Is there any need for high bitrates if your content is only viewed on Vimeo/YouTube?

[Inazuma]

I understand that footage recorded in 10bit 4:2:2 will have the maliability close to a RAW photo, but what are the advantages of recording at high bitrates to a normal codec on say, a GH3? Apart from less JPEG artifacts.

[Andrew Reid]

Raw is a different thing entirely to 10bit 4:2:2.

 

Raw is just the 1s and 0s from the sensor. Everything else like bit depth, sampling, debayering, compression, encoding, comes later.

 

So 10bit 4:2:2 does not have mailability close to a raw photo actually.

 

The advantages of recording to a high bitrate is that the image doesn't break up when the movement or scene gets too complex for the codec. Also a finer more film-like noise grain is maintained.

 

However the stuff you can do with raw like changing the white balance entirely in post as if doing it in camera with no side effects, you cannot do with even the best RGB / YUV codec in 10bit 4:2:2, like ProRes.

[Inazuma]

Oh I see. Well in that case what are the benefits gained from higher bit depths and 4:2:2 etc compared to a normal h264 8bit recording?

 

Also. Off topic, but I am about to convert hours of AVCHD .MTS footage from my GX7 in to h264 MP4's because I heard that editing programs (such as Premiere Pro) work faster with MP4. Is this true or am I about to waste hours of time rendering?

[Andrew Reid]

As I said. Image doesn't fall apart as much at high bitrates. No matter how you show your movie, do you want the source material to be falling apart even before it reaches the edit? Nope!

 

You're about to waste hours of time rendering, yes. If you convert it, convert it to ProRes, set your timeline to ProRes, then if you add heavy filters and grading to the clip it will hold up better, i.e. Film Convert.

[Inazuma]

Phew. Saved me a bit of time!

 

I'm on a Windows machine and since I can't use ProRes, I looked for alternatives and some people say Avid LE (DNxHD). Will this make any difference in editing or is it just another pipe dream?

[Andrew Reid]

I depends really if you're doing grading, quite heavy filters, etc.

 

Usually it wouldn't make much difference, but I recently found Film Converts likes a ProRes timeline, rather than choosing the DSLR sequence preset or matching the sequence settings to the source material (i.e. AVCHD).

 

Try that first. Create a ProRes sequence in your Premiere and drop the AVCHD onto it. Should work well.

 

AVCHD is handled fine by premiere now (wasn't always to smooth). I wouldn't bother 'unwrapping it' to MP4.

[Inazuma]

Ok great tips Andrew. Thanks for all your help :) And keep up the great work

[Grégory LEROY]

I think the original post has not been answered. Does it worth it investing in a GH5 (shooting@400mb/s) while Vimeo/YouTube compression is quite drastic? will there be a significant difference btw my D5500 1080p 60fps and GH5 4K 60 fps at full HD on youtube? Does a good camera worth the investment when delivering on youtube?

[Cinegain]

Yes.

[Mattias Burling]

According to my own extensive testing which consists of +200 YouTube uploads the answer is, yes.

[Damphousse]

On 2/16/2014 at 7:19 PM, Inazuma said:

I understand that footage recorded in 10bit 4:2:2 will have the maliability close to a RAW photo, but what are the advantages of recording at high bitrates to a normal codec on say, a GH3? Apart from less JPEG artifacts.

I guess the question is do you know why people use raw to shoot photographs?  Everything in your pipeline lens, sensor, computer monitor, printer, paper, TV, projector has characteristics.  The more information you start out with the more you can target your final result to your final output.

Let me ask you.  If you were going to make a print in the old analog film days would your rather have a negative or an 8x10 print to start with?  The problem with digital only people is they don't know the fundamentals.  Any analog person would remember hours in the dark room picking the kind of developer, the developing technique, the kind of printing paper, the kind of enlarger filter, dodging and burning, the kind of paper developer, the paper developing technique, etc.  Just because the final print was done on a paper that had less dynamic range than the negative doesn't mean you would skimp on the negative.

Honestly though I never really thought about it in the analog days.  It was common sense.  What about digital makes people question starting off with a more flexible bit of source material?  It seems self evident no matter what your final output product is.  Now of course there are trade offs.   Even in the analog day I didn't carry an 8x10 view camera with me everywhere for casual snapshots.  I mean you have to find a balance.  It is an art.   No, literally it is an art.

[rotgg]

The very simple answer to this question is don't some youtube videos look way better than others

[kidzrevil]

The higher the bitrate the better ESPECIALLY with flat footage like the sony cinegamma's or panasonic cinelike d. Like @Andrew Reid said you get better looking grain amongst other stuff. Its very important to have your source footage contain as much real information as possible. 

All of my work is being outputted to 1080p I use Convert V4 to downscale my 4k 100mbit files to 422 DNXHD 10bit and it looks pretty good to my eyes. Maybe that will help your workflow

[Inazuma]

Talk about thread revival.

[kidzrevil]

@Inazuma ??

[slonick81]

On 17.02.2014 at 4:44 AM, Inazuma said:

Off topic, but I am about to convert hours of AVCHD .MTS footage from my GX7 in to h264 MP4's because I heard that editing programs (such as Premiere Pro) work faster with MP4. Is this true or am I about to waste hours of time rendering?

Try to remux container first. You already have h264 inside .mts container, and it fits .mp4 nicely. It's really fast - usually storage performance limits the process - and doesn't recompress video stream. I usually use ffmpeg and small batch script for this task. It's possible to scan recursively down the folder tree and remux any file with given extension into new container, then to put resulting file in the same directory or to another destination. And if it'll stutter in AP even inside .mp4 - just change the script a little and it will convert your footage to ProRes/DNxHD/whatever...

On 17.02.2014 at 4:19 AM, Inazuma said:

I understand that footage recorded in 10bit 4:2:2 will have the maliability close to a RAW photo, but what are the advantages of recording at high bitrates to a normal codec on say, a GH3? Apart from less JPEG artifacts.

Well, (M|J)PEG artifacts is the thing that ruins the show. So the less - the better.