similar area of colours are jellied everywhere, of course it's a problem of compressed codec. It may feel good under 720p or 1080p size, but meh. Maybe I am too much of a perfectionist, but I do have the advantage being a programmer, and know exactly what's caused by the codec or the camera itself. Maybe it's better to post it onto Vimeo and set to downloadable to get better quality, but Sony would never do so. At 0:40 it shows its weakness of DF. Too much detail could expose more. Smile. And to me this colour is 4:2:0 instead of 4:2:2. meh. I would't pick it up once I get into the world of latter.

Anthony -

When you use D90 and "broadcast quality" in the same sentence, I have to scratch my head and laugh... you say my "analysis is limited and childish"... not to worry, duly noted, keep it up and you'll find out where it ends up. Or was that the third swing and whiff?

I think you've already lost ANY AND ALL credibility you may think you have, so you go right ahead and adjust that tinfoil hat, please do yourself a favor and keep the conspiracy theories to yourself, along with the condescension and insults. OK?


We all know there is a difference between 30p and 60p - DUH! What we are discussing is what the practical implications of that are, not some crazy theory that the manufacturers could give us such a camera right now, and aren't doing it out of some whacky evil conspiracy to deprive us of the "perfect" camera of our dreams that they could sell to us for "peanuts"...

Think for a moment, if they COULD release this theoretical "dream" camera with "every" feature, don't you think they'd sell in huge #'s, right NOW, no need to trickle cashflow in over multiple years by selling "deficient" products improved incrementally here and there to try to sell product!?! Sign most of the DVi'ers up for three or four of these "dream cameras"... at least. I'll sell a few of my "crippled" cameras right away! Or NOT... I'm sure we'd all probably buy the "deficient" AX100 that didn't exist 10 years ago over the "deficient" HC1 that did, aside from the simple fact it DIDN'T EXIST... now it does, for the same MSRP... and the HC1 was not bad, in it's day!


30p 4K may turn out to be more usable (or less) than expected... many of us have come to appreciate/prefer 60p, at least as far as 1080 goes, so we have reservations. Until cameras are in hand and tests run, we can't know for sure. There are numerous practical (and factually based) reasons that have been discussed here for the "limitation"... and practical discussions of how to deal with it (or not). You might consider that's what it's about, using the equipment that's available to the greatest extent possible...

I'm not interested in credibility : I want them (all of them) to know that the entire industry has changed since the D90. Because we all got to see how easy it was. Dave think about it, for a moment : how easy it is to produce broadcast material with a decent sensor. And what they sold us until then looked like crap a split second after I (and you too I'm sure) saw what a D90 was capable of). What I see now is limitations like we never seen before. Tricks, gadgets to keep the segment alive at over 3K . (they can't sell crap for 7K anymore, at least we did get something out of that splendid D90) but still not good enough to bother the obscene money they want for broadcast stuff.
They are literally trying to resume playing with us like it used to be before the D90. Now let me be clear : which camera can compete against a GH2? Enough now. I did what I had to do for the good of my people. I believe that my message was loud and clear.

Ok im scratching my head here at the last few pages in this thread. We're talking about a 4K consumer camcorder at $2,000. It has a 1" sensor and a 10x zoom. Yes 2.8-4 isnt optimal but what other camcorder is out there that can do what this camcorder can?

The GH4 is a great tool on paper but the samples of videos I've seen have not impressed me at all. Very few scenes where you can see fine detail. The AX100 on the other hand is just so detailed down-sampled its unreal for the price of $2k. There is still a great need for camcorders with fixed lens for some applications. The ease of shooting home videos or family events with a fixed lens cmera means I don't have to lug my FS700 around.

60Mbps for 4k will have its issues as others have stated but again this is Sony and i highly doubt they want to have the headache of customer after customer calling saying their class 6 card won't record 4k. They're just not going to deal with it. If a better 4k bitrate is needed wait for the pro-version and see if it works best. I have no problem with the problems that have been pointed out and for $2k Sony is getting my money.

Looking at that new video, the one thing that stands out to me is how good the lens seems to be, Yes poor camera work but lots of everyday situations -poor light, backlight and flair and the lens seems to cope with it all very well, way better than the CX700 series- can't see any purple fringing to worry about or soft edges.

I am really not getting stressed about the YouTube codec as I saw the main promo video at CES on quite a few monitors large and small and to me it looked amazing.

I'm more than sold, roll on delivery day.

Man, I have to say that this is also a Sony promotion. They have some very badass guys to do the post processes and never mentioned anything about it when posting the videos. I believe that they also paid Google to have advanced codec compressing to make the stream bigger for the users watching the video, the waves of sea are much clearer that what I have posted onto Youtube. The actual picture quality into customers' hands are not going to be like this good, and possibly never will be. I also noticed there are some jelly parts in scenes involving fast movements (like on public transit), plus they also intentionally evaded some high contrast part and low light circumstances. At 0:47 when the sunshine comes in the colour noise just becomes way too outrageous, with jellies.
The bottom line is that, if you complain to Sony that you can't do this or that with a camera, they will show that the camera is fully capable to do it and it's just the user's fault. Not to mention what expensive stuff (including post processing filters) and how much time they have used to make it. Sort of like a 'buyers beware' but true.

Here we go, more conspiracy theories. I thought we were past that, but I guess not. Sooo, let me ask you:

* What evidence do you have that Sony 'paid Google' to have 'advanced codec compressing'?
* What specifically are you referring to as 'also a Sony promotion'? Are you referring to the last posted video or the original true Sony promo launched a while ago?
* If you were referring to the last video just posted, and it was the Sony 'badass guys' doing the post production, then they should hire some new 'badass guys'. It wasn't particularly good.
* You say they 'intentionally evaded' some high contrast and low light circumstances. Evidence please? Additionally how do you know this last video was a Sony promo? Because of the logo in the lower right? That can be duplicated. To be honest, I never got the feeling this was actually produced by Sony.
* You say the waves of sea are so much cleaner than what you posted? What does this even refer to? Did you download the original YouTube video than re-upload it? If so, did you really expect it to look as good as the original?

Lots of accusations without any evidence...again.

I don't know guys, my head is spinning. I'm thinking it's time to talk about the elephant in the room. As long as I've been on these forums, I've seen many Sony haters out there. I don't know how they became that way, but it's very clear they exist and to deny it is just silly. Yes, there are also Sony lovers out there that think Sony can do no wrong, but that's not what I'm talking about lately with the AX100.

It appears that lately the Sony haters have come out of the woodwork with accusation after baseless accusation. This always seems to happen when a Sony camera gets particular notoriety just prior to release. This is kind of like swatting at bees, they attack.

To be very honest, I noticed this among some BMPCC owners prior to the RX10's release. Many of the attacks seemed to come from that group. It seems some don't like anything 'stealing' the notoriety of their particular gem. This is not limited to just cameras, I see the same behavior when discussion turns to video displays in the different forums. I guess it's human nature. But human nature not withstanding, it does a disservice to those looking for factual information.

Now to be clear, I'm not necessarily saying this is the behavior that Meng Li is exhibiting, but this is the internet where anyone can make any claim against anyone or any company and have no basis in fact to support it. So I see nothing wrong with calling people out when they make claims that are not supported.

Ok im scratching my head here at the last few pages in this thread. We're talking about a 4K consumer camcorder at $2,000. It has a 1" sensor and a 10x zoom. Yes 2.8-4 isnt optimal but what other camcorder is out there that can do what this camcorder can?

Monday, I agree, it's truly amazing. I just sit here and scratch my head in amazement. Some people seem to be expecting $100,000 broadcast camera performance out of a $2,000 consumer camcorder. Rather than approaching it from the point of view that gee, here's a $2,000 4K camera that's offering us something that no other camera near its price class ever did before, they'd rather choose to micro-analyze the camera and/or make baseless accusations of Sony. They pixel peep (who does that with video and what does it prove?), draw 'jello' conclusions based on a shooter swinging the camera wildly as if having a seizure and on and on. I don't get it, I never did and I never will.

The GH4 is a great tool on paper but the samples of videos I've seen have not impressed me at all. Very few scenes where you can see fine detail. The AX100 on the other hand is just so detailed down-sampled its unreal for the price of $2k.
I've been a bit surprised by this too, Monday. I've found the GH4 samples posted thus far to be a bit disappointing and at least to my eyes, not looking quite as good as what I've seen from the AX100. Some show promise though. But again, I suspect that once the camera is released, we'll see some excellent video coming from it too. The GH series have been excellent performers and I doubt the GH4 will disappoint.

60Mbps for 4k will have its issues as others have stated but again this is Sony and i highly doubt they want to have the headache of customer after customer calling saying their class 6 card won't record 4k. They're just not going to deal with it. If a better 4k bitrate is needed wait for the pro-version and see if it works best. I have no problem with the problems that have been pointed out and for $2k Sony is getting my money.
Correct. But again, people are judging the AX100's bitrates by what they've known from AVCHD. That's a mistake. This is a more robust codec that doesn't require the same bitrate to perform at the same level. I'd say that based on what we've seen thus far, the codec is holding up quite nicely for its intended purposes. The other thing is, I'm not convinced the 60Mbps bitrate is a constant bitrate. It might be dynamic and peak when considerable detail is contained within the scene. Once I get mine, that should be easy to determine.

Would this be the ideal cam for action & sports shooting? Probably not, but even there I'll wait to see how it actually performs under those conditions before condemning it. The only thing I can state definitively, without pixel peeping, is that for the most part, I like what I'm seeing in the video samples released to date.

Looking at that new video, the one thing that stands out to me is how good the lens seems to be, Yes poor camera work but lots of everyday situations -poor light, backlight and flair and the lens seems to cope with it all very well, way better than the CX700 series- can't see any purple fringing to worry about or soft edges.

I am really not getting stressed about the YouTube codec as I saw the main promo video at CES on quite a few monitors large and small and to me it looked amazing.

I'm more than sold, roll on delivery day.

Yes, Paul, people should note that you are one of the few that's actually had the opportunity to watch the demo unhindered by streaming limitations. In addition, you've actually seen it on a UHD TV and were still very impressed. I've heard the same thing from 2 other people who have also seen it on a UHD TV.

That's why this pixel peeping stuff drives me nuts. Rather than watch a moving video from a traditional viewing distance, some would rather do a frame grab of an edited and re-encoded video and 'prove' that the camera has severe limitations.

Does anyone know if Vegas 11 Pro will be able to edit XAVC S videos? I can edit the gopro 4k videos. I have been looking for a XAVC S clip to download but I can't find an un-edited clip to download.

Does anyone know if Vegas 11 Pro will be able to edit XAVC S videos? I can edit the gopro 4k videos. I have been looking for a XAVC S clip to download but I can't find an un-edited clip to download.

Joey, I just took a quick look on the Sony site and the only software they specifically advertise as supporting XAVC S (for both import & export) are Movie Studio Platinum and Movie Studio Suite.

That may not necessarily mean that Vegas doesn't offer compatibility through some update it may have received, but at least the Sony site doesn't indicate that Vegas supports XAVC S.

Vegas Pro 12 will edit and render to XAVC and XAVC-S

Ron Evans

So Ron, was this a software update or did it always have that ability? I guess their information is incomplete. Looking at Vegas 12 on the Sony site, here's what it says:


Opens: AA3, AAF, AIF, ASF, AU, AVC, AVCHD, AVI, BMP, BWF, CDA, DIG, DLX, DPX, DV, EXR, FLAC, GIF, H.264, HDP, IVC, JPEG, M2T, M2TS, MVC, MOV, Sony MXF (XDCAM and HDCAM SR), MP3, MP4, M4A, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video, MPO, OGG, OMA, Panasonic MXF (DVCPRO, AVC-Intra) PCA, PNG, PSD, QT, R3D, SFA, SND, TIFF, TGA, VOX, W64, WAV, WDP, WMA, WMV

Saves: AA3, AC3, AIF, ATRAC, AVC, AVCHD, AVI, DPX, EXR, FLAC, H.264, HDP, MOV, MP3, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video, MP4, M2T, Sony MXF (XDCAM and HDCAM SR), MVC, OGG, PCA, W64, WAV, WMA, WMV

Now here's what it says for Movie Studio:

Import

AAC, AA3, AIFF, AVI, BMP, CDA, FLAC, GIF, JPEG, MP3, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, MVC, OGG, OMA, PCA, PNG, QuickTime®, SND, SFA, W64, WAV, WDP, WMA, WMV, XAVC S

Export

AAC, AC3, AA3, AIFF, AVC, AVI, BMP, FLAC, JPEG, LPEC, MP3, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, MVC, OGG, PCA, PNG, TIFF, QuickTime, W64, WAV, WDP, WMA, WMV, XAVC S

Just to confirm, I just checked my Sony Vegas Pro 12 (latest build). The "Render As" and "Import Media" dialogs both show Sony XAVC and XAVC S as options. I don't know if they were originally there in the first version of VP12.

Does anyone know if Vegas 11 Pro will be able to edit XAVC S videos? I can edit the gopro 4k videos. I have been looking for a XAVC S clip to download but I can't find an un-edited clip to download.

1. Sony Vegas Pro 12 edits XAVC S clips. I have done this.

2. Here is a downloadable XAVC S file I made (from a pro 4K *original* shot by someone else) using Vegas Pro (to be just like the one produced by the AX100, though it is higher bitrate):

Cineshops Sony PXW Z100 4K Video: Edited in Vegas Pro 12 on Vimeo

@ Ken -

About that "elephant"... they are OBVIOUSLY trolls being paid by some Chinese company selling a "$150 4K camera", so that no one buys the expensive name brand stuff when they can get the same thing from WiFU, the great new camera company that will rule them all!! Cameras for the people! What, you say you want cell phones...?

BTW, I just made that up... and have no evidence whatsoever to support my opinion, but I'm sticking to it anyway to benefit "my people"! The people must know!!

Or not...

Meanwhilst, I look forward to some actual hands on reports to see how this pup handles. I'd probably get one for "sentimental value" just because it reminds me of the HC1, but I'm hoping that it turns out to be a good initiation into 4K. If not, there's always the CX900, I'm sure the 1080 60p will be a big step up over most any other sub $2K camera, in some ways that may turn out to be the sneaky "secret weapon" here - higher bitrate 1080p at a consumer price... who woulda thunk the evil manufacturers would let "us" have something like that?!

About the cx900, don't know if this has been mentioned already, but on the feature list on Sony's page this camera is missing the following item: Manual Exposure Assist : Zebra Pattern Display. The ax100 has it but not the cx900, so it looks that if want you to use this camera professionally you need to get the 4k version, unless you want to guess where your exposure is.
who woulda thunk the evil manufacturers would let "us" have something like that?!
They certainly know what to take away to steer whoever needs it to their more expensive 4k version :)

I cannot remember if it was in the original build of Vegas Pro 12 or not but I know I edited sample XAVC files last summer before I got my AX1 in the November and then I know it did both XAVC and XAVC-S.

Ron Evans

Monday, I agree, it's truly amazing. I just sit here and scratch my head in amazement. Some people seem to be expecting $100,000 broadcast camera performance out of a $2,000 consumer camcorder.

What's interesting about your comment is that I notice all kinds of issues on video footage from numerous high budget tv shows. Just yesterday I was watching a show on HGTV and on some of the footage the edges of the screen were completely messed up to where white was splitting up into the colors of the rainbow. It looked utterly terrible like a 30 year old broken crt display, yet there it was on a high dollar tv show for all to see. Or issues like moire and aliasing are heavily present on all manner of shows on tv, and not just minor amounts but very heavy aliasing, stair stepping and moire that looks terrible. Yet there it is once again on these high dollar tv shows. Or I'm watching a show on the History channel where they are showing some ancient ruins and the camera is panning across them only to show a blurry mess. But there is it, that's what their high dollar gear and big budgets got them and they were ok with it.

Which makes me wonder, here we are pixel peeping a $2000 4k camcorder for our work yet in the tv world they are using "expensive" video gear for their high budget productions that produce all manner of errors in the footage and they seem ok with it. In the uber budget movie world they seem to go all out to make things look good using top gear, but outside of that it's quite easy to find video flaws in most everything out there. In spite of that though it doesn't stop these companies from broadcasting them for all to see with all the flaws intact, and still have a viable business. Like the popular exercise videos P90x, Insanity, T25, etc, all of which I do. Those sell hundreds of thousands of copies pulling in millions of dollars, yet the video footage from them quite frankly looks terrible!

I guess my point is that it's interesting how critical we are of video gear like the $2000 4k AX100, yet I see more flaws in tv footage from far higher budget productions and video gear than in the footage I've seen from the AX100 so far. If multi million dollar tv shows, exercise videos or whatever can work and earn money with all the flaws they have, then maybe others can as well. When you read all these forums after a while you start to think that it's impossible to create a video business unless you shoot in raw 4:2:2 at 600+ mbps. But everything I see on tv along with my own business proves otherwise. I think sometimes people need to step back a bit, figure out what they need for their work and go with it, and not worry as much about all the minutia.

1. Sony Vegas Pro 12 edits XAVC S clips. I have done this.

2. Here is a downloadable XAVC S file I made (from a pro 4K *original* shot by someone else) using Vegas Pro (to be just like the one produced by the AX100, though it is higher bitrate):

Sweet ! Thanks Mark. I'll download it when I get home and see if my old Vegas 11 will let me edit it.

What's interesting about your comment is that I notice all kinds of issues on video footage from numerous high budget tv shows.

Peter, you're absolutely right. I too have seen many artifacts and many issues with PQ on high budget equipment. Of course you never know if the issue is related to something within the broadcast chain or the camera itself.

But it does bring up an inescapable irony. It seems that some will tend to judge a $2,000 camcorder more harshly than a megabuck piece of equipment or the equipment of their choice. What it boils down to is if you are determined to demean a piece of equipment, you'll demean that piece of equipment whether the points are valid or not.

As an example, on another forum, we've got one guy who absolutely goes catatonic when he sees 'superwhites' on the AX100. He pointed to the original Sony demo, which most thought was really excellent (so excellent that some continue to say it was faked or manipulated), but zoned in on a couple of clouds on the horizon that were overexposed in one or two scenes. Were these clouds the subject of the video? No. Was the subject of the video properly exposed? Yes. If you watch videos produced by his equipment, you can easily find the same superwhites in some scenes. But those don't count. The 4K version of his camera has also displayed these superwhites in some posted clips. However in his mind, the camera can do no wrong and if it does, it's simply OE. And so it goes. This is the internet. :)

Over the years I've learned to block posters like this (where the forum allows that choice) rather than wasting time reading their nonsense. When I see someone on a mission to obviously disparage a camera or piece of equipment, I know there's generally an ulterior motive. I'm not talking about someone who points out some flaw we all know exists, but rather those on a 'mission'. They're usually pretty easy to identify.

@ Dave

I KNEW those trolls were the Chinese pushing their $150 4K cameras! And here I thought I was the only one that figured that out. ;)

Ha ha, this thread is certainly going all over the place with contributions form hard core professionals (you know who you are even if I don't) to idiot lay-about bums like me who are just in it for the fun. When the snow is 1.5 meters high out there and the temperature would freeze the bails of a brass monkey then us fun-loving folks delight in fussing over the minutia, and even getting downright outraged about Sony's marketing strategy, conspiracies, disdain for their customers, customer-focus - it's all good fun, keeps us off the streets and out of the pubs while filling our hearts and souls with the odd spot of righteous indignation.

Seriously, when I think back to a few short years ago and the gear we happily praised and loved...and today my biggest issue is whether to buy the FDR-AX100 or the GH4 (or both) or get a decent EVF for my BMPCC (naw, it's too noisy) or wait for the pro version of the FDR-AX100 (naw, waiting is not me) and that's all I've got to worry about!

So in the meantime we talk about it, and why not. Right here and now the low cloud is breaking up, the sun is almost here, going to be another hot one and I'm off out with the RX10 to see what I might shoot down at the marina now that I almost have this thing figured out.

All good fun isn't it?

Great thread :-)

Good post John and good timing. It does sometimes tend to get a bit hot & heavy.

BTW, what temperature is it that a brass monkey's balls freeze at? Is there a wind chill factor in that? :)

As an update - I downloaded the video and was able to render out with a custom template in 4k so I'm set !

That was my final worry now put to rest.

I really want to see a video of the 120fps mode and Nightshot. I wonder if it has the old 240fps mode because I used it a lot on my HC3.

The power of HEVC!

As a test, I converted the 4K French cat video from it's non-popular .qt format to HEVC using the free DIVX converter and wow! Side by side on a native 4K display from normal viewing distance and you can't tell a difference! The output file was only 178 Mb vs the 1.78 Gb original file, holy hand grenade Batman! I have seen the future and it is HEVC! :-)

You could easily get a great quality 4K movie on a 50 Gb Blu-ray disc encoded with HEVC! Come on content manufacturers and studios, work it out please!

As an example, on another forum, we've got one guy who absolutely goes catatonic when he sees 'superwhites' on the AX100. He pointed to the original Sony demo, which most thought was really excellent (so excellent that some continue to say it was faked or manipulated), but zoned in on a couple of clouds on the horizon that were overexposed in one or two scenes. Were these clouds the subject of the video? No. Was the subject of the video properly exposed? Yes. If you watch videos produced by his equipment, you can easily find the same superwhites in some scenes. But those don't count. The 4K version of his camera has also displayed these superwhites in some posted clips. However in his mind, the camera can do no wrong and if it does, it's simply OE. And so it goes. This is the internet. :)


We find superwhite in ALL consumer cameras that I have seen in the last 20 years. Not really superblack, but the luminance range starts about 16 typically and tends to go beyond 235 for our 8bit systems.

Why should it be different for the AX100?

1. Sony Vegas Pro 12 edits XAVC S clips. I have done this.


Sweet ! Thanks Mark. I'll download it when I get home and see if my old Vegas 11 will let me edit it.

It is not only that Vegas Pro 12 (but now also the much cheaper Vegas Moviestudio HD Platinum 13) offers support for the XAVC and XAVC-S import. That is relativ simple since both XAVC and XAVC-s are H.264 structures.

But with Vegas Pro 12 (not 11) and VMS 13 you will also find the first XAVC/XAVC-S encoder that allow the rendering of 4K to XAVC/-S. That works fine here - and I have tested that both with Z100 but also AX1 footage.

Maybe also important: both XAVC and XAVC-S (even with the long GOP structure) can be edited with Vegas and adjusted project settings with a framerate near to the full frame rate - for example, for 24p I see the full 24p with my older i7 2600K 16 GB ram overclocked to 4.2 Ghz. So editing is possible now, even if you have not a 4K monitor up to now.

In Vegas Pro 11 this encoder is not included - but one could use the Mainconcept AVC encoder that allows manual settings for 4K too. Up to now the Sony AVC encoder is limited to 2K - but here Vegas has the XAVC encoder - so that is fine.

"But with Vegas Pro 12 (not 11) and VMS 13 you will also find the first XAVC/XAVC-S encoder that allow the rendering of 4K to XAVC/-S."

Yes, and the clip I made and uploaded to Vimeo *encoded* the AX1 originals *to* XAVC-S 4K using Vegas Pro 12.

We find superwhite in ALL consumer cameras that I have seen in the last 20 years. Not really superblack, but the luminance range starts about 16 typically and tends to go beyond 235 for our 8bit systems.

Why should it be different for the AX100?

Correct! The bottom line is that in most cases, the superwhites don't destroy the scene since they're generally not the subject of the scene. Unless you're anal about that cloud on the horizon, not many really care.

Of course if your intent is to knock the video of a given camera, that's not hard to do and you wouldn't be limited to just a discussion on 'superwhites'. ;)