Sony launches PXW-Z100 4K Handheld XDCAM

[Glen Vandermolen]

It's listed on B&H's site. $6,500. I wonder if the price will lower before it's in stock?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1004182-REG/sony_pxw_z100_4k_handheld_xdcam_camcorder.html

[Jack Zhang]

No detailed description neither yet on B&H. I'd expect that first, then if there is a price drop, it likely would be a $300 price drop to match the PMW-200.

[Ron Evans]

You also need to factor in a lot of XQD cards unless you are only shooting a min or two. At 4k 60P it will be about 12mins on a 64G card. The FDR-AX1 with XAVCS is about 50 mins on a 64G card. The PXW-Z100 will likely need the fastest cards but the FDR-AX1 will likely work fine on the slowest cards. Another big price difference.

Ron Evans

EDIT: Sony could of course come out with large XQD cards that don't cost more than the camera !!!! An SSD attachment is an obvious needed accessory or an Odyssey7Q if the SDI will pass 4K to it.

EDIT2: The AX-1 comes with a 32G card I think so for me I would need an additional 2 x 64G cards for what I want to do. putting the setup at just over $5000, about what I paid for my NX5U and FMU128 with the package deal when it first came out. I wonder if Sony will have some deals on cards when these come out !!! The difference at that time was the NX5U was only $200 more than the AX2000. There is a big difference now between the FDR-AX1 and the PXW-Z100.

[Philip Lipetz]

Ah but the elephant in the room is whether the image approaches the BM Production Quad HD cam. Do not have samples to compare. Will the Z100 work for narrative work with a Letus as appropriate? So, far the answer seems to be no followed by maybe.

[Ron Evans]

Originally Posted by Philip Lipetz

Ah but the elephant in the room is whether the image approaches the BM Production Quad HD cam. Do not have samples to compare. Will the Z100 work for narrative work with a Letus as appropriate? So, far the answer seems to be no followed by maybe.

I think you may be comparing apples and oranges. If Sony introduces a 4k version of the NEX-EA50 or VG30 it would be a different story. Even a FF VG900 version !!!! With Sony's push for 4k product across the lineup I think that will come too. A couple a years and the whole lineup may be 4k including the cell phones!!!

Ron Evans

[Tim Polster]

Originally Posted by Glen Vandermolen

And better resolution is a gimmick? I flat disagree with that statement. Was it a gimmick when HD resolution replaced SD? Are the BM4K, F55 and Epic cameras gimmicks because they do 4K? Is the upcoming Alexa 4K a gimmick? 4K is indeed more than pixel counting, but who's to say this new camera won't make great looking images? So far, I've been impressed with the limited videos I've seen. Not F55 levels of images, but still, this is a $6,500 camera. Please keep that in mind, people. It will have compromises. No productions looking for an F55 are going to settle for a Z100.
And I'll take the XAVC 10-bit, 4:2:2 codec, that's certainly not a gimmick.
.

Glen, I should qualify my statements as I often mistakenly type conversationally on the internet...

Resolution by itself is not bad nor a gimmic, but it does have its limitations of perception and practical use.

The marketing of resolution is a gimmic. Just look at the still photo world as a perfect example. Consumers around the world equate megapixels = image quality. We in the industry know that image sensor + great optics = image quality. Resolution is just size, almost like a container.

I would rather have a 10mp camera with huge pixels and superb lens than a 20mp camera with smaller pixels and an o.k. lens. Upsampling is so advanced nowdays that it might not even matter if you needed to print huge.

When I read that users are willing to forgo DR and light sensitivity to get the higher resolution it is in my opinion that the marketing is working. I also believe that high quality 1080p uprezzed to 4k and played with 4k would be hard to tell apart for most viewers. I am trying to look at this from a business point of view because when I look at my own upgrade path from SD to HD five years ago, it has its ups and downs. Many folks have not accepted Blu-ray into their worlds. So for the most part, my HD distribution is internet based. The web is hardly the medium to be upgrading to 4k for. But everybody has different work needs.

I could go on but I do not want to sound like a curmudgeon! Technology is great. 4k will be here, it will just be playing to a smaller audience than HD or even SD (DVD) imho.

[Ron Evans]

I agree on the upscaling of Bluray players and TV's. For my theatre shows the DVD and Bluray on my Sony system do not look THAT different !!! I know what to look for and can tell immediately but a normal viewer may not see that difference especially if they only see once. BLuray has the advantage of not only resolution detail but normally there is enough room for LPCM audio. The overall experience is different. Maybe when people get 4K TV's they may get Bluray more and upscale !!! The blank media cost difference is now getting lower too.

4K for me is purely as a media that I can crop from just like I did when I first got my FX1 that for 2 or 3 years either shot SD or was used to crop a DV image from in the edit. It would be nice to use the PXW-Z100 10bit 4:2:2 image for this but the cost for long record times is really not viable and I expect the XAVCS of the FDR-AX1 will be just fine !!!

Ron Evans

[Philip Lipetz]

Originally Posted by Ron Evans

I think you may be comparing apples and oranges. If Sony introduces a 4k version of the NEX-EA50 or VG30 it would be a different story. Even a FF VG900 version !!!! With Sony's push for 4k product across the lineup I think that will come too. A couple a years and the whole lineup may be 4k including the cell phones!!!

Ron Evans

I disagree. Filmic is not just shallow depth of field as on those cams.

[Ron Evans]

My response was the fact that one is a small sensor camera that comes complete and ready to shoot and the other a large sensor camera that requires one to still buy a lot of stuff before it will shoot anything, does not do 50/60P, short battery life and really needs external power etc. In my mind they are targeted at totally different markets.

Ron Evans

[Douglas Call]

If you supersample the 4k output to 1080p it might be pretty awesome. In the real world of network TV commercials & music videos where they use Sony F55/F65 super sampling to 1080p or 2K for cinema projection is standard behavior. it's kind of like getting 4 pixels per real pixel in a 1080p sensor. Kind of :-)

[Gints Klimanis]

Originally Posted by Tim Polster

I would rather have a 10mp camera with huge pixels and superb lens than a 20mp camera with smaller pixels and an o.k. lens.

How does the Z100 or EX1 lens compare to the mid-range 24-70mm and 70-200mm constant aperture zooms from Nikon or Canon? I'm not seeing a lot of innovation in in-camera focusing and metering aids, at least not the extent of features that the portable monitor companies are offering.

Originally Posted by Tim Polster

When I read that users are willing to forgo DR and light sensitivity to get the higher resolution it is in my opinion that the marketing is working. .

In the press release, the DR is obscured. We're hoping it's not 1/4 that of an EX1/EX3 . I was willing to pay more for a 1080p60 machine with an improvement in DR that would allow improvements at +6 dB gain coupled with higher bitrates recorded internally, such a I-Frame-only 600 Mbps or long-GOP 70-100 Mbps. Nikon blew away everyone in fall 2007 with their 12 MPixel D3 high-DR camera that didn't increase the pixel count over its predecessor, the D2X.

[Cliff Totten]

This might not be a great analogy but having this XAVC codec behind this small 1/2.3 sensor is like having an industrial stregenth 18 wheeler semi truck transmission behind a Toyota Corola engine.

I suppose that this XAVC CODEC board (circuit chipset) was developed to be installed in many future 4k cameras. It might be done that way to save costs on manufacturing. (one chipset to be used in a very wide range of XDCAM and Handycam cameras with proper firmware crippling for lower cameras)

600 Mbp/s, 4:2:2 10 bit? It's cool but wow,...It just seems excessive for a small single bayer sensor.

CT

[Alister Chapman]

To move to 4K required a new codec for Sony. Mpeg2 can't do 4K, H264 didn't have a standard 4K profile until very recently. So Sony needed to come up with a new codec which they did in XAVC. XAVC has a large degree of future proofing. It can do almost any frame rate, it can be I frame or long GoP, it can adjust it's encoding structure on a frame by frame basis and include that information about how the frame was encoded in the metadata so the decoder adjusts correspondingly.

But 4K requires you to record 4x as much data as HD for a similar quality image. The bigger you make an image when you show it, the more important it is to keep artefacts to a minimum. As 4K is aimed at big screens, artefacts that might have been tolerable in HD may be objectionable on a big 4K screen. So, if you want to play in the 4K swimming pool your going to have to be prepared to drown in the 4K data. To put things into some perspective, when the EX1 was launched an 8GB SxS card cost $800 and held 22 mins. A 64GB T series XQD card costs $350 and will hold up to 25mins of 4K 25/30P XAVC (approx 250Mb/s - 300Mb/s).

[Jack Zhang]

Originally Posted by Cliff Totten

This might not be a great analogy but having this XAVC codec behind this small 1/2.3 sensor is like having an industrial stregenth 18 wheeler semi truck transmission behind a Toyota Corola engine.

I suppose that this XAVC CODEC board (circuit chipset) was developed to be installed in many future 4k cameras. It might be done that way to save costs on manufacturing. (one chipset to be used in a very wide range of XDCAM and Handycam cameras with proper firmware crippling for lower cameras)

600 Mbp/s, 4:2:2 10 bit? It's cool but wow,...It just seems excessive for a small single bayer sensor.

CT

This also gives grounds for a new Nanoflash based on XAVC. If that's down the line for Convergent Design, then bring it on!

64GB is the new 8GB for 4K, no doubt 512GB XQD cards are coming down the line as the codec for sure isn't going to change to H.265 anytime soon. (Plus, H.265 lacks High profile, 4:2:2, and more at the moment, making it only a delivery format, not acquisition)

[Ron Evans]

At least for the FDR-AX1 that I am interested in is now on the Canada Sony site . There is however a lens spec difference I have seen repeated before though this time it is in the same document !!!! The features info states lens as 31.5 to 630, the spec section says 29.5 to 590 (this is the spec for the NX5U ) !!

Cannot find any info for the PXW-Z100 on the site yet.

Ron Evans