C200: The new Canon C200 with 4K

[AndreeOnline]

The self published internet gives us:

But what is coming out of the HDMI port? The color-luminance is subsampled to 4:2:2, that’s obvious. But how about bit-sampling? Is it 8-bit or is perhaps 10-bit?

It is defenitely more than 8-bit, it seems between 9 and 10 bit, which produces between 512 and 1024 brightness steps compared to the 256 for 8-bit, and it looks like we get close to 1024 brightness steps out of the HDMI-Port.

Or, you know, you can read the manual of the camera—or several technical white papers from Canon (the actual manufacturer) for that matter—to learn that the camera is in fact producing 8bit material, regardless of internal or external.

Canon themselves say that "carefully treated 8bit, with a proper image pipeline, is virtually indistinguishable from 10 bit". Now, that felt more like convenient marketing lingo at the time, but several tests show that there is a grain of truth to that. Unfortunately, it isn't quite clear if this means that "8bit is almost as good as 10bit" or "10bit is almost as bad as 8bit".

Without backing myself into a corner, I'd say that in my own experience, in terms of plasticity in grading I DO notice a real step up going from any of the normal compressed codecs (8bit or 10bit) to .R3D or Blackmagic raw. I can't really say the same going from 8bit intra frame to 10bit intra frame.

But the thing is that a good 8bit codec isn't necessarily bad. It's quite usable and presents few problems to me as long as it's intra frame and the bitrate is there. But like I say... to get to the NEXT level I have basically needed to use something like .R3D.

That said: would I like to see 10bit in the C200? Yes! Very, very much.

 

[michasacuer]

Guys, i think C200 will be (like someone said) C300 Mark II Lite version and maybe c100 will be a 1080p pro-line camcorders.

I think, C200 must have option to shoot 4k 30fps (no chance for 60p because of c300, or it will be something like c100 mark II and c300 mark I. C200 will have 4k 60p but 8bit 420 coedc only). I think in these days C200 must have 4k internally. The question is what with color sampling

 

[puredrifting]

Yes, we went through this all years ago with using the C300/C100 with the Atomos recorders. It's the classic story of the 10-bit recording won't improve the 8-bit output, but it holds together much better than the 8-bit on generational degradation and for keying/compositing.

 

[Mitch Gross]

It is an 8-bit camera and all the signal processing is done at 8-bit.

If you want to learn how you can "appear" to get "more" out of those 8-bits, look up what some people do with dithering. It hides many sins.

 

[Michael Thames]

The 4:2:2 makes a difference too..... right? At least the comparison videos between 4:2:0 and 4:2:2 I've seen are obvious. To say the C100 MKII "doesn't play well with a recorder" is rather misleading.

 

[NorBro]

Professionals might see it if they know where to look, and they'll probably feel it in post, but I think 99% of human beings on earth wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two.

 

[puredrifting]

I can't tell the difference betwen my C100/300 internal codecs and the Prores HQ at 220 MB/S from my Ninja Blade unless I intentionally "break" the AVCHD or MPEG codecs, which is easy to do do if you know how. I can tell the difference when pulling keys and doing edge clean up work or pushing the key.

 

[Michael Thames]

I have no experience testing one or the other, I've only relied on YouTube comparissions. Based on some of those I could see a difference pre-post, but you really had to do some pixel peeping. I do recall a video I saw recently comparing the 420 to 422 and thought the difference was obvious, but now I wondering if the difference was the cameras that they compared, looked for that video but haven't found it yet.

It might have been a difference in 420 24 Mb/s and 422 50 Mb/s.

So then the only advantage to the Ninja Blade is post grading, and storage? Pretty much everything I do needs post grading, I would assume it's the same for just about everybody. Problem is I have two c100's and a 5D3, and only one Ninja Blade. What has happen on more than one occasion is I forgot to change the picture profile in the 5D3 to the neutral settings and shot in an overly saturated profile with the green tint. Then tried to match that with the neutral and somewhat desaturated look of the C100. Man, it never ends does it! The problem is the 5D3 is the codec that suffers more in post than the C100s. I don't want to try and match two C100's to the 5D3.

Nobro, Yea for sure most people can't tell the difference and don't care. They only care about content. My wife for example sees beautiful bokeh back ground and thinks something is wrong with the camera.

 

[control4userguy]

^What was implied is that it is a near-waste of money (even $400 for a clunky blade) to add-on a box that yields little qualitative difference to the C100 output. It works when wired together. Is this still misleading? Working professionally will certainly put capital purchasing at the top of the priority sheet..

 

[Michael Thames]

^What was implied is that it is a near-waste of money (even $400 for a clunky blade) to add-on a box that yields little qualitative difference to the C100 output. It works when wired together. Is this still misleading? Working professionally will certainly put capital purchasing at the top of the priority sheet..

I guess it depends. People spend $1000's more on a C300 MKI over a C100 for an advantage that can hardly be seen by most. In other words people will pay $100,000 for a car that goes 200 mph, and pay $200,000 for a car that goes 205 mph, if you are in the racing business.

 

[control4userguy]

This also has been discussed over & over but not wise to rehashed here. Let me ask you a question that should be in your field of expertise- what is your workflow for audio? Do you rely on the C100? C100 plus external recorder?

 

[drummondb]

I guess it depends. People spend $1000's more on a C300 MKI over a C100 for an advantage that can hardly be seen by most. In other words people will pay $100,000 for a car that goes 200 mph, and pay $200,000 for a car that goes 205 mph, if you are in the racing business.

Yes, diminishing returns. I used to work at a high-end audio retailer that catred to audiophiles. These folks would pay thousands and thousands of dollars for subtle improvements that A, most people couldn't hear, and B, probably didn't exist.

About the Ninja Blade--not for nothing, but editing the DNxHD files are much more of a joy to deal with than the AVCHD files on any PC I've ever used to edit. The Prores files still seem to chug a bit. I imagine that's related to the Apple ceasing development of quicktime for Windows and Adobe's subsequent action to make prores natively decoded on PCs.

 

[Michael Thames]

I realize that, and apologize to the professionals.

My main thing is guitar videos, some here may or may not know my day job is a guitar maker. I got into video 10 years ago to simply promote my work...... no one was doing that at the time, but now everyone is doing it.

As far as my workflow goes, I've never plugged an XLR into a camera. I have a Rode video mic that I use on occasion for scratch audio, but, only on the C100 MKI cause the 5D3 and the C100 mkii have scratch audio built in.

So yea, I record externally on a Metric Halo ULN-2 into my MacBook, and use Reaper DAW. The Metric Halo used to run off a USB port until Apple came out with Thunderbolt then it no longer was able to charge through the USB port. The Metric Halo is branded a portable recorder, but isn't practical for use in the field as in needs AC power and hooked up to a computer. The mics are two Schoeps MK4's, for music. If I'm doing an instructional guitar making video I use a cheap lavalier mic. Cause I hate videos with bad sound and a bunch of room noise.

So yea, for dialogue it doesn't matter if you plug XLR's into the C100, but music is another issue. I haven't looked it up lately but my old XH-A1 was 8 bit audio, don't even know what the C100 is cause I don't care.

As the ancient dictum says........ video is two/thirds audio.

 

[Michael Thames]

Yes, diminishing returns. I used to work at a high-end audio retailer that catred to audiophiles. These folks would pay thousands and thousands of dollars for subtle improvements that A, most people couldn't hear, and B, probably didn't exist.

I make guitars for a living. I've been doing it since I was 15 years old. I consider myself quite successful in the realm of classical guitar makers, as many world class players play my instruments. That said, it's pretty much the same as you describe in the audio business.

Many of my competitors and novice makers I seen over and over plant subtle messaging into their sales talk, often saying they live on a vineyard in France and compare the sound of their guitars to succulent grapes ripening on the vine, with a dry sound or robust Cabernet. One guitar dealer in England says he can tell which country a particular guitar was made in by its sound. All total bullshit of course, but the unsuspecting guitarist eats this stuff up.

I call this psycho-acoustics, because of how easy it is to manipulate people into believing they are hearing something that isn't there..... as you said. I think it's far easier to use the power of suggestion in audio, because it is so ethereal and exists only in time and space for a brief millisecond. It's different with video it's an actual thing we can see. How often do people say "if I see it , I'll believe it"…………… they never say if I hear it I'll believe it.

Still there exists a certain "psycho-visual" manipulation of us novices and perhaps a few professionals as well.

 

[cpreston]

I make guitars for a living. I've been doing it since I was 15 years old. I consider myself quite successful in the realm of classical guitar makers, as many world class players play my instruments. That said, it's pretty much the same as you describe in the audio business.

Many of my competitors and novice makers I seen over and over plant subtle messaging into their sales talk, often saying they live on a vineyard in France and compare the sound of their guitars to succulent grapes ripening on the vine, with a dry sound or robust Cabernet. One guitar dealer in England says he can tell which country a particular guitar was made in by its sound. All total bullshit of course, but the unsuspecting guitarist eats this stuff up.

I call this psycho-acoustics, because of how easy it is to manipulate people into believing they are hearing something that isn't there..... as you said. I think it's far easier to use the power of suggestion in audio, because it is so ethereal and exists only in time and space for a brief millisecond. It's different with video it's an actual thing we can see. How often do people say "if I see it , I'll believe it"…………… they never say if I hear it I'll believe it.

Still there exists a certain "psycho-visual" manipulation of us novices and perhaps a few professionals as well.

I'm not sure what issue people are discussing on this thread anymore, but IQ is often not the most important consideration for people choosing between what camera to use for professional work. The C300 and C100 may have a very similar image before grading, but they are still different cameras with different features with external LTC being one of the most obvious. Also, specs are not a great way to judge a camera. Your 5D3 shoots at a about a 40% higher bitrate than your C100, but the image is noticeably inferior and will fall apart even quicker when grading. Finally, what may seem unimportant to one person is easily noticeable to somebody else. I know people who swear by their Sennheiser K6 microphones, but the make me want to rip the headphones off of my head. I'm guessing you would have the same experience seeing as you felt fit to purchase the vastly more expensive Schoeps system. You can hear the difference.

 

[Bern Caughey]

You get an FS7 when you can't afford a C300...... to be fair, probably most of your clients wouldn't know the difference anyway. First thing I think of when I hear this argument is the poor guy couldn't afford a C300.

I bought a FS7 with the intention of replacing it with a C300 II as soon as they were available, but was underwhelmed when Canon released the specs, & stayed with FS7 instead. Know a number of shooters who did the same.

 

[Michael Thames]

I'm not sure what issue people are discussing on this thread anymore, but IQ is often not the most important consideration for people choosing between what camera to use for professional work. The C300 and C100 may have a very similar image before grading, but they are still different cameras with different features with external LTC being one of the most obvious. Also, specs are not a great way to judge a camera. Your 5D3 shoots at a about a 40% higher bitrate than your C100, but the image is noticeably inferior and will fall apart even quicker when grading. Finally, what may seem unimportant to one person is easily noticeable to somebody else. I know people who swear by their Sennheiser K6 microphones, but the make me want to rip the headphones off of my head. I'm guessing you would have the same experience seeing as you felt fit to purchase the vastly more expensive Schoeps system. You can hear the difference.

Interesting I looked up the bit rate in the on Canon for specs on the 5D3 cause I had no idea what the bit rate was, and it said "variable bit-rate" whatever that means. I just naturally assumed it was less than the c100. One thing I do have experience with is watching the 5D3 fall apart when grading..... mostly because I screwed up the settings to begin with.

I was researching mics for years and the Schoeps were always what I came back to. In a blind test who knows! One of the main reasons, ur I shouldn't say the main reason, but the resale on Schoeps, DPA, and Neumann's are high, Scheops perhaps the best. That's a major consideration in stuff I buy.

I remember years ago a bunch of profesional recording engineers were asked to rate 10 different preamps ranging from Cheap to very expensive in a blind test. As you can guess they pick the cheap ones as the best and the expensive ones the worse in many cases. For me I would just buy a name brand..... ha!

 

[B.Berry]

I would like to see the camera makers offer firmware and hardware upgrades to their existing cameras for a nominal fee rather than bringing out a whole new camera!
They did this with film cameras, and you could upgrade your Sony F23 to an F35, Red offer the sensor upgrade path. How about the Borg Assimilation Camera.

 

[Michael Thames]

I bought a FS7 with the intention of replacing it with a C300 II as soon as they were available, but was underwhelmed when Canon released the specs, & stayed with FS7 instead. Know a number of shooters who did the same.

If there is anything I've learned from this forum is not to judge a camera on specs alone. When the FS7 first came out all those with suppressed contempt for Canon jumped on the FS7, same was true with the GH4. The main reason was for the price, then all the specs you get for the price. One thing I never heard was they got the FS7 for the IQ. I never hear that the IQ is better than the C300 mkii.

I've never even looked at the FS7, so in the last couple of days I've been watching reviews etc. to get familiar with it since it was never on my radar screen. Very nice camera! I watched Philip Bloom's review since they are always entertaining. The Famous Sony color science that everyone talks about was very easy to see in Bloom's review. It's like picking up a bottle of Coca-cola, and finding out you just drank a Pepsi instead..... it leaves a funny taste in your mouth, but after drinking Pepsi for awhile Coke starts to taste weird.

Even with Bloom's grading expertise I took me a while to let's say, appreciate the image quality. I hesitate to say The colors were bad, because I didn't think they were bad, but it took me awhile to warm up to them.

In the end though, personally I like the Canon colors and warmer image, and would pay more money for that image.

The reason I say the FS7 is the poor mans C300 is because the main reason it seems people got one was because of the price. I don't blame them. I wouldn't pay $16000 for that camera, but I would pay $10,000 for it. Also, let's face it a C300mkii is much sexier than an FS7, and in the video world image is everything.

 

[NorBro]

PB has a certain grading style that you see in all of his videos...the camera can look completely different with someone else handling footage.