Nx1 Vs Ursa Mini 4k

[thebullmoosesociety]

Here are two comparison videos with side-by-side evaluations on a number of areas, like low light, slow motion, audio, rolling shutter, and how they key.

Part 1:

Part 2:

 

In short:
Ursa Mini: better overall picture (flatter shooting profile, better color gamut) global shutter, better for green screening
Nx1: sharper, less noise in low light, better audio, better slow motion

[Marco Tecno]

Did you use the high bitrate hack for nx1? Which settings (apart gammaDR) did you use for your test? Did you try andrew's log profile for nx1? Thx.

[caseywilsondp]

19 hours ago, Marco Tecno said:

Did you use the high bitrate hack for nx1? Which settings (apart gammaDR) did you use for your test? Did you try andrew's log profile for nx1? Thx.

he used the shogun in test 2 at least so the high bit rate hack wouldn't have given any benefit anyways (also, it doesn't give any benefit internally that I've seen either). 

[kidzrevil]

@caseywilsondp disagree. The bitrate hack definitely increases the quality of the video. H.265 is still a compressed image but at bitrates as high as 180 mbps the codec performs much better

[caseywilsondp]

15 hours ago, kidzrevil said:

@caseywilsondp disagree. The bitrate hack definitely increases the quality of the video. H.265 is still a compressed image but at bitrates as high as 180 mbps the codec performs much better

Maybe, I haven't used the latest version... but I saw no quantifiable improvement in my tests with 180mb. 

[SMGJohn]

6 minutes ago, caseywilsondp said:

Maybe, I haven't used the latest version... but I saw no quantifiable improvement in my tests with 180mb. 

Its mostly minor like fine detail improvements, slightly more dynamic range but nothing like magic lantern quality, slightly better noise pattern and less banding issues.

Its nothing stellar but its a welcoming change, I also seen them trying to remove the in-camera video noise reduction and quality definitely seemed to excel there so its clearly NR just "/(¤&%( with us for now the changes are definitely there but we cannot see them too clearly because of NR because the noise details were excellent without the NR.

[Geoff CB]

I have no idea how he screwed up the skin tones so badly in that second test. Edit: Contrast was at minimum, think this was the culprit.

[kidzrevil]

@caseywilsondp @SMGJohn Also keep in mind the image was already rock solid to begin with so its hard to see unless you know what to look for. First thing I looked for was compression artifacts and couldnt find em for the life of me. Even shooting externally to prores is a compressed codec. H.265 is just a very effecient compressed codec. We've seen the jump in 1080 quality we got from the bitrate or as Samsung called it "increased data output" with the firmware updates. The effect is very real

[SMGJohn]

45 minutes ago, kidzrevil said:

@caseywilsondp @SMGJohn Also keep in mind the image was already rock solid to begin with so its hard to see unless you know what to look for. First thing I looked for was compression artifacts and couldnt find em for the life of me. Even shooting externally to prores is a compressed codec. H.265 is just a very effecient compressed codec. We've seen the jump in 1080 quality we got from the bitrate or as Samsung called it "increased data output" with the firmware updates. The effect is very real

I agree but I rather have MJPEG for easier workflow, the HEVC even at high bitrate is still pretty harsh on my quite beastly system, my GPU is getting a bit outdated by still it take the 4k prores with ease.

[kidzrevil]

@SMGJohn yeah its too much for my system I have to transcode to dnxhd or prores

[thebullmoosesociety]

On 4/14/2016 at 7:34 AM, Marco Tecno said:

Did you use the high bitrate hack for nx1? Which settings (apart gammaDR) did you use for your test? Did you try andrew's log profile for nx1? Thx.

I did not use a bitrate hack, but I wan to try that out soon. In the first video, I Gamma DR at Saturation:-3 Sharpness:-3 contrast:-5 Master black:10 luminance range: 0-255. In the second video, I turned sharpness and contrast all the way down, because the NX1 footage is so crazy sharp.  I didn't use the log profile. To my knowledge, it turns the image into log after its already recorded, so I don't think it would add leeway for color grading. 

[Geoff CB]

6 hours ago, thebullmoosesociety said:

I did not use a bitrate hack, but I wan to try that out soon. In the first video, I Gamma DR at Saturation:-3 Sharpness:-3 contrast:-5 Master black:10 luminance range: 0-255. In the second video, I turned sharpness and contrast all the way down, because the NX1 footage is so crazy sharp.  I didn't use the log profile. To my knowledge, it turns the image into log after its already recorded, so I don't think it would add leeway for color grading. 

Don't turn contrast past -5. Your skin tones suffer significantly if you go past that point!

[kidzrevil]

Am I the only one that keeps contrast at 0 and use negative saturation instead ?

[Marco Tecno]

I'm using the settings advised by Andrew. I think they keep a lot of detail. But are not great w/o any grading.

[caseywilsondp]

On 5/4/2016 at 2:14 PM, kidzrevil said:

Am I the only one that keeps contrast at 0 and use negative saturation instead ?

I have not extensively tested negative saturation, but in my limited testing of contrast/ Saturation, colors seemed to break a little faster with saturation modifications. -5 contrast seems to be the sweet spot for me with 0 saturation.

[kidzrevil]

@caseywilsondp i'll try those out and see what I get with it. So far I prefer the image with negative saturation cause it gives me better results in post when I use LUT's. It keeps the colors from clipping which is awesome, skintones end up looking better as a result. The problem I am running into is there seems to be blacks that are deeper than 0 ire (?) being recorded and it ends up looking horribly clipped. I either need to raise the MP to like 8 or use your method and use -5 contrast. I just hate how the colors look out of cam with - contrast.  Hopefully its fixable in post

[caseywilsondp]

I feel colors end up looking very natural:

My testing results:

http://caseywilsondp.com/2016/01/27/best-nx1-settings-for-4k-video/

Luts for nx1:

http://caseywilsondp.com/2016/03/24/samsung-nx1-free-lut-pack/

 

[Marco Tecno]

I'm going to dl your luts and try them. But...I always use Andrew's suggested settings. Do you think they'd do with those, as well?

[NX1user]

Thanks for making theses available!

[caseywilsondp]

9 hours ago, Marco Tecno said:

I'm going to dl your luts and try them. But...I always use Andrew's suggested settings. Do you think they'd do with those, as well?

Doubtful without some serious tweaking. Give it a shot and see if you like it. Maybe you do, maybe you don't, but try it with my settings before you make up your mind. My guess is Andrews guide will give you more latitude than mine, but I've liked the constancy of the colors and safety from banding that my settings deliver.