Sony at NAB 2014 have reaffirmed their commitment to the addition of Apple ProRes on-board recording as a future hardware upgrade option for its F5 and F55 CineAlta 4K cameras.
ProRes files will be stored and recorded internally to the F5 and F55 via Sony’s SxS PRO+ memory cards, which were specially designed to handle mission-critical applications. Compared to competitive card formats, Sony’s SxS PRO+ cards are far less prone to file corruption due to their advanced design, robustness and sustained writing speeds of 187MB/s.
“The F5 and F55 cameras were carefully designed based on direct customer feedback, and with Sony releasing multiple firmware updates with powerful features, the ProRes codec is on the hot list of requests for us to implement,” said Peter Crithary, Marketing Manager for CineAlta Cameras at Sony Electronics. “ProRes is well established and extremely popular for many creative professionals worldwide, and we are very pleased to add this into the F5 and F55 cameras, joining a rich selection of codec choices.”
Traditionally, additional enhancements of this magnitude would have required the introduction of a new camera model.
“Sony is firmly committed to the on-going development of the F5 and F55 cameras and their flexible architecture allows room for these upgrades to occur without the need to buy a new camera body,” Crithary said. “For those who already own or are purchasing the F5 and F55, ProRes will be provided as an option board. With the addition of ProRes, both the F5 and F55 cameras are very well positioned to serve a greater range of production applications.”
Sony have also reaffirmed their commitment to adding DNxHD to the F5 and F55 cameras:
The DNxHD files will be stored in the easy-to-manage MXF OP-1a wrapper, and recorded on-board to Sony’s SxS PRO+ memory card format, which was specially designed to handle mission-critical production applications. Compared to competitive card formats, Sony’s SxS PRO+ cards are far less prone to file corruption due to their advanced design, robustness and sustained writing speeds of 187MB/s.
Supported operating points for the DNxHD codec are currently under discussion with AVID, and Sony continues to assess market requirements until release of the optional hardware upgrade.
“Today’s announcement is a dream come true for all professionals looking for a seamless file-based workflow between Sony’s excellent F5/F55 cameras and the Avid MediaCentral platform, says Ken Miles, Senior Director of Alliances and Partnerships at Avid.
Coupled with the announcement of Sony’s optional shoulder mount ENG and documentary dock kit slated to arrive later this year, the F5 and F55 cameras are growing increasingly popular in U.S. markets that traditionally have chosen 2/3 inch shoulder mount camcorders. The addition of the DNxHD codec, Avid’s implementation of the SMPTE VC-3 standard, gives customers who have made investments in AVID in-house production systems an essential combination for a seamless, direct-to-edit acquisition format while retaining the beautiful “storytelling” look and color fidelity directly enabled by the cameras’ 4K Super35mm sensor and signal processing engines.
“Professionals working within an AVID environment will benefit greatly by acquiring in the DNxHD codec, AVID’s host format that can elegantly be managed both within their stand-alone editing solutions and enterprise level environments,” said Peter Crithary, Marketing Manager for CineAlta camera technology at Sony Electronics. “The addition of DNxHD into the F5 and F55 camera platform completes the picture of a true end-to-end workflow that-starts from acquisition to editing, then to contribution, onto distribution including on air transmission and archive for future repurposing.”
Please see Sony for more information about their upgrade roadmap for the F5 and F55 cameras.