Getting the best transcode from GoPro to ProRes LT for use in FCPX?

[Michael Garber]

Just curious. How much gopro footage is there?

Michael Garber
5th Wall – a post production company
Blog: GARBERSHOP
My Moviola Webinar on Cutting News in FCP X

[Andy Neil]

It was kinda hard to tell by flipping through the images, but the Compressor with no auto gamma seemed pretty close to the original. You can also add a gamma adjust in the inspector so if the gamma shift is consistent throughout your footage, you can just create a preset with the gamma shift accounted for and get your pro res lt.

Andy

https://www.timesavertutorials.com

[Michael Angelo]

Hey Andy,

If you want to really analyze the difference simply download photos and review, I use difference mattes in Smoke for Mac… Really looking for a solution that respects the integrity of the original image rather than tweaking something that doesn’t. Do appreciate the idea tho and I thought about playing with compressor values but prefer again to use something that gets it out the gate 😉

Hope u r well

MA

“A life without cause is a life without effect.” -Dildano

[Oliver Peters]

My SOP is to use MPEG Streamclip. Quality is fine, you can batch and run 4 simultaneous processes. Then conform to 23.98 (if needed) with Cinema Tools and add Reel/TC with QtChange.

GoPro MP4 footage looks terrible to start with, so there’s little you can to to it to make it worse. I have had some nice results with their timelapse, especially with the new versions where you start with 4kx3k JPEGs. Also some of the new cameras do 2700 pixel wide MP4s, so the compression artifacts are reduced in size once the image is scaled to 1080.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Michael Angelo]

Hey Oliver.

When you project the shots in a full size movie theatre, you can really see the difference, so going to take the highest signal path and do everything possible to respect original integrity of the original image.

Thanks for the shout Oliver… Have read many of your thread responses, learned lots of great things from them.

Cheers

MA

“A life without cause is a life without effect.” -Dildano

[Oliver Peters]

[Michael Angelo] “When you project the shots in a full size movie theatre, you can really see the difference, so going to take the highest signal path and do everything possible to respect original integrity of the original image.”

Well sure, but you are starting with a poor image as the original. If the objective is full screen projection, then I wouldn’t go to LT. I’d go to ProResHQ, since you have more latitude for grading and further rendering.

I doubt you’ll see any difference between conversion using MPEG Streamclip or Compressor since they both tap into the same QuickTime engine under-the-hood. The 5DtoRGB folks might give the best results, since they do more with antialiasing. I’m not sure if that makes a difference with the GoPros, since they may or may not employ the type of line skipping that Canon does.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Will Granzier]

Hi

I have been using 2 options and they work like a dream..

First up I use MpegStreamclip…. does it in a breeze
If you want to go a bit more upscale with more options on the export Episode does a good
Job as well, nut u have to buy the package … Streamclip is free

William

[Michael Angelo]

Hey Oliver

Did you compare these transcode test images

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qr6qkswuy4ix6ks/Jcu-fwanpO

“A life without cause is a life without effect.” -Dildano

[Oliver Peters]

[Michael Angelo] “Did you compare these transcode test images”

I see color and gamma differences, but these don’t bother me, since I assume a final grade in the end. A lot of that depends on which application you used to decode the playback. Again QT is generally the culprit.

Otherwise – in terms of noise and artifacts – they all look about the same. Assuming you neutralize for consistent contrast. Hard to tell with web JPEGs.

Of course, the less light the camera has, the worse the images will be.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Michael Angelo]

Thanks for feedback William and Oliver.

William I am not familiar with Episode, will explore that one…

Oliver I agree, LT is prolly not good enough for projection. I totally get the “quicktime under the hood”, it’s what you would expect and hope but difference matting and close inspection seems to reveal a variety of variations, ah computers. I reposted uncompressed TIFs from the original frame grabs given your comment about evaluating JPEGs in case it’s a useful for discussion. They are larger files but a relatively fast download, make sure to download by right clicking to get full rez TIF and not JPEGs:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qr6qkswuy4ix6ks/Jcu-fwanpO

Oliver I do agree color correction can deal with much of the variance from the original when it comes to phase but I’d expect some loss in the details of the blacks given the change in gamma as it seems to crush the blacks a bit in a lot of the transcodes.

What was really interesting was testing Cineform and 5DtoRGB this weekend, here are some results so far:

1) Using Cineform Studio Premium app to convert GoPro MP4, 5D mark iii plus Canon 7D to quicktimes with the cineform codec look almost exactly like the originals. I was unable to use Cinefrom to create ProRes. Cineform website says that with “Apple Pro Tools” installed it can export ProRes, spent hours trying figure that one out hit a wall, going to contact them directly.

3) Meanwhile onto 5DtoRGB. In my opinion the transcodes using 5DtoRGB over all look superior. FCPX is a close second as both apps seem to have drawbacks in how they reproduce color but surprisingly looks like there is some type of chroma edge artifact that FCPX and FCP7 E01 plugin introduces. I’ve uploaded a difference matte between FCPX and 5dtoRGB transcode along with the other reference images pinpointing the issue:

GOPR0073fcpx422_vs_5D2RGB422_diffmatte.tif

4) Upon deeper inspection I found this chroma edge artifact in all of my FCPX and Canon E01 FCP7 transcodes for my 5D and 7D footage, ay carumba! It’s interesting to note that 5DtoRGB website seems to boast a superior transcode in the RED channel (seems to be true) but the GREEN and BLUE channels in the FCPX and Canon E01 FCP7 transcodes look a little better. In the end I still like the 5DtoRGB one better especially with the chroma edging artifact. introduced by FCPX and FCP7 E01 plugin.

Good times to be sure. Gonna trudge ahead using 5DtoRGB for GoPro transcodes and editing with proxies for now, I can always replace the ProRes later after continuing research. I’m also considering re-transcoding all my 5D and 7D ProRes with 5DtoRGB to ProRes at a later date.

Appreciate everyone taking a peak and taking the time to offer feedback.

Cheers

MA

“A life without cause is a life without effect.” -Dildano