TC

Blackmagic have already stated publicly that they don't have the capacity to develop two cameras at the same time. As they are still ironing out a few kinks in the first version, I doubt they will start thinking about version two until next year. But it doesn't have to be Blackmagic who uses this chip. After the Cinema camera's announcement there were surely a lot of other companies thinking, "why didn't we do that?" There is Convergent Design, Atomos, and AJA who all make hardware recorders - basically a camera without a sensor. They clearly all have the right expertise in high-speed signal processing. There is also Matrox, who don't make a recorder, but have a large range of video encoding hardware. Perhaps there is also another rich enthusiast like Jim Jannard, who realises that the parts you need to build a high-end video camera are largely commoditised and are available to order right now. All you need is to put them together in a box with a lens mount.

I'm also a bit concerned about the size. It looks rather large in your photo. It even makes the FS 100 look small. Any chance of some side-by-side shots with the 5D III and FS-100 in your next blog post?

[quote name='ScreensPro' timestamp='1351706756' post='20718'] Yea, the RED-One-M [i]boasted[/i] 12 stops and was measured around 9-10. RED boasts, it's what they do. [/quote] Haha, true, they are not exactly modest at RED. But maybe it will soon be time for us to stop discussing the finer points of one camera over another - I suspect both the F55 and the Dragon sensor will be so good you won't be able to tell the difference in any practical situation. Any deficiencies will be purely the fault of the user.

[quote name='ScreensPro' timestamp='1351610310' post='20621'] Sony are currently ahead of RED in every aspect, with the excepetion of personal choice aspects, eg, ergonomics, customer service etc and possibly price, when the dust settles. [/quote] Are Sony offering F3 owners a $6,000 sensor and electronics upgrade to bring their camera to F5 specs? No, they are not. Red offer that for Epic owners. Will Sony offer a free upgrade for people who buy an F3 now? No they won't.

[quote name='ScreensPro' timestamp='1351610310' post='20621'] Based on what? On paper (and judging by the F65 footage), the Sony F55 will beat RED on DR, low light, colour rendition, will have a higher native ISO, high FPS, better codec choices and has a CCD sensor. The only tick RED has left is 5K output and the F65 just trumped that with 8K. [/quote] But you are comparing Sony's 2013 camera with Red's 2010 camera. If you buy an Epic now, you get a free upgrade to Dragon, which will ship in early 2013 as well. And Dragon boasts 15+ stops of dynamic range and 6k resolution, which comfortably beats Sony. That is what I base my statement on.

Solid announcement from Sony. But I don't think either are revolutionary. I think they are where people would expect them to be, given the current state of the technology. I feel that Sony are a year or two behind Red on the signal processing side (don't forget the Epic has been around two years now with similar specs). Canon, despite having a good sensor in the C100/300/500, look to be 5 years behind in terms of the electronics and codecs behind the sensor.

[quote name='sanveer' timestamp='1351035003' post='20204'] "4K and 50Mbps422" ? Is that enough Mbps, for 4k? [/quote] Short answer: no. I don't understand why they are teasing us with 50Mbps 422 as a *feature* for a cinema camera. The RED Epic can deliver data rates of up to 2.2Gbps. The Blackmagic Cinema Camera generates 1.1Gbps when recording raw. The RED Scarlet can deliver up to 440Mbps. It's 2012, not 2005.

[quote name='nigelbb' timestamp='1351009850' post='20173'] ... leaving the Engineering Department six months to figure out how in hell they are going to provide this feature. [/quote] As we have seen with the 650D, pre-production cameras probably already had clean HDMI out for testing. So this does not take 6 months of work. In fact, as JCS points out, it is probably involves changing just a few lines of code in firmware. After testing to make sure it is working, a day's work, max. And let's not forget - Canon are not adding a new feature here. They are removing some of the deliberate crippling they introduced to protect the C300.

[quote name='EOSHD' timestamp='1350558027' post='19894'] this is a camera that kind of makes you wonder what the Japanese camera manufacturers have been up to all this time. [/quote] Exactly. 2.7k video. In a unit the size of a matchbox. For $400. This shows you how the signal processing electronics needed for greater than HD resolution is now 1) cheap 2) small and 3) has very low power consumption. In other words: totally commoditized. The image processing in this tiny $400 camera is superior to Canon's enormous C300 which costs $15,000. We so desperately need more small independent camera manufacturers, or we are going to be strung along by Canon for another 5 years.

"Improved RAW coded" sounds suspicious, not just because of the typo. It is quite difficult to "improve" raw. It is exactly what it says it is - the raw data from the camera. You could compress it to make you hard discs go further, but I wouldn't really call that an improvement.

Well, those changes would be most welcome, of course. But it would be a PR blunder of monumental proportions. Particularly as those who pre-ordered have been waiting for up to 6 months already.

[quote name='jgharding' timestamp='1348061748' post='18583'] A nice test showing 160mbps All-I on 600D [/quote] Much as I would like to see a higher bitrate option available, to my eye, all three panels in that video look more or less the same. Still, good to see the Magic Lantern development team chipping away at this issue, even if they perhaps have not completely cracked it.

Fantastic! The difference is clear between a company like Leica and the large electronic giants we all love to hate. This is their first ever video M and it has: - focus peaking - pixel averaging sensor readout - 4:2:2 subsampling - At least 40 Mbps codec and sounds like they will ramp it up as high as they can go The live view and focus peaking options also mean that they may even start taking business in the stills market. Leica M + electronic EOS to M mount adapter? If that was possible it could be goodbye to Canon for good.

[quote name='HurtinMinorKey' timestamp='1348179395' post='18762'] Sooner or later, entry via BMC and Kineraw is going to force them to play fair. [/quote] Exactly. They can only do this because of lack of competition. And, ironically, as I have mentioned before, it is this very behaviour allows the competition to come in. Their margins on the 1D C are going to be enormous. Maybe 90%+. That leaves a lot of room for a competitor to make something that does more for less. As we are starting to see now. Canon's other problem is alienation of its customers. People can see they are being taken for a ride and they don't like it. It became very obvious as soon as the C300 was announced. Obvious not only that Canon wanted you to pay big money for large sensor video, but also obvious that the lack of improvements in Canon's DSLR video performance was a deliberate decision to cripple, not a limitation imposed by the state of technology. From reading forums such as these, I feel that a significant number of people in the photographic/filmmaking community now positively dislike Canon as a company. One last thing. Blackmagic have stated in interviews that after they announced their camera, they were contacted by other sensor manufacturers who wanted to sell sensors. You can bet the sales reps at those companies weren't just picking up the phone to Blackmagic. All you need now to produce a video camera is a sensor, processing chip, screen and lens mount. All pretty commoditised these days. Blackmagic will be the first of many companies that have never made a camera who enter this market.

[quote name='EOSHD' timestamp='1348138917' post='18671'] Inoue: The AF100 is another division, we are focussed on the consumer DSC. We are completely seperate. [/quote] Sigh.

Apologies for my previous rather flippant post. Back on topic. The footage looks great. Rolling shutter looks to be very much reduced. I think the train shot is misleading - yes, you can see the rolling shutter, but that train is moving very rapidly across the frame and the lines are pretty close to vertical. You can hardly see any jello effects in other parts of the film which are shot hand held. And, no question, it looks sharper than the 5D3.

Hey, you missed the real news today! Canon has announced the S110, the SX160 IS, the G15, the SX 500 IS, and the SX 50 HS. And some of them are available in red. This is true innovation.

Yeah, coincidence it may well be. In any case, they are no longer each other's biggest threat. Sony is. And with the GH3, they should be very worried about Panasonic too.

[quote name='Zach' timestamp='1347853648' post='18292'] what exactly would be suspicious about it? [/quote] Just feels like they *might* be colluding regarding their model release schedule.

6D is official. Anyone find it suspicious that, after all these years, both Canon and Nikon release a budget full frame model within a few weeks of each other?

Brand new 24 MP full frame sensor. Want it in a stills optimized body? You can have it. Want it in a video optimized body? You can have it. Clean HDMI out on both.

It is the camcorder announcements that are interesting. And the conclusion is simple. Canon is dead. Sony has arrived.

Yeah, I suspect the 4:2:2 is a mistake. As cameraboy points out, it is not part of the AVCHD 2.0 standard.

[quote name='jgharding' timestamp='1346249697' post='16821'] Another good point: the [b]XF100 [/b]camcorder is about 2500 quid and has their MPEG2 [b]50mbps 422[/b]. [/quote] What were they thinking??? We know from the C300/C100 that the codec alone should be worth $7,000... [quote name='jgharding' timestamp='1346249697' post='16821'] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I'm getting pretty sick of 24mbps when the quick SD cards write at 760mbps[/font][/color] [/quote] Yep. It may have made sense in 2005. But we are in 2012 now.

[quote name='peederj' timestamp='1346247039' post='16807'] Canon claims the C100's color space is 4:2:2. [/quote] Interesting. AVCHD is a codec based on the MPEG4 standard. The C300's codec is MPEG2. MPEG4 is (as you might guess) more advanced and therefore more efficient. The in camera image will be almost identical. Rather like Canon's XA10 vs XF105. It's less than 6 months since the C300 started shipping. I would be extremely annoyed if I had shelled out $15,000 for a C300.