Thanks Roger. I don't see the artifacts in the original footage. I have used VPX on 2 different laptops... 1 a very slow dog, and now on an older engineering laptop with Intel i7 vPro. Maybe Panasonic AVCHD files are too highly compressed. But I have never had good results with the pre made export choices. It took some time to adjust some of the parameters to higher numbers to get acceptable results. But I was blind sided last night when I rendered to pro res. I uploaded to youtube and black areas are green! Fades went to black, but any part of the time line that was empty was green. I put 1 second of black at the beginning and end. It was these and 2 places inside that had this problem. Is this a bug? Sorry I did not include more info on my system. It is a 6 year old laptop with 8 gigs of ram. It is fast unless I multicam. Roger... what add on effects and transition packages do you use? Don't you think a $400 program should come with more than a $100 program? There are many out there that have tons of usable effects and transitions that are not hokey... and yes, they have many that are a joke. But VPX is anemic to say the least. Sorry if I am complaining about more than one topic here. Just when I think I have my numbers correct to render out clean video, something pops up and I need to be tweaking it which I don't have the time for. I shoot everything with one camera and want the same quality all the time... so yes.. a 3 chip camera does have better image quality... isn't that what we are all after? Isn't that why I don't want artifacts in my finished clip? Graduated blue skies are harder for 8 bit, I understand this. Sorry. It must be I never learned to use this program correctly.

Glenn

Hi Glenn,

I don't use any other add on transitions or effects, as I am very happy with all the effects etc that come with VPX. So I am not sure what it is you are trying to achieve that your Magix software is unable to do. the problems you have loosely referred to sound more like hardware and user problems rather than the editing software. Most of my productions use 3 or 4 video tracks of 4k footage from 3 or 4 cameras with the onboard audio, plus 2 additional audio tracks from portable recorders and music tracks where appropriate. I prefer to use the Panasonic MP4 footage as most of my rendered output is to MP4.

I would have to say that I have used many different editing programmes over the years, including Adobe Premier, Edius and various Pinnacle and Ulead products, but have found the Magix programmes that I have used for a long time now to be the most flexible.

You still haven't given much info about your editing computer/s although a 6 year old laptop may be struggling a little. Also you need to give information on your method of working and rendering output settings, a screenshot would be useful.

Roger

Here are 2 screen shots. It is hard to see, but there is a blockiness in the sky on the right picture - artifacts that I don't see in the original. I guess you have to see it rendered, and then it is much worse in youtube.

What am I missing in VPX? I was used to having customizable transitions. Whether it was a page turn, page curl, or many other high quality transitions, I had control over many factors... radius of the turn/curl... I mean... in VPX, I struggle to get it to go the direction I want! Liquid Edition was very generous. Yeah... when I bought it the cost was $800 back around...1999? Not sure you can see the artifacting in the right shot. I know the AVCHD format is highly compressed. In many videos I have uploaded to you tube, it seems the first second or 2 is rough and has to come up to speed. As I said, maybe I don't use this program right... or don't know about work-arounds. I don't save the final clip to AVCHD because the quality was not good. I go to MP4 with a high bit rate. I wish there were presets that worked with no tweaking. If I had the time, I would make a video showing everything I have talked about.... but no time for that now. Even editing on a much slower laptop everything was the same... except everything took much longer to do. Yes, this old laptop is Windows 7. I would like to buy a new laptop and I am looking. Not sure what to get. My new cam on order is the new BlackMagic pocket cinema 4k. It comes with Devinci so I guess will give it a shot. In the youtube link below you can see the artifacting @ 4:53

@v850tw

Hi

. . . . In many videos I have uploaded to you tube, it seems the first second or 2 is rough and has to come up to speed . . . .

That is a common event with YT as it determines which resolution to deliver to you to ensure smooth viewing and is dependant on your Internet connection speed.

. . . . I go to MP4 with a high bit rate. . . . .

Not much point in doing that for Youtube - it will get re-rendered and in various resolutions eg if you upload 1080p YT will also create 700p, 480p, 240p versions as well.

. . . . I wish there were presets that worked with no tweaking. . . . .

Create your own - modify an existing export preset to what you want then click the 'Disc' icon and save the preset as an Export preset with a suitable name, they will then appear in the drop down as shown below (top 2)

. . . . BlackMagic pocket cinema 4k . . . . I would like to buy a new laptop . . .

You are going to need a quad core Intel processor with UHD630 integrated GPU and at least 16GB of RAM.

Avoid a laptop with an AMD processor and an NVidia GPU. If you get an Intel based one with NVidia GPU check before you buy that you can assign the Intel GPU to be used for rendering and Hardware acceleration.

HTH

John EB

Everything that John said!

The BlackMagic camera will be a massive difference to what you have been using and of course a big investment with lens requirements etc. For many uses it is a good camera, but I would research very carefully first to ensure that it will do what you want. It needs a lot of input to get that best out of it. If you are not already a member, perhaps I can suggest that you join the excellent DVinfo forum where there are many knowledgeable people on every aspect of cameras, filming and editing. http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/

With your youtube video, many of the artefacts that I see can be put down to the youtube re encoding, so it is difficult to offer any advice from that. It could also be helpful to know how you export from the editing programme, what settings you use etc.

Roger

Everything that John said!

It could also be helpful to know how you export from the editing programme, what settings you use etc.

Roger

Settings... I did at first start out with trying the canned settings. I started experimenting with higher bit rates. When [in the older days] I had to create my mpeg2 files for DVD authoring, I used a good program. If there was a lot of action, I would change some settings in either GOP or other. I was pretty good at getting a final DVD that looked good. Back in those days, I had [still have them] 2 vx2000s. SO with VPX, I have tried various settings to see the results. Upping the CPB value helped. To get a clear solid final clip, sometimes I pick a preset, and then change it from 1920x1080 to 1280x720 so the compression for this lower resolution is better. Some variations I have the GOP from 60 to 15 or 12. I have not messed with the GOP structure, but I had to do this sometimes long ago when making mpeg2 files. I had notes of what to change for a particular type video. I have not seen any info on this for VPX. Coding quality does not seem to me to affect picture quality... just rendering speed.

I was thinking to order 2 lenses for the BMPCC4K - a 14-35mm and a 35-100mm. These would have twice the actual focal length because of the 2x crop factor and are O.I.S.. I was going to spend more and get the lenses with constant f stop throughout the zoom range of 2.8 For my needs, this will either be fine, or I might need a longer lens, not sure yet. Having 20x in one lens would be great, but don't see any with good aperture.

@v850tw

Hi

. . . . In many videos I have uploaded to you tube, it seems the first second or 2 is rough and has to come up to speed . . . .

That is a common event with YT as it determines which resolution to deliver to you to ensure smooth viewing and is dependant on your Internet connection speed.

. . . . I go to MP4 with a high bit rate. . . . .

Not much point in doing that for Youtube - it will get re-rendered and in various resolutions eg if you upload 1080p YT will also create 700p, 480p, 240p versions as well.

. . . . I wish there were presets that worked with no tweaking. . . . .

Create your own - modify an existing export preset to what you want then click the 'Disc' icon and save the preset as an Export preset with a suitable name, they will then appear in the drop down as shown below (top 2)

. . . . BlackMagic pocket cinema 4k . . . . I would like to buy a new laptop . . .

You are going to need a quad core Intel processor with UHD630 integrated GPU and at least 16GB of RAM.

Avoid a laptop with an AMD processor and an NVidia GPU. If you get an Intel based one with NVidia GPU check before you buy that you can assign the Intel GPU to be used for rendering and Hardware acceleration.

HTH

John EB

 

 

Thank you for all that. You gave me a little more info I needed to pick a good laptop. I see that they are showing RAM, and another type of memory [forget the name] and they add it up as total RAM. I wonder if that is OK or do I need 16gigs real RAM?

I do make presets but are my numbers way off the mark too large? How can I know? I don't have the time to experiment. I just know that the presets that come up generally don't work well. I will be glad to get away from this Panasonic highly compressed AVCHD format. I have tried the presets for the WEB and although the files uploaded quickly from being much smaller, I saw more undesirable artifacts.

@v850tw

Hi

. . . . I see that they are showing RAM, and another type of memory [forget the name] and they add it up as total RAM. . . . .

That will probably be Virtual memory which is really some of the hard drive space

. . . . . I wonder if that is OK or do I need 16gigs real RAM? . . . .

Definitely 16GB of real RAM.

. . . . I have the GOP from 60 to 15 or 12 . . . .

GOP setting should be half the framerate of the export video - YT will re-encode so there is no point in changing the export preset values.

On web hosting other than YT or Vimeo etc, ie a host where I have total control over the video and no re-encoding occurs, I use a GOP of 100 for 25 fps 1080p or 720p video.

. . . . . Blackmagic Pocket Camera . . . .

One immediate issue I see with this camera is, AFAICS and someone may correct me on this, that the video formats the camera uses are not supported by VPX.

HTH

John EB

@v850tw

 

. . . . . Blackmagic Pocket Camera . . . .

One immediate issue I see with this camera is, AFAICS and someone may correct me on this, that the video formats the camera uses are not supported by VPX.

HTH

John EB

 

100 GOP... I would never have thought it. Will try it. I always thought because of the detail stored in the GOP that the more the better.

As far as I can see... the BMPCC4K shoots in either raw or pro res - mov. VPX exports pro res.... it can not edit it?

Hi Duncan,

Out of interest, why are you wanting to go to the BlackMagic camera presumably to replace your Panasonic HC-X 200. Unless you are doing very high level work, you could be letting yourself in for a lot of hard work, not to mention a lot of money. It is a big jump from your current consumer cam with lots of auto to fall back on if required. I wouldn't consider one for my own business as it would be too sensitive and inflexible for my needs where I want to work fast. There are also plenty of more flexible and affordable cameras out there that would be a big step up in quality and convenience from your present Panasonic. The Panasonics that I use have a 25-400 lens and are at 2.8 on the wide setting. I also get better low light and colour rendition than I got from my previous 3ccd pannys. Imaging chips and electronics have moved on a lot in recent years.

The forum that I referred to has a lot of reviews and comments from people using the BlackMagic cam, so worth looking at.

I was also wondering what bit rate you are using for your 1920x1080 MP4 exports, as that makes quite a difference to viewing quality. I leave the GOP at the default setting as I am very happy with the results I get.

Roger

@v850tw

100 GOP... I would never have thought it. Will try it. I always thought because of the detail stored in the GOP that the more the better.

Only if you have unlimited bandwidth in the data stream. With YT where they want to keep Mbps down, the more bits taken by the extra I frames, being lowly compressed ie something like jpeg compression, means less for all the other frames = lower quality overall. It's like "robbing Peter to pay Paul". So, as long as you do not need to edit the exported file further, where the added encode/ decode complexity of a long GOP could be a problem for the hardware resources in your computer, a long GOP could produce better quality in a restricted bitrate environment.

If you are shooting with the Pana 920 at 1920x1080 60P the 60 complete frames per second needs at least the 1920x1080 50P HQ export template for any exported H.264 file in my opinion, to retain the detail created in the camera file at 28Mbps AVCHD 60P. It does not surprise me that the much lower suggested BR for You Tube produces a file with compression artifacts as in your sample, on the sections with movement and detail.

Not sure what the answer is as I almost never upload anything to YT but you could try the longer GOP john suggested if YT will accept it, or maybe shooting or exporting at 30P.

VPX edits ProRes just fine but I am not sure you will gain anything from uploading a file with even more colour detail and information that will need to be compressed even more to stay within the YT recommendation.

Peter

Hi Duncan,

Out of interest, why are you wanting to go to the BlackMagic camera presumably to replace your Panasonic HC-X 200. Unless you are doing very high level work, you could be letting yourself in for a lot of hard work, not to mention a lot of money. It is a big jump from your current consumer cam with lots of auto to fall back on if required. I wouldn't consider one for my own business as it would be too sensitive and inflexible for my needs where I want to work fast. There are also plenty of more flexible and affordable cameras out there that would be a big step up in quality and convenience from your present Panasonic. The Panasonics that I use have a 25-400 lens and are at 2.8 on the wide setting. I also get better low light and colour rendition than I got from my previous 3ccd pannys. Imaging chips and electronics have moved on a lot in recent years.

Roger

With the transition SD to HD, I stopped doing most video work. Many people were doing their own work, and it looked like it too. My son got me a gopro hero43 years ago, and I was back in to video. But, you can only shoot a limited style of video with a limited camera. So, I was thinking I would get back in the game, and 2 years ago B&H had a sale on these HC-X920 cameras. $650 for a 3 chip camera, but with LIMITED capabilities! With good lighting, you can wrestle the manual controls and get a half way decent image. But it falls apart if pushed hard. I bet the camera is capable of a whole lot more if they gave it better firmware. What panasonic camera are you using? I want the BMPCC4K because I want a solid picture that looks good. I am tired of 4-2-0 - 8 bit images. I shoot lots of church stuff and yeah, this is not the ideal cam but if I take the time to set it up I will get a nice professional image. The lenses are extra work. I was looking at the Sony PXW-Z190 with 25x optical zoom. But it is not fully 4k... [2:1] It could be out of my price range also. The BMPCC4K is great in low light which many churches are. I have looked closely and watched lots of videos and the only thing that scares me is having to changes lenses often. I have one on pre-order and can cancel it. They don't ship until January. I have tried the GH5 and don't like the DSLR form factor. And... if I want to take the time, I can shoot some amazing footage with it for some special project. Bottom line... I am tired of junky images. Yeah... I had to be careful to suck all the image quality out of the VX2000 and that was ok. I looked closely at the Panasonic DVX-200 and it is like the HD version of a VX2000... but it is 4-2-0 - 8 bit. I just want to get a solid level up. I also want to shoot at 30 frames a second, instead of 60 for more of a film look. I can slow the shutter down but not the frame rate. I would be more than happy to look at your suggestion. Thank you in advance!

I tired exporting at preset AVCHD HD settings and there wee too many things that jumped out like Murphy's law. If there was not much movement, it was OK... maybe. But even dissolves would cause it to choke with artifacts. I thought too long a GOP would make dissolves harder to render. Maybe I was wrong. It was 2 years ago I had to mess with bit rates and all that... I made some presets that worked, and chose higher bit rates that pro cameras would be using... just to minimize any loss. then, this past year, VPX started aborting final encodings if the web option was checked in the advanced pane. Took a while to figure out that was the issue. But why did that come out of nowhere? I was doing nothing different. Maybe it was because I was after the year of purchase.

The problem with asking other people about the cameras they use is that with the best will in the world, they will recommend their own choice, which is why they bought it.

I use FZ1000 cameras because they have been totally reliable with very heavy use and I love the picture quality as do my clients. The first one has had over 4 years use, which is around 150 weddings, 40 school productions and various music and corporate work. It has been totally reliable which is vital to me. I now have 3 of them, having also tried the FZ2500, which although having a smoother zoom and ND filter built in, didn't seem quite so sharp. I have never been a Sony man although I am sure they are good cameras, although the PXW-Z190 seems a bit overkill after your Panasonic. Also be aware that 4k will mean a big step up in image quality, but will also require editing and viewing equipment to match. Your old PCs and monitors just won't cut it.

I also never liked the DSLR styling, but after using the FZ1000s for so long, find I have got used to it and as I almost always use a tripod, the form factor is really irrelevant.

You have to pick a camera that is best for not only picture quality, but also for convenience and reliability. Do you want to keep changing lenses, or do you want a camera with a wide ranging lens for instance? For me with run and gun filming, constant lens changing is not a practical choice, but for others it is essential. I keep going on about the DVinfo forum, but it is the best place for very informed advice on all things video camera related.

Roger

Roger... Quite impressive camera for $500 ! I did not see a headphone jack. Could you post a link to something you have done with it on youtube? As I said... I am used to a standard video format. In the past I have used 2/3" 3 chip pro betacams and on up in to the digital world. It said 29 min max clip length. Does it create seamless clips on long shoots? Again... that is quite a camera for the price. It seems the price goes way up to configure as a video camera. I used to do weddings. They are the hardest. You have one shot to get it all done right. This is the kind of shooting I was doing with the VX2000

@v850tw

After reading your post on why you are looking at the Blackmagic camera I would like to add my penny's worth to Rogers comment.

I too would advise looking at other camera options.

Personally I do not like the digital SLR style cameras for video recording, they do not fit my hands like a 'standard' style video camera does. When out and about the camera is always in my hand, attached to a Sun-Sniper PRO-II strap, and is much more comfortable to carry than my digital SLR on its own strap or the Sniper 2.

I recently upgrade from a Sony HDR-XR520EV (Full HD) to a HDR-AX53 (4K), having also looked at the Panasonic HC-VXF1 and ending up buying the Sony, mainly because the colour balance of the Sony matches that of my sportscam (also Sony).

The camera a good test run, while on holiday, under many different lighting conditions, brilliant outdoor sunshine, dull stormy weather to night shots (Infra red) and I am very impressed with the quality and colour rendition of the 4K video and still images - the night shots are as you would expect from IR, green tinted and a little grainy.

The camera has more than enough options for taking manual control, optical zoom range is good, so no lens changing, and the stabilisation with 4K is excellent, and the weight is significantly less than my old camera (about 250g less).

The only small downside to the camera is that it sometimes take a little time to focus in poor contrast situations, however this affected the many other cameras I have looked at including the HC-VXF1.

HTH

John EB

Roger... Quite impressive camera for $500 ! I did not see a headphone jack. Could you post a link to something you have done with it on youtube? As I said... I am used to a standard video format. In the past I have used 2/3" 3 chip pro betacams and on up in to the digital world. It said 29 min max clip length. Does it create seamless clips on long shoots? Again... that is quite a camera for the price. It seems the price goes way up to configure as a video camera. I used to do weddings. They are the hardest. You have one shot to get it all done right. This is the kind of shooting I was doing with the VX2000

Sorry Duncan, most of my work is wedding and school productions, so I don't post on youtube for copyright reasons, but there is plenty of footage out there from other posters. $500 wow! I would buy another two at that price, which would give my wife and I two each with one extra if needed for our solo weddings.Unfortunately things are always more in the UK, although they have dropped considerably. A very much overlooked camera for serious work in my opinion, but doesn't suit everyone. The great thing is though that it makes it affordable to have matching multi cameras for every production. We have just got in from filming a 4 camera shoot of a school production.

The FZ1000 has a 29min time limit, but the clips that are broken down in each 29min section are seamless. A restart looses about 2secs. That's only necessary in church ceremonies or theatre productions but with multi camera the gap is easily covered. They can also be monitored and adjusted/started/stopped via a mobile phone or pad, which is great if you have a remote locked off cam. The later FX2500/2000 version of the camera will record continuously without the limit.

There is no headphone out on the FZ1000, but my camera mounted radio mic receiver has a headphone monitor and volume control so don't need the camera socket. The camera does have audio meters, so I can still see if the audio is coming through and at what volume. Mainly though I don't really like using wireless and prefer to use a separate voice recorder for post synching and no risk of dropout or interference.

Couldn't get into your video as there was no link I could use, but looks like a sailing clip from the still. We have a little motorsailer, so you are talking my language there🙂

Roger

Here is that link -

It is low res from the days of struggling to compress videos as small as you could. There was no high speed internet. B&HPhotoVideo has the FZ1000 on sale for under $500. They normally don't do such a nice discount unless it is getting phased out. The HCX-920 was $350 off a list of $1000 two years ago. If I were looking to do multi cam productions, this FZ1000 would be the way to go. I will go hang out in the DV group as you suggested. Thanks for your help.

Glenn