On Internet some rumors circulate about company (Panasonic ?) launching a mysterious new affordable MFT 4k camcorder.
Apparently here is a video manager (from Panasonic?) talking about that camera. Some Japanese guy may help us to translate this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JMiMsiBt4rs
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well of course not! it is close to April 1st, then again black magic is the only one doing MFT at higher than 1080p resolution at an affordable price.
I’ll be excited when I see 30″ 4k screens. Currently it’s only feasible for cinema screenings.
30″ is too small for 4k, so better look at 4k projectors
30″ 4K would be terrific as a desktop computer monitor…
My point was that 4k is fine for movie theaters. At home well you run into some issues with content availability and upgrading everything you own including your connection. It will take some time to get to that point.
Now 4k as a computer screen is perfect for photo editing.
ok got it.
Weeeeell…
Title says ‘conference’ but, this obviously isn’t something as serious. The way he talks also is… unprofessional to say the least. His choice of words leads one to guess he didn’t get a decent education.
Anyways. Here’s what he said: affordable 4K camcorder on NAB. Also, he did shittalk the TV dept. of his company.
@john
Weeeeell…your shittalk suggests that you had a distinct lack of education too! You over-confident derp.
He talked in a most disgusting manner by Japanese standards. But of course you’ll know better, than me, being even ‘more native’ speaking Japanese than me, right? I acknowledge your superiority.
Can’t people wait till tomorrow? Geez.
Weeeeell…
Title says ‘conference’ but, this obviously isn’t something as serious. The way he talks also is… unprofessional to say the least. His choice of words leads one to guess he didn’t get a decent education.
Anyways. Here’s what he said: affordable 4K camcorder on NAB. Also, he did shittalk the TV dept. of his company.
Weeeeell…
Title says ‘conference’ but, this obviously isn’t something as serious. The way he talks also is… unprofessional to say the least. His choice of words leads one to guess he didn’t get a decent education.
Anyways. Here’s what he said: affordable 4K camcorder on NAB. Also, he did shittalk the TV dept. of his company.
Sorry guys, this is fake. I speak Japanese and the acting is shite!
What’s happening tomorrow?
Tomorrow I’ll be taking photos around 🙂
Do we know if it’s Panasonic or another Japanese company? Sony and Canon both have 4K products already but we’ve been waiting on Panasonic since last year.
Anyway, I don’t know enough Japanese to make anything he says out, but we can always hope, at least.
I’ve talked to someone working on an affordable 4k camera, but its not panasonic and its not MFT. They wouldn’t tell me much but it sounds like it will be cool.
Pat, will this camera be at nab, under $1000 or under $5000, cinema still or camcorder, what type of firm, who? Any of these you allowed to say?
Thanks..
I’ve looked back over my conversation with them. Here is what I have.
4K-probably soon 5K+ res, don’t have too much more info on sensor specs ATM (ISO, frame rate, etc), but expect awesome
Swappable HDD/SSDs (custom enclosures, made to take a beating)
Huge connectivity (all the ports you could ask for, and then some)
Swappable lens mounts (PL mount standard at launch)
Vastly superior ergonomics and usability (the old cat-on-the-shoulder model), highly customizable
Magnesium body panels, material and finish spec way higher than what’s out there (NO PLASTIC)
Should be under $10k for body, lens mount, battery, and viewfinder
Will look and feel awesome.
He said they were looking for mid summer launch, not NAB.
Pat, thanks for that, sounds like a Red product I’ve been hoping they would do, as when you get to high quality 5k video, the number of sensors that can do that start to get thin, and 5k is a Red thing. Maybe somebody else, or maybe Red making use of their 5k sensor assembly capacity. 10k is not cheap. Cat on shoulder, brings back memories 😉
I was just anxiously waiting for the moment for him to fly across the room and kick me in the face and return in the praying mantis stance.
It’s weird that one person claiming to speak japanese said nothing of what he said, and the other just a few words. Reminds me of lost in translation. “Is that all he said? it seems like he said a little more” 🙂
fyi I am in Japan, and my japanese is shit, so I won’t try to translate, but I have been to business meetings, and when bosses are serious they put on a sorta act that to me seems obvious, but seems to terrify the Japanese employees. That is what this looks like to me, a boss trying to be tough and frighten employees.
I won’t pretend to know if it is fake or not, but a full translation would be nice from one of these “japanese speakers”. I can have a friend do it a little later if no one steps up.
Transl- I believe he said:
For relaxing times,
Make it Suntory time.
This translation is brief summary. He says that their video and TV selling is terribly condition. Why his team have to back up such segments? His team should create 4K low(my be raw) 4K camera at NAB exhibition.
That guy in the video looks familiar. I swear he was at a Panasonic brief a year or two ago. Im gonna do some digging.
I’m getting so tired of this 4K crap. Noone has computers or even TV’s that can even play 4K yet. Watching it at home, 1080p and 4k don’t even show much of a difference. Unless you’re movies for the big screen, you don’t need 4k, even if you’re a serious filmmaker. I hate this obsession with resolution. It’s sickening.
Agreed. People have such an obsession with gear these days that they forget that cinematography is about making beautiful images. That’s why I hate this move from film to digital. Why are we opting for an uglier medium just because it’s easier to use and distribute?
However, the bad thing about film is how easily it can be damaged.
I’ve had to repair 135 format negatives by scanning and repairing the scanned file for 5-6 hours. Imagine that days of film have been destroyed and your budget is almost gone. For the film maker trying to get there, digital technology will be helpful.
Besides, all the tube amplifiers in the world can’t make an old scratchy vinyl record sound decent.
no im sorry, the 4k workflow is a HUGE asset even if you never show at 4k.
For your information, the Alexa is 2.8k, and it resolves down to about 2k. I’ve seen it in the theater and I’ve even seen it on IMAX. There have been many 1080p cameras shown in theater and movies that were shot on 16mm film. 4K to 1080p downscaled, and even 4K, in theater, doesn’t make that big of a difference at all. It doesn’t make for a better theater viewing experience, and it doesn’t make the movie any more enjoyable. It’s also not any more profitable in any way. It’s just a way for camera companies to make money off people that love to get new gear and feel like they’re better somehow.
Having shot with Red for years in Corporate film its HUGELY liberating to shoot @4k (i.e. native) and then crop and resize to 1080p. IT means more usable shots, it means less work in production, it means sharpness that IS better than 1080p. If you haven’t worked in a 4k workflow you wouldn’t understand…its awesome.
That’s rather narrow minded, you’re only looking at it from one side.
Post production work would benefit from higher resolutions, and there are applications for non-filmmakers as well.
Higher resolution means higher quality in capturing motion for whatever it may be needed.
Aren’t you “creatives” supposed to know these things?
Has anyone here downscaled a 4k footage to 1080p? Theres a huge difference.
I think besides the fact that some of us would like to show our work on the big screen either now or someday, the CLEAR advantages to 2K and 4K and even 5K are that if you use it, you can now film with primes in situations that do not allow you to get as close as you’d like to the subject and still have plenty of resolution to crop the image without it looking like poo.
Whatever you say James. If you are watching on Imax and can’t enjoy higher than 1080p you either need to put your glasses back on, or have your endorphin levels checked. I am one of those that can see a clear difference between 1080 and 720 even on a fairly small monitor. I have better than 20/20 vision, so I am sure this helps. All the same whether you see the difference or not, higher resolution is coming whether you like it or not, and monitors are available. All be it the cheapest is probably still the Sharp PN-K321 at several thousand dollars, but the prices will coming down very fast as is always the trend once it becomes mainstream. I say bring on the consumer 8K’s and let’s stop pussyfootin around !
I will never understand people so obsessed with gear like you. They buy the newest thing just because it’s new, although it’s really not necessary at all. I have 20/20 vision, and I’ve seen 4K and 2K comparisons on a theater sized screen. Barely any difference. Noone will be able to tell the difference between 4k and 8k, but people like you will never be satisfied until they have something like 30K cameras and screens. But whatever. It’s your money.
James, I understand the overall sentiment but it doesn’t seem to apply flirtyone. They stated the difference is very apparent to him, much the same way that the difference between a “good” and a “great” violin is very apparent to many concert violinists. That doesn’t mean that the difference will be equally obvious to others but it also doesn’t mean that they are obsessed with gear.
And flirtyone, why so adverserial? James has a different experience than you and over-generalized but that’s no reason to get snarky with him.
I’m somewhere between the two of you: whether I notice the difference between 720P and 1080P content depends on both the screen and the content (it’s not something I catch 100% of the time) and I do prefer the viewing experience of 4K projectors to 2K ones (even with 2K content) and drive about twice along to the movie theater because of that. However, I also watch streaming content that is full of compression artifacts fairly often because of the convenience (mostly for TV shows, rather than films).
Now, as a content creator, it is my preference to greatly exceed the output format in my acquisition format to enable a wider variety of choices. Shooting at higher resolution means a greater ability to reduce noise in post, a greater choice of downscaling options, the ability to perform dynamic “pan and scans” as well as use differing crops, the ability to perform image stabilization in post while preserving more of the original image, the chance to extract higher resolution stills, more data work with in post (including increased quality on filters that work on surrounding pixels etc.), etc., etc.
In other words, there is a veritable plethora of ways in which higher resolutions can benefit content creators, even if they never view the content on a screen that is higher than HD resolution. The flipside is storage costs, bandwidth and other such concerns. It’s not a one-sided thing, but there certainly are things in play other than “gear lust” when it comes to higher resolutions at the creation stage.
I’m sick of people basing everything on their own experience. There are audience members that have better than 20/20 vision that can see the difference between 4k and 8k, some can see better again. The calculated limit is 2400dpi, monochrome, something like 30k on a good field of view, and 16k on a screen. I went to see the local vmax screen the first time in ages the other night, and could hardly believe I could see the screen dooring between the pixels. Time to get your glasses checked guys, and find the sweet spot in your vision. Only a small central spot gets the highest resolution, but scans around the image. People’s brain can be looking to the side of it. Get a fine pattern and see which part of your visions sees the detail, rather than the contrast, the best, then test it out, refocus your attention on that spot as your center of vision, and see the difference.
I have seem guys post dvd quality is good for cinema. If you stand a long way away of course it will look fine, stand in front of it like it is a big poster, filling all but your peripheral vision, that is future big screen.
Endorphins are another thing, but less than optimal health can also produce noise and resolution reduction in the eye nerves, surface, cells etc. A healthy nutritious diet can help that.
This debate is like saying you don’t need anything past 1920×1080 for stills, or editing screen.
Another thing is poor vision and crt screens bloom, hiding pixels and reducing real resolution.
Now onto this guy, I suppose the video is meant to be covert video at a sales conference. The crop ratio is unusual, and I thought his face looked fake.
They could do an 8k camera if they wanted to, but wherever they would do 4k now is another thing. Sony has plans for 16k+ cameras to do holographic imaging. 4k would help drive sales of displays, just to watch the video. I bought a fullhd tv to use my fullhd video. At this early stage 4k cameras can double sales of tv, until 4k content comes out which will increase sales more, before 4k tv broadcasts.
You can get 4k content from Sony and others. Red has affordable 20mb/s a second redray content, versus Sony’s 100mb/s content, but the player costs over $1000.
As mentioned, Sharp has a 4k touch computer super display for several thousand dollars, but it is only one. Viewsonic is to release, and others would be coming. Westinghouse has a bright and cheerful 50inch for $2499, and others have more. A cheap competitor has similar tech to Sharp, and I suspect it might be in the Westinghouse and other cheap 4k displays. Hisense is another early announcer. Red is said to be producing a 4k laser 3d projector under $10k.
@Per Lichtman
I was actually trying to be nice about it, it’s just James seemed to clearly be talking down to anyone that feels 4K is needed.
@James, for the record I do not have and buy the latest and greatest as it comes out. I have a GH2, because it fits my budget and keeps things light weight and mobile. Being in Japan and on foot 90% of the time, this is important for me.
@John Since you have a broad understanding of Japanese, can you please tell us what he says?
I am working on a word for word translation, so I would love to compare with you.
lol @Zeus, I am constantly using that line. Unfortunately only a few friends in Japan get it, since though the product is real it seems maybe that is not their slogan, or at least not a recent one.
its amazing how many people say 4k is useless without having even seen any footage yet. I supposed they havent updated their 2mp cameras either, since current computers cant display anymore than that.
Since our resident Japanese expert never got around to translating this, here is what he says (nearly word for word, but this is never the case when going Japanese to English).
“We’ve had problems with our video cameras lately. They are viewed as outdated and overpriced. Look at our TV business, it is barely alive. Do we want to follow? We don’t have much for the coming NAB exhibition. It’s known one of our competitors is prepared to release a completely revolutionary and cheap 4K camera at NAB. 4K in raw. Imagine, 4K raw cameras available for everyone! And where do we stand? Awful.”
It seems to cut out in the middle as he then says either “we must” or “we need”.
Sorry it took so long, I have a lot of friends that gave me partial and basic translations that were pretty accurate, but I wanted to wait for my friend that is fluent in English to get me the best possible translation before posting a half assed version.
So, not the hybrid Panasonic, but a competitor. let’s see, 4k raw for everybody. Gopro owns cineform who uses ambarella chipset that now officially support 4k, pushing cineform to be a registered standard. Ambarella is used by many other companies, and aimed at cheap cheap low end cameras. Including new Kodak back in the race with m43. That would be cheap enough to cover a lot of people. Sounds a little like a new BMDCC. Red could be doing something. 4k bayer doesn’t give such quality in 4k (why they use 5k instead and convert to 4k). A 4k Red dslr would crush the existing cheap cinema competition, $10k is not for everybody. Maybe if you sold cameras that cost enough to be plated in gold you would think $10k is cheap.