Fred Jean
Forum Replies Created
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Carlos,
These are a lot of questions and we could fill a book.I think, on the GH2, that you’re not in the right forum because you’ll have much more answers reposting your questions into the DSLR video forum of this site where there are many gh2 users.
I answer quickly to a few of them here before leaving the thread.
– The GH2 does not do Raw video. It is a still camera with video capabilities, like the Canon or any other dslr. The camera shoots stills in Raw but not in video.
– In AVCHD, the minutes recorded straight can be hours on a 32GB card, depending on your bitrate.
The camera as a counter so you see what’s left available.
In motion jpeg just a few minutes straight.– You can not change the bitrate within the menu. You establish the maximum birate once for awhile according to the hack flavour you install.
– The Epic is not a “garbage camera” but a profesional camera that shoots raw in 5K and got an impressive dynamique range: https://www.red.com/products/epic
– If you want a shallow D.O.F, the GH2 is capable of that and easier on set than the Canon 5D2 as its sensor is smaller. (the Canon is less forgiving)
– You can read this from Avid to see the different DNxHD flavours and how you can make your choices according to your needs and the sapce available on your drives: https://www.avid.com/static/resources/US/documents/dnxhd.pdf
I recommend that if you want to have a lot of informations on the GH2 from different users, your best bet is to create a thread in the DSLR forum.
Hope I could have been a Little helpful.
Best luck.
Fred.
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– How many minutes will depend on your bitrate.
– Any compressed codec degrades, to more or less proportions.
If you want the datas intacts the solution is called RAW.If you aren’t yet familiar with digital, there are different sort of codecs. Some are good for acquisition, delivery, distribution, others are good for archiving, others are good for editing (intermediate, generaly robust), etc…
You could create a thread on that if you have doubts because it’s important to understand all that very well.I read many times people wanting to edit natively with an highly compressed codec like AVcHD and they rely on computer performance to do that, but then, they color correct with as well, they create generations as well…and in the end they complain about the resulting looks. We can’t ask a 4×4 to race indy.
Maybe a Blackmagic camera could be a solution reasonably priced.
If you are on a Budget, there is unfortunatly very Little ideal options and you’ll have to accept many compromises. As often, the good gear is expensive.
But in the end it should not be an obstacle; better focus on good stories, good edits etc…with the camera one can afford and forget about those image quality preocupations that we see so many times over the internet.
It’s way better to produce good content with a Canon or a GH2 than to produce garbage with an Epic.
IMO, the best attitude is: “how much money do I have available to spend on a cam?”, buy the best you can from there and do not worry any further, do not compare with more expensive gear. It is the best you can do, and from there creates good stuff and enjoy.
Fred.
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The motion jpeg has a 2GB limit recording at once.
Very very short.It is not a variable bitrate (it’s good) wich means that if your hack is let’s say 100 MB/s it would indeed records constantly at 100 MB/s.
Some infos here: https://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?256757-100Mbps-GH2-Low-Light-MJPEG-1080p-Patch
The problems you would meet in post with AVcHD are related to any codec highly compressed and in 4.2.0 8bits.
The Hacks are boosting the bitrate and a Little more things but they don’t do anything for the 8 bits and 4.2.0
To give a paralell with still photography: You have to think those codecs as if they were bad jpegs at 7 quality. If you want to go to photoshop and edit your pics, color correct etc…jpeg are too weak. You’d need to convert this jpeg into Tiff or PSD to be able to not degrade any further. Also, like jpegs, if you make families (creating a new jpeg from a jpeg, you loose at each new family generated. Same in video, if you make generations, it falls apart quickly).
Give a pic (footage frame) that you can see the GH2 banding of AVcHD codec and the same shot in motion jpeg free of banding. I did this testing a long time ago in my kitchen. The banding is due to the high compression of the AVcHD códec.
Nota, the banding of the AVcHD is not only in the area I marked in red but if you look carefully you’ll see it everywhere. The motion JPEG frame has film grain and no banding and it’s very visible here. AVcHD is a consumer codec and not suitable IMO for profesional Works. For indy? perfectly fine. If you got a good story to tell, nobody will notice anything.
Pic here: https://images.creativecow.net/256203/gh2-banding.jpg
Best luck
Fred.
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Haa, Nice. The glamourous Riviera.
I was very close, I was studdying fine arts in Nîmes.I agree. This is the wild west indeed. And yes, so much cost cuts that ironically it starts to costs more.
On the other-hand they do a silly humoristic show in a theater next to my home. 3 trucks of live coverage, 8 grass valley cameras (more tan 110000 euros per body…)
etc etc… and just for a bunch of one-man-show humorists that nobody watch because what’s fashionable now here are those reality shows like “the first 48 hours”, live homicide police enquiries in the US. The thing is that it’s better, much better, than what the national teevee currently produces at astronomical costs.Got the sensation that we all are, at all levels, in a transitional period.
Fred.
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You’re welcome.
If it’s for you, I think the GH2 is a superb A cam and for a personal indy work, I would certainly choose a GH2 before any Canon dslr.
On the 16mm lenses I can’t be helpfull as I’ve never tried them. My set is basically with 35mm Konvas lenses, both in OCT18 and OCT19 flavour. There is a guy on e-bay that build adapters to military standartd, if my memory is correct his e-bay name is cielo.
The motion jpeg is vastly underestimated on the GH2. It really looks organic, really film look and no banding, but…it fills your cards at the speed of light and you cannot record more tan a few minutes.
The GH2 banding occurs in situations like: a Wall in perspective that has a part on shade and other lited so when there are subtle transitions, water (above and under), etc etc…
It’s not always there and not always bad, but when it does show-up, it’s really more pronounced than with the 5D and the only way to deal with this is applying grain in post.In terms of image, you’ll have more details than with a Sony F3 ! No concerns on this side.
But then, no Log posible etc etc…
The transcode step of the AVcHD is not because of MC. I mean that even if MC would AMAed with complete reliability, playing natively with those AVcHD files is not the way to go because there aren’t robust enough. It’s not an Avid problem, it’s the own nature of the codec. It’s good for filming on consumer cams because of its relation compression/performances, but it’s not good to be manipulated in post.
Best luck.
Fred.
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Many thanks Michael and Glenn for the quality of your repplies.
“i can stay in DS for
95 to 100 percent of all jobs i throw at it” : this is celestial music for my hears !On the workarounds, I agree with both of you in the sense that it shouldn’t be the motivation to choose a particular system.
But there are also other reasons that I’m seeing. You are in the US aren’t you? Well, I’m a french guy living in Madrid. You have probably Heard about the current state of the spanish economy and of course the entertainment industry is no exception. The cine production almost paralysed, many teevees (some with big mediums) have closed, almost all the small prod houses I knew have closed and thousands of former pros are cueing in the unemployement offices. Even the national TV (all on Avid) wich is probably the best in Europe after the BBC is now on a wait-and-see attitude and is producing real garbage on the low-cost. Actors don’t work, scenarists don’t work etc etc…all the chain is bombed.
As a result of this situation, I see that colorists are now cutting, FX artists are doing color, editors are compositing etc etc…and I’m talking about people who would have never done any multitask some years ago.
What was a chain of colaborative workflows and specialized pros is slowly but surely transforming into “multitask” persons, lower costs etc etc…and when there was 10 seats before and they sent to Nucoda facility is now 1 or 2 seats and color and conform at home.I have the sensation that this situation is just the beginning and not only because of the spanish more desastrous current situation. It smells that the workflow we are used to is going to change drasticaly in the next years. I might be wrong, but…I might be also right.
In that context, all-in-one apps may appear to be the solutions for the future, IMHO.Cheers.
Fred.
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Hi Carlos,
I can comment well on the GH2 as I’ve been working a lot with this Cam. Better than Canon dslr? It depends very much on wich aspects and it would be enough material to debate that could fill an entire book.
My GH2 are hacked (I don’t count the number of different hack flavours I’ve tried) and as I am in Pal land I like to film 25p.
So far, I’ve been mixing GH2 footage with both R3D and Alexas. IMO, the GH2 footage “tends” to be more “as” the Arri (it mixes visualy better).But the GH2 has a very very annoying side. It particulary bands (posterize) on some situations (and much more tan the Canon) when you use the AVcHD codec. The hack slightly push further the issue but hey, those are 8bits 4.2.0 and HDMI output is not great.
The only real solution (and definitive) is to by-pass the AVcHD and shoot motion jpeg. You won’t have any banding but yes more noise as fast as you jump in isos. But the footage looks more organic.In the end, it’s a camera suitable for B, for indy it’s perfect, but if you really want to use for clients…mmm, maybe considering the Canon will give you less hassle and you also can hack it.
Mounting a GH2 on an octocopter is a pain in the ass (to be polite). The audio mini Jack is a joke, the list is long. Strictly, the image quality, more exactly the recorded details, is stunning. You records more details than a F3 wich is somewhere amazing.
So the GH2 is a mix bag. Amazing in some aspects, very very frustrating in others. But at this Price is it allowed to complain?
Ps: listen to Michael if you edit GH2 AVcHD footage: just transcode everything. Don’t stay AMAed, the AVcHD is garbage and needs to be transcoded. Nota: the transcoding stages (I do 2, one for cutting in DNxHD36 and one to conform later to a higher flavour) do not add any data. What is recorded is what is, but yes it avoids more bleeding in further manipulations. You’ll see that the GH2 footage falls apart very very easily at the mÃnimum color manip for ex. So it’s key to transcode.In my particular case, as I roundtrip to Nuke, I use a lot jpeg2000 wich stands well. I would have liked MC could read open EXR but it cannot.
AVcHD is a codec I always transcode before any manipulations.Fred.
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Hi Michael.
Thanks for your answer. It gives me the oportunity to express my gratitude because I’ve been learning so much Avid tips thanks to you, through this forum or the Red’.
Some time ago I watched a great conference you gave in wich I discovered some “hidden” sides of MC and it was a gas.
But see? those metacheater stuff and text editors and blabla are exactly the “little” things that put me on nerves in my workflow.
I know that it’s the Price to pay to access specialized apps and that a all-in-one will be always weaker. Between a rock and a hard place…but I just hate too much roudtripping to ignore it anymore.
And in my current needs I can “afford” not having to do it because I’m not working for big feature films-docs.I got the DS trial in my Workstation but didn’t start any learning curve because I’m on assignement and don’t want to add more infos to digest (and distraction) in this moment.
The other dilema is that since Autodesk have cutted the Smoke Price to 1/3, DS appears very expensive. Are the 6000 euros difference worth? Will Avid do a comercial manouver to compensate this? That will be interesting to see.
I agree with you that a “wait and see” (as I’m not in a hurry) is probably the best to do. NAB will bring infos, Apple will son too and in few months things will clear themselves and make the dilema easier.
Yes, the thing on Mac pros is that I’m surrounded by Mac fanboys trying to influence me to switch back to Macs with the argument that this industry is Mac only, but I need to be aware of the cultism involved backstage and trying to keep my mind cold, wich is sometimes not easy. I’ll wait Apple conference to see what they say.
Thanks for your repply, it was very usefull as always.
Cheers.
Fred.
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Yes, Shane solution is right.
But as the poster didn’t say what kind of AMAed footage it was, if it’s not a supported (native) codec a transcode will occur yes or yes.
Just a relink to a bin containing the transcoded DNxHD with the AMA bin closed maybe?
Fred.
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You can also try to export your image from PS in Tiff 8 or 16 bits, even putting layers with alpha, the Pan&Zoom would import them without problems.
The only limitation is that with layers the filter merge all that, your layered img will be flattened.That way, you can check if it is something corrupted at a jpeg level.
Fred.