Pete Burger
Forum Replies Created
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Those files contain a thumbnail plus metadata. They kind of contain the EXIFs of your clips. I don’t know if they are *needed* but I wouldn’t delete them. They contain valuable information.
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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keatonhttps://twitter.com/FastFoodVideo (english/german)
https://fastfoodvideo.tumblr.com (german) -
[Joel Cotlhorpe] “but nothing ever seems super sharp?”
What I learned, when shooting flat is, I’ll have to sharpen the picture in post quite intensely, especially when having turned the internal sharpening completely down. IMHO post-sharpening is always the better way.
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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keatonhttps://twitter.com/FastFoodVideo (english/german)
https://fastfoodvideo.tumblr.com (german) -
[Teresa Seito] ” If there is an ideal codec in Streamclip for PC based AE, I’d like to know that in addition to those for Encoder”
If with Media Encoder or Streamclip, good and often used intermediate codecs are “Neoscene Cineform” (pay-codec), Avid DNxHD (free), Quicktime with PNG compression. Those can be used quite well for postproduction. I’m using DNxHD
[Teresa Seito] “Does anyone know what the bit depth of .mov/h.264 footage from a Canon 60D is?”
8Bit in 4:2:0
[Teresa Seito] “want to convert footage to the highest bit depth possible… for PC-based AE keying and PC-based color grading.”
You can do that with MPEGStreamclip using Quicktime with DNxHD 10Bit 185. This will give you sufficent quality. At least that’s how I work for a couple of years.
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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keatonhttps://twitter.com/FastFoodVideo (english/german)
https://fastfoodvideo.tumblr.com (german) -
Bob, I don’t have the 60D but the 550D and do use the Technicolor Cinestyle alongside with ML since it came out. No problems at all.
[Bob Cole] “The instructions for loading Magic Lantern include a reset of the camera’s settings to the originals, which will erase the Technicolor profile.”
I didn’t knew that, but maybe I just over-read…
Since a couple of ML versions there is a very easy way to install ML: Format the card in the camera, copy all of the ML files on the card, put it into the camera and make a firmware update from the camera menu. This’ll make the card bootable and each time you switch on the cam with the proper card, ML loads.
This procedure hasn’t ever reset my camera settings including the installed picture styles.Cool thing with those newer versions: You can format the card with the camera and keep ML. Very useful, because formatting a card seems to be the better approach than just deleting videos or pictures.
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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keatonhttps://twitter.com/FastFoodVideo (english/german)
https://fastfoodvideo.tumblr.com (german) -
Thanks for sharing, Dylan!
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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keatonhttps://twitter.com/FastFoodVideo (english/german)
https://fastfoodvideo.tumblr.com (german) -
The native colour space of the Canon DSLRs is 4:2:0
Of course 4:2:2 would be better, BUT transcoding from 4:2:0 to 4:2:2 (from the original H.264 MOVs to ProRes) won’t give any picture quality improvements sice you’re just wrapping 4:2:0 files in 4:2:2 files.
Premiere CS5 or CS5.5 offers the possibility to edit natively which will give you absolutely the same results than with transcoded files.
Transcoding to ProRes (or any other lossless intraframe codec) will give you better editing performance in terms of speed and stability.——————————————
“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keatonhttps://twitter.com/FastFoodVideo (english/german)
https://fastfoodvideo.tumblr.com (german) -
Glad, I helped!
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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keatontwitter.com/FastFoodVideo
fastfoodvideo.tumblr.com -
[spencer king] “So if I take my 16bit cineform AVI file into after effects for color grading, its not going to show a difference in quality compared to the original 8bit h.264? – It will just help with the performance of my machine?”
Yes and no. 🙂 The transcoded file will look more or less exactly like the original. You don’t add picture information through transcoding and you won’t lose information if you transcode to a lossles codec like Cineform. You still have the same “8Bit picture”, but it’s wrapped in a 16Bit codec.
Editing and postproduction speed will be improved. I also noticed stability improvement of Premiere and After Effects.
If you don’t intend to do more intense postproduction you can also transcode to a lossless 8Bit codec, which will save you a lot of HDD space.
The big advancement when working in 16Bit mode is, that you’ll have more possibilities for any kind of post-production work. Values (of colour or luminance) that would not be possible in 8Bit mode can be interpolated. You’ll have less issues with banding etc.
[spencer king] “Could it be that I am converting my native video files into the wrong codec? Or should I be focused on the exporting stage.”
No, Cineform is fine!
[spencer king] “I have been exporting my work as an h.264- for youtube. Will exporting the final product out of premiere, as a cineform file(or other), possibly be a big changer?”
I’d render the final out into a lossless codec (like Cinfecorm). This file might be huge, but it’s the best as can be. You can then convert this file (with Media Encoder) to your desired output formats. It’s much faster to play around with your output settings for the optimum quality with a prerendered file rather than rendering your timeline and all the effects again and again and again…
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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton -
I can’t confirm that, but I read on different occasions, that the “faithful” style produces the most accurate colour representation.
But IMHO the most important thing (next to a perfectly lit screen) is to turn internal sharpening completely down. Sharpening leads to picture artifacts on the edges that can give you a hard time in keying. Also avoid the 720p mode like plague for the same reason.——————————————
“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton -
You need a higher bitrate with files that are less compressed.
Cineform files are much bigger, because they contain much more picture information. This is because of two reasons:
1) Cineform is an intraframe codec – which means every frame exists as a frame in the file.
H.264 is an interframe codec, which means only some frames are really existant, the rest are “interpolated”.More frames means: more information. More information lead to bigger files which need a higher bitrate.
2) The overall compression of Cineform is less strong than of H.264 (one reason the before mentioned interframe-/intraframe factor).
The tricky bit is: A cineform transcoded file does contain more information but not more *usable* information. So the 8Bit source video (H.264) is wrapped in a 16Bit file which needs more space.
Transcoding serves primarily one reason: To increase the speed of editing (or – on slower or older machines/software – make it possible), since decompression of the the transcoded files is much less processor- and RAM-heavy. A 16Bit (or 10Bit, if you transcode to say DNxHD) helps with grading, because of the 16Bit structure of the new file. This only works, if your software supports 16Bit mode (like After Effects does). You don’t *have to* transcode to 16Bit – at least not when working in AE – you can change the workspace to 16Bit and use your 8Bit files.
So: If eding speed and stability of your system is no issue, IMHO you can edit the files natively with Premiere CS5 or CS5.5. In the sequence settings enable “maximum bitdepth” to avoid the grading problems (like banding etc.).
Hope this helps a bit.
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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton