New Panasonic 4K 60P Camcorder HC-X1000

Depends on what the end purpose of the footage is. If it's something that you're expecting a long lifespan for, then shoot and edit in 4K and export as 1080. That way you can always go back to the 4K source footage.

If you're doing effects work or keying, definitely shoot in 4K and edit in 4K and downconvert. You'll get the benefit of working in a 1080 4:4:4 10-bit workspace as opposed to 8-bit 4:2:0, if you shoot in 1080 in the first place.

But, if it's not anything especially noteworthy and you're not doing compositing or keying (like, say, a local TV commercial or something) then just shoot 1080 in the first place. The footage takes up less space, is easier to edit, and you get much of the benefit of a post conversion because the in-camera 4K->1080p is a full-chip scan and proper scale, so it gives you the sharpness and the noise reduction that you'd expect from a post conversion.
 
Thanks for your quick reply Barry. It's just a corporate event/panel discussion with audience to distribute on the web. I don't envisage it being a long term thing - but I may wish to use it in my showreel in the future. Would you mind elaborating on the 4:4:4 10-bit, is that achieved by shooting in 4k? (I'm not sure I'm reading your sentence properly, plus I'm still a bit new!) I understand what 4:4:4 and 10bit is - I just don't really know how you determine if something is 4:4:4 or 4:2:0 if that makes sense! Sorry if these are obvious questions!
 
The camera always records 8-bit 4:2:0. However, if you shoot 8-bit 4:2:0 4K footage, and then downconvert it to 1080 in post, it effectively becomes 10-bit 4:4:4.
 
Depends on the frame rate. At 24p, it's about 1 minute per gigabyte, so over two hours. At 60p, it's about 1.5x as much bandwidth per minute, so one minute = 1.5 gigabytes, so 128gb = about 85 minutes.
 
Last edited:
nathanjrb said:
A couple of questions, as I'm still learning.

1) is it better to drop 4k into a 1080 timeline or edit in a 4k timeline and export in 1080?
2) Space is a bit tight on my HDD. If I shoot in 1080 (which as I understand uses the full 4k sensor to downscale in camera) will the quality still be comparable to a downscaled 4k in post? Or should I take the storage hit and shoot 4k?

I'm looking at going to a RAID 5 solution soon anyway. I have drive bays available (plan was four 2TB drives) - is that better than using an external enclosure (starts getting expensive). I need to start looking after my storage when I turn freelance properly.
Click to expand...

Firstly, this is off topic. There are many threads in this forum and others that cover these topics. I suggest doing some key word searches for them.

But in the spirit of sharing and building community, I'd like to answer your questions from my perspective:

1. Reports vary but I prefer to work with UHD footage within a 1080 timeline. It might be anecdotal but I've found that exports take longer when a UHD timeline is exported at a 1080 video file.
2. Your computer is most likely a better processor than the camera's little chipset, so I would recommend always shooting in UHD and letting your computer downscale it to 1080. That way you're getting the full quality from your camera's imaging sensor.

About the RAID 5 drive array for your media files, I appreciate that you're being safe with your data, but that may not be fast enough for your media drive. It depends on your system's other components. The trick is balancing your system so that nothing is a bottleneck. With my system (detailed below) I had a 3x 3TB HD RAID 0 array that was getting about 515 MB/s Read speed. Then i upgraded to a 2x 1TB SSD PCIE RAID 0 array that got about 1000 MB/s Read speed and my render/export times were twice as fast. I have a couple 4x 4TB HD RAID 5 arrays that hold my back ups in case of drive failure. This is just my personal set up. There are many configurations possible and some would say preferable. I suggest keyword searching for them.

2010 5,1 Mac Pro
2x 3.46GHz 6-core
48GB 1333MHz RAM
GTX 980 4GB (no Bootscreens, no CUDA yet)
OSX 10.10.1 on a 512GB SSD
 
Apparently I missed the fact that Barry already answered your questions. This is why I try not to write in the forums after midnight (so tired). Barry said it best. Do as he says. We all try to. Good luck!
 
Agree with Barry. It all depends on the purpose of the shoot. I would not shoot a wedding DVD in 4K :-) Just a waste of space. On the other hand a film planned for some sort of theatrical projection will look much better in 4K. In this case it is worth the trouble. I would also recommend do a good pre-production if you shoot in 4K to make sure you are not wasting time and space for something unplanned.
 
Hi folks - well I shot both events in HD. Mostly because I only had one 64GB SD card and one battery so I was pretty limited anyway.

I was really looking forward to the corporate gig because I'd checked out the venue the day before and it was very new, modern, vibrant and had excellent lighting - plus one wall was just a huge window (so there was almost too much light) - then I got to the conference space and I couldn't believe it. They had curtained off the entire space with black theatre-style curtains so there was no natural light - and then the brilliant ceiling lights they did have they had dimmed AND changed to a RED colour. So it wasn't just low lighting but it was also RED - plus the speakers themselves were terribly lit. Nightmare. So now the footage is extremely grainy as I had to boost it quite high to even make out any faces - I'm going to have to try do a lot of reduction in post. Not much I could have done I guess.
 
http://youtu.be/Nc5baozw5GA

Here you go. This is the launch event all shot on the HCX1000. Some of the shots (what I would say are the nicer ones....) were manual, others were on iA due to the run and gun nature (plus I wanted to see how well the iA performed). The voice over is from the camera mic (I tried to get a H4 into their sound system but they didn't have a feed) and I haven't got my own microphone yet! (Suggestions btw?!)

The footage was pretty awfully grainy in places. This version hasn't been altered in post - what you see is straight off the camera - 1080 50p 100M.
 
Hi Nathanjrb,

I thought you did a good job with what you had available. Vision really good for the dark area. Audio I found a bit sharp for my old ears, maybe you could have added some bottom end to the speakers to round them out a bit, and the lift in the music level between speakers could have been more subtle for my taste. Bet they were happy with your job though. Very creative editing.

Cheers,

Vaughan
 
nathanjrb said:
http://youtu.be/Nc5baozw5GA

Here you go. This is the launch event all shot on the HCX1000.
Click to expand...

From your earlier description I was expecting much worse than that. Considering the tiny pixels, I think the camera did remarkably well. I'd be very surprised if the client had any problem with the quality of the image in that.

Because the camera is already adding quite a bit of NR, I'm not sure how much success you'll get with adding more NR in post.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top