Video from the C23 and H Plus

[YuKay]

It brings something to me - as do all the videos. The more I see, the more I believe that I could use C23 footage straight out of the camera without further processing which would require re-rendering and an additional layer of compression and artifacts. No other footage from drones at this price level has given me that hope.

Of course all footage needs to be cut/trimmed/spliced but those tasks can be accomplished without re-rendering and therefore losslessly. But further processing, such as grading, balancing, sharpening, cropping, etc does force the footage to be re-rendered and I think I might be able to avoid that penalty a lot of the time if the camera does a good enough job in the first place.

The opening and closing sequences, typically with titles and transitions would always have to be re-rendered of course but that doesn't mean that the rest of the video has to go through that process.

Call me a dreamer but I want to put the C23 (and myself) to the test. I do own all the tools to do a fully Monty on any video but I hate incurring additional compression and will try anything to avoid it.

 

[rdonson]

YuKay, I don’t understand how color grading in an advanced video production tool causes degraded final output. Are you referring to something like h.264 or h.265 being run twice thus potentially going through compression after compression? If so how do the pro studios avoid this?

Just trying to learn/understand.

 

[YuKay]

Sorry Ron, I am only just getting over England's sad demise in the World Cup semis - and I was already emotionally drained by Federer's exit from Wimbledon.

Afaik, pro video producers adjust their workflows and end result to a) the end consumer's ability to view it; b) the studio hardware they have available to them, particularly for storage; c) the format of the source footage they have to work with; and d) the need for long term archiving of their output.

Whatever their final output, they do of course edit, balance, transition, add FX, etc; and they use lossless intermediate output until they are ready to do the final render which may be lossy or lossless depending on where and how will be viewed.

But their source footage is usually raw so their final render, if lossy, involves just one layer of loss. We don't have the luxury of raw footage to work with and when we edit our already compressed and lossy H.264 camera footage, and re-render it at the end of the process, we are losing data from already impaired footage. And if we then upload our finished video to YouTube it will be compressed again so suffering a third generation of data loss. And we are compromised from the outset by acquiring our footage from a relatively inexpensive lens/sensor which can't capture all the data in the scene anyway.

I am very impressed by the footage I have seen from the C23 but that's a relative assessment. By the time I see it, it has almost certainly been through three generations of data loss - some of which is avoidable if significant chunks of my video can pass through at least the middle phase of processing without incurring data loss. To achieve that, I would need to be happy with the colour balance, saturation and sharpness coming out of the camera, which is a big ask both of the camera and the operator.

I recently read an entertaining blog by pro filmmaker, Philip Bloom who summed up: "I am a firm believer in nailing it in camera and only “fixing it in post” as a last resort." I don't have his equipment and I certainly don't have his knowledge and expertise but I do want even my amateur video album to be as visually clean and uncluttered as I can get it.

 

[rdonson]

Thanks for the detailed response, YuKay! You did a good job explaining your desires in an understandable manner.

While I’m steeped in digital photography I’m a noob in video. I’m still learning Final Cut Pro X. My cinematic knowledge is that of a babe.

That said, when I shoot 4K on my Fuji X-T2 I can shoot in F-log which is much easier in which to maximize color grading. It’s as close to RAW as I can get and use a LUT for solid color. If I want a pleasing result with minimal adjustment I shoot with Fuji’s Eterna film emulation. Obviously I can also use lenses that are very good without moving up to a true video lens with its special features and costs.

These approaches seem years ahead of what can be accomplished with drones in the price range of the H Plus.

So..... everything with video and a drone seems quite a compromise. As you allude I guess this means finding a path to drone video that fits each person’s needs.

 

[rdonson]

BTW I was rooting for Federer as well. A class guy. Sorry to see his exit.

We did have an exciting TDF stage today. Peter Sagan is simply amazing.

 

[YuKay]

Yes Ron, we are a long way down the quality chain without a £10k+ camera (although I think it's now possible to get raw video from a £3k cheapie) and the right tools to support a raw footage workflow. Nor do most of us have an end audience who will notice, or care about, the difference that one less layer of lossy compression makes.

H.264 is a brilliant codec but it still throws away up to 90% of raw data (including a lot of metadata which doesn't make much/any difference to the video quality). But it selectively drops frames or slices of frames and interpolates them from preceding and subsequent key frames; and it does lose a huge amount of colour information. H.265, when universally adopted, will be another significant leap forward, allowing twice as much data to be shoehorned into the same file size as H.264, or the same amount of data in a 50% smaller file size.

There's a good, easy-to-read explanation here of what H.264 does to our video.

 

[YuKay]

Btw, this imho is the best article out there on codecs and workflows, including great info and illustrations of colour grading, data loss, visual degradation when editing lossy H.264 source footage (as we do) and some handy tips too - including best upload format to minimise the damage done by YouTube's built-in compression algorithms.

Also see this useful comparison table of all the popular codecs with lossiness ratings etc.

 

[YuKay]

just a word to tell you that this T PLUS is superb, it flies as well as a French cock
View attachment 10353

Merci mon ami and good luck in the final. France deserves to be there, as do Croatia, and it should be a good game. Artists vs Artisans. I should support Croatia as there would be less disgrace for England in losing to the winners but j'adore les grenouilles - et les coqs! Et Mbappe.

 

[oliver]

Long live the sport and the T PLUS

 

[YuKay]

Just in case anyone thinks I'm not mad, most of the $$$ editing programs now allow simple edits to be "smart rendered" virtually losslessly. And there are also free/cheap utilities out there which will also preserve the integrity of your source footage, including MPEG Streamclip and FFmpeg.

 

[rdonson]

Thanks for all the info @YuKay! You must know I’m an info-holic. I will read all the links.

I’m familiar with most compression algorithms except the newer H.265 which is available with the H Plus. Apple now supports H.265 as well.

Most digital still cameras now support lossless compression for RAW files so I can only guess that for video the computational load is much higher requiring a more robust CPU.

 

[oliver]

Most digital still cameras now support lossless compression for RAW files so I can only guess that for video the computational load is much higher requiring a more robust CPU.

Oh yes, it is so easy to say, "I compress, I compress in H265", but after on a time line with effects, transitions on 3 or 4 lines, we laugh less to read in real time, without any addiction.
Well, I remove the french cock from this subject

 

[YuKay]

Sadly our superdooper iMacs would choke on editing/grading 4k raw footage with realtime full-res playback. This dark side guru thinks he would need a build budget of $8k and I reckon it would be $10-12k if you're into VFX too. We would need to save up for a fully loaded iMac Pro.

Even just for raw 4k playback, your computer would need to be able to process over 550MB/sec - and according to my AJA system video test utility, I only achieve 518MB/sec (read) and 483MB/sec (write) when I ask it to test a notional 16GB raw 4k video file - and that's on a 4TB internal SSD drive. But my drive is well up to the task, as is my RAM so I need a beefier CPU/GPU to handle raw 4k footage at full size.

Incidentally, this is an interesting video from the dark side showing the impact on a video editor's life of installing his first SSD drive. Ironically, he then had no difficulty playing 4k raw video but still choked on 4k GoPro footage! I assume that's because it takes more processing power to read a compressed file than a raw one. He does say later in the comments that he had no frame drops with any of his files after he transcoded them all.

 

[rdonson]

That's a 5 year old video but interesting.

My 27" iMac is a 2017 with:
4.2-4.5 GHz Intel Core i7
40 GB 2400 MHz DDR4 RAM
AMD Radeon Pro 580 8 GB VRAM
500 GB SSD for an internal boot drive with nothing but the OS and apps on it
My external drive, where all my files are, is a Drobo 5D (5 bay) with Thunderbolt 2 connection to the iMac

It's a year old and I won't be buying a new one any time soon especially if video would be the main reason.

This iMac supports Thunderbolt 3 so the only thing would be to add external GPUs for video work. A pricey solution.

I'm thinking I'm good where I'm at for a long time as a hobbyist and a video noob

 

[YuKay]

Me too as I won't be handling any raw footage, probably ever. But I will be transcoding my C23 footage to Apple ProRes to realign the key frames and make it easier to edit since H.264 is a final delivery format which is definitely not recommended for editing, grading or anything other than viewing in a forwards direction only.

 

[oliver]

Better to invest in the capabilities of SD cards and SSD than filming in H265, stay in H264 if you make editing in multiple tracks and effects.

When we went from HD to 4K 25p, we had to invest ... Then 4K50p, it was necessary to have resources, but 4K 50p in H265, you need air conditioning in the room!

 

[rdonson]

Me too as I won't be handling any raw footage, probably ever. But I will be transcoding my C23 footage to Apple ProRes to realign the key frames and make it easier to edit since H.264 is a final delivery format which is definitely not recommended for editing, grading or anything other than viewing in a forwards direction only.

Thanks for the tip!!!!

 

[YuKay]

Ron, if you don't already have it, I can recommend Apple Compressor - which for only $50 offers a lot of bang for the buck and also integrates nicely with FCP (or can be used as a standalone tool).

 

[rdonson]

Ron, if you don't already have it, I can recommend Apple Compressor - which for only $50 offers a lot of bang for the buck and also integrates nicely with FCP (or can be used as a standalone tool).

Thanks! My net worth just dropped $50

I'd wondered about this piece of software but I'm the only one of my buddies pursuing video more or less seriously. One buddy does video but only 1080p from his DJI MPP drone. He doesn't have any 4K monitors and most of his work is with his group of car nuts. His pride and joy is his Subaru WRX STI that he's tricked out.

Now I've got more to learn!!!

 

[YuKay]

Transcoding of big files can take some time so you could do it while asleep. Also, you might consider installing it on another computer so that you can transcode without tying up your main machine.

If he has his way, your President (currently dining at Blenheim Palace, 20 miles from where I sit) will force y'all to buy only Ford and Chrysler vehicles by slapping big taxes on those imports.