Status 7/7Q

[John Mitchell]

Originally Posted by Dan Keaton

Dear John,
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.

Disappointing

Originally Posted by Dan Keaton

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.

My bad I meant 2k as in 1920x1080 and you thought somewhere CD had mentioned this but maybe iut was only CinemaDNG your talking about..

Originally Posted by Dan Keaton

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

Ok - that is difficult to understand from a consumer viewpoint - you announce something to be delivered free with all units and then tell consumers its delayed 15 months because something else got in the way. IMO that doesn't seem good enough - personally I don't care ProRes or DNxHD but if had been me I'd have gone for DNxHD first as its cross platform.
Bottom line - its breaking faith with the end user.

[Alan Brazzell]

CD has always said that the reason they switched from DNxHD to the other codec was because of consumer feedback. From what Dan and Mitch have told us, they asked the end users which codec they would prefer first and the majority of the user base said ProRes.

With this in mind, their decision does make sense from a consumer perspective. They listened directly to feedback and adjusted their plans. It's a sign of a good company, in my view.

Now, I also can understand the frustrations of anyone expecting or wanting DNxHD, but a) CD announced the delay way before the product actually started shipping so anyone could have cancelled their order if DNxHD was crucial to them and b) the decision wasn't as much CD as it was the user base that they polled.

[Chris Medico]

Originally Posted by Alan Brazzell

CD has always said that the reason they switched from DNxHD to the other codec was because of consumer feedback. From what Dan and Mitch have told us, they asked the end users which codec they would prefer first and the majority of the user base said ProRes.

With this in mind, their decision does make sense from a consumer perspective. They listened directly to feedback and adjusted their plans. It's a sign of a good company, in my view.

Now, I also can understand the frustrations of anyone expecting or wanting DNxHD, but a) CD announced the delay way before the product actually started shipping so anyone could have cancelled their order if DNxHD was crucial to them and b) the decision wasn't as much CD as it was the user base that they polled.

I'm OK with either compressed codec. I would prefer DNxHD since I edit in Avid but I can handle either one.

Can you please reference where the delay in the compressed codec was announced well BEFORE shipping? All the threads I can read here in this section is repeatedly indicating that the compressed codec would be available by the end of 2013.

[John Mitchell]

I'm ok with either codec as well although I can't render to or consolidate to ProRes out of Avid on a PC.

Afaikt it was announced prior to and after shipping that every unit would include a free recording option of DNxHD - the stuff about a popular codec came later. And a delay of 15 months in development was not revealed by Dan until about 2 weeks ago.

I'll stick by what I said - that's breaking faith with the end consumer - whether they've bought or were planning to buy. And I have elected not to buy an O7Q until CD actually implement at least a few of the many promised features. I like CD gear, I own a Nano, and Dan's a salt of the earth kind of guy, but buying something on a firmware wishlist especially when dates and features seem to constantly slip is a game I'd rather skip.

[Chris Medico]

Originally Posted by John Mitchell

I'm ok with either codec as well although I can't render to or consolidate to ProRes out of Avid on a PC.

As an aside and a bit OT, if you have the later versions of MC you can consolidate ProRes as native on a PC. You just can't render it out.

[John Mitchell]

Thanks Chris. I think I did know that but only done it once before and was surprised it worked.

[Dan Keaton]

Dear John,

Our website has not provided accurate information.

There are no excuses for this, as certain basic information should have been corrected a long time ago.

Today we hired another person to manage our website. This person starts on Monday.

Also, we have been working on a new set of Technical Specifications for the Odyssey7Q for quite some time now.

I have attached a document that our team believes in correct, and most importantly carefully distinguishes what is available in our initial firmware release, 1.0.214 and what is expected soon and in the future.

And this document clearly denotes what we expect to include in our next firmware release.

This new release is expected in a few days, but this depends on us receiving certification for our compressed codec. If we do not receive certification soon, we will be forced to remove the compressed codec from this next release.

And we also list what we expect to included in a subsequent firmware release which may come out in April 2014, or sometime in Q2, 2014.

I hope this helps.

I fully understand that our website should have been updated much earlier.

Respectfully,