Sony Launches F65 CineAlta Camera (http://www.dvinfo.net/news/sony-launches-f65-cinealta-camera.html)

It turns out Sony, has priced very competitive it's latest offering, and gave Red a run for her money...

2011 is looking like the year of Sony for sure...

Not sure - given the price - if Sony will be able to make inroads on RED or Alexa, but more is always better.

Yep, never sure about RED telegraphing their intentions, I remember a few years ago when someone broke in and stole their prototype but .. if you've got a product site going, you have to say something.

Cheers.

And a Easter egg as well. They give the $20 000 on board recorder for free, if you order before the end of the year.

I am wondering, if there is going to be a price reduction to the F35 and F23, as they are highly overpriced compared to the newer camera. Unless of course Sony thinks that they can justify their price because of the different image sensor (they sport CCD).

Very interesting. I guess they're taking it head to head with the Alexa. It never ceases to amaze me how fast these technologies (and economies of scale) are moving these days.

2011
Not sure - given the price - if Sony will be able to make inroads on RED or Alexa, but more is always better.

Depends on the market, but Sony seems to be playing the resolution game with RED talking about true 4k compared to Bayer 4K. In the end It'll depend on what the pictures look like and how well the workflow fits into the TV world.

Not only true 4K to Bayer 4K, but also uncompressed Raw to compressed Raw. On specs at least the Sony camera is very impressive. The only real advantage of Epic is its small size. Very important in 3d, but for most occasions as well.

Digging a little in the recorder's nomenclature, I discovered the following:

"The SR-R4 records 4K Double Bayer 16-bit RAW data and 2K RAW high frame rate data for the highest quality uncompressed recordings."

Does anybody know what "4K double Bayer" means?

I'm pretty sure that the 4K RAW stream is lightly compressed.

Pretty cool stuff, but as we all know proof is in the tasting.... Will be great to see some images.

Does anybody know what "4K double Bayer" means?

It could be the way the 8k sensor is arranged with seemingly a zig zag pattern and twice as many green pixels than a traditional 5k Bayer arrangement... Perhaps also there could be a touch of marketing speak in the term. Although, perhaps the uncompressed RAW is more for theatrical productions than television.

Reports from people that have seen the images are good and the optional mechanical shutter seems to give a smoothness to the 24 fps motion

There is a nifty bit rate calculator:
Video bitrate calculator | web.forret.com (http://web.forret.com/tools/video_fps.asp)
Uncompressed 4K 16bit RGB 444 24p is less than 5.5Gbps (memory pack limit) so I guess they really mean uncompressed 4K.
Engadget says that it has a19GBps data rate, but they probably refer to full 8K uncompressed

Brian, there is HDCAM SR mode in the recorder probably aimed for tv drama.

If you consider that Gemini costs $6K for unc. HD then Sony very reasonably charges 3X money ($20k) for more than 4X data rate.
Even the price difference between F65 and Epic is reasonable, considering the difference in specs.

Its very ironic, that after so many years of 4K bragging from Red, it's Sony that will introduce first, a true 4K camera (epic-M is a beta testing model).

Lies, bald-faced lies, and marketing. Rotate your sensor 45 degrees and watch as the magic of Marketing turns 5K into 8K! For their next camera, maybe Sony will turn 8K into 13K by rotating it back.

There is a nifty bit rate calculator:
Video bitrate calculator | web.forret.com (http://web.forret.com/tools/video_fps.asp)
Uncompressed 4K 16bit RGB 444 24p is less than 5.5Gbps (memory pack limit) so I guess they really mean uncompressed 4K.
Engadget says that it has a19GBps data rate, but they probably refer to full 8K uncompressed

...

I'm not sure how to characterize in terms of # of K the RAW steam "off the sensor." But an engineer from Sony mentioned after the presentation that the RAW data is lightly compressed b/c otherwise its bandwidth would be too great. He also said that compression works better on RAW data than it does on RGB.

Lies, bald-faced lies, and marketing. Rotate your sensor 45 degrees and watch as the magic of Marketing turns 5K into 8K! For their next camera, maybe Sony will turn 8K into 13K by rotating it back.

The RED Epic has 13.1 megapixels compared to 20 megapixels claimed on the F65, so there appears to be more.packed in compared to the Epic. Whether are any real advantages to Sony's angled arrangement in practise remains to be seen.

Lies, bald-faced lies, and marketing. Rotate your sensor 45 degrees and watch as the magic of Marketing turns 5K into 8K! For their next camera, maybe Sony will turn 8K into 13K by rotating it back.

So can you expalin how rotating 5K 45 degrees creates a 20 million pixel sensor?

The pixel count is what it is. Writing "Lies, bald-faced lies, and marketing" doesn't seem very accurate.

So can you expalin how rotating 5K 45 degrees creates a 20 million pixel sensor?


Look, it's very simple. You just cannot get 8K of resolution from a 20 MP 16:9 sensor. The only way to do it is with 38 MP.


The pixel count is what it is.


Exactly. And the pixel count sure doesn't equate to 8K. (Unless the fabric of spacetime has been warped by a Sony Marketing Distortion Field.)

They never claimed F65 has 8K resolution. Sony refers the sensor as 8K, but has always claimed the sensor provides 4K of resolution.

Sony hasn't been lying to anyone.

Look, it's very simple. You just cannot get 8K of resolution from a 20 MP 16:9 sensor. The only way to do it is with 38 MP.

I haven't seen Sony claim 8K resolution, only 4k.

They never claimed F65 has 8K resolution. Sony refers the sensor as 8K, but has always claimed the sensor provides 4K of resolution.

Sony hasn't been lying to anyone.

http://pro.sony.com/bbsccms/assets/files/show/highend/includes/F65_Camera_CameraPDF.pdf

"The F65 can also output 16-bit linear RAW, which preserves all the information obtained from every photosite on the image sensor—up to 8K of resolution."

"Compared to a conventional 4K sensor, Sony’s F65 has an 8K grid with twice the number of photosites. It’s a much finer sampling grid."

"Your choice of resolution: gloriously supersampled HD, supersampled 2K, true 4K or even 8K."

I haven't seen Sony claim 8K resolution, only 4k.

Now you've seen it.

They say "true 4k", which I'd take to be the actual resolution. The 8k being the Bayer, which I'd take to be the same term as used by RED, so you just might at push manage 5k or 6k depending on how you de Bayer the data..

In the end, it's a camera for 4k productions and I don't think anyone is really thinking otherwise. plus it's the 4k that's being pushed by Sony their releases. So far, I haven't seen any mention of how you can record the 8k, only the 4k.

They say "true 4k", which I'd take to be the actual resolution. The 8k being the Bayer

But that's just it: the 8K is not Bayer. If it was, then it would be a 38 MP sensor, and it would be capable of the same resolution as a sensor with 8192 pixels (8K) along one of the sides. In this case, the 8K is just a fabrication with no basis in reality. Sony could have called it 10K or 20K and the number would have the same relationship to their camera, i.e., none.

The cake is a lie. If you do not pass 38 MP, then you do not collect 8K. :)


The 8k being the Bayer, which I'd take to be the same term as used by RED, so you just might at push manage 5k or 6k depending on how you de Bayer the data.


First, these are not the same at all. RED says they have a 13.8 MP sensor that is 5K. It is literally 5120 pixels accross. So their numbers have a basis in reality because it is the actual number of pixels (or "photosites", as Sony's Marketing likes to call them), not something made up.

Second, the difference between pixel count and measured resolution has (almost) nothing to do with de-Bayering. It has to do with aliasing and the OLPF, for which the trade-off same for *every* digital camera, whether it's 3-chip, Bayer, RGB CFA, or Foveon.

For example, you can build a 1.9K (HD) 3-chip camera with 1.9K of measured resolution, but has very bad aliasing artifacts. Or you could build a 1.9K 3-chip that measures only 1.5K and has very few aliasing artifacts.

Same exact thing with Bayer. The only difference is that you can "only" get a maximum of 1.8K from a 1.9K Bayer, because you lose about 6% to the de-Bayer.

Video cameras have a long and (in-)glorious history of playing fast and loose with aliasing, many of them measuring 85 or 90% and allowing a ton of aliasing through.

RED could have done the same thing, but they chose to attempt a film-style aesthetic, which means fewer aliasing artifacts. So instead of allowing 94% or 85% through like some video cameras do, they knocked it down to about 78%. That was completely voluntary, as they could have skipped all the effort and expense of an OLPF, which would have given them a measured 4.7K resolution from their 5K sensor. But then it would have had a "video" look to it (aliasing) like most other video cameras.

Sony are not trying for a 8k camera, there's currently no market worth talking about for an 8k camera, they're talking about; “The ability to shoot content in true native 4K resolution". The Sony F35 has a 12.4 mega pixel sensor, but no one claims it's a 4k camera, it's 1080p HD,

The use of "resolution" in that pdf is rather loose, but they're referring to oversampling so that they can say "The advantage here is ability to derive 4K, 2K, HD from 16-bit linear RAW", They don;t claim they're giving you 8k resolution from the camera only "true 4K".

I think RED were a lot more loose with their "4K" in the past than Sony.are with this description of deriving 4k.

The use of "resolution" in that pdf is rather loose,

What would happen if Canon went around here saying things like "The Canon XH-A1 camcorder can also output up to 3K of resolution", "Compared to a conventional 1440x1080 sensor, the XH-A1 has a 3K grid with twice the number of photosites", "Your choice of resolution: gloriously supersampled HDV or even 3K".

I hope people would describe such claims for what they are: nonsense. There's nothing about the XH-A1 that has anything to do with 3K whatsoever. Saying it has 3K resolution goes beyond just being "loose" with resolution. In the same way, Sony's F65 does not have 8K of pixels, nor could it ever measure that much resolution.


I think RED were a lot more loose with their "4K" in the past than Sony.are with this description of deriving 4k.

Is that because the RED ONE's "4K" was not generated by oversampling a higher resolution? Or because Bayer only measures full resolution in luma, and somewhat less in chroma? Or because the measured resolution (3.2K) is less than the "4K"? All of the above?

http://pro.sony.com/bbsccms/assets/files/show/highend/includes/F65_Camera_CameraPDF.pdf

"The F65 can also output 16-bit linear RAW, which preserves all the information obtained from every photosite on the image sensor—up to 8K of resolution."

This is true. But it's not resolution of equal chroma values it's resolution that is mosaiced. The RAW data has 8K of resolution, but the RAW data is not an image of RGB values for each pixel.Think I'm parsing words? Well here's the very next sentence, "This gives you phenomenal ability to demosaic, adjust grayscale, color correct, composite and even re-frame the image in post. The advantage here is ability to derive 4K, 2K, HD from 16-bit linear RAW." No mention of an 8K IMAGE.

"Compared to a conventional 4K sensor, Sony’s F65 has an 8K grid with twice the number of photosites. It’s a much finer sampling grid."

This is true. The pixel density is greater, hence the pixels are smaller


"Your choice of resolution: gloriously supersampled HD, supersampled 2K, true 4K or even 8K."

Sony is saying that HD and 2K would be supersampled. 4K is the native resolution and above 4K up to even 8K would be interpolated. Interpolation schemes are used all the time. Pixel shifting and demosaicing are all forms of interpolation that increase resolution.

Is not saying the image is 8K.


Now you've seen it.

I've seen it misrepresented.


Daniel,

You are freaking out about absolutely nothing. Sony is not lying. I've been to the Sony event at the DGA. Sony never claimed even once that the F65 has 8K of resolution. They clearly stated that their camera is a true 4K image provider. That's all they claimed.

And if you unbiasedly read the brief instead of just taking pieces out of context, you'll see that that's the theme that runs through out the PDF "the F65 is real, true 4K image resolution camera"-- not that it's an 8K image resolution camera. And right in the middle of the brouchure, pages 4 and 5 have diagrams explaining why the F65 is "true 4K," not why it is true 8K.

And your claim that it's really 5K rotated 45 degrees is just not true. You can't get 20 million pixels out of 5K rotated.

The RAW data has 8K of resolution,


You are mistaken. The raw data has nothing even close to that.


4K is the native resolution and above 4K up to even 8K would be interpolated.


Nothing wrong with "inteprolating" whatever they want from a sensor, but to take 20 MP and double the pixel count (38 MP = 8K) through "interpolation" does not justify saying "outputs up to 8K of resolution" or "Your choice of resolution: ... 8K".

If I take a 1920x1080 file and "interpolate" it up to twice the pixel count (4.14 MP, or 2.65K), can I say the camera "outputs up to 2.65K of resolution" or "Your choice of resolution: HD, 2.65K"?


Sony never claimed even once that the F65 has 8K of resolution.


It's unfortunate they weren't also that accurate in their brochure, which says, literally, "8K of resolution". As in, "The F65 can also output [...] up to 8K of resolution". I can also interpolate a 20 MP raw file up to 8K, 12K, or 20K.


And your claim that it's really 5K rotated 45 degrees is just not true. You can't get 20 million pixels out of 5K rotated.

Yes, you're right. I was mistaken. A 20 MP 16:9 sensor using standard Bayer would be 6K, not 5K. But that's still a far cry from 38 MP.

Here are some earlier announcement details: "8K sensor: 8768 x 2324 pixel single CMOS sensor (that’s 20.4 Megapixels) — Super35 3-perf size, 16-bit RAW output, 16:8:8" New Sony Camera: 4K and Beyond | Film and Digital Times: News (http://www.fdtimes.com/news/sony/new-sony-camera-4k-and-beyond/)

I don't think anyone else I've read to date is considering the F65 an 8k camera, all the discussion is about 4k. Sony would only be pulling a fast one of they said this is the big new 8k camera, all their talk is about it giving you 4k and the wide colour gamut, not about allowing you to shoot 8k.

There is an element of our sensor is bigger than your sensor with the camera manufacturers' marketing, but they're all producing 4k at the end of the day, The next interesting thing will be when Arri brings out a camera for 4k, Aaton have their take on one,

Here are some earlier announcement details: "8K sensor: 8768 x 2324 pixel single CMOS sensor (that’s 20.4 Megapixels) — Super35 3-perf size,


Something doesn't add up there. The pixel dimensions give an aspect ratio of 3.8:1, but Super35 3-perf is only 1.78:1.


I don't think anyone else I've read to date is considering the F65 an 8k camera, all the discussion is about 4k. Sony would only be pulling a fast one of they said this is the big new 8k camera, all their talk is about it giving you 4k and the wide colour gamut, not about allowing you to shoot 8k.


Agreed.

Perhaps the "3.8" is part of an arrangement that Sony has come up with that some how matches in with this: "The F65 adheres to the 1.9:1 aspect ratio of the DCI". Certainly it's not a standard figure that you'd expect from a normal Bayer arrangement. Perhaps part of what they term a "unique Double Bayer pixel orientation"

Perhaps the "3.8" is part of an arrangement that Sony has come up with that some how matches in with this: "The F65 adheres to the 1.9:1 aspect ratio of the DCI".

Hm - maybe the raw pixel count is more similar to a 6K 1:9 Bayer: 6144x3234 = 1:9.

Effectively that may be similar, although from their figures Sony seem to be overlaying two sets, perhaps something that allows what JVC did on the GY-HD100 although using a different method.

Lots for speculation, but I expect time will reveal more.

Sony seem to be putting a lot of R & D into CMOS.

Cinescopophilia Cine Camera Gear Blog News For Filmmakers (http://cinescopophilia.com/sony-building-super-reality-sensor-that-surpasses-human-vision/)

Sony seem to be putting a lot of R & D into CMOS.

Indeed. At their recent semiconductor business meeting (Sony Global - Semiconductor Business Meeting 2011 (http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/info/Semiconductor/2011/index.html)), they basically said "We pwned CCD, now we're gonna pwn CMOS." And from what I've seen so far, they are definitely bringing their A game. They've always made nice digicam and camcorder sensors, but their new CMOS sensors are really quite amazing. The chip they made for Nikon's D7000 a year ago is really quite amazing -- almost 14 stops of dynamic range. Canon, in contrast, hasn't improved their DSLR dynamic range very much at all in the last decade -- their newest chips are still plagued by the same pattern noise problem that existed in the original D30. 9 stops vs 14 stops is a huge difference (like slide vs print film).

I just hope that Canon wont give up entirely and close their entire sensor operation and start buying Sony chips. The more competition the better, but so far, Sony is just crushing them all. (On sensors at least. The rest of the camera still leaves a lot to be desired.)

Sony | Showcase (http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/show-highend/resource.solutions.bbsccms-assets-show-highend-F65.shtml?PID=I:highend_2011:F65)

If you download the pdf from the link above. it states that the grid is 8K, not the output.



By the way does anybody know how heavy this camera is?

I know. The whole assertion that Sony is telling a bald-faced lie and claiming the F65 is an 8K RGB image camera is just way off base. Not only did Sony not once at the DGA theatre event claim that the image has 8K resolution, but the whole "4K is Just the Beginning" and "4K and Beyond" bylines are not talking about the image having 8K of resolution. They are about Sony's vision and road map for image acquisition:

"4K is just the beginning
The F65 exceeds the resolution of any previous digital motion picture camera (as of August 2011), the result of a remarkable Sony Super 35 image sensor. Sony has been developing semiconductor image sensors since 1973 and manufacturing commercial quantities since 1985. Through all the decades, our design goal has always been to match the photographic quality of 35mm film. But now we're setting our sights even higher: to surpass the limits of human vision. The F65 image sensor is the first of this new breed. "

I'm not saying it's a capital offense to accuse Sony of blatantly lying; I just hope that assertion has been put to rest.