GH5 GH5S Codecs not recognised in NLEs

S

Shootthebreeze

Member
Hi

Just bought a GH5S ... tested it briefly in 4K mode ... looked at the clips in Premiere briefly ... looked OK. (yes I know I should have investigated further, but the camera arrived days late and a clients shoot was upon me.

Short of time before start of day ... took the camera out with me .... on shoot- went to settings - 10bit ... great ...... came back, loaded them into Premiere - and you know whats coming next ! ....... files will not play .... aaaaagh

I'v been on OS X Yosemite and Adobe CS6 what seems like forever ... CS6 has done what I need ... and other important software (Avid Pro Tools etc) work fine .... a stable system.

OK ... maybe it's time to get dragged kicking and screaming into the High Sierra and Adobe Cloud world.

I gave Adobe support a cursory phone call .... and oh no ... the GH5S 10 bit codecs are not supported till a CC2018 release later this year

Help ! I'm going to upgrade to Adobe cloud, and they're latest revisions, anyway while they have the offer on .... what is the best transcoder for these 10 bit files, and what is the best codec to transform to please, bearing in mind I will start using proxy files for the first time ... now that I'm upgrading ?

Luckily a lot of footage was shot with my GH4 & GH3 as well .... but some crucial shots I did with the GH5S

I'v been with Panasonic since the beginning of the GH series, and have gone through GH1, GH2, hacks, GH3, GH4, up to this GH5S.
With DVXuser (without which my compass would never have been pointed towards the GH cameras) and all the contributors on the site, it's been a wonderful journey through the different models.
I can't believe panasonic have tripped me up this easily ... and that they have made such a side step from compatibility ......

I did go through quite a few of the most recent pages of threads on DVXuser before purchase, and cannot seem to recall reading about this issue in any detail.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks everyone
 
If you're intentionally sticking with nearly decade old software, it's not reasonable to blame Panasonic (or Adobe, for that matter) for your lack of prep.

If you really want to stick with CS6, then get a conversion utility to transcode the 10-bit footage to ProRes. CS6 will handle it just fine.
 
I did a test shoot with an "S" a few weeks ago, the night time footage looked great when played back in the camera BUT when I tried to load it to my Windows 10 laptop no "S" files could be found. Thinking it might the laptops card reader I used the GH5 USB cable and the same thing, no "S" files but I can still play the footage and view the stills from the test in my non-"S" GH5?
 
Hi

@ Mark Williams & Cary knoop ...... C'mon guys, I didn't expect to be double damned and triple damned for something I'v obviously owned up to ... just wanted a bit of advise ... probably too pedantic with my story :-)

@ joe12south ..... I'm not intentionally sticking with CS6 .. I'v said I'm making the move to CC ? Adobe still do not support at the moment the codecs I was interested in.

Yes it is my fault I bought a £2000 camera that panasonic knew was not compatible with Adobe and I didn't .... I did some googling as I said ..... the camera has been out a while ... it's not just me .. it seems a fair few people have inadvertently come across this problem.

Peace
 
Shootthebreeze said:
Yes it is my fault I bought a £2000 camera that panasonic knew was not compatible with Adobe and I didn't .... I did some googling as I said ..... the camera has been out a while ... it's not just me .. it seems a fair few people have inadvertently come across this problem.
Click to expand...
It's like complaining to Samsung that their new 8K TV is no good because it does not have a composite RCA port to record to your VHS recorder.

If you want advice, then I would first drop CS6 and transcode your footage if your NLE cannot handle it.
 
Cary Knoop said:
It's like complaining to Samsung that their new 8K TV is no good because it does not have a composite RCA port to record to your VHS recorder.

If you want advice, then I would first drop CS6 and transcode your footage if your NLE cannot handle it.
Click to expand...

Yes ... I understand the analogy Cary ..... but are you comparing Premiere CC2018 to an RCA port ?
As Mark Williams said "Using a camera where you have not tried the various codecs with your NLE is just crazy "
Well, Panasonic doing their R&D and finding their codecs incompatible with a huge market share multi billion dollar company, and not saying anything .. although still selling them ... is that not a bit crazy as well ? Their sales guys at NAB were embarrassed by it apparently.

Most software companies ... at the bottom of their sales/ marketing pitch for their product say ... "Compatible with ... "

Just saying'
 
Shootthebreeze said:
Hi

@ Mark Williams & Cary knoop ...... C'mon guys, I didn't expect to be double damned and triple damned for something I'v obviously owned up to ... just wanted a bit of advise ... probably too pedantic with my story :-)

@ joe12south ..... I'm not intentionally sticking with CS6 .. I'v said I'm making the move to CC ? Adobe still do not support at the moment the codecs I was interested in.

Yes it is my fault I bought a £2000 camera that panasonic knew was not compatible with Adobe and I didn't .... I did some googling as I said ..... the camera has been out a while ... it's not just me .. it seems a fair few people have inadvertently come across this problem.

Peace
Click to expand...

I don't use Premiere anymore but last I heard people were using GH5 and Gh5s material in the more recent CC versions. It may not be 100% official support but I think it does work.

You know you can use the 8bit recording modes and they will continue to work just fine. Its the 10bit formats that are unusual. You can shoot in 8bit for now however until you update your old software.

If CC doesn't officially support 10bit from the GH cameras then it may be time to consider a different NLE.
 
Shootthebreeze said:
Yes ... I understand the analogy Cary ..... but are you comparing Premiere CC2018 to an RCA port ?
As Mark Williams said "Using a camera where you have not tried the various codecs with your NLE is just crazy "
Well, Panasonic doing their R&D and finding their codecs incompatible with a huge market share multi billion dollar company, and not saying anything .. although still selling them ... is that not a bit crazy as well ? Their sales guys at NAB were embarrassed by it apparently.

Most software companies ... at the bottom of their sales/ marketing pitch for their product say ... "Compatible with ... "

Just saying'
Click to expand...

You have it backwards. Cameras should not limit their cameras just to fit the formats supported by a NLE. How would the NLEs ever know what formats to support otherwise? The NLE needs to actively make sure it supports the formats used by popular cameras. It is the job of the NLE to add support for formats users may need to use. It's entire reason for existing is to import material a user may use and therefore the responsibility lies on the shoulders of Adobe to wake up and provide adequate support. If other companies can add support than so can Adobe.

Panasonic did all of us a favor by pushing the envelope of what could be done with h.264. Adobe got caught with their pants down and after all this time still hasn't got off their butt to add better support. Part of the advantage of CC was supposed to be so they could have a more rapid update cycle. Still waiting for that benefit to become a reality.

While the 10bit format from Panasonic may be a bit unorthodox it doesn't step outside of what h.264 was always capable of doing. In fact it is capable of even more. Panasonic was just the first company to finally take advantage of what else h.264 could do. Not a negative thing at all and in every way shape or form a positive thing.
 
I finished with Adobe a while ago...I would suggest looking at FCPX....I switched a few years ago and have to say I would not dream of using Adobe anymore!...of course you need a Mac though!
 
Jmcadory said:
I did a test shoot with an "S" a few weeks ago, the night time footage looked great when played back in the camera BUT when I tried to load it to my Windows 10 laptop no "S" files could be found. Thinking it might the laptops card reader I used the GH5 USB cable and the same thing, no "S" files but I can still play the footage and view the stills from the test in my non-"S" GH5?
Click to expand...

I shoot frequently with the GH5s and I can actually link the 10bit 422 files in Avid Media Composer v2018.8, edit and output a quicktime reference file or send the QT ref to Sorenson Squeeze after editing. I am working on an HP Workstation Zbook 17 with Windows 10. The clips are also recognized in DaVinci Resolve 12.
 
Thanks Thomas for clarity and succinct abstraction of the discussion

I just wish sometimes the end user didn't have to do so much groundwork themselves after buying a product .. very quickly you get polarised by immediate comments posted on a forum your trying to get answers for, and end up more quickly looking down the wrong end of a telescope with your replies .... if that makes sense ?

Thanks for any advise anyway.

I'v now committed to the Adobe cloud package anyway.

What other NLEs support the Panasonic 10 bit codec out of interest ?
 
Shootthebreeze, I apologize for my comment which I deleted. It was not at all helpful. I will add that there are other very capable NLEs out there other than Adobe. I use Edius 8 Workgroup and it does a good job supporting Panasonic 8 and 10 bit formats.
 
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Shootthebreeze said:
very quickly you get polarised by immediate comments posted on a forum your trying to get answers for, and end up more quickly looking down the wrong end of a telescope with your replies .... if that makes sense ?
Click to expand...
No it does not, you made an all out attack on Panasonic for being innovative.
I think that's pretty absurd!

Instead the blame should be on Adobe, if after a full year they still cannot handle 10 bit 4:2:2 H.264 footage there is something wrong.
 
I have to agree it's Adobe dropping the ball completely and Panasonic once again paving the way to better and better cameras. @Shoothtebreeze....I understand your frustration with this....the technology is improving and changing so rapidly that keeping up can be daunting....a similar discussion came up recently re Panasonic cameras (EVA I believe) shooting RAW only to an Atomos external recorder and another member who bought the EVA felt betrayed by Panasonic, though in neither case is this any fault of Panasonic....they offer the features and it's up to third parties to seize a market opportunity which of course Atomos did.
 
Thomas Smet said:
Panasonic was just the first company to finally take advantage of what else h.264 could do. Not a negative thing at all and in every way shape or form a positive thing.
Click to expand...

Just a point of order, but by a longshot, Sony with XAVC-I 10 bit 600/mbps pushed the h.264 envelope the farthest, level 5.2.

That said, I know Adobe Premier supports GH5s 10 bit 422 V-LogL because I hand off footage every week to a client who uses it, on the Mac platform. (I am a pc user DaVinci Resolve Studio).
 
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Shootthebreeze said:
Yes ... I understand the analogy Cary ..... but are you comparing Premiere CC2018 to an RCA port ?
As Mark Williams said "Using a camera where you have not tried the various codecs with your NLE is just crazy "
Well, Panasonic doing their R&D and finding their codecs incompatible with a huge market share multi billion dollar company, and not saying anything .. although still selling them ... is that not a bit crazy as well ? Their sales guys at NAB were embarrassed by it apparently.

Most software companies ... at the bottom of their sales/ marketing pitch for their product say ... "Compatible with ... "

Just saying'
Click to expand...

As other have said - it's the software manufacturers job to respond to the camera developments and not the other way round. If it was the other way round cameras would be severely restricted in their abilities due to codec limitations imposed on them by the NLE developers. If you don't want to pay a subscription model then look at Davinci Resolve Studio (not the free version as it won't play 10 bit UHD/4k) - it's a better camera codec processing solution IMO than Premier. I'd also ask what PC or MAC hardware system you are using as these files are very demanding of hardware and if it's as old as your software you will be in more trouble (please don't try to blame Panasonic for this though......)
 
I have no problem using the latest version of Premiere Pro CC with my GH5S files. No need to transcode, but a proxy workflow makes editing easier to do. I just create proxies at less than HD using cineform and they work great.
 
Good gosh, I'm editing in the latest Premiere version on a corp gig, and GH5s 150Mb/sec 10bit clips work just fine. I've got an animated looping background clip, a green screen talent foreground, lower thirds and other misc and I can chug away with UHD source on a 1080p timeline with enough update speed to work and make creative trims WHILE KEYING on an AMD 1800x home built machine. Proxies not needed.

Anytime I have a lag issue, I just replay from the start of where I want to preview and it smooths up quickly with no more hair pulling that doing an old school pre-roll on tape. My client requires I use PP for compatibility with their internal guys if they ever have to touch this, but it isn't the worst thing in the world, and if you think about it, it's like pure science fiction to us guys that used to do CMX editing 1" tape to tape back in the day dealing with frame shifts due to cable length, tape hits, and generation loss. Now get off my lawn!!!

Jim Arthurs
 
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