After the first Sony A7S III are supposedly about to be delivered, Atomos gets into the slippers right on time. A firmware update for the Atomos Ninja V is now available, which enables RAW recording via HDMI with the Sony A7S III.
We had 
already reported about it, that the new Sony Hibrid flagship for external filmmakers is capable of RAW video output of the full sensor with 16bit (at 4.264 x 2.408 pixels) with up to 60p. This technically surpasses all current competitors in this field.
Meanwhile it is also confirmed that the 16 bit RAW output is linear and is recorded by Atomos in a logarithmic 12 bit contrast space as ProRES RAW. We were not the only ones to suspect that some Sony Alpha models always output via HDMI after internal compression and that compression artifacts were therefore found in the "uncompressed" video signal. If the RAW signal of the A7S III should really be branched off unchanged before the compression, 60p RAW with 4.2K in 12 bit log is already an enormous quality announcement.
No wonder that Atomos (in contrast to Olympus-RAW cooperation in winter 2020 ) wants to be on the market with this prestigious camera-recoder combination right from the start. Which in our eyes puts Blackmagic under pressure for the first time. Because a critical mass of users has probably been waiting for these RAW possibilities under 5,000 Euro. But the created ProRES RAW files still cannot be opened by Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve.
Either Blackmagic will now open ProRes RAW or they support the A7S III with their own Video Assist 12G and create Blackmagic RAW files. Sony has probably left this door open by talking about RAW recording with "compatible recorders" on the S7III. Or Blackmagic completely ignores the RAW wishes of A7SIII users. Also a possibility, after all, you sell your own cameras. The latter could then again fit Assimilate Scratch very well into the stuff, which can currently be recommended as THE grading program of choice for ProRes RAW.
more infos at bei www.atomos.com
