jax_rox

You're not insane

Doubt it. That's an FS5, but with a bigger sensor. Unless you're talking in the 'more expensive than an FS5-FS7' price point range....

I don't mind, overall, the focus peaking on the A7s though it's sometimes vague. Neither the VF nor the LCD screen are really big enough for peaking to be super useful. An external monitor will be better I don't believe you can use PlayMemories to pull focus. I've never tried, though.

Looks like a crappy technocrane lol Not really a scientific test But good to know there's at least a decent option for a very small price available

Panasonic won't introduce a S35 sensor. Their entire camera line-up is designed around the m4/3 sensor size, with a large number of complimentary lenses. For them to go down the S35/APS-C path would require a lot of development on the lens side, and would result in the strange situation that Sony found itself in with its full frame E-mount offerings - barely any lenses to go with it, forcing them to implement an APS-C crop mode, and adapters for their 'other' lens mount system to work on the camera. I highly doubt Panasonic's going down that path - even the AF100 had an m4/3 sensor. I would also be surprised if they went 10-bit internal. I think Panasonic would be a lot smarter about it, and look more to an AF100 successor, which would/could have 10-bit internal, perhaps recording onto P2 cards, for easy slide-in to the Varicam line-up. 10-bit out via HDMI (or SDI with a new YAGH interface) might be something they'd look into. I would imagine the GH5 will be much better low-light wise than the GH4. I also doubt it will he H.265 if the camera comes out this year.

I agree - there's no big 'key thing' that everyone's going insane about this year... But then, I guess that was bound to happen eventually. Next year will bring with it affordable VR systems and the like, I'm sure. Even Canon's 'surprise' fizzled. What was it? An 8k proof of concept, hooked up to 4 Odyssey's? Boring. Haha I'll also guess that maybe there's a reason. Maybe the things that excited us in past years just aren't exciting anymore. REDs offerings have always been pretty impressive for the price, but that very first one was amazing - we'd seen nothing like it before. Blackmagic broke new ground, bringing affordable raw to the DSLR market. Then, again, it brought even more affordable raw to the same market, and each year its products have been much talked about, as they are hugely affordable cinema cameras. The product cycle was evolutionary, rather than necessarily revolutionary (after the first one), but each product offered something different, something great, and something not seen in a <$5k camera previously. We're more sceptical now. We take the Craft camera with a grain of salt. The Kine feels a bit 'seen it all before' despite the fact that it will probably be a decent (enough?) camera. To me, this NAB feels more like one of those ones mid-3D era, where Panasonic and the likes had their 'prosumer' 3D cams, and there were 3D rigs etc etc. This year, it's just moved to VR Actually, I think the big thing this year is HDR. But it's boring to talk about, and hard to write about. 'Oh my god guys, there's a TV/monitor that looks so much better than other TVs...!' is significantly less exciting than 'check out this amazing new camera with this laundry list of killer specs'

Prototypes are expensive It's much cheaper to get things made in bulk than one at a time - who knows, they may even need a minimum order on the sensors! I can't imagine we'll see any footage until they ship... IF they ship..

Really, 12 stops is enough DR for most applications, especially if you light appropriately to your camera, and usable DR is always going to be different to measurable/quoted DR. These days, extra DR is kinda a way of saying 'more filmic IQ', and therefore if you don't have 14+ stops, for some reason it's terrible. DR can be beneficial with highlight handling, especially in bright sunlight

All the RED cameras work this way (except RED One). There's a cable that attaches to the DC-IN port, with the other end being able to terminate in a V-mount, AB-mount, or I guess whatever you can make.. It's a solution that can be used for just about any camera that has a DC-in port

Yeah, the video has the ND sled screwing in to the top... does that mean you have to unscrew it entirely to have no ND?

Is it just me, or does the button side look super Chinese..? Does this camera look/feel/work like a real cinema camera? Or do you need to make that jump in your mind? To me, it looks like a Chinese knock-off that has more or less the same quality, but overall just doesn't feel like a real one. I could be wrong.

Your point was that 'ProRes is defunct for the majority of the market'. Firstly, you're assuming that the 'majority' of the market are running Windows 10+, which logic would attest to that not being true. Secondly, you assume that all of those people, including those running business based around support for ProRes, will immediately uninstall and tell their clients 'bad luck, go somewhere else,' or sucking up the inefficiencies in transcoding; instead of just avoiding malicious files. Again, logic would assume that won't happen. Thirdly, it ignores all the major camera systems that shoot to ProRes. Some exclusively to ProRes. Surely basic logic assumes that if major camera systems continue to shoot into ProRes at least into the near future, it cannot be defunct. It's a sensationalist claim with little basis in the reality of the situation, and instead of accepting that it was a little OTT, you've defended your claim. Makes no difference to me what you use. But I'll continue using ProRes, and you can keep telling me it's defunct if you like?

They're not giving up. They're forcing you to buy an Apple if you want full QT support. That's actually pretty much Apple. Final Cut was, and is, so cheap because it forces you to buy an Apple. ProRes isn't going away, and a post house who wants to be able to have an efficient workflow with it will need to upgrade to Apple, if they haven't already. Seems like a smart business move to me. Is it annoying and frustrating? Yes. Can I see the logic in it? Yes. But then it doesn't really affect me... I bought my first Mac in '08 so I could get FCP (hey, isn't that what they wanted?) and haven't moved back over to PC since. Am I a perfect Apple story? Sure. Am I alone? Not by a long shot. My alternative was to buy/build a PC that would have been almost as expensive, and then buy $10k Avid hardware. As it was, I got my Mac and Final Cut for ~$3-4k? Sounds like a great deal to me...

You have no way of backing up your claim that any percentage of Premiere users are on a PC. Nor do you have any figures for Mac usage. 'Yeah right' doesn't constitute factual evidence. I'm just saying, the breakdown could easily be 50-50, 70-30, or anything. Saying that Premiere is available on PC as well as Mac, therefore most users are probably on PC is just a silly argument. Again: SMPTE can define whatever they want as an industry standard. Technically, AVID is an industry standard. I would hazard a guess though, that there are more Premiere installations than Avid Media Composer. I use and love Avid, but I'm also aware that many of my colleagues use Premiere. AVID was also the 'industry standard' back at the reign of FCP7. There were plenty of post houses that you couldn't get a job at if you couldn't use FCP. Yet, Avid was the 'industry standard' The same is true now of Premiere. Cineform being the SMPTE agreed upon 'industry standard' doesn't make it so. As I say, I'm yet to find a camera that shoots in Cineform, I'm yet to be delivered anything in Cineform, I'm yet to see Cineform used over ProRes as an intermediary, and I'm yet to have a master delivered in Cineform. I have had all those things done with ProRes. I don't know how you could look at a camera marketplace, where the Alexa, Amira, F5, F55, Varicam, et al, and all the external recorders shoot ProRes either as an option, or exclusively and say 'nah, Cineform's the one'

Apple have no particular reason to continue development though for Windows, other than to keep you happy. What purpose is it to keep you, who won't buy their products, but relies on a free piece of software developed by them, happy? You seem to have reading comprehension issues. I'm not saying we should care about .wmv. I'm saying Windows never developed an Apple player for .avi or .wmv, so why hold it against Apple when they stop doing it for Quicktime? .avi was a pseudo standard, and it was a right pain to work with on an Apple. You had to transcode. What's different about this situation? Yeah, but FCPX saw a massive increase of sales. Significantly more than they could ever sell with FCS at the price and market it was aimed at. Also, those who went to Adobe didn't necessarily change their OS and computer systems. In fact, considering the price of doing so, I imagine there would be very few who did. Apple are ruthless business people. It doesn't make much business sense to spend man hours developing QT for Windows for no gain, just as it obviously made more sense to create an iMovie step-up that vloggers, pro-sumers and professionals could step up from iMove into, at a cheap cost ($300). Whilst it really put out a number of industry pros who were using it on a daily basis, Apple have continued to see growth - and if you're a vlogger who can buy an Apple and step up into a 'pro' program like Final Cut Pro easily, why would you buy a 'crappy, boring' PC, when you cuold have a 'shiny, beautiful' Mac? Don't get me wrong, I was pissed off about it too. I went to the launch of Final Cut Server, and really thought Apple were more loyal to their pro customer base. I understand it though, from as business perspective. They did the exact same thing with Logic Pro. It's now more of a 'souped-up' version of Garage Band, and also similarly cheap. The business model is working for them

The point of Avid's AVE is that it is not dependant upon Quicktime. The issue for Avid is that AMA Link is more common these days, which can be dependant upon Quicktime. If you import your files instead of AMA linking them into Avid, they will transcode into .mxf

For the small proportion of people who aren't using Apple/supported devices, I don't see why it's so difficult to transcode to something else if they're that concerned about it. Industry standard for what? Capture? Please point me in the direction of a (non-GoPro) camera that captures in Cineform? Delivery? Intermediary? I would suggest that Cineform can not be an industry standard if the majority of people are using ProRes instead of it. I've also never seen anything delivered in Cineform. I have seen deliverables in H.264, ProRes, Jpeg2000, depending on where they're going. I've received masters in ProRes and .dpx files Never Cineform. Maybe it's a regional thing.

Apple isn't unprofessional. They just own a computer company, and see no particular reason in developing for the competition. Windows also don't develop players for .avi and .wmv for Apple computers. The only real difference is that .mov and Quicktime has become so ubiquitous and industry standard, particularly with ProRes, but also H.264, mp4 etc. etc. I would suggest that there's a larger majority of people are using Apple for their post workflows - certainly, I'm more likely to see Apple or Linux in post houses and workflows than Windows (unless we're talking 3D and some VFX). Why not just disable the browser plug-ins? There's a lot of sensationalism going around about this, when the reality is, you would have to interact with a malicious file for it to cause issue. Anything from your camera, or that you create through encoding/transcoding is not going to be malicious unless you design it to be (and why would you design a malicious file to attack your own computer?) As long as you keep your Windows QT usage limited to your own files, or I guess ones that can be trusted (i.e. client footage where they have a vested interest in not taking down your computer) I can't see why this would be that big an issue. I also can't see ProRes going away anytime soon, so..

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Er.... what are you talking about? You know the Arri Alexa and Amira still record ProRes ? Don't see many of them around lately, hey... oh wait.

Except most 'cinema' setups have in-camera scratch-tracks at a minimum, if not Genlock TC as well. Even middling corporate shoots tend to have that these days. Where's the Genlock? I agree. This looks like the modularity that RED wanted, but even RED with their R&D money, and cost of modules couldn't quick get it to work that way. And what's the go with the price? The website (unless I'm mistaken) tells you nothing about what the eventual price will be. The previous email said 'somewhere between' x and x. IIRC, the higher end of the number was ~$2800. Is that for a 'fully moduled' camera? Or is that just the sensor/single lens module? If so, how much will the other modules be? What is it going to cost to get a semi-workable camera? How do you power the camera without the battery module? How do you record without the Media module? Via SDI/HDMI? What are they outputting? 8-bit signals? 10-bit? What's the sensitivity? Base ISO? Shooting in a studio won't need an ND? The last camera I remember seeing 3D renders of before seeing the actual camera pictures, or any footage, is the AJA CION. Whatever happened to that camera? Some nice 3D renders with nothing that really provides confidence that these guys (or girls?) know what they're doing, or can even deliver a product at all, is a big red flag for me. Also, by the time this camera comes out (December seems ambitious, based on what we have to go by, not to mention their statement of 'yep, December, totally.. unless it isn't'), we'll be approaching next NAB. You'd want the camera to really deliver, considering what might take place between now and next NAB. Because they don't have a camera yet. Just 3D renders. And most likely, not the money to attend. The whole thing, including the, 'we really wish you didn't ask for your money back, but I guess if you absolutely have to..' stinks of 'we don't really have the capital to do this properly' Hence the shifty marketing campaign. Someone with the capital to do it properly isn't deliberately vague and teasey, and releases full camera specs at launch, rather than simply leading with the things that are 100%.

As far as I've been told, the sensor on the F5/55/FS7/FS5 lineup may be similar to the FS700 but are not the same sensor at all

The FS5's sensor is the same/based on the FS7, which is the same sensor as the F5, which is different to the FS700. I would imagine the raw out of the FS5 would be closer/similar to the FS7 than the FS700.

IMO, the FS700 is a compromise. I really hated the image out of that thing (internally). I was consistently disappointed with it, especially when blown up to the big screen. It just didn't hold up. Not to mention the ergonomics. It's worth it if you need a cheap HFR camera, and are happy to have a recorder hanging off it permanently, and are happy dealing with raw all the time. The FS5, for about the same price, gives you pretty good HD internal (10-bit 422 50Mbps), and acceptable 4k, with pretty decent frame rates. Add on a recorder when you can afford it and you've got raw. You even get 10-bit out of the SDI in HD (unlike the FS700). FS700's not a bad camera, and certainly if it were significantly cheaper (talking F3 territory) it may be worth it. As it is, for the same price as an FS5 I don't know that it's worth it. You're better off with an F3 if you don't mind HD at a max. 60fps (but at ~ 1/2 the price of an FS700)

Quoted and usable DR are two very different things, and you'd find real world they're very close in terms of usable DR. FS700 for me comes close to, ergonomically, one of the worst supposedly 'pro' cameras I've ever encountered. It does have a lot of great features though. Sensitivity will be similar between the two, but the FS5 will be better at higher ISOs. Big distinction, I think, is that the FS700 is more or less sorta a 4k-geared camera, whereas the FS5 is sorta an HD geared camera. FS5 gives you 10-bit internally @ 50Mbps which you can't get out of an FS700. FS700's SDI output is also only 8-bit, so to get more than that you're forced to shoot raw.