GH5 Editing on PC - MP4 vs MOV (Wondering because audio quality on GH5 Audio Unit)

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filmguy123

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On the GH5 audio unit I am maxed at 48khz / 16-bit if I record in MP4 LPCM. I have always done MP4 because I am on Windows PC, Adobe Premiere Pro.

How will .mov handle, especially in a project otherwise shot with MP4 format?

Wondering because I think I might prefer the higher quality audio for a long outdoor interview I am going to shoot. (Sennheiser 8060 in a Cinela Pianissimo Blimp, going into SoundDevices MixPre-D pre-amp, routed through the line-in on GH5 audio unit).

Any problems on using the .MOV wrapper instead?
 
I have the GH5 and record with the XLR unit with .mov file format and edit just fine in EDIUS 8.5WG which is PC only.
 
That's disappointing the GH5 won't record 24/48 audio in the preferred MP4 wrapper. There have been reports of issues with QuickTime in Premiere Pro and folks are having to rename the files to .mp4 to get them working.
 
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My main PC has EDIUS 8.5WG also has Vegas 15, Resolve 14 and CS6. Second PC has EDIUS 6.08 and used to be my main PC now my mail and browsing PC.
 
Given the high quality mic and amp it would seem less than ideal to record this to the GH5's internal sound processor even if it was 24/48. Wouldn't it be better to record it with a descent portable recorder? Even something like a SonyPCM M10 would be better than the GH5's internal recorder.
 
Shirozina said:
Even something like a SonyPCM M10 would be better than the GH5's internal recorder.
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The GH5 internal uncompressed LPCM audio (essentially uncompressed WAV audio) is pretty good with a noise-floor of -70 dB RMS. I own the Sony PCM-M10 recorder which has a noise-floor of -75 dB RMS, so the difference is not huge between the GH5 and the PCM-M10 recorder. ( as long as you keep the GH5 preamp gain -6 dB or lower )
 
TheDingo said:
The GH5 internal uncompressed LPCM audio (essentially uncompressed WAV audio) is pretty good with a noise-floor of -70 dB RMS. I own the Sony PCM-M10 recorder which has a noise-floor of -75 dB RMS, so the difference is not huge between the GH5 and the PCM-M10 recorder. ( as long as you keep the GH5 preamp gain -6 dB or lower )
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5dB is quite a lot actualy but it’s not the only measure of audio quality. There is an A-D stage in there as well which is quite important. I’m not saying the GH5 is terrible but why risk compromise when using a top end (ish) mic and pre-amp?
 
Shirozina said:
I’m not saying the GH5 is terrible but why risk compromise when using a top end (ish) mic and pre-amp?
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I agree that external recorders will always produce a more robust audio recording, but for fast turn-around corporate work GH5 in-camera audio is still very usable.
 
filmguy123 said:
I might prefer the higher quality audio for a long outdoor interview I am going to shoot. (Sennheiser 8060 in a Cinela Pianissimo Blimp, going into SoundDevices MixPre-D pre-amp, routed through the line-in on GH5 audio unit).
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With that kind of a quality microphone I would record externally, for instance with the new Sound Devices Mix-pre 3 or 6.
 
TheDingo said:
I thought the limitation was the MP4 format ?
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I think technically PCM audio is not one of the officially recognized audio codecs for the MP4 container format. You can see a list of all the ISO-registered audio codecs for MP4 here:
http://www.mp4ra.org/codecs.html

Note that the lpcm codec is registered as part of QuickTime (not the ISO standard) which is why it is supported by files with the QuickTime (MOV) container.

Now obviously there is nothing stopping an encoder from using the lpcm codepoint (from QuickTime) and writing out LPCM audio into an MP4 container. A lot of playback and editing programs will still recognize these files, even though it is not officially part of the ISO standard. This seems to be what Panasonic is doing with the MP4 (LPCM) recording option (I think some Sony cameras also record files in this format).

But since the camera already writes out 16-bit LPCM audio into MP4 files, it's not clear why the same can't be done for 24-bit audio. If they are outside the bounds of the standards anyway, it's not clear why the bit depth or sampling rate would make a difference at that point.
 
If the GH5 has a -70 dB noisefloor then 16bit is enough to record the whole range which is a theoretical 96dB.
 
TheDingo said:
I haven't tested the GH5 XLR unit, so it's possible it has a better noise-floor than the 3.5mm audio input.
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Very likley esp if it's doing it's own A-D and bypassing the GH5's internal audio circuits.There must be some data sheet out there for it?
 
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