Interesting New Tech by Adobe for SLR Video

Any editor will tell you that an open solid HD codec that camera companies actually use would be HUGE. The amount of time I have lost converting different codecs to match is ludicrous. The idea that the first standardized codec could also be RAW is simply incredible.

But. And this is a big but. I will wait and see. All of these companies have been competing making up their own codecs in hopes that the other companies would agree that theirs was the best and pay them money to use it. I hope this is over but I have my doubts.

Very hopefuly about this. But also very skeptical.

Also - if this is involved in Canon's announcement at the end of the month, I will be first in line to purchase the product.
 
sunburst said:
Do we really need another adobe product?

Arent they becoming like microsoft? Jack of all products, master of none?
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After effects and Photoshop are the Bees Knees if I do say so.

And the thing about one developer making a whole lineup of products is they all play nicely togehter (theoretically anyway).

And this isn't really a new adobe product in the sense you're talking about. It's not like you can go and buy a copy of CinemaDNG; it will be licensed to camera makers. Isn't part of the magic of red the secret sauce that is redcode?
 
ryansheffer said:
But. And this is a big but. I will wait and see. All of these companies have been competing making up their own codecs in hopes that the other companies would agree that theirs was the best and pay them money to use it. I hope this is over but I have my doubts.
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Not to mention Apple just announced all their new fancy ProRes codecs. I don't know if they'll support this natively unless market penetration becomes pretty high.
 
TrueIndigo said:
This is pretty interesting news for the future (I don't know when it will start shipping in an actual camera), but as someone said earlier: what has this got to do with the GH1? Is it something which could be retrospectively applied to a camera through firmware? And even if it could, would Panasonic make such a firmware upgrade for the GH1 -- it might be a 2-year old camera by then...
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Without having any education in this field beyond common sense, I would say that cameras out in the market right now have zero chance of being "firmware upgraded" to shoot anything of this sort. Cameras have chips whose sole purpose is to compress into the codec of their manufacture's choosing, and I am guessing cannot be changed by firmware to compress differently. And even if so, I doubt the video circuitry in the Gh1 could handle the throughput needed to make this happen. This is also one of the reasons that cameras like the HVX-200 and HPX-170 cannot handle AVC-Intra.

But it is out there now, and hopefully camera manufacturers will jump on this.
 
Thanks William. So no hope for the GH1, but it will be interesting to see which camera is the first to be rolled out with this option.
 
Because the GH1 is so incredible it's easy to forget that it is still only a consumer camera, aimed at the average Joe on the street. Panasonic sees many more average Joes in the market place than they do enthusiasts. For professionals they have a separate division to cream off as much money as they can, because pros tend to invest heavily in camera gear, for obvious reasons.

Unfortunately RAW digital video is still in it's early stages and too exotic for the likes of Joe Consumer, so I can't see it coming to a consumer camera like the GH line in the near future. That much is obvious.

But for now, I would be happy with a firmware patch.

RAW would be a luxury. Of more concern to me is the GH1 AVCHD encoding issues like mud and motion artefacts / compression of high detailed, high movement shots which almost ruined a music video I made, and made me think seriously for the first time about moving to the Canon 7D when it comes out in under 2 weeks time. Philip Bloom even went as far as saying the GH1 isn't suitable for professional work because of it's weak codec.

I wonder how hard it would be for Panasonic to update the firmware to add a full HD 24p MJPEG mode? After all, 1080p at 24p is the same data rate as 720p at 60p, but I guess there is a reason the MJPEG mode is stuck at 30p. I think the the GH1 has a processing power issue and / or a heat management issue along with some economising battery life tactics going on.

I can't say this clearly enough to Panasonic... For any shot where the camera is moving, on a steadicam, handheld or even on a smooth dolly in a tracking shot, it's 24p full HD mode is a pile of steaming junk. Yes ok ok, you can do great shots with it, moving, on a steadicam - but only 90% of the time. The other 10% of shots are ruined. It just isn't reliable enough with motion to consider for pro work.

Reliability, not peak performance, is key. The number of times my GH1 has mudded out on me, is enough to be worried about using 24p mode AT ALL.

In 720p AVCHD you can get away with it, it's more bullet proof and MJPEG is okay but doesn't exactly look very film like.

If Panasonic don't improve their codec dramatically (either in an update or with future cameras), the only thing keeping with the GH1 (and it's successor) will be the articulated live view screen and continuous AF / Af tracking, which comes in handy when manual focus isn't possible (i.e. on a small portable steadicam)
 
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As far as I know the only announced camera yet to use CinemaDNG is the Ikonoskop dII which has been delayed quite a bit, they were hoping to start delivering it this spring but the hurdles handling such a huge data stream in a portable camera are pretty high. 80GB of storage amounts to 15 minutes of 1920x1080 footage.

http://www.ikonoskop.com/dii/
 
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