[BigMackCam]

I have been shooting video with a Sony X1000 and X3000. Since I got the X3000, the £1000 Canon G40 cam never got used, so I sold it. The only advantage it had were the zoom, and the manual shutter which at 1/80 allowed shooting forward through the propeller of a light aircraft, without artefacts.

The bit rates one needs to support are not that high. HD (1920x1080) 50/60fps needs about 50mbps for a really sharp result. 4K accordingly needs 200mbps. In practice the best action cams do HD/50mbps and 4K/100mbps; AFAIK nobody does 200mbps.

I am not talking about emulating a Red and generating 8K RAW at gigabit speeds which need SSDs.

Much of the sensor in say the K1 would be unused.

As regards basing a camera on say android, to get wifi and bluetooth to work properly, that's not a big deal. With an OS like that you get an RTOS and you hang the various bits of software you already have onto that. You also strip out the stuff you don't want (hence WinNT embedded, and embedded versions of all later versions). The result has no greater need for updates than the normal fixing of bugs in any product.

Security updates are an issue only if you have internet access which, as I said, could be sidestepped by delivering decent auto sync to a phone, with an app on the phone acting as the other end.

Pentax may need a faster CPU in their camera to do 4K video but these are in the general pipeline already.

Your original post about video - and subsequent posts about OS and connectivity - make absolute sense now, Peter. It's clear you have significant personal interests in these areas and, therefore, perfectly understandable why you'd want to see them incorporated in your cameras. We might not agree... but I get it now

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Last edited by BigMackCam; 02-19-2020 at 02:12 PM.

[normhead]

I just caught the phrase "early demise."

The problem with that being, people have been criticizing Pentax video fo as long as I've been on the site, like 10 years. If the lack of video had caused Pentax's demise after a couple years, that would have been early. We are already fairly late in the process, and the only clear answer is, it hasn't caused anything yet.

As for "early demise" that boat has already sailed.
After 10 years, no one has ever presented any evidence the position of Pentax video in the market hurts the brand at all. No one has ever presented any evidence that a camera that costs more with better video would make Pentax more money.

We have people who've left Pentax for better video, and we've had people adopt Pentax for better stills and less video, and better price performance for their stills.

"Would adding better video lead to Pentax's demise?" is at this point an equally relevant question. In that sense, the bias of the OP is apparent in the question.
But hey, run a poll.

Pick one of the cameras, that you think is more Pentax like, the one you think is most desirable.
https://www.techradar.com/news/best-4k-camera

Run a poll. Who would buy that camera rather than a Pentax based on the cost and video performance.
Lets find out some stuff.

The big rule for camera companies. Know your user base and cater to them first.

[interested_observer]

I'll just toss my 2 cents in on the topic. I shoot stills, and that's my main interest. Video has been there as an un-necessary add on, but there none the less - until the need arose. My son needed to change his career due to becoming allergic to his old one (chef becoming allergic to all fish / shellfish).

In returning to school for OSHA Safety Engineering - he needed to do a presentation for one of his classes - and he found that he needed to do a little demonstration video. So, having the video capability - even a rudimentary video capability, came in very handy (and way beyond the quality of a smartphone - although that would have done fine for this effort).

Dark environment, large sensor and an excellent fast lens - the K1 coupled with the old Auto-Tak 85/f1.8 at ISO 400 on a tripod, and the video results were excellent. I didn't need 4k, HD was more than sufficient (and surprisingly the audio was ok - didn't need it, but very acceptable). Actually, I've been seeing articles that folks are finding that 4K is large, unwieldy and expensive in terms of post-processing, that HD is more than good enough.

In retrospect, I'm happy that Pentax has a video capability, that it's usable, and that for what it is, that the results are excellent.

[Rondec]

I would be surprised if there isn't improvement in video. The big issues are sensors (need one with adequate read out speed) and processing engine (current one doesn't allow for 4K video). The next camera should improve both of these. In addition, with a touch screen, you should be able to improve auto focus with video, although I will say that overall it seems unlikely to match a nicely pulled manual focused shot. I still question as well whether you would want replace a dedicated camcorder with a large sensor ILC for most shots.

[normhead]

I would be surprised if there isn't improvement in video.

I'd still expect incremental rather than radical improvement. Getting bus fast enough to run 4k video would be huge in getting the buffer clearing and read out up to par.

[LaurenOE]

One of our long-established members - @LaurenOE - has shot professional video with Pentax cameras in the fairly recent past (the last few years), although she now uses other brands. In late 2018 (i.e. not that long ago), she had this to say:....

So, it's possible to shoot "decent enough" video (commercially viable, if you have Lauren's skills) with a modern Pentax DSLR. It's just that other brands and dedicated video cameras do a better job...

Thanks for the shout out!
I re-read what I wrote back in 2018, and I still stand by that.

If an APS-C Pentax comes soon, and it can at least do 1080p/60 or better, Pentax will once again make an appearance in my video workflow. You just can't beat the weather-sealed field camera of a Pentax.

In the stills department, I am often asked to do photography as a cinematographer, and I use the 645z which is sublime.

So Pentax *is* part of my daily (professional) workflow in some capacity.

side note: when on assignment in Japan, I always make a point of buying some kind of Pentax gear when I am there.

[stevebrot]

What's interesting/funny is that probably every person in this thread has at one time or another used a "multi-function device" of some sort that was at one time bashed for combining multiple devices into a single unit.

Which is why I currently own a scanner that does not print and a printer that does not scan and neither will answer the phone to accept a fax.


Steve

[normhead]

Which is why I currently own a scanner that does not print and a printer that does not scan and neither will answer the phone to accept a fax.


Steve

I used to have machine that did all three, answering machine, fax machine printer and scanner. Tess put heather to close to it and melted it. Our new one doesn't have a phone or fax machine. I know way to many young folks who no longer have a land line to attach the phone fax machine to.

[RGlasel]

I know way to many young folks who no longer have a land line to attach the phone fax machine to.

There's an app for that. Take a picture of the page you want to fax, the program converts it to scan lines, dials up a real fax machine and transmits the lines as tones. As far as receiving the fax goes, there are services that convert a received fax into a PDF and email the PDF to the intended recipient. I had a fax server set up in my basement with a dedicated line that emailed me the PDF every time a customer sent me a fax. After going 24 months without receiving a single fax, I took the faxmodem card out of the server, but for 10 years it made working on the road more efficient.

The real beauty of fax machines was that they had a simple interface that almost everyone could understand. As long as the fax machine was the only device on the phone line, you just had to make sure the power was turned on and the machine wasn't out of paper. When people tried to multi-task they got into trouble; if your regular phone was on the same line, you had to babysit the machine to make sure human callers didn't get an earful of electronic screeching and to make sure the fax machine was going to respond if another fax machine called. If I'm stranded 10 hours from my garage, I'll figure out some way to Macgyver my way out of trouble with a jackknife and shoelaces, otherwise I'll use the right tool for the job, with twice as good of a result in half the time.

[MarkJerling]

There's an app for that. Take a picture of the page you want to fax, the program converts it to scan lines, dials up a real fax machine and transmits the lines as tones.

Why?

I don't think I've seen or heard of anyone wanting to send or receive a fax for, perhaps, 7 or 8 years. It's gone the way of my dad's Telex machine. Remember those? I do still have the very nice table it used to stand on in his office!

[BigMackCam]

Why?

I don't think I've seen or heard of anyone wanting to send or receive a fax for, perhaps, 7 or 8 years. It's gone the way of my dad's Telex machine. Remember those? I do still have the very nice table it used to stand on in his office!

In my early days of computing, I had a Ricoh tele-printer terminal that I used quite frequently for certain projects

See how I (almost) made the conversation brand-relevant again?

[Rondec]

Why?

I don't think I've seen or heard of anyone wanting to send or receive a fax for, perhaps, 7 or 8 years. It's gone the way of my dad's Telex machine. Remember those? I do still have the very nice table it used to stand on in his office!

I don't know about that. At least in this country there are lots of folks using faxes -- pharmacies, doctor's offices, a variety of businesses. There is less of it than ten years ago and the faxes often end up having to be scanned, but they are still used.

[BigMackCam]

I don't know about that. At least in this country there are lots of folks using faxes -- pharmacies, doctor's offices, a variety of businesses. There is less of it than ten years ago and the faxes often end up having to be scanned, but they are still used.

That's remarkable, Vincent... I always think of the USA as being ahead of the curve with technology compared to the UK. I can't remember the last time I saw a fax machine over here, nor the last time I used one... It's more than ten years ago, that's for sure. I wonder what purpose faxes now serve... is it a backup for when internet connectivity (cable and/or dial-up) isn't available, or is it still in use as a primary means of communication?

[Rondec]

That's remarkable, Vincent... I always think of the USA as being ahead of the curve with technology compared to the UK. I can't remember the last time I saw a fax machine over here, nor the last time I used one... It's more than ten years ago, that's for sure. I wonder what purpose faxes now serve... is it a backup for when internet connectivity (cable and/or dial-up) isn't available, or is it still in use as a primary means of communication?

The issue is that many systems don't actually "talk" to each other. So if your family doctor sends you to a specialist, they probably have a completely different electronic health record that doesn't have an interface with your primary care doc's office. The easiest way is to just send notes via fax (although the faxes are usually accepted by an electronic fax machine and no paper is used).

I am sure in the UK there is one standard interface due to a single payer system, but we don't have that here and there are probably 10 different companies selling electronic health records.

A lot of smaller, family owned business still use faxes to accept orders and things like that, as well.

[WorksAsIntended]

We have a single Fax machine in our office just in case. We did not recieve any fax for maybe 8 years and also did not send one.
The old land lines mostly are not even offered for rent anymore in Germany. Older people can sometimes have an old one and take it with them with when moving. Getting a new analog number is mearly impossible.
We often assume the "west" has a very similar living style, I get proven wrong over and over again.