Sony announced plans to make its F5 and F55 cameras a little more flexible yesterday, promising a future hardware upgrade that would add support for both ProRes and DNxHD codecs.
In posting the news to the company's F5/F55 online community, Sony's Peter Crithary was careful to first offer an endorsement of the highly efficient XAVC compression technology originally built into the cameras. He said "exciting developments" are planned for the future of XAVC and noted that it's widely supported by different commonly used editing, DI, and transcoding platforms.
"Sony is also committed to our customers and, with your feedback, the need for diversity and flexibility to support codecs that have been used in our industry for some time," Crithary wrote.
Sony has offered no timetable for the upgrade, and there was no word on exactly what flavors of ProRes and DNxHD — resolutions, frame rates, slow and quick modes, etc. — would be supported. Look for more info to come.
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Geeze Louise! With these new additions, I can’t think of another camera/recorder with so many codec options (maybe Codex)! Sony, you’re so obliging! Our customer base here at Rule will definitely appreciate this further flexibility.
-Jason Potz, Rule Boston Camera