Sony FS100E to get FREE firmware upgrade this winter to enable 24p, 30p, 60p, 60i

Not sure if this is public knowledge yet. I couldn’t find it anywhere, but I just spoke to one of the main Sony Europe chaps who confirmed to me that Sony will be offering the NTSC upgrade to the PAL versions of the FS100 for free, probably around the Winter time but probably the 2012 part of it…2011 please, so we can do 60p snow falling please! 🙂

This is good news. It’s one of the main annoying things for me about the camera – the fact that it is not a world camera like the AF100/ 101.

It was also never about just being a world camera or about only Europe needing 25p. First off, we want the ability to shoot 60 frames per second for slow motion – that extra 10 frames makes a difference. Also, even though we live in a PAL country, we still can have US clients who want us to shoot 24p or 30p (or god forbid 60i), and of course many of us do travel where we may need to shoot at a different frame rate. All in all, great news! It makes the camera a much much better proposition.

I expect it will be the same the other way around, if you “NTSC” users want the PAL frame rates. Hopefully it will be free too!

 

 

20 comments

  1. Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou…. thank you to YOU for letting us know, and thanks to Sony for doing the right thing. I really hope it goes both ways, for our colleagues across the pond.

    It does make a difference, it does help us earn money from our cameras, and it does help slowmo, fight scenes (sorta) and filming the other half of a transcontinental docco/corporate.

  2. Philip, does this mean anything for us un-chap-like Americans who have the NTSC FS-100. Would like the option to shoot naively in PAL.

  3. Here in Los Angeles at Cinegear, SONY actually tried to tell us that we should buy another camera if we wanted to use those frame rates. We basically told them they were full of it. It got ugly, but apparently they got the message.

    It’s very annoying when you’re a professional and equipment makers try to tell you that black is white and white is black.

    At least they finally gave in and fixed it. Now if we can get them to put the ND filters back in…

  4. It is nice that it’s a free upgrade !… lol

    It makes this little camera a really attractive product (but it’s a shame it has to come as an upgrade… Why did Sony release the camera region locked ? That sucks !).

    I’m an editor, but I’m also a semi-pro director/film maker on my free time. Mostly for the web. And next year, IF Red can make it with the Scarlet, it will really be a struggle between Scarlet and the FS100 for me. (RAW VS Shallowness of Sony’s sensor -since, remember, I said it is intented for streaming onto vimeo, dailymotion and so on-)

    Well, great news anyway ! (did anyone tested the camera with another glass than the kit lense ?)

  5. It seems like a good bet Philip 🙂 Here’s an email I received from Sony:

    Hello Joshua,,

    Thank you for visiting Sony’s VideON online network for video professionals and for submitting your question.

    And thank you for your interest on the NEX-FS100. We understand your need for this feature. We aim to add this functionality, but can’t confirm a release date at this time. Please stay in touch.

    We appreciate your interest in Sony products.

    Best regards,
    The VideON Team

    —–

  6. It would be wonderful if Sony would bring this update !!
    But 60fps is in some editing tools a bit tricky…
    But it would be nice to chose between PAL and NTSC with all frame rates.
    There are some negative points to the FS100, like not being able
    to custom name the PP’s or save them..

  7. Philip i was wondering if this means that i can now buy the PAL version of the camera because i live in the USA. It would be great news if i can simply update the firmware so i can shoot in 60p and 30p. Has this firmware been realesed yet? PAL version of the camera is 5000 and the NTSC version is 5900. I would really appreaciate a response so that i can save 900 dollars and buy some prime lenses with it. Thank you Cody Joyner

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