Photographers Just Don't Understand.

[OzRay]

I dunno, is it a generational cohort thing? There is a certain "old man yells at cloud" quality to it - I mean - just the weird preoccupation with fixed figures like 1.7tb/hr for scare factor. See how that sounds in 18 months! Your first thought will probably be, "Only 1.7tb/hr? is that going to be enough to be any good?"

I think you may be holding the wrong end of the dog. Just consider the fact that most of today's 'younger generation' stores everything on their mobile phone. PC sales have declined, tablets have grown to a large extent and mobile phones sales have soared. If 4K video requires 1.7TB of storage for every hour of video recorded, where is the average person going to store those files? Most tablets have a maximum storage capacity of 256GB, mobile phones even less. You'll record how much 4K on a 16GB SD card? How easily and quickly can you transfer GBs/TBs of files to and from the cloud? Remember, a lot of people want to transfer stills and video to Facebook and whatever, the moment after it has been taken. Do you think 4k is going to be obliging?

 

[piggsy]

Right, but you're dealing with computers now. This is what I was trying to get at with DVD earlier - it's this bizarre thing where people take the current standard as fixed. You move things that were on prints or film to a digital environment, they go on the digital conveyor belt for speed/size/power requirements for compression, disc density, fibre capacity, etc. How ridiculous did a 32gb tablet sound 18 months before the first one came out? The $5k Sony TV that is so ridiculous and out of reach ... in 18 months from now, $1000 4k sets will have been out for over a year. That's the problem you run into trying to hit the brakes, stuff gets better and cheaper pretty fast.

 

[OzRay]

Right, but you're dealing with computers now. This is what I was trying to get at with DVD earlier - it's this bizarre thing where people take the current standard as fixed. You move things that were on prints or film to a digital environment, they go on the digital conveyor belt for speed/size/power requirements for compression, disc density, fibre capacity, etc. How ridiculous did a 32gb tablet sound 18 months before the first one came out? The $5k Sony TV that is so ridiculous and out of reach ... in 18 months from now, $1000 4k sets will have been out for over a year. That's the problem you run into trying to hit the brakes, stuff gets better and cheaper pretty fast.

That still misses the point. Yes, 4K (8K, 128K etc) capable TVs, computers, cameras etc will keep getting cheaper, but it's the processes in-between that will not change. If one hour of 4K video footage requires 1.7TB of storage, how much processing power and time will be involved in post-processing that video into something presentable? How many people today have 2TB of storage on their PC? How much does a 64GB SD card cost and how many do you need for a day's recording of 4K. How many batteries will you need for a day's recording of 4K?

 

[piggsy]

That still misses the point. Yes, 4K (8K, 128K etc) capable TVs, computers, cameras etc will keep getting cheaper, but it's the processes in-between that will not change. If one hour of 4K video footage requires 1.7TB of storage, how much processing power and time will be involved in post-processing that video into something presentable? How many people today have 2TB of storage on their PC? How much does a 64GB SD card cost and how many do you need for a day's recording of 4K. How many batteries will you need for a day's recording of 4K?

Lots - but video's actually something that takes quite well to recent trends in increasing cpu performance (even before you get to direct compute style performance which is a whole other thing), almost can't buy one that doesn't unless you're talking a laptop or a budget pc (we're not even full on geeks and our house has something like 30tb between all the machines ), as far as I know - and I'm no expert - SD cards are kind of old school for this kind of thing and you're looking more at something like a conventional SSD flash than a tiny flash card for storage on camera, or a big fat pipe out of it to a bank of drives. No idea on battery life but I assume you'd use an external power pack to drive something like that

Literally every technology you mentioned in there, other than for battery life (much easier to reduce power consumption of the device than increase storage), has had a very very predictable increase in performance and resultant decrease in price per performance level for just about decades now, give or take the odd flood.

 

[GFFPhoto]

That still misses the point. Yes, 4K (8K, 128K etc) capable TVs, computers, cameras etc will keep getting cheaper, but it's the processes in-between that will not change. If one hour of 4K video footage requires 1.7TB of storage, how much processing power and time will be involved in post-processing that video into something presentable? How many people today have 2TB of storage on their PC? How much does a 64GB SD card cost and how many do you need for a day's recording of 4K. How many batteries will you need for a day's recording of 4K?

Actually, the GH4 will give you 1 hour 25 minutes of 4K footage on a 64 gig card, so a 2 TB disk drive (about $100 here in the US) will store a bit more than 44 hours. A laptop and 2 cards will be fine for a days shooting (transfer one while shooting with the other), and a battery will likely last all day (maybe one extra for really long days). Panasonic did it right in so so many ways.

Like I've been telling you, you don't need a huge investment in additional equipment to shoot quality video with the GH4. Quote: "As a filmmaker who likes complete control and to shoot without complicated rigging or large crews I find the Panasonic GH4 perfect for my needs." Also: "The GH4 is about as close to all-round perfection you can get for the price" And regarding file size: "With file sizes 8x less than on the nearest competitor and a price 5x less expensive than the Canon 1D C, the GH4 is the most exciting camera I have ever shot with at EOSHD"

http://www.eoshd.com/content/12771/panasonic-gh4-review

 

[piggsy]

The 1.7tb/hr figure came from the article OzRay linked,

Firstly, the file sizes are enormous - 8.6m pixels in a frame; at 16bit colour depth, means 1.7TB/hour! This is HUGE!

and not talking about the GH4 (I assume it's for uncompressed source?).

 

[GFFPhoto]

The 1.7tb/hr figure came from the article OzRay linked,
and not talking about the GH4 (I assume it's for uncompressed source?).

No worries, since this was a thread about the GH4 I assumed you guys were discussing the GH4 and unclear about the smaller file sizes. Carry on :smile:

 

[OzRay]

Lots - but video's actually something that takes quite well to recent trends in increasing cpu performance (even before you get to direct compute style performance which is a whole other thing), almost can't buy one that doesn't unless you're talking a laptop or a budget pc (we're not even full on geeks and our house has something like 30tb between all the machines ), as far as I know - and I'm no expert - SD cards are kind of old school for this kind of thing and you're looking more at something like a conventional SSD flash than a tiny flash card for storage on camera, or a big fat pipe out of it to a bank of drives. No idea on battery life but I assume you'd use an external power pack to drive something like that

Literally every technology you mentioned in there, other than for battery life (much easier to reduce power consumption of the device than increase storage), has had a very very predictable increase in performance and resultant decrease in price per performance level for just about decades now, give or take the odd flood.

I wish I could find the article I read recently that covered the full gamut of what's required to produce 4K video from go to whoa. It is way beyond what 99.99% of the population has at hand, or will ever likely to have at hand.

CPU performance isn't the issue, it's your graphics card (or cards) that does the video rendering; bulk power is required here, which can mean up to $1500 per card. Then you need high speed storage and of large capacity, as well as 4K capable screen/s. SD cards old school? What does the GH4 use? You need 95MB/sec SD cards to effectively record 4K; checked out the prices lately? So what you've currently mentioned means that someone that wants to record 4K needs an external storage system and external battery bank just to begin their venture into 4K video.

We're slowly getting there.

 

[piggsy]

I'd be interested in reading that too People have been gaming in 4k for years and downsampling the output - I usually just use sgssaa instead, more or less the same thing. Video decode is generally not all that strenuous in comparison.

edit - it is an interesting bottleneck to consider though - much like the article you linked said - in the absence of cheap displays that could be driven at sufficient refresh rates at high resolutions, people turned to higher internal rendering resolutions, 120/144hz output, 3d, etc.

 

[GFFPhoto]

I wish I could find the article I read recently that covered the full gamut of what's required to produce 4K video from go to whoa. It is way beyond what 99.99% of the population has at hand, or will ever likely to have at hand.

CPU performance isn't the issue, it's your graphics card (or cards) that does the video rendering; bulk power is required here, which can mean up to $1500 per card. Then you need high speed storage and of large capacity, as well as 4K capable screen/s. SD cards old school? What does the GH4 use? You need 95MB/sec SD cards to effectively record 4K; checked out the prices lately? So what you've currently mentioned means that someone that wants to record 4K needs an external storage system and external battery bank just to begin their venture into 4K video.

We're slowly getting there.

This may be accurate with footage from a RED epic or 1D C, but not with a GH4. You should read the article I linked. Much of what you have written here doesn't apply. Also, I use FCPX, so I may be incorrect about this, but Premier users can actually edit 4K while looking at a lower resolution image on their monitor, so graphics cards and screens aren't an issue.



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[OzRay]

Actually, the GH4 will give you 1 hour 25 minutes of 4K footage on a 64 gig card, so a 2 TB disk drive (about $100 here in the US) will store a bit more than 44 hours. A laptop and 2 cards will be fine for a days shooting (transfer one while shooting with the other), and a battery will likely last all day (maybe one extra for really long days). Panasonic did it right in so so many ways.

Like I've been telling you, you don't need a huge investment in additional equipment to shoot quality video with the GH4. Quote: "As a filmmaker who likes complete control and to shoot without complicated rigging or large crews I find the Panasonic GH4 perfect for my needs." Also: "The GH4 is about as close to all-round perfection you can get for the price" And regarding file size: "With file sizes 8x less than on the nearest competitor and a price 5x less expensive than the Canon 1D C, the GH4 is the most exciting camera I have ever shot with at EOSHD"

http://www.eoshd.com/content/12771/panasonic-gh4-review

So the GH4 does some sort of compressed 4K rather than full 4K? That still doesn't alter what I said in my previous post about post-processing requirements, unless we're not talking about true 4K video.

It especially doesn't change one thing about the main thrust of my argument and that of Kevin's, which is, shooting video is a completely different game to still photography. It doesn't matter what your video camera, it's everything else that matters when it comes to producing presentable video. Very few people have the capability and capacity to produce excellent video, be it from a GoPro or a RED, or anything in between or on either side.

No film maker just picks up a GH4 with lens and starts to produce professional movies, commercials or whatever. Your quote assumes so many things that one could simply replace GH4 with GoPro.

 

[piggsy]

Hmm apparently 4k@60 video decode is well within the capabilities of even the Intel HD Graphics 2500, which is pretty much just a toy intel came up with to fill die space on their cpus.

 

[OzRay]

I guess at the end of the day, I now await some excellent, professional quality, videos from members here who have never shot video in their lives; but now that they have a GH4, it's going to be so easy. Who is going to be first?

 

[val]

wonder what everyone will say once we hit AF+Speed of the D4s, 32mp and high quality 8k video at 60fps with a super efficient codec.

the same old thing.

I would rather see your amazing photos than care about X company, I look at Ansel Adams' photos, Ken Duncan's photos and it's obvious that the only thing that matters about their gear is that it delivers the results they want, hell I enjoy going to flickr and see amazing photos taken with less than ideal gear.

 

[kevinparis]

Hmm apparently 4k@60 video decode is well within the capabilities of even the Intel HD Graphics 2500, which is pretty much just a toy intel came up with to fill die space on their cpus.

You should appreciate that the ability to decode and play a video file is different from the ability to edit the same video file.

Highly compressed formats like H264 are not made up of individual frames like a tradtional strip of film. Instead they are a complex mixture of full frames interspersed with the differences between frames.

When it comes to editing these compressed files, the computer has to do a lot of work to decode, alter and reencode the data. Philip Bloom mentions this in the EOSHD article.

more info on HD formats here

http://www.webvideoguys.com/Guide_to_HD.html

K

 

[piggsy]

Yep, I'm interested in reading the article, genuinely! Because GPU transcode on the software side is as far as I know something that has been diabolically difficult to make work other than as tiny individual pieces of software (vaguely remember motion compensation being a thing?). So where the $1500 card comes in, I honestly don't know. But yeah, in terms of audience for playback capability at least, you would have had to work at it to have a machine that can't do it even with onboard graphics if you bought one recently. So, there's that at least

 

[OzRay]

But it's not just the technology in question here, it's the planning. Next time that you watch a movie or anything on TV, look at how long each sequence goes for, the camera angles, FOV used, lighting etc. While it all appears to blend into one continuous flow, it's actually composed of numerous short clips with fades, cross-overs etc. That's what the earlier link I posted was all about; however, all that doesn't just happen on the day, you have to plan for each and every clip, be it one second or five. And see if you can find one movie etc where there is any clip that lasts for more than about five seconds before it transitions to something else, no matter in how subtle a manner. This is all to do with the story line, sets, costumes etc. Movies are made way before anyone picks up a camera.

 

[GFFPhoto]

So the GH4 does some sort of compressed 4K rather than full 4K? That still doesn't alter what I said in my previous post about post-processing requirements, unless we're not talking about true 4K video.

It especially doesn't change one thing about the main thrust of my argument and that of Kevin's, which is, shooting video is a completely different game to still photography. It doesn't matter what your video camera, it's everything else that matters when it comes to producing presentable video. Very few people have the capability and capacity to produce excellent video, be it from a GoPro or a RED, or anything in between or on either side.

No film maker just picks up a GH4 with lens and starts to produce professional movies, commercials or whatever. Your quote assumes so many things that one could simply replace GH4 with GoPro.

There are so many assumptions here that are off base and outdated...

You seem so intimidated by the idea of 4K video. Just because you feel you can't, that doesn't mean others can't. I forget which one, but there is actually a smart phone that shoots 4K video. My iMac, FCPX, and a big external drive is enough to edit 4K video. I get that all you see are obstacles and problems when you think about 4K, but I don't. For me, it's just better quality footage than what I can create now.

And you keep talking about professional movies or commercials... There a HUGE range between high quality enthusiast video and a professional movie. And honestly, while most people don't buy a $1700 dollar hybrid camera with the intention of creating a professional movie, there are some who do. And much respect to those creative individuals who do that. They are truly the ones who see opportunity! They shoot professional movies on shoestring budgets, without a lot of that equipment you say is necessary. They go out and do what you say can't be done. For someone who is not in the industry, I know a lot of documentary film makers (four), and they often do just that. They have an idea, a camera, and they dive in and start interviewing and shooting. Check out "Dreams for Sale-The Movie". My friend Alex made a short film that she shot that in her free time while working another job, and the project snowballed into a full length documentary. But it started with just her, a camera, and an idea.

If you feel that quality 4K video is beyond you, if that mountain is too big for you to climb, that's cool, but it's not the huge thing you are making it out to be. Just because you feel you can't, it doesn't mean I or others won't. With my existing computer, software and hard drive, I could buy a GH4 and fast card tomorrow and be shooting and editing 4K.


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[Livnius]

I guess at the end of the day, I now await some excellent, professional quality, videos from members here who have never shot video in their lives; but now that they have a GH4, it's going to be so easy. Who is going to be first?

Where in this thread has anybody claimed that buying the GH4 makes anybody a brilliant film maker ?

 

[OzRay]

There are so many assumptions here that are off base and outdated...

You seem so intimidated by the idea of 4K video. Just because you feel you can't, that doesn't mean others can't. I forget which one, but there is actually a smart phone that shoots 4K video. My iMac, FCPX, and a big external drive is enough to edit 4K video. I get that all you see are obstacles and problems when you think about 4K, but I don't. For me, it's just better quality footage than what I can create now.

And you keep talking about professional movies or commercials... There a HUGE range between high quality enthusiast video and a professional movie. And honestly, while most people don't buy a $1700 dollar hybrid camera with the intention of creating a professional movie, there are some who do. And much respect to those creative individuals who do that. They are truly the ones who see opportunity! They shoot professional movies on shoestring budgets, without a lot of that equipment you say is necessary. They go out and do what you say can't be done. For someone who is not in the industry, I know a lot of documentary film makers (four), and they often do just that. They have an idea, a camera, and they dive in and start interviewing and shooting. Check out "Dreams for Sale-The Movie". My friend Alex made a short film that she shot that in her free time while working another job, and the project snowballed into a full length documentary. But it started with just her, a camera, and an idea.

If you feel that quality 4K video is beyond you, if that mountain is too big for you to climb, that's cool, but it's not the huge thing you are making it out to be. Just because you feel you can't, it doesn't mean I or others won't. With my existing computer, software and hard drive, I could buy a GH4 and fast card tomorrow and be shooting and editing 4K.


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Read my previous post. It's nothing to do with me being intimidated (I don't know where you get that idea), but trying to inject some reality into this dream world where some think they can become Cecil B de Milles because they now have a high-fallutin' camera. The skills required to do quality video productions with a 720p camera, or a super 16 film camera, are no different to that required of a 4K camera. It's got nothing to do with the camera or format!