C100: Viewing AVCHD in QT Player vs Importing and Viewing Pro Res in FCPX

nedcam

nedcam

Well-known member
I shot two days with the C100 this week. The client from LA is a Producer/Editor, a very, very high end editor. At lunch he wanted to review, just spot check, the morning's footage, on his new, tricked out, MacBook Pro using QT Player to watch footage in it's original AVCHD. He felt he saw mid-range digital noise. However, when I later imported it into my FCPX using my 27" iMac I couldn't see it. I will follow up with him to see if he sees it in X when he returns home.

So I wanted to ask the super post geeks on this forum: Is watching AVCHD in QT Player the same quality as viewing in FCP after it is imported and converted to Pro Res? I would think not.

Appreciate your opinion.
 
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nedcam said:
So I wanted to ask the super post geeks on this forum: Is watching AVCHD in QT Player the same quality as viewing in FCP after it is imported and converted to Pro Res?

Appreciate your opinion.
Click to expand...

Absolutly not !
AVCHD is highly compressed and the Mac decodes continuously and this lack of fluidity.
Sorry for my english, I can not give details
 
Solent said:
Absolutly not !
Click to expand...

I wouldn't be so certain.

Yes, your playback experience will be subject to the processor power of the computer - but I'd be confident that's not an issue with a recent Macbook Pro - I use a Macbook Pro 15 Retina for my entire post workflow.

My guess is that a technically definitive answer to your question is filed along with rocking horse $hit and hen's teeth.

Mid-range noise? Sure, but this is AVCHD...

I wouldn't speculate any more, beyond suggesting that your ProRes transcode will have it's own subsequent "character." Ultimately, if the editor is using ProRes transcodes, then any subjective judgement on noise, colour, artefacts etc should be made with those assets, on a calibrated monitor in the correct colour space and in an environment that you/they trust.

If your editor knows their stuff, they will understand the consequence of native post workflows vs concatenation/transcoding - your humble AVCHD files are just at the beginning of a potentially long and tortuous journey towards becoming the final asset.

And then it wall all look like crap on the end user's badly set up monitor anyway... twas ever thus.

Ben.
 
One little 'issue' that remains (restrains himself from ranting) a bit of a pain is that C100 AVCHD may appear at LOWER quality in FCPX than it does elsewhere, because the C100's 'I am PsF' flags get mangled, needing you to force interpretation as progressive.

FWIW, the original QuickTime player had a 'high quality' setting that switched off the player's auto deinterlace feature. I'm not sure if this is still used? The current QT7 player has a 'Use High Quality Video Setting When Available' option in its preferences. The only other glimmer of light I can offer is that I've been told that the Retina Macbook Pros need a bit of software to enable 1:1 pixel playback, and that as such, Retina MBPs are 'inventing' pixels when displaying full screen or even '100%' unlike my sinescing 17" MBP which has a fixed and true 1920 pixel width, so there is no difference watching a 100% QT7 movie and the same file in FCPX at full screen. I fear my Black Magic UltraStudio mini thunderbolt thing would be Sine Qua Non for monitoring when I inevitably upgrade.

As for mid-range noise (though I put it around 25-35 IRE), I've seen this if I haven't done an ABB when I should do, and when gain's dialled in above +3dB (I don't do ISO yet). When I first spotted it, I was horrified - more to the point, the ProRes 422 recording at standard quality was getting swamped by it, the AVCHD's noise reduction was doing a reasonable job and only the ProRes HQ mode 'captured' the mid-range noise. When I've presented the evidence, some people just don't see it. Some don't see it period, some don't see it until I point it out to them and suddenly it's the gorilla in the basketball court. But now I keep some lovely EX1 footage handy so I can see what a really noisy camera can look like.

+1 to Ben's point too - we can fret and rent our clothes all we wish, end client's not going to see it, and the web's going to destroy a lot of it. I was exhibiting my wares at a trade show yesterday, to an audience not used to seeing HD at mastering quality, and they were gobsmacked. Okay, fair enough, but I will do a quick handbrake turn on this argument, and point out that mid-range noise, 'grain' et al are things we should obsess over as these can be the root problems of poor compression later on. I got into a tizzy about having to remove noise, then put 'grain' back in, in toder to get a challenging bit of video to work on the web.

So, erm, yeah. Like wot everyone said...
 
I didn't notice the noise because it was in a talking head interview where I would be watching the face but he being an editor could see such. He has Neat Video for FCP7 but now edits in X so perhaps he will buy it for that. I'm acquainted with AVCHD's downside from having an AF100 for two years.

So my summary of the answers thus far is that what one sees in QT Player in AVCHD should not cause concern until the footage is imported and viewed "properly" in FCP. I will try VLC but I'd say 99% of my clients viewing at lunch or in their hotel at night or on the plane back will be in QT Player using AVCHD. When I have some time I will post an example although I need to anonymize the subject's face. I wouldn't have noticed it unless it was pointed out. BTW I was in Wide DR, NR on 2. I ABB at the beginning of the day. I do NOT ABB every time I change ISO, power up the camera or do a new WB. If I had to ABB every time I did those three things I would sell this camera in a New York Minute!

Thanks
 
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