Mokara

A hell of a lot more users use the stills RAW function in these cameras than those who use 24p. 24p is very much a niche, and the people who occupy that niche by and large buy higher end cameras (and are driven by other reasons). The absence of 24p will have very little effect on sales. The absence of stills RAW however will have a very significant impact on sales. The two are not comparable, no matter what soccer moms are doing. His argument is a red herring. There is also the question of cost. A camera shoots RAW in the first place, JPEG is produced from that RAW image. Having the ability to save that RAW image directly costs nothing outside of the software tools which are already there in the basic OS used in Canon's cameras, there is no IP involved and the hardware is already in place. So, eliminating RAW would provide very little cost savings, but instead would cost a lot in the form of lost sales.

For their lower end products, yes. They have obviously created a restricted technology package for video in their lower end products, since all of the consumer cameras built around Digic 8 appear to have the same video specs. This is not speculation, it is fact as evidenced by the specs themselves. The reason for doing that would be to reduce costs, and having some sort of negotiated license for those products would be part of that.

Right. And the financial terms of the license take that into account. But you have to negotiate that.

That is the standard license that is available to everyone. You can negotiate other terms however. The fact that there is no reason to intentionally cripple cameras doesn't bother you? After all, if that was the case then why do older consumer cameras have 24p in them? Surely Canon would still have been "protecting" other products then as well? Why would they suddenly stop including 24p to "protect" professional products? What kind of professional is going to give up on their Cx00 in order to shoot on an EOS-M camera? Really??? You guys seriously believe that??? Your argument makes absolutely no sense at all. The only reasonable reason for doing this is to reduce costs in order to improve the profit margin, something you would expect them to do in a climate of rapidly shrinking consumer sales.

In order to use H.264 they have to get a license like everyone else. There is absolutely a license fee structure involved, it is NOT free. You are not going to find any link to it because that information obviously is confidential, but suggesting that there is no license is ridiculous. What you pay for a license depends on who your are, what you use the codec for and how you use it. It can range from nothing to a very large amount of money. The exact amount would be negotiated at the time the license is issued and having some restrictions in return for a lower fee is normal business practice. That is a reasonable and obvious explanation for why something like 24p is omitted. The suggestion that they left it out on purpose just to make their product less competitive is absurd, but that is essentially what most of you are arguing. It is not like 24p was not in their cameras before, so they were not protecting anything then and are not now. The reason for the omission has to be something else.

Because every feature included in a camera costs development resources, things are not just "added". There is additional hardware functionality required, that costs money to implement. There are license considerations, that costs money as well. RAW is used by a LOT more users of these cameras than 24p, so it is worthwhile for Canon to invest in including it in the cameras. They will make more money in additional sales by having RAW as a feature than it costs to implement it, that is why it is still there. The feature set we are seeing in the latest consumer cameras is almost certainly a technology package build around Digic 8 that is dropped into whatever new design comes up in that category, so you are going to see similar or identical video specs in most of them. Basically they use the same designs in different bodies when it comes to implementing video. That would minimize the cost to implement, but it also results in those cameras having the same specs. Prosumer cameras likely have a different more advanced technology package while the dedicated video cameras probably have different ones.

It is not the same sensor.

It has an updated processor compared to the one in the 6500, according to the leaked promotional pamphlet. So it should perform better. The main features as far as video are concerned is IBIS, which the 6400 does not have, and real time eye tracking in video (in the 6400 that feature is for stills only). Basically a more capable version of the 6400 when it comes to video, but much the same when it comes to stills. The 6100 appears to be using the older version of Bionz X.

It is not about increasing sales, it is about the increase in sales being less than what it costs to implement. Why would they spend $2 to make $1 in an era of belt tightening? That is not how business works. In this market they will be looking to trim the fat, reducing expenditures that don't generate a net return. And something like 24p is the sort of thing that is likely to be the first to go in a product like this. It costs money and is a feature that hardly anyone who buys this camera is likely to use. So why spend money to include it? Maybe this is why so many DPs are starving artists, lol.

As I have said before, this is a cost saving compromise based on the expected user profile for the camera. Canon's sales woes no doubt have played a strong role in that decision.

That has nothing to do with the sensor, it is a limitation of the processor. The improvements over Digic 6 (as far as video is concerned) is 4K (the hardware encoded kind, not the software mjpeg kind). Hardware encoding of 4K was introduced in the Digic 7/DV5 processor, but it ran too hot to be implemented in consumer/stills cameras. Digic 8/DV6 has a scaled back 4K encoder which has a thermal envelope suitable for 4K in consumer cameras but otherwise offers no improvement. No doubt further improvements in the Digic 9 (when that is released) will make more advanced video capabilities possible in an acceptable thermal envelope (that is the obvious immediate challenge for Canon's engineers), but just not right now. We have to wait for that processor. Hybrids don't cannibalize pro-video camera sales. That is a myth to rationalize the absence of some features from hybrids, but the real reason for that absence is that it is not technically possible to implement them in that form factor in a way that practical, economic and reliable. And before people start going off half cocked, "reliable" from a manufacturers perspective is avoiding returns for any reason as far as possible - one of the major reason features are implemented so conservatively. All of the main players do things this way, the only manufacturers who do not are the new insurgent ones, such as BM, who have nothing to lose and have to take risks to get a foothold.

No you won't. If you look like a rival gang member, maybe, but gangsters are not so stupid as to think a tourist is a rival gang member. In Europe try dressing up in ethnic clothing and go for a stroll in some right wing neighborhood, see how well that goes down. Don't think you are immune from that kind of shit. No, there is hardware associated with it, it still requires development resources to implement and it will have licensing costs associated with it. We are not talking about a lot of money here, but it is probably more than enough to exceed any losses they might incur for omitting it. If you are running off narrow margins cutting frills that otherwise cost you money is important.

That is not it. It is a cost saving measure to improve their margins on consumer products which are becoming increasingly pressed by alternative competition such as from cell phones. They will never tell you that however, instead they will tell you some bogus technical "reason" so you will stop asking why.

Which are likely made using existing technology and existing license agreements. If there was no reason to not include it, they would include it. In industry when you license in someone else's IP payment comes in two separate forms typically. Firstly, there is an upfront payment as agreed to which is based off milestones through the development process. So, when I start making the gadget, and I want to use your IP, we come to an agreement that allows me to do that. Right away I will pay you some small amount of cash. Then, as the gadget proceeds from testing to manufacturing to release, there will be a number of agreed to milestones that when met will trigger additional increasingly larger payments I have to make to you (sometimes milestones can happen even after the product is being sold, depending on what the agreement was). THEN, on top of that for every unit I sell I will have to pay you a royalty, also agreed to in advance. Now, how would that work with multiple products? Every product you make would be subject to those milestones. Moreover, such agreements typically will limit the number of products you can develop before you need to negotiate a new license. Maybe you have 10, then once those are done you need a new license for any future products using the IP. Once you use up your allotment of products you need to negotiate a new milestone/royalty structure which can be quite different from what you had before. Maybe you agree to other limitations in order to decrease the milestone costs. I am guessing that Canon are dealing with this sort of situation all the time. They are a manufacturer so it is reasonable to assume that they are dealing with the same business practices that every other manufacturer in the developed world has to deal with. The point I am making is that Canon having certain features in earlier models is not predictive of what will be in later models, because the license agreements in place for the respective models may be quite different. These carry cost burdens, and that figures into whether it is worth your while to include them or not. Not necessarily true. There is supporting hardware as well, and if that is not implemented or some part is not capable, then you can unlock all you want and nothing is going to happen. It is not just one thing.

24p is not just "there". It costs money to implement. There is development cost associated with every function in the camera. There will be hardware support requirements which will add to the manufacturing cost. There is also the question of the license fee they have to pay to use H.264. When you are producing a low cost version of a high end product you manufacture, the way you do it and still make money is to strip out the frills that the likely user does not need. Although those sorts of things might seem trivial to you, they do cost money to implement, money that otherwise comes out of your margin.

H.264 is the codec used. It does not belong to Canon. The Digic processor does the encoding in hardware, but it still requires a license from MPEG-LA in order to use the codec. The exact nature of the license and how much you pay depends on what you use it for and how you use it. The license fee can range from free all the way up to five million dollars, which is NOT chump change if you have a product operating on close margins. I am willing to bet my last dollar that the vast majority of people who buy this camera are not going to be shooting in 24p irrespective of whether it is there or not. Canon have apparently reached the same conclusion. Remember, unlike speculation here, they have access to market research which will tell them how these consumer products are actually being used, and they will make their decisions on that basis. Don't forget that they have been making consumer digital video products for over a decade, and they know what people are shooting with those products. Including 24p is going to cost money, both in development resources and likely in license fees. It probably requires additional logic on the circuit board as well. So if very few people are using that mode and they are operating on small margins, it makes sense to cut things like this out of the specs and save a few dollars per camera, which can be quite significant when it comes to net margins in a consumer product.

You have a better explanation for why they would leave the framerate out? They are without question paying a license fee for using the codec. That is the most reasonable explanation. Or we could just go with the conspiracy theory, which, I may point out, has no support either. People repeating it over and over does not make it real. Older cameras have 24p included, so they are leaving it out for a reason. The people who buy this camera are not the ones who buy high end systems, so the idea that they are leaving the function out to "protect" their high end products is complete nonsense.

24p is available in other cameras that use the Digic 8 processor, so it is almost certainly a license fee issue. They are just saving a few dollars IMO. The R cameras (prosumer) does have 24p, but the latest Powershots (consumer) do not.

If the leaked spec sheets are correct, it doesn't do 1080p60 either, which is mind boggling if true. Apparently 60 fps at 720p only. That has got to be a mistake.

Probably including 24p results in a higher license fee for using the encoding codec. Since very few people use it in a camera like this, it will save them some money leaving it out. Money which would otherwise have been a production expense but now is a profit. Not stupid at all, smart is the correct word.

Keep in mind that the frame rate options may well affect the license fee Canon have to pay for using the codec. If the camera is being almost entirely used by amateurs who never use 24p, then they would have an incentive to not use that frame rate in order to cut costs. If people want to shoot 24p for professional reasons, there are other products that can do that. Stuff shot at 24p is re-encoded for streaming. Footage that is re-encoded can be complied to any frame rate through interpolation of motion data in much the same way that TV panels extrapolate 60Hz to 120Hz or 240Hz. Just with a non even match it likely takes a bit more computation.

If you shoot for content that is to be primarily viewed on or through a computer, you want to be shooting at framerates that match the refresh rates of those devices. If you don't, you will have stuttering issues when the device inserts additional frames, but with different intervals. For example, your 24 fps will be displayed as a series of 2 or 3 duplicated frames on a 60 fps device. Because those effective frames are now of different duration it will cause the appearance of a stutter in any scene that has motion. On a native 24 fps device you will not see stutter. That is why you NEVER shoot 24 fps unless that is your display media. If you are shooting for cinema, or a device that will match it's frame rate to your frame rate then you are ok. But if you don't have that then your footage looks shit. These cameras are designed for every day consumer users. They have zero need for 24p. Pretty much every viewing device will support 60 fps (or even fractions of that) but not every device will support 24 fps. If you want to shoot for as wide an audience as possible, irrespective of what they are gong to use to view the content, you need to shoot at the most appropriate frame rate, which is some even multiple or fraction of 60 fps. Granted, the device they have may be capable of adjusting frame rate, but if the software/hardware they are using to generate the video stream doesn't, and produces a 60 fps output instead, they will still get stuttering. Why do people shoot at 24 fps at all? The reason is because that was a historically convenient way of shooting movies, and because movies were historically shot that way, people who want to mimic that "look" shoot that way as well, even though there is no good reason for them to do so. It is an affection, people do it, especially those who have been to film school and what not, because that is how they have been taught to do it. For them it is the "proper" way because some old guy they respected said so. Unless you are shooting an actual movie where you know that the display is going to be 24 fps, there is no reason to use 24 fps at all. And if you do, you had better be damned certain that whatever is being used to display your footage is actually fully able to match frame rates.

I shoot everything in 30p or 60p, since those framerates do not have stuttering problems on 60Hz displays like 24p does. Unless you have a output device that matches your 24p footage you are going to have issues.

Pretty much nobody does for video, other than some cinema wannabes. They do make a big fuss when it isn't there though.

That depends on if it has been agreed to as a standard (the patent holder has to agree to this, some third party can't just decide to make it a standard). And even then you still have to pay the license fee, it only caveat on the patent holder being that they can't pick and choose who to license to. You don't have the right to demand access to patented technology unless you are the government. You can record RAW without infringement, as long as the compression used is under 6X. Anything from 0 to 5.9X compression would be fine. Another way to circumvent the RED patents is to record the different colors onto separate cards, essentially 4 files, one red, one blue and two green. These could then be compressed as much as you like (since they are separate videos). The user could then reconstitute the full color image in post.