Status 7/7Q

[Cliff Stephenson]

Originally Posted by John Mitchell

I can understand the confusion - it does seem like CD are going to lose some cred over that decision.

To CD's credit... I'm actually glad they released what they did when they did. I'd rather have a product that is 75% complete and improved to 100% over the course of a year than have a product dangled in front of me and continually delayed for years, only to see it ultimately cancelled (like Zacuto recently did with their "revolutionary" PlaZma light).

I'm chompin at the bit for the compressed option to come online, but the Odyssey is still totally usable in its current form (and probably the best monitor I've ever used).

[Josh Bass]

Do you find it color accurate? Im mainly interested in it as a monitor, dont care about the recording.

[Chris Medico]

Originally Posted by Josh Bass

Do you find it color accurate? Im mainly interested in it as a monitor, dont care about the recording.

I've not put a calibrator on there to see hard numbers but the "seat of the pants" color looks to be quite good with the 7q sitting next to my calibrated color correction monitor.

[Josh Bass]

Thats a good sign. I tend to trust cam lcds so if it looks like that also good. Have you judges footage in the field with it and then been surprised how it looked when you watched same footage at home?

[Chris Medico]

It is a whole lot better than most LCD based field monitors. I do like that part quite a bit.

I have used it a good bit for field work. The issue with me is that I shoot a good bit of LOG based video and unfortunately that doesn't look good on ANY monitor. The 7q doesn't have LUTs enabled yet for normal video inputs so I'm not able to use it in that way. Where I have come to rely on the 7q in the field is with its waveform functions. Waveform is a great tool (and much better than the image itself) for judging what you are exposure wise. Judging exposure with the image can work for run-n-gun setups where clipping a bit here and there is OK but where exposure is truly critical and you are trying to capture all the DR you can you need to use more advanced measurement tools such as waveform. The 7q has you covered out of the box there.

[Josh Bass]

Indeed. I myself like zebras and false color more than waveform because the wf can be hard to interpret in detail (where are my skintones falling, etc).

Anyway, good to hear. Dont plan on messing with luts but theyre supposed to update be firmware and implement that right?

Did i hear OLEDs will start color shifting after a year or so or is that outdated info?

[Chris Medico]

That isn't outdated info except the time it takes to happen is longer than it used to be. It will happen eventually though. Especially with the blue pixels. It helps that the panel on the 7q does not appear to be over-driven.

[Josh Bass]

Thats a shame. Is that something that happens after a certain time NO MATTER WHAT? Or does it happen after a certain amount of time of the monitor being used? Like if i only use it a day a month could it stay "true" for 20 years?

[Chris Medico]

Its based on hours of run time and how bright the image being displayed is. More an "area under the curve" kind of thing.

All phosphor based LEDs go through lumen degradation over time as they run. The organic variety have a shorter life relative to that of the traditional LEDs.

[Chris Medico]

The plus side is the technology has developed enough that even though the pixels degrade the loss rate is lower and likely not noticeable over the expected lifespan of the monitor.

[Daniel Epstein]

Never a good idea to buy a product for a feature which has not been released yet. I actually trust Convergent Design will come through with the updates but currently I would only buy it now as a monitor and what ever recording it is currently capable of. Ii is important to test critical components like recorders before I rely on them for a big job so I would look for some other solution if I needed a compressed recorder right now.

[Josh Bass]

Im not sure what is and is not in place on those monitors right now. Features that interest me are wavefrom, false color, peaking, all the different inputs, general image accuracy. Can live without luts and recording. Its either this monitor or the dp7 (non oled) for me.

[Chris Medico]

Originally Posted by Daniel Epstein

Never a good idea to buy a product for a feature which has not been released yet. I actually trust Convergent Design will come through with the updates but currently I would only buy it now as a monitor and what ever recording it is currently capable of. Ii is important to test critical components like recorders before I rely on them for a big job so I would look for some other solution if I needed a compressed recorder right now.

One thing to understand here (and the bottom line source of my frustration) is that I was under the impression based upon what CD had released about the 7q is that DNxHD was included from the start. And yes, I have a PIX240 that is doing a great job recording to DNxHD. The 7q was to give me the ability to do some fun stuff with the FS700 and allow me to record DNxHD from my F3 and from my FS700 at the same time.

When I purchased the monitor the drives were delayed so I played around with it for a few weeks with no drives. When the drives arrived I dropped them in only to find there was no DNxHD or any other compressed recording option. The only option is for uncompressed and unfortunately with 2 256gig drives installed that gets me a total record time of 20min each. Hardly practical when recording talking head interviews that last more than an hour each.

The attached file shows the 7Q for sale on the B&H website as of the writing of this post. It clearly states DNxHD is included. There is no indication that it won't be available till the end 2014.

How would you feel if you bought the product based on reading the CD website and hearing the info from the vendor (which comes from CD) only to find AFTER you have spent $3500 that NOPE you'll be waiting A YEAR for that feature?

Originally Posted by Cliff Stephenson

To CD's credit... I'm actually glad they released what they did when they did. I'd rather have a product that is 75% complete and improved to 100% over the course of a year than have a product dangled in front of me and continually delayed for years, only to see it ultimately cancelled (like Zacuto recently did with their "revolutionary" PlaZma light).

I would have been OK with that if the features that were missing were more clearly stated as missing and would not show up for a long time AFTER the product was released. I purchased the monitor based on the information that was given at the time and that information has turned out to be wrong. The monitor today does not ship with any compressed codecs and we were promised that capability by the end of 2013. Its been delayed until at least the end of Feb for ProRes and DNxHD is looking like the end of 2013. This is a LONG way from what was promised 4 months ago.

Will the next firmware release be delayed again so CD can unlock 4k RAW from the FS700 that they just got permission to record??? I really hope not. I would rather have a firmware update TODAY that gives me compressed and another one TOMORROW that gives me 4k RAW. I just want to be able to use my $3500 investment for something more than a monitor.

[Daniel Epstein]

Chris,
I understand your issue as CD still does have literature on their website which mentions DNXHD capability.

http://www.convergent-design.com/Por...ent_050613.pdf

The hard part about buying gear like this is discovering issues which might have made one wait. Sometimes you have to return the food at a restaurant or a piece of gear to a vendor. Your time and energy are valuable and a purchase like this shouldn't waste them.

[Dan Keaton]

Originally Posted by John Mitchell

So Dan - I'm trying to work out what this means? The end of 2014 is some 14 months after the initiaI release of the 7Q - that just seems an absurd amount of time to wait for something that was scheduled in before you started shipping your first unit. It is also unclear what this means:

1. for example I assumed that the debayered raw output of the FS700 recorded to a popular codec in 4K 422 @ up to 30fps was going to be ready for Feb release.

It was my understanding from another response that CD already had this working in the lab?

Dear John,

I am very sorry that I could not respond to your post immediately.

I believe that we stated that we were going to take the 4K Raw, from the FS700, in 12-Bit, and deBayer it to HD, and record it to the popular compressed codec, and that we were going to include this in our next firmware release, due out near the end of February.

The Key Point is that we were going to create HD, from a 12-Bit Source, as opposed to the 8-Bit HD-SDI output of the FS700 over HD-SDI or HDMI.

This was, and is planned for our February release, but I want to provide you with the very latest info.

Late yesterday, in our testing of this feature, we detected some high-frequency noise in the HD image.

Thus our team is working to resolve this quickly. We wanted this feature to be included in the February release, and we still do, so if we fix this in time, it will be.

Recording 4K Raw to a 4K compressed codec will come later, but it should not be long.

Sorry you can't multiquote from different threads in this forum but you definitely said it was scheduled for the Feb 2014 firmware release.. but maybe you meant ProRes and not DNxHD?

We hope to make a announcement about the name of the codec that we will be releasing soon.
At this time, we can't name the codec.

2. I also thought you were going to have 2K compressed recording from the same source ready for February, but it seems now that is only going to be SDI video.. but I don't really know because I haven't heard it from you, only from forum posts.

John, we have not announced recording 2K to a compressed codec.

But, we try to listen to our customers.

Do you want this to be at high frame rate, say 200 or 240 fps from the FS700?

This may be hard, as compressing 240 frames per second to popular compressed codecs, which may actually involve compressing some frames twice or more to reach the target bit rate, is quite a task.

3. I also thought you were shipping units with DNxHD included for free HD recording - it was in all your publicity releases once you decided to release a free recording option with the 7 and 7Q.

DNxHD has been delayed while we develop another compressed codec, and various variants of this codec. We expect to be able to release more information very soon.

Confused.. BTW great news about the 4K Raw from Sony.. I know the FS700 is not the only camera you are supporting but it does seem to be the one generating the most interest.

Yes, we will be supporting the Sony F55 and other cameras, recording 4K to a compressed codec (in 4K).

And of course, we support the Canon C500 in 4K Raw and shortly in additional modes.

And we support ARRIRAW from the ALEXA, providing the camera outputs ARRIRAW.

And we will support recording to a popular compressed codec from the ALEXA and many other cameras.

I hope this helps.

Respectfully,