Idiot!!!!!

John Foundas

John Foundas

Well-known member
Ive been shooting with the AF for a few months now. Shot some sound stuff and a lot of raunchy stuff too. Even with solid profiles and good glass, Ive never seen the "pop" so many others have received from the cam.
I happened across a thread about bit rates and decided to fish around in the Log and Transfer tool. Yup, capture was set to Prores LT (11mb).
Idiot! Switched over to HQ. Very happy now.
 
HQ is a total waste for anything but RED footage.

That isn't buying you anything other than less space on your hard drive.
 
Yup. You can't make footage better than it is by using HQ. You can make it worse if you go down from the bitrate of the original footage. The only way to make it better and I think its debatable is to use a external recorder instead of the native AVCHD codec the AF-100 uses. Even then it's still 8bit.
The camera can only do so much. Maybe your missing something when your shooting. Lighting conditions can make the best cameras suck. Not bashing just trying to help. Your stuff looks good.
 
E,

I guess that's my point. If it's being recorded at 24mb but then tranfered at 11mb using PRLT, isn't that footage going to look worse than bringing it in
HQ at 24mb?
 
Johnf said:
I guess that's my point. If it's being recorded at 24mb but then tranfered at 11mb using PRLT, isn't that footage going to look worse than bringing it in
HQ at 24mb?
Click to expand...
Megabits are in no way comparable between AVCHD and ProRes. ProRes is an intraframe-only codec. Now, I don't know where you're getting your numbers from; ProRes HQ is 220 megabits, ProRes Normal is 147 megabits, and ProRes LT is supposed to be about 107 megabits. Perhaps the 11mb you're referring to is 11 megabytes, which would be about 90 megabits?

ProRes LT may or may not have enough bandwidth to hold all of an AVCHD signal. But ProRes Normal definitely should. And ProRes HQ is probably overkill.
 
Johnf said:
E,

I guess that's my point. If it's being recorded at 24mb but then tranfered at 11mb using PRLT, isn't that footage going to look worse than bringing it in
HQ at 24mb?
Click to expand...
I think your Mbps are off for ProRes LT

AVCCAM records at 24 Mbps.

at 23.98 fps
ProRes LT is 82 Mbps.
ProRes 422 is 117 Mbps.

Even with ProRes LT you are over shooting the original codec by more than double the Mbps.
I still only use ProRes 422.

Apple Prores Mbps chart.
http://documentation.apple.com/en/f...ws/index.html#chapter=10&section=4&tasks=true

Wow I learned something today as well :)
 
I've Log & Transferred a lot of native AF footage in to FCP at ProResLt and ProRes and I see no discernible difference. For a couple months now I've been shooting all of my AF footage with a KiProMini at ProResLt and when I know there will be lots of grading at reg. ProRes. If I know no grading will be done at all I might shoot just to internal but really like the ease of the workflow with the KPM, dragging files right in to FCP with no transcode.
 
Erik Naso said:
Even with ProRes LT you are over shooting the original codec by more than double the Mbps.
I still only use ProRes 422.
Click to expand...

Just a reminder that no matter how much you "overshoot" the original codec out of the camera, a 2nd generation transcode will always be lower quality than the 24Mbps original. The higher the bitrate of your 2nd generation compression, the less information you will throw away from the original, but unless you are transcoding to lossless or uncompressed, there will always be a loss of data on top of your original 24Mbps encode performed in camera.
 
Look, frankly speaking, if you can support the extra HD space then use ProResHD.
I'd stick with something that makes sense if the numbers say so and use ProRes Normal, if space is a concern though.
At the end of the day, its what results your most happy with... and really Trial and Error, cant take what others say as a fact... just something to think about.
If you can afford an external recorder for your AF, then you can afford a few extra 2TB drives.
I convert my personal stuff using 5DtoRGB and output my GH2 (hacked - 88Mbps) stuff to ProHD... but for my work (a more sensible 44Mbps hack), I use ProRes Normal or even edit the AVCHD files directly. But this work flow comes from my own trial and error.
 
My only frame of reference is this. When I check the clip properties after it has been logged and transferred in PRLT, it says 11mb.
When I bring it in with HQ it jumps to 24mb.
Am I missing something? Mixing my bits and bites?
 
That sounds about right as far as the difference between ProResHQ and LT. But you can't equate the original bitrate of your footage with that of ProRes.

Meaning…yes ProResHQ is larger. But for footage from the AF-100, there's no discernable visible difference between LT and HQ. Both exceed the practical bitrate of your original footage. And by going with a larger bitrate (HQ), you're not magically adding information that isn't present in the original AF-100 footage. Now, if you're doing heavy grading and post work, choosing HQ or even ProRes 4444 could be a smart decision. But I use LT for almost all of my AVCHD projects and couldn't be happier.
 
Stephen Mick said:
That sounds about right as far as the difference between ProResHQ and LT. But you can't equate the original bitrate of your footage with that of ProRes.

Meaning…yes ProResHQ is larger. But for footage from the AF-100, there's no discernable visible difference between LT and HQ. Both exceed the practical bitrate of your original footage. And by going with a larger bitrate (HQ), you're not magically adding information that isn't present in the original AF-100 footage. Now, if you're doing heavy grading and post work, choosing HQ or even ProRes 4444 could be a smart decision. But I use LT for almost all of my AVCHD projects and couldn't be happier.
Click to expand...
I'm confused. How can transcoded AF-100 footage as ProRes HQ be better for heavy grading? I didn't think the higher Mbps from AVCCAM will make the footage be less prone to breaking in post.
 
Erik Naso said:
I'm confused. How can transcoded AF-100 footage as ProRes HQ be better for heavy grading? I didn't think the higher Mbps from AVCCAM will make the footage be less prone to breaking in post.
Click to expand...

Well, as I understand it, AVCCAM, as great as it is, lives in 4:2:0 color space. All flavors of ProRes (except 4444) are 4:2:2 color space. So the increase in color space alone once transcoded should give you better "quality" in post. While I've never used 4444 myself, I do know of people who swear by the increased color space for heavy grading. Whether the improvement is real or perceived, well I can't say.

Also, depending on your system, you'll likely get much better editing/rendering performance with a codec like ProRes (or DNxHD) than you will editing AVCCAM.

Speaking purely from personal experience, my attempts to edit and grade native AVCCAM footage have been rather unpleasant, both in terms of workflow and output. ProRes has always treated me right.
 
Stephen Mick said:
That sounds about right as far as the difference between ProResHQ and LT. But you can't equate the original bitrate of your footage with that of ProRes.

Meaning…yes ProResHQ is larger. But for footage from the AF-100, there's no discernable visible difference between LT and HQ. Both exceed the practical bitrate of your original footage. And by going with a larger bitrate (HQ), you're not magically adding information that isn't present in the original AF-100 footage. Now, if you're doing heavy grading and post work, choosing HQ or even ProRes 4444 could be a smart decision. But I use LT for almost all of my AVCHD projects and couldn't be happier.
Click to expand...


That is clear now...Thank you.
 
you have a quart sized data package when you record some material on your AF 100 at 1080 24 PH.

whether your pour your quart of data into a 2 gallon or 4 gallon container after your shoot doesn't really help the quality a bit. the limiter is the original codec. compare the same scene same shot in AVC HD to AVC I 100, then get really aggressive with the grading.

No matter what codec you have transcoded the camera originals into before you start grading, tell me which one falls apart first.
 
Stephen Mick said:
Well, as I understand it, AVCCAM, as great as it is, lives in 4:2:0 color space. All flavors of ProRes (except 4444) are 4:2:2 color space. So the increase in color space alone once transcoded should give you better "quality" in post. While I've never used 4444 myself, I do know of people who swear by the increased color space for heavy grading. Whether the improvement is real or perceived, well I can't say.

Also, depending on your system, you'll likely get much better editing/rendering performance with a codec like ProRes (or DNxHD) than you will editing AVCCAM.

Speaking purely from personal experience, my attempts to edit and grade native AVCCAM footage have been rather unpleasant, both in terms of workflow and output. ProRes has always treated me right.
Click to expand...

AVCCAM video is always going to only have 4:2:0 color space no matter what you transcode it too. The color information was never recorded. Transcoding it to Prores 4:2:2 wont make AVCCAM turn into 4:2:2. If I'm wrong I will eat crow. I have before and it taste like chicken. Yum :)

I always transcode to ProRes 422 and have been since the HDV days. It makes editing easier like you mentioned.

I never tried to work with AVCCAM native because of what you've experienced.
 
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