GH5 to Alexa Conversion

[jackch2n]

Hi Alex! May I know when will the Pocket 4K Conversion be available? Can't wait to use it on my 4k xD

[JeremyDulac]

On 8/22/2019 at 9:14 PM, Sage said:

I did this to handle unique 97x/129x resolution passes that handle 'super' values beyond floating point 0.0 - 1.0. 

Is this bit going to be useful with highlight recovery?

[Justforfun]

Has anyone tried this on the S1 vlog? Wondering if I should wait for that one or the GH5 version is close to optimized with the s1

[Sage]

On 8/23/2019 at 5:27 AM, jackch2n said:

Hi Alex! May I know when will the Pocket 4K Conversion be available? Can't wait to use it on my 4k xD

I'm not sure yet, there is much to do. I am working at a consistent pace of late; I put in a few 14 hour days last week. Every day, I'm working as efficiently as I can.

10 hours ago, JeremyDulac said:

Is this bit going to be useful with highlight recovery?

Yes, that intended HR handling I described has worked with flying colors (pun intended) and the files will be compatible with HR by default (reaching up into the 'super' values to conform them to LogC). Paired with the recent 129x129x129 HDR luts, this will mean superior performance for clipped gamut, especially extreme blue (although these colors are rare in everyday footage)

Just yesterday, I finished the new EC component completely. At the heart of it are two 129x luts in sequence - they are 84MB each ? (the final files will be traditional 65x). It turned out that the final critical piece of the puzzle was to recode to handle negative numbers for 'theoretical' color regions when color is hyper saturated (combined with 129x). I am very happy with the performance of this new EC component; it is a perfect match to the primaries of Arri 709 at center, with 2020-like gamut handling at the edges, in a 709 envelope, and the smoothest conversion I have yet made.

10 minutes ago, Justforfun said:

Has anyone tried this on the S1 vlog? Wondering if I should wait for that one or the GH5 version is close to optimized with the s1

I think some with an S1 have it. Its not optimized for the S1, but the conversions do take into consideration this theoretical space (no clipping) above the GH5 range. In the case of S1 use, I advise lowering highlights in advance of the conversion (ideally with hue lock as in the pdf) to dial in range. I'm not sure when I'll be able to support the S1; all is resting on my ability to be as efficient with my time as possible.

[Parker]

3 hours ago, Justforfun said:

Has anyone tried this on the S1 vlog? Wondering if I should wait for that one or the GH5 version is close to optimized with the s1

I have used GHA with the S1's HLG with middling results, to get it to try and match the GH5 in interview settings. It's pretty tricky, but with some tweaking it can look pretty good. Not nearly as easy as with the GH5 though. 

[njekolino]

any update on the xt3 update?

[Miguelsantana]

19 hours ago, Sage said:

I think some with an S1 have it. Its not optimized for the S1, but the conversions do take into consideration this theoretical space (no clipping) above the GH5 range. In the case of S1 use, I advise lowering highlights in advance of the conversion (ideally with hue lock as in the pdf) to dial in range. I'm not sure when I'll be able to support the S1; all is resting on my ability to be as efficient with my time as possible.

Just shot a super cinematic short doc in Brazil on the S1 in V-Log, would loveee to try your bespoke S1 conversion as soon as it’s available - even if a prototype. Any idea when that could be?

[Sage]

On 8/26/2019 at 3:56 PM, njekolino said:

any update on the xt3 update?

Still working on the P4K. Though with the P4K, its 'EC2.0' that is the focus. Everything has been revised and dialed in. That new standard foundation will be able to be brought to new cameras much more efficiently once out

On 8/27/2019 at 3:53 AM, Miguelsantana said:

Just shot a super cinematic short doc in Brazil on the S1 in V-Log, would loveee to try your bespoke S1 conversion as soon as it’s available - even if a prototype. Any idea when that could be?

Not yet; you can expect things to move faster once the P4K is out. Dave Maze posted an S1H review using GHa on the sample footage sections (not sure how different it is from the S1):

 

 

[thebrothersthre3]

I saw that, really looks stunning 

[Adam Kuźniar]

 

Another cool video using GHAlexa

[Sage]

They did a very good job with it; I had read that they shot it in Natural, and used another conversion to first match it to VLog (hence a blue artifact at :35). A Natural Pre would alleviate this, but alas only so much time in the day

Here are my favs of late; @Germy1979 of this forum shared this stunner with me (fav shots are at the end especially):

This was posted on FB a couple days ago; beautiful color and light (ironic given its title image..):

And this one was brilliant:

 

[GabrielFF]

Hey Sage, any news on the latest updates? Specially the X-T3! I'm really eager to test it out

[Sage]

1 hour ago, GabrielFF said:

Hey Sage, any news on the latest updates? Specially the X-T3! I'm really eager to test it out

I know its taking approximately forever; I just added a feature that I think will be a significant step forward, people are going to love the practicality of it. A couple weeks ago I rewrote smoothing, and that was an absolute revelation.

I also learned some interesting things, now that I've had a chance to do a new round of tests for the upcoming update:

Premiere ProRes does not have a color space distortion - I originally assumed this was the case from using Alexa ProRes as my test material. This time, I tested FCPX encoded ProRes, and Atomos ProRes, and discovered that the problem is specifically with Alexa ProRes .mov files (scissor-like Vscope distortion). Other ProRes sources are fine in Premiere, FCPX, and Resolve (no new Pre will be needed here) DNxHD does have a distortion in Premiere

Premiere can't accept Wide Range Luts. This will preclude P4K users from tapping into the entirety of the Highlight Recovery mode, now that BMD has added BRaw support to Premiere natively. This will also slightly impact the new feature I mentioned earlier. Neither of these issues are that major in the overall scope of things, but it may be worth making a request to Adobe to add support for this new type of look-up (it would be relatively simple to do in terms of code; it essentially took me a morning). Resolve, FCPX, and Atomos are all coded properly for it.

There will be P4K news soon.

[Attila Bakos]

What do you call a wide range LUT?

[Sage]

8 hours ago, Attila Bakos said:

What do you call a wide range LUT?

Its an optional Lut parameter that I've never seen used (when 0-1 is not enough). I learned of it out of necessity, doing extensive reading on the nitty gritty of what Luts consist of. I was coming up against a wall, and thought that perhaps look-ups weren't up to the task (why it had been written sometimes that they clip extreme data when used in a non-destructive color workflow). Resolve, for example, can't export them. I wanted to call them 'HDR' luts, but that would add confusion, as they will be set to 709 primaries. BMD Film is the rare instance in which the parameter is needed (for HR)

[Attila Bakos]

16 minutes ago, Sage said:

Its an optional Lut parameter that I've never seen used (when 0-1 is not enough). I learned of it out of necessity, doing extensive reading on the nitty gritty of what Luts consist of. I was coming up against a wall, and thought that perhaps look-ups weren't up to the task (why it had been written sometimes that they clip extreme data when used in a non-destructive color workflow). Resolve, for example, can't export them. I wanted to call them 'HDR' luts, but that would add confusion, as they will be set to 709 primaries. BMD Film is the rare instance in which the parameter is needed (for HR)

I sell some technical LUTs that fix incorrect YUV-RGB conversion, for those it was absolutely necessary to reach values below 0 and above 1. I didn't have problems in Premiere, although I use different headers than in Resolve. (DOMAIN_MIN and DOMAIN_MAX instead of LUT_3D_INPUT_RANGE).

Another example of Premiere supporting these LUTs is when you go to the technical Lumetri presets, they are actually 1D LUTs, this is the source of the Full to Legal range 10 bit ("c:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2019\Lumetri\LUTs\Legacy\FullToSMPTE10.cube")

LUT_1D_SIZE 2
DOMAIN_MIN -0.07306 -0.07306 -0.07306
DOMAIN_MAX 1.09475 1.09475 1.09475

0.0 0.0 0.0
1.0 1.0 1.0

[Sage]

16 minutes ago, Attila Bakos said:

I sell some technical LUTs that fix incorrect YUV-RGB conversion, for those it was absolutely necessary to reach values below 0 and above 1. I didn't have problems in Premiere, although I use different headers than in Resolve. (DOMAIN_MIN and DOMAIN_MAX instead of LUT_3D_INPUT_RANGE).

That's amazing, TIL; I will go test that right now. There is a lot of value for look-ups used on a non-defined input, mid-grade (to avoid the data clipping)

*Per color no less! that's great for primaries

[Julien416]

I guess the once planned GH5s version has been scrapped since then... I bought your lut thinking it was about to be released. A year and a half later I guess I was wrong. 

[Sage]

23 minutes ago, Julien416 said:

I guess the once planned GH5s version has been scrapped since then... I bought your lut thinking it was about to be released. A year and a half later I guess I was wrong. 

Would never scrap it, I keep my word. The S is getting an update directly from the P4K variation - which is a lot better than V3 (gamut/smoothness/a certain new feature, its not just the P4K variation; its gen 4). Its taken a lot longer than I anticipated, as I had no idea how much it would improve (P4K, XT3, S1, Sony, all waiting). I am one person, working day and night, weekends included - and I won't stop until its done.

[Sage]

4 hours ago, Attila Bakos said:

I didn't have problems in Premiere, although I use different headers than in Resolve

Found a universal solution: place bounds *before resolution, and domain *after, with the same values. I've tested in Premiere, Resolve and FCPX. One caveat though - Atomos can only accept one definition. I haven't tested in Avid etc., so there will be a compatibility fallback option.