CULVER CITY, CALIF.—Sony has launched its own 4K channel on YouTube in an effort to promote the 4K format and more importantly, sales of its 4K cameras. “We created this channel to do one thing—to create a community of Sony users, owners and operators of 4K cameras,” said Brett Erlich, channel manager and host.
The company offers nearly a dozen consumer and professional grade 4K cameras—from the recently released RX line of DSLR 4K cameras to the high-end CineAlta F65.The YouTube channel “provides a lot of options for us to build a big, awesome community,” Erlich said. The three options include:
- “How-to” videos created by Sony’s 4K camera experts at the Digital Motion Picture Center on the Sony lot in Culver City;
- Testimonials from Sony users, and
- Selected 4K videos uploaded to YouTube from Sony customers.
“YouTube has this really great option where we can curate playlists of people who have uploaded videos—or are about to upload videos and they tell us where they’re going to be—and we are putting together a series of playlists [to send to subscribers],” Erlich said.
The new channel will also show what Sony’s 4K camera line offers for both consumers and professionals adopting the high-resolution format, according to Dan Perry, director of Sony’s digital motion picture center. “One other [advantage] is to give exposure to the growing segment of YouTube creators,” he said. “Sony is often viewed as a broadcast or ‘high-end’ cinema company [but] our cameras are being used in every level of production.”
All of the videos are shot in 4K, uploaded in the Sony XAVC 4K encoding format and compressed in Google’s VP9 codec. The clips average in length from the 2-5 minute how-to videos to a 15-minute clip showing 4K footage of an Icelandic ice flow shot on a Sony F55.
“This is all just an attempt to give people who use these cameras and share what their experiences are, their opinions and why they like using the cameras so much,” Erlich said.
The Sony 4K YouTube channel launched this week. It can be accessed here.
