merefield said:Tugela said:You are the one who is wrong. The Digic 7 can do 4K, but it is the camera that can't cope with the heat. <SNIP>
If they put a fan in the M5 it would have been able to shoot 4K using hardware encoding.
What's the point of such a feature on a chip if it runs too hot to deliver 4k? And I hope you were joking about a fan!
I appreciate Canon not giving us features just to fill out spec sheets which don't work in the wild, like Sony, though.
Seems we'll need to wait for them to shrink the electronics down so they create less heat before minimally cropped 4k becomes a reality.
Because they use the same chip design for a particular family of chips, but with different parts enabled or disabled. The Digic 7 is the same generation as the Digic DV5, so the hardware encoders included in the chips are the same. They likely intended the cameras using this generation to be able to shoot 4K, just like Sony and Panasonic analogs, but when the chip was actually built it turned out to run too hot. There is not a lot that can be done at that point, other than make cameras that simply don't use that feature of the chip. The DV5 variants included in the EOS-C cameras have fans to cool them, but that is not feasible on regular cameras.
So while the capability to shoot 4K is there, it isn't used because of the thermal envelope constraints.
Their original intent was probably to have Digic 7 chips shooting 4K on all enthusiast cameras in 2015, but after it was made the chip just couldn't handle it. So it stalled their plans to catch up to Sony and Panasonic.
The thermal envelope problem is not going to be resolved for the Digic 7 generation however. They might get a more power efficient version with Digic 8, so until that comes out, hardware encoding probably is not going t happen on Canon stills cameras.
The whole processor thing is what is holding Canon back. I am sure that it is exceedingly frustrating for their managers and engineers, because they would love to take it to Sony/Panasonic, but just can't. There is a gap opening, and until the processor situation is resolved they are hobbled in their efforts to prevent it from continuing to grow.
If I was to make a guess, that is the reason why DPAF is being thrown into everything. They have to do something to give them some sort of competitive edge, and they are banking on PDAF being enough of a stopgap to buy them some more time.
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