Sony Software

[charles pappas]

NOTICE: THE FOLLOWING POST IS TRIVIAL, UN-CONSTRUCTIVE AND ONLY TANGENTIALLY RELATED TO THIS WEBSITE:

I have never forgotten Tyler Purcell's post several years ago severely criticizing the software and menus on Sony professional video cameras. I have never used such cameras, but his post rang so true to me because of my experiences years earlier with a Walkman AM-FM earphone device and later with a Sony radio-CD-cassette tape combo (that I still use in my kitchen, as a testament to my thrift).  

As I finished reading that thread years ago I have to say that some self-doubt crept into me, and has persisted over the years. That was because some other posters in that thread maintained that the software and menus weren't really that bad, or bad at all, and by extension I wondered if my reaction to the Sony software on my devices - thinking it miserable - was fully, or perhaps even partially, justified. 

Now, years later, I pass on with a grin the very first comment to this morning's Ars Technica article on a new Sony OLED TV:  

So, more than double the price of an LG, and we have to deal with Sony software? That picture would have to be hella bright to justify $3000.

 

[Satsuki Murashige]

I think in Tyler’s case, that was at least partly due to Sony’s legacy broadcast background conflicting with their ‘cinema’ products. There is a whole world of broadcast technicians who speak the language of color matrices, gain, pedestal, and so on that is at odds with the ‘cinema’ language of EI, Log, etc.

Where the Two Rivers converge, turbulence is bound to emerge...

[Phil Rhodes]

I have to say I have some sympathy for the view that Sony menus in general have a tendency toward the unnecessarily labyrinthine. I would say much the same thing about JVC menus, and potentially even Panasonic. My impression is that, in software terms, they leak implementation details - it's sometimes quite obvious how some of the internal architecture of the camera is set up based on how it's presented to the user, which often isn't the best way to present things.

What outfits like Blackmagic do makes more sense to me. 

[Satsuki Murashige]

25 minutes ago, Phil Rhodes said:

I have to say I have some sympathy for the view that Sony menus in general have a tendency toward the unnecessarily labyrinthine. I would say much the same thing about JVC menus, and potentially even Panasonic. My impression is that, in software terms, they leak implementation details - it's sometimes quite obvious how some of the internal architecture of the camera is set up based on how it's presented to the user, which often isn't the best way to present things.

What outfits like Blackmagic do makes more sense to me. 

Certainly, though one could say the same thing about city planning in locales like London or Madrid vs New York City or Shanghai. Legacy infrastructure is a reality of life and also camera menus.

[Robin R Probyn]

Sony definitely had a strange  logic to a lot of their menus .. also compared to say Arri  or REDs the Sony cameras just has so many different available settings , which is good to some degree but then you had to have this huge menu .. they have got better eventually, with the Venice / and Fx line , Fx line has a lot of stuff you can change by touch screen now in the status menu .. and the A7s3 has a completely new menu structure ..

The thread you mention was I think was more to do specifically  with Slog settings in the f5/55 and the various pitfalls of the EI mode , and actual recordings levels being at a set ISO at all times  and the EI being an offset , like using a light meter and film .. Tyler had problems ,or at least his AC who despite being a "Sony expert " actually didn't know the camera very well.,  nor seemed to understand shooting in EI mode . a give away being it being referred to as EL mode . hard to blame Sony for that .. the main crazy thing was the SDI out settings that made it very easy to record the LUT internally unintentionally  .. which happened a lot in the early days of the f5/55 ..