10-bit internal recording

nutmegger

nutmegger

Well-known member
Any chance Panasonic will offer 10-bit 422 internal recording in a future upgrade of the DVX200? I currently shoot with a Canon C100 and record 10-bit ProRes to an external Ninja Blade. I'm looking to upgrade to 4K, but would prefer not to have to record to an external device. The DVX200 is within my budget but what is holding me back is the lack of 10-bit internal recording.
 
Don't want to give you bad news...but your C100 does not output 10 bit. The Ninja records 10 bit...but the C100 does not deliver it to the ninja. The ninja records the 8 bit C100 signal in a 10 bit wrapper.
 
I'm aware that the C100 is a 8-bit camera and the Blade records a pseudo 10-bit. A couple of months ago I was at Abel Cine in New York for a Red event and while there I had the opportunity to check out the DVX200. I liked what I saw. I prefer the DVX200 form factor over my C100. I could use my Ninja Blade with the DVX200, however I want to keep things as simple as possible.
 
Barry_Green said:
There is no possibility of the DVX200 recording 10-bit internally. It does, however, output a true 10-bit signal.
Click to expand...

Hi Barry. I have been reading your DVX200 Guide. On page 96 of the guide you write that internal recording is 8-bit 4:2:0. Further down on the page you write "However, an external recorder is not necessarily required, especially if your final delivery is 1080P (or 720P or standard-def). By recording internally in UHD or 4K, you can downconvert to 1080P (or smaller) and the resulting footage will be 10-bit at 4:4:4 color sampling. See the article on Benefits of 4K for more information. " Can you clarify what you mean by the above statement?

Thanks.
 
I would like to hear more about this too.

My main question is does working with the 4K footage in a HD timeline provide better results as opposed to creating an HD master from the 4K master?

Also, it's been heavily debated that doing either above is not the same as recording true 10-bit 4:2:2/4:4:4 HD.

Personally, I don't think many would notice a difference and it may only be beneficial in certain type of work (gs/vfx/etc).
 
The only problem I see with this theory is any shortcomings of your 8bit 4k recording are going to be burned into the file. So if you have an overexposed sky recorded in 4k, putting this on a 1080p timeline is not going miraculously allow you to recover the highlights. Now if the original recording was in 10bit 4:2:2 you probably would have a better shot. If I am wrong, then please correct me.

Also, I would assume that any color improvements diminish if you zoom in on the 1080p timeline. Which is why many want to shoot in 4k in the first place. Right?
 
nutmegger said:
Hi Barry. I have been reading your DVX200 Guide. On page 96 of the guide you write that internal recording is 8-bit 4:2:0. Further down on the page you write "However, an external recorder is not necessarily required, especially if your final delivery is 1080P (or 720P or standard-def). By recording internally in UHD or 4K, you can downconvert to 1080P (or smaller) and the resulting footage will be 10-bit at 4:4:4 color sampling. See the article on Benefits of 4K for more information. " Can you clarify what you mean by the above statement?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

I believe what Barry was saying in the manual is that if you record 4k or UHD internally at 4:2:0, when you down-convert that footage in post to 1080p, it comes out being 10bit 4:4:4 at 1080p. The extra resolution of 4k gives the down-convert process the pixel information it needs to resolve 10 bit 4:4:4 1080p.

Barry please correct me if I misunderstood that.
 
Scaling 8bit footage down does not turn it into 10bit.

The color precision can be said to increase because you're starting with a surplus of discreet pixels that will be blended into 1/4 of the original number.
 
Simply Cinema said:
I believe what Barry was saying in the manual is that if you record 4k or UHD internally at 4:2:0, when you down-convert that footage in post to 1080p, it comes out being 10bit 4:4:4 at 1080p. The extra resolution of 4k gives the down-convert process the pixel information it needs to resolve 10 bit 4:4:4 1080p.

Barry please correct me if I misunderstood that.
Click to expand...
Yes you are correct.

In a 3840 x 2160 image recorded at 8-bit 4:2:0, you will have 1920 x 1080 color resolution. When downrezzing 3840 x 2160 down to 1080p, you will end up with 1920 x 1080, and you will maintain that 1920 x 1080 color resolution. As such, working with 3840 x 2160 4:2:0 footage gives you 1920 x 1080 4:4:4 footage after downconversion.

The 10-bit thing is trickier. When summing four pixels into one, i.e. when turning each 2x2 block of UHD pixels into a single HD pixel, you don't average them, you just sum them, and that lets you retain the individual variations in shade that result in getting 10 bits worth of data. However, it's not necessarily the exact same image as you would have gotten if you'd shot in a true 10-bit format in the first place. You can, however, use the extended data to greatly, hugely reduce banding if you do a proper bicubic downconversion. A simple 2x2->1 downconversion won't do much to minimize banding, but a bicubic (or even bilinear) downconversion can make huge improvements in 8-bit banding (and other 8-bit limitations).
 
Would you recommend editing the 4K/UHD footage in a 1080p timeline?

Or does editing everything in a 4K project and then making an HD master provide the same result?

Thank you.
 
sorry, finally is it possible to record in the external recorder true 10-bit signal in 1920x1080?
(from HDMI, or SDI out)
 
Hi,

If anyone does not own an external recorder or does not yet own the DVX200 but it considering it, I'm adding some ProRes 10-bit 4:2:2 clips online here http://bit.ly/10bitexternal if you want to download and have a play at grading on your system or checking how the external clips look.

Sorry if they're a bit boring. I'm too busy at my day job to embark on any projects at the moment so it's all playing and testing right now. They might be useful for someone! :)

Torsten.
 
Ah - I should mention, the 10-bit output is only 10-bit if you specifically enable 10-bit output in the SYSTEM menu. If you don't enable 10-bit, then the output is 8-bit 4:2:2 and you can simultaneously record internally. If you enable 10-bit, then the output is 10-bit 4:2:2, but you can no longer record internally.
 
What are the Mbps/bit rate when recording external 4:2:2 10-bit? Is it exactly the same as whatever format I've chosen? Say, FHD All-I @ 200Mbps. Thanks.
 
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Barry,

somewhere here in the forum I have read your sentence, that if I want to have the best quality-results in 1920x1080 (FHD), I should use the “Dual Codec recording”. That means recording card 1 in UHD and recording card 2 in FHD at the same time.
My Question: what is the source of the FHD-files? Is it a downconversion from the UHD recordung files inside the DVX and what kind of downconversion?

Thanks, would be very interesting
 
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