ToDo list for next Firmware Update: (Please Forward to the Sony RX100M3 development team)
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These wishes, lacks of functionality, problems and bugs are related to Firmware V1.10. I will mark the appropriate entries as DONE/FIXED/SOLVED if Sony indeed did solve them. Additionally I will increase the rating to 4 or 5 stars, depending on wich and how many issues are solved.
Anyone is highly encouraged to copy & paste this list or parts of it and publish it, ideally in a way Sony will take notice of it.
Legend:
BUG = Real software bug or malfunction (also if malfunction is with intent)
LOF = lack of self-evident feature that nearly anyone expects in this class
WISH = wish
1.) [LOF] : Enable separate power-save delay durations for "LCD off" and "turning off completely". So LCD could be turned of e.g. already after 5...10 seconds if no key is pressed. Cam then could fall into sleep mode (wake-up by e.g. slight pressing of shutter key)
2.) [LOF] : During LCD off (respective during OLED-Finder off) ensure to set all components to sleep mode (energy consumption nearly 0). This would save a huge amount of energy by a) no need to drive lens motor when user manually turns cam off/on to try to save energy, PLUS it would save energy already after a few seconds if the cam does no operation. Since battery is VERY small (3,9Wh, means ~30 minutes of video if not recording continously) this is absolutely needed. I guess this could increase recording time also if stopping video near to the 55 minutes that can be achieved if recording nonstop.
3.) [LOF] : enhance list of video modes to have ALWAYS available *all* framerates, independent if cam is set to PAL or NTSC. Maybe warn user, but do NOT prevent him to use 60fps if he wants to use 60fps/NTSC framerate in PAL mode. (If this is done, there's no more need to implement bugfix/wish #4)
4.) [LOF] : do not force user to re-format SD-Card when changing from PAL to NTSC or vice versa. What the hell should this be good for? Why this absolute insane artificial restriction? Even better solution: put all NTSC framerates into the Video Menu if in PAL mode and vice versa. (see previous entry, #3.) )
5.) [WISH] : Maybe put all video modes in one list instead having to switch between AVCHD and XAVC-S, add (AVCHD) and (XAVC-S) in brackets in the appropriate menu entries
6.) [LOF] : enable start/stop of video recording if dial is set to video mode also by pressing shutter key
7.) [LOF] : enable capturing of still images while recording video (at least in modes when CPU has enough capacity left). Remember: the cam has enough power to simulataneosly record a low-quality MP4 stream to be sent to a smartphone. Since is NOT really needed, it would be totally OK if capturing still images only can be done if dial video recording is diabled.
8.) [LOF] : If #7. is done, do not forget to also enable FIFO buffering for multiple still images while recording video (2 or 3 images, the more, the better) to prevent that user has to wait up to 10 seconds to be able to take next picture (as it is the case with RX100M1).
9.) [BUG] : It is not possible to enable the "water level bubble" meter additionally to other status displays. Please fix this bug.
10.) [WISH] : Add a pre-shot option (shoot but not store stills before pressing shutter)
11.) [WISH] : Add a pre-record option for video (e.g. save the 3 seconds that have happened BEFORE movie button has been pressed)
12.) [WISH] : Add a short-sequence high-speed recording function with optional pre-shot. e.g. Save 3 seconds at 100..200 fps and play back at 25..50 fps), identical to that in Sony HDR-CX116 (Camcorder), if cam is capable of 200 fps for a short period, then also additional recording at 200 fps with playback at 25 would be adequate.
13.) [BUG] : review the german translation of several menu entries. (least important, but I would have expected better translations). Hint: the following strings are named very misleading/un-understandable: "Taste DISP", "Anzeigequalität", "Dateiformat", "Für Sucher", "Key-Benutzereinstlg.", "Bew.interv.-Einstlg", "Spur-Intv. im Beweg. aufn.-Video einstellen.", "Energiesp.-Startzeit"
At certain points one gets the impression that this translations are from a company that's absolutely new to the german market. :-(
14.) [LOF] : Improve preview quality of video still images. The camera could easily and in virtually no time decode the 1st frame (or several frames and take e.g frame #10) in case video container specifications do not allow higher preview stills. This high-quality decoding may be done with a delay of ~200...300 ms in case it would otherwise slow down stepping through the images/recordings
15.) [LOF] : Add display of remaining recording space (in minutes) while recording video (currently remaining rec time is only visible if dial is set to video and no video is recorded).
Additionally maybe add also remaining time of artificial size limit for the current video sequence (I guess the reason to not show the remaining time is to hide this restriction/or to prevent to have to display 2 different remaining times)
16.) [BUG] : If you take a picture, and after having pressed the shutter, you IMMEDIATELY press the movie button, the camera complains "Operation not possible, writing to SD-Card". WTF?!?!?!
This is not a computer science school project, this is a top-class camera from a world class manufacturer. So it's no question that there's a FIFO buffering and write operations not yet completed are processed seemlessly in the background. (At least this SHOULD be the case!) Indeed this *is* done if shooting multiple pictures, but obviously currently there's a bug that prevents this background FIFO buffering from being used when user starts recording a video while a picture still is being written.
EVEN WORSE: if you shoot a series of pictures, then you have to wait until all pics are written to SD-Card before video recording can be started. (approx. 1 second per picture, means >60 seconds if whole FIFO buffer is full with pictures.
FIFO Buffer should either also be used for video or, maybe much simpler/safer to implement: write video immedately to card if movie button is pressed and simultaneoulsy continue emptying FIFO full with pictures to card. (it's no problem for the pictures if they can not be written to card at full speed because video is recorded)
17.) [WISH] : If running on external supply: Since camera stops charging battery and cam consumes less power during operation than when charging battery, cam should simply ignore if spower supply does not identify as suited for "USB power". (Otherwise the cam also would have to refuse charging because the supplied power supply is not suited for that, too...). But it's great that the cam can be turned on with external power connected! Keep this!!!
18.) [WISH] : While preview image is shown, all buttons (Fn, Zoom, etc.) behave as if the picute view mode is active. This is annoying if you operate fast and e.g. want to change some setting or change zoom. You are forced to slight-press the shutter before to close preview image or to disable preview completely. An option that keeps the cam in photo mode while preview image is display would be great.
--- end of ToDo list for Sony RX100M3 development team ---
