• Adobe Premiere Pro

  c300mkII XAVCHD vs. Atomos Shogun ProRes 422

  Posted by Matt Campbell on October 3, 2017 at 1:54 pm

  c300mkII 160mbps XAVCHD vs. ProRes 422 147mbps off Atomos Shogun.

  Is it even worth it to use an external recorder like the Atomos Shogun to record ProRes 422 or 422HQ from a camera like this? My findings tell me the native codec is also Intraframe and a higher bit rate at 160mbps vs. PR 422 at 147mbps. (HQ is much higher at 220, but for the sake of the argument, we’ll stay with PR 422 147mbps)

  So, is there a benefit to using ProRes with an external recorder or just keep use the native codec?

  Notes.
  I have not had any playback or performance issues with either on our iMacs. 32 Gbs RAM. Facilis Terrablock RAID 5.
  Also, I’m excluding 4K here.

  iMac 3.5 Ghz Intel Core i7
  16 GB of RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4096 MB
  External RAID 5 in T-Bolt Chasis using eSata
  BMD Decklink Studio 2, FSI BM210, KRK Rokit 5s, Mackie 802

  Shane Ross replied 8 years, 11 months ago 2 Members · 3 Replies
• 3 Replies

• 

  Shane Ross

  October 3, 2017 at 2:25 pm

  [Matt Campbell] “c300mkII 160mbps XAVCHD vs. ProRes 422 147mbps off Atomos Shogun.”

  XAVCHD is 8-bit, long-GOP. ProRes is 10-bit intraframe. ProRes is superior…but also has a larger file size. But it is superior.

  [Matt Campbell] “Is it even worth it to use an external recorder like the Atomos Shogun to record ProRes 422 or 422HQ from a camera like this?”

  Yes. This would make the files easier to deal with on edit systems…would cut out any transcoding that those systems would do if they couldn’t handle the XAVCHD format (long form this tends to be an issue).

  [Matt Campbell] ”
  So, is there a benefit to using ProRes with an external recorder or just keep use the native codec?”

  Less compression, superior color space.

  Shane
  Little Frog Post
  Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def
• 

  Matt Campbell

  October 3, 2017 at 2:44 pm

  Appreciate the response Shane and always good hear from you. Been a few years.
  Anywho, Canon’s site says, under Video Format XF-AVC (oops, not XAVC as I previously mentioned) is 10-bit YUV at various bit rates, or 12-bit in RGB444, Intraframe codec, all recording to C-Fast cards.

  https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/support/details/cameras/cinema-eos/eos-c300-mark-ii

  Intraframe recording
  Resolution : 4096×2160 / 3840×2160 / 2048×1080 / 1920×1080
  Color Sampling: YCC422 10bit/(*)RG8444 (12bit/10bit)
  (*) Only with 2048×1080 or 1920×1080; 29.97P, 23.98P, 25.00P and 24.00P

  So based on this, is it still worth it to go to ProRes? I would think not. But wasn’t sure if the camera was recording this with some sort of compression. Like RED can, 3:1 or 10:1 compression schemes for various frame sizes.

  iMac 3.5 Ghz Intel Core i7
  16 GB of RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4096 MB
  External RAID 5 in T-Bolt Chasis using eSata
  BMD Decklink Studio 2, FSI BM210, KRK Rokit 5s, Mackie 802
• 

  Shane Ross

  October 3, 2017 at 6:36 pm

  Ah, the new Canon codec, pardon me.

  Well, can your machine handle the camera native GOP files? That’s what you need to consider. ProRes is easier to deal with that GOP formats…less (well, no) decoding on the fly to do. If you have a beefy system that can do that, sure, stick with the camera native. But if you need to convert to ProRes, I’m pretty sure you’ll see next to zero (meaning, not visible) quality loss.

  Shane
  Little Frog Post
  Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

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