X5S Prores 4444 vs h264 compression test

utcinema · Mar 3, 2017

Here is a short video comparing dji inspire 2 x5s codecs prores 4444 and h 264

drone pilot in NYC www.utcinema.com

Michael Prince · Mar 3, 2017

Interesting, thanks for posting. My first reaction was that H264 looked better, and it is definitely sharper. But the ProRes looks more cinematic and I assume could be sharpened up...

Perspectrum · Mar 3, 2017

I found that the Prores did look softer. Adding an Unsharpened mask fixed that issue.

smoak5 · Mar 3, 2017

Not sure we can make any good conclusion on a compressed yt video. Maybe show at 200-400% stillsto see the difference in artifacts? I think the key benefits in prores and raw is the amount of latitude you get in post.

Andrei Voinigescu · Mar 3, 2017

If you look at the 300% blow-up, the differences are.. surprisingly minor, at least after YT compression. Setting aside the oversharpened h.264 -- was that shot with sharpness at 0? Perhaps try -2?

Could you comment about how the files look pre-YT compression? Or perhaps you could upload the raw footage somewhere so we can compare on our own monitors?

smoak5 · Mar 3, 2017

Here is my example why I love the raw format on the inspire 2.
No way to get this much out of color grading with h.26x

Andrei Voinigescu · Mar 3, 2017

Hmm.. yes, the raw definitely seems to allow you to recover more detail in the highlights and shadows, though, to be honest, that grading job and the resulting final image is ATROCIOUS.

I think the more relevant question to this thread though is whether Prores offers enough additional flexibility/quality over h.264/h.265 to make it worthwhile. Personally, I'm leaning towards only getting the cdng license and skipping prores altogether.

utcinema · Mar 3, 2017

Andrei Voinigescu said:
If you look at the 300% blow-up, the differences are.. surprisingly minor, at least after YT compression. Setting aside the oversharpened h.264 -- was that shot with sharpness at 0? Perhaps try -2?

Could you comment about how the files look pre-YT compression? Or perhaps you could upload the raw footage somewhere so we can compare on our own monitors?

Yes, sharpness was set to 0. Usually I have it -2, -3 on my phantom 3 pro. On Inspire 2 I didn't care much because I was recording prores too.

smoak5 · Mar 3, 2017

Andrei Voinigescu said:
Hmm.. yes, the raw definitely seems to allow you to recover more detail in the highlights and shadows, though, to be honest, that grading job and the resulting final image is ATROCIOUS.

I think the more relevant question to this thread though is whether Prores offers enough additional flexibility/quality over h.264/h.265 to make it worthwhile. Personally, I'm leaning towards only getting the cdng license and skipping prores altogether.

Ouch. Atrocious. Too each their own. Just showing the heavy grade as an example.

utcinema · Mar 4, 2017

raw Dropbox - DJI_I2_X5S_Olympus_14_42_Raw_test_by_www.utcinema.com.zip
Prores 444 Dropbox - DJI_I2_X5S_15mm_Prores_4444_test_footage_by_www.utcinema.com.zip
h264 password utcinema

Andrei Voinigescu · Mar 4, 2017

smoak5 said:
Ouch. Atrocious. Too each their own. Just showing the heavy grade as an example.

Sorry, that may have come across a bit too harsh.

I just find the dark/black clouds highly unnatural. Kinda like overdone attempts at HDR processing for photos. The houses in the foreground are brighter than the sky, which also looks unnatural to my eyes.

Back to the topic at hand, some testing over at RC Forums suggests that prores4444 is still 10 bit, not 12 like the raw. Not sure it's really worth the extra space over prores422 when the only difference is 444 color vs 422 color.