NX1/NX500 Hack Test Footage

[Last Leaves]

Again, I am not saying that bitrates should never be variable. What I am saying is that:

1. Every "non-hacked" video that I have shot on NX500 appears to have a completely constant bitrate, with absolutely no variations at all.
2. The "hacked" 1080p @ 120fps using Otto's script provided on GitHub produces a file with an extremely variable bitrate.
3. This "hack" appears to not work properly.

[ReinisK]

Those glitches most likely are VLC fault, since it uses it's own codec's (as far as I know). My VLC does the same with 4k nx1 videos. Probably just can't handle it. In Premiere of course, everything is fine.

[Pavel Mašek]

2 hours ago, Last Leaves said:

I am skeptical that it is an apple issue. I'm pretty sure the file produced by the NX500 with the 1080p120 setting is messed up. I have never had any issue decoding any other NX500 clip (even on my brand-new-top-of-the-line-piece-of-shit apple machine that I shouldn't have bought because "really - it's a mac").  I know that variable bitrate can be good, but jumping from 2MB/s to 380Mb/s and back when the only thing changing in the shot are a few falling snowflakes does not seem like a good management of bitrate.

Here are two test files straight off of the NX500's card: http://www.filedropper.com/lastleavesnx5001080p120test

I have checked the footage and I do not see any problem you have mentioned (Win10):

- bitrate is variable but just a little - 37Mb/s to 41Mb/s

- I do not see any artifacts

- it has 120fps but it is not real 120fps footage. It is just 5x speeded up normal 24/25/30 footage. Slowmotion of it is then just normal speed.

- playback worked jus fine in Win media player and also in Premiere

[Last Leaves]

42 minutes ago, Pavel Mašek said:

I have checked the footage and I do not see any problem you have mentioned (Win10):

- bitrate is variable but just a little - 37Mb/s to 41Mb/s

- I do not see any artifacts

- it has 120fps but it is not real 120fps footage. It is just 5x speeded up normal 24/25/30 footage. Slowmotion of it is then just normal speed.

I made a mistake saying that all NX500 clips on my computer play fine in VLC. Upon closer inspection it appears that all 120p h.265s from the NX500 play back with this glitch in VLC.   All non-120p clips play back without any problems. Sorry for the confusion, I should have checked that more closely. The real takeaway is that the 720p120 setting is actually recording 120p that is useable for slow motion work while the 1080p120 "hack" is not. Obviously, Otto pointed this out by saying that it wasn't real 120p, but I didn't find a description of the footage that stated that it was unusable for slow-mo.

So... To me it appears that this 1080p120 on the NX500 is useless as it stands. Again, this is not a complaint about Otto's work. Hopefully there anyway to overcome this problem and  create a functional 1080p120 setting on the NX500.

[Last Leaves]

6 hours ago, Tommix said:

People computers to be able to play videos uses CODECS. download codecs not players. K-Lite full codec pack for me always works great. VLC is crap, better to use players who uses FFmpeg plugins. like Classic Media player for windows. Samsung (and others) encodes video to standard so if not playing good-your pc fault, not samsung. DOnt know is there codec packs on macs but for windows there is plenty.

EDIT: vlc doesnt play this file at all for me -shows image but nothing moves, like i open image file not movie. POtPlayer plays good. Media player classic plays ok with codec pack v12. but doesnt like this fake 120p mode.

For me it hadn't been an issue because I transcode my footage to Prores for editing. I don't normally need to play h.265 files back, and when I have I've used VLC without issues up until now.

Now, sorry for the distractions. Does anyone have any idea how we might go about trying to resolve this problem with the NX500 1080p120 "hack"?

[Pavel Mašek]

4 hours ago, Last Leaves said:

For me it hadn't been an issue because I transcode my footage to Prores for editing. I don't normally need to play h.265 files back, and when I have I've used VLC without issues up until now.

Now, sorry for the distractions. Does anyone have any idea how we might go about trying to resolve this problem with the NX500 1080p120 "hack"?

It is big question if NX500 is really capable to shoot real 1080p120 fps...

[mercer]

I came into the tail end of this discussion, so my ignorance may be a factor, but the NX500 shoots native 24p, not 23.98. 

[TheRenaissanceMan]

Found this on Facebook's NX1 user group. The difference is pretty amazing imo.

 

[Marco Tecno]

Fine details are much better with 160mb. I guess that's a sweet spot for 8bit 420. Would be really great to see 10bit and 422, but I doubt it's feasible. 

[TheRenaissanceMan]

These are re-posted from the hack petition topic. Motion cadence looks hugely improved!
 

 

 

[Geoff CB]

Quick test, does not show off fine detail at all, but I do think motion is improved. Forgive my look, I've been very very sick the last couple of days. 

[Pavel Mašek]

2 hours ago, Geoff CB said:

Quick test, does not show off fine detail at all, but I do think motion is improved. Forgive my look, I've been very very sick the last couple of days. 

I think it is just not visible in shallow DOF scenes but definitely in complex scenes where everything is sharp, with some movement and also dark areas (all together). Vimeo clip above proves that even it is just static scene.

Below are frames from my 160Mbps video test. Sky would "fall apart" in macroblocking with 80Mbps but it is almost perfect now with incredible details in the branches.

Both are shot with some movement (more in ungraded image) - I just walked around the tree with Sigma 8-16mm...

 

[Geoff CB]

26 minutes ago, Pavel Mašek said:

I think it is just not visible in shallow DOF scenes but definitely in complex scenes where everything is sharp, with some movement and also dark areas (all together). Vimeo clip above proves that even it is just static scene.

Below are frames from my 160Mbps video test. Sky would "fall apart" in macroblocking with 80Mbps but it is almost perfect now with incredible details in the branches.

Both are shot with some movement (more in ungraded image) - I just walked around the tree with Sigma 8-16mm...

I didn't mean to say that the hack doesn't increase detail, which you show it does. Just that my test, that was mainly done for testing the anamorphic combination wide open, does not show off this aspect of the codec improvements.     

[Pavel Mašek]

Another comparsion: 1. 80Mbps, 2. 160Mbps. Less macroblocking, more details, better gradient (open full size image)

While it is just one frame and quite big crop - difference is even more visible in video.

[Andrew Reid]

On 8 April 2016 at 6:57 PM, Pavel Mašek said:

I think it is just not visible in shallow DOF scenes but definitely in complex scenes where everything is sharp, with some movement and also dark areas (all together). Vimeo clip above proves that even it is just static scene.

Below are frames from my 160Mbps video test. Sky would "fall apart" in macroblocking with 80Mbps but it is almost perfect now with incredible details in the branches.

Both are shot with some movement (more in ungraded image) - I just walked around the tree with Sigma 8-16mm...

 

Is the top one 80Mbit and second one 160?

In the top one the sky is still macro blocking quite a lot.

[Pavel Mašek]

26 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

Is the top one 80Mbit and second one 160?

In the top one the sky is still macro blocking quite a lot.

Both are 160Mbit. Yes, there is still some macroblocking but:

1. I think it is not so bad and not so visible in video as it was done in quite fast movement and it is very codec stressful scene. Second image was from more still so it is completely fine.

2. I will use 180Mbit (no issues with Lexar 2000x) so it could be slightly better.

It would be interesting to see how would handle same scene eg. 100Mbit H264 Sony A6300.

[Marco Tecno]

If the macroblocking is still somewhat present at 160mb/sec, could it be the case where it's not due to compressed bitrate but rather to the way h.265 works?

[Pavel Mašek]

40 minutes ago, Marco Tecno said:

If the macroblocking is still somewhat present at 160mb/sec, could it be the case where it's not due to compressed bitrate but rather to the way h.265 works?

Well, maybe it is more sensitive to macroblocking on plain areas but on other side it renders details so good without any evidence of compression (I am talking now more about 160Mbits). I think the H265 mainly focus on rendering of very fine details (maybe more than H624) and then it has save more of bitrate in plain areas like sky which lead to macroblocks.

These examples above are extreme - ultra wide angle lens with high aperture when complete everything is in focus. I did similar test with 80Mbit some time ago and sky looked like Tetris - so higher bitrate is definitely big improvement. I do not care that is not perfect (I guess 250Mbits would solve it all)  - it is now good enough for most situations. Just check second image - completely no issues even there are plain areas and LOT of details. Maybe disabling in-camera NR would helped too.

[SMGJohn]

1 hour ago, Marco Tecno said:

If the macroblocking is still somewhat present at 160mb/sec, could it be the case where it's not due to compressed bitrate but rather to the way h.265 works?

The way HEVC works is definitely contributing to macroblocking and the NR specially which is present even at low 100 ISO.

I tested HEVC extensively by converting my huge 400GB Pokémon in original Japanese to 750kbps HEVC.

I did probably hundreds of tests and this was back when the X265 was quite young I also tested the H265 in Adobe Media Encoder CC 2015, same issues as always it seems to cause macroblocking in dark areas I also tested a 1080p version with fine grain option of the first episode of Pokémon and HEVC smears the details away, its gotten slightly better with more modern releases but NX1 has old HEVC from 2014 unless they have updated it via firmware which is possible but even then its still out of date from today's versions.

Interesting enough I found 8bit saves grain details more than 10bit does which is funny. Not saying recording is same as encoding but HEVC is designed for compression and not for details. When you go higher in bitrate the point of saving space becomes completely lost as H264 10bit seem to perform as good if not better, and this is witnessed in cameras like Nikon which has under 100mbps H264 yet produces beautiful images with very high dynamic range and good shadow details.

[kinoseed]

11 hours ago, SMGJohn said:

The way HEVC works is definitely contributing to macroblocking and the NR specially which is present even at low 100 ISO.

I tested HEVC extensively by converting my huge 400GB Pokémon in original Japanese to 750kbps HEVC.

I did probably hundreds of tests and this was back when the X265 was quite young I also tested the H265 in Adobe Media Encoder CC 2015, same issues as always it seems to cause macroblocking in dark areas I also tested a 1080p version with fine grain option of the first episode of Pokémon and HEVC smears the details away, its gotten slightly better with more modern releases but NX1 has old HEVC from 2014 unless they have updated it via firmware which is possible but even then its still out of date from today's versions.

Interesting enough I found 8bit saves grain details more than 10bit does which is funny. Not saying recording is same as encoding but HEVC is designed for compression and not for details. When you go higher in bitrate the point of saving space becomes completely lost as H264 10bit seem to perform as good if not better, and this is witnessed in cameras like Nikon which has under 100mbps H264 yet produces beautiful images with very high dynamic range and good shadow details.

I can't agree.

Here is a 4K frame from 160Mbps mod, nx500, pushed around to check the latitude for grading.
(it was done in the rain, can't tell you the ISO, it's a bit soft as it was shot wide-open, and there are raindrops on the lens ... but it worked for me )
I did put the video on youtube, and it showed banding, macro-blocks and so forth, only after it was converted to h264, here are some frames direct from HVEC (the original is slightly underexposed):