kye

WOW - that was one of the least cinematic videos I have seen for quite some time, and I shoot videos almost weekly on my GF3, which is a MFT camera from 2011 that shoots 1080p at 17Mbps. I actually stopped the video to check it wasn't 60p (it wasn't) or that I hadn't set some other setting incorrectly. Whatever they did, they've managed to make it scream VIDEO from every frame at the very top of its lungs. I didn't realise a video could be that VIDEO. If a famous cinematographer had directed that to make it as VIDEO as possible, I would sit back and think "no wonder that person is famous".

Yeah, I've made that point a number of times, except relating to camera size, and it's frustrating as hell. As soon as you want something smaller, it instantly comes with less. Less bitrate, less bit-depth, less DR, less IQ, just... less. It's like the logic seems to go: Me: I'd like to have high image quality in a small and simple rig The world: Then use a large camera Me: You didn't hear me - I want a small simple rig The world: Then use a 35Mbps 8-bit 8-stop point-and-shoot Me: You didn't hear me - I want high image quality AND a small simple rig The world: Here's an FS5, cine prime, 7" monitor, matte box filter set on an easy-rig Me: No, I need something that is almost pocketable The world: Why do you need something so small? Me: In order to be able to take it where I want to film, which is places where "professional" filming isn't allowed The world: If size matters then why do you need high image quality Me: I shoot in uncontrolled conditions with no lighting or control and need lots of latitude in post The world: Well, if you want both then.. um.. err.. well.. you shouldn't. You should want what is available. Me: Why don't you make something with high image quality in a small and simple rig? The world: No-one wants it! Me: *facepalm*

There's a concept that no-one talks about, and that I think is one of the most important things that exists with equipment, which is how using it makes you feel. We all know the trope about content being more important than image quality, but no-one here talks about the factors that make the content good, and I think that a key factor in that is how we feel while we are filming. If we are fighting with the tech then we will be frustrated, less efficient, and generally in a bad mood. Like when anyone is in a bad mood, this will radiate out to the people you are working with, the people who are around you, and perhaps the people in the frame. The opposite picture is also true. If we are using equipment we love, then we will be upbeat, calm, and will have a positive impact on those around us. Film-making is art, and art is about creative expression, which comes from a place of emotion. Obviously, if a camera is fiddly to use and the ergonomics are crap then that's a challenge, but I find that the biggest barrier to feeling good while filming, at least for me, is knowing what kind of images I am creating, and this is all about colour for me, and it sounds like it might be the same for you as well. Going back to Sony vs Canon, considering that you're using FCP and don't want to learn colour grading, I'd suggest going with the camera with the best colour science that you can justify (ie, it has to work practically with those "other factors" you mentioned). Definitely wait for the A74, as Sony colour science is getting significantly better with each generation, but make sure you're looking at footage that is SOOC rather than had a colourist put lots of work into it. Best of luck, and don't forget that the equipment are just tools to get the outcome you want, and a great experience captured with a lower quality camera will make a much nicer video than a lacklustre experience taken with the best camera in the world, and while filming you're influencing the situation.

It must block pop-ups... I was instantly greeted by a kind invitation to join their mailing list (a manufacturer I'd never heard of.. not sure how that makes sense) and other pop-ups from the manufacturer themselves. Maybe it'd be interesting to turn off your ad blocker for a few minutes and find out how terrible most of the web has become. I rarely use commercial websites anymore, partly because they have ads for themselves or others on the top, the bottom, both sides, pop-ups for videos from their YT channel, and just when there was any danger of you consuming any actual content, they pop-up something on top to "Never miss an update from us ever again!!!". I instantly close about 80% of the commercial websites that I open in a tab. Luckily there's not that many of them, as I tend to not require information that is of interest to whatever type of human isn't instantly repelled by a website yelling over itself to try and get you to skip down their sales pipeline.

Clicked on the link and immediately had to work out how to close about 4 pop-ups. Why any manufacturer would think that annoying me before I'd even read their PR BS about their product is beyond me. If any manufacturer reads this, let me share this one thought - I find the easiest way to close pop-ups is to simply close the tab. Seriously - FFS.

What NLE are you using for colour grading? +1 for getting WB bang-on, and -1 for confidence in auto-WB doing a perfect job in difficult situations. To be able to correct WB in post requires more powerful tools and more sophisticated methods, but these require greater skill in colour grading and more time and skill required to get them right.

Why settle? https://ymcinema.com/2020/06/08/reds-baby-dragon-komodo-an-action-cinema-camera/

I find this conversation to be quite amusing. Maybe we should rename it "videographers discover cinema cameras aren't designed for them" 🙂

Is it to maintain consistency across different models of camera? IIRC C-Log is like this, with clipping of their lower-DR cameras reflecting their lower clipping point compared to the higher-DR cameras, which allows the same settings on different models to generate the same exposure in the files and therefore allow compatibility in post.

First the iPhone, now a drone.... funny how this "backwards" codec is having a resurgence. Maybe people are finally understanding that high-resolution / compressed-beyond-belief footage doesn't look very good.

Curious to hear people's thoughts.

As an addendum to the above, this article has a number of very interesting points: https://ymcinema.com/2020/06/08/reds-baby-dragon-komodo-an-action-cinema-camera/ Of particular note is the fact that GoPro footage is noticed by audiences after only 20 frames. Combine this with the fact that GoPros shoot at 4K at up to 100Mbps, but cinemas are often still in 2K. The article talks about rolling shutter and DR of the GoPro being limiting factors, but when I look at GoPro footage (even the latest v10) it looks awful even in low-DR situations without much movement. Of course, noticing the difference between a GoPro and cinema camera in low-DR low-movement situations will take more than 20 frames, if we're talking about it as a main camera, the differences are obvious. But let's think about this further. A GoPro will still be visibly inferior under the following situations: Low-DR situations If the GoPro is still inferior in low-DR situations then it's not the DR driving the difference High-motion Once again, GoPro still has it's poor look in low-motion scenes Deep DOF situations Most action scenes in movies will have deep DOF used by the cinema cameras to show the relationships of all the moving objects, so this isn't a differentiating factor FOV This is potentially a factor, with the GoPro look being very wide-angle, however I have modified an action camera (not a GoPro but the similarities are there) with longer focal lenses (multiple) and they do stop looking like action cameras but don't stop looking like cheap/nasty cameras. A pocket camera with long zoom also doesn't get 'nicer' by zooming. Also, I have attached wide lenses (GoPro wide equivalent) to my GH5 and it doesn't suddenly look like GoPro footage. Resolution In theory, downscaling an image increases its quality, so having a 4K image put onto a 2K timeline should give it the advantage over a 2K cinema camera, but no, no it doesn't. So what is left? Colour science remains, image processing remains, codec remains, bitrate remains, bit-depth remains. Colour science is potentially a thing, but that "GoPros are noticed after 20 frames" was in the final movie that has been graded by a world-class colourist who will be pulling out every trick they know to hide this particular shot. Colourists can't work miracles but they sure can work magic, so I'm going to suggest colour science isn't a main thing. Now bitrate, bit depth, and codec. The A7S2 (with its 4K 8-bit 100Mbps h264) is a parallel here, with wedding film-makers generating higher quality footage than GoPro can, but I suspect that an A7S2 doesn't cut well with cinema cameras, and the A7S3 made large improvements in this department, for precisely this reason. That leaves image processing. I suspect any professional camera is likely to process the image with much higher quality than a GoPro, and with this I include the quality of the compression itself, which we know is a highly variable thing. It is probably a mixture of all these things, but I'd suggest it's likely image processing first, quality of compression second, bitrate third, codec fourth, colour science fifth, bit-depth sixth. However, anyone offering Prores will automatically deliver much improved processing, bitrate, and bit-depth, and I suspect that encoding Prores is also much less computationally demanding so can also be done at a higher level of quality too.

Actually, I'm a few steps ahead. By saying "I'll do a blind test of codecs with the R5" what you're really saying is that you don't think that there's much difference between the codecs (no-one is suggesting blind tests between GoPros and Alexas). The followup implication is that if there is little difference between them on your R5 then either: there is little difference between codecs and my perception is flawed somehow there is a difference between them on cheaper cameras but not on expensive cameras Either way, both are an argument against the idea of adding an external recorder to the existing equipment I have. In terms of the codec, you're right that it's one element of the 'look' but what you might not know is that I've been doing testing offline over the last two years and have exampled many variables. I simply stopped posting them here because of the increasingly ridiculous and trolling responses from various users. I own several cameras of note: Canon 700D with ML installed (which can do 14-bit RAW up to about 1700px wide and has Canon colour science) BMPCC and BMMCC (which can do 1080p RAW and Prores in various flavours and has excellent colour science) GH5 (which downsamples from ~5.2K, does very high-quality h264, and has lacklustre colour science) Various MFT, pocket, and action cameras (which shoot low-quality h264) I've extrapolated quite a lot from comparing and contrasting various things from these cameras. Over literally dozens of tests conducted in meticulous controlled conditions, often using identical lenses and other equivalencies, I've started noticing patterns. I also watch a lot of streaming content, which is often shot on high-end cameras (RED, ARRI, Sony Cine cameras), but is heavily compressed / sharpened as part of distribution. A few things that have gradually emerged from all this is: DR DR matters as not only do things clipping look awful, but DR is literally measured by setting a threshold for the noise floor - so more DR = lower noise floor, and that means cleaner shadows Colour Science RED and ARRI footage is immediately noticeable for looking delightful even at 480p setting on YouTube, which has poor resolution and poor bitrate, I suspect colour science (and DR) are what shines through in this situation, where resolution, sharpness, etc will be obscured Codec and processing at capture If I review a bunch of footage captured by me at 200Mbps h264 and compare it to footage shot at 1000Mbps+ but streamed at 17Mbps (YT4K) the YT looks nicer. If I compare footage I shot on a cheaper camera (for example my Panasonic GF3) at 17Mbps 1080p and compare it to ARRI footage streamed at 2.5Mbps (YT1080p) then the YT looks better and less artefacts I've spent literally hundreds of hours on this stuff, and the more I look the more that I narrow things down and the codec is a big one. You're right that h264 probably isn't much of a problem, but when it comes with very low bitrates and lots of sharpening and NR (which compound the artefacts of the h264 compression algorithm) that's where the issues start, because it's a package deal.

Not really sure why so much hate towards smaller sensors.... Also very amused by the respect for Prores in this thread and the complete lack of it in my external recorder thread. Bizarre.

Well done for pulling the off the shoot with various challenges along the way! I have no idea what the camera is, but the results looked pretty good. I must say though, when the guy at the bar takes a sip of the product it looks like he's already had a bottle or two already! Of course, it's fitting for the style of the piece 🙂

Unless they say 10-bit in the marketing, you're not getting it. I suspect they're aiming at a different market, and sadly, there are people out there who need to be protected from getting out of their depth. ie, I think that if GoPro released a camera with a "Pro" mode that was 10-bit, log, and unsharpened, then a large proportion of people who buy it would set it to that mode without knowing what it was, would use it, get flat soft-looking footage out of it, and would trash-talk GoPro themselves, to the extent that vast sections of their market would think that GoPro themselves had made faulty cameras. It is a pity though, as once a company is making their own custom chips they could design them to include any combination of processing / codec / bitrates etc so devices like the GoPro, iPhone, etc could be built to offer very interesting modes.

Anyway, it seems pretty obvious that @KnightsFan and @Video Hummus don't shoot for an organic look, and so in answer to the original question of "is anyone interested in a small external recorder" basically could have answered "no". I do find it odd that people often reply to questions by criticising the preferences of the OP, or invalidate the original scenario posed. In this case I stated that I wanted Prores codecs in a small camera, and the responses were "you don't actually want Prores, you don't actually see what you see when you look at footage" and "you're wrong for wanting a small camera - buy a large camera without Prores instead". Very odd.

Meanwhile, back in the real world...... 1) I care about both IQ and editing performance 2) The Atomos Ninja Star cost roughly 10% the cost of an R5, and if you take into account the total cost of selling everything I own, buying an R5, re-buying all my lenses, batteries, accessories, well, your "but the R5 has a nice codec" argument is really "why bother with a recorder when you can pay 20x for a completely new camera setup..... just to get a better codec" Once again, you suggest that instead of buying an accessory that I re-buy my entire setup. That is a very interesting set of features from ZCam, but it proves my point, which is that there are cameras that take image quality seriously but lack features, and cameras with great features that don't take image quality as seriously. The ZCam is in the former camp, considering they're modular, lack IBIS, and are generally designed for high-end use on official shoots. Cameras that are designed to be small and convenient to use typically don't have the better codecs.

Maybe RAW is the wrong word, but with all the compressed-RAW variants out there, it's tough to come up with a phrase that means the right thing. Perhaps the way to understand it is this.. there are two groups of codecs. (all bitrates below are for DCI4K 30p) The first group are unsharpened (for RAW or uncompressed formats) or perceptually unsharpened (Prores is sharpened to match the perceptual sharpness of RAW but not more, and requires this because the compression softens it a little bit). The goal of these formats is to provide high-quality capture / DI formats that are perceptually as neutral as possible and where image quality was robust enough for further processing prior to distribution (eg, colour space transforms) These have high bitrates: Uncompressed is 8492Mbps Blackmagic RAW 3:1 1088Mbps Apple ProRes 422 HQ 943Mbps The second group are sharpened (which obviously emphasises edges) and are compressed with an algorithm that also emphasises edges (also perceptually sharpening the footage). These have much lower bitrates: GH5 max h264 bitrate 400Mbps Sony A7S3 max bitrate h264 300Mbps Sony A7S2 max bitrate h264 100Mbps The goal of the h264/5/6 codec development was to provide a high-quality image at low bitrates for video distribution at the end of an imaging pipeline, where image artefacts would not be emphasised by further processing (eg, by adding large amounts of contrast via LOG to 709 conversions etc). Manufacturers of consumer cameras choose h264/5 formats because they provide good-enough image quality when combined with in-camera colour profiles that are properly exposed, and provide file sizes that are manageable by non-professionals. This is why the GH5, in combination with its 400Mbps modes, also include many 100Mbps 8-bit modes, whereas the lowest Prores flavour (not explicitly for proxy use) Prores LT, is 437Mbps. Essentially I'm interested in the first group. The first group is superior because the bitrates are significantly higher, but also because the sharpening is not ridiculously overblown. Mathematically sharpening is the opposite of blurring, so you should be able to un-do sharpening with blurring, provided that the strength, radius, and distribution are matched. However, the h264 footage is sharpened and then compressed, which means that the sharp edges create 'ripples' in the footage, for example the band of lighter coloured sky below is a compression artefact: by the time you apply enough blur to the image to have that bright spot darkened by the blur of the nearby darker object, the image is blurry as all hell and not suitable for use. Prores exhibits very little of these types of artefacts. Interestingly, in my comparisons of codec quality, h264 is more mathematically accurate (using the mathematical model that approximates visual similarity) than Prores at a given bitrate, but I find that the perceptual difference is significant. A parallel might be in cooking. If I made a custard recipe perfectly, separated it into two halves, and in one I added 100g of cooked apples and in the other 25g of raw garlic, you could say that the one with 100g of apples is 4x less 'accurate' and therefore should taste 4x worse, however the fact that apples are a relatively benign flavour and garlic is much stronger flavour would mean the garlic one would likely be inedible. This is the challenge with Prores vs h264 - the artefacts from Prores are relatively benign (and aesthetically are similar to film) but h264 the artefacts are very 'digital' and aesthetically are the opposite of filmic. I suspect this is one reason that people making films (where image sharpness is kept to minimal levels) are interested in RAW/Prores and those making video (where sharpness = quality for most clients) are just fine with h264/5. If we're going to play hypotheticals, then sure. But why stop there? Why not just wish for a camera that flies around automatically taking the footage you want, edits it in-camera, and just writes the final render to an SD-card when it flies back to its charger? Back in the real world we have cameras with good features and poor codecs or good codecs and poor features, but external recorders is a way to get the best of both worlds. You're confusing capture codecs with DI codecs with delivery codecs. Your argument suggests that there's no point shooting with anything above 8Mbps because YT and streaming platforms distribute in that format. I'd suggest you watch some comparisons where people compare capture codecs and the differences are clearly visible, despite the low bitrate you're watching them in. One of the reasons is that the capture codec gets heavily manipulated after it's captured and before distribution, and another is that a poor quality copy of a good source will always look better than a poor quality copy of a poor quality source. That's why a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy of a document was almost unreadable. Why would I care if some mythical bride I don't know likes my home videos? Unless you're talking about my wife? If so, she can tell footage from Alexa/RED vs h264 cameras while watching Netflix far better than I can!

I would encourage you to think about this as independent of the sensor. Every camera does the following: read RAW data off the sensor de-bayer that data rescale the image (optional) process that data with colour profiles and other processing (eg, sharpening) encode into a file format (compressed or not) and write that to the card Any camera can be built to rescale the image and write it to the card using a low/zero compression file type. Most cameras simply take the sensor readout and pipe it to the card or to a hardware chip for resizing and encoding to h264, but rescaling the image and compressing/encoding can be independently controlled. You have to also realise that cameras are already doing this internally, by taking the sensor data, rescaling it, adding an OSD overlay, and piping that to the LCD/viewfinder/HDMI/SDI port. The data stream used for monitoring is often rescaled and would not be compressed. Ironically, that's the stream I'd like to grab using a small Prores recorder.

I agree with you - I'd love to see all the camera manufacturers implement better internal codecs. and by better, I mean: Scalable compressed internal RAW (best) Prores internal Scalable uncompressed internal RAW Unscalable uncompressed internal RAW High-bitrate low-processed high-quality h264/5 High-bitrate low-processed typical-quality h264/5 Whatever h264/5 implementation the marketing department thought was good What I mean by "scalable" RAW is the ability to read the whole sensor, downscale in-camera, and write that in a RAW format to the card. I believe the P6K can do this? It's how you can get different resolution RAW files with the same crop factor. Unfortunately, most cameras are "7" on the above scale, with only a few exceptions here and there, and those are often very compromised in other ways. Effectively, an external Prores recorder upgrades all the "7" cameras into "2" cameras. Cameras are always a compromise, some have this function but not that function, others are the other way around, etc. I'm looking to eliminate one of those variables.

I think you might be underestimating the power that we have here.... This thread has 15.7K views at time of writing, the GH5 thread has 840K views, and there are many other threads where the "MFT is DEAD - AF is the only thing that matters with any camera ever OMFG!!!!!" sentiment is posted over and over again. Yes, the internet is a big place, but to Andrews credit, there are a number of threads here that have no parallel anywhere else on the internet (I've dived down enough rabbit holes to have found quite a few). Besides, no-one can correctly say that they know what "everyone else" is saying about something, and no-one can say that their input has zero impact on the world, so given those things I don't know why you would argue against yourself trying to convince the world that the system you have heavily invested in is dead. It's like posting "<your real name> isn't very good - don't hire him" over and over again! Either someone will believe you and you lose, or they won't believe you, and so they think lesser of you for what you wrote, and you lose again.

I might or might not be able to. The challenge with such a test would be that it's not an apples-to-apples comparison. You'd never get something that was RAW->Prores->h264, so the Prores step may obscure the comparison. If you were to encode the h264 using a computer I'd suggest that the h264 would likely be very high quality (although Resolves h264/5 is notably poor compared to ffmpeg for example). However..... none of this matters. I care about the real world. In the real world, I'd like to be able to choose my camera independently of the codec and processing pipeline. There are cameras like the A7S2 which had a lot going for them but topped out at 100Mbps 4K, which is (quite frankly) pathetic. Then there are cameras with internal Prores like the P4K that lack IBIS and are huge. If I was taking the HDMI out then I would also bypass all the horrible sharpening and NR and awfulness that cameras typically apply to their h264 captures, including even the GH5 and it's high-bitrate ALL-I modes. If there was a Atomos Ninja Star 2, which was relatively compact, I could add it to any camera that had a clean HDMI output and get the codec/bitrate I want, regardless of the paltry codecs they decided to cripple-hammer the camera with. Unless you know of some way for me to automatically beam the output from my cameras sensor to your computer to be compressed in h264 in realtime and then written back to the SD card in the camera? That would be pretty spectacular and I'd be keen to see the h264 files where we get to decide the entire imaging pipeline....

No, I absolutely do not, under any circumstances, think this is even remotely true. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. I'd suggest if you're not seeing it then I wouldn't go looking... I am the owner of a GH5, which does 200Mbps 1080p, which is one of the very few cameras that give a bitrate MORE than the ~176Mbps bitrate of Prores HQ, and yet, I am still interested in something that can record Prores externally that isn't a large screen.

I was saying your proposed methodology was flawed, even outside of camera-to-camera variations. I've never seen a prores encoder I didn't like, but many h264 encoders that produce quite thin and brittle images. My guess is that either Prores is to encode, and/or the hardware encoders that are implemented are designed for professional use and are therefore tuned for optimal image quality. Certainly the professional attitude towards h264 is that it's a delivery standard being abused for consumer use and nothing more. It's also worth noting the bitrates that are involved - good luck trying to find a camera that gives h264 bitrates anywhere near the standard Prores bitrates. Aesthetically, Prores looks soft compared to RAW but retains the subtleties in the image with the artefacts being relatively benign, but h264 looks over-sharpened and without subtlety compared to RAW and the artefacts are perhaps as far from organic as you can get.