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What You Didn’t Know About the New Sony FS5 & the XAVC Codec Family

September 16^th, 2015

by Nic DivischekSeptember 16^th, 2015

Confused about XAVC-S, XAVC-L, XAVC-I? We spoke to Claus Pfeifer from Sony Europe about the Sony FS5 and how it uses XAVC in a surprising way.

The latest addition to the sony digital cinema camera family, the Sony FS5 has caused quite a stir. We wanted to follow up on some open questions. Will the FS7 receive a 240fps firmware upgrade? What are the main differences between the FS7 and FS5? Which codec is used in which situation and what are the benefits? All questions answered in our exclusive interview.

Interestingly, we found out that the 240fps high speed shooting mode is “only” a burst mode similar to the FS700, not like in the FS7, where you can record 180fps continuously internally if you use the faster XQD memory cards.

A big junk of the interview was dedicated to learn about XAVC. Nino asked Claus about XAVC-L, which is an interframe codec (as opposed to XAVC-I, which is intraframe), with the FS5 being the first camera using XAVC-L as its exclusive codec. It’s 4:2:0 color space in UHD (the “broadcast 4K”) and 4:2:2 color space in 1080p resolutions.

As a reminder here are the specs of the new camera. See the details in our Sony FS5 announcement article.

Sensor Size: 4352 x 2662, 11.6 Megapixels (8.4 Megapixels Effective)
Sensor type – EXMOR 4K Super35mm
E-Mount Lens type
S-Gamut3.Cine & S-Log3
Native 3,200 ISO with 14 Stops of Dynamic Range
Built in Electric Variable ND from 1/4 to 1/128
Codec: XAVC-L
3840 x 2160 8-bit, 4:2:0, up to 30fps continuous.
1080p 10-bit 4:2:2 up to 60fps continuous
S&Q Mode: 120, 240, 480, 960 fps (buffered like FS700)
Less than 5 sec boot time, Direct Access Menu, No rebooting for Rec format changes, etc.,
2K Center Crop
4K RAW output via future firmware
Dual SD Card Slots
Built-in microphone
Dual XLR input (one on body, one on handle)
3G-SDI, 4K HDMI, WiFi, Wired LAN,
Same batteries as FS7
Weighs: 0.8kg