I’m posting this lengthy message and video link with hopes that this explanation can help others achieve high quality video with the Inspire 2.
The purpose of this post is to describe and demonstrate a quality comparison between video recorded on the SD card compared to the CineSSD card. Despite an extensive search on the web, I could not find a comparison that truly answered the question of whether or not shooting in ProRes 422 HQ was worth the additional cost and effort.
Background: I’ve been filming this marsh and beach over the last few months typically early in the day or late in the afternoon. With high contrast, the darker or shaded areas always appeared rather muddy or mushy (I do not know the correct term) with the Mavic Pro. I originally thought it was due to compression.
I proceeded to purchase an Inspire 2 with the X4S, and actually noted higher quality yet the muddy areas persisted.
Last month I discovered through a post on the forum that the problem was actually due to noise reduction automatically applied if the sharpness setting was 0 or below. Once I set the sharpness to +1, the video improved considerably on both the Mavic and Inspire 2 with X4S.
However, the quality was still not satisfactory. I therefore purchased an X5S, and although improved over the X4S (with the SD card), the muddy areas persisted to some degree.
Progressing along, therefore I decided to purchase the ProRes license and SSD drive, which I tested this morning.
The difference was extraordinarily apparent viewing in 4K, and clearly visible with compression to 1080P.
My settings were as follows:
Inspire 2 – X5S
SSD: 29.97, ProRes 422HQ, 4K 3840x2160, Rec 709, normal, did not use Dlog
SD: 29.97, H264, 4K 3849x2160, Rec 709, normal, did not us Dlog
The camera recorded to the SSD and the SD simultaneously (didn’t realize that this happens by default).
Sharpening was set at +1 but was only applied to the SD (it does not alter the SSD footage).
Post: FCPX sharpening (2.5) was applied only to the 422 HQ.
The same LUT (CG Falcon Wish) was applied to both videos through Color Finale.
A curves and saturation adjustment was made to the SD video to get it to closely match the mid tones.
Findings: In the attached video I placed the H264 in the superimposed window. In the darker areas, ProRes 422 HQ maintained high levels of detail with no muddiness apparent. Compared to H264, the difference is substantial. Perhaps this is due to 10 bit pixel depth with extended latitude, and markedly little compression for ProRes 422 HQ.
If you proceed frame by frame though areas of the video, you can see the difference even when compressed to 1080P.
Bottom line: if you look close, the difference to me is worth the cost. I realize it might not make a difference for everyone else. Additionally it makes no sense to me to shoot in H264 and then transcode automatically to edit in ProRes utilizing FCPX.
From a practical perspective, the CineSSD is fast with a transfer this morning of roughly 140GB in about 7 minutes. FCPX ingests and plays the video without a hiccup. This workflow to me makes more sense. The only minor downside is that the ProRes HQ video is not rectilinear (easily fixed with FCPX).
Hope this helps anyone who is trying to determine if ProRes is worth the extra cost and steps.
While the 4K version is impressive, consider downloading this dropbox link below. I suggest downloading the file rather than playing it online for better quality.
Dropbox - Beach Test422.m4v
The purpose of this post is to describe and demonstrate a quality comparison between video recorded on the SD card compared to the CineSSD card. Despite an extensive search on the web, I could not find a comparison that truly answered the question of whether or not shooting in ProRes 422 HQ was worth the additional cost and effort.
Background: I’ve been filming this marsh and beach over the last few months typically early in the day or late in the afternoon. With high contrast, the darker or shaded areas always appeared rather muddy or mushy (I do not know the correct term) with the Mavic Pro. I originally thought it was due to compression.
I proceeded to purchase an Inspire 2 with the X4S, and actually noted higher quality yet the muddy areas persisted.
Last month I discovered through a post on the forum that the problem was actually due to noise reduction automatically applied if the sharpness setting was 0 or below. Once I set the sharpness to +1, the video improved considerably on both the Mavic and Inspire 2 with X4S.
However, the quality was still not satisfactory. I therefore purchased an X5S, and although improved over the X4S (with the SD card), the muddy areas persisted to some degree.
Progressing along, therefore I decided to purchase the ProRes license and SSD drive, which I tested this morning.
The difference was extraordinarily apparent viewing in 4K, and clearly visible with compression to 1080P.
My settings were as follows:
Inspire 2 – X5S
SSD: 29.97, ProRes 422HQ, 4K 3840x2160, Rec 709, normal, did not use Dlog
SD: 29.97, H264, 4K 3849x2160, Rec 709, normal, did not us Dlog
The camera recorded to the SSD and the SD simultaneously (didn’t realize that this happens by default).
Sharpening was set at +1 but was only applied to the SD (it does not alter the SSD footage).
Post: FCPX sharpening (2.5) was applied only to the 422 HQ.
The same LUT (CG Falcon Wish) was applied to both videos through Color Finale.
A curves and saturation adjustment was made to the SD video to get it to closely match the mid tones.
Findings: In the attached video I placed the H264 in the superimposed window. In the darker areas, ProRes 422 HQ maintained high levels of detail with no muddiness apparent. Compared to H264, the difference is substantial. Perhaps this is due to 10 bit pixel depth with extended latitude, and markedly little compression for ProRes 422 HQ.
If you proceed frame by frame though areas of the video, you can see the difference even when compressed to 1080P.
Bottom line: if you look close, the difference to me is worth the cost. I realize it might not make a difference for everyone else. Additionally it makes no sense to me to shoot in H264 and then transcode automatically to edit in ProRes utilizing FCPX.
From a practical perspective, the CineSSD is fast with a transfer this morning of roughly 140GB in about 7 minutes. FCPX ingests and plays the video without a hiccup. This workflow to me makes more sense. The only minor downside is that the ProRes HQ video is not rectilinear (easily fixed with FCPX).
Hope this helps anyone who is trying to determine if ProRes is worth the extra cost and steps.
While the 4K version is impressive, consider downloading this dropbox link below. I suggest downloading the file rather than playing it online for better quality.
Dropbox - Beach Test422.m4v
