New 300MB/s Sony SD cards almost as fast as SSDs. Time for RAW video on Sony and Panasonic cameras?

[Ehetyz]

I too am excited about getting my hands burned by a Sony camera that's melting from recording 5 minutes of RAW.

[Phil A]

15 minutes ago, Ehetyz said:

I too am excited about getting my hands burned by a Sony camera that's melting from recording 5 minutes of RAW.

Raw is probably easier for the camera than H.264 when it comes to heat. For raw the bottle neck is just how quick you can write it to the card, for compressed formats you need a processor that hardware decodes. I'm quite sure a faster memory interface uses less power (and therefore generates less heat) than the hardware decoder.

[James Holloway]

RAW. Righteous Artistic Digital (acquisition).

Somebody should PS some cameras into their arms...

 

[Ehetyz]

24 minutes ago, Phil A said:

Raw is probably easier for the camera than H.264 when it comes to heat. For raw the bottle neck is just how quick you can write it to the card, for compressed formats you need a processor that hardware decodes. I'm quite sure a faster memory interface uses less power (and therefore generates less heat) than the hardware decoder.

It's not about the bottleneck, it's about the amount of data being continually transferred. That produces heat. There's a reason BMD RAW cameras have giant heatsinks and fans. Even the good old 5D2 has a substantial upswing in temperatures when shooting ML RAW.

[Andrew Reid]

3 hours ago, Ehetyz said:

It's not about the bottleneck, it's about the amount of data being continually transferred. That produces heat. There's a reason BMD RAW cameras have giant heatsinks and fans. Even the good old 5D2 has a substantial upswing in temperatures when shooting ML RAW.

This is all bollocks I'm afraid

The data transfer is only harder for the card, which gets warmer, leading to the upswing in temperature you perceive to be a camera and processor issue, when it is actually purely a card issue.

Check out CFast 2.0 cards, they get very hot as well whether recording H.264 4K on the XC10 or RAW on a Blackmagic URSA Mini.

The Blackmagic cameras record ProRes and RAW. In both modes they have the same giant heatsink and fans and same amount of heat. That's because compared to something like a GH5 they are using less efficient semiconductors for image processing and they have hot running sensors which require much more cooling than a normal Sony CMOS.

I have never once had an overheating warning from my 5D Mark III or 5D Mark II when shooting continuous 14bit RAW at 1080p.

By the way, even the 50D from 2008 shoots 14bit RAW at close to 1080p resolution, a camera which did not even shoot video on release and is mega old... That gives you an idea of how LITTLE processing power (and therefore heat) is required for uncompressed RAW video.

Only with very advanced compression such as on the RED cameras do you need a hefty, hot running LSI.

As for the sensor - you are not working that harder, as by nature the sensor is always outputting RAW data, whether in live-view mode for stills, or video mode (completely separate to whatever codec you're using).

[Michael Ma]

I would love raw.  And it would make me rethink my GH5 order because raw makes 10-bit 4:2:2 look very compromised.  But watching the Panasonic interviews, a reason why they don't implement things is that some features that people want causes overheating issues.  Not sure if this would, but let's say Sony does allow raw recording.  Looking at their track record, I would absolutely make sure RAW video doesn't cause some crazy impracticality issues, like overheating.

[webrunner5]

30 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

As for the sensor - you are not working that harder, as by nature the sensor is always outputting RAW data, whether in live-view mode for stills, or video mode (completely separate to whatever codec you're using).

Hmm, you have a point about that fact. But it still is a lot more data to write to a card per sec, which I would think adds heat? You have a card full of Jpegs, not much effort on that output.

[Ehetyz]

6 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

This is all bollocks I'm afraid

The data transfer is only harder for the card, which gets warmer, leading to the upswing in temperature you perceive to be a camera and processor issue, when it is actually purely a card issue.

Check out CFast 2.0 cards, they get very hot as well whether recording H.264 4K on the XC10 or RAW on a Blackmagic URSA Mini.

The Blackmagic cameras record ProRes and RAW. In both modes they have the same giant heatsink and fans and same amount of heat. That's because compared to something like a GH5 they are using less efficient semiconductors for image processing and they have hot running sensors which require much more cooling than a normal Sony CMOS.

I have never once had an overheating warning from my 5D Mark III or 5D Mark II when shooting continuous 14bit RAW at 1080p.

 

Even in Prores Blackmagic cameras are writing data rates far exceeding any flavour of AVC. Your argument about prores is moot.

I've never had any 5D overheat period. ML however allows you to monitor the camera temperature in real-time, and it does jump up a lot faster when recording raw, even in freezing temperatures.

On the other hand multiple Sony bodies overheat when recording just plain X-AVC. Unless there's actual research data on their operating temperatures, I don't buy the "less hot running sensors" on their part for a second.

[Andrew Reid]

12 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

Hmm, you have a point about that fact. But it still is a lot more data to write to a card per sec, which I would think adds heat? You have a card full of Jpegs, not much effort on that output.

Depends on the card. It's solid state memory and all cards get warm just like RAM sticks in a PC or an SSD drive in your laptop...

6 hours ago, Ehetyz said:

Even in Prores Blackmagic cameras are writing data rates far exceeding any flavour of AVC. Your argument about prores is moot.

They are not moot at all.

You're completely failing to grasp the basics of camera electronics.

There are several different heat sources within the body:

1. Sensor

2. LSI

3. Battery

4. Memory

5. LCD

Each contributes to the overall temperature of the body.

By far the biggest heat sources are the sensor and LSI.

ProRes is more demanding on the LSI - it takes computational effort to convert the RAW sensor data to compressed YUV video.

RAW is only more demanding on memory throughput - both buffer DRAM and solid-state memory (SD or CF card).

ProRes LT on a Blackmagic camera is certainly not the same data rate to the card as uncompressed RAW or 2:1 Cinema DNG.

Quote

I've never had any 5D overheat period. ML however allows you to monitor the camera temperature in real-time, and it does jump up a lot faster when recording raw, even in freezing temperatures.

That is because of the card, not because of the processing or sensor working harder.

Quote

On the other hand multiple Sony bodies overheat when recording just plain X-AVC. Unless there's actual research data on their operating temperatures, I don't buy the "less hot running sensors" on their part for a second.

Because 'plain' X-AVC is actually very complex and much more intensive on the LSI / CPU than RAW would be.

The sensor is also doing a 6K full pixel readout in a very small body with no substantial cooling in the form of a large heat sink or fan.

Go figure!

[cantsin]

Here's a prediction:

Continuous 24-30fps RAW capture will come to the next generation of higher end mirrorless/SLR cameras, but not as video capture, but as high-speed still capture.  That will mean: No sound recording, drifting instead of precision fps, recording in vendor-proprietary stills raw formats (with no shot separation) instead of CinemaDNG. The length of high-speed raw sequences will likely be limited to a number of seconds.

Still, this might create a new video DSLR boom for makers of low-budget music videos and travel/nature videos where sync sound and long-duration shots aren't needed.

[hoodlum]

And UHS-III was just announced yesterday, supporting up to 624mb/s.

https://www.sdcard.org/jp/downloads/pls/latest_whitepapers/Understanding_the_NewUHS3_WP_20170223.pdf

 

 

[hoodlum]

Keep in mind that the UHS-II standard was announce 6 years ago and there are still only a handful of cameras that can support even half the write speed capabilities of UHS-II.  Based on the current trajectory it'll take another 5 years to get to 300mb/s write speed.

[crinklechip]

What about the new XOCN formats?

http://www.newsshooter.com/2016/04/25/new-xocn-st-and-lt-compressed-raw-codecs-coming-to-the-sony-f555/

[BobbyMurcerFan]

I don't see any way that Sony introduces RAW in their consumer cameras. One of the ways they protect their high end cameras is by limiting recording formats. That's why they won't put XAVC into their a/A lines of cameras. They will only put XAVC-S in them because they consider that their consumer format. And they refuse to write an XAVC-S plugin for professional NLE's, so each NLE has to develop their own. They simply aren't going to jump from 8bit 4:2:0 XAVC-S to RAW.

[cantsin]

25 minutes ago, BobbyMurcerFan said:

I don't see any way that Sony introduces RAW in their consumer cameras. 

As said, high-speed RAW stills at >24fps are likely to come sooner or later, but implemented in such a way that they will be mainly usable for photographers (and a minority of experimental filmmakers).

This will be the way camera manufacturers like Sony, Canon and Panasonic will protect their pro video cameras.

[Ed_David]

I agree Andrew completely, but we have the blackmagic micro cinema camera as you said that does raw already.  So it's already there.  I guess again Sony and Panasonic and Canon won't release it so it doesn't cannabilize their higher-end cameras.

But again, Blackmagic has you covered.

Maybe Red would just into the ring and make an even smaller raw camera.

 

[Santiago de la Rosa]

Not only Sony and Panasonic cameras, new Blackmagic Pocket will be possible or an Ursa without the expensive CFast cards.

From Guru3d "SD Association going for 624 MB/s with UHS-III"

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/sd-association-going-for-624-mbs-with-uhs-iii.html

SD cards will be always cheaper than CFast.

[leeys]

On 2/23/2017 at 11:50 PM, sanveer said:

I am NOT sure this figure is correct. The D500 does 14-Bit RAW with a file size of  25MP photos at a burst speed of 10.2 fps. That's 255 MB/s.

The maximum transfer rate cannot be measured with SDXC Cards. They are much slower than the XQD standard. 

 

Bit late, but the figure is correct - many still cameras have a buffer (usually RAM) that they dump the data into first before writing it to memory card. When using a fast XQD you'll never see the buffer on a D500, but on slower cards you will. This is basically a test of the camera's memory card controller speed, which loops back to the argument about cameras not fully utilising the speeds of the fastest cards, even with the newest hardware in place.

[tugela]

On ‎2017‎-‎02‎-‎23 at 4:33 AM, Andrew Reid said:

It's definitely possible, so where is it?

Read the full post here

I doubt that these are much faster than cards such as Lexar's 2000x cards (which have sustained writes speeds of 260 MB/s), and those have been around since 2014.

From my reading of their marketing materials the "improved" speed appears to relate primarily to burst data writes, not sustained data writes. It is apparently accomplished by jiggering around with algorithms involved in the write process. So they may not be all that different from cards already on the market when it comes to video. The main advantage is probably going to be a slightly improved write rate when shooting burst stills.

On ‎2017‎-‎02‎-‎23 at 1:28 PM, Phil A said:

Raw is probably easier for the camera than H.264 when it comes to heat. For raw the bottle neck is just how quick you can write it to the card, for compressed formats you need a processor that hardware decodes. I'm quite sure a faster memory interface uses less power (and therefore generates less heat) than the hardware decoder.

That would be correct. Raw footage should not generate much heat at all, since the heat is coming from the processor. If there is only a minimal amount of processing going on, you wont get a lot of heat. This is why Canon DSLRs use the mjpeg codec rather than H.264 for 4K output btw. Canon would like to use H.264 for 4K in the DSLRs, but their processors would melt if they tried, so they have to use a less stressful and simpler codec, such as mjpeg for it too be feasible.

The main bottleneck for RAW is going to be how fast the camera can write the data.