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My definitive, last (hopefully) thread on downsampling GH4 footage from 4k, 8 bit, 4:2:0 color to 1080p, 10 bit, 4:4:4
I’m still trying to work this out on a few fronts. According to this article (https://www.eoshd.com/content/12140/discovery-4k-8bit-420-panasonic-gh4-converts-1080p-10bit-444), Cineform (the article links to Cineform’s GoPro Studio Professional, which is $1000) can convert GH4’s internally shot, 4k, 8 bit, 4:2:0 footage down to 1080p, 10 bit, 4:4:4.
I emailed Cineform asking about this and if I’d be able to use the footage in Vegas Pro 11, since that stopped working with Cineform.
Edit: The employee claimed that Cineform can successfully downsample the footage to 10 bit, 4:2:2, but that you’d have to convert the footage first to Cineform from After Effects. Is there another way of doing this? I don’t want to get After Effects.
Here’s 4k footage from the GH4 that another CC poster, Colin, linked to, if anyone can try this for themselves:
I also just installed Davinci Resolve Lite (which has a great deal of features that the $1000 version has. The main thing it seems to lack is 3D effects and a few plugins, which I don’t think I’d ever use, anyways) which I plan on learning to get ready to grade some of this footage when the camera ships.
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15 Replies
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Ok, got my answer, and it appears you can get the 10 bit, 4:4:4 footage using Vegas 12 and Cineform. You have to first render the GH4 footage out from Vegas for Cineform with these settings. The Cineform employee also said to set the project to 32 bit floating point (full range) before importing the video, which I guess means for both the initial import to render it for Cineform and when importing the Cineform transcoded video?
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Cineform Studio Premium is only $299 and it says it supports any resolution. You should not need cineform professional.
If you want to edit in 10 or 12 bit in Vegas you must use 32-bit floating point mode. Be prepared for slower performance in 32-bit mode.
That said, you can switch the project format between 8 and 32-bit at will. Do most of your editing in 8-bit and color grade and renders in 32-bit mode.
To render Cineform in Vegas at 4:4:4 I believe you will need the cineform premium license. The free GoPro studio software does not seem to render 4:4:4. Not for me at least. Black screen that says, license error.
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Well, I don’t know who’s right, but that original article links to GoPro Studio Premium. What are you saying is the workflow to downsample the footage? Render the footage to Cineform from Vegas Pro 12, then from Cineform Studio Premium render it back to get 10 bit, 444 footage?
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Here are the specs for Cineform Studio Premium
https://cineform.com/products/gopro-studio-premium#featuresHere is the product comparison grid for all versions
https://cineform.com/product-gridYou will see that premium has the features you want. Specifically the 12-bit 4:4:4 output mode.
I do not see anything in the article that specifically says you need professional.
You don’t need to believe me or anyone out there. Cineform has a free trial.
You can downsample from 4k to your desired 1080 4:4:4 in GoPro studio or in Vegas. Your choice. I would probably just do that in Gopro studio, but maybe you need an RGB mode in between to get *exactly* what you are looking for and Gopro studio does not do that. Vegas does operate in RGB mode, as opposed to YUV.
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Weird. Here’s what the Cineform employee responded with when I asked him which version of Cineform I need.
“those are the same thing. we removed the word CineForm from the products. It is now called GoPro Studio Premium.”
Edit: Oh, I see. The Premium version is adequate. Thanks. This sounds great.
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The thing I would get clear from GoPro is that if must you have the RGB conversion mode in between to get *exactly* what you want to try to do. The article talks about this a bit in the text conversation. Stating that was the “trick”. “The trick is an RGB domain scale”. Maybe the GoPro studio stays in YUV internally.
Vegas does everything in RGB so you can always use Vegas. That might be the AE reference you got before, since AE operates in RGB.
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Do I need Vegas 12 to do this? As it is, I can’t even import the footage I linked to from DropBox in Vegas Pro 11.
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I can open that file and other 4k files. I have VP12. I think VP12 was the first Vegas to support 4K. Simple test. Just go to your project settings and see if you can set a project to 4K dimensions.
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I can set the project to 4k (Vegas has some presets for it), but it still can’t import the footage.
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[Angelo Mike] “I can set the project to 4k (Vegas has some presets for it), but it still can’t import the footage.”
I have no problem importing that footage into Vegas Pro 12.0. I just dropped it onto the timeline and it plays back fine.
[Angelo Mike] “Do I need Vegas 12 to do this? As it is, I can’t even import the footage I linked to from DropBox in Vegas Pro 11.”
It looks like you may have just found a reason to upgrade! 😉
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com
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