I have not seen a lot of talk about the new Canon XF705. Has anyone tried uploading the H.265 format into Davinci Resolve 15? If so was it the free version or the paid version? How easy was it to work with? Thanks, Bob

DaVinci Resolve does not have good performance with anything outside of ProRes/DNxHD and similar codecs.

I thought Resolve was one of the few that could do H.265.

I would be surprised if you can’t load it into the latest version of Resolve, but H.265 is hell to work with, even in the limited capacity I use it in (10-bit Dlog from the Mavic 2 Pro). If I was going to edit a project with a significant amount of H.265 originated material, I would transcode to ProRes.

Thanks for the information. At this point I am not seeing a lot of reviews on the XF705. And to tell the truth, since my XF300 is in excellent condition, and I have enough CF cards to shoot 12 hours of 1080 422 plus spare Canon batteries I think I will stick with what I have. If in the future I have to replace it and if H.265 hasn't becoming more user friendly I may consider the C200. Bob

I am using Edius 9 to edit Canon XF705 H.265 4K 160M footage, no transcode needed

and Edius 9 support all Canon XF705 color space

709, 2020, canon log3

will try to canon log soon

Yes, if you're just cutting the heads and tails off a clip, Resolve 15 is probably fine for that.

just saw this new release from Panny. Will make it very hard to spend thousands more on the xf705. it seems to have all the same featrues at $3500 or so. I was surprised that Canon was bringing the xf705 out at $7k. Did I miss something?

Panasonic AG-CX350 4K Camcorder at DV Info Net (http://www.dvinfo.net/news/panasonic-introduces-ag-cx350-4k-camcorder.html)

Did I miss something?

Panasonic AG-CX350 4K Camcorder at DV Info Net (http://www.dvinfo.net/news/panasonic-introduces-ag-cx350-4k-camcorder.html)

There is a difference between the two with regard to SDI.

The CX350 has 3G-SDI while the XF705 is equipped with 12G-SDI.

I'm not sure that justifies the price difference, however.

I am having a heck of a time trying to figure out what to do with the 4K footage I'm getting out of my new XF705. The only way I can so much as look at the footage is in Canon's XF Utility which unfortunately doesn't convert or export it and Premiere can't ingest it.

Frankly, I'm not pleased at all with Canon, Adobe, and my camera salesman who seem to have all left me in a bit of a lurch here. The XF705 may be future-proof but seems to also be present-proof!

Haven't confirmed it myself but have been told SCRATCH Play Pro will play back and can transcode XF-705 HEVC files to ProRes.

The only issue is that apparently because of the existing HEVC licensing issues it costs, There will probably never be a real freebie type converter hence the shortage of transcode options out there. SCRATCH have a trial version available. ASSIMILATE the parent company are one of the few companies that are licensed to encode ProRes on Windows. It will cost you $19.00 month or $199 a year for a subscription.

Also heard that Premiere will will be able to handle these Canon HEVC files. I was told the latest version can already handle XF-HEVC HD files but not UHD/4K. I guess Adobe will just increase their monthly subscription to cover the licensing costs:( Check it out at:

https://www.assimilateinc.com/products/scratch-play-pro/

Chris Young

I have tested Scratch Pro version 9, and it works fine with Canon XF705 media. I tested with UHD 29.97 fps files and transcoded them to ProRes 422 HQ. I successfully imported the ProRes files into Media Composer.

I also tested export as H.264 (422, 10 bit), once with default bitrate (62.8 Mbit/) and once with custom bitrate (200 Mbit/s). In both cases the quality is very good.

Scratch Pro maintains timecode and shows a great amount of metadata from the recorded files. If one needs the transcoding, Scratch would be a good choice.
Joachim

It seems like a lot of trouble to have to go through just to upload H. 265 video clips. With the XF300 I just download them into the Canon XF utility and from there into Vegas Pro 16 my computer and start editing. As I said before, I will stick with my XF300 till my editing systems get it all figured out.

Are you sure that the Canon utility doesn’t have an export function? the old MXF utility did. Also, i have to believe that Adobe will add the format to Pr pretty damn soon. How long has the camera been shipping? It usually takes them a short while to bring it online.

Thanks Chris for claritying that SDI out feature. I missed it. I think that high end facilities will have that ability, and it certainly feature proofs the SDi, but frankly, I’d be willing to have a slightly (meaning a lot cheaper) version that only had today’s SDI. Most of the video SDI uses I’ve run into in my back of the map location were only taking the output to 1080p in a live feed. I’m sure that there is demand of 4k but it has to be pretty low, given that you need an entire chain of 4k devices to make it all work. And to spend almost 3k more? Not likely to happen in my budget.

On the good side, it appears to still support full wave form monitoring while shooting. I can’t tell you how useful this was for getting the colors right in the field. I’ve had a similar feature onthe Panny GH5 but it doesn’t stay on during filming.

ffmpeg now supports decode of Canon XF-HEVC.mxf files:

git.videolan.org Git - ffmpeg.git/commitdiff (http://git.videolan.org/?p=ffmpeg.git;a=commitdiff;h=f95aee2b72535e14b7463750fd7afb6d1cdbe4d4)

It's implemented in the Zeranoe ffmpeg nightly builds:

https://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/

Sample XF-705 clips to test:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/uam3s1bvralba07/AADfc7RvwmhEA-rLJ8pDjz8la?dl=0

Do you know if any of the sample clips are HLG or HDR?

I may be the only one but this is why I'm interested in the XF705. If you have an XF705 do you use if for HLG or HDR?

All clips were shot with Rec.709 color gamut.
Clips A003C032 and A003C041 were shot with CLog3, clip A003C074 was shot in infrared.

Joachim

I thought the official Canon introductory video stated that you could import H.265 directly into Davinci Resolve. Can anyone verify this?

@Bob,

yes, I can confirm, that Resolve can link to Canon XF-HEVC files. However, I think this is only true for the Studio Version (paid version), not for the free version. I cannot check this, as I have only installed the studio version.

Joachim

Yes, you need the (paid) Studio version. To work with these files in the free version, you'd need to transcode to a 10bit 422 intermediate - Prores, DNxHR HQX, Cineform etc.

The sample clips were from this Red Shark review:

https://www.redsharknews.com/production/item/6006-the-canon-xf705-is-a-camcorder-with-the-future-in-mind

Bryan, thank you for that information. I was looking at the C200 but really need to be messing with different lens and mic's. I have had the XF300 so the change over should be easy. Plus, I have been working with Davinci Resolve for several months and I really enjoy it. Thanks again. Bob

You're welcome.

Adobe just released Premiere Pro v14.0 It now supports Canon XF-HEVC

and Edius 9 support all Canon XF705 color space

709, 2020, canon log3

will try to canon log soon

Does your PC struggle with this?

A lot of PCs have issues with H.265. Okay as an acquisition format but it was never ever designed as an editing format. Its primary design was for a light compact small payload delivery codec. Playback on computers is one of the reasons Sony are not using it in their cameras.

"While a newer codec, such as H.265/HEVC may be more suitable for UHD, 4K or 8K transmission, it is not automatically the best choice for production environments today. The burden of computation of HEVC makes it almost impossible to handle in “real-time” operations without very powerful processing devices. In comparison, H.264 is perfectly suited to demanding professional applications at up to 4K and Sony has already achieved a very high level of image quality (over 45dBs of SNR) with XAVC-L422. The rate of XAVC-L422, although around 30% to 50% higher than HEVC, is completely manageable from a computational viewpoint for editing, picture manipulation etc. and for transport around today’s broadcast infrastructures.Technology and solutions vendors can also implement H.264 (XAVC L422) without the expensive and complex -to-arrange patent payments required for various aspects of the use of H.265."

Sony white paper:

https://cvp.com/pdf/sony-pzw-4000-whitepaper.pdf

Chris Young

I am using Edius 9 to edit Canon XF705 H.265 4K 160M footage, no transcode needed

Only true for QS enabled Intel CPU. Without QS EDIUS struggles. I have EDIUS 8.53WG and EDIUS 9.51WG as well as Resolve Studio 16. My Threadripper 1920 with 1080Ti GPU will play h265 in EDIUS but scrubbing is not that good. Resolve has no problems playing Canon h265 files on my PC though.

With Resolve on a OC'd 5.2Ghz delidded PC I'm having zero problems in Resolve but the problem is many people have off the shelf PCs that on average are just not up to the task of handling H.265. I'm also an Edius user and basically if Edius which is one of the best playback NLEs because of its well designed software struggles with H.265 then a lot of other editing software has real problems. Especially if trying to edit multi-track 4K. Also as far as hardware QuickSync CPU encoding along with Nvidia's NVENC encoding both leave a bit to be desired as they have a hard job of creating hardware encoded files to match hi quality software encoding especially at lower bit rates. Plus neither QS or NVENC support the much better x264 library for encoding. Again very obvious on low bit rate files.

Chris Young

EDIUS works really well with recent QS enabled Intel CPU that will decode h264 and h265 for timeline playback especially if overclocked. There are two issues here. Decode for timeline playback and encoding for export. Totally different issues. EDIUS is my main editor too.

I have no problems with mp4 h265 in either EDIUS or Resolve at HD or UHD. EDIUS will not play very well h265 MXF files from the Canon in HD and will not play the UHD MXF file at all. However this file will play slowly in Resolve Studio 16. My system is Threadripper 1920 12 core at stock clock with 1080Ti GPU 32G RAM and fast SSD's.

On the two systems I'm running I find the NVENC decoder on the Nvidia cards performs better than the Intel QS for playback but I guess this can vary from system to system dependent on configuration. In Resolve I get smooth play back of 60p UHD HEVC 10-bit 4:2:2 Canon files albeit only at around 44 fps and that is with the paltry bit rate of 175Mbps which those files are. These don't have the bit rate for any really heavy manipulation in post and when you do apply much in the way of grading to them any semblance of reasonable playback goes out the window.

Whereas with 50/60p either Canon XF AVC or Sony XAVC which are both H.264 10-bit 4:2:2 files I can have two tracks of real time full resolution full frame rate playback with a combination of LUTs and grades. I just don't see any benefit of having to work with H.265 files which totally hamper you when you have fast turn around network jobs to deliver on a tight schedule. As far as the delivery encoding goes I still much prefer x264. Or if the client wants 265 a 10-bit HEVC x265 encodes produces a better result than HEVC H.265. For me it comes down to client acceptance of files. It must be at least 12 years since I've had any issues with 264 deliveries but a couple of times I've had "producers" who requested H.265 delivery getting back to me saying "Oh my client can't play the files". For me HEVC remains okay for acquisition but I either batch convert to ProRes or preferably Cineform with its wavelet encoding for a much more rugged superior work post experience. I don't have time for the impediments of working with HEVC in real time.

Chris Young