Latest Upgrade Date for the SONY X-70

[Terence Morris]

Originally Posted by Christopher Young

The following footage was shot AVCHD 1080i as that is what the NRL request. For the sake of upload size etc I de-interlaced the 50i footage and rendered it out as 720 50p, 50p to maintain the smoothness of motion that the 50i offers. Basically 80% of the three games I covered were shot using the 24 x ClearImage zoom. It was also all shot at 9dB. I didn't need 9dB I could have shot at 0dB but it would have left me with a pretty shallow depth of field to contend with at 24 x. 9dB gave me an iris of around F6.8 - F7.3 which made life easier than fighting focus all the time.

Also at 9dB but with ND4 switched in you will see a close up shot at 24 x of one of the main stadium lights. If you watch carefully you will see the iris go from fully closed to full open and back again. Just a curiosity shot on my part.

https://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/8fjyes About 220MB

I think the camera handled the shoot pretty well. I must say going back to the full sized XDCam with a wide angle on today to shoot a dozen interviews with players at the official season launch felt like I was lugging a truck around. I told them next time maybe a smaller camera! :))

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney

Hi Chis - I just got around to watching this, which looks very nice BTW. Natural gradations and no clipped whites (to my eye) for the playing field scenes. Did you use your previously published "out of the camera" profile settings on this (i.e.,the boats in dock clips)? Thanks

-Terence

[Wacharapong Chiowanich]

Yes, it did look excellent on my Samsung tablet's 1440p screen despite the source being only 720p. The only downside is the playback was choppy but this could be a result of the hardware (Samsung Galaxy Note Pro 12.2") or the playback software (VLC and Samsung Video Player) not being up to snuff. Will try again on my Mac tonight.

[Christopher Young]

Originally Posted by Terence Morris

Hi Chis - I just got around to watching this, which looks very nice BTW. Natural gradations and no clipped whites (to my eye) for the playing field scenes. Did you use your previously published "out of the camera" profile settings on this (i.e.,the boats in dock clips)? Thanks

-Terence

Yes Terence exactly the same as the marina / boats footage bar two settings. When I'm using gain up and don't have to cope with the massive dynamic ranges that you get when shooting extremes of shadow and sunlight (soot and whitewash we used to call it in film) I reset the Black levels back to '0'. In these sorts of cases the minute I see 70 IRE zebras appearing on the players skin I stop opening up. If you expose this way with the Knee and Slope settings I suggested you should hardly ever clip your highlights or if you do so they shouldn't end up in a whiteout. The top sides of the players white shirts under those stadium floods are obviously the highlight peak point in the video where clipping could possibly occur. As you observed though it doesn't look like they are clipping and I can assure you if you check the original footage on a WFM you can see it isn't clipping.

The second adjustment I've made compared to my originally published settings and which is now a permanent change is under the 'Color Depth' setting. Red is now set at +4. On a number of shoots I found the reds to be somewhat oversaturated and not representative of what my eyes were seeing. This has, at least to my eyes, also helped to deliver a more natural skin tone range on most human subjects. Hope this helps.

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney

[Terence Morris]

Thanks, Chris. This empirical information is invaluable. I appreciate the time and effort in putting it up.

[Mark Watson]

Originally Posted by Andy Wilkinson

And 4K will be 4.2.0 at 60Mbps only in June 2015 - but there is a little note that says they are "looking to support a higher bit rate in the future"....

New firmware for broadcast and professional A/V equipment from Sony : United Kingdom : Sony Professional

I am wondering how they would accomplish a higher bit rate with the current card slot. Maybe they made the slot compatible with the SDXC UHS-II cards, which are rated up to 312MB/s. From a Wikipedia description, it sounds like they could have a UHS-II slot and it will be compatible with the UHS-I cards as well. UHS-II have an extra row of pins. This approach would negate the need to modify the camera's hardware.

Secure Digital - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mark

[Atticus Lake]

Maybe, but they would hardly need to jump all the way to 312 MB/s -- that's 2.4 GIGABITS per second! Don't forget "b" is bits, and "B" is bytes -- 8 times as much. In any case, 312 MB/s is the bus speed, not the speed at which the card can accept data -- we're unlikely to see cards that fast in the forseeable future.

The camera currently specs UHS speed class 3 cards for XAVC, which is 30 MB/s, or 240 Mbits/sec; so the existing cards are easily enough for a big boost over the planned 60 Mbits/sec for 4k.

[Ricky Sharp]

Originally Posted by Atticus Lake

Maybe, but they would hardly need to jump all the way to 312 MB/s -- that's 2.4 GIGABITS per second! Don't forget "b" is bits, and "B" is bytes -- 8 times as much. In any case, 312 MB/s is the bus speed, not the speed at which the card can accept data -- we're unlikely to see cards that fast in the forseeable future.

The camera currently specs UHS speed class 3 cards for XAVC, which is 30 MB/s, or 240 Mbits/sec; so the existing cards are easily enough for a big boost over the planned 60 Mbits/sec for 4k.

The bandwidth capability of existing cards are definitely fast enough. However, I wonder if power consumption comes into play. Would the higher-speed cards consume less power at 60 Mbps vs slower cards at the same bit rate?

Hmm... if that theory is true, then using higher-speed cards over lower-speed ones should provide a boost to battery life when recording existing footage (e.g. 50 Mbps XAVC)

[Atticus Lake]

Originally Posted by Ricky Sharp

Would the higher-speed cards consume less power at 60 Mbps vs slower cards at the same bit rate?

I really doubt it. I think the power usage of flash memory when writing is dominated by the power needed to flash the memory cells.

[Mark Watson]

Originally Posted by Atticus Lake

Maybe, but they would hardly need to jump all the way to 312 MB/s -- that's 2.4 GIGABITS per second! Don't forget "b" is bits, and "B" is bytes -- 8 times as much. In any case, 312 MB/s is the bus speed, not the speed at which the card can accept data -- we're unlikely to see cards that fast in the forseeable future....

XQD cards are already doing those rates, pushing 4Gb/s. Point being, the UHS-II card provides a significant boost in write speeds and may offer an upgrade path for the X-70 that doesn't involve any hardware change.

Mark

[Ron Evans]

The X70 data rates will be no different than the FDR-AX100 which already does 100Mbps 3840x2160 at 30P with UHS U3 cards.

Ron Evans

[Atticus Lake]

Originally Posted by Mark Watson

... the UHS-II card provides a significant boost in write speeds and may offer an upgrade path for the X-70 that doesn't involve any hardware change.

Sorry, but UHS-II is a data bus, not a memory technology; so it offers higher data transfer speeds, but not write speeds. Transferring data at 312 MB/s is pointless if the card can only actually write 30 MB/s.

It's very bad they way they've labelled this stuff, but UHS-I and UHS-II are versons of the data bus, whereas "UHS Speed Classes" like U1 and U3 are about the actual usable speed of the card, which is going to be limited by the speed of the flash memory, not the bus.

Bottom line, the existing U3 cards alreaady provide plenty of scope for upgrade, without having to worry about what bus they use, or even having to change cards. I seriously doubt that the X70 will ever go above 400 Mbits/sec, which is easily achievable with a UHS-I bus. In fact I would be surprised if it ever went above 100 Mb/s.

[Paul Hardy]

With the 'just announced' Canon XC10 coming into the marketplace at £1599 with a 1" sensor, 4K recording, 12 stops DR & up to 305Mbps, I'm hopeful that Sony will give the X70 the 4K upgrade for free!

I know that the 2 cameras are supposedly for different markets, but the selling points are similar & I can see the Canon selling like hotcakes whereas the X70 sitting on the shelves except for those (like myself) that need XLR's.

Heres hopeful that Sony are generous for once & show us X70 owners some F.O.C. love. (Fat chance I know!)

[Ricky Sharp]

Originally Posted by Paul Hardy

With the 'just announced' Canon XC10 coming into the marketplace at £1599 with a 1" sensor, 4K recording, 12 stops DR & up to 305Mbps, I'm hopeful that Sony will give the X70 the 4K upgrade for free!

I know that the 2 cameras are supposedly for different markets, but the selling points are similar & I can see the Canon selling like hotcakes whereas the X70 sitting on the shelves except for those (like myself) that need XLR's.

Heres hopeful that Sony are generous for once & show us X70 owners some F.O.C. love. (Fat chance I know!)

From the limited info I found on the XC10, looks like it will use CFast cards. Those are around three-times the cost of U3 SDXC. Plus there is a huge price to pay (literally) for dealing with 305 Mbps footage vs. 50 Mbps. When I analyze equipment, I look at the total cost involved. As such, the XC10 total cost seems to be considerably higher than the X70.

The unit also appears to lack ND filters and XLR inputs. It also has very few buttons which means one may need to go into menus quite a bit.

As with everything; many tradeoffs here. Very nice dynamic range, but for me, the X70 wins out due to it's numerous pro-level features. Depends of course on what you shoot and how you shoot. I'm sure the XC10 will fit the bill perfectly for some.

[Ron Evans]

I think the XC10 is more of a competitor for a future 4K upgrade to the Sony DSC-RX10 !!!

Ron Evans

[Sauro Scroglieri]

Originally Posted by Ricky Sharp

From the limited info I found on the XC10, looks like it will use CFast cards. Those are around three-times the cost of U3 SDXC. Plus there is a huge price to pay (literally) for dealing with 305 Mbps footage vs. 50 Mbps. When I analyze equipment, I look at the total cost involved. As such, the XC10 total cost seems to be considerably higher than the X70.

The unit also appears to lack ND filters and XLR inputs. It also has very few buttons which means one may need to go into menus quite a bit.

As with everything; many tradeoffs here. Very nice dynamic range, but for me, the X70 wins out due to it's numerous pro-level features. Depends of course on what you shoot and how you shoot. I'm sure the XC10 will fit the bill perfectly for some.

Ricky, hopefully Sony is not on-line to read your post! :-)
In Italy we say: "are you either friend of ours or friend of the panther??"
just kidding... :-)

sauro