GH5 Game Over, Panasonic

I'm not sure what you're saying but for real...no one in this thread ever said the GH5 or GH5S is a bad camera...they are amazing cameras and anyone who says they aren't is an imbecile.

But it's also very important to understand how powerful the BMPCC 4K camera is, and the accurate concepts and optimal procedures pertaining to this particular camera system.
 
I remember how extraordinarily expensive SD cards were for the original BMPCC. But today they're cheap and easy to use with the BMPCC.

All that is happening is we're seeing the same cycle happen all over again for the BMPCC4K.
 
All that is happening is we're seeing the same cycle happen all over again for the BMPCC4K.

Good post. My first thoughts are RED cameras...it never gets easier. And other workflows with additional hardware...the BMPCC 4K will be so much easier.

Who needs CFast cards? J?K, I'm keeping them.
 
You can charge the LP-E6 battery with a power bank through USB-C ONLY when the camera is OFF. Even if you could charge it through USB while the cameras is on, all it would do is extend the life of the LP-E6 battery, as USB only carries 5v which can't keep up with a 7v draw.

Wrong. This is so wrong. USB-C can carry WAY more power than necessary to power the camera AND charge the battery AND provide Thunderbolt 3 speed connectivity all at the same time. As I type this, a USC-C cord is supplying 80 watts (and up to 20 volts) of power to my laptop.
 
Yeah...delivery. :nads:

Wow. Zing. Pow.

Thank you. I don't need a consumer delivery codec in my camera. I've put up with it because it was the only option in the best all around cameras in my price range (GH series.) All of the apologetics twisting themselves into knots to explain how a highly compressed delivery codec is wonderful were just a few days ago complaining about in camera sharpening and noise reduction. Now we have a camera that will be close to half the price of a GH5s, that gives us as close to what the sensor is capable of, and all they can find to complain about is a slightly less powerful battery and having to buy a new hard drive.

I get to keep all of my glass, and shoot raw, 13 stops. I'll take that extra $1,250 and buy two C-FAST cards and a couple of extra Canon batteries. If I find the built-in 5" monitor isn't good enough or I need to put it in odd positions, I'll plug-in my SmallHD - same as I have to on the GH5 since the little built-in screen is s*** for focusing.

I can't shoot anamorphic. Talk about a NICHE feature. (And one the BMD could add in firmware.) A few less off speed options. Another easy trade-off to get high quality source files.
 
To put the storage needs more into perspective here. Not only does the Pocket need more space to store video due to its size but it also needs faster media.

The GH5 using a 128GB card fast enough for 150mbps costs about $60-80 depending on brand. A 128GB SD card fast enough for 4k ProRes cost about $230. Not only does the card cost a lot more but it also holds 1/5 the video so you need to buy 5 cards to record the same amount of video. Now you are looking at $78 for a transcend Sd card vs $1,150 for enough Sony SD cards fast enough to record ProRes.

Of course BMD was smart enough to include the ability to record to external device. Good thing they did or else the Pocket would be very impractical for long form events. Even with the ability to use SSD you still need a 1TB SSD to record as much as the GH5 with a 128GB Sd crd. A decent external 1TB SSD drive is $350. Still almost 5x the cost of the GH5 shooting similar quality. Not to mention the hassle and risk of using an external drive that could come disconnected. You also need to factor in where do you safely store these SSD drives during a shoot? I can keep a pouch of SD cards in a shirt pocket with me at all times to prevent loss or theft. You can't do that with a SSD drive.

GH5 also has dual SD slots which means you can record forever as long as you have enough cards. For the same cost of the Ssd drive for the Pocket you can record to 5 128GB SD cards by swapping out one card as it fills up. That still means you can record 5x more video with the GH5 for the same cost.

That doesn't even get into editing costs and archiving costs. How will the projects be archived? Keep the files as is which means 5x more hard drives to purchase to store the data or convert the material to h.264 after the project is completed. That takes a lot of time. Time is money.

What about editing drives? GH5 material can be edited from a single external hard drive with ease. ProRes is more efficient in terms of speed but if you work on multi-cam projects you will need a raid or SSD to handle the data load. Look forward to another investment in editing storage.

HD was easy to handle ProRes. HDD made sense with ProRes HD but not so much with ProRes 4k. The data load is too much for a single HDD.

This doesn't even get into raw which is a much larger drag on a system. Raw HD is vastly easier for a desktop or laptop computer to handle. 4k is again a whole other story. You may find yourself suddenly investing in a 8, 10, or 18 core machine to work with a large volume of 4k raw projects. Especially if one creates long form projects with a quick turn around.

All stuff to really factor in when you no longer have a solid looking video format in 150mbps. In a perfect world I would only ever shoot ProRes but the logistics of it are just not very practical right now. Even if storage prices come down that means the storage for the Gh5 material also comes down. No matter how you look at it the GH5 will always bee 5x more affordable to shoot with. Does the Pocket deliver 5x better quality for that increase in cost? Not by a long shot. The biggest mistake BMD makes with these cameras is not investing in a 150mbps type of compression as an alternative to the raw and ProRes. when you factor in some users are still perfectly fine with the 8bit 4:2:0 100mbps mode of the GH5 these cost savings get even larger.

- You can easily edit 4K ProRes off of a single USB-3.1 drive. I do it every day. Multi-cam? Proxies. Brain dead simple in FCPX, also good in Premiere & Resolve.
- Archiving doesn't require fast drives. I've ALWAYS charged clients to archive. Non-issue.
- Yes, RAW is more taxing on processor. But you don't need to edit RAW, you want to CC with RAW.
- To say a ProRes workflow is not practical is...well...ludicrous. I may very well be the most common professional workflow in existence.

There are ways of dealing with larger files sizes...and storage capacity and speed keep increasing while size keeps decreasing. The point is, with the BMPCC 4K you actually have a choice.

PS. Look at the JPEG-X announcement. It's actually BIGGER than traditional JPEG. Why would they do that? As bandwidth capacity increases, it starts to become a non-issue and quality compromises are less desirable.
 
Re: HDD. Thinking you could take any current existing SSDs used for atomos and drop into a USB C enclosure such as this:

Satechi Aluminum 2.5-inch USB Type C 3.1 External HDD Hard Drive Disk Enclosure Case with USB C Interface for HDD and SSD (Space Gray) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FWT2N3K/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_.1z0Ab4NSNTB6

Yeah? Then you could share SSDs between atomos, BMD, or even use as a laptop external edit drive.

For the camera I think a 3 ft USB C cable + 3 ft d-tap cable wired to the camera, with a think tank belt pouch on a think tank belt where you drop in a hawkwoods gripper battery and said USB drive would remove all the primary issues and keep the camera light + powered. Leave a canon battery inside and you could swap the hawks wood battery out without shutting down camera.

Question: if not opting to shoot RAW, how does the image record to ProRes? Is there a log mode?
 
Hey Panasonic. If you’re listening, the world is ready for a $4500 AF200:

GH5s Sensor; further tuned and improved
13 stops DR
Dual ISO 800/5000
Dual SD card slot with internal ProRes, ProRes RAW, 400mbps ALL-I, various LongGop
Up to 4K 120fps 10-bit 422
No crop when using VFR modes
IBIS engineered with full off lock to disable for certain use cases
Electronic Variable ND
Built in XLR and audio
5” ultra bright high res swivel screen
Size between BMPCC and EVA1
Uses EVA1 / DVX200 batteries
USB C, HDMI, SDI
Raw output via USB and SDI
All the features, switches, trappings you’d expect on a FS5/AF100/EVA1 style body
UI pulled and married from GHx, EVA/Varicam, with inspiration from Atomos & BM
Ability to disable electronic MFT Mount sharpening
 
Wow. You are unbelievably stretching, man.

I only say this for any younger or newer people in the business who may be interested in the camera but read something like that and get discouraged.

---

It's nothing like the nightmare that post makes it appear to be if you use it for reasonable productions.

If you film 10-hour depositions or interviews day in and day out or tons of plays or events in their entirety, it is definitely not an ideal option unless you're prepared to spend the money for power and media.

For all of the creative minds that may shoot music videos, commercials, short films, fashion films, short projects, etc...explore this option.

Many people will be.

View attachment 130358

How is that a stretch? Do the math. How am I discouraging anybody by pointing out the reality of the added media costs? My intention is to not discourage anybody but to put the added media cost into perspective. If a user doesn't mind then I'm sure they will be very happy with the Pocket. There are a lot of users however that already feel 400mbps on the GH5 is too high and a waste for what the gain.

There is a ton of hype and excitement surrounding the Pocket right now and there is nothing wrong with putting reality into perspective. I myself am seriously considering one but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop thinking about the cons along with the pros.
 
- You can easily edit 4K ProRes off of a single USB-3.1 drive. I do it every day. Multi-cam? Proxies. Brain dead simple in FCPX, also good in Premiere & Resolve.
- Archiving doesn't require fast drives. I've ALWAYS charged clients to archive. Non-issue.
- Yes, RAW is more taxing on processor. But you don't need to edit RAW, you want to CC with RAW.
- To say a ProRes workflow is not practical is...well...ludicrous. I may very well be the most common professional workflow in existence.

There are ways of dealing with larger files sizes...and storage capacity and speed keep increasing while size keeps decreasing. The point is, with the BMPCC 4K you actually have a choice.

PS. Look at the JPEG-X announcement. It's actually BIGGER than traditional JPEG. Why would they do that? As bandwidth capacity increases, it starts to become a non-issue and quality compromises are less desirable.

It may not be practical for everybody. There are already a lot of people that feel 400mbps on the GH5 is too high for what they gain. Just because you don't mind larger media doesn't mean everybody shares your same view.
 
Wow. Zing. Pow.

Thank you. I don't need a consumer delivery codec in my camera. I've put up with it because it was the only option in the best all around cameras in my price range (GH series.) All of the apologetics twisting themselves into knots to explain how a highly compressed delivery codec is wonderful were just a few days ago complaining about in camera sharpening and noise reduction. Now we have a camera that will be close to half the price of a GH5s, that gives us as close to what the sensor is capable of, and all they can find to complain about is a slightly less powerful battery and having to buy a new hard drive.

I get to keep all of my glass, and shoot raw, 13 stops. I'll take that extra $1,250 and buy two C-FAST cards and a couple of extra Canon batteries. If I find the built-in 5" monitor isn't good enough or I need to put it in odd positions, I'll plug-in my SmallHD - same as I have to on the GH5 since the little built-in screen is s*** for focusing.

I can't shoot anamorphic. Talk about a NICHE feature. (And one the BMD could add in firmware.) A few less off speed options. Another easy trade-off to get high quality source files.

That may work for you but not for everybody. There are plenty of people that are fine with 150mbps and 400mbps on the GH5. I would love to see how you think ProRes is so superior to the 150mbps and 400mbps on the GH5. Lots of people have compared them and have trouble seeing a difference. I'm not saying it isn't there but to think the GH5 formats are somehow vastly inferior is just silly.
 
I can keep a pouch of SD cards in a shirt pocket with me at all times to prevent loss or theft. You can't do that with a SSD drive.

I'll see your shirt pocket and raise you a pants pocket. I'll see my pants pocket and raise me a bumbag. I'll need that bumbag cause my pants pocket will be flush with cash after buying that Pocket 4k.
 
Re: HDD. Thinking you could take any current existing SSDs used for atomos and drop into a USB C enclosure such as this:

Satechi Aluminum 2.5-inch USB Type C 3.1 External HDD Hard Drive Disk Enclosure Case with USB C Interface for HDD and SSD (Space Gray) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FWT2N3K/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_.1z0Ab4NSNTB6

Yeah? Then you could share SSDs between atomos, BMD, or even use as a laptop external edit drive.

For the camera I think a 3 ft USB C cable + 3 ft d-tap cable wired to the camera, with a think tank belt pouch on a think tank belt where you drop in a hawkwoods gripper battery and said USB drive would remove all the primary issues and keep the camera light + powered. Leave a canon battery inside and you could swap the hawks wood battery out without shutting down camera.

Question: if not opting to shoot RAW, how does the image record to ProRes? Is there a log mode?

There are three picture profiles, the "film" profile being LOG.
 
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