4K firmware update details from NAB Sony booth

[Tim Dashwood]

Juan Martinez details some of the specs of the forthcoming firmware update to allow up to 4K RAW recording externally to Sony's HXR-IF5 + AXS-R5 or Convergent-Design's Odyssey 7Q.

I've also heard from a dvinfo source that earlier cameras may need a hardware update.

RAW 4K & 2K @ 24p, 30p, 60p

HFR 4K @ 120fps in 4 second burst
HFR 2K 120fps & 240fps continuous

NEX-FS700 Camcorder 4K Update on Vimeo

[Eric Darling]

Tim, it appears that they have the SDI cable connected directly to the Odyssey in that video. Is it to be our understanding that the camera will feed all available modes without the need for the Sony HXR-IF5 when using Convergent Design's new monitor/recorder? If so, wouldn't that be a far more economical option in the long run, with the added benefit of getting a nice monitor to boot? What am I missing here?

[Dan Keaton]

Dear Friends,

Our Odyssey7Q, will connect directly to the Sony FS700 and support recording 2K Raw, in full resolution, at 240 fps continuously (up to 45 minutes which is the recording capacity of our Odyssey7Q with two 960 GB SSD's.)

The Sony interface unit is not required.

And yes, the Odyssey7Q has a very professional 7.7" OLED Monitor, with very desirable image analysis tools: Focus Assist (with many modes), Waveform Monitor, RGB Parade, Histogram, Zebras, and Color Vectorscope.

For technical reasons, our Odyssey7Q is required when one wants to record from the FS700.
(The signal from the FS-700 over HD-SDI 3G is compressed in some modes, such as 2K Raw, and the Odyssey7Q has more "Code Space" to support the decompression firmware.)

The Odyssey7Q is $2,295 (US) and our Odyssey7 is $1,295 (US).

Please note that we do not have an upgrade program to upgrade an Odyssey7 to the Odyssey7Q model. Thus, please choose which model to purchase carefully.

Here is a document that compares the two models.


Respectfully,


Dan Keaton
Convergent Design

[Ron Evans]

Dan listening to Juan he says the record is limited to 30p for the 7Q whereas the Sony recorder will record all the F700 outputs including 60P.

Ron Evans

[Eric Darling]

Originally Posted by Dan Keaton

Our Odyssey7Q, will connect directly to the Sony FS700 and support recording 2K Raw, in full resolution, at 240 fps continuously (up to 45 minutes which is the recording capacity of our Odyssey7Q with two 960 GB SSD's.)

Has Convergent Design put together a data table of record times for each of your drives yet? I'd like to know what to expect in the various modes and frame rates so I can start to understand what I will need to save up my pennies to buy. And, of course, pricing on the proprietary SSD drives would also be helpful at some point... Is it required that you use two drives at once for the high speed modes?

Originally Posted by Dan Keaton

The Sony interface unit is not required.

Unreal... I'm loving that.

Originally Posted by Dan Keaton

The Odyssey7Q is $2,295 (US) and our Odyssey7 is $1,295 (US).

When can we expect to see a codec purchase/rental pricing matrix?

Thanks, Dan!

[Dan Keaton]

Dear Ron,

I need to know more information.

It all depends on the format of the video.

On the FS700, there is one HD-SDI 3G output which we use to obtain the video.

So, do you mean HD (1920 x 1080), or 2K (2048 x 1080) or 2K Raw, or 4K?

I will be checking with our engineers in about one hour, here are my best answers right now.

We should be able to record 1080p60 over HD-SDI 3G Single Link.

And we will be able to record 2K Raw, full resolutioion, at 240 frames per second, continuously (until the SSD's fill up - around 45 minutes).

And we will be able to record 4K at 60 fps. In this mode, we will get the 4K Raw from the camera, decompress it, and then debayer it, then record it. If Sony gives us permission, in the future, we could also record 4K Raw, but right now we have permission to record 2K Raw, and 4K debayered.

I met with Juan Martinez yesterday, and last night. I will ask Juan about your question also.

Dear Eric,

Our SSD's are not proprietary. But, these are very special 2.5" SSD's. They are very high performance (525 Megabytes per secone write speed), SATA III (6.0 Gigabits per second transfer speed), ultra low power SSD's with a built-in supercapacitor to allow writes in progress to complete if if they are pulled out of our SSD slots.

This is a unique combination of features and all of these features are required.

We will have to prepare a table for you, but I need to get back from NAB first.

Pricing for the recording options and SSD's (240 GB, 480 GB and 960 GB) will be announced in May.

Pricing will be competitive. Please note that memory prices are volatile in this industry.

Respectfully,

[Ron Evans]

Thanks Dan. It was 4K the question related to as Juan did say the others were recordable as you mentioned.

Ron

[Eric Darling]

Thanks for the quick and detailed info, Dan. Those SSD specs seem to be matchable by some drives on the open market. So, will we be able to use our own? If not, I would still consider Convergent Design's drives proprietary, since we would be required to use them. I know you said the prices will be competitive. So, maybe I'm splitting hairs there... Just trying to get a handle on what I need.

I'm thrilled by this product announcement, and looking forward to putting all the pieces together to build my budget.

[Tim Dashwood]

Dan,

I see no mention of ProRes codecs on your chart. Will ProRes not be an available codec?

[Dan Keaton]

Originally Posted by Dan Keaton

And we will be able to record 4K at 60 fps. In this mode, we will get the 4K Raw from the camera, decompress it, and then debayer it, then record it. If Sony gives us permission, in the future, we could also record 4K Raw, but right now we have permission to record 2K Raw, and 4K debayered.

I wrote the above early this morning.

I have checked with our engineers and I need to make a correction.

Juan is correct, we will be limited, currently, to recording 4K from the FS700 at 30 fps. Sometime in the future, we may be able to record 4K Raw at 60 fps.

Respectfully,

[Dan Keaton]

Dear Tim,

When one purchases our Odyssey7 Compressed Codec Option, we will initially include many flavors of Avid DNxHD.

Then, if and when we obtain certification, we will add another very popular codec, for free.

To be clear, our plans are to start on this project as soon as we release Avid DNxHD for both the Gemini 4:4:4 and the Odyssey7/Odyssey7Q.

Respectfully,

[Dan Keaton]

Originally Posted by Eric Darling

Thanks for the quick and detailed info, Dan. Those SSD specs seem to be matchable by some drives on the open market. So, will we be able to use our own? If not, I would still consider Convergent Design's drives proprietary, since we would be required to use them. I know you said the prices will be competitive. So, maybe I'm splitting hairs there... Just trying to get a handle on what I need.

I'm thrilled by this product announcement, and looking forward to putting all the pieces together to build my budget.

Dear Eric,

We are very pleased that you are interested in our Odyssey7 or Odyssey7Q.

And we understand that you are concerned about the cost of SSD's.

And that you would like to purchase and use an SSD of your choice.



We will provide three sizes of SSD's, 240 GB, 480 GB, and 960 GB.



In order to provide a very reliable recording system, we want to individually test each and every SSD.

And we want to test the brand/type of SSD's very thoroughly. This means thousands of hours of testing.

Personally, I do not consider our SSD's to be proprietary for the following reasons.

We use industry-standard 2.5" SSDs, with a SATA III (6.0 Gbps) interface, with standard SSD connectors. But, as noted previously these are high-performance SSD's.

Our SSD's mate (interface) to the Seagate GoFlex series of adapters, and could be used (if desired) in a computer that supports 2.5" SSD's. In other words, they are industry-standard SSD's.

Other "media packs, which I do consider proprietary, use a size (form factor) and/or electrical interface that is not not an industry standard, and which only mate or interface to the companies own devices.


We do not support the use of SSD's that we have not individually tested. Our experience is that not all SSD's perform equally, even when they are the same brand/type and specific model.

We have to reject a certain number of SSD's that fail our tests; these never reach our customers. And we have to absorb the cost of these SSD's.

In the nanoFlash, we supported a wide choice of CompactFlash cards and we provided a list of fully qualified cards, but non-qualified cards were sometimes used, with varying degrees of success.

And we made every effort to recover lost fooage when things went wrong at no cost.

The reputation of our products is at stake, and the success of each shoot depends on using a SSD that works with our recorder in every way.

Each SSD has a controller chip, and the firmware used in the SSD itself is very critical, and the firmware between different brands/models and even versions of SSD's are very different.

It is in our best interests to price our SSD's very competitively, as this makes our Odyssey7 and Odyssey7Q more affordable, which helps make our products more widely accepted.

One problem that exists is that some individuals will compare the price of an average performance SSD to our SSD's which support writes at 525 Megabytes per second continuously. In this situation, high performance SSD's just cost more.

So, to be very clear, our policy is that only our SSD's will work in our professional recorders.
We do hope that everyone will understand that we have this policy to help ensure reliability.

And this greatly minimizes serious questions that would arise if we added a variety of SSD's into the mix.

Every technical problem would have to be carefully evaluated to determine if the problem was caused by the SSD. By using one and only one brand/type and specific version (with a specific version of the firmware on the SSD), we build a great deal of confidence, as we build an extensive history, not only from our exhaustive internal testing, but the actual real-world (in the field) use of our recorders and our SSD's.

We currently expect to release our SSD pricing in May.

Please feel free to call or email me. We want to earn your trust.