Sony USA Manager Mark Weir explains why the a7rII can’t do 10bit and why it has no flip screen.

[maxmizer]

http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sony-usa-manager-mark-weir-explains-why-the-a7rii-cant-do-10bit-and-why-it-has-not-flip-screens/

incredible!

[agolex]

Revolutionary insights!

[kaylee]

2) Why the A7rII doesn’t record 10bit video:
The inability to shoot 10-bit is because of the processor. 

 

 

[Greg Padgett]

Here's what I think. I think the quest to make everything tiny is making for too many compromises.

I'd rather lug around a bigger camera that does what I want without fuss.

[Marco Tecno]

Interesting, I'm sure the cpu inside the nx1 is much more powerful, yet it is also limited to 8bit. I'd like to know why. I think it's a sw thing or related to the h.265 hw encoder.

[Cinegain]

Here's what I think. I think the quest to make everything tiny is making for too many compromises.

I'd rather lug around a bigger camera that does what I want without fuss.

I'd be up for a A7000 with GH4/NX1 form factor that just nails it.

[TheRenaissanceMan]

Does anyone else find it hilarious that he straight up admits Panasonic's processor kicks the Bionz X's ass?

[wolf33d]

Imagine 5 years from now ? 
 

Clean 4K at 240 fps in 10 bits, fully stabilized 16 stop DR sensor, with clean 100k ISO. 

You guys have GAS and are waiting for the new A7000, 5DIV or one of those stuff. Me I am waiting for A7R V, the real king. Not purchasing a camera until then. No way I shoot this silly 4K24fps at non-clean 12800 ISO, or shoot stills at 14 DR stops only.  

[shooter]

Imagine 5 years from now ? 
 

Clean 4K at 240 fps in 10 bits, fully stabilized 16 stop DR sensor, with clean 100k ISO. 

You guys have GAS and are waiting for the new A7000, 5DIV or one of those stuff. Me I am waiting for A7R V, the real king. Not purchasing a camera until then. No way I shoot this silly 4K24fps at non-clean 12800 ISO, or shoot stills at 14 DR stops only.  

Have you taken your medicine today? Or is it only cheap humor?

[jgharding]

By "the processor can't" they of course mean "we didn't design it to" or "because we don't want it to yet".

bit depth is a separating factor for market sectors, design of processors is not 'out of their hands', it is part of the segmentation of product lines.

[Andrew Reid]

Yet Blackmagic can do 10bit for a quarter of the price of an A7R II with the Pocket Cinema Camera and Micro.

Yet GH4 has 10bit 4K HDMI output, albeit seemingly unable to make much noticeable difference to image quality.

So I'm not really too appreciative of Sony's excuses.

JG is right, they left it out on purpose to segment products. They are free to do that, so just tell us. Don't make silly excuses!

As for a GH4 style flip screen making the body too thick - that's a load of tosh. The E-M5 II has one and is a slimmer body with weather sealing. GH4 is not really bigger, not in any meaningful way. Flip screen for selfies is important to consumer market and A7R II is a consumer camera so I hope they change this in future.

[cantsin]

My bet is: 10bit will only arrive for the masses once the Rec2020-10bit-HEVC standard for UHD television and BluRay disks becomes standard for consumer electronics. Then there will be cheap, small and low-heat encoder/decoder chips for 10bit-Rec2020-HEVC, in any media playing device from smartphones to Smart TVs to cameras. Adding flat log profiles for them will simply be a matter of firmware development. 

Yes, the Blackmagic Pocket has 10 Bit today, thanks to Blackmagic's in-house recorder chip technology originally developed for the HyperDeck. But for a 1" chip camera (the same sensor size as the RX100), it's a relatively massive camera, as big as an A5100 body and as heavy as an A7 body, despite its simplified functionality as an 2MP video-only camera with comparatively "dumb" electronics. This body bulk was necessary for cooling the camera.

[tugela]

Interesting, I'm sure the cpu inside the nx1 is much more powerful, yet it is also limited to 8bit. I'd like to know why. I think it's a sw thing or related to the h.265 hw encoder.

Probably the data bit width is defined by the internal register structure of the processor. It isn't really a question of how fast the processor is, but the width of the data bus being read off the processor. Presumably Sony and Samsung use conventional 8 bit structures, while Panasonic uses 10 bits.

If that is the case it is not something that can be changed by firmware but would require the next generation of processor with the appropriate hardware.

[jax_rox]

By "the processor can't" they of course mean "we didn't design it to" or "because we don't want it to yet".

bit depth is a separating factor for market sectors, design of processors is not 'out of their hands', it is part of the segmentation of product lines.

 

Yet Blackmagic can do 10bit for a quarter of the price of an A7R II with the Pocket Cinema Camera and Micro.

Yet GH4 has 10bit 4K HDMI output, albeit seemingly unable to make much noticeable difference to image quality.

So I'm not really too appreciative of Sony's excuses.

JG is right, they left it out on purpose to segment products. They are free to do that, so just tell us. Don't make silly excuses!

As for a GH4 style flip screen making the body too thick - that's a load of tosh. The E-M5 II has one and is a slimmer body with weather sealing. GH4 is not really bigger, not in any meaningful way. Flip screen for selfies is important to consumer market and A7R II is a consumer camera so I hope they change this in future.

The GH4 has a sensor that is less than half the size of the A7 line, and the Blackmagic's is even smaller. In addition, the GH4's body is a lot bigger than the Sony, and the Blackmagic starts overheating after only 5-7 minutes of continuous shooting (in ProRes 1080p, let alone 17 minute mark of 4K that the a7rii tends to get to).

Neither the Blackmagic or GH4 have on-sensor stabilisation. 

The E-m5 II actually has more space taken up on the left side for the hinge. 

 

I love how people criticise manufacturers on here because they didn't take a competing camera from a different manufacturer and simply put all the features they want in it. OH, and without taking 5 minutes to stop and actually think about the physics of it.

You complain because the A7rII is packing so much into such a tiny package that you can only shoot continuously for about 17+ minutes at 4k before it overheats - and then complain because it doesn't do more.

[TheRenaissanceMan]

In addition, the GH4's body is a lot bigger than the Sony

Nearly identical, actually. The biggest difference is in depth, due to the GH4's deeper, more comfortable grip.
http://camerasize.com/compare/#381,624

the Blackmagic starts overheating after only 5-7 minutes of continuous shooting (in ProRes 1080p, let alone 17 minute mark of 4K that the a7rii tends to get to).

That's an outright lie. The Blackmagic cameras use active thermoelectric cooling to keep their sensors at peak performance and prevent stopping for cool-downs. In fact, this is one of the reasons they're such battery hogs--that cooling system sucks a ton of juice. 
 

 

Neither the Blackmagic or GH4 have on-sensor stabilisation. 

Clearly a smart engineering decision, since neither camera has heat management issues. That stabilization sucks compared to Olympus'--and even most lens-based stabilizers--anyway. Those cameras are also less than half the price of the A7R II. 
 

The E-m5 II actually has more space taken up on the left side for the hinge. 

The E-M5 II has a 2.7mm increase in width, 3.9mm decrease in depth from the original. Clearly the articulating screen isn't adding bulk. 
 

I love how people criticise manufacturers on here because they didn't take a competing camera from a different manufacturer and simply put all the features they want in it.

No, we're criticizing them because they can't match their competitors in basic areas, like bit depth, heat management, AF performance, battery life, stills compression, color science, IS performance, and general ergonomics. Last time I checked, falling behind your competitors was a valid reason to criticize a company. 
 

OH, and without taking 5 minutes to stop and actually think about the physics of it.

It's not my job to think about the physics of it. It's theirs. And if they can't think about it long enough to come up with solutions instead of ways to buff their spec sheets, they're going to get this reaction next time, too. 
 

You complain because the A7rII is packing so much into such a tiny package that you can only shoot continuously for about 17+ minutes at 4k before it overheats - and then complain because it doesn't do more.

Yes, we are complaining that the headline feature of the camera (4K internal) craps out in 15 minutes. Too bad they didn't manage to pack in a proper heatsink, an intuitive UI, or a battery that lasts more than an hour and a half. 

[jax_rox]

Nearly identical, actually. The biggest difference is in depth, due to the GH4's deeper, more comfortable grip.
http://camerasize.com/compare/#381,624

The GH4 is much deeper and heftier (having used both cameras), doesn't have room taken up inside its body for IBIS, and it's sensor is less than half the size. If the Sony A7rII had a 4/3" sensor, I'm sure it would be a lot easier to implement more features - or at least keep it from overheating at 4k.

That's an outright lie. The Blackmagic cameras use active thermoelectric cooling to keep their sensors at peak performance and prevent stopping for cool-downs. In fact, this is one of the reasons they're such battery hogs--that cooling system sucks a ton of juice. 

I actually don't care about what it technically has or doesn't have. I've used all the cameras mentioned here, and I can tell you that the Blackmagic is the worst of all of them for overheating. 

I was forced to attempt to shoot a doco with the pocket as production wouldn't spring for anything else, and we needed a number of cameras. Apart from it being the totally wrong form factor for shooting when not on a tripod... The thing would heat up insanely.

 

The E-M5 II has a 2.7mm increase in width, 3.9mm decrease in depth from the original. Clearly the articulating screen isn't adding bulk. 

So it is marginally bigger. I still don't really get this one - Sony made a design decision based on how big they want their screen to be, where they want it, and decided they didn't want even a small amount of extra bulk, or alternately even a small reduction in screen size.

I just don't understand how this is a 'big problem'. The screen tilts instead of flipping out - if that feature is THE killer feature you need to have, then this camera isn't for you..?

No, we're criticizing them because they can't match their competitors in basic areas, like bit depth, heat management, AF performance, battery life, stills compression, color science, IS performance, and general ergonomics. Last time I checked, falling behind your competitors was a valid reason to criticize a company. 

Except that's an amalgamation of features from a number of different camera companies. There isn't a single camera in even a similar price range that offers 10-bit 4k HDMI out, internal 4k 8-bit 4:2:0, Dual-pixel AF, super battery life, uncompressed raw stills, colour science as good as Canon (another thing I don't understand), on-sensor stabilisation as good as an Olympus and the ergonomics of a GH4 - all with a full frame sensor.

You can say 'I wish the IBIS was as good as Olympus,' you can say 'I wish the colour science was as great as Canon,' you can say 'I wish the battery life was better,' you can say 'I wish it had 10-bit.' 

You can say all those things seperately. You can't say 'this camera is awful/nowhere near as good as it could be because Canon has better colour science, better AF, and better battery life, Olympus has better IBIS, the GH4 has 4k that doesn't overheat and the Blackmagic has internal 10-bit ProRes, so why is it that the Sony doesn't have every single one of these features??'

Especially when most of the cameras you're talking about have sensors that are less than half the size, in bodies that are just as big, if not bigger than that of the a7rII (with the exception of the Blackmagic - but again, its battery life is awful, heats up a lot, its sensor is tiny and it doesn't do 4k).

 

It's not my job to think about the physics of it. It's theirs. And if they can't think about it long enough to come up with solutions instead of ways to buff their spec sheets, they're going to get this reaction next time, too.

Are you seriously suggesting that there shouldn't be a camera on the market at the moment because none of them are perfect? Therefore, if a camera isn't perfect (or at least perfect to your specifications), then there's no point in making any cameras until it's physically possible to do so?

Or are you suggesting that Sony should make a camera that fulfills all your expectations and specifications, but is a big black box that doesn't have vast market appeal because it's ugly, big and heavy...?

It's funny how some people forget that camera manufacturers aren't making cameras specifically for YOU

Yes, we are complaining that the headline feature of the camera (4K internal) craps out in 15 minutes. Too bad they didn't manage to pack in a proper heatsink, an intuitive UI, or a battery that lasts more than an hour and a half. 

I just looked on the Sony store website and the major  features listed before internal 4k were:

-42.4 megapixel backlit sensor (keep in mind that the Sony website lists this as 'Digital E-mount 42.4 Mega Pixel Camera Body' rather than '4k internal Camera body')
-Fast Hybrid AF system with 399-point wide focal plane phase-detection AF coverage for sharp focus
-5-axis image stabilisation reduces blur for stills and movies - making every shot crystal clear
-Experience high sensitivity of up to ISO 102400*3 with low-noise performance and wide dynamic range

EVen on the Sony Digital Imagine global website, it lists these before internal 4k:
-New back-illuminated full-frame CMOS sensor
-High-speed BIONZ XTMimage processing engine
-All FE lenses maximize resolution

I appreciate for you that the headline feature may be internal 4k, but for Sony, it's big feature #5 in a long list. It's not all that long ago that Canon cameras crapped out in the same way simply recording HD. My T2i which was bought for the sole purpose of shooting video would overheat pretty easily. In certain conditions, it would start overheating before it reached it's 12 minute limit, especially if it had been on for a little while. That's HD! And everyone praised Canon for how great they were, and how great the video was, and how the overheating and time limit was annoying, but you could work around it and it was worth working around.

Now Sony brings out internal 4k with incredible quality, Slog in XAVC-s, coupled with everything else that this camera offers and it's some sort of travesty because under certain conditions, the camera sometimes overheats when shooting 4k.

Please.

Not that long ago, many people including myself were suggesting it was going to be unlikely that Sony would even have internal 4k in the first place in this camera. 

If it's really that much of a killer, wait til the A7sII