GH5 Chances of GH5S internal 4K 50/60p 10bit?

R

Ryanite

Member
Now I know no one can ever really tell me the answer to this but what does your gut say?

I’ve been on a long journey of pitting cameras up against the pocket 4K to see which small form factor camera will be the best to invest in. In this the GH5S has come up as a clear contender with the Xt3 a close second. While the xt3 gave me the 10 bit 60 I was looking for in one hand it took away with the other being 4:2:0, that along with the form factor, non articulating screen and low battery life ruled out the system. That left the GH5s to fight it out with the pocket 4K, the 4K having an image advantage but to me only slightly as many of the comparison videos were quite close and mostly differed in each images correction rather than the camera itself. The S came at a premium for good reason as it’s an ergonomically joy, battery life-a plenty, expandable xlr unit, weather sealing, wifi and now with the VFR noise fixed its one hell of a camera. I’m not into that headache life any more as much as the pocket produces a lovely image I’d rather the Panasonic’s convience and watch the image when recording / work the grade a little more closely. With this more focused grade approach though it’d require vlog and I’d only ever use vlog in 10bit which becomes an issue since I really love some nice 4K 50p and would need to drop down to HD to get 50p internal at 10bit. To me (without any real technical knowledge) the camera appears to have the processing chops to pull this off, hell the amount of things it’s sibling the gh5 processes is insane and this camera barely does half of that, it surely has room in it for some nice 50/60 10 bit.

Now you may say that “sure Ryan you can get 4K 50 10 bit externally” and while you’d be right I’ve done a fair bit of looking into the atomos ninja V which brings in lovely prores but also raises the cost of an already pricey camera, brings on fan noise, no weather sealing so it negates a strong point of the GH5s and is fairly power hungry meaning I’d have to manage a larger battery system, much like I would if I owned the pocket 4K. So I’m not too fond of this approach but the atomos is a killer monitor/recorder for sure, perfect size too.

So it may be greedy of me but I’m secretly hoping Sony comes out with an absolute stunner of a a7siii, not so I can buy it (because my lord that’s a pricey eco system with in my opinion poor ergonomics) but to force Panasonic’s hand to update competing systems like the GH5s because I find it hard to believe it isn’t capable of it and I’m more inclined to say their protecting their Eva line forcing the hand of those on the fence.

TL;DR - I wish the GH5s had 4K 50/60 10bit like the pocket 4K and suspect Panasonic of holding out on us but will probably buy the GH5s anyway because it’s such a well made and enjoyable camera to use. I’ll probably end up getting the atomos ninja v as well, bastards.
 
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the panasonic s1 FF will have 4k 60p 10 bit. Also the gh5s isn't pricey its dirt cheap 8 years ago you could have sold it for 15-20k for what it does.


QUOTE=Ryanite;1986777336]Now I know no one can ever really tell me the answer to this but what does your gut say?

I’ve been on a long journey of pitting cameras up against the pocket 4K to see which small form factor camera will be the best to invest in. In this the GH5S has come up as a clear contender with the Xt3 a close second. While the xt3 gave me the 10 bit 60 I was looking for in one hand it took away with the other being 4:2:0, that along with the form factor, non articulating screen and low battery life ruled out the system. That left the GH5s to fight it out with the pocket 4K, the 4K having an image advantage but to me only slightly as many of the comparison videos were quite close and mostly differed in each images correction rather than the camera itself. The S came at a premium for good reason as it’s an ergonomically joy, battery life-a plenty, expandable xlr unit, weather sealing, wifi and now with the VFR noise fixed its one hell of a camera. I’m not into that headache life any more as much as the pocket produces a lovely image I’d rather the Panasonic’s convience and watch the image when recording / work the grade a little more closely. With this more focused grade approach though it’d require vlog and I’d only ever use vlog in 10bit which becomes an issue since I really love some nice 4K 50p and would need to drop down to HD to get 50p internal at 10bit. To me (without any real technical knowledge) the camera appears to have the processing chops to pull this off, hell the amount of things it’s sibling the gh5 processes is insane and this camera barely does half of that, it surely has room in it for some nice 50/60 10 bit.

Now you may say that “sure Ryan you can get 4K 50 10 bit externally” and while you’d be right I’ve done a fair bit of looking into the atomos ninja V which brings in lovely prores but also raises the cost of an already pricey camera, brings on fan noise, no weather sealing so it negates a strong point of the GH5s and is fairly power hungry meaning I’d have to manage a larger battery system, much like I would if I owned the pocket 4K. So I’m not too fond of this approach but the atomos is a killer monitor/recorder for sure, perfect size too.

So it may be greedy of me but I’m secretly hoping Sony comes out with an absolute stunner of a a7siii, not so I can buy it (because my lord that’s a pricey eco system with in my opinion poor ergonomics) but to force Panasonic’s hand to update competing systems like the GH5s because I find it hard to believe it isn’t capable of it and I’m more inclined to say their protecting their Eva line forcing the hand of those on the fence.

TL;DR - I wish the GH5s had 4K 50/60 10bit like the pocket 4K and suspect Panasonic of holding out on us but will probably buy the GH5s anyway because it’s such a well made and enjoyable camera to use. I’ll probably end up getting the atomos ninja v as well, bastards.[/QUOTE]
 
The GH5s doesn't have the processing power for 4K 10-bit 4:2:2 60p, but there's a good chance the GH6 will have this in a year or so. ( even the Fuji X-T3 had to skimp on the recorded chroma data to enable internal 4K 10-bit 4:2:0 60p recording )
 
My gut says no because if the processing could have handled it they would have done it already. There was no reason to hold back and there are no other products they are trying to protect. Plus the GH5 is old enough now where the focus has likely been on the GH6 for many months already. Any future updates are likely to be fixes or very low hanging fruit that takes little effort to add.

There is also the possibility Panasonic was holding it back for an incentive to upgrade to the GH6 but if that’s the case or not it doesn’t matter because the GH5 wouldn’t get 60p 10bit. So processing power limitation or saving it as a bullet point feature for the GH6 either way the answer is nope.
 
Also, the EVA1 (in the Pro Cinema Camera division) and the GH series cameras are in different departments of Panasonic, and the GH division does not look at the EVA1 or VariCam as a sibling, nor would they care about protecting its sales, as the are in a different market segment anyway.
Cheers
 
To the OP why do you think it’s odd to not have 60p 10bit when no other DSLR is capable of doing it? I mean we all want it but it’s important to take into consideration just how much the GH5 pushed the cabailities of internal dslr camera codecs. Adding 60p 4K was already an amazing feat and adding 10bit up to 30p for 4K was mind blowing. I’m still shocked a camera this small and affordable can deliver 4K 10bit and 60p in 8bit.

Besides the fact that external can do 4K 60p 10bit proves it’s not purposely hobbled and a limitation of the processing power. 4K 10bit h264 encoding takes a crap load of processing power. External does no encoding so it can use all that processing power for just the 10bit uncompressed signal.
 
I think that only people who have paid 80k for a sony Digibeta a 2/3 inch SD camera in the late 90es and had to buy tapes ca $40 for 30 mins recording time you only could use once can truly appreciate a gh5.
 
I totally get really wanting a feature but I take serious issue when people assume it’s some kind of mass conspiracy or act of pure evil to torture us.

Panasonic has done everybody a massive favor by pushing the 10bit conversation and giving users a format none of us could have ever dreamed of a few years ago. 4k 60p was always pushing the envelope and a huge bonus and nothing more. At no point is Panasonic ever obligated to deliver 4k 60p 10bit. They never promised it and made it very clear from day 1 that the processing just isn’t there. No amount of wishing, begging or praying to the spaghetti monster is going to change that.

Again is Panasonic completely shocks me and proves me wrong (not likely) I will gladly with open arms accept 4k 60p 10bit. I will even do a little dance in excitement. I totally want it as well but I understand how processing work and what is involved in image processing fro am sensor so I know that in this case it probably isn’t possible. Maybe if they cut a few corners somewhere else it could be possible but honestly I don’t want any quality or feature corners cut just to add one thing that may become unusable due to those corners cut.

The reality is we never excepted to have 10bit, 4:2:2, or 60p in 4k and what we have is pretty darn close to a miracle. I understand the camera can do what it can do and likely can’t do more. This isn’t a PC rig where we can plop in a 1080t GPU to get it to do more faster than we could do before. The hardware is stuck pretty much where it was on day one. Firmware can improve things a little but it’s ridiculous to expect a 200% performance increase with a little firmware tweaking.

As far as I’m concerned the 4k 60p 10bit firmware update is a paid update called the GH6. That is of course assuming the GH6 can add enough processing power to make that insane level of h264 encoding a reality in real-time. To be honest I would rather just see them license ProRes at that point and make it a paid add-on like v-log.
 
I also don't really understand "needing" more, wanting I get. how often do you really need 60p in general? Or really "need" 4k. What are you shooting that makes 10 stops of DR a deal breaker 800 ISO in Log and 1600 in rec709 unbearable?
 
Couple of good points here, I'm focused purely on the S not the gh5 as I can see how it'd be processor capped. The S how ever I feel there may be a possibility.

Secondly I really doubt the pocket 4k is a processor power house considering it's price and it brings 10 bit 422 in all variants even 120p FHD 10 bit which you just don't see. So I'm not sure that it's really all that process intensive, a case could be made though since the S' noise reduction is far stronger than that of the pocket which is an intensive processes. As for compression I thought it mainly pushed the processing work to the workstation? Where less makes it easier aka prores. I'd be very happy to have it limited to the less compressed intra codec if it's an issue. However I think it's far more likely as was pointed out that panasoinc has seen the market direction of these smaller form cameras wanting better codecs and decided to split the cake for later knowing that majority will not be using 10 bit anway, it makes for a very impressive dot point. It's not some crazy theory, it's business and most do this, so it is a possibility.

I don't wish to get into a full frame ecosystem and I really hope they don't gate 60p 10 bit behind that kind of expensive step up. Besides running full frame is very processor intensive, if it comes with 10bit 60 4k I'd be surprised. For the new Panasonic full frame camera that is. As for a GH successor I just don't think the camera has been out long enough (the S) to be over taken so soon. I'd much rather an option to disable noise reduction and allow 10 bit 60p 4K pushing that into resolve for NR later than to have to purchase a whole new camera when the S is so close to being flawless right now.

Bit depth isn't about dynamic range. The S has very comparable dynamic range to the pocket in prores which is fine by me, it is about image retention when manipulating in post. I want to have maximum control but also consistency across the image, meaning I want to use vlog for 50p but you run into issues when doing so in 8 bit. 2x slow mo is absolutely perfect for great b-roll. I wouldnt be using 120+ as often and don't mind if that's 8 bit only.
 
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>>>I'm focused purely on the S not the GH5 as I can see how it'd be processor capped.

Does the GH5s have faster processors than the GH5 does ?

I don't think the GH5 or GH5s limitation on 4K 10-bit 4:2:2 60p is an artifical cap, but rather you've run out of processing power within the camera so you can't handle a faster frame rate. ( the less than stellar continuous AF performance with the GH5 cameras also appears to be tied to the processing power of these cameras )

>>>Secondly I really doubt the pocket 4k is a processor power house considering it's price and it brings 10 bit 422 in all variants even 120p FHD 10 bit which you just don't see.

The P4K has very limited AF, very limited noise reduction, and very limited data compression. So if you don't mind going all manual focus, doing all your NR in post, and can live with the storage limitations of very large video files, then it can be a great fit for some people, but this is not where the Panasonic GH5 cameras are right now.

>>>So I'm not sure that it's really all that process intensive

Based upon what the Panasonic reps have said about the GH5 and GH5s, it sounds like it's completely processor intensive. It's the same reason why the much higher priced Panasonic EVA1 cine camera can't shoot 4K 10-bit 4:2:2 60p either. ( Mitch has mentioned that the Varicam LT camera, which can shoot 4K 10-bit 60p video, has 3 times the amount of processing power that the EVA1 has )

I really think people overlook how much processing happens in a camera just to enable all these wonderful features that we love. There is no free lunch here. ( I also strongly suspect that all of the Canon EOS R 4K video issues like the huge 1.8x crop and the terrible rolling shutter distortion stem from a very under-powered camera )

>>>Besides running full frame is very processor intensive, if it comes with 10bit 60 4k I'd be surprised.

Panasonic image processors always seem to take a huge jump every 2+ years, so I would expect 4K 10-bit 4:2:2 60p to be doable at some point.

>>>As for a GH successor I just don't think the camera has been out long enough (the S) to be over taken so soon.

Panasonic appears to be following a 3 year development cycle with the GHx cameras, so I'm expecting to see a GH6 in 2020.

>>>Bit depth isn't about dynamic range. The S has very comparable dynamic range to the pocket in prores which is fine by me, it is about image retention when manipulating in post.

The European Broadcasting Union tested the GH5s last April and they found 14.6 stops of dynamic range when shooting with the HLG profile. ( the V-LOG L profile artificially caps the DR with the GH5s, so it's a great fit for the GH5 but I would use HLG with the GH5s when you want that 14+ stops of DR )

Realistically, I think you're going to either have to go with either the S1 FF camera ( assuming that 4K 10-bit 60p is possible ) or wait until next year for the GH6. ( or if you're willing to jump brands, buy a Fuji X-T3 and shoot 4K 10-bit 4:2:0 60p footage )
 
Oh I wasn't aware that the eva isn't capable of 4k 60p 10 bit either, that is a good indication that the GH5S won't be able to do internal 10bit 60 4k.

For the GH5 vs S I believe they use the same processor but the 5 down samples, stabilizes, noise reduces and does in body software anti aliasing/ moire correction. The S doesnt do ibis, does more NR but doesn't need to down sample and uses a moire filter, so I assumed there was some over head there in power but maybe not since it isn't in the eva.

For the xt3 there's just too many things I'm not liking about it and learning that the 10 bit was 4:2:0 i found it a bit pointless and didn't make up for the downsides.

HLG may be an option but as I understand it it's more like baked in high dynamic range where as you can manipulate a log file and create a HDR end product or a rec 709. A shame that vlog caps out DR but I've read that EU report and they had the vlog dr at 13+ stops where as many people have said vlog caps out at 12, so I'm not too sure but it does seem to lose about a stop in vlog.

A good solid indication that the cameras simply aren't capable but I'm still secretly hoping they're just holding out and might be able to wrangle a firmware update, however unlikely. They still make a fantastic video camera, very capable and once they figure out the dual pixel auto focus it's gonna be a crazy market.
 
>>>HLG may be an option but as I understand it it's more like baked in high dynamic range where as you can manipulate a log file and create a HDR end product or a rec 709.

There is at least one HLG to V-LOG transform LUT on the market ( I don't own the GH5s, so I never bothered with it ) that makes GH5s HLG footage a little more flexible in post. ( I also wonder what version of V-LOG does the transform create ? )

>>>A shame that vlog caps out DR but I've read that EU report and they had the vlog dr at 13+ stops where as many people have said vlog caps out at 12, so I'm not too sure but it does seem to lose about a stop in vlog.

I've always gone with V-LOG L having 12+ stops of DR when perfectly exposed, though I do think it slightly exceeds the DR of the GH5 camera. I am hoping that the GH6 uses the full Varicam LOG profile and can capture 13+ stops of DR. ( the more the merrier, but I would be happy with 13+ )
 
Recoding h264 is vastly more processor intensive than ProRes, it is impossible to compare the speed of recording processing between the Pocket 4k and the GH5. ProRes and raw are both much easier to record when it comes to processing power. Just think of how much a beefy edit system struggles to encode 4k 60p in real-time. Add 10bit to that and still maintain a real-time encoding that absolutely cannot drop any frames. That’s no easy task.

The S does have a little less image processing going on but it’s the h264 format that is the hog here and that’s the same between the GH5 and GH5S, besides the S can do 60p HD in 10bit while the GH5 can’t likely due to the slightly less image processing needs. There are three things rally going on in the processing. Raw demosaic, image processing and encoding. The first part and third parts are very processor intensive and the same between both cameras. This is just a wild number but they account for likely 80% of the processing while the image processing step only 20%. That’s likely why the slightly less image processing on the GH5S is still not enough savings to make 60p work. Of that 20% a good chunk of that is still shared between cameras as well so we are talking a very small difference. IBiS does factor in as well but not nearly as much as the other parts, it’s not a heavy processor intensive process.

While the s is newer it is also based on the GH5 generation of camera and was intended to come out at the same time as the GH5 but the sensor wasn’t ready. So I wouldn’t exactly consider it newer technology or assume a newer model is further away than a GH6.

Honestly if you absolutely need 4k60p 10bit that badly you may want to just get a Ninja V and figure out a way to make the extra weight work for you. A 5” monitor is not a lot of extra bulk and it helps with focus and false color is an amazing tool to have for log exposing.

I also wouldn’t rule out the xt3 just because of the 4:2:0. 10bit is vastly more important than 4:2:0 when it comes to a robust log format. I doubt you would even notice the 4:2:0 with 4k. 10bit however makes a huge difference in how robust the color channels are with log. I wish the GH5 had 10bit 4:2:0 as an option if it would make 60p work.
 
icarusfilm said:
I think that only people who have paid 80k for a sony Digibeta a 2/3 inch SD camera in the late 90es and had to buy tapes ca $40 for 30 mins recording time you only could use once can truly appreciate a gh5.
Click to expand...

LOL, so true! Buy them for song now. I still have new tapes floating around somewhere, conversations pieces these days.

Chris Young
 
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