Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have the AX100, which I am very happy with, and contemplated replacing it with this AX700. The main reasons for considering the replacement were the improved sensor (better low light, increased dynamic range, and less rolling shutter) and the "instant high dynamic range" feature. "Instant HDR" is the claimed ability of the camera to record in "hybrid log gamma" (HLG) format. Unlike other HDR formats (like SLOG etc), HLG is claimed to play back correctly on displays with standard dynamic range or high dynamic range. That means you can shoot one file, and it should look good on both older SDR displays and newer HDR displays, without any editing or grading or rendering. Thus, the ability to shoot in HLG would appear to grant the benefits of HDR footage without the time-consuming editing required by other HDR formats. Unfortunately after a brief investigation, I confirmed that this claim is fraudulent on two fronts. Firstly, the HLG standard (also known as ARIB STD-B67) only supports 10 or 12 bit color values. The AX700's HLG only provides 8-bit color values. That means (by definition) the AX700's HLG is not HLG. It won't play back on all monitors that support HLG, because it violates the HLG specification. Most monitors won't accept it. And youtube won't accept it as HLG either. Secondly, even true 10 bit HLG doesn't play back correctly on SDR monitors. It looks washed out and underexposed, just like every other log format does before it is graded. If you upload true 10 bit HLG to youtube, it will look great on HDR monitors but might look like ass on SDR monitors. So the AX700 doesn't provide HLG (fraud) and even if it did, it wouldn't be instant (misleading). So I decided to sit this one out until Sony provides a camcorder with true standards-compliant HLG. P.S. Wikipedia has a good article on Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG) that links directly to the ARIB STD-B67 specification. You can easily confirm for yourself that 8-bit color values are not supported!