3 new Sony 4K palm camcorders

[Ron Evans]

OF course Sony has the technology they did it first on my FDR-AX1 and the PXW-Z100. This is purely marketing. So I made my decision and bought a GH5 and will sell most of my Sony cameras in time.I have AX53 and AX100 that since I only like to shoot 60P are just used as HD cameras and I like both for what they are. Would love to have had the AX53 with 60PUHD. I am waiting for Panasonic to bring out a FZ3500 with UHD 60P !!! The Panasonic WiFi app is also far superior to the Sony too. Very disappointing after being a Sony user for years since VHS days.

[John McCully]

I totally agree that Sony could do consumer and prosumer 4k 60p as has Panasonic, and yes, it is a marketing decision not to go down that road the reason being such a venture would require significant R&D input and at the end of the day would not generate the required profit. It's probably no more complicated than that. They can only just pull off 4k 30p with existing technology, some would even say, me included, their current 4k 30p doesn't really cut it.

Customer focus is all well and good - provide what the customer wants - but if the business case does not deliver then these days it is not going to happen. I don't fault them for being business-like. Inadequate profit means a slow but sure death for corporations such as Sony.

I too have been Sony since the beginning but now after too many frustrations and disappointments I've gone elsewhere.

[Jack Zhang]

You can add one more to that list of 4K 60p capable prosumer cameras... This one is under $600.

GoPro.

The Hero 6 will support 4K 60p, and none of Sony's options close to that price range will.

Move on people. Most everyone is right when they say Sony's golden days of the EX1 are long gone. I predict they will have no 4K 60p competition in the prosumer market even at next year's IBC.

[Cliff Totten]

Originally Posted by John McCully

I totally agree that Sony could do consumer and prosumer 4k 60p as has Panasonic, and yes, it is a marketing decision not to go down that road the reason being such a venture would require significant R&D input and at the end of the day would not generate the required profit. It's probably no more complicated than that. They can only just pull off 4k 30p with existing technology, some would even say, me included, their current 4k 30p doesn't really cut it.

Customer focus is all well and good - provide what the customer wants - but if the business case does not deliver then these days it is not going to happen. I don't fault them for being business-like. Inadequate profit means a slow but sure death for corporations such as Sony.

I too have been Sony since the beginning but now after too many frustrations and disappointments I've gone elsewhere.

R&D costs?, nah....there are non, really. Sony engineers could do that overnight with their eyes closed and one hand tied behind their back. Its really zero technical problem for them and would not create a significant cost for them. This is 100% politics only.

Now,....we all know what Sony is updating next that uses this same technology. First, it was the RX100-IV, then the RX10-IV, now the new Z90/NX80. Whats next? The $3200 Z150 will get these same guts added to prolly a Z170. We ALL see this comming a mile away. Prolly NAB 2018 if not sooner.

Now, the Z150 does have an actively cooled body. "Maybe" Sony is saving 60p 4k for this model? Im betting these three are just too cheap to justify 60p. However, this new "Z-170"? Possibly could have 60p because it will likely be a $3500 camera with these PDAF gutts installed. $3500 could be a happier price point for Sony marketing geniuses to accept.

[Ron Evans]

I do not expect cheap for UHD60P. Several years ago when I bought the FDR-AX1 is was $4500. By the time I got my GH5, lens, XLR unit etc , batteries etc it too was almost $4000. My real surprise was the fact Sony did not put UHD60P on the FS5 because I would have bought one. They missed the opportunity for me and likely lots of others too. I am not surprised with the current cameras I am just upset they have not introduced a range with UHD60P and charged appropriately for it. Like Cliff I do not feel it is R&D costs or anything like that. Since they were very early into UHD/4K they have had the technology for a long time. I believe it is pure marketing.

[Mark Rosenzweig]

Originally Posted by Jack Zhang

You can add one more to that list of 4K 60p capable prosumer cameras... This one is under $600.

GoPro.

The Hero 6 will support 4K 60p, and none of Sony's options close to that price range will.

Move on people. Most everyone is right when they say Sony's golden days of the EX1 are long gone. I predict they will have no 4K 60p competition in the prosumer market even at next year's IBC.

I guess you do not keep up with the action cam market. The Yi 4K+ does 4K60P, and it is $339 and has been out for months, and it is the same size as the GoPros. And it does not overheat (the GoPros overheat terribly). And the quality is better than the current GoPros. Check the action cam forum here.

The key is having a new processor. The new one in the Yi 4K+ is 14nm, much smaller and energy efficient than past processors. If you cram a processor into a small space and there is no fan, it has to be very efficient. It is not clear that Sony has developed such processors, since in none of their small cameras (RX100, A6500, A7's) is there a 4K60P ability, and they all tend to overheat even at 4K30p.

[Dave Blackhurst]

There are ways to reduce or eliminate the well documented and known HEAT problems, going to 14nm if they are using older fab tech would definitely be one approach....

Sony could bring a camera to MARKET, but if there's overheating issues, it goes back against the brand, as we all well know! So, not a single shred of "politics", just a matter of Sony engineers presenting a cost effective solution that DOES NOT HAVE HEAT PROBLEMS.

Could they... YES... have they... NO!



The RX100M5 with the hack will go about 8 minutes (of 4K30p) before it overheats and shuts down to self protect - that is with the latest sensor that is in these new releases, or an early iteration thereof. The RX10M3, with it's larger body and one generation older 1" class sensor will run fine with the hack til the battery drains under the same conditions...

There may be cost constraints, and we will see 4K60p from Sony in time (and I can shoot with my current 4K30p cameras until that time, with excellent results, IMO). With both Canon and Panny offering "larger sensor" 4K60p, Sony really dropped the ball on leadership in a category they pioneered, and have OWNED for several years. I don't know whether recapturing that leadership would come from just ONE feature (60p), it would appear that the fast focus capability was deemed to be the "knockout" feature for these 2017 1" class sensor releases.....

I still have to wonder if they can, with further "tweaking", issue a firmware update that would squeeze 60p out of this generation of sensor/processor... the RX100M5 would seem to suggest that the heat issue prevents it, but....

[John McCully]

Ron, I believe we might be saying the same thing, other than the need for R&D to bring 4k 60p to the consumer/prosumer market. I presume that when you say 'pure marketing' you mean the decision to not compete with Panasonic and others in this market is driven by the marketing people within Sony.

It is well documented that the 4k implemented in the AX100, the RX series and other models suffer from crippled EFV's and LCD's and in some models serious overheating occurs, all said to be because of over-stressed power needs, rightly or wrongly. I won't get into a discussion regarding components that might or might not be problematic as that's way outside my core competency but it is my perhaps overly simplistic, perhaps naive thinking, that there is a problem using off the shelf components designed for HD and shoehorning them into a 4k environment.

Be that as it may the bottom line in successful corporations these days is indeed determined by the marketing department, and I can agree that might well be called pure marketing. Let me add somewhat in jest, that it was impure marketing that got Sony into the deep trouble they experienced not that long ago. Being somewhat familiar with how large corporations operate these days I have no doubt that before one wheel is turned, one penny of R&D spent, to expand an existing market or enter a new market a business case is conducted.

Along with my colleagues I have sat around the table drinking way too much coffee (now retired but still drinking way too much coffee) deep drilling into the numbers and sometimes unceremoniously killing a project stone dead before you could say Jack Robinson simply because the numbers did not meet the corporate profit requirements no matter how sexy the project looked before the number crunching. Pure marketing indeed. It has to be that way or my colleagues and I would be out on the street sooner rather than later and new product development would come to a complete standstill because of lack of funding required to bring the project forward.

Pure marketing means meeting profit goals set by top management along with meeting and exceeding customer needs. But make no mistake, if the profit goals are not met the customer ceases to exist, so to speak.

[Ron Evans]

Yes I understand marketing as I spent a lot of my professional career in marketing and also R&D before I retired. The strange thing for me about Sony as I mentioned is that they did the R&D a long while back or they would not have been able to make the FDR-AX1 that I still have. It uses XQD cards rather than SD but I will forgive them for that as at the time getting fast SD cards was likely not that easy. However fast SD cards were available when the FS5 became available but still did not include the technology they had several years before for the FDR-AX1 and PXW-Z100. Maybe marketing was protecting the FS7 market for those people who wanted UHD/4K 60P. Nice move but the business case was lost to Panasonic for the DVX200 and later the UX180 and HC-X1 and now of course the Canons. Sony had/has the technology and the great marketing minds seem to be giving it to Panasonic and Canon. They still do not have a replacement for the FDR-AX1 or PXW-Z100, 3 ring ENG style 4K/UHD cameras that have now been discontinued and effectively replaced by the Panasonic HC-X1 and UX180. Good business case !!!

[John McCully]

All too true. Somewhat puzzling I agree however I am disinclined to believe that the marketing management at the Sony helm are stupid, idiots, incompetent or asleep at the wheel.

In my somewhat uninformed opinion Sony have in their wisdom with the aid of numerous business case studies decided to quietly milk away and in due course exit the market that is our subject. If true, vexing for us for sure, but I just bet dollars to donuts that that decision, cool and highly calculated, has been deep drilled, kicked to death by some of the ablest minds in the business. My guess, belief, is that lack of profitability in this sector versus better profitability in other sectors determined where Sony would invest for the future.

We must look beyond our immediate frustrations and seek to understand the big picture regarding the direction that the tools of the trade are taking.

[Cliff Totten]

Yes, the lack of 60p is the same reason why no 10bit in 4k is available on camras below the FS7 )and the other model that uses a cell phone sensor.)

These things are not accidents and are not technical hurdles. Sony is performing a "calculated action". They believe these cameras will sell fine without 60p.

Camera marketing people are funny. When a new camera comes out, they have a certain number of units in mind to sell. If they sell that predicted number than they are perfectly happy. If they sell way MORE than they anticipate?...they begin to say "Oh no....what higher camera lost sales because of this thing' sucess?"

Many camera companies try to ride a very fine marketing line. Sell lots of cheap cameras but not so many that it begins to hurt more expensive model sales!

By the way...The Z-150 today has a cooling fan. I always wondered why the body was built that way when we know the 1inch-type sensors dont get hot inside any normal sized body. Unless 60p is planned for this Z-150 body (Z-170) in the future. Or....it can already do 60p now but they have it locked at 30p today.

[Ron Evans]

Not sure what the thinking is but if lack of resources is the issue why introduce 3 cameras with very similar specs, new sensors and electronics all I am sure capable of UHD 60P and leave it off the list. Has to be market segmentation issues either agreements with other suppliers/competitors or between divisions internally. I am convinced it is not technical.

[John McCully]

It looks remarkably like milk mode to me. Three so called new camcorders and the RX10 version IV same old same old. Milk mode I reckon.

I agree; it's not lack of technical capability. Seems to me Sony are executing a planned long term strategic exit from this market segment and you well may be correct about deals with other manufacturers.

Whatever, for me this is now academic as the way things are looking new product wise my run with Sony gear is over.

[Mark Watson]

A couple things still bother me about the technical/marketing debate:

Sony makes a 4K 60P prosumer camera 4 years ago (FDR-AX1) and now they've had a change of heart and are withholding that feature? That camera had a larger body, so possibly more room for heat dissipation. Maybe that camera did not hit the sales numbers they wanted, and deemed 60p to be not so important to the prosumer crowd. The camera straddles the fence with it's pro and consumer features. Maybe too expensive for the consumer and not pro enough for the pros.

Sony makes the FS7 pro camera with 4K 60P and lots of other pro features and it sells like hotcakes, or so I've heard. Sony could have determined that 60P was mostly important to the pro crowd and not worth putting in lower class cameras.

Also, just because GoPro or Panasonic have figured out how to do 4K 60P in a smaller sized camera doesn't mean another manufacturer (Sony) automatically has overcome those engineering hurdles. Otherwise, JVC, Panasonic and Sony would all have Canon's best auto-focus system. Or would you say that everyone can do what Canon does and they are all just holding back due to marketing?

As was said earlier in this thread, what good is 4K 60P if the image quality is no good?

Pure marketing? Pure technical? Probably a little of both.
If Sony could chime in here to clear it up, that would be great, but then again they might just lament that we all want a pro camera at prosumer prices.

[Dave Blackhurst]

I would like to point out that citing a 1/2.3" (which if memory serves is more or less a "1/3 inch" small size) sensor camera (AX1) that offered 60p is comparing apples and oranges...

I've tried the "small sensor" 4K cams, and they are not in the same league as the 1" class cameras, two very different animals in pretty much every respect. Even on a "cheap" 4K30p playback system, the verdict on sensor size is quickly rendered.

You could certainly argue the "marketing" point in relation to the AX33/53 (small sensor handycam) and why a sub $1K camera should not be the first one to offer 4K/60p... seems somewhat obvious...


This leaves the problematic issue of why Canon and Panasonic ARE releasing 1" class 4K60p "prosumer" cameras, and Sony is dropping the ball... if it's because of (as it appears) technical reasons (the well known and documented overheating issue), someone has some 'splaining to do, and more importantly catching up to do! You can't argue it's not technically possible, when the other guys are doing it...

It seems highly unlikely that with the GH5 and now several new small camcorders entering the market WITH 4K60p.... that somehow a marketing guy or team could make a plausible, supportable argument that Sony should leave that feature OUT...

If the market EXPECTS a feature, it's marketing suicide to simply ignore the demand, as the $$$$ can and WILL go elsewhere, relatively quickly, in ample evidence right here on this thread!! I will admit that the sample video I've seen from the GH5 would convince me to switch, aside from the cost of switching systems!

Sony has had a couple rough years (the earthquake, financial struggles in the parent company), yet the Sony digital imaging division has produced some excellent cameras that produce excellent output... it's tough to see that "bleeding edge" success slipping...