Axel

Demo-reels, "test shots" featuring once new technology is always cringeworthy in retrospect. On your comparison of B&W with Technicolor: in one of his docs on cinema history Martin Scorsese shows that color was used creatively early on. They learned to hold back very quickly.
2D projection had to be 50 nits peak (15 foot lambert). With brighter projection, you'd lose contrast again. The blacks never had been very convincing in cinema either. It's true that particularly analog film (but digital cinema packages also) can hold more stops of light. More than could be shown. 
This whole HDR affair is about new display technology more than about camera technology. Cameras that can record 10-15 stops in 10-bit or higher are with us a few years now. Only that until recently most of it was "lost in translation" for distribution.
The downside will probably be that HDR will be less 'forgiving'. Many affordable cameras were just a tad better than what the 8-bit rec_709 Youtube clip they were bought for demanded.
I was among the 4k skeptics. Resolution is not about image quality. The trek moved in the wrong direction. If 4k was sharper than HD, it was because it hadn't been true HD before. And for the sake of more pixels everybody was happy to allow heavier compression. Although storage costs have become so low (I have to think about John Olivers How Is This Still A Thing?) and in spite of the warnings that compression artifacts degrade perceived image quality the most (see Yedlin again). 
But I wasn't "opposed" to 4k. To those who feared problems with make up and the like, I said, why would it make a difference? Would I light and frame differently? No. Why? I had been shooting DV. Did I avoid long shots with lot of background detail? No. Why?
The same with HFR. We've been discussing this ad nauseam. I had reservations. But I could name the reason. The comparative lack of motion blur takes away momentum. If you know about that, you can shoot accordingly. As I see it, you can still shoot 24p in UHD. The resolution goes down as the camera moves? So be it. If you are fixated on resolution, you will eventually stop motion altogether. No more fights, car chases. Pristine calendar stills of the graveyard, soon with a 1000 nits sun playing behind the headstones ...

I was skeptic about HD as well. Saw it first in autumn 2004 on a trade show with the then-new Sony FX-1. Worries were unsubstantiated since the images were seen on SD TVs then. I wasn't impressed.
The first time I saw UHD was on a trade show again. Some JVC camcorder, stitching four HD videos together. Horrible colors, terrible edge-sharpening. The best part was where they showed a fish tank that was supposed to look real. The audience was impressed. I said, no, the fish look dead. I have a more convincing screensaver ... 
Groundhog day. 

I was skeptic about HD as well. Saw it first in autumn 2004 on a trade show with the then-new Sony FX-1. Worries were unsubstantiated since the images were seen on SD TVs then. I wasn't impressed.
The first time I saw UHD was on a trade show again. Some JVC camcorder, stitching four HD videos together. Horrible colors, terrible edge-sharpening. The best part was where they showed a fish tank that was supposed to look real. The audience was impressed. I said, no, the fish look dead. I have a more convincing screensaver ... 
Groundhog day. 

Demo-reels, "test shots" featuring once new technology is always cringeworthy in retrospect. On your comparison of B&W with Technicolor: in one of his docs on cinema history Martin Scorsese shows that color was used creatively early on. They learned to hold back very quickly.
2D projection had to be 50 nits peak (15 foot lambert). With brighter projection, you'd lose contrast again. The blacks never had been very convincing in cinema either. It's true that particularly analog film (but digital cinema packages also) can hold more stops of light. More than could be shown. 
This whole HDR affair is about new display technology more than about camera technology. Cameras that can record 10-15 stops in 10-bit or higher are with us a few years now. Only that until recently most of it was "lost in translation" for distribution.
The downside will probably be that HDR will be less 'forgiving'. Many affordable cameras were just a tad better than what the 8-bit rec_709 Youtube clip they were bought for demanded.
I was among the 4k skeptics. Resolution is not about image quality. The trek moved in the wrong direction. If 4k was sharper than HD, it was because it hadn't been true HD before. And for the sake of more pixels everybody was happy to allow heavier compression. Although storage costs have become so low (I have to think about John Olivers How Is This Still A Thing?) and in spite of the warnings that compression artifacts degrade perceived image quality the most (see Yedlin again). 
But I wasn't "opposed" to 4k. To those who feared problems with make up and the like, I said, why would it make a difference? Would I light and frame differently? No. Why? I had been shooting DV. Did I avoid long shots with lot of background detail? No. Why?
The same with HFR. We've been discussing this ad nauseam. I had reservations. But I could name the reason. The comparative lack of motion blur takes away momentum. If you know about that, you can shoot accordingly. As I see it, you can still shoot 24p in UHD. The resolution goes down as the camera moves? So be it. If you are fixated on resolution, you will eventually stop motion altogether. No more fights, car chases. Pristine calendar stills of the graveyard, soon with a 1000 nits sun playing behind the headstones ...

Give it a couple of years, yeah. That's reasonable. I won't try to shoot a wedding in HDR now or in summer. I do, however, have some more ambitious shorts in planning. The visual quality of which concerns me now. 
In short: I think so.
My iMac display is *not* HDR, but it has ~500 nits. LCD, means blacks are grey. I have it backlit with a 6500°K LED bar for perceived contrast. Can't stand to watch Netflix on my ~4 year old Samsung TV - anymore. In comparison, all images look muddy and faded. Once it is replaced by an HDR-TV, it's clear to me that I wouldn't want to invest any effort into producing rec_709 images any further. 
There are two sources that discuss HDR vs Resolution vs Brightness in detail: 
1. the Yedlin "Resolution Myths Debunked" video. The bottom line of which is, with true 1080p, we have passed a threshold. We won't be able to see individual pixels at reasonable viewing distances. What is more, since all images are scaled - always! - an upscaling on a device with bigger resolution will improve the perceived resolution dramatically. HD on a UHD display looks better than UHD on an HD display. Fact. 
Resolution is only good if you can't see (or rather feel) it's limits. So resolution must be "invisible". 
Resolution is often confused with perceived sharpness. Beyond the said threshold, contrast adds more sharpness, brilliance, clarity than more pixels. 
2. The lectures on rec_2020, which include 4k (UHDTV1), 8k (UHDTV2), HFR, WideColorGamut and HDR. This is complicated matter, but all engineers agree that an extended dynamic range contributes most of all factors to perceived image quality. 
As a side-note, regarding resolution: it's an indisputable *fact* that 4k @ standard frame rates is only HD for moving images. 4k demands bigger pictures (interchangeable with shorter viewing distances, as in retina display), and the motion blur then diminishes the spatial resolution. 50/60p for 4k, 120p for 8k. Like it or not. You can't be a pixel peeper and resolution fundamentalist and at the same time insist on cinematic 24p.
We have to define the word benefit here. At the present point, it may not be reasonable or economically advisable to buy the hardware. If these were generally accepted arguments, EOSHD would probably die.

Give it a couple of years, yeah. That's reasonable. I won't try to shoot a wedding in HDR now or in summer. I do, however, have some more ambitious shorts in planning. The visual quality of which concerns me now. 
In short: I think so.
My iMac display is *not* HDR, but it has ~500 nits. LCD, means blacks are grey. I have it backlit with a 6500°K LED bar for perceived contrast. Can't stand to watch Netflix on my ~4 year old Samsung TV - anymore. In comparison, all images look muddy and faded. Once it is replaced by an HDR-TV, it's clear to me that I wouldn't want to invest any effort into producing rec_709 images any further. 
There are two sources that discuss HDR vs Resolution vs Brightness in detail: 
1. the Yedlin "Resolution Myths Debunked" video. The bottom line of which is, with true 1080p, we have passed a threshold. We won't be able to see individual pixels at reasonable viewing distances. What is more, since all images are scaled - always! - an upscaling on a device with bigger resolution will improve the perceived resolution dramatically. HD on a UHD display looks better than UHD on an HD display. Fact. 
Resolution is only good if you can't see (or rather feel) it's limits. So resolution must be "invisible". 
Resolution is often confused with perceived sharpness. Beyond the said threshold, contrast adds more sharpness, brilliance, clarity than more pixels. 
2. The lectures on rec_2020, which include 4k (UHDTV1), 8k (UHDTV2), HFR, WideColorGamut and HDR. This is complicated matter, but all engineers agree that an extended dynamic range contributes most of all factors to perceived image quality. 
As a side-note, regarding resolution: it's an indisputable *fact* that 4k @ standard frame rates is only HD for moving images. 4k demands bigger pictures (interchangeable with shorter viewing distances, as in retina display), and the motion blur then diminishes the spatial resolution. 50/60p for 4k, 120p for 8k. Like it or not. You can't be a pixel peeper and resolution fundamentalist and at the same time insist on cinematic 24p.
We have to define the word benefit here. At the present point, it may not be reasonable or economically advisable to buy the hardware. If these were generally accepted arguments, EOSHD would probably die.

Thanks again.
One questions, hopefully a simple one: what kind of Thunderbolt port is that? The reviews for the BM device date back to 2013. Will an adapted connection allow it to suck power from the Mac? Nowhere on the german seller's sites is specified if there are different versions for different ports (and neither on the BM homepage).
With taxes, I could get the Ultrastudio AND a Flame for ~ 1000 €. Now I'm spoilt for choice whether I should spent 300-400 € more for an Inferno, since it may turn out that my A6500's 8-bit (which is also limited to 30p @ UHD) turns out to be unsufficient.
jonpais, invaluable information!

Look, what bothers me most is not that Apple missed a bug here (though it's not exactly awesome that this slipped their QA). It's the reaction of the FCP X fanbase, among them famous Ripple trainer Mark Spencer, who openly denies that something is wrong. Despite clear evidence. By some individuals, Ubsdell was treated like a traitor, and I find this contemptible. I'm not one of these blinded. I still think FCP is best for editing.
And still, even if the new CC tools all worked as expected, Resolve is faster for serious grading. Nodes are more appropriate for organization, there is an easy wipe/splitscreen mode, and I love the still store. I can have best of both worlds, fortunately, because I find the roundtripping very easy and reliable.

So you need to use the Colour Board for Rec709 & the Colour Wheels for Rec2020 - both are affected by whatever Apple have done. But if you read through some of Apple's advice, it does state that if you're using Log clips then you should use the Wide Colour Gamet selection - so does that mean that you CC in Rec2020 & then export in Rec709? I've found the colour board almost useless if you try to bring back Log footage, since you really have to ramp everything up to levels that the old version didn't require you to do. Therefore, it does appear that they've really messed things up & they really need to address this in an update.
The other new additions to FCPX are really great & it still is the quickest NLE out there. So DaVinci Resolve here i come.....

On Creative Cow, someone has found that indeed in a 2020 project the Color Wheels work properly (and really well), whereas in 709 they are a mess. Best advice would be: stay away from the wheels if you are grading for rec_709! Nobody knows what happens when in the next update this gets fixed. You very probably lose all your rec_709 CC for existing projects ...

Yes, Don, you're right. It's just funny that everybody raves about the long-awaited wheels without noticing that they offer less than the iMovie-ish Colorboard. Or without admitting it. I asked Mark Spencer in the comments to his Ripple Training, and he answered: "All color adjustments are iterative." 
Maybe over time we all realize the ingeniousness of those wheels, because getting it right in many time-consuming increments is possibly the most precise way to do it. This reminds me of a children's book of mine, in which two guys want to share a sausage. The smarter guy says, it's not exactly half, let me bite off the difference. In the end, of course, he has consumed the whole sausage.
 

On Creative Cow, someone has found that indeed in a 2020 project the Color Wheels work properly (and really well), whereas in 709 they are a mess. Best advice would be: stay away from the wheels if you are grading for rec_709! Nobody knows what happens when in the next update this gets fixed. You very probably lose all your rec_709 CC for existing projects ...

The most efficient way for me to adjust the contrast has always been manipulating the luma curve directly, and that is now supported by FCPX so I am happy  
I could never get used to the lift-gamma-gain. Too much work for a simple thing. 

How about NO Picture Profile?
Every more or less flat profile robs values from the skin tones and results in worse images, because in the 8-bit codec, little can be done in post to add vibrance to those. This Michael Jackson video shows this, imo. The skin tones are poor. Even if you had the best luts to nail down the right *colors*. Rungunshoot (Brandon Li) just uses autumn leaves, and then apparently you have some options for CC (though not for heavy grading, but this, again, is hampered by the 8-bit).
I don't say I'm right, I'm just starting to test with the A7s. I'd like you to show me that I'm wrong.

A serious warning concerning the new Color Wheels. You might already have sensed that they behave somewhat weird. Now Simon Ubsdell has published a video explaining that they don't use the traditional lift-gamma-gain controls (like the color wheels in Resolve, in Apples Color, in Lumetri and in every other CC program). This renders the tool completely useless to efficiently adjust contrast in your image, you still need the Color Board for that (or set the necessary limitations to the ranges manually in Color Curves). Comments have been deleted over night, not sure why. I posted this on fcp.co yesterday, and the post was almost completely ignored. I think everybody should be aware of that. 

Are these solutions good enough? And isn't good enough merely an euphemism for actually pretty bad? Time will tell. As we will get accustomed to see HDR images, we will later, probably years later, be prepared to compare and judge them. That makes early adopters brave pioneers. The more I learn through articles like these, I realize that my hopes of getting started with the bare minimum are naive fallacy. The point where I land with a smack is usually when someone introduces monitor calibration to the discussion. A long and winded rabbit hole with the conclusion that I can only come incrementally closer. Some colorist (van Hurkman? Hullfish?) said that to be aware of the problem was more valuable than to have access to a (sort of) perfectly calibrated monitor without an inkling of what that meant. In the FCP X thread you showed that it's by far not as easy to know all variables to keep the correct color space conversions (another horrifying term) in the 'pipeline' as it should be. I keep reading and commenting, but right now I feel confused and frustrated. I hope, not entirely unselfishly, that your efforts pay off and that you then can explain how you got there!

@jonpais
Wish I could help. I must admit that I'm still confused about the correlation between the settings (preferences: raw values, library color space, project color space, HDR tools). I have a lot of LOG footage (own slog2, own BM Pocket LOG, FS7 slog3 from my buddy, downloaded Vlog and HLG clips from GH5, some C200 clips had been RAW but sadly converted to ProRes444). Some were radically ETTR'd and surely look overexposed in the browser. However, I can stuff the values between 0 and 100 in the (rec_709) waveform, and nothing looks blown out, and certainly not at 90 somewhat IRE (BTW: you accidentally found the 'custom reference line': when you mouse-over an IRE-value in the waveform and then click, it sticks). You just wrote you give up already, but let me/us try to replicate the issue. I'm quite sure I had recently downloaded the clip in question (or a very similar one), called "Sigma 30mm f3.2". I can't remember where I found this clip, and whether it was V-Log or HLG (browser history deleted through clean install for HS the day 10.4 came out), but it is the most extreme clip on my whole system in that it looked so very much overexposed from the start. That was in 10.3! However, if I use the whole rec_709 pipeline, I am able to make it look normal in 10.4 with highlights hitting 100 (adjust highlights and shadows). alt+cmd+b totally fucks up everything, unuseable. FCP-Internal LUT "Panasonic V-Log" makes it automatically look pretty normal, if somewhat oversaturated to my taste, but with 'legal' values.
You should let us download the clip in your screenshot and guide us through the process. 
New territory. Who can appreciate WCG or rec_2020 in 2017/18? Honestly, I don't know. Can't tell for sure if there's a noteworthy visual difference on my own P3 display ...
And I'm sure you can do that in 10.4. Let's get to the bottom of this together. My buddy just ordered HDR interface and the Dell HDR monitor. He is on Windows and doesn't have FCP, but I'm curious to see how far he will get with Resolve. If his images will blow my mind, I know I will never ever want to be limited to rec_709 (although my wedding videographer's clientele isn't asking for HDR).

Now downloadable from Appstore: 10.4.
Upgraded to High Sierra with APFS today, clean install. No glitches detected so far. New version feels more responsive. Only plugin: Neat (seems to work, but slow as usual). Existing libraries need to be conformed. So beware - a one-way. But no cul-de-sac.
CC tools make me believe (after an hour of playing around) that I won't use Resolve anymore. Apple stole the HSL curves, which I use the most anyway. To monitor HDR, you need very expensive third party hardware, so I skip this for now (long thread I started a year ago). But I was right with one thing: Apple promises an easy SHARE option for various distributions. If PQ (HDR10) needs two versions (one in SDR), Compressor exports the film as a bundle, allegedly fully compatible. We'll see.

Now downloadable from Appstore: 10.4.
Upgraded to High Sierra with APFS today, clean install. No glitches detected so far. New version feels more responsive. Only plugin: Neat (seems to work, but slow as usual). Existing libraries need to be conformed. So beware - a one-way. But no cul-de-sac.
CC tools make me believe (after an hour of playing around) that I won't use Resolve anymore. Apple stole the HSL curves, which I use the most anyway. To monitor HDR, you need very expensive third party hardware, so I skip this for now (long thread I started a year ago). But I was right with one thing: Apple promises an easy SHARE option for various distributions. If PQ (HDR10) needs two versions (one in SDR), Compressor exports the film as a bundle, allegedly fully compatible. We'll see.

In a museum, living "paintings":
I am very interested in this. Am working on an elaborate storyboard for a short for months now. A sequence of scenes, each told within one frame, taking "every frame a painting" almost literally. Like a slideshow of cinemagraphs, some stills with sound, some extreme slomos, some smooth timelapses, morphs. You can combine various techniques, use burst mode to capture raw images, make comps, CGI. Very exciting indeed.

Most of my holiday films (friends & family stuff only) are based on this. I often characterise my work as being “moving photographs”. I find it a challenge to assess just how little movement is required in a scene to maintain the sense of dynamism and interest. It is fascinating, I think, just how even the slightest movement can bring a scene alive.
Ideal for films which don’t have an obvious story but are intended to portray beautiful scenery or architecture whilst travelling.
Tim

There are certain circumstances in which UHD @100 mbps is a problem: Slog. Even if you bravely try to ETTR all the time, in the real world and in situations of wide dynamic range you'll nonetheless sometimes capture the noise floor. Not necessarily shadows beneath car tires but for instance parts of faces that happened to be heavily backlit. This noise then clots together as macroblocks with banding. You could live with a little noise, but those areas ruin the recording, and you usually see them when it's too late. The GH2 once had all-intra hacks with absurdly high data rates (like 172 instead of 24 mbps), and the fans raved about the added detail. But there wasn't more detail. The hack just preserved all of the noise. The shadows looked more natural, and if there was too much noise, you could perfectly Neat it. 
A ProRes capture means less compression artifacts, so I wouldn't say it's completely useless. Would I want to schlep a recorder on top of my compact little camera? Definitely not. I try to expose better, and I accept around 5 % rejects where I failed.

I have the smallHD Focus. Helps with exposure also through false colors. I don't worry about the said car tire shadows, but you always want to expose skin correctly. 

I have the smallHD Focus. Helps with exposure also through false colors. I don't worry about the said car tire shadows, but you always want to expose skin correctly. 

There are certain circumstances in which UHD @100 mbps is a problem: Slog. Even if you bravely try to ETTR all the time, in the real world and in situations of wide dynamic range you'll nonetheless sometimes capture the noise floor. Not necessarily shadows beneath car tires but for instance parts of faces that happened to be heavily backlit. This noise then clots together as macroblocks with banding. You could live with a little noise, but those areas ruin the recording, and you usually see them when it's too late. The GH2 once had all-intra hacks with absurdly high data rates (like 172 instead of 24 mbps), and the fans raved about the added detail. But there wasn't more detail. The hack just preserved all of the noise. The shadows looked more natural, and if there was too much noise, you could perfectly Neat it. 
A ProRes capture means less compression artifacts, so I wouldn't say it's completely useless. Would I want to schlep a recorder on top of my compact little camera? Definitely not. I try to expose better, and I accept around 5 % rejects where I failed.