Why Choose Sony's X-OCN? A Brief Guide

Posted by Sam Liu on 13th Jul 2018

Why Choose Sony's X-OCN? A Brief Guide

X-OCN has been around for a while now but people don't seem to know much about it...

You require Sony's AXS-R7 to record it along with AXS Media, these fit the PMW-F5, PMW-F55 and the new Venice. But the media is so expensive I hear you say! An AXS-A512S48 Card for the R7 has 512GB space and costs £1,390.00, so £2.72 / 1GB A SxS Pro+ 128GB card costs £745.00, so £5.82 / 1GB The AXS card is less than half the price of the SxS Pro+ card when comparing data. X-OCN (or eXtended tonal range Original Camera Negative), if you like, it's a form of compressed RAW but doesn't compromise on picture quality as X-OCN is specifically processed and optimised for Sony sensors. There are two flavours of X-OCN, Standard and Lite; Lite is indistinguishable from Standard visually. Sony's RAW was already 16bit and the same for X-OCN. Arri's RAW is 12 bit and Apple's new ProRes RAW is 10bit. Colour Depth: 
  • 10 bit - 1,024 colours
  • 12 bit - 4,096 colours
  • 16 bit - 65,536 colours
In a world where HDR is on everybody's lips, which one would you want? Data Rates: X-OCN also offers amazing savings on data. X-OCN Standard at 4K / 25P has a data rate of 688Mbps, X-OCN LT is 406Mbps. For comparison Sony RAW at 25P is 983Mbps, Arri RAW at UHD / 25P is approximately 1395Mbps. ProRes 422HQ UHD / 25P is 734 Mbps. X-OCN Lite is almost exactly the same data rate as Sony's XAVC Class 480 so even offers huge savings against Sony's own Codecs. Frame Rates: X-OCN 4K - up to 120fps (dependent on camera) X-OCN 2K - up to 240fps (dependent on camera) So, give new life to your F5 or F55 with an R7, or possibly look to enter the World of Full Frame with the Venice  

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