Does the Hack really make things look different?

[Omer Sehayek]

I have been reading about the hack for a while now and decided to give it a try today.

I took the same video with the camera on a tripod filming 2 toys with different colors and small details, dark areas and bright areas, not a lot of light and strong red, blue and green colors in the frame.

ISO was 200, WB was on auto, shutter speed 50, 25p, 3.2 aperture. 

I started with bit rate of 80 and slowly went up by +20 each time. When I got to 220 the card could not take it anymore and recording stopped after 4 seconds. 

I use the sandisk extreme pro 64gb 95mb/s - sound was on.

I then used both after effects and premiere to scan every detail of the different videos just to see if I can see more details or anything that can give me a hint to the fact one clip is better than the other.

Beside the huge difference in file size, they all looked exactly the same even when I got in 800%. The 200 had the same look as the 80! 

Either I am doing something wrong, or there is no point for this? what do you actually get out of it if you cant even see the difference? 

It`s like taking the h265 file and use editready to create a high quality prores out of it. You get a huge file that thinks it is 10bit but it`s actually just a fake one. 

 

Any one can help me see the light? 

thanks 

[Antonis]

I tried the hack once. 
It resulted in framedrops in 120fps mode and also some corrupted frames in several clips.
The footage also made Premiere run much slower compared to normal NX1 clips.

Cannot say I noticed much benefit of the higher bitrate.
Overall, not a fan. Just stick to original (unhacked) bitrate.

[pintowar]

@Antonis  Is it really going so bad with the hack ??

Please, I also need opinions on this. @kidzrevil @Andrew Reid @ricardo_sousa11 @Kisaha ,etc....
Is the hack really beneficial? Do you notice the increase in bitrate?
And besides the bitrate, what other aspects improve with the hack?

Thanks.

 

 

[Kisaha]

I usually do not use any bitrate hack. I prefer NOT over heating my sensor, to use less cards, cheaper, and not super expensive ones, and to squeeze more power from my batteries. These 3 are some of the greatest benefits of the NX1, and not one mirrorless is better than NX1. GH5 is equally good in heat management, but to achieve this is bigger and +50% heavier than the NX1, with a lot smaller sensor; also you need top speed cards and eats batteries quite a lot.

I have noticed more heat in the camera, bigger battery consumption and of course bigger files with the hack, and I decided that if I need a different tool, I just use/rent a different camera. For the price range and it's tier, NX is still great and top in some aspects (as the ones mentioned earlier, plus ergonomics, some great lenses, megapixel count, 120fps, 15fps photography, SAMOLED monitors, etc).

My impression is that there is a slight improvement from 120-160mbps (never went above that) and for smaller projects, it probably worths the extra GBs, but it ain't 10bit, not 4:2:2, you don't even gain better low light performance (biggest NX disadvantage vs newer APS-C cameras). Bitrates and specs do not tell the whole story. One of my favorite cameras to use and produce is the Canon C100mkII. Do you know it's bitrate?!

There are a lot of posts with details, explanations, and tests, you should read some of that stuff. I would expect @Omer Sehayek above to notice some differences, probably on a more complex forest or sea scene. He can post one still from 80 and another from 180mbps, but I have the same card and I am not sure if it can reach as far as 220 WITH sound, but definitely I am not a mod/hack expert in anyway, on the contrary.

[kidzrevil]

4 hours ago, pintowar said:

@Antonis  Is it really going so bad with the hack ??

Please, I also need opinions on this. @kidzrevil @Andrew Reid @ricardo_sousa11 @Kisaha ,etc....
Is the hack really beneficial? Do you notice the increase in bitrate?
And besides the bitrate, what other aspects improve with the hack?

Thanks.

 

 

The hack is absolutely beneficial. I refuse to shoot an nx1 without it ?. It takes care of the macro blocking and that was my main issue with the NX1. Install it and shoot with 160-180 mbps

[Anders Bixbe]

I never hacked my NX1:s but I have only seen macroblocking when watching my 400+ YouTube videos on a 1080p or 1440p monitor.  I can see macroblocking when the internet speed goes down but never on my original files from my UHD TV:s at 2160p. I sit close 6,2 feet (2 meters) from my 65" TV that I use as my monitor. 

[pintowar]

Thanks for the answers.

And in Premiere or Resolve (or any other program), is the footage with the highest bitrate going as smooth or slow? Any problem in this?

[Pavel Mašek]

In static scenes you will not see much difference - maybe only in shadows details. But I always shoot 4k/30p in 160Mbit:

I remember one situation in past when I have recorded  video with my NX1 (withou any hack that time) was poiting on building against sun (so building was in shadows), there were trees, waving branches in the wind, moving grass, chaning brightness ... that image was full of macroblocking and absolutely awful to me. 

However I saw also macroblocking on the sky in static landscape shots too so I will never return back to 80Mbit.

Below are frame grabs from 160Mbit footage - all done from gimbal in movement (so there is also some motion blur), no grading - just "converted" from 0-255 to 16-235 in Premiere (I am Ok with 8bit colors ;-)), Vivid settings with some tweaks, MBL 0.

I have not tried 80Mbit but details would not be so detailed and there would be much more macroblocking - I think image would fall apart completely without hack. You will see macroblocking even here (face, road ) if you will take closer look (I should push it at least to 180Mbit but I was worried about frame drops).

If you plan share footage on YT then it is completely different story

 

[Parker]

I always use the hack. Big improvement, especially in 120p. I feel like it holds fine detail in the shadow areas a lot better, but where I really notice it is on a gimbal, with a wide angle and deep focus... I mainly shoot weddings, so that means lots of trees, fountains, small, detailed and busy backgrounds with lots of movement. At the much lower stock bitrate (especially on the NX500, which only offered 60mbps as opposed to the nx1's 80mbps pro setting) there is a huge, noticeable difference for me. 

I always shoot my b-roll without sound anyway, since it's all 60p or 120p and I know I'll slow it down, so I usually shoot at 200mbps, and drop down to 180 or 160 with sound when I shoot interviews and talking heads. The files still aren't that big. Why not use the best image quality possible, all the time? 

That's my advice though. If you really want to see the difference, point the camera at a fountain, or run down a road with big, leafy trees gently blowing in the wind, and I'm sure you'll notice a difference. 

[BopBill]

As it is said before in static scenes it is hard to see any difference. But I have seen horrible macro blocking in some sky scenes before the hack. Also there is some stange "macro block flashing" sometimes in even shadow surfaces ( grounds, roads, walls...), there can be little with hack too but much more without. Can't explain it, but it seems to me some kind of macro blocking. I have also seen really horrible  macro block, color kind of flashing when shooting snow during snowing. I have not seen it with the hack yet. I have no words to explain it correctly, sorry my english. All in all, simply the picture seems more "peacefull" with the hack. I use it all the time. Nowadays  at 140 mbps (AF and IS on)

[Antonis]

After seeing the positive experiences of other bitrate hack users, I decided to give it another go.

Unfortunately I am still getting dropped frames in 120fps mode. 
I'm using a Sandisk Extreme Pro 95mb/s U3 card.

Bitrate at 160:

Original bitrate 80:


Who is getting a solid 120fps (119,88) with higher bitrates and what cards are you using?

[shanebrutal]

That's about the frames I get with my SanDisk extreme pro at 120 if I push bitrates above 100. Try around 100. I think it still helps the image.

[Omer Sehayek]

thanks for the replies guys.

I will check it out in a different settings and let you know what I think.

I read all everything I could find on the matter before installing the hack and was expecting to see even a minor or tiny difference in still video as well.

if you can only tell the difference while moving and with tress and small details that the eye cant always pick anyway, it might not be so much of a deal.

I was also (mostly) interested to see if color grading would effect the different files - I know it`s not 10 bit but still, more data. 

 

 

[lucabutera]

It depends on what you need to do with the camera.
If you want to shoot a video with standard colors and sunlight, the advantage is minimal.
If you want to use the DR profile to get a better workflow in post production then the hack is highly recommended because it drastically reduces compression issues.

h265 200Mbps it's like a 400Mbps on h264 codec, my opinion it's that the h265 hack it's better, similar to 10bit ProRes.

[Matthew Hartman]

On 11/14/2017 at 9:10 AM, lucabutera said:

It depends on what you need to do with the camera.
If you want to shoot a video with standard colors and sunlight, the advantage is minimal.
If you want to use the DR profile to get a better workflow in post production then the hack is highly recommended because it drastically reduces compression issues.

h265 200Mbps it's like a 400Mbps on h264 codec, my opinion it's that the h265 hack it's better, similar to 10bit ProRes.

Luca is correct.