neosushi Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 Hi guys, I am working on color grading the Samsung NX1 footage - after converting to PRORES. I love the picture I can get out of the camera, and with some slightly tweaking. But a lot of time I have to deal with heavy macro blocking.Here is an example. As I have previously seen in some of my footage, most macro blocking occurs in white areas. Please check for yourselves in this video. Although the youtube conversion is responsible for some of it, I still get some heavy macro block from the PRORES files. I compared Color grading (mostly Osiris LUT though) with Prores standard ans Prores 4444. Will be waiting for your comments Please watch in 4k http://youtu.be/Wx97gcTiMPA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Andrew Reid Posted February 23, 2015 Administrators Share Posted February 23, 2015 What app are you using to convert to ProRes? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neosushi Posted February 23, 2015 Author Share Posted February 23, 2015 Hi Andrew, I'm using iffmpeg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Herb Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 Crazy to see the macroblocking in the lighter to white. I was used to (and dismayed) seeing in in the dark portions of shots. Albert Fast's video are nice examples. Lovely shots and color, but the macroblocking is readily evident. Andrew, you're the man with all the toys... Do you see this macroblocking when using the NX1 with the Shogun? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neosushi Posted February 23, 2015 Author Share Posted February 23, 2015 Thanks Herb - and I agree I can't remember when I last saw macro blocking in white zones... It's really strange...And it's not the first time I saw that. I got a master shot for a client (I can't publish the video unfortunately) with a large white wall, and I ran into the same troubles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nougat Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 Neo- Do you see the same macroblocking in the OOC H.265 clip? Did you record in "Pro" level before converting to ProRes? I use iffmpeg (Rocky Mountain) to convert my NX1 clips to ProRes and have not experienced heavy macroblocking like this.Q for GH4 users: Do most GH4 users convert to ProRes or another intermediate codec to grade/edit or do most just grade/edit the H.264 clips? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neosushi Posted February 23, 2015 Author Share Posted February 23, 2015 Hi Nougat, in the original H.265 Clip I have almost no macro blocking. I experienced macro blocking with both Wondershare and iffmpeg. I don't know about this Rocky mountain but will try to use it and compare ! Thanks for the tip.EDIT : And of course I recorded to the best quality possible (Pro setting).Also I can answer your question on GH4 users as I am one too: I usually edit / grade directly from H264. Unless I edit on FCPX where it converts to proxy in software. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nougat Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 There probably won't be any difference between the ProRes conversions from iFFmpeg or Rocky Mountain Converter, because they are both graphical front-end interfaces for the same FFmpeg engine. Did you double check to confirm that your NX1 clips were recorded in the "Pro" bit rate vs the "HQ" or "Normal" bit rate? "Pro" captures a lot more data. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marco Tecno Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 Could you please share the settings you use? Which gamma? Master black? Sharpness? Also the other ones, thx. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DigitalEd Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 What are you editing in? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neosushi Posted February 23, 2015 Author Share Posted February 23, 2015 Marco Tecno: Gamma DR, with contrast - 5 and saturation about -2 or -3. Sharpness between -5 and 0. (I try to recall as it was 2 weeks ago). No change to master pedestal. Range 0-255.DigitalEd: Editing in Premiere Pro CC 2014. And I'm thinking that maybe I should run a test in AE or FCPX to compare. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neosushi Posted February 23, 2015 Author Share Posted February 23, 2015 Just tried with Rocky Mountain Converter.Settings : Quality Prores 422 HQ. Resolution/Frame rate same as source. The conversion speed is insanely faster than iffmpeg... Crazy...The results seems comparable to iffmpeg Prores HQ. Here is a video showing the result with Rocky mountain. At the end a comparison between Rocky mountain converter (left) and iffmpeg 4444 (right). http://youtu.be/beIux9Ab6Bs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neosushi Posted February 24, 2015 Author Share Posted February 24, 2015 Also Rocky Mountain is now available for Mac. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DigitalEd Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 Could be Premiere on a PC as Prores is a Apple thing and Premiere dose not 100% have it right from what i have read. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neosushi Posted February 24, 2015 Author Share Posted February 24, 2015 Could be Premiere on a PC as Prores is a Apple thing and Premiere dose not 100% have it right from what i have read.Thanks for the idea Ed but I didnt mention that I work on Imac retina. Got the same results from after effects. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DigitalEd Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 Yaa but still AF is a Adobe product same as Premiere not Apple and Apple has not let out all the info on Prores for Adobe to use it right so Adobe and others make it work as best they can in their programs. I use Edius and that is what they told me about Prores that the information is not released from Apple for anyone to use it 100% right except them. They told me not to use it do to problems like that i now use the Edius code called HQX that they clams is better then Prores for editing in their program. I will say it creates files that work a lot better when editing for the 4K files i edit. The Prores files do not play well at all and the HQX files play at almost real time. When i update my Video card i should then get real time with some effects applyed.I really like Edius its been around almost as long as Premiere you need to get used to their interface they have tons of hidden menus and tools it is feature rich like Premiere and FCP but was a closed system for a long time that is now more open so a lot of 3rd party plug ins do not work with it yet but the list is slowly growing. It has a lot of speed advantages for editing and tv production use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Herb Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 neosushi, So no (or minimal) macroblocking in the H265. That means it's in the conversion - whew! Will someone please please please do a nice test with this camera and a 7Q+ or Shogun...? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neosushi Posted February 25, 2015 Author Share Posted February 25, 2015 Here is another example of color correction. Same workflow, Color grading with Osiris LUT + Filmconvert. EDIT: Please watch in 4K Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neosushi Posted February 25, 2015 Author Share Posted February 25, 2015 Yaa but still AF is a Adobe product same as Premiere not Apple and Apple has not let out all the info on Prores for Adobe to use it right so Adobe and others make it work as best they can in their programs. I use Edius and that is what they told me about Prores that the information is not released from Apple for anyone to use it 100% right except them. They told me not to use it do to problems like that i now use the Edius code called HQX that they clams is better then Prores for editing in their program. I will say it creates files that work a lot better when editing for the 4K files i edit. The Prores files do not play well at all and the HQX files play at almost real time. When i update my Video card i should then get real time with some effects applyed.I really like Edius its been around almost as long as Premiere you need to get used to their interface they have tons of hidden menus and tools it is feature rich like Premiere and FCP but was a closed system for a long time that is now more open so a lot of 3rd party plug ins do not work with it yet but the list is slowly growing. It has a lot of speed advantages for editing and tv production use.Wow thanks Ed, thats very enlightening ! I don't think I will be able to use this software for now but I will definitely keep an eye on it Also I could use FCPX, but for this project I need a track based editor so more like premiere pro. But thanks for sharing that with us ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neosushi Posted February 25, 2015 Author Share Posted February 25, 2015 neosushi, So no (or minimal) macroblocking in the H265. That means it's in the conversion - whew! Will someone please please please do a nice test with this camera and a 7Q+ or Shogun...?I would say its 50/50. Since we can't edit the native footage we can't be a 100% sure. It is mostly when you start tweaking and toying with the footage that most of the macro blocking appears. So we would need to be able to play with it natively to assert that it is not an issue. But I do think that it is still there in certain situations. And the best way to go around it, as always, is to know the camera, experiment, and understand which situations are more likely to produce banding, or macro blocking. We will not get a 1500€ camera with raw recording or even 422 10 bits prores recording for some time.For now the best camera IMHO in this price range (although still more expensive) is the combo A7S + Shogun. But its a big combo with a lot of ergonomic issues. Most of us don't want that. We mostly want easy and light DSLRs for some work, and REDs or Alexas for others. IMHO the sony A7S has a weird positioning in terms of price and portability. But I still love the image it produces. As I also love the image the NX1 produces, and seeing the faces of my co workers when I show them "raw" footage of the NX1 and they're like :"but it looks graded already !". Meaning as a compliment. You got love that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.