Canon XC-M ???

[MJChristensen]

I want to second Garug's comment about the grip. Gimbals are pretty ubiquitous now, and I wish camera designers would account for the fact that we don't need a handle permanently attached to the camera anymore. Of course, I suppose they still need somewhere to stash the battery.

[sam rides a mtb]

On 4/24/2018 at 5:01 PM, Mokara said:

Most patents filed are defensive in nature. The point being to claim all sorts of things surrounding your actual product so as to create an IP minefield that would inhibit people who might want to compete with you. Almost all patents issued are never used for in any product specifically.

I think you are close to hitting the nail on the head.  I don't foresee Canon ever putting something like this together in a product.  It's is somewhat kind of the ideal system revolving around a 4/3 chip - interchangeable pl-style mounts that can have speedboosters built in or just passive adapters.  I could see this being a route Panasonic or Black Magic could go, but now are blocked from doing so because of this stupid patent.  So many good ideas throughout history have probably been lost to big companies buying patents to minimize competition and never get a chance to come to fruition.

[hijodeibn]

On 4/24/2018 at 11:15 PM, webrunner5 said:

Gee what is the right price now for anything since the 4k BMPCC has been announced and the Sony A7 mk III?

I would say below 2K mark, but most probably is going to be the inverse

[mercer]

20 hours ago, sam rides a mtb said:

I think you are close to hitting the nail on the head.  I don't foresee Canon ever putting something like this together in a product.  It's is somewhat kind of the ideal system revolving around a 4/3 chip - interchangeable pl-style mounts that can have speedboosters built in or just passive adapters.  I could see this being a route Panasonic or Black Magic could go, but now are blocked from doing so because of this stupid patent.  So many good ideas throughout history have probably been lost to big companies buying patents to minimize competition and never get a chance to come to fruition.

If there’s a market for it, Canon will make it. Like every other company, Canon exists to make a profit.

[Damphousse]

21 hours ago, sam rides a mtb said:

I think you are close to hitting the nail on the head.  I don't foresee Canon ever putting something like this together in a product.  It's is somewhat kind of the ideal system revolving around a 4/3 chip - interchangeable pl-style mounts that can have speedboosters built in or just passive adapters.  I could see this being a route Panasonic or Black Magic could go, but now are blocked from doing so because of this stupid patent.  So many good ideas throughout history have probably been lost to big companies buying patents to minimize competition and never get a chance to come to fruition.

Is that how patents work?  So you can patent something and never use it and sue anyone who ever does?!  That doesn't sound correct.  There are a lot of companies that infringe on other companies' patents and a lot of the time they just come to some type of licensing agreement.

Quote

Blocking Patent

A patent held by a third party that blocks commercial exploitation of a first patent, i.e., an essential patent vis-à-vis the invention in the first patent. The usual solution is for both patent-holders to agree to a cross license, often royalty-free. Frequently, when a company is faced with the risk that a competitor will secure a pioneer patent (because it has, for instance, seen the published application) it will seek to obtain blocking patents on essential improvements.

http://www.ipglossary.com/glossary/blocking-patent/

[kye]

As the owner of an XC10 I find these topics fascinating.

This forum (and most of the internet) completely ridiculed the first two versions of this camera, yet Canon claim they sold more than they were anticipating and the Cinematography Database YT channel seems to run into them on professional sets on a semi-regular basis.  This leads me to believe that the internet doesn't understand the design brief and associated tradeoffs of this camera.

My impression is that it was designed to capture footage in certain situations (eg, one-operator ENG, B-Roll, BTS, or as a professional GoPro alternative) that was indistinguishable from the footage from larger cameras - which means that we might be seeing shots from it in professional releases and just not know it.  If professional film sets can include GoPro footage in feature films then they sure as hell can hide XC10/15 footage.

If this is the case then how can anyone on the internet talk with any authority when according to the above they got the first two versions so wrong?

[mercer]

Well, despite this forum’s name, there is an anti-Canon bias running rampant on these pages. But if you go on Instagram, you will see a slew of Canon video users. If you go to trade shows, you will see Canon cameras working the show floor. If you attend weddings, the lion’s share of videographers use Canon. If you follow vlogs, the majority are shot with Canon. Only in forums like this is Canon a bad word. With working professionals, Canon cameras are workhorses.

@kye

[Damphousse]

16 minutes ago, kye said:

If this is the case then how can anyone on the internet talk with any authority when according to the above they got the first two versions so wrong?

Not surprising.  I've pointed out ludicrous things numerous times on this forum.  I refer you to just about any NX1 fanboi thread.  Nice camera but I predicted its demise well in advance... and even now when it is dead people still keep talking about a second coming.

Size of the hybrid market is also constantly way over estimated.  I've discussed this numerous times, but some people just want to believe the majority of people are just itching to ditch their iphone and get a hybrid mirrorless camera, a third party lens adapter, and spend hours trolling ebay for vintage glass.

I could go on and on.  People figure out what they like and then extrapolate a nutty theory from that.

[kye]

15 minutes ago, Damphousse said:

People figure out what they like and then extrapolate a nutty theory from that.

Lol, well said.  We all experience life from our own perspectives.

I think Total Recall was an interesting exploration of the idea of having a holiday from yourself

[andrgl]

26 minutes ago, Damphousse said:

I could go on and on.  People figure out what they like and then extrapolate a nutty theory from that.

lol the irony

 

On topic: what's the usual lag between a canon patent and an actual release?

[hijodeibn]

21 minutes ago, Damphousse said:

Not surprising.  I've pointed out ludicrous things numerous times on this forum.  I refer you to just about any NX1 fanboi thread.  Nice camera but I predicted its demise well in advance... and even now when it is dead people still keep talking about a second coming.

I hear about the second coming for decades.....guess what?......never going to happen.

And the masses still buying Canons like hot cakes......

[Kisaha]

7 hours ago, Damphousse said:

Not surprising.  I've pointed out ludicrous things numerous times on this forum.  I refer you to just about any NX1 fanboi thread.  Nice camera but I predicted its demise well in advance... and even now when it is dead people still keep talking about a second coming.

Size of the hybrid market is also constantly way over estimated.  I've discussed this numerous times, but some people just want to believe the majority of people are just itching to ditch their iphone and get a hybrid mirrorless camera, a third party lens adapter, and spend hours trolling ebay for vintage glass.

I could go on and on.  People figure out what they like and then extrapolate a nutty theory from that.

How is the NX1 relevant to anything here? You do realize that it is the only camera of 2014 that still have some value in the used market, and many happy users, which you call "fanboi"s for no reason at all. The other options back then were the 7D and the GH4.

Very unfair comment of a subject you do not know about.

[Mokara]

20 hours ago, mercer said:

If there’s a market for it, Canon will make it. Like every other company, Canon exists to make a profit.

You don't understand why companies patent stuff. It is not only to protect a product, most of it is to make it difficult for other people to compete with you. You lay down a minefield, and if there are enough mines then it becomes difficult for them to make a product that is competitive with yours.

That is why companies like Canon or Apple file thousands of patents every year. It is not so they can include that stuff in products, it is to make it hard for OTHER people to make competing products.

I do this for a living. I am just telling you how it works, take it or leave it *shrug*.

[Mokara]

19 hours ago, kye said:

As the owner of an XC10 I find these topics fascinating.

This forum (and most of the internet) completely ridiculed the first two versions of this camera, yet Canon claim they sold more than they were anticipating and the Cinematography Database YT channel seems to run into them on professional sets on a semi-regular basis.  This leads me to believe that the internet doesn't understand the design brief and associated tradeoffs of this camera.

My impression is that it was designed to capture footage in certain situations (eg, one-operator ENG, B-Roll, BTS, or as a professional GoPro alternative) that was indistinguishable from the footage from larger cameras - which means that we might be seeing shots from it in professional releases and just not know it.  If professional film sets can include GoPro footage in feature films then they sure as hell can hide XC10/15 footage.

If this is the case then how can anyone on the internet talk with any authority when according to the above they got the first two versions so wrong?

Well, it has a smaller and different sensor, with reduced processor capability, so there is no way that it is "indistinguishable from the footage from larger cameras".

Pretty unlikely that it is being used as a "GoPro alternative". 

Selling "more than they were anticipating" means nothing, everyone says that about their products. If you were expecting to sell 1000 and sold 2000 instead, you would be wildly exceeding your expectations but still only selling trivial amounts.

Something like the XC10 is essentially a different form factor of existing camcorders of the more traditional type, such as the XA series. It replaces them to some extent, and cannibalizes the market that exists for that sort of camera since the XA and older XF don't have 4K. I expect that with the 4K versions of the XA (XF405 and related cameras) coming out, XC sales will drop since it's form factor is not ideal for the application those cameras generally service.

As far as Canon are concerned, for video shooting their products are going to fall out as (1) Cxxx cameras for tripod based shooting; (2) XF405 and related cameras for professional R&G/event applications; and (3) general purpose MILCs (when they finally arrive) for consumers. Oddballs like the XC cameras are going to disappear since they will no longer be necessary.

XC cameras were originally marketed as "hybrids" for people such as news crews, but when real hybrids arrive, what would be the point of having something like the XC? It was just a stopgap measure to plug a gaping hole in Canon's competitive lineup, but in a year or two that hole will mostly be gone. Why would anyone need an XC after that?

[mercer]

1 hour ago, Mokara said:

You don't understand why companies patent stuff. It is not only to protect a product, most of it is to make it difficult for other people to compete with you. You lay down a minefield, and if there are enough mines then it becomes difficult for them to make a product that is competitive with yours.

That is why companies like Canon or Apple file thousands of patents every year. It is not so they can include that stuff in products, it is to make it hard for OTHER people to make competing products.

I do this for a living. I am just telling you how it works, take it or leave it *shrug*.

Trust me, I understand it and I don’t see how anything I have written disputes your comments? Although this practice has been around since Edison’s time, if a product has potential to make money, the company will invest the R&D into that product.

[kye]

3 hours ago, Mokara said:

Well, it has a smaller and different sensor, with reduced processor capability, so there is no way that it is "indistinguishable from the footage from larger cameras".

Really?

Apart from trying to get shallow depth-of-field (which of course a smaller sensor can't do as well) what else would you say would give it away?

This is an important question because if there isn't anything then potentially every small aperture shot on every show shot on Canon could be the XC10 and you would never know.

If your set is shooting on Canon, using CFast cards with C-Log, and you had an external car shot (which is going to have deep depth of field) then why would you put a C300 on there instead of a camera that is wildly cheaper?  or if you're shooting in 4K on a C200 then what would you put in there that can shoot 4K?

You only have to look at a series of posts like this from the Hurlblog (http://www.thehurlblog.com/cinematography-turning-your-gopro-hero-3/) to see what kind of lengths they had to go to to make a GoPro cinematic.  Would it have been cheaper just to buy an XC10, ND filter, and put it in Shutter Priority mode?  You can bet your ass it would have been.  

If you're doing anything where there is a danger of wrecking a camera then chances are the cost of the shot far exceeds the damage done to the camera, and the savings in post of not having to grade some other completely unsuitable camera would be huge.  Besides, the fact they used a GoPro in a movie all the more reinforces that an XC10 would be able to be hidden amongst footage from better cameras.  Unless you think that an XC10 isn't better quality footage than a GoPro?  In which case, well done for reading this far, or owning a computer, or being able to ...  you know..  type and stuff.

And unless there's something else that a smaller sensor can't do except shallow DOF, "go and get me B-Roll of the sunset and people playing on the beach" would be a pretty reasonable gig for a camera like this.

I was never making the argument that the XC10 is the best camera in the world (it's definitely not) - it was this forum that concluded that it could never be used professionally for any paid work (to paraphrase one of the posts in the original thread).  

I still maintain that the people on this forum got it horribly wrong the first time around, and so far you haven't provided any counter-arguments or evidence to the contrary.

4 hours ago, Mokara said:

YIt is not only to protect a product, most of it is to make it difficult for other people to compete with you. You lay down a minefield, and if there are enough mines then it becomes difficult for them to make a product that is competitive with yours.

I definitely agree with this.

I would imagine that there is also an element of 'fishing' going on, in case you accidentally patent something that ends up being useful that you can get some royalties on down the track?

[Kisaha]

This is a great idea of a camera. If they put an APS-C sensor, Eos M mount and touch screen DPAF, I would pay 3.5K euros instantly, but not today when I can get a used C100mkII for similar money.

[Brian Caldwell]

I haven't carefully read every post in this thread, but everyone keeps incorrectly referring to the document in the first post as a "patent", when it is in fact only a published patent application.  Patent applications aren't officially issued patents, and normally haven't even been reviewed by an examiner when they are published.

 

[kidzrevil]

An xc10 with an interchangeable mount was my dream. The ability to use fast prime lenses over that built in lens with canon log would be amazing. This is exciting news indeed

[Kisaha]

https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/tech/tech3335_s17.pdf

XC10 Tier 1 HD and Tier 2 UHD with noise at Tier 1, better than most!

If the XC10 was an ILC and had a 10 bit codec would be Tier 1 UHD eligible!