Sony Press

Sony Middle East and Africa, leaders in electronic products, hosted the inaugural Sony
Conference for Africa at The Pavilion Conference Centre in Cape Town on 10 May. The
event was used as a platform to officially unveil an expansive line-up of new products
and technologies, as well as cast the spotlight on Sony’s ground-breaking innovations
in consumer and professional electronics.

Although the conference paraded many Sony products that consisted of televisions,
cameras, computers, smartphones and audio devices, the event belonged to the HDR-
AS15 Action Cam and the new Handycam range of Full HD camcorders, which stole the
limelight.

Weighing in at just 90g, the HDR-AS15 Action Cam is an ultra-compact, wearable Full
HD camcorder that is an ideal for action and extreme sports enthusiasts. The
sensitive Exmor R CMOS sensor inside Action Cam lets you shoot crisp, low-noise
video footage in almost any light, from dawn until dusk. The high quality Carl Zeiss®
Tessar® lens gives an ultra-wide 170° angle of view for a thrilling sense of your
surroundings.

The ever popular Handycam range of Full HD camcorders from Sony was also a hit with
attendees at the conference. The camera boasts enhanced picture quality and wider
shooting options that are teamed with exciting possibilities to share and enjoy
videos. The company maintains that movies shot on the camera will look smoother
and more professional thanks to Sony’s innovative Balanced Optical SteadyShot
technology. In addition, the projector brightness has been boosted on many models,
and a new projector input lets you beam the screen of your smartphone, tablet or PC
onto a wall or any nearby surface.

Other notable products that were showcased included the Sony BRAVIA 55-inch & 65-
inch 4K Ultra HD LED TVs, Sony’s Cyber-shot HX300 digital still camera, The Sony
Mgongo Shake-7 (Home Audio System) and Sony’s flagship android smartphone, the
Xperia Z.

Sony South Africa also used the event to announce the introduction of an extended
warranty scheme on certain consumer electronics ranges. Sony South Africa Product
marketing manager, Timothy Barnard, hailed the introduction as a reaffirmation of
Sony’s confidence in the quality of its products.

“Sony has been making great strides in advancing technology and hardware to ensure
that our products withstand the demands of modern day living,’ he stated. “The
extension of the warranty period not only reflects our belief in the reliability of the
products we sell to many happy local consumers, but will go the extra mile to
ensuring customers have an added sense of security and recourse.’

Report by Simba Nyamukachi

On 14 March 2013 Jasco Solutions and Sony South Africa hosted the Sony Open day to
showcase some of the current Sony Professional product range available in South
Africa.

One of the highlights of the day was the national launch of the Sony PMW-F55. While
the Sony F65 is for your high end 35mm feature movies and is priced at the high end,
the introduction of the PMW-F55 will be widely accepted as a cheaper alternative.

“This is the camera that everyone’s been waiting for,’ says Jess Goedhals, general
manager Broadcast and Professional Division of Sony. “It is our 4K digital cinema
camera which is affordable and will be well used in the market in terms of
commercials and feature films.’

Rupert Dalton, sales executive at Jasco Solutions, says: “The big workflow enchancer
is that both HD and 4K images can be captured simultaneously, allowing for the rough
editing of material using the HD proxies while the 4K RAW files are archived, colour-
corrected, etc. This is a very attractive feature for producers and directors on busy
sets.’

The F55 additionally possesses an electronic frame shutter (often called a “global
shutter’) that completely removes the wobbly effect that can be seen when fast-
panning a camera with a progressive CMOS sensor chip.

“The F55 can output 4K through its connectors and with the firmware update due in
Sept 2013 will be able to shoot HD up to 180 frames per second for slow-mo effects.
The F55 also utilises a more “filmic’ colour filter array over its sensor than that of the
cheaper F5,’ continues Dalton.

“It will be a success in the local market because it is quite a bit cheaper than both
the RED Epic and ARRI Alexa but has a similar 35mm-sensor with the added features
that have been mentioned,’ Dalton says.

“I have very high hopes for this camera, as there has been a lot of interest in it
worldwide and in South Africa,’ remarks Goedhals. “The F55 is affordable as the
complete camera package is going to be about below half a million rand which is
actually well priced for this level of camera.’

The Sony F55 is now available from Sony’s broadcast dealers such as Jasco, SBSS and
Visual Impact South Africa.

After cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC and director Frederic Goodich, ASC got together to push the new Sony F65 to its limits, the result was Kickstart Theft, a short film based on De Sica’s classic The Bicycle Thieves, which was shot in downtown Los Angeles in a range of challenging lighting and shooting conditions reports creativecow.net.

Director Goodich has helmed more than 1 000 commercials among many projects. DP Zsigmond has lensed such classics as Close Encounters of the Third Kind (for which he won an Oscar), The Deer Hunter, Heaven’s Gate and Deliverance. “After I did the DI on Black Dahlia, I fell in love with digital in post-production,” says Zsigmond. “I had wanted originally to stick with a chemical finish for the release, but it didn’t work out that way. Since then I’ve been doing more digital and wanted to try the Sony F65.”

Goodich says he was interested in doing something with social relevance, and eventually thought of The Bicycle Thieves, which he adapted for an urban Los Angeles setting about a homeless family dependent on a motorcycle to eke out a living. “I purposely picked a familiar story so that the viewer can focus on the images and the light,” he explains. “The notion was to shoot available light, with little or no little supplementary lighting, and scenes of high dynamic range wherever we could,” says Goodich. “We were supposed to ‘break the back’ of the camera – to demonstrate how it performed under daylight, tungsten, neon, fluorescent and mixed light conditions.”

Kickstart Theft also became a study in how an Oscar-winning cinematographer adapted to guerrilla shooting conditions, how the production adapted to tight turnaround with a small crew – and the Sony F65’s ease of use with a variety of lenses, and taking advantage of advanced ACES workflows.

All in all, Goodich and Zsigmond found the Sony F65 “simple to use’.

“We had a very small crew: a DIT, who also served as data wrangler, a first assistant and sometimes a second assistant, and three electric/grips,” they say. “We were able to do so much partly because we planned well, but also because the camera didn’t require a learning curve.”

Sony Professional is unveiling two new CineAlta 4K cameras, complemented by a full line of new accessories. The new cameras – models F55 and F5 – fill a critical gap in large-sensor acquisition between Sony’s PMW-F3 camcorder and its F65 CineAlta Premium 4K camera, giving content creators new levels of flexibility and creative options for HD, 2K or 4K acquisition and production.

With a modular and compact design for easy configuration, each camera features a new type of 4K Super 35mm image sensor with a 4096 x 2160 resolution (11.6M total pixels).

The 20 megapixel F65 remains the flagship of Sony’s large sensor acquisition technology. The 8K sensor-equipped F65 continues to evolve, with new features designed to keep it at the high end of imaging. These features include a new high frame rate mode for 4K RAW recording at 120P to deliver stunning 4K images with super smooth slow motion capabilities and the SR codec updated to 12-bit. Future updates to the F65 will deliver 6Kde-mosaicing, among other features.

The new CineAlta 4K cameras deliver unprecedented creative options for HD/2K*/QFHD*/4K (F55) and 2K*/HD (F5) production. Both offer multi-codec support: Sony’s new XAVC MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 format, the SR codec (MPEG4 SStP), and the well-established XDCAM 50Mbps 4:2:2 codec. In-camera recording is to Sony’s New SxS media , “SxS PRO +(Plus ) for the F55 4K :60p:422 10-bit XAVC and HD : 422 10-bit XAVC High Frame Rate; and for the F5 – for HD XAVC and HD high frame rate).

The F55 is possible to connect to the 4K 30-inch LCD monitor, PVM-X300 using four 3G-SDI interfaces for 4096×2160 up to 60p live monitoring while recording XAVC 4K and playback XAVC 4K images. 　 Similarly, it is also possible to connect directly to the 84′ BRAVIA 4K LED TV for large-screen monitoring of the camera’s 4K 60P images (at resized horizontal resolution of 3860 pixels).

Incorporated with New RAW recorder “AXS-R5′ , high frame rate capabilities allow shooters to capture super slow-motion imagery in up to 4K RAW file on newly developed AXS memory — up to 240fps** with the F55; and up to 120 fps** with the F5.

The F55 adds a global shutter to eliminate rolling shutter skew and flash band, delivering the same color filter with ultra wide color gamut as the F65 for true color reproduction. The cameras are further distinguished by wide (14 stops) exposure latitude, high sensitivity, and low noise.

PL Lens System – The Second Generation

The F55 and F5 cameras continue Sony’s efforts to offer the most flexible lens options. PL-mount prime cine lens technology lets users choose cine optics from Angenieux, Canon, Carl Zeiss, Cooke, FUJIFILM and Leica.

Representing Sony’s second generation of cost-effective PL mount prime lenses, each is certified for 4K capture, while minimizing geometric distortion, vignetting and breathing. A 9-blade iris delivers beautiful bokehs and the focus rings rotate 240°. The new lens series includes focal lengths of 20, 25, 35, 50, 85 and 135 mm. For easy lens changes, each has the same T2.0 aperture, the same external diameter, matte box diameter, and gear locations for follow focus and aperture. All are the same height except for the 135 mm.

Shooters can use still lenses by removing the supplied PL-mount adaptor to reveal the native FZ mount. This makes it easy to accept commercially available adaptors for third-party lenses, including Canon® EF, Canon FD, Nikon® DX, Nikon G, Leica® M and even 2/3-inch broadcast B4 lenses. A third option is the use of Sony FZ-Mount lenses with auto focus servo zoom (model SCL-Z18X140.)

Using a new digital interface, F5 and F55 users can take advantage of a new series of high-quality OLED and LCD viewfinders. The DVF-EL100 measures 0.7-inches with 1280 x 720 HD resolution, superb brightness, contrast and response. The DVF-L350 3.5-inch LCD viewfinder offers 10 times the contrast of previous Sony LCD viewfinders, with a flip-up eyepiece for direct monitoring. A third option is the full HD DVF-L700. This compact 7-inch LCD viewfinder enables high resolution when shooting in 2K and 4K, with pixel- to-pixel 1920 x 1080 representation of HD images.

Sony is also unveiling the AXSM™ Access Memory System for 2K*/4K RAW recording, based on Sony’s unique recording technology. Optimized for this new platform is the AXSM memory card (512 GB capacity, model AXS-512S24), using the generic file system exFAT. Users can record 4K RAW data up to 60 fps and 2K RAW up to 240 fps**, with a 300MB/s sustained transfer speed. PC-friendly operation is enabled through use of the AXS-CR1 card reader, offering a USB 3.0 interface for high speed transfer.

Additionally, the new AXS-R5 RAW recorder directly docks onto the F5 and F55, for an extremely elegant and compact recording solution for 2K** and 4K RAW recording.

The cameras support Sony’s new high-speed, enhanced versions of its SxS PRO memory cards: the “SxS PRO+(PLUS)’ series (in 128 and 64 GB capacities, models SBP-128B and SBP-64B). Based on the format long been used in Sony’s XDCAM EX camcorders, the cards support XAVC 4K and XAVC HD high frame rate recording, and can be directly inserted into the cameras.

The F5 and F55 cameras take advantage of Sony’s new BP-FL75 battery pack, which uses Olivine—Lithium Iron Phosphate—instead of conventional Lithium Ion cathodes. The result is a substantial increase in charge-discharge cycles, compared to previous Sony batteries. The Olivine battery works with Sony’s BC-L90 quick charger. The new battery supports outstanding mobility for field shooting enabling two times higher speed charge than current charger and maximum 150 minutes consecutive shooting.

The F5 and F55 cameras are also compatible with Sony’s BP-GL95A, GL65A, L80S and L60S batteries, which use the BC-L70 and L160 chargers.

Shoulder Rig

Delivering advances in ergonomics specifically requested by working cinematographers, the F5 and F55 feature Sony’s newest shoulder rig for extra stability and comfort in shoulder-mount applications. The rig is sturdy, lightweight and uses industry-standard rosettes on both sides for quick and easy attachment of third-party hand grips and other accessories.

The new cameras are planned to be available in February 2013, with suggested list pricing still to be announced.

* 2K/QFHD for F55 and 2K for F5 will be available with firmware version up.
**High frame rate higher than 60fps will be available with firmware version up.

At IBC Sony Professional unveiled the progress it has made to provide creative professionals with new tools for content creation and workflow that go far beyond HD. It is using technologies such as 4K, 35mm, 3D and OLED to enable the creative industry to elicit new emotional responses from audiences.

With an 8K image sensor and 20 megapixels, Sony’s next-generation CineAlta motion picture camera, the F65, offers higher image fidelity than any other camera on the market.

As part of its commitment to develop a complete 4K workflow from acquisition to editing and production, Sony revealed a series of new solutions including theSR-PC4 data transfer unit. Sony is adopting an open strategy of providing Software Development Kits to third party manufacturers to integrate F65 RAW workflows into their line-up of production and post-production tools.

A Sony highlight at ICB was the HDC-2500, the first professional live production camera in the world equipped with a carbon fibre chassis for added strength. In addition, the HDC-2500 is equipped with a 3G 1080/50p fibre transmission system as standard.

A ground breaking software application that enables media professionals to dramatically reduce the amount of time and money that is spent in production, the XMPilot manages and tracks metadata before, during and after a shoot..

Sony is strengthening its industry leading Trimaster EL OLED monitor line-up with the new BVM-F range. This series consists of the 17′ BVM-F170 and the 25′ BVM-F250 offers incredible performance in full HD, thanks to Sony’s powerful 12-bit Professional Display Engine.

Data Augmented Video is Sony Professional’s latest innovation in sports production technology. Video content is enhanced by graphical information sourced from sports data tools, enabling production and coaches to use this information to highlight specific events or characteristics of a game. Sony’s new platform enables this to be achieved live with the inclusion of data enhanced video clips within an event replay sequence.

Sony Corporation and football’s governing body FIFA have teamed up to allow selected media rights of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in 3D. Up to 25 of the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa matches will be produced in 3D. This is the first time that this will be done.

Sony anticipates that the 3D news filmed of the FIFA World Cup will increase the uptake rate of 3D TVs in the home and develop the installed base earlier than would otherwise have been the case.

“3D will undoubtedly transform the way we enjoy content in the Living Room,” said Fujio Nishida, President of Sony Europe. “At Sony, the 3D entertainment experience will not only focus on the 3D TV alone, but from 2010 will also encompass a range of 3D compatible products such as Blu-ray Disc players, VAIO notebook computers and PlayStation3.”