EPIC News...

[alex lemon]

Well said Steve. I for one don't shoot underwater, but admit I am extremely excited to see how the M-X, and its stunning low-light performance, fly subsurface.

Amen.

[KETCH ROSSi]

5K 2.37:1 is now 120 fps.

Jim

Talk about restless minds..

Jim, what we will have for Still capture speeds at full resolution, FPS?

[Rick Burnett]

I do think though, that Canon also has to consider how many changes when you are talking about trying to support a couple hundred thousand users with many different software versions, so 1) they probably need to be a little closer to a "finished" camera when they ship and 2) are a little more hesitant to make firmware changes and simply move new features to the new model and let volume pricing compensate.

For example, when I sell my T1i in a few months and buy the t2i I will probably only take a $200 to $300 hit so about $25 a month to own the camera and the upgrade is a physical swap sell/buy rather than a firmware update - and I get some of the new features like higher res sensor, etc.

I have done this routinely over the years with mass produced electronics like camcorders and computers.

I'll also add that I find that FPGAs can be a royal pain for anything high speed. They try to bridge the gap between a general purpose CPU and a fully dedicated hardware program. Most things I see FPGAs used for are prototyping, but they do get used in final products as well. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying they are bad, but their limitations on design size, timing, etc present a whole new level of pain for engineers.

I'd say that Red learned a lot with the Red One and I am sure they will be shipping a product on release that will be far superior to the Red One when it was released in terms of features, capability, bugs. But I do understand what you are saying.

As I said, it's a mentality difference. I'm sure Canon at the end of the day would prefer you bought a new camera with new features. This is very evident with all their products. They are designed to work as is, and what little fixes they do get are generally glaring bugs not feature additions. I don't feel this way with Red. I feel their goal is to improve technology and only make you pay for the parts that have improved while letting you retain the parts that are the same.

I too have always played the sell the old upgrade to the new mentality, but I definitely welcome that mentality going away. Canon is doing business as companies have done for a long time. At least with SLR technology, you can INVEST in a lens. But with camera bodies, in terms of investment, it's one of the worst (not including the investment in terms of work you can do with the camera, I just mean return on equipment). Is that important? For some yes. Especially if I am upgrading to the latest and greatest all the time.

To even take it a step further, what amazes me the most is that once I have my Scarlet Fixed, I only need to add the Scarlet S35 brain and Canon mount in the future and I can use all my accessories with both. Each brain has it's own strength which is awesome.

[Michael Lindsay]

5K 2.37:1 is 5120 x 2160... which means you can crop the ends and get Quad HD from the same file... 3840 x 2160.

Jim

It would be fantastic if the chopping of the sides (smaller sensor window) meant that you guys could get the Quad HD format up to 150fps... A frame rate many of us understand and have used ...

thanks and keep it coming

Michael L

[Jannard]

It would be fantastic if the chopping of the sides (smaller sensor window) meant that you guys could get the Quad HD format up to 150fps... A frame rate many of us understand and have used ...

thanks and keep it coming

Michael L

Not possible... frame rates are determined by vertical lines only.

Jim

[Michael Hastings]

I too have always played the sell the old upgrade to the new mentality, but I definitely welcome that mentality going away.

Me too, I turn 55 this month and I have probably owned that many prosumer and broadcast cameras. I was hoping that R1 was going to be my last camera but some of the ergonomic issues didn't quite get us there.

But Epic has answered every item on my (realistic) wishlist and the Epic-X package pretty much gives me everything I need - and will be suitable for virtually any need my clients are likely to need. While I may up to a 9K Epic at some point - it would be more because I can rather than a true need.

As for the underwater - 64GB CF cards and the low light capability of the M-X will mean we have a compact underwater system with phenomenal image quality.

[Rick Burnett]

As for the underwater - 64GB CF cards and the low light capability of the M-X will mean we have a compact underwater system with phenomenal image quality.

I cannot wait to see what kind of underwater stuff gets shot with the M-X. Yeah, I guess changing cards underwater would be tough! :P

[Tony Lorentzen]

Does this mean I can get 1000 fps for 320x240? ;-)

[Rick Burnett]

Not possible... frame rates are determined by vertical lines only.

Jim

Wait, I am confused. Shouldn't this be by horizontal lines only? If it were controlled by vertical lines then the comment about chopping off the sides would allow a higher frame rate.

I would think that when a row is being read, it reads out the whole thing in parallel for speed purposes. Is this not the case? Is it shifted out?

[Lee Saxon]

I'm really curious about stills mode framerates. I've never had any problem with 8fps on my DSLR, in fact 99.999% of the time (for me, I can't speak for full-time sports guys) 5fps would be plenty. But a little bit higher couldn't hurt!