I'm curious to know where a sudden influx of cash would come from in order to move the broadcast world to 4K within the next year. It would require a total overhaul of all the gear and equipment that was purchased for the transition to digital/HD simply for a resolution boost. And all the encoding gear would have to be changed too, because H.265 is the only viable codec for compressing 4K content into a space that can fit within the digital broadcast signal which is currently occupied by what I believe is MPEG-2 HD.

4K Upscale (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHAEZfwxap0)

Gary is right. Especially if you are working within broadcast news... they will take quite a long while to migrate over to 4K. Camera acquisition in 4K is one thing... but for major broadcast networks, they have to upgrade the entire workflow chain to work with it as well. We're talking about everything from how it's transmitted in the field to editing workflows to archival solutions. This is all millions and millions of dollars in upgrades.

It's all about stability in workflow and speed for production when it comes to broadcast news.

I suspect a move to 4k in the broadcast world will be a gradual process, with high end subscription channels being 4k first. In the meantime, the 4K televisions may just be a good way of viewing HD, The compression used on the Internet channels probably doesn't do much for the 4k quality of the original material and it effectively may be more HD quality than full 4k..

My work is quick turnaround mostly, but sometimes I have a bit more time. Have thought about slowmotion to enhance the creativity of longer pieces ... but ease of use and being able to get a good image even without the need for a crew, lighting, etc is essential.

Good to hear 4K is not just around the corner!

Recognizing that this thread is rather old, and hasn't had any recent posts, I hesitated to add this comment. But I felt that people are still making this decision and probably still reading this thread. So here goes.....

My comment has to do with lens choice. Many of the "purists" don't believe in auto iris. I am a firm believer because much of the work that I do is aerial video. Imagine if you will (Rod Serling fans?) that you are circling a cruise ship in a helicopter. First front lighting, then side lighting, then back lighting, then side lighting again, and back to front lighting. Do you really think you're going to be able to adjust your aperture quickly enough to not lose expensive helicopter time. Or what if you are on a stabilizer, like a Movi or similar? How are you going to adjust your iris to match the variations that your moves produce?

I have the C100 MK2 (I upgraded from the MK1). It is only with 2 STM lenses that you have auto iris: the 18-135 and the 18-55. The L lenses don't have it. I have both the 24-105 (from my still camera use) and the 18-135, and for me, it's a no-brainer. The 18-135 is on my camera 98% of the time. And just to make sure I don't get boxed in if in a tight environment, I carry the Tokin 11-16/2.8. While it's not auto iris, it is plenty wide.

If any of this has changed since I did my research (about a year ago), I'd welcome the additional information.

That's my 2 cents worth, adjusted for inflation.

A good example of auto iris is on Formula 1 cars in Monaco. The cars go into a tunnel and back out into daylight. Auto iris is the way to go.

The difficulty is when it's falsely triggered. A woman walks into the scene in a black dress. A man follows in a white t-shirt. Does the iris change? Same thing with the helicopter around the ship. You are on the front-lit side but then the sun reflects toward the camera from a large surface. If the iris closes, the whole scene is dimmed. Normally, you'd just want the reflection to blow out at 100% white for that large, specular highlight.

So you want the auto-iris to have some delay and hysteresis, but that delays the adjustment when it's warranted.

The other issue can be the smoothness of the adjustment. With a cine lens or even an adjustable ND filter, the adjustment is continuous. With the Canon lenses I've uses, they have 1/3 stop steps. Rather than ramp smoothly, they make small jumps. Do the STMs change smoothly?

Anyway, auto iris can work and can be necessary when you don't have a spare, skilled crew member in reach of the controls. But like anything automatic, it doesn't always make the adjustment that a human would choose.