Resolution of Panasonic GH2 vs Red Scarlet Fixed for 1080p Bluray Delivery

J

J Bellari

Active member
Have you had a chance to download the select first 1 second clip of "Felix" from the Red Scarlet Fixed 2/3" and compare it to the abundance of GH2 footage at 1080p 24fps?

I am interested in

1. Whether you feel you see $5-6K more resolution at 1080p for Bluray delivery?

2. Could a consumer end-client see the difference in resolution on Bluray playback, especially if you intercut the two?


This is strictly about resolution, not RAW flexibility or latitude...

(I think they are both great cameras in their own category, but when the rubber hits the road would the client immediately tell the difference)
 
The Scarlet will have a lot more "real" resolution (presuming that they do it right, and I believe that they will). The GH2 appears very very sharp, but a lot if its "resolution" is fake aliased detail. It makes the images pop and look as if they're high-def, but in terms of really being able to resolve all that much detail -- no. The Scarlet should be substantially ahead of it.
 
Barry_Green said:
The Scarlet will have a lot more "real" resolution (presuming that they do it right, and I believe that they will). The GH2 appears very very sharp, but a lot if its "resolution" is fake aliased detail. It makes the images pop and look as if they're high-def, but in terms of really being able to resolve all that much detail -- no. The Scarlet should be substantially ahead of it.
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Thanks for your feedback!

Do you feel there's a good chance of 24mbps AVCHD footage from the Panasonic GH2 becoming acceptable for broadcast or film projection in 2011 as more shorts are made with them for film festivals?

or...

Will Red Scarlet 2/3" become the defacto minimum standard bearer IF released this year?


I'm going to try and see how GH2 footage looks projected at 10' this afternoon...

I'd love to hear your feedback about could well shot GH2 footage hold up on the "Big Screen",
especially if there were effects shots where the extra detail potentially shows through..
 
don't need a test, just look at the footage :)
no comparison whatsoever. different worlds and real worth of 6000$ (if i'll ever manage to gather it)
but not worth waiting 1-2 years for it and not creating with GH2 in the meantime.

for your inquiries, i spent time watching all my footage on my projector with 180" screen, and i am very
pleased on most of the results (my ONLY target is using GH2 for a full feature to be screened)
so for my eyes, it's good enough on a no budget.
of course you must use it only to what's it best for otherwise you will get artifacts on certain situations,
but if you start getting used to the big no-no's, you can get very impressive results.
still - it's no scarlet. the price difference is very justifiable.
 
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roei z said:
don't need a test, just look at the footage :)
no comparison whatsoever. different worlds and real worth of 6000$ (if i'll ever manage to gather it)
but not worth waiting 1-2 years for it and not creating with GH2 in the meantime.

for your inquiries, i spent time watching all my footage on my projector with 180" screen, and i am very
pleased on most of the results (my ONLY target is using GH2 for a full feature to be screened)
so for my eyes, it's good enough on a no budget.
of course you must use it only to what's it best for otherwise you will get artifacts on certain situations,
but if you start getting used to the big no-no's, you can get very impressive results.
still - it's no scarlet. the price difference is very justifiable.
Click to expand...

LOL... You stole my logic!

I was planning on the exact same setup! Would love to see your setup...

Too funny...
 
roei z said:
don't need a test, just look at the footage :)
no comparison whatsoever. different worlds and real worth of 6000$ (if i'll ever manage to gather it)
but not worth waiting 1-2 years for it and not creating with GH2 in the meantime.

for your inquiries, i spent time watching all my footage on my projector with 180" screen, and i am very
pleased on most of the results (my ONLY target is using GH2 for a full feature to be screened)
so for my eyes, it's good enough on a no budget.
of course you must use it only to what's it best for otherwise you will get artifacts on certain situations,
but if you start getting used to the big no-no's, you can get very impressive results.
still - it's no scarlet. the price difference is very justifiable.
Click to expand...

I like this answer.
 
J Bellari said:
Do you feel there's a good chance of 24mbps AVCHD footage from the Panasonic GH2 becoming acceptable for broadcast or film projection in 2011 as more shorts are made with them for film festivals?
Click to expand...
We've already had films shot on the GH1 play in major film festivals (such as South by Southwest). And that was with the hideous 17mbps codec on the GH1, which is about 1/10th as good as the 24mbps on the GH2.

So for festivals, certainly.

For broadcast? Well, look -- if people are using Canon DSLRs for things that get broadcast, then they should certainly be able to use the GH2, which is much superior to the Canon in imaging capability and codec. But I would find it a hard pill to swallow to set out with a GH2 to shoot a news show or something like that. It's not made for broadcast. It's a stills camera that has a video mode on it.


Will Red Scarlet 2/3" become the defacto minimum standard bearer IF released this year?
Click to expand...
Whole different kettle of fish. Scarlet isn't aimed at television or broadcast at all, it's aimed at digital cinema. It costs at least 6x as much, and won't be able to deliver the same shallow DOF as a GH2; the GH2's chip is 4x bigger. Scarlet is (or was, who knows anything about what scarlet "is") aimed at digital cinema shooters.

But we'll have to see. The concept of a "Scarlet" is about three years running now. I frankly don't think shooters will want to go back to a small sensor once they've become accustomed to a larger sensor, but there are other folks who think the raw recording format is worth more than anything else all together.

I'd love to hear your feedback about could well shot GH2 footage hold up on the "Big Screen"
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If it's well-shot, it should hold up brilliantly. Like I said, we had big-screen films made from the GH1 (unhacked GH1, with its much-inferior codec) and they looked great. The GH2 is better than anything the GH1 can do, so it should look fine.
 
J Bellari said:
LOL... You stole my logic!

I was planning on the exact same setup! Would love to see your setup...

Too funny...
Click to expand...

i am still in the process of deciding on best setup - the MAJOR problem for me is handling the sound. there are no compromises..
i want to hear your plan also.
well this is off topic so i'll be more than happy to discuss this on PM, we could discuss our brains out :)
 
there´s nothing wrong per se with a 2/3¨ sensor - but the problem lies where it always has.....there´s no camera ! if red delivers what they say they will within a rather limited time frame ( because the other people aren´t sleeping ) then it should be a great camera for 6k but my guess is by the time scarlet is ready , canon will at least have the 5dmklll , and who´s guess what will be coming from sony with the nex s35 which will also be in the same price range - so far, for me the only interest still attached to the scarlet is the framerates and this barrier will be punched within a year or two by canon or sony or panasonic - we all know red shot themselves in the foot but most are still willing to give them a chance to race even with the wound - well the question is compared to the gh2 , there´s no choice ....and compared to the af100 , it´s a runaway for pany - but still red keeps dangling the worms on the hook
 
It's a runaway for the AF100? Insofar as the fact that it's actually available? Sure, true.

Because once Scarlet arrives why would anyone even briefly consider buying a 24Mbps camera when you can get 100 MB/s RAW for about the same price?
 
Lee Saxon said:
Because once Scarlet arrives why would anyone even briefly consider buying a 24Mbps camera when you can get 100 MB/s RAW for about the same price?
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Because the AF100's sensor is 4x as big, and obviously that matters to a lot of folks. The DSLRs have huge sensors, and people have flocked to them because of that. The DSLRs have worse codecs, worse imaging, worse everything than a traditional video camera, but people dropped everything to get that huge sensor. Will they really now go to a sensor that's 1/4 the size, just for the codec? Some will, some won't. But I have to think that if codec was really all that important, nobody would have shot on a DSLR in the first place. So obviously it isn't about the codec, it's about the look. And the AF100 will be able to deliver a look that the Scarlet simply never can, under the same shooting conditions.

But, once again, why don't we just wait until there is such a thing as an actual Scarlet, so the "everything subject to change" stops changing and we can get an actual idea of what the product actually is?
 
GH2 seems to actually be resolving a fair amount of real detail compared to Canons and even GH1...would like to see some chart tests but I've seen barely any aliasing so far...and none in telephoto crop mode.
 
Jester2138 said:
What's the bet the 2/3 Scarlet will be relatively DOA due to its small sensor?
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Not as ALL!

In most corporate video, green screen, and news magazine interview situations, the 2/3" is right at home. Perfect 3k downres to 1080P, and raw workflow without the taxing file size of 4k. I think its a great bridge camera to the folks who have never had the oppertunity to shoot on red.

Quite frankly at $6k, its practically free.... I know a lot of people feel that 6k is a lot of money, and it is, but in the pro world of digital video, $6,000 is the cost of an acessory. Not the cost of a fully operattional camera system.
 
Barry, I disagree. I think people flocked to the larger sensor 5D specifically for DoF control.

Scarlet 2/3" certainly won't have DoF control like a 5D, but it can use 16mm glass (things like 3.5mm f/1.8s and 5.7mm f/2s) and Red is making its own 2/3" format miniprimes for it.

4/3 cams are stuck using 35mm glass at an absurd 2x crop which kills DoF control.

If that 7-14 was about f/2 instead of f/4, I'd agree with you. As it is, I think Scarlet 2/3" might actually have MORE DoF control than the AF100. Panasonic needs to make some fast glass (and stop it with the variable aperture zooms!!).

In the meantime I'm drooling over the idea of using some ultrafast 16mm glass on a GH2 in 1:1 mode...
 
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if scarlet were a 3 chip 2/3" ccd camera I could imagine it would get some excitement but I am very tired of the red hype! a camera with a fan inside? yes of course its quieter than an old arri 16mm non blimped :-)
 
Lee Saxon said:
Barry, I disagree. I think people flocked to the larger sensor 5D specifically for DoF control.

Scarlet 2/3" certainly won't have DoF control like a 5D, but it can use 16mm glass (things like 3.5mm f/1.8s and 5.7mm f/2s) and Red is making its own 2/3" format miniprimes for it.

4/3 cams are stuck using 35mm glass at an absurd 2x crop which kills DoF control.

If that 7-14 was about f/2 instead of f/4, I'd agree with you. As it is, I think Scarlet 2/3" might actually have MORE DoF control than the AF100. Panasonic needs to make some fast glass (and stop it with the variable aperture zooms!!).

In the meantime I'm drooling over the idea of using some ultrafast 16mm glass on a GH2 in 1:1 mode...
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Incorrect.

The af100 has far more dof Control than a 2/3" sensor. A Varicam, a 2/3" CCD camera, with digiprimes wide open at T1.7, has the same depth of field characteristic as a 35mm sensor at T5.6 or T8. You can achieve perfectly cinematic depth of field with an AF100.

Also the "2x" crop factor is not an issue and hardly absurd. The frame of the 5dmkII is the standalone oddity. It should not be considered a benchmark for determining field of view.
 
what's wrong with the lion footage shot DOF of the scarlet? looks quite filmic blurry DOF for a shot of this sort.
unless the background was far away and they didn't tell us ;)
 
I didn't realize that about the 2/3" sensor, you've just convinced me I'm not buying a Scarlet.

Watching Bloom's cooking short with his mom, shot on the 25mm f/0.95 @ f/2 or faster, which looks like it was shot at f/5.6 (except the macro shots, which don't count)...but the GH2 footage is so much better in every other way I feel like I'd be crazy to buy a 5D just so I can get the DoF control I'm accustomed to as a still photographer.

Anyway, way off thread topic, sorry. On topic, I have doubts about the resolution of the VDSLRs (even the GH2 though it's at the head of the pack) and can't wait to see Red's 3K (or 5K if I can find the money for an Epic-S) downscaled to 1080p.
 
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