Current and prospective users of the Sony PXW-X70 who are interested in shooting 4K UHD will rejoice sometime in 2016, since in Sony’s first fiscal quarter of 2016, the company will reportedly release a firmware update to allow recording up to 100 megabits per second. This represents a huge improvement of the current 60 megabit per second limitation. However, those who are desperately awaiting this improvement will be disappointed to know that Sony’s first fiscal quarter is unfortunately not January, February, March, but instead April, May, June. Ahead is the official Sony bulletin, from several Sony websites outside of the US, plus some more information.

Current and prospective users of the Sony PXW-X70 who are interested in shooting 4K UHD will rejoice sometime in 2016, since in Sony’s first fiscal quarter of 2016, the company will reportedly release a firmware update to allow recording up to 100 megabits per second. This represents a huge improvement of the current 60 megabit per second limitation. However, those who are desperately awaiting this improvement will be disappointed to know that Sony’s first fiscal quarter is unfortunately not January, February, March, but instead April, May, June. Ahead is the official Sony bulletin, from several Sony websites outside of the US, plus some more information.

This update will alleviate the problems demonstrated by the video in the recent article: CineDigitalTV demonstrates the PXW-X70 constrained 60 Mb/s 4K UHD, especially with fast movement.

Sony official bulletin from Sony.co.uk

PXW-X70 Firmware V3.0

Upgrade is free of charge and available in 1Q of FY 2016 (TBC)

New Features & Improvements:

• Support for 100 Mbps QFHD recording with XAVC format*

PXW-X70 V3.0 firmware will be downloadable (there) in 1Q of FY 2016.

(*)PXW-X70 will need to be 4K capable, which requires a paid upgrade with CBKZ-X70FX, in order to record in 100Mbps QFHD XAVC.

Source: here.

My interpretation is that those who already paid for the CBKZ-X70FX won’t have to pay again, but those who haven’t will still need to pay for it. Given Sony’s fiscal quarter, the upgrade may take until April, May or June. Even though it’s not listed in the bulletin, I hope this firmware update will also make the PXW-X70 display non-integer framerates properly in the menu, i.e. 23.976, 29.97 and 59.94 in addition to the integer framerates of 25 and 50.

Thanks to Scott Webster for sending this via Twitter.

See the following related articles

• First look: Sony PXW-X70 10-bit/4:2:2 handheld camcorder
• Understanding & using the breakthrough XAVC Long GOP códec/file format
• FCP X 10.2.2/Pro XAVC Long GOP compatibility bulletin 2015.2
• 4-camera shootout in-studio with greenscreen & TriCaster virtual set
• PXW-X70 users will want a Shogun or PIX-E5 even more after the 4K upgrade
• Can 4K 4:2:0 8-bit become 1080p 4:4:4 10-bit? Does it matter?

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