Samsung NX1, $1300 4K flagman

Eno

@MarcioK good one! Big LOL...

Vitaliy_Kiselev

Samsung has a shocking number of software engineers: 40,506 as of 2013. That's almost an entire Google's-worth of people making software. Actually, consider that Google's employee breakdown only lists 18,593 people in "research and development" (read: making software), and it seems Samsung has twice as many software engineers as Google. This army of software engineers is a fairly recent development for Samsung. The software headcount has grown 45 percent since 2011.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/09/samsung-has-more-employees-than-google-apple-and-microsoft-combined/

DrDave

Too bad they can't make a camera good enough to photo all those ppl.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

Too bad they can't make a camera good enough to photo all those ppl.

Camera software requires years of dedication. Japanese companies also internally transfer firmware developers at the moment camera is released (so all this updates are made by very few people actually, sometimes as small as two guys). In Samsung it is much worse according to stories I heard, with teams that can be reshuffled and reassigned in the middle of any task.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

http://www.slrclub.com/bbs/vx2.php?id=newproduct_samsung&divpage=1&no=4336

Vitaliy_Kiselev

Q&A

Is the camera actually capable of recording video at 240 frames? video at 240 frames?

JK: No.

DE: Oh, because the codec isn't fast enough to compress and format it?

JK: Actually, we just didn't implement that functionality, but the DRIMe V and the sensor could do it. When the guys in R&D were working on the Samsung Auto Shot feature, they recorded live 28 megapixel, 240 fps "video" to help with the debugging. We didn't see there being an application for that, at least for very, very few people.

http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2014/09/27/photokina-interview-samsung-nx1-redefine-pro-performance-quantum-leap-tech

MarcioK

I've read the Imaging Resource's Q&A. Dunno if the NX1 will be a good camera, but technologically speaking I guess that it is one of the most advanced cameras in the market - if not the most advanced.

froboy88

"240 fps "video"... I'm surprised and somewhat disappointed they gave up on this feature. Even scaled HD recorded at that speed would be super cool and unheard of at that price point. Everyone I know loves slow motion, so it just sounds like an excuse. Tracking with the object moving across the frame is one thing, impressive but somewhat limited. I would be more interested in accurate auto focus for a subject moving fast toward or away from the lens. I'll be closely watching as the tests come in.

Eno

From the article @Vitaliy_Kiselev posted:

DE: So, when it's clocking it off at 240 frames per second, is it not sampling all of the pixels? It reads the entire frame, but not every single pixel? Or does it read every single pixel? [I'm having a hard time believing the latter.]

JK: Every single pixel.

DE: Wow, so 28 megapixels, at 240 times a second. [This is mind-boggling faster than anything else we've ever seen before, outside very specialized and insanely expensive scientific systems.]

JK: Yeah, software can't do that; this sort of thing is why we implemented such powerful hardware.

WOW!

This camera would be interesting to hack for enabling 7K recording and 240fps in HDMI output :).

Vitaliy_Kiselev

This camera would be interesting to hack for enabling 7K recording and 240fps in h.265 :).

Encoder certainly can't do it. I think even all his words about 240fps are fully inaccurate.

Usually only engineers understand things right. 240fps in best modern cameras are used for contrast AF.

Eno

@Vitaliy_Kiselev 24 fps in 7K with h.265 wold be nice, h.265 codec supports in theory up to 8K and 60ps.

Even 4K is enough if they don't screw up the JPEG engine of the camera! :))

froboy88

Vitaliy must be right. 240fps must be for AF, otherwise it seems strange for them to leave out even 240 fps HD. Other then that the encoder can't do it. I don't all know the details but fullHD at that speed would bottle neck at the encoder that can not do 4k60p. 7k would be insane. One can hope but I'm not holding my breath.

MarcioK

Or maybe the engineers were getting the raw 28mp 240fps output from the sensor, without encoding. The hardware certainly can't encode this amount of data, and to store this stream as RAW would be totally impractical.

Eno

I think a 10% slow motion from 240 fps can be done in 4K 24 fps. If the hardware is capable, why omit something like that. I'm pretty sure a lot of people may put it to good use.

I wonder why there are no sample images taken with the final firmware of the camera yet? It must be already shipped for being in stores in two weeks. This is very strange, so much talk about revolutionary hardware in the camera and no real material out of it. I saw some disastrous pictures on Flickr but were removed very quickly.

froboy88

@Eno how did you come up with HD240fps fitting in the 4k24p stream? Unless I'm missing something, as I'm not an expert here, the UHD (3840x2160) 30p has a higher data rate then 4k.

(UHD8.3mp/frame)*(30frames/sec)=(249mp/sec)

So the same data rate at 2mp/frame would allow for about 125fps.

I have no idea how the bitrate or h.265codec factors into this. But it would seem that a simple calculation like that can tell you what the encoder might be capable of. I don't know why they wouldn't have used a stronger one to allow for the high fps the sensor is capable of. Would it be that much more expensive? Does all the hardware have to be improved by an equal amount to make it possible?

I would say that those are irrelevant questions, as we get what they give us, but we don't nearly have the whole picture yet. Without tests and the final firmware.

Eno

@froboy88 sorry I didn't express myself clearly.

I was referring to a 10% speed of 240 fps, like the 96 fps conformed to 24 fps in GH4.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

I was referring to a 10% speed of 240 fps, like the 96 fps conformed to 24 fps in GH4.

Such thing still write as 240fps footage, just different key frame intervals and fps setting is used for playback.

Eno

Full list of NX1 specs: http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/smart-camera-camcorder/smart-nx/smart-nx/EV-NX1ZZZBZBGB

froboy88

List of Video Specs from Samsungs site:

Format: MP4 (HEVC), AVI (M-Jpeg)
Compression: HEVC(H.265), M-Jpeg(VGA 30p only)t, Custom 1, Custom 2
Image Size: 3840x2160 (30fps Only), 4096x2160 (24fps Only), 1920x1080, 1280x720, 640x480
Frame Rate: 60fps, 30fps, 24fps NTSC / 50fps, 25fps, 24fps PAL
Multi-Motion Recording: x0.25(1280 30/25p, 720 30/25p, 480 30/25p only), x0.5(1280 60/50/30/25p, 720 60/50/30/25p, 480 60/50/30/25p only), x5, x10, x20
Quality: High Quality, Normal, Pro(3840/4096 only)

I don't understand the Multi-motion setting. Is it a variable frame rate setting, timelapse etc?

Presumably the quality is for different bit rates, all 4:2:0.

Custom compression?

Eno

First ISO test with NX1 (very beta firmware):

http://www.lesnumeriques.com/comparez-samsung-nx1-preserie-sony-a77-ii-nikon-d750-n36183.html

The firs ISO series are with Samsung NX1, the second with Nikon D750 and the third with Sony A77 m2.

Eno

Full size ISO test: http://www.focus-numerique.com/test-2033/compact-a-objectifs-interchangeables-samsung-nx1-bruit-electronique-12.html

One thing thought, I don't know why he used Adobe RGB color profile instead of sRGB like the rest of the cameras he tested, the tonal curve and colors are strange on most monitors this way.

DrDave

Wow, the D750 just wipes the floor with the NX1.

Eno

@DrDave what did you expect, D750 has one of the best FF sensor out there. Actually to my eyes NX 1 ISO 6400 looks a little bit better than D750 ISO 12800. This is definitely better than any APSC camera to date. I'm impressed.

DrDave

I didn't expect it to wipe the floor, just maybe a tiny difference.

Eno

@DrDave there is a difference, NX 1 ISO 6400 looks like D7100 ISO 3200. One ISO stop better performance than the best APSC out there, must mean something, even in jpeg mode.

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