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Crunchy Nasty Sharpening Artifacts

Joined
Jul 25, 2016
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Hello,

I have not flown since my last posts, and after I updated the H and the ST16 to:

ST16: v03.01.b23
H: V3.2.16(A)

Not sure I will update to the latest yet.

Flying over stark bare trees and worse, rocky gravel riverbed. 4096x2160, 24fps (which After Effects interprets as 25??? but that's another issue) in Natural Mode.

I've seen this before, but I don't think it was this bad ... did Yuneec turn the sharpening UP? It looks just as crappy as DJI footage! Kinda like the nasties in Gorgeous Mode, which is simply disgusting ... very flickery, crawling ants on every edge, just really awful. Usually the footage from the Typhoon looks decent to me (I accept it for what it is) but this is totally unusable.

I just re-confirmed I was in Natural Mode.

I seem to remember a post I can't seem to find about how to turn the sharpening down ... PLEASE Yuneec ... make a way to set the camera sharpening/color/contrast ourselves (sometimes I want it like it is, but usually I want it less, but not as low as "raw" mode (and while I'm wishing, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make the camera settings "sticky" so they don't have to be set every battery!

Thanks for any comments.
 
Ipad or android open up the WiFi settings when the CGO3+ is on and connect to it just like you would if your using the CGO3 camera app. Once connected open a web browser and type in this in the address bar.
http://192.168.42.1/cgi-bin/cgi?CMD=GET_SHARPNESS

You should get a reply back stating where your cameras sharpness is. (0-10)

If that worked with the CGO3+ you can now use this command to send what ever sharpness level you want. (0-10) simply by changing the number at the end.

http://192.168.42.1/cgi-bin/cgi?CMD=SET_SHARPNESS&value=0
http://192.168.42.1/cgi-bin/cgi?CMD=SET_SHARPNESS&value=5
http://192.168.42.1/cgi-bin/cgi?CMD=SET_SHARPNESS&value=10
Hope this helps.
 
Thank you! I have never used the CGO3+ camera app, but I'll look that up.

Are there commands as well for changing saturation and contrast? If so, and one makes these changes, say, and modified the various presets, liek keeping the names, for instance, and turning Gorgeous down a couple notches to make it palatable, turning Natural down to a little more natural (It's actually really good for cloudy days!) and turning UP the sharpening a bit for the raw setting .. .would they stick?
 
Why not shoot in Raw and then make a setting (to your liking) in your editing app that you can apply to future clips? I thought this was the reason for having Raw available.
 
Because I'm shooting video, not photos. When I do shoot photos, I shoot RAW .dng which, in this case, are actually RAW files although I think they are affected by the color profile/WB settings chosen.

This color profile "Raw" is simply, not. Like the DLog profile on the DJI stuff, the profile is so flat and without edge detection sharpening that after compression, any detail one would have liked (unless you didn't want detail!) is completely lost in mush .. the compression (not just the bitrate, although that is a huge factor ... there are cameras that shoot in similar bitrates but better codecs that look tons better) completely "mushifies" the image. They say "Oh, just add the sharpening to taste in post" works great for "real" cameras, but this type of camera does not record on robust enough codec for that.

I have tested this .. it is night and day ... DO NOT use "Raw" color profile for video!

Why not shoot in Raw and then make a setting (to your liking) in your editing app that you can apply to future clips? I thought this was the reason for having Raw available.
 
Because I'm shooting video, not photos. When I do shoot photos, I shoot RAW .dng which, in this case, are actually RAW files although I think they are affected by the color profile/WB settings chosen.

This color profile "Raw" is simply, not. Like the DLog profile on the DJI stuff, the profile is so flat and without edge detection sharpening that after compression, any detail one would have liked (unless you didn't want detail!) is completely lost in mush .. the compression (not just the bitrate, although that is a huge factor ... there are cameras that shoot in similar bitrates but better codecs that look tons better) completely "mushifies" the image. They say "Oh, just add the sharpening to taste in post" works great for "real" cameras, but this type of camera does not record on robust enough codec for that.

I have tested this .. it is night and day ... DO NOT use "Raw" color profile for video!

I don't know what video editor you use, but trust me that the codec is not 'mushing' the image - that's what comes straight off the sensor before the other modes sharpen things up. They don't do anything you can't do in a decent editor.
 
We ARE talking about the same camera? CGO3+?

I sure wish you were right, but you are not right. True "Raw" video (say, a .dng sequence) would melt the camera into a pile of sludge. "RAW" in this case applies only to the color/picture profile. It still encodes to a very very lossy mp4. It is, by the most generous of interpretations, mush. In good light and with not too much detail it can look decent, sure. Barely. But it is NOT RAW.

You want aerial RAW in this size factor you have to go with DJI X5R.

I use After Effects CC.

I DO know what I am talking about.

I don't know what video editor you use, but trust me that the codec is not 'mushing' the image - that's what comes straight off the sensor before the other modes sharpen things up. They don't do anything you can't do in a decent editor.
 
To moderate: "In this case" I know what I'm talking about. I certainly have much to learn, and also I like the craft and camera for what it is, which is a very affordable, one step up from "toy" aerial imaging solution. Take my remarks with that in mind.

To clarify: If you take the data off the sensor and record it without some sort of compression (which in this case is EXTREME) then you would have RAW. Even RAW has some encoding, and does take processing power, plus a HUUUUGE data stream.

Sadly, the data off the sensor is mushified, then recorded, so any chance you have to sharpen true detail is gone with the encoding. If this were not the case the CGO3+ would be flying off the shelves. Many lossy codecs can handle processing later, to some extent, but the "up to" 60mb/s h.264 codec cannot take so much. So it is better to apply a "reasonable amount" of sharpening, color, contrast, so as to get the picture about as close as you can so you have room to nudge it in the direction you want later. The reason I put "reasonable amount" in quotes is to express the relative nature of this: If you are taking selfies with your friends for Facebook posts, you might like quite a lot more, even "Gorgeous" ... and why not? But if you are trying to create clips to be worked into other productions, youwant to have enough latitude with which to work, and oversharpening (yes, even "Natural" is oversharpened/huped) is a big bad no no.

So I did tests shooting the same scene with "Raw" and "Natural" and every test failed the "Raw" ... there was just way too much mush. I actually like the color in "Natural" ... it is not so over the top, and has plenty of room for my purposes, and actually does look more natural than DJI interpretations, which are pretty electronic looking to my eye.
 
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We ARE talking about the same camera? CGO3+?

I sure wish you were right, but you are not right. True "Raw" video (say, a .dng sequence) would melt the camera into a pile of sludge. "RAW" in this case applies only to the color/picture profile. It still encodes to a very very lossy mp4.

From the documents on the chipset, I believe the encoding to Raw uses exactly the same codec as Natural, Gorgeous etc. The difference is purely that the non-raw modes have a sharpening + colour filter applied before the codec does it's job. As the camera is a small sensor device, it naturally produces a 'mushy' image which has to be corrected somewhere down the chain. If you don't correct it before encoding, the encoder actually has a slightly easier job (there was a long discussion early on about Raw mode producing lower bitrate mp4 than the others - smoother images just encode better), but the output is not any more lossy than Natural etc.

Out of interest, which sharpening filter have you tried in After Effects? I've now got a standard template (unfortunately in Lightworks, no AE) that includes sharpen, colour correction and curves filters set to 'reasonable' values that seem to give quite fair results with a single click.
 
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Aye, it is the same codec ... just with no added sharpening, contrast, saturation. "Raw" in this case is a misnomer ... it should just be called "Flat"

I'll do another test and post the results, probably in its own thread .. .might take me a day or two ...

In AE, I have several Animation Presets set up so I can say, apply my FX chain to any given camera/situation and go from there.

In addition to the standard Unsharp Mask, which I am happy with for most of my work (shooting with FS700+Odyssey 7Q+ RAW, PXW-X70 with a fairly flat profile, and occasional RAW timelapses with RX100m4, etc.) I also use Neat vor Video noise reduction v4, which I've been using for years .. and it has a really cool custom bandwidth sharpen filter built in, (sometimes I use just a tad of each, which is gentler and more natural) and additionally, when I work in Sony Vegas, I also use a COnvolution Sharpen on an identical track above the original, with opacity set to about 20-30% which sharpens things nicely, even somewhat blurred video.

But there is no information to sharpen with the blurred mush ... it's even bad enough with the other modes ... as an example, even the older XDCAM footage from the X70 at 60mb/s, compared to the Inspire 1 footage, or the Typhoon H footage, is light years better. Say, for instance, I look at an image of a tree. With the X70 footage, I can zoom in on the image to 400% and still see that there are leaves. With the hyper compressed h.264 footage off these consumer drones, I can see objectionable mush at 100% .. 200-400% is a total joke. Then I did my tests with the CGO3+ in "Raw" mode, and found it to be revolting.

Of course, YMMV. It is after all, also dependent upon what you are shooting. I shoot lots of nature. Trees, forest, rocks, mountains, etc. Too much detail for lossy codecs most of the time. The best "looks" come from hazy situations, gradients, smooth surfaces, uncomplicated lines. Nature is messy.





From the documents on the chipset, I believe the encoding to Raw uses exactly the same codec as Natural, Gorgeous etc. The difference is purely that the non-raw modes have a sharpening + colour filter applied before the codec does it's job. As the camera is a small sensor device, it naturally produces a 'mushy' image which has to be corrected somewhere down the chain. If you don't correct it before encoding, the encoder actually has a slightly easier job (there was a long discussion early on about Raw mode producing lower bitrate mp4 than the others - smoother images just encode better), but the output is not any more lossy than Natural etc.

Out of interest, which sharpening filter have you tried in After Effects? I've now got a standard template (unfortunately in Lightworks, no AE) that includes sharpen, colour correction and curves filters set to 'reasonable' values that seem to give quite fair results with a single click.
 
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So given this sprightly discussion, I re-ask: If I use the App to go in and change the sharpening values, is it dependent on the color mode I am in? So I could, say, turn UP sharpen in "Raw", and turn it DOWN in "Natural" and ":Gorgeous"?

And if so, are there commands to change saturation and contrast that would also stick? I'd be really happy if so ...
 
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But there is no information to sharpen with the blurred mush ... it's even bad enough with the other modes ... as an example, even the older XDCAM footage from the X70 at 60mb/s, compared to the Inspire 1 footage, or the Typhoon H footage, is light years better. Say, for instance, I look at an image of a tree. With the X70 footage, I can zoom in on the image to 400% and still see that there are leaves. With the hyper compressed h.264 footage off these consumer drones, I can see objectionable mush at 100% .. 200-400% is a total joke..

I see what you're saying - and agree. H.264 is a lossy codec, can't get around that and it'll always be the case for consumer drones. No point in 'pixel peeping', or expecting you're suddenly going to get cinematic images. However, I do think you can recover detail from raw as that's exactly what the in-camera sharpening is doing.

I don't believe pre-setting the sharpening values will impact raw, but could be wrong. I can't check right now, but I'm pretty sure when I originally tested it seemed to just kill all sharpening. I suspect that changing modes will reset any values you put into the camera directly, but again need to get my machine online to confirm.

To be honest, given your dislike of the pre-processed images you get from DJI, I'm confused why you want to force the camera to fix saturation and contrast in the H - these small cameras just can't do as good a job as a high end camera or desktop editor, so you're just setting yourself up for a fail to bump up processing before it hits the card.
 
I'm not expecting the cam to be a tennis ball sized FS700 ... ! ;) Cinematic is sometimes actually pretty muted/soft ... I just watch Ravenous ... I was surprised by it, actually ... still loved it ... but it was messed up visually compared to a lot of other things I might compare it to ...

BUT ... yeah .. here's the deal ... I don't like Raw on the CGO3+, and I only mostly like "natural" ... if I could change a few things here and there, I would be happier. "Raw" needs a little sharpening, IMO, and "Natural" needs a little less. As I said, I actuially LIKE the color of Natural ... I usually selectively goose it a bit actually ... and it's one of the few stock settings of any camera that makes cloudy days look GOOD ... so I just want to turn the sharpening down a little ... and with the "Raw" setting I'd just add a little detail so I could futz with it later.

They only offer us those options, so my joy is somewhere in between ... and it sure would be lovely to have the settings stick, so I know if I'm shooting in a highly detailed area that would introduce artifacts that are REALLY hard to fix ... I could change to a mode where I could make sure it would handle them a little better.
 
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One thing about these directions is that they assume I have used (or can use) the CGO app. I've finally got a moment to mess with this stuff, and I find that the App is a typical bit of junk ... in that, in order to use it I have to do .. .what? The camera is connected via WiFi to my Shield tablet. Should I be using the tablet in the ST16? Up in the right corner I see "Connected to CGO3P-C20172" and then when I tap "Camera" it shows "...@_@..." and then ever so briefly I see the image from the camera, and then the app crashes.

Suggestions?

Thanks!

Ipad or android open up the WiFi settings when the CGO3+ is on and connect to it just like you would if your using the CGO3 camera app. Once connected open a web browser and type in this in the address bar.
http://192.168.42.1/cgi-bin/cgi?CMD=GET_SHARPNESS

You should get a reply back stating where your cameras sharpness is. (0-10)

If that worked with the CGO3+ you can now use this command to send what ever sharpness level you want. (0-10) simply by changing the number at the end.

http://192.168.42.1/cgi-bin/cgi?CMD=SET_SHARPNESS&value=0
http://192.168.42.1/cgi-bin/cgi?CMD=SET_SHARPNESS&value=5
http://192.168.42.1/cgi-bin/cgi?CMD=SET_SHARPNESS&value=10
Hope this helps.
 
I say . .AHA - I don't need the stupid app at all ... I understand now ... just connect via Wifi then use browser.

My Sharpness is set at 6.

One thing about these directions is that they assume I have used (or can use) the CGO app. I've finally got a moment to mess with this stuff, and I find that the App is a typical bit of junk ... in that, in order to use it I have to do .. .what? The camera is connected via WiFi to my Shield tablet. Should I be using the tablet in the ST16? Up in the right corner I see "Connected to CGO3P-C20172" and then when I tap "Camera" it shows "...@_@..." and then ever so briefly I see the image from the camera, and then the app crashes.

Suggestions?

Thanks!
AHA ...
 
So .. now sharpness = 4 on both my CGO3+ cams (one has a Peau lens) Only interior shots and through windows (it's snowing) so will report later.

Updating firmware to latest.
 
Answer: Unles I am missing this, after changing the Sharpness on both cams to 4 (were 6) I then changed color mode, and refreshed the browser page asking what the sharpness settings were.

Very interesting ... the setting did not change when changing to Gorgeous or Raw from Natural.

To me, this means the Sharpness setting is a global setting, from which the other attributes are derived. So if you have master sharpness set at 4, like I do, then RAW might be in the negative, and gorgeous will still be added several points, and hopefully Natural just down a couple tics (mainly to get rid of the aliasing)



TE="Mizamook, post: 61780, member: 3904"]So given this sprightly discussion, I re-ask: If I use the App to go in and change the sharpening values, is it dependent on the color mode I am in? So I could, say, turn UP sharpen in "Raw", and turn it DOWN in "Natural" and ":Gorgeous"?

And if so, are there commands to change saturation and contrast that would also stick? I'd be really happy if so ...[/QUOTE]
 
Answer: Unles I am missing this, after changing the Sharpness on both cams to 4 (were 6) I then changed color mode, and refreshed the browser page asking what the sharpness settings were.

Very interesting ... the setting did not change when changing to Gorgeous or Raw from Natural.

To me, this means the Sharpness setting is a global setting, from which the other attributes are derived. So if you have master sharpness set at 4, like I do, then RAW might be in the negative, and gorgeous will still be added several points, and hopefully Natural just down a couple tics (mainly to get rid of the aliasing)

You'll have to take a bunch of photos if you really want to check - you need the standard test chart and to do it indoors in controlled conditions. I suspect RAW ignores all settings - it (should) just leave the picture that comes out of the sensor completely untouched.

product_image1368036788.jpg
 
Agreed ... untouched except for the compression ... I very seldom take photos, mainly video ... and all I care about is having enough real world edges to sharpen without aliasing/moire/flickering. Trial and error. I usually don't take my laptop with me, so I won't be able to do any checking in the wild, but I do know that level 6 sharpening is too much, so 4 WILL be better, fo sho ... whether to go down to 3 or up to 5 I won't know.

Hey .. snow forest day today! No wind! Good time to check out the new calibration and firmware ....
 

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