GH6 with ProRes

Then it's the camera's internal processing that is weak. Big difference. It is incorrect to blame the codec because then that damning every other camera that uses the same codec. Believe, me there is nothing wrong with XAVC.
 
The codec battle is generally between the low compression/high quality and the ease of use. Greater processing power and the available bit rate of the removable media - hello CFexpress - once again divide the market but the odd thing is that there seem to be far few uses for the 12-bit and 14bit H265/HEVC. 10bit seems enough and covers that ubiquitous 99% of the market.

And for 1%, there are various compressed and uncompressed Raw formats. Raw coffee is also good.

As to GH-6, it will have its uses but I think the market has mostly moved on. It's priced closed to A7IV and, rolling shutter differences notwithstanding, most owners/operators will probably chose A7IV. And those shooting action/sports professionally will dabble in R3/Z9/A1, with A9III expected sometime in the summer too.
 
One reason I love RED's RAW is because it's so easy to work with. Everything looks good out of the camera when you know what you're doing. What I realized about the Komodo was that a lot of footage online was over-graded or just not properly handled (the metadata can be confusing to newcomers), at least I think so.

Coughlin, who hasn't posted on this forum in a while, once brought up an argument about investing in an ARRI because of how easy it was to make everything look good and thus he argued the extra money he paid for the ARRI was saved in post-production and time, which - whether he was joking or not (because it was like a $40,000 camera package) - was a valid point.

Everyone eventually finds a camera he or she likes to work with and develops a nice post-production workflow, and that could be 8-bit, or H.265, or ProRes, or RAW, etc.

Based on context, yes, there are industry-standards, but I think it's different these days. Different video production world.

Click image for larger version Name: REDCODE RAW.jpg Views: 0 Size: 44.7 KB ID: 5686818
 
I've seen about 20 people get banned, but I didn't catch that one. Interesting.

Although his last activity says on February 4th so maybe not.

[I actually initially wrote that I thought you were right, but I checked more.]
 
Coughlin told me he got banned for a year. That was starting in November since his post on the black Friday thread got him banned.

We all know about the preeminent position of ProRes in the industry. Call it whatever you like. There's a reason they put it in the gh6 and the iPhone and marketed it as a selling point

and, as norbro alluded, it's not just that it's a good-looking codec. But also thay everyone can work with it, which has not been true of redcode, h264, h265. Even if BRAW and prores raw are not too taxing on the computer, they aren't universally familiar and guaranteed plug-and-play
 
Has Windows solved all heartaches with ProRes?

As far as I know it was a struggle in some ways for many every year until about 2019, but haven't heard anyone really talking or asking questions about it lately.

[And an iPhone having ProRes is like the cookie monster having cookies...and you like cookies, Abe. Your favorite parts are the chocolate chips.]
 
I Googled it; yes, seems like there are major compatibility improvements in all aspects.
 
NorBro said:
Has Windows solved all heartaches with ProRes?

As far as I know it was a struggle in some ways for many every year until about 2019, but haven't heard anyone really talking or asking questions about it lately.
Click to expand...

a struggle to export to it? or a struggle to open it and play it back? I thought it could be opened but not necessarily saved to?
 
I don't know the exact specifics across the various operating systems and Windows hardware (I don't know Windows), but Apple seems to have taken care of it just before and in time for their new phones.
 
The reason PrpRes was and remains the dominant pro format is because it's "good enough" for both HD (HQ is at 220 Mbps) and 4K (HQ at ~ 770) and is not tied to any specific pro hardware manufacturer. On top of that, ARRI holds the top position in the high end world and, given its product pricing, had no trouble working out a deal with Apple. As the technology moves along, however, I'd expect to see the various Canon Raw (Light) formats move up in importance. Sony, technically, could start offering X-OCN on the more budget series models but is presently only has it on Venice II.

The sub-$5,000 mass market should probably head toward 8K 10bit HEVC as the generally adopted codec.

Then again, the quality of sub-$5,000 models, including R5C, is getting so good, they are becoming acceptable for the high end work too. And, at that point, Rawer is better.
 
Eh, I think it's only about ARRI and I think ProRes owes most of its success to ARRI and no one else (besides Blackmagic years later who introduced the format to millions of others) because there could have been a couple of formats that were "good enough".

But Apple, like ARRI, made something great at the right time and the right place and then it was too late for everything else, even a few years later (similar to Alexa's success).

There are several ways history could have played out if they were a few years late or if someone else, excluding RED, made a better camera than the Alexa and used something else, perhaps Adobe's CinemaDNG, or a new format.
 
DLD said:
The sub-$5,000 mass market should probably head toward 8K 10bit HEVC as the generally adopted codec.

Then again, the quality of sub-$5,000 models, including R5C, is getting so good, they are becoming acceptable for the high end work too. And, at that point, Rawer is better.
Click to expand...

Side question. What do you guys think the future of video is, what does it look like?
Up to now we've had new looks nearly every decade or so. A result of newer/different film stocks and video technology hitting the market. But are we reaching a peak point where we'll plateau and everything will just start looking the same for decades to come? With it all being clean/digital/HighRes/HDR/etc.
 
Yeah, it will likely continue to become more difficult to see differences unless there are discoveries about the human brain and evolution that haven't been made yet.

RAW patents expire in 2028 and everyone and everything will attempt to have the purest quality video possible. At some point, compressed video may seem like black & white television.

Resolution and dynamic range will continue to improve while new color standards are adapted and standardized.

8K/60p might become more popular than 4K/60p for a faster, newer generation, and planet.

Two other very important components a part of the viewing experience will also have to be improved as well as adapted by more humans, which are larger high-resolution screens and faster network connections (for online experiences).

Phones will get ridiculously good.
 
roxics said:
Side question. What do you guys think the future of video is, what does it look like?
Up to now we've had new looks nearly every decade or so. A result of newer/different film stocks and video technology hitting the market. But are we reaching a peak point where we'll plateau and everything will just start looking the same for decades to come? With it all being clean/digital/HighRes/HDR/etc.
Click to expand...

From the technical perspective, there are always going to be advances. In some areas, it's going to be at snail's pace; in others, by leaps and bounds. R5 was a gigantic leap. The CFexpress Type B (4 lane) can already record 8K Raw. HDR is inching up one F-stop at a time. Streaming platforms will have to adopt (and place a server at every pot)

Personally, I prefer the 70's-80's film stock look. 60p/120p was tried with "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" to much dismay. 48p "Hobbit" didn't fare much better. At some point, the VFX infused superhero movies will lose their primary attraction for the majority of fans. 8K will likely be around a while. I hope this will be the non-retro retro.


PS. Ralph Bode deserves a shout for not leaving any Fran Drescher closeups in the frame.
 
NorBro said:
Eh, I think it's only about ARRI and I think ProRes owes most of its success to ARRI and no one else (besides Blackmagic years later who introduced the format to millions of others) because there could have been a couple of formats that were "good enough".

But Apple, like ARRI, made something great at the right time and the right place and then it was too late for everything else, even a few years later (similar to Alexa's success).

There are several ways history could have played out if they were a few years late or if someone else, excluding RED, made a better camera than the Alexa and used something else, perhaps Adobe's CinemaDNG, or a new format.
Click to expand...

I disagree with everything you wrote here

Does nobody else remember when ProRes was released in 2007 and the splash it made? I was in college at the time. This was before Alexa, had nothing to do with Alexa. It had to do with standardizing and simplifying video formats in a high-quality, manageable way. Nobody was using it as a capture codec. It was an intermediate codec.

Newsshooter posted an article recently about the continued importance of ProRes in discussion about its inclusion on the i

it became more and more common to use it as a mastering format and to transfer footage between facilities or systems. By 2010 the phrase “we’ll just use ProRes” was already in common usage and generally made it possible for people to relax a little about post-production workflow...

The suggestion of ProRes being past its use-by date is more than a little misplaced. Firstly on a practical level, the near-universal acceptance of ProRes across the post-production industry makes it one of, if not the easiest format to work with. Secondly, it works. The picture quality is high and consistent while the file handling is easy. Thirdly, it’s not actually that old by comparison. Almost all of the compressed video formats we use today are part of a very small number of extended families with newer formats like XAVC actually being variants of the h.264 family. While HEVC/h.265 is slightly newer and a great delivery and consumer-level camera format, ProRes still has very real advantages for professional use.
Click to expand...

Could something else supplant it? Sure. But I don't even see anyone trying to make something with similar goals.

Have computer systems (and hardware accelerated graphics) gotten so good and ubiquitous that intermediate codecs are no longer necessary? Not yet, and maybe not ever. And if they do, I don't think there will be a single standard codec. I think people will just use a variety of different codecs. I mean, a lot of the other codecs you're talking about are proprietary and I'm not sure it's even an option to transcode to them in most NLEs
 
Let me ask you this...do you think you personally have a fair understanding of how ProRes was received and used around 2007-2010-ish besides reading what others wrote while you were in college? Did you use it?

Do you know anything about Avid and who they are?
 
Yeah ProRes is pretty near close to the perfect video format. I remember the struggle before ProRes when we made use of mjpeg and a whole army of codecs in an attempt to get decent video quality. When I first used capture card in larger PC towers we were capturing pure uncompressed video as the only option for SD material.

proRes isn’t just about the visual quality as it is about how perfect it’s integrated into MacOS and FCP. You can’t really ask for a better marriage between camera, OS, NLE, external recorders and archiving. It’s the least cumbersome workflow in the industry. It’s Lao the only format to ever really make it into the video work on a serious level for cameras and recorders. DnxHD is a great visual format but it has been plagued by horrible support. On hardware it’s only ever really been n option on external recorders or capture cards. Even that support was more of a “crap we need something for PC folks what should we use?’”

Cineform had the potential to be the ProRes of the PC world but it just never took off very well and it’s support went in a weird direction when it was sold.

the only formats that are universal and industry standards other than ProRes are mpeg2, mpeg4 and HEVC based. None of which are really meant to be robust camera or editing formats but designed to sacrifice data to create a good visual representation. They can be solid visually but they are a very different concept to a format like ProRes.

now we have a hot mess of raw formats to deal with with no standardization in sight anytime soon. At least not until the Red patents run out. Maybe then there could be hope for a standard. Maybe that will be a raw or ProRes raw. Both solid formats with most of what we want out of raw. Both have made raw as easy as working with other video formats.

now we may apprentice;y be getting ProRes internal on the GH6. A first outside of the big cinema camera like Varicam and Alexa. That has the potential to spread to other cameras to follow suit. The iPhone can now record ProRes as well which means it’s going to become more popular.

it sucks ProRes doesn’t work better under Windows but that’s one of the key reasons I use a Mac. That ProRes workflow is worth gold to me and being able to use a Ninja V, or P4k with a native insanely easy to edit format has a ton of value. To me at least. I know if I want to record the best possible format that is not raw then ProRes log is likely the absolute best option for that. Something insanely easy to do with a ninja V or directly in some cameras.

it’s freakishly scary how well 4K ProRes HQ edits on my base M1 MBA. Like it should be illegal how well it performs. Few other formats/workflows can do that. Not even close. I have said it for years but Adobe should have really invested in developing their own codec like ProRes. Something that would have been insanely beautiful on Windows but could have directly competed with ProRes on the Mac side as well. A format cameras and recorders would want to adopt as a new industry standard. Alas they did not and they were realistically the only ones capable of such a thing.
 
NorBro said:
Let me ask you this...do you think you personally have a fair understanding of how ProRes was received and used around 2007-2010-ish besides reading what others wrote while you were in college? Did you use it?

Do you know anything about Avid and who they are?
Click to expand...

I bought my first mjpeg capture card in 1995. When ProRes came out it was a game changer. The company I was at during that time was a PC only place. Boss hated Macs. I bought one for myself and he couldn’t believe how much better it was working with ProRes vs uncompressed. The uncompressed AVIs performed insanely perfectly as well but they were massive and at the time I had to build and maintain all our raid systems to handle it.
 
It better have worked better vs. uncompressed, ha.

The funny thing about history is that sometimes in hindsight people might remember it differently than how it was. I remember it being big news, but I don't remember it immediately being an overnight success.

There is no doubt ProRes is awesome and if there was a DVXuser truth-detecting brain test, there is a good chance I shot more ProRes than most of this forum besides a few who are guaranteed to have shot more of it than me, and on much more important 1%-type work.

At one point, I was inseparable from Blackmagic cameras or Atomos recorders.

I love ProRes. But it is absolutely a no-brainer ARRI and Blackmagic helped make it universal knowledge within the industry working on different levels.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top