Production Dairy - Using Hacked NX1 and NX500 on YouTube Channel

[Drew Veeneman]

Here's the big monster video from last months shoot.

 

[Santiago de la Rosa]

BMCC looks really good and you matched both cameras really well.

I´m experimentig with BMPCC and NX500, trying to match the clips it´s a little dificult to me.

I always "feel" the BMPCC clip better, but no 4k final render, only 1080p.

I´m using Sigma 18-35, Sigma 8-16 and the standard NX16-50mm.

I´ve to learn more of Davinci Resolve.

[Drew Veeneman]

Today I shot footage for two more upcoming episodes. This time I had the BMCC and NX1 on a tripod for interview style talking-head video. I'll have more info on that later in the week. Meanwhile, I've worked out a good system for backing up video archives...

Low Budget Video Backup Solution

For the Carry Trainer video series essentially all my footage is stored on two large hard-drives. That works pretty well. Internal hard-drives are cheap these days and with a USB 3.0 connection the speed is good enough. I've never had a hard-drive fail yet, but it happens. Sooner or later hard-drives fail... they aren't designed as a long-term storage solution. I've been thinking about a off-site backup solution.

Due to the sheer size of the footage I shoot, Blu Ray seemed like the only plausible solution. I don't even want to try pushing 6TB+ up to the cloud.

I checked out Archival Blu Ray discs, and they were a bit too expensive. Then, reading the specs on a regular Blu Ray - R discs, I learned the regular shelf life for those is pretty good. I forget the source, but they are rated at 20-30 years. For my YouTube Channel that's good enough. I want something that lasts about 10 years that I can easily store off-site.

Once I settled on Blu Ray Recordable Discs, the next challenge was a system for spreading data across many discs. I break up my footage archives by Episodes. Episodes 1-5 are grouped together and roughly 450 GB. Initially I tried CDBurnerXP, which has a nice disc spanning function... that didn't go well. The program would choke on the individual DNG files from my BMCC. Perhaps 450 GB was just too big for it? I let the program go for three days non-stop with no success and had to move on.

Then I tried WinZip, which in combination with ImgBurn, works great. With WinZip I can take large projects and break them down into chunks for each disc. The WinZip program is powerful and fast. There's even a setting for "No Compression" on WinZip, which is perfect for video files(where everything is usually already compressed). My Episodes 1-5 directory broke up nicely into 22 files. Now I'm using ImgBurn, a good disc writing program, to write one file to each disc. I prefer ImgBurn for archival purposes over the default Windows Tool, because it thoroughly verifies each disc after writing it.

This topic is a bit boring, however as video makers it's important to have some system in place if you're working on valuable stuff.

[Drew Veeneman]

Hey gang, got another Carry Trainer Episode! Tested Slow Mo on the NX1 for a Gun Review:

We had a variety of cameras for this video. For the main interview style talking head footage, I used my dual camera setup on a tripod. The tighter shot is the BMCC 2.5 with the 50mm Super Takumar F/1.4 and the Mitakon Lens Turbo II adapter(this speed booster is new, not in previous videos). The wider shot is the NX1 with the Super Takumar 35mm F/2.0... this was used for the close-up cutaway shots of the gun as well. (The corner sharpness sucks on this 35mm lens. I made it look good, but I need to swap it out for the F/3.5 Super Tak version.)

The opening of the video has hi-speed footage from the NX1, recorded at the 1080p 120 fps setting(really 119.98 fps). In post while trans-coding, I stretched the footage out 500%, which perfectly fits 23.976. 23.976 is the standard 24 fps frame rate commonly used, and the base frame rate for Carry Trainer videos. Note, there is raw slow motion footage in the Bloopers at the end of the video (Go to 13:28) if your interested. In the bloopers it's literally straight out of camera with no adjustments other than re-timing it to 23.976.

I wasn't present when the range footage was shot. That was recorded on Mickey's fancy Samsung cell phone, which amazingly recorders 4K... BUT AT 18 FPS. Lol. I just loaded this into DaVinci resolve and flipped the Optical Flow frame blending switch.That did a good enough job.

Technical Notes: On the NX1 audio dropped out completely from one of the interview clips. For me it didn't matter because I wasn't using it(had a Tascam external recorder on the Lav), but I thought I'd report the glitch. My first clue was that the audio levels weren't moving at all while it was recording. The NX1 did fine recording after that.

[Kisaha]

If we go for paintball, I want him on my team!

[Drew Veeneman]

Lol. Mickey Schuch and Sang Lee have mad shooting skillz.

[Drew Veeneman]

Ok, here's one more video with remaining footage from out last shoot. This was done completely on a tripod with my duel camera BMCC and NX1 rig... same setup as the interview footage from the last video. NX1 is the wide shot.

I didn't do a great job with lighting on this one. If I could have done it over again, I would have thrown my Diva Ring Light on around my cameras for a little more fill. The setup with him facing the sink was awkward.

 

[Drew Veeneman]

Got something interesting here for fellow videographers in the later half of this video. The first part is just general run and gun footage from my NX1... a mix of 4K and 1080p at 120fps, slowed down to 24 fps. I can't remember the lenses I used there... but for the talking head portion I'm using my new NXL Speed Booster!

I'm using my dual camera rig for the interview portion with the same lenses on both cameras (BMCC 2.5K and NX1). Each camera has a Super Takumar 50mm F/1.4 lens with speed boosters. Mitakon Lens Turbo II on the BMCC. The custom NXL Speed Booster from Italy on the NX1 (thanks Luca!). Because of the crop factors  on each camera, the BMCC gets the close-up shot, while the NX1 captures the wider medium frame shot. The NX1 produced a better image with minimal fuss on this one.

I didn't do a lot of grading on the interview footage. On the NX1 I pulled back the saturation about 20% and applied a finishing lut. On the BMCC I adjusted Lift + Gain, saturation, sharpened and applied the same finishing lut.

I do like using my favorite lens on both cameras simultaneously. I will have more footage like this in the future. Cheers

[Drew Veeneman]

I'm failing behind on this thread. I've got a couple more videos.

This crazy video uses... FOUR cameras. Editing was really challenging but the final product was worth it. We have the NX1, NX500, and two high-end samsung cell phone cameras. The NX1 is using the NXL speed booster here and below.

And more recently, here's a good video shotguns filmed at our indoor range. This is using my usual NX1 and BMCC combo. Some of the NX1 footage was under exposed, but I was able to fix it post without any problems.

 

[Brian Luce]

Can you comment on the improvement of the nx500 post hack? Did you do any comparison?

[Drew Veeneman]

Brian, I can't comment on the improvement for the NX500 before and after the hack. With the bit rates, it really seemed like a no-brainier. Although the Samsung codec is superior, the stock bit-rates are still to low for getting the most out of the 4K resolution. I've heard plenty of GH4 owners complain about the 100 MB on their cameras.