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When will we get 4K DSLR for $2000?


Jaime Valles
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4K DSLR?  

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  1. 1. When will we get a 4K DSLR for $2000 or less?

    • 2013
      1
    • 2014
      8
    • 2015
      7
    • 2016
      6


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Right now we only have the Canon 1DC for $12000 and soon the Blackmagic Production camera for $4000, in addition to the RED cameras.

 

Just curious how long you think we'll have to wait until DSLRs or mirrorless cameras can shoot 4K / UHD footage for around $2000.  Three years?  Two?  One?  I'm betting sometime in 2014.  What do you think?

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The only 4K DSLR is the 1DC. The Blackmagic 4K Camera (which apparently will appear in 2014, not 2013) is not a DSLR. I don't think DSLRs are particularly good for video, the 5D2 was exciting just because it did 135 1080p with interchangeable lenses so much cheaper than anything else. Plus dual-use for stills. The $400 GoPro Hero3 Black does 4K at 12fps, I'm assuming you're interested in at least 24fps to qualify. I'd say 2015 for a camera that makes you happy for $2K although there will be crude prototypes appearing in 2014 that some people will "use."

 

4K ecosystems require a lot of storage and processing bandwidth so the cost of the camera body is going to be proportional to all of that...it's always been a bit hilarious to see the BMD beauty shots of their cheap crummy cameras adapted into $40K rigs with Angenieux zooms and matte boxes etc. Realistically the components of a production workflow are budgeted rationally and for 4K that's not just RED but e.g. F55, C500, etc. By 2015 enough of this will be affordable to make it practical for the hobbyist to shoot and cut at that resolution.

 

But another thing to keep in mind is how much additional pressure 4K will place on your subject matter. 1080p put enormous strain on talent, MUAs, set dressers, gaffers etc. to cope with how visible all the flaws became. 4K multiplies that problem fourfold. So be careful what you ask for, you just might get it. People might find themselves shooting at 4K only to decide to blur and grain it up to 16mm/720p resolution because everything clearer "looks like video"...the same reason 24p is preferred to 60p when making art. 1080p done well is a pretty happy medium and available RTS for under $10K today.

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Voted 2015..

But actually think it might be sooner. I think the first 4K dslrs won't be very impressive. It will just be a marketing thing. Lots of (bad) compression and low actual resolution...

 

Might also depend on the bigger picture. The adaptation of 4K. No sense in selling 4K to consumers if they don't know what to do with it. If (consumer) 4K tvs are getting more mainstream, (consumer)camera makers want to have a part of that...

 

Heard rumors about new iMacs with 5K resolution...

http://nofilmschool.com/2013/06/5k-apple-retina-display-imac-osx-mavericks/

 

Might sound crazy, but it would make sense, as it's currently 2560x1440. If they could make that 5120 x 2880... they can do the same trick as with the Retina iPad (1024x768 > 2048x1536) and the Retina Macbook (1440x900 > 2880x1800) - the whole OS will look the same, but everything is much sharper.

 

This would really help getting high dpi monitors more popular for the pc market.

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...Just curious how long you think we'll have to wait until DSLRs or mirrorless cameras can shoot 4K / UHD footage for around $2000.  Three years?  Two?  One?  I'm betting sometime in 2014.  What do you think?

 

The 1DC produces 300 gigabytes per hour of 4k video using H.264. That is compressed. Uncompressed 10-bit 4k video is roughly 3x that, about 1 terabyte per hour. A typical shooting ratio might be 50:1, so for a 1-hr production you'd need 50 hr of raw material. That equates to 15 terabytes of 4k H.264 or 50 terabytes of 4k raw at 10 bits.

 

Assuming you had the resources to manage and edit that, the final 1 hr product would be about 300 gigabytes of H.264. In theory H.265 might reduce that to 150 gigabytes.

 

To distribute that you'd have to give each customer three double-layer Blu Ray discs, or a portable hard drive. For on-line distribution, 150 gigabytes is most of the current data cap that broadband providers allow. So they could download it but do little else the rest of the month.

 

It makes sense for large studios to shoot 4k to "future proof" their material, even if they'll be delivering mostly 1080p for several years. This is similar to TV networks shooting color film long before color TVs were common.

 

However I don't see the cost/benefit tradeoff of small, independent or amateur productions shooting 4k -- even if the camera supports it. The problem isn't the camera -- it's the asset management and distribution of 4k content.

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The 1DC produces 300 gigabytes per hour of 4k video using H.264. That is compressed. Uncompressed 10-bit 4k video is roughly 3x that, about 1 terabyte per hour. A typical shooting ratio might be 50:1, so for a 1-hr production you'd need 50 hr of raw material. That equates to 15 terabytes of 4k H.264 or 50 terabytes of 4k raw at 10 bits.

 

But what kind of compression is that..? That's like 3.5MB per frame.

 

Usually a dslr with H264 codec does something like 25Mbps at 1080p (25/8 = 3,125MB/s).

 

The first consumer 4K camera's will probably be heavily compressed as well. Even if they would use 4x the amount of data (4K = 4x 1080p) that would ammount to 100Mbps = 12,5MB/s = 750MB/minute or roughly 44GB/hour.

 

Of course that wouldn't be 1DC quality, but I think this is how we will see 4K in consumer dslrs first.

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The 1DC produces 300 gigabytes per hour of 4k video using H.264. That is compressed. Uncompressed 10-bit 4k video is roughly 3x that, about 1 terabyte per hour. A typical shooting ratio might be 50:1, so for a 1-hr production you'd need 50 hr of raw material. That equates to 15 terabytes of 4k H.264 or 50 terabytes of 4k raw at 10 bits.

 

Yeah, but why do you have to use uncompressed raw?

Even the RED has a compression ratio that can go up to 10:1, and that's a high end camera.

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The 1DC produces 300 gigabytes per hour of 4k video using H.264. That is compressed. Uncompressed 10-bit 4k video is roughly 3x that, about 1 terabyte per hour. A typical shooting ratio might be 50:1, so for a 1-hr production you'd need 50 hr of raw material. That equates to 15 terabytes of 4k H.264 or 50 terabytes of 4k raw at 10 bits.

 

Assuming you had the resources to manage and edit that, the final 1 hr product would be about 300 gigabytes of H.264. In theory H.265 might reduce that to 150 gigabytes.

 

False. The 4K video is recorded in MJPEG on the 1DC. The 1080p video is recorded in H.264.

 

http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/professional/products/professional_cameras/cinema_eos_cameras/eos_1d_c

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Since using the Epic recently I found out just how unforgiving 4K is. The 550D is quite kind in comparison, you cover a lot with a bit of grain and softness! Go watch any old film shot on 16mm   ;)

 

Focus is crazy unforgiving, fraction off and you have 1080p!

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Don't any of you follow Sonyalpharumors? Shieeeeet. Sony is pushing 4k harder than anybody, their DSLT roadmap was completely scrapped and the next releases will be early 2014 A-mount mirrorless cameras.

 

I don't doubt at all that these will be shooting 4K since the released Sony statement says they will be pushing 4K not to mention they have already shown the 4K prototype at NAB there were even pictures posted of it on EOSHD.. I doubt the first one will be under 2k but I highly doubt it will be a whole year before the features go down into lower a77 tier models.

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Focus is crazy unforgiving, fraction off and you have 1080p!

 

It's mad isn't it? It has this odd effect where you think "that's in focus" and then it actually pulls into focus... and you think ~"oh, there are the pores in her skin"

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Don't any of you follow Sonyalpharumors? Shieeeeet. Sony is pushing 4k harder than anybody, their DSLT roadmap was completely scrapped and the next releases will be early 2014 A-mount mirrorless cameras.

 

I don't doubt at all that these will be shooting 4K...

 

That is cool in a way, but at the same time, Sony have had quite a few, actually quite a lot of promising DSLRs, and they always managed to get it wrong somehow when it comes to video.

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Don't any of you follow Sonyalpharumors? Shieeeeet. Sony is pushing 4k harder than anybody, their DSLT roadmap was completely scrapped and the next releases will be early 2014 A-mount mirrorless cameras.

 

I don't doubt at all that these will be shooting 4K since the released Sony statement says they will be pushing 4K not to mention they have already shown the 4K prototype at NAB there were even pictures posted of it on EOSHD.. I doubt the first one will be under 2k but I highly doubt it will be a whole year before the features go down into lower a77 tier models.

 

To get it right, Sony really, truly needs to make the 4K cam E-mount. No one's going to buy A-mount lenses, and there's only so many Konica/Minolta enthusiasts in the world, and most of them have no money for a 4K-capable workflow. But a full frame E-mount (as seen first on the miserable VAG-900) would allow the entire project to succeed. 4K, one trusts, won't have awful moire issues from line-skipping etc.

 

Will Sony come to its senses and do the obvious next step?  :unsure:

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