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I'm definitely not JB, but I can talk about testing, having been involved in software development and testing in my day job. The short version of why things are released with bugs is this: A company figures out that they can build a camera with X features in Y time, and they think that it will fill a niche and make money They start to develop it, and due to how dependencies in projects work, development takes longer than anticipated The company knows that releasing a product late is a huge mistake, especially in a rapidly developing market, but they also know that releasing a product that is flawed is also a bad idea The company goes into TESTING, where people are using the camera, noting down issues, annoyances, and product features in a big database Everything in the database is ranked (according to importance) and then allocated to a tech to fix Once an issue is fixed it is then sent back to the person who found it to test it again It is common for a change to fix something but break something else, and it's also common for a problem to be caused by two things (eg, hardware and software, or two different software modules) not being completely aligned. Communication needs to occur, discussions to understand what is happening, what to be done, implications etc.. At some point (normally the publicised release date) a huge meeting is held and all the remaining items to be fixed are reviewed by management and the decision to release it anyway is made. It is very very very rare for something to miss the delivery deadline because of the number of issues. The process of identifying, tracking, fixing, testing, continues during the lifetime of the product (and is why there are firmware updates to a product) In reality there will be thousands, maybe tens of thousands of items involved in a process like this. Nothing is ever perfect. It is not possible to test every function with every combination of data. Here's a quote from an article about developing the software for the space shuttle: [Edit: here's the link to the below] I highlighted the relevant passages in bold. Obviously, NASA has more at stake with software problems than a consumer electronics company, and even then, they can't possibly test everything. There is a typical divide in culture in an organisation around Risk. IT and engineering professionals are normally trained in a culture of excellence, where due to advanced mathematical training, there is often an underlying and often unconscious mindset of there being one answer to a question, and therefore one solution to a problem, with the rest being sub-optimal. These teams are often incentivised by having KPIs and bonuses around system reliability. Sales, marketing, and product managers operate in "the market" which is complicated, messy, and is basically a shit-fight, and know that sales (and therefore profit) are more related to perception rather than facts, and they know that every day a product shipping date is delayed is lost sales. They know that nothing will ever be 'perfect' and are fully ready to 'explain away' any shortcomings of the product once it's in the market, but they can't do a single thing or sell a single unit until it is actually released. These people have KPIs and often have large percentages of their income based on sales bonuses. They care about quality, but only as it impacts sales. Often, Sales, marketing, and product managers think that IT and engineering professionals are ivory tower elitists who will 'gold plate' everything until the company goes bankrupt and products have to be ripped from their hands in order for the company to ever be finished and for anyone to ever get paid. Often, IT and engineering professionals think that Sales, marketing, and product managers are reckless, dodgy, cowboys who have no pride in quality, no understanding of shafting the consumer by fast-talk and no integrity, and they need to prevent products from being released too soon otherwise their lack of quality will immediately sink the company and no-one will get paid ever again. I hope this illuminates why products ship will bugs. It's a fundamental issue, and the final result is always a compromise.

Indeed - conceptually they're the same! I guess I see two major elements to the picture, one is size, and the second is the scalable architecture I mentioned before. With those two they can start putting two, three, four, six, twelve, and then onwards to dozens of them in the same box. I remember programming a computer that had 2048 processors when I was back at university, and geez, if you knew how to program it right it sure could fly! I didn't go into parallel computing far enough to get a glimpse of how they program a parallel algorithm for an unknown number of processors, but they should have worked it out now with these multi-core machines we all have.

It's still a card in a box - this is what I was referring to: https://www.amazon.com/Sonnet-Breakaway-Radeon-Windows-Compatible/dp/B076MHMF3V/ref=sr_1_10?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1531061276&sr=1-10&keywords=egpu Not as powerful, but it's one step further evolved than chopping a desktop case in half, putting a power supply in it, and then putting in a desktop graphics card. People are using huge numbers of graphics cards for bitcoin mining and AI, I'm waiting for them to invent a layer between the computer and the tech so that the software doesn't have to know how many GPUs are connected, and you can just connect as many devices like this as you want.

At ISO6400 the noise will eat whatever bit depth you throw at it, so I don't think that's really a consideration. The problem with 8-bit RAW is that even in great lighting it will still be 8-bits!

If you're willing to render proxy media then any modern machine should be fine. My 2016 13" MBP running Resolve plays 720p "Prores Proxy" at up to 60fps without noticeable delays both backwards and forwards. Ouch! I've previously repaired some dodgy keys on my old Mac Air by looking at YT videos, so it might be possible to rectify it yourself. If you attempt it I'd recommend you first attempt to remove a key you never use - normally we stuff up the first attempt and I was no exception lol. I did manage to fix the offending keys though, so it was all good in the end. Awesome, I've been looking at eGPUs for a while too. One of the most recent developments is that instead of buying a cage and a graphics card you can now buy all-in-one setups that are much smaller. Unfortunately they still run off mains power not USB-C so it doesn't help edit if you're on a plane/train/bus.

Actually, there have been a few attempts at electronically compensating for zoom to simulate a parfocal lens: (Source: https://www.newsshooter.com/2015/09/25/canon-xc10-review-a-simple-solution-for-everyday-video-journalism/ ) I just did a quick test with my XC10 and when you zoom in (24mm to 240mm) it doesn't stay in focus, but when you zoom out it seems to stay in focus, even if you do it quite quickly. Obviously in the XC10 it's not a perfect implementation, and obviously it would require the camera to be able to talk to the lens and "know" how to adjust, but with the modern focussing systems like the A7III etc you should be able to get something that would work pretty well. Sorry if this is out of context with the broader conversation, I was skimming though and just saw your comment and thought I'd mention the above

I edit 4K footage (by making 720p proxies) on my 2016 13inch MBP, but you may look at the performance I get and find it's not enough. With editing there is no "can" or "cannot" there is only "I need X amount of performance with Y amount of effects etc". Perhaps you can elaborate on what you need? If you turn on proxies and all the caching then Resolve can work on almost any computer. However if you need to colour grade ARRIRAW footage in 4K live in front of a customer then obviously you're going to need much more processing power.

Definitely agree. It's easy to say that a company didn't make good decisions but often their decision-making is quite sophisticated. I don't know what kind of margin a manufacturer might make on a camera model, but it might only be a few percent, which means that a successful company has great ability to predict the market. I used to work in finance, and before that in the insurance industry, and both of those industries are single percentage point profitability industries. I used to catch the train with a co-worker who was in the strategy team and did a 6 month analysis for a new financial product (a loan of some kind I think) and he worked out that they could get something like 1% profit over the multi-year lifetime of the product, and it was going to have tens or hundreds of millions of dollars put through it. The key difference in finance being that if the product wasn't popular they wouldn't have lost much, maybe a few million dollars in development and advertising, but the cost of developing a camera would be absolutely huge. I, too, feel like I want a camera that's different to almost everyone else on this forum. Ironically, the impression that I get is that most people here have similar priorities to you! I wonder if everyone feels the same way - what an amusing / ironic situation that would be.

Would membership be a variable? If you're a paying member maybe you get streaming priority or something? My household has a family YT Red account so I don't get ads, yeah, they were definitely annoying as hell.

There's lots of links between very different types of sounds, including the sound of a train on early Jazz music.. http://www.wbur.org/radioboston/2017/01/19/trains-jazz at about 75% of the way through. Edit: or this example where the album starts with the sound of a train and it is included until almost the 4:00 mark when the music fully takes over. This is an absolutely wonderful album, one of my all-time favourites.

There can be big differences between what people actually want, what they think they want, what they will tell you they want, and what they will actually pay for. In start-up businesses there's a trick. You hold a focus group, and then listen to people talk on and on and on about what they think (which you write down diligently and then throw away later on) and when people are leaving you either offer them free samples, or you tell people you have some stock for sale and would they like to buy some now? That final part is the real test. There's a story in startup land about a company getting into the MP3 player market, had a focus group with all sorts of different colours and patterns and people were very supportive of all the colours, but when the company offered a free player as a 'thank-you' every single person took black.

Every time I see a link to a Vimeo video my stomach sinks. I've never been able to play them smoothly, even with an internet connection that can stream multiple 4K files from YT while the Xbox is on. The poll that Andrew started shows others have the same issue. In a way you're right @zerocool22 - they are completely different audiences. This is actually a bad thing when combined with the above.. we have YT that streams smoothly but the content is mostly interruptible, and then Vimeo where the content is something you want to wash over you so you can be transported to the emotional place that the film-maker is taking you to, but in reality I just get waves of anger wash over me as the F*@#$ING thing just won't play properly. The best outcome (from my perspective) is that YT should buy Vimeo, and automatically transfer all the content across to be encoded in 4K and served properly.

Absolutely to subjectivity. What I was referencing with regards to weight is the Sony is 2,895g, the Canon is 3,850g and the Nikon is "approx 3800g", so the Sony is lighter, but they're all still really heavy with all that glass and metal!

My ultimate use for this would be to have it be integrated into the camera and have the camera vary it continuously instead of the other parameters. This would mean that you can set it to 1/50th, F4, Auto ISO and Auto ND and it will control the exposure for me while I still have control over SS and Aperture. Then I never have to think about exposure ever again but I still get the advantages of 180 shutter and controlling DoF. It's unlikely, but are you able to make a deal with a manufacturer perhaps? Having this thing as part of the sensor stack, or maybe as a switchable ND (so the camera just moves it into the light path or out of it) would be perfect. At the moment I can either have the camera control the exposure, OR I can have full creative control, but not both at the same time.

Yeah that thought crossed my mind too, it's a pretty obvious move. I don't really know how the camera industry works in terms of which people are primary producers and which only assemble things and who specialises in what.. I guess if Nikon hasn't got much experience of tech at that physical scale, and doesn't make any, then it might be a hard transition to become a preferred supplier for a major smartphone brand. I watched a review of the new Sony 400mm(?) lens and the reviewers took the A9(?) to a sports game and their conclusion was that the lens was slightly more expensive than Canon or Nikon, slightly lighter than Canon or Nikon, and performed similarly (ie, great) but that when following a subject in AF-C the combination got 20fps instead of the 10-11 that Canon and Nikon got. If you're a sports shooter then that's going to be a set of features that will be really hard to ignore. Hey - be careful being critical of Aussies!! I do it all the time, but it's like many things - only we're allowed to do it!!!! ????

It doesn't surprise me if they were. I don't know what it's like where you are, but where I live there are a couple of large grocery franchises where people do their weekly food shopping, and a number of other smaller competitors. One of the things that the smaller shops would do is run their freezers warmer (still within the rules, well, hopefully) but what it would mean is that by the time you got home the frozen stuff you bought would have melted, whereas the same products bought from the large chain of stores didn't. Cutting costs in hidden ways that hurt the customer is a pretty popular business strategy.

Resolve has a pretty good customisable shortcut key system, with preset configurations for some editing platforms, so if you've got muscle memory from another package that might be a good place to investigate first. Also, the manual is absolutely excellent, so your first point of reference for any questions should be that and not google.

As a consolation, in digital audio the start was abysmal (in comparison to analog) but with better and better specifications the heart and soul is gradually coming back. Down the line I think it will come back, to some degree anyway.

This is absolutely killer!! Nice work!

Great idea. The free version is hugely powerful and isn't crippled that much so you can get by with it for most things. I bought a studio license (just before they reduced the price - doh!) because I wanted temporal NR and a few other specific things. It really is an amazing tool. Just a thought, but one of the things that I don't think people have tested that much is doing huge edits - lots of people using it for music videos and smaller projects. It might be a good idea to pull in a few hundred random clips from your back catalog and then copy/paste your way to a huge timeline and see if it bogs down or does anything else strangely. It would suck if you got half-way through a project and discovered something at that point!

@Robert Collins I get your point, and your stats aren't wrong. However, when I look at that graph I think a few things: Camera sales are through the roof Smartphones have eaten compact cameras almost completely Mirrorless is a relatively new product category If I put myself in the shoes of a Nikon exec I think I would see: Nikon was a leader in film cameras, which were eaten completely by digital, but Nikon adapted Compact cameras sold like hotcakes but sales are basically gone Non smartphone sales are down to almost 1/6th of what they were less than 8 years ago Nikon is unlikely to get into the smartphone game In terms of what is next, smartphones are going to start to erode the DSLR/Mirrorless market, they're introducing longer focal lengths, simulating shallow DoF, and getting better in low light. These are all things that you used to need a 'big camera' for. I don't really know what Nikon should do, unless they have another side of their business that I don't know about, they might be cornered at this point from digital convergence on one side and rabid innovation from the likes of Sony and m43 on the other. One question that would be interesting to know is what is the typical pay-back period on designing a new camera system? Is it 5 years? 10 years? I have no idea, but you'd be silly to invest funds into a bold move if the market doesn't look like it can be relied upon to pay it back, even if you do it properly.

I recall reading it in a book, but I'm not sure which one. If only the internet contained all knowledge! It used to only contain things that were new, but archiving is making progress thankfully, although how much of that archiving is behind paywalls is concerning, but probably a discussion for another day.

Please look at this much more appropriate graph and tell me that there you can't see a general trend going on here...... And if you don't think that's a viewpoint they'll be taking then consider that their company was founded slightly to the left of where your screen stops. and in terms of "in the long run we're all dead", please see the following: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/02/japans-oldest-businesses-have-lasted-more-than-a-thousand-years/385396/ and tell me that in the context of Business Planning that long-term thinking doesn't apply? Nope. But It's not too early to google them if I cared and when they compare the length of the line to the total length of the lines around the world of people lining up to buy iPhones....

If you want to understand what the Execs at Nikon night be thinking, you must get into the Japanese mind-set, one aspect of which is long-term thinking the likes of which the West has never seen. There was a famous example where someone asked a Japanese philosopher what the impacts of The Great Fire of London was, and his answer (over 300 years after the event) was "it's too soon to tell". Yes, that's a ridiculous example, but it's indicative of the culture. So, if you are the head of a corporation that's over 100 years old, in a culture known for 100-year business plans, you're not restricting yourself to stats from the last three years!!

Yeah, we're both right, a History of Complacency! ???