Buy EX3 now or wait till NAB?

DavidNJ said:
I was comparing a camera that did 8-bit 4:1:1 (DVCPro) and 10-bit 4:2:2 in the same camera. You could do the same by taking a still picture and compressing it with both protocols.
Click to expand...

Your basing your colour space comparisons on SD codecs (DVCPro50 etc) where there is a much bigger difference as each pixel missing the colour information represents a much greater % of the image area. In HD the difference is simply MUCH smaller, the gap between 4:2:2 and 4:2:0 (or 4:1:1) is visually much less.

You clearly believe what you believe so I don't see the point of arguing over this anymore. I will personally be avoiding AVCHD for a good 3 to 4 years yet, until the encoders mature to 4th or 5th generation and can actually encode the codec to its real potential (just as MPG2 encoders have improves a lot over the last 10 years), and we have the processing power to edit it natively.
 
DavidNJ said:
Yes...I agree, more is good. And RAW would solve sooo many shooting problems. However, 35MB/sec, 8x XDCAM EX, can challenge many computers and probably requires more time and equipment than most budgets can handle.
Click to expand...

Hey, I agree, that being said the new tower dual i7 core(expensive machine i know) cut transcode times down a lot, not quite in half though, We did some tests at the place I work and it definitely isn't as fast as we were expecting, but still much faster.
 
You can build an Core i7, OC'd to 3.8-4.1Ghz for about $1000 ($300MB, $285 cpu, $110 mem, $60 hsf, $150psu add case, disk, video, and optical to suit).

DVCPro50 is DVCPro at half the compression with double the chroma. Same algorithm. The weak link now is on camera compression and interpolation processing. In 5 years we probably can all have RAW. RED is trying to start next year...and an SI2k isn't that much more today.
 
DavidNJ said:
You can build an Core i7, OC'd to 3.8-4.1Ghz for about $1000 ($300MB, $285 cpu, $110 mem, $60 hsf, $150psu add case, disk, video, and optical to suit).

DVCPro50 is DVCPro at half the compression with double the chroma. Same algorithm. The weak link now is on camera compression and interpolation processing. In 5 years we probably can all have RAW. RED is trying to start next year...and an SI2k isn't that much more today.
Click to expand...

What are you trying to prove?
 
I was responding to issue of the editing computer having enough horsepower. DV predates MPEG2 but is basically the just an I-frame of the same algorithm.

What Canon has placed front and center is that we have been working around compression losses, to a large extent without recognizing it as such. If we did recognize it, at least some of the reviews would have done HDMI or HD-SDI captures. Have any?

Anytime we make forward progress there is a lag before all the tools catch up. DV Rack is (was?) one of my favorite tools that isn't keeping up. What the Canon showed, at least to me, is that we have to move to make things happen.

P.S.
I assemble my own computers. Given that you can easily assemble a computer capable of 40+% overclocking,and can't really do that with major vendors computers, I don't see any reasonable option there.
 
I don't think the 5DMKII has a live full frame rate HDMI out. It is certainly the main feature I want on any DSLR I use with video and I have stated that many times in here. My choice for capturing that output would a a nanoFlash with 1080 25p 100Mbps MPG2 Long GOP (basically uncompressed 4:2:2 8-bit quality and editable without transcode). Until I can get that I won't be going the DSLR route as Canon/Nikon won't provide any high end compression options in camera. As it stands I can't even get 25p out of either company (Canon offers 30p (5DMKII) and 20p (500D) and Nikon offer 24p (D90).
 
It doesn't...but the 45Mb/s H.264 is close to the Flash XDR. Close enough that the difference in the camera's can be the difference. The Canon is half the price of a Flash XDR, a fraction of the price of an EX1 + adapter + XDR. It is also a lot smaller and lighter.

To hold a look throughout a movie will require more work with the Canon; however it may be worth it. For reference, there is relatively few 'bad' 5DM2 shots posted. Every other camera has quite a few bad ones in with the good.

Note: If size and portability weren't an issue, you could capture an HDMI or HD-SDI camera to a computer with an Intensity or SDI card and Cineform. It would be fully editable and higher quality (wavelet compression, 4:2:2, 10-bit). Cineform can transcode the Canon's H.264 in even their $129 package.
 
I was just looking at some more clips from a videographer shooting on an EX1 and HV30 with 35mm adapter.

Maybe this discussion should focus on what is important to you in your videos. All my babbling about compression and MTF at different spatial frequencies means little if you don't care. To me, the higher texture detail is what makes the Canon 5DM2 pop. The bokeh is nice, however you can get that with 35mm adapters.

All of the cameras have very good to excellent overall picture sharpness; this is especially evident with a 35mm adapter and very good lenses. That sharpness is a bit of the 'video look'. More than the DOF IMHO. It comes from avoiding the transfers that cause MTF losses with film. They are all more than good enough for a movie. You may even tone it down with filters.

My interest in the Canon comes from seeing what the Canon can do, trying to understand how it does it, and if there are alternatives (because I think the Canon's loss of manual controls extracts too high an operating cost day to day.)

This videographer did a variety of high production quality stuff with adapters on an EX1 and HV30, sometimes cut together. It shows the camera differences. http://www.vimeo.com/user669259/videos

This is an EX1 vs. Canon comparison. EX1 with 35mm adapter. Same time. Same videographer. http://www.vimeo.com/2977346

To me, that extra texture detail lets you as the director, DP, or editor capture more of an image that lets you quide the thoughts of the audience where you want them. My 2¢ anyway,

GuyB's idea of an EX1/3, 35mm adapter, good glass, AND a Flash/nanoFlash XDR is probably a great solution. It is also an expensive solution; new, the combination could be close to $20k.
 
DavidNJ said:
It doesn't...but the 45Mb/s H.264 is close to the Flash XDR. Close enough that the difference in the camera's can be the difference. The Canon is half the price of a Flash XDR, a fraction of the price of an EX1 + adapter + XDR. It is also a lot smaller and lighter. .
Click to expand...

The Canon does not record at 45Mbps though. It records at 24Mbps Intraframe MPG4 from what others have said. That is heavily compressed, probably more so than even HDV.

DavidNJ said:
Note: If size and portability weren't an issue, you could capture an HDMI or HD-SDI camera to a computer with an Intensity or SDI card and Cineform. It would be fully editable and higher quality (wavelet compression, 4:2:2, 10-bit). Cineform can transcode the Canon's H.264 in even their $129 package.
Click to expand...
If size and portability weren't an issue, why not make money not an issue as well? Anyway, those cards need a computer and software to function (and possibly a generator!) so their total cost is deceptively high once you add it all up and their flexibility in shooting is quite low due to their 'size and portability'.
 
DavidNJ said:
...GuyB's idea of an EX1/3, 35mm adapter, good glass, AND a Flash/nanoFlash XDR is probably a great solution. It is also an expensive solution; new, the combination could be close to $20k.
Click to expand...

Except it wasn't my idea, and not a solution I am, or ever will be particularly interested in. Please read my posts more carefully. I want to put a nanoFlash on the likes of a 5DMKII (but one with full HDMI out), not a 35mm adaptor rig.
 
One thing to note here is the often quoted 2 to 1 compression advantage in relative image quality of mpeg4 based versus mpeg2 only holds at lower bitrates. The difference reduces to next to nothing at high rates.
 
There is lots of uploaded raw canon footage on vimeo, and lots of people who own it discussing its bitrate...and the canon catalog.

It is a vbr from around 40-45. Canon says 5.3Mb/sec. It is 45...don't sell it short. If they did 24Mb/s it wouldn't look half as good. Or rather, it would look HALF as good.
 
Just checked, it is 4.8 MBytes/sec (in 1080P) according to the full DPreview review but that is I frame only which makes it much much less efficient. You can't compare that 40Mbps directly to any Long GOP compression which will be much more efficient, you have to compare it to the likes of Intra-AVC and DVCPro HD (if it did full rastor 1080p which is doesn't) which use 100Mbps. In reality 40Mbps I frame is probably more compressed than 17Mbps long GOP AVCHD.

Having said all that at least it isn't as bad as I thought with 24Mbps I frame.... Still does explain why the artefacts I have seen were subtle (but still there).
 
Last edited:
I have no idea where you got either from in the DPReview article. It is GOP. Even the footage on DPReview shows up to 44.5Mb/s. Yes,the it is VBR and a clip of a colorless dark room with next to no motion is a tad less than 40Mb/s. Do you normally shot dark still lifes with your video camera?

Some of the confusion maybe because the Canon doesn't use B-frames and is probably CAVLC. Lisa may know if any of the AVCHD cameras use B-frames, I believe only the HMC 150 uses CABAC instead of CAVLC.

Even more telling is the SX1 review. Same recording but in a $600 camera with 1/2.3" sensor (6mm across?) and a 20x zoom. The video is pretty sharp in low spatial frequencies and a little noisier and with less contrast at higher ones.

This is an SX1 uploaded cropped frame (not downscaled) from the DPReview clip. The highlights on the white structure visible behind the bridge are 1 pixel wide on the luma channel in a 1920x1080 frame. Try that with an HVX200. Overall, compared to equivalent 5DM2 frames, their is less contrast at higher spatial frequencies and a bit more noise (pixels whose chroma and/or luma seem a bit out of place.) The low noise and high contrast at higher spatial frequencies coupled with the high contrast at lower spatial frequencies make the 5D pop, IMHO.

1238389794.png


1238391702.jpg
 
Last edited:
DPreview don't say it is I frame, that is other users in their forums discussing it when it was released. I don't have one so I trusted their information, its not like Canon have come out and quoted their codec in great detail (like GOP structure). I have done a bit more digging and found other sites which detail it better and yes, my bad, it does appear long GOP. So now its got me wondering why I would see any compression artefacts like I saw in some sample footage if its got 40Mbps AVCHD. It does use PCM 44.1KHz stereo audio which is 1.4Mbps, so you have to take account of that but its not a lot really. The other thing is they are probably using a low power/complexity encoder so throwing bit rate at it keeps the quality up as high as they can.

They have a few clips online in the review (differenct from the one from the preview).
6sec 29.6MB = 39.5Mbps
18sec 88.1MB = 39.15Mbps
12sec 66.7MB = 44.5Mbps

Here is the origonal crop which revealed the compression artefacts to me, there is a lot of banding in the gradient of the white. In the middle you can see the way it should look, nice and smooth, but either side it looks nasty. This was visible at 100% (which is how I noticed it).

.
crop1_5dmkii.jpg
 
The Canon is good it, isn't nirvana. At the time of its release Quicktime didn't process its color range correctly, apparently fixed in 7.6. And it processes 1 of 3 rows. The result is the vertical resolution is undersampled in red and blue and the vertical resolution is way under the optical low pass filter's frequency, letting high frequency artifacts in. The uncontrollable and unmonitorable on camera sound isn't practical requiring another solution. I don't know if the QT fix eliminated the banding.

It just raised the bar. This is an EX3 thread. The EX3 samples approximately the same number of photosites as the Canon (6Mp), just the photo sites are smaller with less emphasis on the important green,the primary contributor to the luma channel. It may very well me that an EX1/3 with a Flash/nanoFlash XDR (off the shelf portable hardware), AVC Intra 100 (off the shelf but less portable), or Cineform (erector set) exceeds, matches or nearly matches the Canon. That would take compression out of the picture, provide the EX1/3 with more chroma information in its output, and really show off its camera unit. A 35mm adapter would eleminate a DOF advantage. You should be able to adjust the colors to match.

However, in spite of asking here and in other forums, scanning vimeo, youtube and the net, I haven't located any footage caught that way. I may soon have a portable recorder and just capture my own.
 
Lets hope they wake up and move away from that semi-shoulder, tripod only form factor!

I think the JVC cameras have it down for the best of both worlds imho.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top