Personal View site logo
Make sure to join PV on Telegram or Facebook! Perfect to keep up with community on your smartphone.
Please, support PV!
It allows to keep PV going, with more focus towards AI, but keeping be one of the few truly independent places.
Camera market: Slowing down
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Olympus has pans to slow down the release cycle of their cameras. This is a measure to control costs. The focus will be on firmware updates and on lens releases

    It is just fact already.

    Sony, Panasonic, Olympus and all other bunch slowed down development. Why they do it?

    Because on smaller market making product cycles longer significantly increase profits.

    Remember - all this guys do not want to fulfill your needs, no way, it is juts accidental byproduct. They want to sell you stuff and with maximum margin possible.

    What do we see now?

    • Tight control of dealer prices
    • Fight with any gray resellers
    • Maximum unification of internal design
    • Maximum savings on NAND and RAM
    • Maximum savings on LSI design, we are in 2017 and we don't see HEVC 10bit and HEVC 12bit cameras. Still same H.264 and shitty ProRes.
    • Fewer models overall
    • Simpler software
  • 13 Replies sorted by
  • Isaac_BIsaac_B

    More firmware updates sound good to me. The GH5 can and should implement HEVC in more than just that photo mode. Hell, if they want to charge another hundred bucks to fully implement it I'd be ok with that. I don't need to be buying a new camera every year if the processing power is already in place and only in need of firmware updates to unleash the full potential.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @Isaac_B

    More firmware updates sound good to me.

    As Panasonic works it sounds not very probable. In reality they will cut firmware developer teams. As Panasonic always had almost all team focused on one / two projects and never allow to return back. They can have few developers doing some updates, but no more.

    And no need to post him hints like " if they want to charge another hundred bucks to fully implement it I'd be ok with that". In reality idea to charge for V LOG mostly came from their monitoring for feedback, if it had been less positive after info reveal they had been ready to make it free via firmware.

  • alcomposeralcomposer

    HEVC adoption issues are not entirely the fault of camera companies. There is currently a huge rift in the industry caused by the high patent licensing costs of HEVC. http://aomedia.org is an attempt (I am guessing like x264) to create a similar solution that is more permissive by the industry, (inc. MS etc)

    Ironically Netflix is on that list, obviously they want a cheaper codec to use for streaming.

    I think maybe it also doesn't matter 'why' a company does something, simply 'what' it does. Of course companies are intended to make cash, that is there number 1 priority. I'm not saying its right, or wrong, it just is.

    It's up to us 'the users' to weed through marketing and work out what is actually a good product, and reward good products with a few digital numbers in their bank account.

    Every public company that is doing 'exciting things®' and are 'passionate®' have to report to their share holders.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Yep

    https://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/202452#Comment_202452

    https://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/13642/major-codecs-fragmentation-coming

    But this is really dead end.

    Take Google with VP9. As the only reason to have VP9 for them is to reduce H.264 payments. Here it is all same.

    Camera companies also are afraid of HEVC as shareholders want every dollar in their pockets and it is few dollars more if you keep H.264.

    Thing you see is called capitalists greed. Reason why so called ultra imperialism still did not happen. Same here. They always... almost agree. But not entirely, someone still want to get the chessboard and smack onto your head. Like Rambus did.

    Same thing is with raw, as here RED plays role of Zaxcom in audio. Being reason of stupid Cinema DNG made to circle around their patent and reason of mostly bad compression used by other cameras for raw.

  • alcomposeralcomposer

    Sure, however without the 'capitalist' situation we would not have HEVC in first place (we may have something better - I don't know).

    I don't know if we can compare one situation to the other. HEVC was developed in order to be licensed and make cash. So other companies now want to develop different solution that costs 'them' less cash.

    HEVC doesn't exist in vacuum, it isn't alien technology, simply lots of hard work by lots of engineers / programmers / etc... Then marketed by people using Excel spreadsheet and working out how best to return investment.

    Thats my one issue with Capitalism, sometimes Excel spreadsheets lie.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Sure, however without the 'capitalist' situation we would not have HVEC in first place (we may have something better - I don't know).

    For sure something better and simpler. One of the goals of HEVC development is to put many irrelevant patents of companies who participated into standard.

    HEVC was developed in order to be licensed and make cash. So other companies now want to develop different solution that costs 'them' less cash.

    I really do not care that companies want. In reality HEVC parts was developed by countless people many of whom have no relation to participating companies at all, and in turn all this is based on foundations developed by another big number of people.

    Attempt to have private profits in the highly social society always goes against common good. It is especially visible in software and computer hardware.

    Take AMD processors. This guys sell you exact same 8 core thing with 4 frequency variants, 6 core variants, and few 4 core variants. Around 90% of sold processors could have more cores enabled or an work at higher frequency. This is how capitalism is causing multi billion damage to society common interests.

  • Glenn7Glenn7

    Camera market is clearly in stagnation. Bad sign.

  • caveportcaveport

    Camera companies flooded the market with multiple models with few differences between them. Meanwhile phone cameras became good enough to replace compact cameras. Hopefully they will simplify product lines and create great cameras without so many crippled features and with better ergonomics.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Camera companies flooded the market with multiple models with few differences between them.

    It is normal practice advisable by any marketing guy. Such way you try to maximize profits.

    Hopefully they will simplify product lines and create great cameras without so many crippled features and with better ergonomics.

    For now they do exactly opposite. Reduce expenses going to new developments, try to plan even better on that to cripple and increase margins as much as they could.

  • alcomposeralcomposer

    Well, as users if the equipment, it's kind of our job to work out what works best for what we want to do, and navigate the situation, and be resourceful in our decisions.

    Will we make mistakes? Sure. But we as users can maximise the hardware & software by pooling our knowledge together and sharing our findings. This is why product reviews are so popular on YouTube, and why we are all so interested in PV & similar forums.

    Even in a perfect situation I'm sure there would still be products that are no up to scratch. There are so many variables when making something, raw elements- design, human error. Even with very strict control issues can enter into product rollout.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Well, as users if the equipment, it's kind of our job to work out what works best for what we want to do, and navigate the situation, and be resourceful in our decisions.

    And as good citizens it is our job to put capitalists where they belong, closer to the tree top.

  • caveportcaveport

    And you are doing a great job assisting capitalists with PV.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    And you are doing a great job assisting capitalists with PV.

    Of course, I am getting them by hand to the top of the tree, closer and closer to destination :-)

Add a Comment