kidzrevil

yeah, depends on quite a bit. not gonna do the whole what if you don't actually need 4k thing  are these your top choices because of budget? if so, yeah, maybe g7 would be better suited than a gh4, with almost as much in its favor (no log, 96fps, or log basically). if you want to get really into the grading, the a6300 might be the better option. a little more out of the box image, the panasonic might be the better option. if you don't want to add the cost of speedboosting, the a6300 might be better for sensor size and lowlight, as well as possibly adapting short flange distance retro lenses, using more of the glass. if you'll use anamorphic lenses, the gh4 might be better. if you want ten bit (for log or otherwise), gh4 with external recorder, hands down. if you'll use LUTs, or if you'll want to experiment with that, you'll probably want the log option. maybe find some original footage from each first to play with or wait for some reviews of the a6300. might not be able to go too wrong with either really

I have the voightlander 28, 40, and 90mm. They along with the nikon Ai-S are great on the NX1. For me though the S lenses are fantastic, very sharp, great look, amazing AF, and stabilized. Both are going for under a grand on the used market right now. 

Good news, bad news.

Good news is that I have learned a lot about the srp( samsung reconfigureable processor) architecture. Bad news. It is very very very very complicated. Machine compiled c into binary. Unknown yet when it is loaded into the firmware and if the .cpp files that are listed are infact that, or just other hard ware controls

So the srp is like an fpga in the way you can change what it does on the fly. It differs in the way that it uses VLIW instead of bits to do its magic.
Reverse engineering the binary into something workable.. is possible, but time will tell if and how much can be changed. The plus side of a simple isp changing values in softwear can do something like what the gh2 hack did. The downside being you are stuck with the hardware.
The plus side of the srp implementation.. Building a custom algorithm to..exchange the hevc codec with something else.. Could be possible. Unknown yet if the nr is a part of this or just a software implementation.

Also if the rumors were true about the ml guys approaching samsung, this would be why it didnt happen. They dont release the srp compiler. One instance of them giving access to it at the SAIT school in Korea is all I could find. very very proprietary.

But the dream for me of having a cheap 14bit 6.5k red competitor is what keeps me going. The confirmation of the UHS-II bus sweetens the deal. Going to investigate the possibility of a SD-SATA converter.. I wouldnt mind having a 1tb ssd attached to the back of the camera.


TL:DR This camera is complex and things are not getting easier but still progression is being made.

That is something that would be very simple to remove compared to what I just explained. A secondary task though, first we get to the good bits, and everything else is second. The way the srp even loads in is something that isnt well documented, let alone on a camera.

I realize it's sharpening more than detail.. though I've seen some evidence there's an insane amount of detail in the nx1's 4k as well. but to me, the nx1's sharpness is way less of a defect that it can be in some other cameras. it usually isn't like an artifact to make it look shitty and videolike unless you're really punching in or in certain shooting situations. I'd like to see some side by sides by the nx1 users who soften it a bit to fix the bit of an issue. because even now, I hardly consider it a bad thing. it's a great image

Going to get mine on Thursday now, Sony had a delivery technical issue so they are coming in a few days late here.
Looking forward to it.
I do wish Sony would change their menus, ergonomics, skintones, colour, LOG profile, jello, banding, macroblocking, edge tearing, etc. quite a long list isn't it? You can be assured my coverage won't be a PR smoothie unlike ALL OTHER SITES SEEMINGLY IN EXISTENCE.
Can I just say that Sony have some SUPERB PR people.

Exactly. I'm a hard-core Nikon user myself and love my D810, or for special tasks the D4 as well. But the NX1 is ergonomically perfect. Not too small, not too big - just right. Image quality is great. I wouldn't have thought it but currently I end up using this camera most often, even for stills... Even the smaller LX100 or the RX1R remain in the bag or on the shelf more often than I would have imagined before.

Regarding batteries: I think there will be enough third party alternatives for some time to go. And lenses are my least worry. The small pancakes and the S line provide everything you need. If you want to play, the Nikon mount offerings (or Canon if you´re into this brand) via an adapter provide a whole new world of choices. Yes, manual but the really high end stuff from Zeiss is without AF as well. Focus peaking on and everything is fine.

For the next couple of years, until Nikon will have cought up, for me this is the solution.

The issue of nx1 at iso 3200 in video is, imo, nr. The raw pictures at iso 3200 are totally usable, especially when downscaled to 16mp or below. Hence at 8mp they should shine! Instead, video at 3200 is very poor. Hence, there is something 'wrong' going on in the process.

Funnily enough they discontinued Canon FD lenses in the 80's and they are still easy to get on eBay in 2016 so I wouldn't worry about anything NX1 related becoming 'unobtainable' any time soon, if anything it will just get cheaper, which is nice.
The NX1 is by far the most pleasant to shoot with ergonomically. Feel in the hand is great. My hand and the A7S II have never got on very well. It doesn't quite feel as bad as clutching a bag of nails but it does feel like clutching a soulless badly designed camera body with fiddly badly placed buttons, for sure.
NX1 fits like a glove and your hand wraps most comfortably around the most important controls.
I even prefer it to a Canon 5D body and that says a lot.
A6300 is cute, small, but still just as soulless and fiddly ergonomically as the A7S II. As for the image we'll have to wait and see... I am going to do a comparison with the NX1. I think for the money it is great. Unless you need the in-body stabilisation and headphone jack of the A7S II, then the A6300 will serve you just fine especially with Speed Booster and it can do 12,800 pretty comfortably from what I have seen of the early footage. I rarely go higher than that. NX1 meanwhile will give you better colour straight off the card, no fuss to grade, better ergonomics, top panel LCD, weather sealing and sharper 120fps... Super clean ISO 800. ISO 1600 ok. ISO 3200 starts to get bad.
Your call

If you really have the money - yeah, the A7S II. ESPECIALLY if it is going to be put into heavy production use.

As much as I perhaps might prefer some aspects of the NX1 image - the utter lack of native lenses and Samsung's leaving the market put it at a disadvantage as a daily production tool.

there's not too much of an issue that'll be caused by the nx1 being discontinued. can't upgrade in the same line (ditch native lenses when you need a step up), no more legit firmware updates (off-chance of some awesome hacks on the way). nx1 is sharpened but detailed, hard to say either is better. if you've done your research, hard to say.. play with original files? maybe rent?

Sony a6300 is newer and uses s-LOG2, its not a fair comparison. 
Also its obvious HEVC + NR doing something stupid, we all know video mode have NR by now. However if you take a picture at 3200ISO, there is no blue streak ISO artefacts like in video. So its clear that its the NR and in-camera processing causing these artefacts.
You might argue 28 megapixels versus line skipping, but even at the highest ISO I cannot see these streaks, something is going on with the in-camera processing of the video. And we need to shut it off because the 3200 ISO looks usable if the stupid NR just "#&&%¤ off.

Metabones XL and G7 is a killer combination , G7 is much cleaner in the blacks and less noise than GH4 , G7 codec is very thick you can grade it to extreme levels with no micro blocking , its like grading ProRes!!

If I may chime in here. The ideal interface for me would be to drop some files in the sd with names like 4KMax.config, 1080pMax.config for example. The GUI should just get all the file names that end in .config and show them as options. I pick one and the settings from within that .config file are applied. This way, the system could be made very flexible and extensible and people can share settings. The file should probably be in a human-readable format like json.
I am very interested in bumping up the HEVC bitrate to whatever maximum is allowed. I think that will improve the image quality a lot. My PCs have high end GPUs so I am not worried about decoding. I am prepared to contribute $$$ to the effort as well.
 
 

Agree, but please avoid Magic Lantern as menu inspiration as well. IMO the Samsung menus are pretty nice. But Blackmagic really have the menu thing down. Easy and intuitive.

If you need help with the UI, just message me... I design for Android, so should be fairly similar.

Talking to a few people I know who do front end. Seeing what can be done about having a set up like magic lantern for ease of use. That or writing the menu itself to add in the options. If its a possibility we will try to keep is as far from sonys menu as possible. If anyone has used their gear.

According to this Anandtech article Samsung uses something they call the SRP (Samsung Re-configurable Processor) in the DRIMe-5 SoC. They call it a CGRA (Coarse-Grained Re-configurable Architecture), which probably means it is less flexible than a FPGA but more flexible than traditional IP blocks. I have no idea what their source is, but Anandtech is known for being very reliable. Details about the SRP online are very sparse, but there are a few research papers about it being used as an experimental GPU. Apparently it is used in the last generation of Exynos SoCs as an audio processor (not for their latest chips, though).
The SRP is definitely not being used as the GPU in the DRIMe-5, since the kernel source shows it uses a conventional GPU just like in the Exynos SoC it is based on. It also isn't being used for HEVC encoding, since Samsung has special-purpose hardware blocks to do that. As to what they are using it for, I have no idea at this point.

This is good news to me, it has answered a lot of the questions on what I have been finding in the back end. It is a dsp block, from what I have found so far there is some documentation out there. Lots to read tonight. But this has made a huge step forward for me. I dont know how I never came across the article mentioning that information before I found the fpga+asic article I found!
But much thanks!

It was in a cpu config file. But in early firmware, I am plotting the changes and original values to see what sort of leverage can happen with them.
 
This is something that I have also been looking into. With luck it is just the change of an output flag and see if things can be pushed to a higher limit. HEVC and other compression systems are less intensive with less compression, so in theory it should be able to bump up to the bus limit and have less compressed files. In the later firmware the change from 15fps to 25fps for the raw output sort of shows the ceiling of bandwidth the processor can handle. Give or take 30MB raw file x 25fps data stream is 750MBs/6000Mbs
My goal is to see how close to the spec of a red weapon the nx1 can be. HEVC is sort of a pain but the way it works is more like the wavelet based .r3d files when HEVC is at lower compression rates. But the more I find the more interesting things get. And the things they did for this camera make it vastly unique compared to a canon or a sony.
 
The complexity of the nx1 makes that quite hard, if I am correct and there is an fpga/cpld core on board it gets more tricky. I have seen some signs though. No confirmation yet. More work will be done tonight on the dive though. I have compiled a large data sheet already on the things I have found in the first firmware update. But going though the code takes time.
 
And if people are having issues with HEVC I highly recommend getting a GTX960 so far the only gpu with fully enabled on board HEVC encode/decode and boy does it work well. And they are not very expensive. If you go by how HEVC does compression, when you transcode it would be in the Gbs if the data rate is doubled on camera

In my opinion you want to get lenses from the same manufacturer from the same lens line up. If I were you, I would start investing in the Rokinon/Samyang/Bower lenses. Or if they're a little too pricy for you, then breakdown your lens line up into interior and exterior lenses. By doing this the slight difference in lens characteristics can be negated. Btw, what type of video work do you do? This also can help to steer you in a specific direction. 

I've seen good results with Contax Zeiss glass, but the NX1 doesn't respond well to lower-res lenses. It's a very demanding sensor. Modern stuff will work best, or anything vintage that's known for its resolution (Contax, Pentax, some Minolta MDs, probably Nikon). 

Chant, great! Think that I've been asking for a NX1 hack since february 2015  Perhaps, in few weeks/months, you'll get there!!! I'm excited!

Depending on what I find there could be an option for a 1:1.29 lossless or a higher compression visually lossless hevc. Creating a custom lut for a more red like log seems possible also.
 The firmware seems more of a proof of concept that they left it open to change so many things. And more so to show they can go head to head with the established makers and make something better. Since this thread has garnered more interest I have shifted to put more hours into this dive I am doing.

Ha, yes, we had some good interaction in that thread. And yes, for h265 you are probably correct. Prores on the shogun seems to care little between 0-255 and 16-235 once you actually grade the files. Sorry for this digression in this thread!
My main point earlier that I may or may not have made, is that increased bitrate will help us, particularly in h265 with things like macroblocking, unfortunately I doubt it will help us with banding (as 220mpbs+ already doesn't seem to get rid of it ala the shogun). while h265 is a very impressive codec, I'd really like to see something come along in the hack that will give us 422 (i really dont think hdmi out is 422 on this camera, but i have no evidence other than the terrible banding that still occurs). with gammadr and -10 contrast the camera is capable of a ton of latitude, it just can't be pieced back together in color without significant banding.