FCPX or Premiere for GH4 4K

[Gary Huff]

[Nayeli Garci-Crespo] “Thanks! What about 1080… any difference between the all-intra H264 and the lower bit rate options?”

The highest quality will be the IPB 1080 modes (the 100Mbps ones). IPB is a more efficient encode of H.264 over Intra, and yet, surprisingly, the bitrate is roughly the same at 24/25/30p between the two. Only 60p starts to hit that upper limit.

So Intra will be easier on your system, but IPB will be better visual quality.

Whether or not you can actually notice any difference between the two really requires some testing on your end. It’s not quite a slam dunk, admittedly.

[Gary Huff]

[Craig Seeman] “This is one of the reasons I’d choose the BMP4K because its cDNG or ProRes flavors at 4K and not 8 bit H.264 GOP.”

Except you don’t always need the power of ProRes or cDNG, and in those instances 100Mbps is a helluva lot nicer to move around than 800Mbps.

The GH4 with a Shogun may (if rumors hold true) give you cDNG recording, in addition to ProRes, in addition to 4K AVCHD (which is essentially what it is) so that you can adjust the amount of record space with the requirements of the job at hand.

You also get removable internal batteries, longer battery life, a higher quality and articulating LCD screen, better low-light performance, slow-motion at 1080, ability to format media in camera/in the Shogun, picture profiles (limited though they may be), less FPN, and media that is not blazing hot when you remove it from the camera/recorder.

On the flip side, the Blackmagic 4K is available now, doesn’t require the use of an external recorder for ProRes/cDNG (though its built-in display leaves a lot to be desired, so I’ve always paired the Blackmagics with an external monitor), and has a Super 35-sized sensor EF-mount with global shutter (the GH4 does suffer from rolling shutter artifacting if you enjoy doing whip pans).

[Craig Seeman]

[Gary Huff] “Except you don’t always need the power of ProRes or cDNG, and in those instances 100Mbps is a helluva lot nicer to move around than 800Mbps.”

I’d note that BMD cameras have ProRes Proxy through ProRes HQ. ProRes LT at 1080p23.98 is about 82Mbps at 10bit 422.

[Noah Kadner]

I find it’s a remarkably clean signal as long as you light properly. If you have a slow lens indoors and pump up the ISO it quickly becomes grainy as heck. But that’s nothing to do specifically with 4K or this camera or FCPX. They work together quite well assuming well shot footage.

Noah

FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
Call Box Training

[Gary Huff]

[Craig Seeman] “I’d note that BMD cameras have ProRes Proxy through ProRes HQ. ProRes LT at 1080p23.98 is about 82Mbps at 10bit 422.”

That’s true, but not at 4K.

[Craig Seeman]

[Gary Huff] “That’s true, but not at 4K.”

ProRes LT at 4k 24fps is 350Mbps I believe

Of course one might wonder to what extent one is going to work at 4K H.264 GOP and if you’re going to transcode to ProRes (even though FCPX does that while editing) that’s a step one doesn’t have to do from BMD.

[Nayeli Garci-crespo]

Thanks for the responses. We’re still on FCP 7 and are trying to determine how worth it it is to be able to edit the GH4 files natively to avoid having to transcode everything to ProRes.

The all-intra 1080 files are 200 Mbps, vs. 100 Mbps for the 4K and the IPB 1080, so we were hoping to do multicamera shoots with a mix of the IPB 1080 and one camera at 4K, edited in a 1080 timeline to give ability to zoom in. Trying to strike the right balance of efficiency, disk space, and quality.

I guess I’ll have to do some tests to see what kinds of issues crop up from using those settings instead of all-intra. In FCP 7 obviously non-all intra H264 plays back horribly (though I’ve still done quick and dirty edits that way on occasion to avoid transcoding), but the real downside was I’d get rendering errors with certain filters.

Sounds like FCP X can handle the long GOP files well enough to edit comfortably, even if obviously the all-intra is smoother? Is this something that is affected by processor speed, RAM, video card? A combination?

Thanks again!

-Nayeli

[Craig Seeman]

If you use H.264 GOP, FCPX can transcode to ProRes in the background while you edit. Both PremierePro and FCPX handle it miles better than FCP7 though. My bias is that FCPX has the edge in multcam and background transcode but certainly some would argue PPro has an easier learning curve coming from FCP7.
Both handle H.264 GOP (and you know FCP7 really can’t) and, with GOP multicam, the systems’s “muscle” is going to be important. Interesting feature in FCPX is that you can transcode for multicam specifically whereas clips that are just being cut into a timeline and remain GOP.

[Gary Huff]

[Craig Seeman] “that’s a step one doesn’t have to do from BMD.”

You don’t have to do that from the 100Mbps footage either, at least not in my experience with it.

And even if you do, at the end of the day you’re only backing up 100Mbps clips and not 350Mbps and higher.

[Gary Huff]

[Nayeli Garci-Crespo] “and are trying to determine how worth it it is to be able to edit the GH4 files natively to avoid having to transcode everything to ProRes.”

You won’t be able to. FCP7 cannot muster the power to do it, no matter what you shoot at. If it’s not DVCPRO HD, XDCam, DV, or ProRes, you simply cannot work with the footage on the timeline without doing a lot of rendering of that timeline.