C100: Would an external recorder help?

Tim Nitsch

Tim Nitsch

Well-known member
I shoot a lot of sports with my C100, and there are situations where I notice micro blocking in highly detailed areas like grass during pans and such. As soon as the pan stops or slows down enough all the micro blocking disappears and all the detail comes back. The micro blocking isn't ruining the footage by any means, most people never notice it but I do.

My initial though was that I was pushing the internal codec too hard resulting in the micro blocking.

Would shooting in ProRes with a higher bit rate help to preserve those details? Or is that a limit of something else.

I usually shoot in 60i so I can slow down footage later. Not sure if that is contributing to the issue or not.

Ive been looking at a Ninja blade but I don't want to drop $1000 on one and it not fix my issue.
 
Definitely. Contrary to what others say, I feel like I can actually see a difference between ungraded AVCHD and ProRes from a Ninja. Only done a couple of shoots with it so far, though, but I've never been quite happy with the internal recording, and like this ProRes a lot better. Could be placebo.

The difference is a lot more pronounced in my low light material. Since you shoot a lot of movement, I think it would be quite palpable there as well.

Keep in mind that, for web distribution, it will make next to no difference in the end.
 
Yes: Footage I have shot of swimmers shows a "noticeable" difference of the splashing water between the ProRes HQ and internal versions, however it's only me that notices and by the time it gets recompressed and uploaded it's back to normal again.
 
My initial tests with my Ninja did not show huge highly noticeable quality improvements. When comparing the two footages blown up on a large Sony 47" monitor I was not thinking it would often be worth the effort, if the only reason was to shoot on Prores. It would likely be different if you were shooting green screen for example.

To be clear, there are a number of other reasons to shoot with the Ninja, and I think it's worth the money. For example, shooting entirely to a 512GB SSD is wonderful. Shooting with a larger monitor is wonderful. Passthrough for broadcasting using HDMI to a BM ATEM switcher after recording to the SSD is wonderful. Etc.

But I've not felt that the codec differences, in my work, have made the same difference as say, just shooting on my XF305 for a 4:2:2 look.

Why 60i by the way?
 
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Like others have said: motion destroys all inter frame compression codecs. White water. Foliage. Pans. Major movement in frame.

The advanced web codecs of today compress information between frames. Too much motion with fine detail and they won't be able to keep up.

ProRes compresses intra frame—only information within each frame gets compressed, but each frame is unique and can stand on its own. File size gets bigger.

Interestingly, this is much like the MJPEG codec used in the 1Dc. The MJPEG codec takes flak now and then because it isn't as efficient at compressing size as more modern algorithms, but people tend to forget the upsides. MJPEG is only a problem when file sizes needs to be kept small. With sufficient bitrate it's fine at the expense of larger files.
 
Helps massively in 2 areas, motion and saving an under exposed shot. I would recommend the ninja blade to anyone who owns a c100, the waveform monitor, color accuracy and 10 bit codecs are EXTREMELY useful and should not be underestimated.

Recently shot this completely with a c100 - ninja blade - dnxhd 220x 10 bit
 
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Andrius Simutis said:
The Ferari only has two seats.
Click to expand...

But it's important to understand that even with a Ninja, the actual file will only be of 8 bit quality in terms of tonality. The way LeoGrey writes, it comes off as if he got a real 10-bit file.

When we talk about 10-bit data, we refer to 1024 unique levels per channel, as opposed to 256 of an 8-bit file.

The Ninja redistributes the 256 values over the 1024 levels in the new container, but no quality is added. On the upside, no quality is lost either.

8 bit is fine, but true 10 bit files would be a sweet add-on to Canon cameras.
 
AndreeOnline said:
But it's important to understand that even with a Ninja, the actual file will only be of 8 bit quality in terms of tonality. The way LeoGrey writes, it comes off as if he got a real 10-bit file.

When we talk about 10-bit data, we refer to 1024 unique levels per channel, as opposed to 256 of an 8-bit file.

The Ninja redistributes the 256 values over the 1024 levels in the new container, but no quality is added. On the upside, no quality is lost either.

8 bit is fine, but true 10 bit files would be a sweet add-on to Canon cameras.
Click to expand...

Not entirely true. After analyzing another users tests and conducting a series of my own, I came to the conclusion that there is a considerable quality increase in recording 10 bit dnxhd vs 8 bit/10 bit pro res(ESPECIALLY when grading) with the c100. More so than 256 values being redistributed to 1024, almost as if the c100 is outputting 9 bits?

I wrote about this in a previous thread sometime ago
 
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