Cliff Totten

Oh yeah....Panny no doubt threw some cripple tricks into the S1. One of the worst being 128k compressed audio! 128k!!!! What decent camera on planet Earth has audio THAT compressed? The S1 was given one of the WORST audio recording modes in the entire camera industry. It sounds "ok" but what happens when you take a 128k audio track, edit it and it gets compressed again on YouTube? Your 128k....which is already heavily stripped of data...gets slammed again. Dont worry though, if you buy the VLog upgrade, you THEN get PCM uncompressed audio.

Does anybody think that Sony actually has the BALLS to make an 8bit A7S-III compete against all the other 10bit cameras on the market? Does Sony think their 8bit "low light" performace is so good that people wont care that its 8 bit? I can say that my S1 with 10bit color already FAR exceeds any "low light" requirement I will ever need. And this is comming from a guy that just sold his A7S-II for the S1. The S1 is far superior to the A7S-II is countless ways. When the S1 gets HDMI and Atomos ProRes raw 4k....Im finished. I dont need and A7S-III....ever! The Lumix S1 "IS" what we have been asking for with the A7S-III.

Its going to be fascinating to see what the XDCAM management team will "allow" the Alpha management team to give the new A7S-III. A Sony manager fir Russia was stating that he thinks the A7S-III wont have "deep color" as that is reserved for the XDCAM FS series only. I suspect he means 10bit. I heard at NAB that Panasonic is very receptive to the S1 having 4k raw over HDMI and that it IS definetely comming to the S1 this year. Those same sources told me that Sony is not willing to go that far right now. Atomos is pressuring them but Sony is not buying into the raw idea for Alpha. (The next FS probably) Will Alpha be allowed to have highly compressed 10bit internal recording or will it only be granted 10bit video HDMI? I would love to be a fly on the wall in these Alpha/XDCAM manager board room meetings!! 2019 is a massive political fight for managers inside Sony and Panasonic. Nikon?....no no, HDMI raw was an EASY choice!!!

Conspiracy theory on Panasonic not putting phase detect AF in their cameras..... A couple of years ago I read an article that Sony made a cross patent agreement with Canon. Sony licensed to EXMOR's on-column A/D conversion sensor patent to Canon for a portion of Canon's phase detect AF patents to Sony. I'm starting to believe that there might be some key fundamental phase detection patents that Panasonic can't violate for legal reasons. Sony is able to sell phase detection with it's cell phone and camera sensors and that is possibly how Nikon gained access to it. (example: The Nikon Z6 uses an IMX410 that has phase detection pixels. This is likely in the Sony/Nikon sensor purchase and licensing agreement) Could this be the reason why Panny has not been able to get PDAF? Is it possible that they have been shut out by Sony as they refuse to license Panny any key Sony/Canon patent rights? This is speculation but it could explain why Panny is so "stuck" in the contrast AF world....they literally have no other legally viable choice right now?? CT

I dont understand why Panasonic just didnt make a new mount diameter that was simply based on MFT data protocol. Panny could have made this new mount standard in one meeting. Essentially, a full frame ring with MFT data pins. I dont see how the Leica partnership help Lumix at all. What tech does Leica give to Panny? Their lenses are niche and very few people will ever buy them. Sigma?....now THEY are a fantastic partner and absolutely key to making these Panny camera sell. I think Panny only really needed Sigma and any profit sharing could have stayed between two companies instead of being split three ways.

Hmmm,...So, Leica is telling Panny and Sigma to go have fun on their own together and to leave them out of it. Y'know,...I see Leica has a true fashion brand on the camera industry. (Just like Hasselblad) They never really were a serious "electronics" company anyway. I have a suspicion that they contract Panasonic to design their motherboards and even program their firmware too. Hell, it would not even supprise me if Panasonic even manufactured modern Leica cameras for them in Panny factories. Is Leica just a snobby logo on a severely over -priced Panny-made body??? CT

Interesting, they changed profile naming from h.264 on HEVC. Good catch!! Im still pissed the stuck us with highly compressed AAC audio at stinking 128kbps. CT

Oh wonderfull! You guys see what Panny did with this HEVC audio? They didnt give us PCM audio. They gave us AAC compression......at 128kps!!! Ugggg. Looking at the HEVC profile. Its not even high profile toolset. Its "main" (mid-level calculation) profile instead. Nice Panny.....nice cripple. So now we need to wait until July to pay for the upgraded video specs.

Canon EOS-R raw over HDMI? Oh boy!...this has Jeremy Young's (Atomos CEO) fingerprints ALL over it! He has been talking with all the camera companies about engineering their data pipeline to allow for the HDMI data bus to tap into raw sensor readout. He said last year; "If you want Canon to do something, have Nikon do it first. If you want Sony to do something, have Panasonic do it first" This is the exact order we have: #1 Nikon, #2 Canon, #3 Panny, #4 Sony. Lol....this one guy is pushing them all into his raw sensor data over HDMI trick! I friggin LOVE this guy!

Andrew!....thanks for getting this material out there. Question - beta firmware had a noise reduction slider that was deactivated. It literally did nothing to the image when moved. Does your 1.0 firmware allow for noise reduction control that actually DOES remove noise reduction at -5? I really hope so! Thanks for everything you do. CT

It's literally impossible for us to know what sensor is in this thing. IMX410, Samsung IsoCell, TowerJazz? How many times do we always hear "No, its not a Sony sensor" only to find out that is IS certainly a Sony sensor 6 months later? Panasonic NAB booth...."No!...the GH5 is absolutely NOT a Sony sensor, its a Panasonic chip"...TechInsights then blows that out of the water and says "No Panisonic, our labs and x-ray machines identify it as a Sony IM272" Next year same thing. "No Panasonic, the GH5-S is a Sony IMX299" Same thing with the Nikon D850 and now Z6 and BlackMagic pocket 4k....more and more Sony sensors. For some reason, every camera company is embarassed to say that Sony pattens are all over their image sensor.... the most important part of every camera. Its no use lying about it anymore....Tech Insights will expose you eventually.

I think you are right about the S1's noise reduction in these early firmware testing. Cinema5D said their noise reduction -/+ controls were not even working at all on their version. I REALLY hope the full 1.0 firmware has a functioning parameter set. To me, effective noise reduction -/+ settings are even more important than color fine tuning. Noise reduction is a destructive process,...color is not. Actually, Panny.....PLEASE give us a noise reduction "off" setting! That would make many people really happy. (It would also free up some of your image processor CPU for other things too!)

So S1 HLG is capped at roughly 12 stops. We know full VLog is coming as a paid upgrade. However, if they keep it capped at 12 stop in VLog as well?....that makes the upgrade far less attractive. You might as well get the same 12stops in HLG and record to ProRes from the S1's 10bit HDMI. I would love to be a fly on the wall in Panny's HQ meetings about the S1. I would love to listen to them debate each other on how they properly cripple the S1 to protect the EVA-1 and Varicam....as well as this new L-Mount camcorder in development.

About the S1's dynamic range....I have two questions: 1.) What in the Hell is this mystery sensor? Who's tech is in it? Some think it might be an IMX410 (A7-III & Z6) Meanwhile, some are saying its a completely brand new sensor that nobody has ever seen before. There are rumors it's NOT even a back side illuminated chip. Samsung IsoCell?? 2.) Panny might very well calibrate it's video A/D conversion and raw readout to NOT exceed 12stops. Supposedly, this could have been a demand that VariCam managers had placed on these S cameras. You can bet your life that the VariCam group did NOT want a high sensor read clock speed (intentional rolling shutter) and wanted it capped at 12stops. Who knows? We will find out more in the months that follow. On the GH5/GH5-S,...HLG matches VLog-L in dynamic range.

The ÷/- noise reduction parameters work perfectly fine on the GH5 and GH5-S. On my GH5, I run my NR settings all the pulled back. As we know, noise reduction plugins in post are WAY more accurate and surgical than any live in-camera algorithms are. I really hope that Panasonic fixes the S1 noise reduction +/- settings in firmware 1.0. It's stupid to see it in the menu but have it disabled behind the scenes.

Cinema5D is reporting the S1 to test at about 12 stops of dynamic range using HLG gamma. This actually matches the Sony FS7 tests with SLog-3 gamma. It's hard to know if Panny will allow it's VLog upgrade to gain any more than 12 stops. I suspect they might lock it at 12 stops to give the EVA-1 a 1 or 2 stop dynamic range advantage. Who knows? There is one very depressing thing that Cinema5D found out....NOISE REDUCTION IS HEAVY AND +/- NR CONTROLLS HAVE ZERO AFFECT!! Ouch!....that one REALLY stings! If Panny has disabled the noise reduction controlls than we have no way to draw it back and save ourselves from heavy in-camera noise reduction. As we all know,....noise reduction is a 100% DESTRUCTIVE PROCESS....once it's applied, it's artifacts can never be removed in post. Im hoping their firmware just had a bug that Panny will fix soon.

Will Canon EVER figure out how to oversample a sensor, deBayer and downsample it to 4k? My God,...how long has Sony been doing their full pixel readout now? The GH5 (Sony IMX272) does a 5k full pixel readout too. I guess Canon will need to buy Sony sensors to do this? Until then, Canon is still stuck in crude RGGB 1:1 deBayer land.

I doubt its TowerJazz. Has anybody ever seen an excellent TowerJazz sensor? Definetely not the one in that Leica, scratch that one out.....any other TowerJazz sensors we can point too? Samsung IsoCell would stiil be a sensor that Panny would want to keep secret....no doubt. I dont know of any other company that could actually beat Sony's pattents....I think only Samsung could do that.

Have you guys seen the head to head shootout between this S1 and the Z6? As you all know, the IMX410 is used in the A7-III and Z6. Many expected the S1 to be another IMX410 camera. However!....the head to head comparison shows the S1 kicking the crap out of the IMX410 in signal to noise ratio! What "mystery" sensor is the S1 using? Who fabs this beast? Who's technology is inside this S1 sensor? SAMSUNG ISOCEL??? No wonder why Sony has taken so long to make the A7S-III. If this S1 is not using a Sony sensor, then Sony truly has no control over the S1. No licensing agreements and no restrictions on a Sony contract of sale! If its a Samsung chip, Panny is free to implement it in any way they want. Could this S1 mystery sensor be the FIRST chip to pierce Sony SemiConductor's armor? Could this be the FIRST chip to beat Sony's EXMOR BSI performance limitations? If this is not a Sony sensor. I'd bet my life that Sony preordered 20 of these S1 for disassembly and inspection. You better believe Sony labs will be X-raying and plotting out the entire foundry of that S1 chip and using electron microscopes to see how this mystery fab plant made this thing! If this is not a Sony sensor....I'm certain this one has them VERY worried! When Tech Insights gets the S1, its going to be facinating when they identify that chip! CT

Ha!....wow, this will make Atomos, very VERY happy! No 400mbps all-I. Wow.

Whaaaat? How do you know this? Have you seen complaints of this yet? 15-30min??? Dunno about this one. Would love too se a video on that.

Damn.....this is one HELL of a shoddy CODEC, frame rate and compressed audio $hit list! I pre-ordered this camera today but without the paid VLog and 10bit recording licenses,...this camera out of the box is of very little use to me...not like THIS! (HLG forced into 72mb/s h.265? only....compressed audio?..my God, this is bad)

Is hard to say what VLog will do on this sensor. If it's the Sony IMX410 like many believe it is, neither the A7-III or Z6 get more than 12 stops in video out of it. The IMX410 is believed by some to be used in the Sony Venice too....but that camera is "allowed" to record 15+ stops. Its all in the sensor feature licensing contracts and the negotiations that go into the contracts of sale. Sony licenses read out modes and frame rates and bit depths seperately. That's how they price the sensor....on the market value of your feature choices. Its not a "1 simple price, you get the whole thing deal". You pay for what you want and you are legally blocked from using what you didnt pay for.

Andrew,...did you see a noise reduction +/- control like the GH5 has? I hate in camera NR. I'd rather capture more detail and more noise as in-camera NR is often crap. Post NR was WAY more surgical.

Wait,...hold on.....what? Is the a passive adapter or an active adapter? Ok....I'm about to take a super long crazy shot in the dark here. We know that Nikon is buying the Sony A7-III's IMX410 sensor, this is now fact...and a zero supprise to everybody here. Here is the crazy part.....is it possible that Sony has leased their Emount lens and focus protocol to Nikon for all their new lenses? I could certainly see why Nikon would rather buy it than design it themselves. Could Nikon also lease Sony PDAF pattents too? And Sony IBIS also? The cost of just buying it could beat the cost of developing it from scratch and trying to mature it as fast as they can. Buying an already tested and mature system could be A LOT easier! Nah....on second thought. This kind of industry camera collusion never happens like that in reality. Plus, Sony is not known for selling itself to customers in that way. This is just crazy talk.......