[mecrox]

Ricoh has been buying older technology sensors. The 36MP in the K-1 is based on the same generation of sensor technology as the K-5. Ricoh is obviously getting excellent results from these sensors in terms of still photography. None of the cameras that use the older Sony 36MP sensor do well at video because that sensor isn't fast enough. That is also why all of the cameras with that sensor have rather slow CDAF.

Everything about 4K is standard. Its all hardware related so there is not a lot to develop for other than the camera firmware. Sony has developed 2 FF sensors with good 4K video. One is in the 12MP A7s and the other is in the 42MP A7rII. When the 42MP sensor becomes cheap enough, Ricoh will probably start using it. I think 8K broadcasting will be coming to Japan next year, and Dell is now shipping 8K monitors. In 3-5 years 8K will be as common and 4K is now. That is probably when we will see a K-mount camera with decent 4K support.

Ricoh is obviously not spending money on the newest sensor, fastest memory/biggest buffer or other support technologies like USB3.0 or SDXC UHS-II.

My impression is that professionals these days are expected to be adaptable and fully up to speed on the video side. So if a company wants to appeal to them, it needs to offer competent video and all that goes with it. Otherwise a professional is going to have to either run two set-ups or lose jobs. Video and stills are coming together quite quickly now. Of course, appealing to professionals is a costly business and a company might decide that isn't worth it. Fair enough. Or perhaps two set-ups is the answer. I dunno. It's pretty scary, though, when a click on a smartphone screen gives you either or both and no messing. Hard to understand why camera companies continue to make a distinction which a lot of folks may think is largely artificial. I mean, if the tech isn't up to snuff then get it sorted.

[johnmflores]

My impression is that professionals these days are expected to be adaptable and fully up to speed on the video side. So if a company wants to appeal to them, it needs to offer competent video and all that goes with it. Otherwise a professional is going to have to either run two set-ups or lose jobs. Video and stills are coming together quite quickly now. Of course, appealing to professionals is a costly business and a company might decide that isn't worth it. Fair enough. Or perhaps two set-ups is the answer. I dunno. It's pretty scary, though, when a click on a smartphone screen gives you either or both and no messing. Hard to understand why camera companies continue to make a distinction which a lot of folks may think is largely artificial. I mean, if the tech isn't up to snuff then get it sorted.

I just worked on my taxes. Last year I spent thousands on camera gear. None of it had a Pentax label because I need good video.

[jatrax]

I am not sure I understand all the anguish about Pentax video. They do not brag about their video, they admit it is not the best and state publicly (odd for a public company) that it is not a priority. Why do we insist that Pentax be everything to everyone? They are a small company focusing primarily on good still cameras that provide some higher end features at mid-range pricing. They do not do video well and never said they did.

Would you buy a Cooper Mini and then spend hours online complaining it cannot tow your giant travel trailer like a 1 ton pickup? Of course not. Everyone should buy the tools they need to do the job that they personally need or want to do. Personally I do no video so Pentax is perfect for my style of shooting. If video was a priority I would purchase another brand that excels in that area.

Not trying to argue this issue as it certainly comes up often, I genuinely would like to understand the logic behind insisting Pentax must do better video. Why? Cooper Minis can try all they want but they are never going to be good at pulling travel trailers.

[photoptimist]

I am not sure I understand all the anguish about Pentax video. They do not brag about their video, they admit it is not the best and state publicly (odd for a public company) that it is not a priority. Why do we insist that Pentax be everything to everyone? They are a small company focusing primarily on good still cameras that provide some higher end features at mid-range pricing. They do not do video well and never said they did.

Would you buy a Cooper Mini and then spend hours online complaining it cannot tow your giant travel trailer like a 1 ton pickup? Of course not. Everyone should buy the tools they need to do the job that they personally need or want to do. Personally I do no video so Pentax is perfect for my style of shooting. If video was a priority I would purchase another brand that excels in that area.

Not trying to argue this issue as it certainly comes up often, I genuinely would like to understand the logic behind insisting Pentax must do better video. Why? Cooper Minis can try all they want but they are never going to be good at pulling travel trailers.

Me, too! I never do video, don't need video, and would personally prefer that Pentax invest all of their R&D budget in make better stills. But I can see the point of some pros who have projects requiring both stills and video.

What I don't understand is whether Pentax video is truly bad or whether it's simply not as good as the video from those cameras that do tout video. The reason that's a crucial question is that if it's a case of just improving the video a bit, then maybe it's possible. But if people say Pentax video sucks because it ranks worse than video from makers who have invested vast sums of R&D in developing dedicated video cameras, then it's a waste of R&D for Pentax to invest in video because they will never catch up to the Canon, Sony, Panasonic, Fuji, etc. who have deep video experience.

I'm sure Pentax can make better video but I not sure if that's sufficient. And I'm just as sure they cannot make competitive video which if that defines the bar, then they should not waste money even attempting it.

[THoog]

We still have the same video capabilities since.. what, K-30? K-01?

Those video capabilities didn't change because they didn't change in the image processor video specs either. Any improvements in Pentax bodies, however slight, have been in lockstep with what Fujitsu/SocioNext had announced a year before in a new Milbeaut. Pentax isn't just doing video badly - they aren't doing video at all. Their image processor vendor is. Two out of three of the current Milbeaut processors for cameras have pretty much those same K-01/K-30 specs. That much-criticized H.264 codec? It's built into the Milbeaut. (Fujitsu was very proud of it in 2011.) The latest Milbeaut, which came out in October 2015, finally can do 4K video. At first, I was surprised that neither the K-70 nor the KP could do 4K, but they were both less than a year after the MB86S27 launch (if as I've heard, the KP was originally meant to launch in September 2016). Nikon was quicker with the D500, but they seem to have a closer relationship with SocioNext and get new processors sooner.

I'm sure buffers, chips, sd card write speed are complicated. But when a relatively cheap smartphone can do it, why not an actual camera? I hope the next generation of Pentax bodies addresses this.

Android phones have been running 8-core processors since 2014; the iPhone only has two cores, but they are clocked at 1.85GHz. The latest Milbeaut is dual-core at 400Mhz. Panasonic's Venus is quad-core; I think the Sony BIONZ is, too. Canon's DIGIC was designed from the outset for multiple processors in a single body. Again, a lot of the video functions are built into the processor - Samsung's NX camera image processors were actually derived from their mobile processor. So those smartphone makers may be buying their video capabilities off-the-shelf, too. Even if Pentax wanted to engineer all the video functions themselves instead of using the built-in functions (assuming that's even an option, and they had the knowledge and resources to do so), their processor doesn't have the horsepower to do it.

One thing I think Pentax could do is mimic Nikon and provide clean HDMI-out. It would require squeezing some additional hardware onto the circuit board. But for a lot of what people want in video, Pentax really is painted into a corner with their image processor.

It is perfectly reasonable for a company to be faithful to the photography.....

Moving pictures are a different story, one that is not at all important. Our mind already works in that mode all the time! We cannot turn movie mode from our heads, and our mind yearns for a moment of stillness that a fine photograph enables. And that moment, uninterrupted with moving pictures, is so precious, because it is the only moment we can consciously experience present tense, and living in now — cessation of time.

That is why photography has a healing, creative power, because it cures us from everyday motion sickness and living by the clock.

Exactly. And very well said.

[THoog]

Defensive and I would want to be too...

That wasn't my intent. I'm all for Pentax making the best cameras they can, including video. And I understand why some folks need it. But Pentax really is stuck with a vendor who will always be at least a couple years behind Can/Pan/Sony. Changing vendors would be a major undertaking, and Ricoh isn't going to make that investment - not when they are tightening belts and downsizing the company as a whole. If someone needs competitive video, they aren't going to get it from Pentax any time soon. They should get what they need now and be happy.

[biz-engineer]

Nikon was quicker with the D500, but they seem to have a closer relationship with SocioNext and get new processors sooner.

Ricoh imaging likely use an image processing plateform shared accross camera models in order to be able to do cameras while being smaller than Nikon and Canon.
Migration to a new processing plateform for Ricoh means a major change, rework, re-qualification. Ricoh imaging likely have the staff for all camera models (645z, K1, KP) that Nikon have for one camera model.
That's what you do when you have 5% market share or less. Having 30% market share allow to put more resources and eventually keeps the Ricoh imaging under water.

Anyway, I seldom shoot video, and from the little experience I have, the value of a video depends very much on the content and montage, the native HD video from Pentax if used by a pro videographer delivers pro grade videos.
In the consumer arena, it's always the same, most of the time, we don't use 100% of what we have and we buy a new model before our current model stops working.

[surfar]

now where's that video button again?

[Rondec]

For whatever reason, it does seem to be an easier process to read 4K video off a smaller sensor chip. Maybe some of it is the processors that are available in smart phones too.

I am not a video shooter. I find it is really hard to make good video (by good, I mean video that anyone but close friends and family can watch without being annoyed or falling asleep). It takes a lot more to process and edit a good video than to do the same thing with still photography. I do shoot a little bit now and then, but the limitations there aren't really the gear, but more my skill with regard to editing.

That said, it does make sense for Pentax to try to improve their video. They did seem to make some progress when they said that firmware upgrades were coming for the K-1 and K-P that would enable mechanical SR and maybe allow for focus peaking. Doesn't make it a 4K video, but at least its a start.

[surfar]

8K will be here in a couple of years, maybe its RPs plan to bypass 4K and do 8K on the K1ii?

[biz-engineer]

That said, it does make sense for Pentax to try to improve their video.

Video is simply tied to the sensor because reading the sensor after is single frame is not the same as having to read the sensor at least 24 times per seconds (same issue with crop modes, except if done by software, but those do not allow faster frame rates). Typically, on the K1, there is no way that the video is make of all pixels, and the pixels selected for video are defined by design of the sensor, i.e Pentax can't do anything about it, if the sensor used in the K1 is the same as the sensor used by Nikon, the video framing is the same. The video performance is of this generation of sensor. Sensors used by cam-coders are designed for video framing. In fact, due to persistence of the eye, the imaging properties for videos are not the same as for photography, photography is much more demanding in terms of resolution and noise, video more demanding with FPS, faster acquisition results in more noise but the noise on video is much less visible because gets averaged by multiple frame and persistence of the retina.

8K will be here in a couple of years, maybe its RPs plan to bypass 4K and do 8K on the K1ii?

I already don't use 2K because it clogs my SD cards and takes too much disk space. Whenever I shoot video I don't use the highest quality from the Pentax camera, needless to say that I am not interested in 4K and even less in 8K. But thanks for bringing that idea of skipping the 4K and going directly to 8K for Ricoh guys. Hopefully, they'll do a software locked 4K and 8K video license and offer a discount for non movie makers.

[surfar]

PENTAX can have 4K video now, they only have to put the action(WG_M2) camera sensor in a Q7 body

[normhead]

My goodness I'm starting to get tired of all these people with agendas who can't stick to a topic. It's not about Video people, and the fact that someone mentioned a pentax camera is not an excuse to continue your endless whining and crying (and probably gnashing of teeth) about pentax video. There have been lots of threads about Pentax video, go to one and have at here. Hijacking every thread just males you seem like a bunch of one dimensional misfits.

On why Ricoh has lagged some competitors in video performance

“Video is not our number one priority. In most cases our customers are not primarily shooting video” with their cameras, Eguchi says.

Video users take note. Ragging on Pentax for their video implementation is pointless. Better video is not part of their strategy. Accept it and move on with your lives.

This article is released in Nov. of 2016, so 7 months after the release of the camera. There's absolutely no reason to think anything has changed. TO the OP, I know it's been stated that it was discussed before, but, I personally missed that discussion so thanks.

The title of the thread is
For each Pentaxian buying K-1 another Nikon/Canon shooter jumped ship to Pentax

Can you stick to the topic or can't you?

Your inability to understand how Pentax could sell to Canon and Nikon users without better video is noted, but, it's also noted, they accomplished that with existing video specs... so you have to a ask yourself, what is it Pentax knows that you don't? How is it possible that they have doubled their sales poaching from other brands, by ignoring video?

I'm not saying this because I want a discussion. I'm saying this because as far as i can tell it's proof Pentax understands the market they are aiming for. And that those demanding better video don't.

[THoog]

Can you stick to the topic or can't you?

Well, at least no one mentioned EVFs or MILCs. Uh, oops.

Desperately trying to unjack the thread: Saying fully half of K-1 shooters came from Canikon seems awfully high. I suppose some of them may have been Pentax shooters before, that only jumped away because they needed FF.