C200: "The c200 in 420 8-bit probably looks as good as 422 10-bit"

Spartacus said:
I don't think that's a problem of Japan #apple
Does anyone here really think limiting the C200 codec to 8bit 4:2:0 is an oversight and not a meticulously planned part of a diverse business strategy...?
It's not about making everybody happy, but about making an attractive enough product to appeal to a certain target group.
I understand the reflex of demanding more, but does anybody buy a VW Golf and starts a petition to make it an Audi RS8, just because the company "has the tech anyways"?
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I think the problem with that analogy is that C200 has a better engine than Canon's other C Line cameras while the Golf is, well it's a Golf. An analogy that makes more sense to me would be if a Volkswagen released a new Golf in 2017 that had the engine of the 2019 RS8 before that new RS8 was announced. If VW put governors on that fancy new Golf limiting the cars performance when it wasn't on a racetrack (shooting RAW), Golf owners could rightly be annoyed when their new car wouldn't accelerate or handle as well as they knew it could. 4:2:0 recording on a camera that might be able to do 4:4:4 is a sick joke. It only adds insult to injury that the 2 year old XC10 that is roughly one quarter the price of the C200 has internal UHD 4:2:2 XF-AVC recording. Just because something isn't illegal or unethical doesn't mean it can't be very annoying.

I think when Canon and others artificially segment their cameras like this they create an opening for upstarts like Blackmagic Design in much the same way that Intel has with AMD. Intel only changed strategies when AMD picked up sales and I think the same rule will apply here. I expect Canon will care more about sales going to Panasonic, Sony and even Blackmagic than the grumbles of people making money with their C200's. If people who are the market for a new camera wait a couple of months and buy the EVA1 or even the rumored update for the FS5 it will put real pressure on Canon.

Having said that I might be the kind of weirdo the C200 was designed for. Most of what what I shoot is high end event work for digital delivery but I also shoot some short form narrative. In the latter case the C200 12 bit internal RAW is a clear winner over anything I have ever owned. I plan to rent one soon to see how the MP4 hold up and if possible I'll wait for the EVA1 to be released before making a decision. In the end I plan to make a rational decision about the camera is best for my shooting style even if the company the company who makes it occasionally annoys me.
 
Gary T said:
Just because something isn't illegal or unethical doesn't mean it can't be very annoying...
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Actually, cartels are illegal in the US and most of Europe.

In any case, the comparison to the auto market fails because there are ~ 40 different car manufacturers globally. There are four major photo-video manufacturers (Sony, Canon, Nikon, Panasonic) and they're all from the same nation, where these practices are not only legal but openly endorsed and protected by the political system.

PS. Car manufacturers can also play a little footsie under the table. Especially, if they share the same language and state borders.

The latest edition of German news magazine Der Spiegel reported on Friday that all the major German car makers - Volkswagen, Porsche, Audi, BMW and Daimler, maker of the Mercedes-Benz and Smart brands - have been engaged in what could be a massive case of industrial collusion.

The report shows that the companies have been secretly meeting in various working groups since the 1990s, where they agreed on technologies, costs, suppliers and even how to work on emissions from diesel engines.
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http://www.dw.com/en/new-report-massive-collusion-amongst-german-automakers/a-39793521
 
Cary Knoop said:
Is this written by a representative from Canon?
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Why is that idea so hard to believe? It's a brand new camera from one of the bast camera manufacturers around; Is it so hard to believe they could have found a way to fit more information into the recording?
 
I did go out and shoot with it in some challenging lighting conditionsand tried to compare the two. The problem was that my card reader seemingly destroyed my RAW footage (even reconstructing the CRM in data recovery software didn't work). If anyone wants to take a look at the MP4s, I uploaded them here:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/v0nrpbn99ktkwt7/AADeKiZL8UoNpKJVvBa4TY-ca?dl=0

These are not meant to be scientific at all; I wanted to see the flaws a camera might bring out in the way that I might shoot. I shot at 800 ISO in CLog3 with the Production Camera color matrix with a Contax Zeiss 35-70 f/3.4 and a Tiffen Soft FX 1/2. Used the built in ND to control exposure and all shots are wide open with a 180 deg shutter, with the exception of the last one (013) which is f/11. I wanted to see what the difference would be between exposing to protect highlights vs shadows. I like to test cameras at the farmers market near me in Bklyn in the middle of the day because with the white tents, people of all different skin tones standing under them and the colors of the food and flowers, it's a damn good real world high DR scenario. 005 is particularly good with the eggplant in the foreground and the street in the background. Someone compared this camera to an iPhone earlier because of the codec, but this is a scenario in which a low DR camera would have struggled unless you crushed the foreground or blew out the background.

I also shot a few with the midday sky on the way back home of sky, buildings with fine brick patterns and trees; which stresses most codecs out.

I also just shot handheld with an un-stabilized lens, so it's a bit more shaky than normal.
 
May be of interest to this thread: Someone posted a timelapse of sky/clouds recorded in MP4 to vimeo (with downloads enabled). He specifically notes the lack of banding.

 
As a Professional Sky Filmmaker, it's imperative that my sky films have no banding. Back at my old job as a regular videographer shooting a variety of stuff, I didn't film the sky much, and when I did and it banded, no one really cared because they were so used to the sky banding as a result of compression on TV, Vimeo, Youtube, streaming, Internet downloads, etc. (which is where my videos went), regardless of camera and codec used. But now that I'm a Professional Sky Filmmaker, and my films only ever get viewed on an uncrompressed 4K theater screen at the Sky Museum in NY, I have to make sure I don't get no banding.
 
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Eric Coughlin said:
But now that I'm a Professional Sky Filmmaker, and my films only ever get viewed on an uncompressed 4K theater screen at the Sky Museum in NY, I have to make sure I don't get no banding.
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Have you thought about hosting your films on Skynet ? ...I've heard that it's the future of web hosting.
 
In the latest Newsshooter update about the (apparently useless*) codec upgrade the camera is receiving early next year, Allard reiterated how good he thinks the MP4 is on this camera:

"All I can say is that numbers are just numbers, and in a lot of cases they don’t mean anything unless you are working for a company or client that specifies a particular standard for deliverables.

From my time shooting with the C200 I was impressed by just how good the internal MP4 recordings were. The images the camera is capable of producing far exceed its specifications on paper."

http://www.newsshooter.com/2017/08/29/canon-c200-xf-avc-420-8bit-codec-update/

*Im not sure why Canon is bothering with this update unless they're going to dramatically increase nitrate and/or color depth.
 
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Eric Coughlin said:
As a Professional Sky Filmmaker, it's imperative that my sky films have no banding. Back at my old job as a regular videographer shooting a variety of stuff, I didn't film the sky much, and when I did and it banded, no one really cared because they were so used to the sky banding as a result of compression on TV, Vimeo, Youtube, streaming, Internet downloads, etc. (which is where my videos went), regardless of camera and codec used. But now that I'm a Professional Sky Filmmaker, and my films only ever get viewed on an uncrompressed 4K theater screen at the Sky Museum in NY, I have to make sure I don't get no banding.
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You know you don't HAVE to comment if you don't have to, right?
Comments like that are not only rude but they don't serve the thread at all.
Just saying...
 
NorBro said:
Eric's response is kind of fitting though, lol.

Like who gives a crap about banding in the sky. How many sky shots does the average shooter ever capture.

And if you're working for National Geographic or Discovery, trust you are not using this camera.
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Yes, I understand your point and Eric's too, but I find those comments a bit rude and not useful at all. It's not his first comment of this kind.
 
DLD said:
I think that's picking nits.
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Lol my stupid phone refuses to let me type "bitrate". You have no idea how often I have to correct it. My stupid Amazon Echo also can't tell that when I'm talking about the Arri Alexa that I'm not talking to it...
 
Doug_EX said:
You know you don't HAVE to comment if you don't have to, right?
Comments like that are not only rude but they don't serve the thread at all.
Just saying...
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I was trying to use humor to make a point. Sure, I could have just written a straightforward post (as I often do as well) that said, "Most Internet videos get banding from the Internet compression even if shot in 12 bit RAW, so unless you shoot skies often and you're doing theatrical distribution (or some other low or uncompressed distribution) you shouldn't worry too much about banding in the sky." But, I decided to make a post in a less straightforward manner to try to make it more interesting while still getting the point across. You say my post is not helpful, but my post had a point relevant to the topic, so I don't see a problem with it.

If people mistakenly overemphasize the importance of avoiding banding in the sky, causing other people to waste their time and money avoiding that banding while shooting, and I can save them money by trying to give a more accurate emphasis to just how important it is to avoid, then I've helped them out.

I'm sure a lot of people come on to DVXuser, read 4K this, 10 bit that, gotta have this or go home, etc., then over spend on gear, while doing nothing but shooting wedding videos for clients who would have given them just as much business if they had shot on a 5D Mark II, such that they wasted $30k by shooting their weddings with three C200s. I recall I was once teaching a film class at a university a few years ago, while 4K was the rage on DVXuser, making you think in the bubble of DVXuser, "Everyone has heard of 4K and needs that," and I asked the class of about 15 students if they'd heard of 4K, and none of them had.
 
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