The team at Atomos have been quite busy over the last few months rolling out new accessories for the Shogun, a more affordable “Bare Bones” Shogun 4K recorder/monitor, reinventing the rack with the Shogun Studio, and working on finalising the next big update to Atom OS 6.3 & 6.4 which feature some significant updates especially for the Sony FS700 and FS7 community. Atomos demoed some video’s and upcoming features at NAB 2015, which we covered Despite some delays in rolling out these updates (according to the original road map the company unveiled a few months back, 6.3 firmware was supposed to be released at the end of last month, and the upcoming 6.4 in June). Earlier today, Atomos released a statement on their official Facebook page assuring us that the FS Raw updates where coming, despite being delayed.
Hi all, a positive update from Atomos that we’re sure will please the majority of our FS700 community. As always we are continuing to work extremely hard and our complete solution for recording 4K from the FS700 is 98% finished. The accuracy we are seeing with the Sony LUTs on screen is great and for those wishing to record the linear RAW to ProRes or DNxHR for correction in Post, we can do it for you now.
The technical challenge we have held the release back for is applying the LUT in the recording itself. Feeling everyone’s frustrations however we want to help, so for those who need 4K FS RAW recording for their imminent projects we are happy to release a beta version (especially FS700 users who cannot record 4K at all, FS7 users can continue to use the HDMI video out for 4K recording).
Simply email [email protected] with your DID from the unit and we’ll send you a beta version for your Shogun. The final OS6.4 will be available publicly by 30th June.
Photo by Magnanimous Media
Sony FS700 owners in particular, who can’t even record 4K internally, at the moment don’t have a lot of options if they want 4K/2K raw from their slow-motion beasts, unless they go with Convergent Design’s Odyssey7Q+ ($2,295 at B&H) or the even more expensive proprietary Sony AXS-R5 Raw recorder, which will set you back a whopping $5,350 and does require an additional interface unit (priced at $2,200) and some pretty expensive media on top of that (about $1,800 for a 512GB… ouch!).
However, as per the statement above, those FS700 shooters in dire need of 4K to ProRes/DNxHR can email Atomos and request a beta release of the upcoming 6.4 firmware. Just as a clarification, Atomos did also mention that the 6.3 and 6.4 firmware updates will be rolled into one update and released by June 30th, which means we should see a public release of the firmware within a week’s time.
The beta firmware release will allow 4K raw from the Sony FS700 to be recorded in either 4K 10bit ProRes HQ or 4K DNxHR (via 3G-SDI only), but not CinemaDNG Raw in this release. Atomos confirmed that the CinemaDNG Raw from the FS7/FS700 will be coming in an upcoming firmware update after AtomOS 6.4.
Even thought this may not be a perfect solution for some FS700 owners, not many companies that I know of will release a beta version of the firmware before a public release, and also keep in mind to Atomos’ credit the FS Raw update is free of charge, so I think that this is actually good news for FS700 shooters, who now can get the 4K raw to ProRes/DNxHR and save some disk space, while CinemaDNG is released.
What do you guys think of this move by Atomos? Let us know in the comments below.
B&H Links:
Sony NEX-FS700R Super 35 Camcorder (Body Only) – $4,999
Shogun 4K HDMI/12G-SDI Recorder and 7″ Monitor (Full Version) – $1,995
Shogun 4K HDMI/12G-SDI Recorder and 7″ Monitor (Bare Bones Version) – $1,695
Shogun Action Pack (Black) – $120
Alpha a7S Mirrorless Digital Camera – $2,498 (Get $500 Off when you buy a Sony A7s + Shogun)
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Good news. Does anyone know what kind of frame rates the Shogun can record fs700 raw to prores at? How does it compare to the 7q in this regard?
Awesome! Shogun just checked all my boxes. I’ll be picking one up over the Odyssey! :o)
This is a little late I realise but I’m transferring from a A7S2 to A FS700. Was debating the O7Q but the prio SSD’s are way out of my price range.
If I got the 6.4 update with the shogun would I still have to buy Sony’s 4k raw external expensive recorder? Or can it record RAW 4K (no pro res as far as I understand) direct from the camera?