The HDC-4800, which is geared toward live sports and event production, has some truly exciting features, but probably the most impressive is the fact that it can shoot 4K at up to 480 fps.
Features
- 8x 4K – 480 fps 4K
- 16x HD – 720 fps 1080 60P
- Super-35mm 4K CMOS sensor
- Supports PL mount lenses
- Motorized ND/CC filters
- Wide color space: BT.2020 and BT.709 supported
Sony seems to believe that UHFR (Ultra High Frame Rate) is the next generation of live sports/event production, or at the very least is a big part of it. Sony's marketing manager for content creation, Rob Willox says:
This camera system can do a lot of everything — very high frame rate, very high resolution, and it works seamlessly within Sony’s current HDC family to give users a familiar yet powerful and new production tool. This is the future of live production, designed to satisfy the storytelling aspect of modern sports production.
According to Sony, the HDC-4800 will be available in August 2016. No word yet on price.
Sony also announced a new shoulder-mounted ENG camcorder, the PXW-Z450, which contains many of the same functionality as its predecessor, the PXW-X400, except this thing shoots 4K and has a 2/3-type Exmor R™ CMOS sensor. Though it's a body-only model (no lens or viewfinder), it can be paired with one of Sony's HDVF-series OLED viewfinders. The PXW-Z450 will be available by the end of 2016.
In the end, these are ENG-style cameras, which won't particularly interest the indie filmmaking crowd. Many were hoping, and even rumoring that Sony would unveil the next iteration of the A8, or even an 8K Cine Alta, but their press conference unfortunately wasn't all that exciting.
Source: Sony
