Manufacturers and Customer Support in Decline

[NorBro]

Yep! Because so many don't know how to do the fundamentals, the basics, exposure and white balance or at least choosing the proper/best preset. And when you call them out on it, their argument is that it doesn't matter, because they can do it in post(or think that they can).

We've all heard the, "We'll fix it in post.", but there is only so much you can do anyway.

Like, you can't fix bad framing or out-of-focus (at least right now) - so all you're left with is exposure and white balance, which have lots of leeway even with regular non-RAW formats.

Shooting RAW should be about getting the most out of your pixels, and DR and color (not about fixing clips later).

I don't know if the majority have fixing stuff later on their mind when thinking about RAW acquisition.

 

[Run&Gun]

Also want to add that what's more of a problem is the media cost, at least for solo ops.

The handling of the data on smaller-sized cards is a real PITA.

Start shooting 8K/60p with those higher data rates and it's practically not doable besides for b-roll.

Yep. It seemed to go down or at least hit a sweet spot for a while, several years ago, but today, 'it ai't cheap'. I bought six 256GB cards for my Amira last year. Yes, you have to run the certified cards, but CFast 2.0 is still basically off-the-shelf media. And I spent close to $3K. Not cheap, but not horrible. But I'm going to spend way more than double that on a set of just three CODEX drives and a reader for my 35(eventually... Lol). A single 1TB drive is almost $2500 and a 2TB is over $4200. (You do save some $ buying multi-packs). One of my buddies bought four, I think. I also have a good client that is more or less an "Arri Shop" with a bunch of Amira's and two miLF's and they don't even own any 2TB cards for the miLF's, to my knowledge.

 

[Run&Gun]

This mostly sounds like a communication issue (or management issue like you said)...but I think uploading/downloading large amounts of data over the air is still a hassle right now for most.

If you have a person on a production handling the footage (someone who's really good at his or her job), you can go home with a SSD filled with folders (Card 1, Card 2, Card 3...or have that drive shipped).

If people start creating bottlenecks with sharing multiple TBs through clouds or sending it all on spinning drives - with tight turnaround times - it's never fun.

Dumping to spinning drives today is a hassle. I was shooting for four days last weekend with my Amira on 256GB cards(1080 mix of 24 & 100120). An almost full card took around 14-15 mins to transfer with Hedge to two Samsung T7 SSD's(client drives) simultaneously through my M2M MBP. Backing up to my own personal (spinning) drive afterwards took between 45-60 minutes. And I shot two cards a day. The second card may not have always been full, but you can clearly see that transferring large amounts of data can be time consuming.

Fortunately, time was not that important, because I wasn't shipping the drives off until the day after the last shoot and I was just dumping nightly after I got back home. But if you're on a shoot and it's one of those non-stop days with minimal crew(no data wrangler) and multiple cameras and you don't get to 'data dump' until the end of the day and the producer is expecting to walk with the drive(s) and jump on a plane that night, well expectations or planning or both are going to have to change.

 

[ahalpert]

This mostly sounds like a communication issue (or management issue like you said)...but I think uploading/downloading large amounts of data over the air is still a hassle right now for most.

If you have a person on a production handling the footage (someone who's really good at his or her job), you can go home with a SSD filled with folders (Card 1, Card 2, Card 3...or have that drive shipped).

If people start creating bottlenecks with sharing multiple TBs through clouds or sending it all on spinning drives - with tight turnaround times - it's never fun.

I've done many projects for them that were single-camera FS7 shoots where they sent me footage through the cloud the night of the shoot and I had it available to edit the following morning. That would never have happened with the bitrate they were using as they can't even upload it that quickly and they wrapped after FedEx closed.

If they had done the same shoot using a 100Mbps codec, they could have sent it all to me that night through the cloud.

 

[Run&Gun]

Shooting RAW should be about getting the most out of your pixels, and DR and color (not about fixing clips later).

One hundo...!

 

[NorBro]

I've done many projects for them that were single-camera FS7 shoots where they sent me footage through the cloud the night of the shoot and I had it available to edit the following morning. That would never have happened with the bitrate they were using as they can't even upload it that quickly and they wrapped after FedEx closed.

If they had done the same shoot using a 100Mbps codec, they could have sent it all to me that night through the cloud.

But what are you saying though...that they shouldn't have used the Canons? Like why didn't they do something with the 100mbps camera/workflow and how could someone not think about the data and handling of the footage as soon as those camera choices came to mind/paper/email/phone call?

If a client is okay with a 100mbps codec then I'd always be doing that. Most of the time I have absolutely no love for what I'm doing for others so I couldn't care any less (I care about doing a good job but I don't care about it as if it were my own project).

I'd save the tortured 8K workflow for my own passion projects. :evil:

 

[ahalpert]

But what are you saying though...that they shouldn't have used the Canons? Like why didn't they do something with the 100mbps camera/workflow and how could someone not think about the data and handling of the footage as soon as those camera choices came to mind/paper/email/phone call?

If a client is okay with a 100mbps codec then I'd always be doing that. Most of the time I have absolutely no love for what I'm doing for others so I couldn't care any less (I care about doing a good job but I don't care about it as if it were my own project).

I'd save the tortured 8K workflow for my own passion projects. :evil:

I'm saying I'm not crazy about moving to prores raw because even though it's a relatively efficient raw codec, the juice is very much not worth the squeeze to me. Most of the time.

I haven't noticed a visual difference between recent long-gop 422 10-bit h265 and equivalent all-intra h264. And even with a lowly M1, you can play that footage back smoothly or quickly transcode proxies. For me, it's totally worth the savings in transmission time.

I doubt the 100Mbps codec will have the flexibility of an 800Mbps codec. But it's probably on par with the fs7's 240Mbps codec which is what this client uses most of the time.

 

[NorBro]

so don't use it :2vrolijk_08:

But if the person paying you demands it, you'll have no choice if you can't convince them (or maybe you'll choose not to work for them).

They say the data rates fall between PR 422 and 422 HQ (this is for regular PR RAW, not PR RAW HQ) so not terrible, and something many are already very used to.

 

[ahalpert]

so don't use it :2vrolijk_08:

If the person paying you demands it, you'll have no choice if you can't convince them (or maybe you'll choose not to work for them).

I'm expressing a preference, not trying to solve a problem. Since, as you say, I don't have a choice in this matter. I already lost this battle when I had to buy overpriced cf-express A cards to shoot all-intra h264 for them on my mirrorless cameras.

 

[NorBro]

I don't know who thought it was a good idea to release 160GB A cards...what are you supposed to do with that? (I know the landscape is better now.)

 

[ahalpert]

Cfexpress type A is the bane of my existence. And I'm not sure there will ever be enough manufacturer competition to bring that product to a good place.

 

[NorBro]

If it gets replaced like CFast then it will die slowly and naturally drop.

I paid almost $1300 for a 120GB CFast card in 2014, which is about the same you'd pay for two As for 3x the capacity.

Now you can find a 1TB CFast on sale sometimes for around $400.

 

[DLD]

The codecs, media and processing power are like that 3-shooter standoff in the "Good, the bad and the Ugly". One moves forward at its own pace while others stumble behind.and then must catch up somewhere somehow. With 8K jumping into the high end consumer market with R5, H265/HEVC suddenly became vewy, vewy important.

But H266/VVC is already being used on the pro tier broadcasting modules, so one has to figure it's a generation away on the higher end consumer cameras too.

But then one might have to update his computers on top of that.

 

[Andy9]

It's annoying that Sony puts H.265* options in the a7Siii but not the FX6. How is highest-possible-quality-per-Mb/s not a pro feature? If anything, I associate raw and intra-or-nothing fundamentalism with very online enthusiasts rather than actual pros. I'm not working in narrative or advertising though.

As an aside, whenever anyone asks for a video camera recommendation on Reddit some idiot is ALWAYS adamant that the camera to get is the Red Komodo. Regardless of requirements - Komodo. I once saw a 19-year old with zero video experience recommended the Komodo for a 3-month no-budget South East Asia trip. When another commenter pointed out that (once built up) it's a bit big and bulky for a trip - 'Wouldn't they be better off with a small, mirrorless camera?' the response was that a small, mirrorless camera is actually not that small once you've added the external recorder for raw. Of course! How are they going to fill that rucksack full of hard drives otherwise?

*limited options - why no 25 / 29.97 fps?

 

[Paul F]

I wonder if this has anything to do with the suspension of trading and the delay of the financial report. From Petapixel, September 2022:

"In April, Atomos said it fired CEO Estelle McGechie because she refused to move to Australia, but she says it was actually because she refused to turn a blind eye to what she characterizes as securities fraud and revenue manipulation.
......
“Following Ms. McGechie’s investigation into and reports about Atomos’ securities fraud and revenue manipulation, including falsely reporting material sales forecast information to shareholders, ‘channel stuffing’ (shipping excessive product to distributors to prematurely record sales and fraudulently inflate revenue), knowingly shipping defective and inoperable merchandise to prematurely record sales, and insider trading, Atomos terminated her,” the complaint, seen by PetaPixel, reads."

 

[NorBro]

It's annoying that Sony puts H.265* options in the a7Siii but not the FX6. How is highest-possible-quality-per-Mb/s not a pro feature? If anything, I associate raw and intra-or-nothing fundamentalism with very online enthusiasts rather than actual pros. I'm not working in narrative or advertising though.

As an aside, whenever anyone asks for a video camera recommendation on Reddit some idiot is ALWAYS adamant that the camera to get is the Red Komodo. Regardless of requirements - Komodo. I once saw a 19-year old with zero video experience recommended the Komodo for a 3-month no-budget South East Asia trip. When another commenter pointed out that (once built up) it's a bit big and bulky for a trip - 'Wouldn't they be better off with a small, mirrorless camera?' the response was that a small, mirrorless camera is actually not that small once you've added the external recorder for raw. Of course! How are they going to fill that rucksack full of hard drives otherwise?

*limited options - why no 25 / 29.97 fps?

At one point in time, RAW was actually reserved for the top of the food chain pros. You had to pay at least $20K-$30K to get going with a RED or Sony via external recorder or C500 with RAW or "HALF-RAW" (Canon called it) also to an external recorder.

Then Blackmagic changed the industry and YouTube blew up in 2015 also forever changing the industry even more.

 

[drboffa]

It's annoying that Sony puts H.265* options in the a7Siii but not the FX6. How is highest-possible-quality-per-Mb/s not a pro feature? If anything, I associate raw and intra-or-nothing fundamentalism with very online enthusiasts rather than actual pros. I'm not working in narrative or advertising though.

*limited options - why no 25 / 29.97 fps?

I *far* prefer my FX6 to my a7Siii, but the fact that the latter can do 120p with audio in H.265 while the FX6 cannot is really annoying.

I'm hoping we get some firmware upgrades in the future that add codecs/recording options, although it's been long enough that I'm not too optimistic about this happening.

 

[Run&Gun]

I *far* prefer my FX6 to my a7Siii, but the fact that the latter can do 120p with audio in H.265 while the FX6 cannot is really annoying.

I'm hoping we get some firmware upgrades in the future that add codecs/recording options, although it's been long enough that I'm not too optimistic about this happening.

No audio with off-speed, especially high speed/slow-mo, is just stupid in this day and age. My iPhone has been able to do that for probably a decade, and the fact that we have cameras that cost as much or more than cars that can't... I just shake my head. This feature would be so incredibly useful in the sports/sports doc/feature piece world. I think some RED's can do it and the V35 can record slow-mo and real-time 24fps simultaneously(at least as a high quality proxy), but otherwise we can only do either/or with most other cameras/manufacturers.

 

[morgan_moore]

Runner crosses the line.. lovely slo mo shot

run up to them.. 'how was the race'

Just you gotta fiddle with a buch of settings to hear thier reaction. camera darwin award no. 7

 

[morgan_moore]

Raw. Recording

In stills the jpg is a 'baked' '709' look and to pull back any shadows or highs you need to access the raw file in Shi-teroom Catsh_t One or whatever. No raw? you never pulling that sky back.

But in log in 'film' (digital motion capture) you get all the stops rammed into the 709 (or srgb) space by reducing the contrast in a log manner

Delog your shot and those highs and lows might clip.. but the info is there (unseen) to pull and push back in the grade.

Ergo with log you get the main raw thing.. more DR than the 7 stops of 709 (or a jpg) or however many stops it is.

So the basic atribute of raw is moot in log capture.
With either you can get at the full range of the sensor.

Or is it?

Now we need to compare raw with log capture and see if one is better than the other.

Firstly we get that both can record the dynamic range of the chip - so no winner there.

Then we must start to do qualitive analysis.

Look at colour accuracy and tonal flexibilty mainly at the dark and high ends of the capture.

Such a test is beyond C5d or Newsshooter or any youtuber apart from steve yeldin

Firstly the basic numbers suggest a 14bit file is going to be more robust, or a 16 bit, but actual log or linear encoding better ? .. well there are arguments that log will win.

Because linear gives double the steps to each recorded stop which get huge fast. Maybe stops three (from black clip) has 64 levels and stop 12 (from black clip) has 64000 levels.. and that is not going to make stop three a high fidelity capture.

I would guess that 12bit raw or 4.4.4 capture are very similar. Of course a recorder may receive a 10bit signal and record it pointlesly into a 12 or 14 bit box.. but that will just waste datarate.

While I have alluded to this in other threads Ive not actually been in a position to try and learn through tests.