Shogun With GH4 -What Do I Get? at DVinfo.net

Ronald Jackson · March 7th, 2015, 03:24 AM

I have a couple of GH4s which used for wildlife videos with in the main long lenses. Amateur but keen. I upload (4K now) quite a lot to YouTube as well as preparing and editing full length videos for showing, via projection, to local Bird Clubs and the like. Cannot afford any of the current 4K projectors. Hoping for the hopefully inevitable price drop.

Perhaps edit in 4K and "share" (FCPX) in 1080p for the time being.

My question is what improvements will the Shogun add to my stuff? I already use a focussing monitor, hangover from my XLH1/EX3 days, when I also used a nanoFlash, so quite used to a plethora of cables, batteries etc.

I have looked at the Shogun Facebook site but I'm not into the cultish kind of stuff you can see there. Shogun, like a GH4 or a RED whatever merely a tool as far as I'm concerned.

Ron

Bo Skelmose · March 8th, 2015, 05:28 PM

Hi Ronald
I have the shogun and used it with my GH4. Honestly you do not get a lot with the shogun. A little more quality when colourgrading but I do nomally use my recordings as they are. I went back to use the onboard SD cards normally. Have not tested if there is a difference in compression artifacts.

Gary Huff · March 8th, 2015, 05:55 PM

You can get less compression artifacts in scenes with a lot of motion or complexity. How much you'll actually notice of this is hard to say, plus to get any benefit over the efficiency of 4K AVCHD (essentially what the GH4 is shooting), you'll have to record in ProRes HQ, which can top out at 800Mbps.

So, the question is, how much is ProRes HQ recording worth to you? Will you be able to handle 400GB/hour?

Ronald Jackson · March 9th, 2015, 01:41 AM

Thanks chaps, good to hear something other than hype which is why I asked on DV Info.

The file sizes was something that concerned me as I'm out shooting several times a week, intention is hour long movies, so would have needed a stack of new hard drives.

I need to pay a lot more attention than I do to colour grading in post, something that won't require any new hardware, rather some mental effort on my part.

Ron

Andreas Andreou · June 13th, 2015, 02:09 AM

Another area to consider is if you're intending to convert your 4K footage to HD or to SD for final delivery on DVD.

The cleaner the original footage - the cleaner the final DVD image.

Comparing native GH4 clips recorded internally with the same footage recorded externally to a recorder may not look any different at all when viewed at normal working distance from a monitor or 50inch TV, its when you do colour work in post or down converting to SD or even DVD that you see a big difference between the two image.

The benefits of an external reorder over internal recording are very noticeable when your final delivery is SD or DVD

Although mosquito noise and blocking artifact may not be obvious in your internally recorded footage it is there.

I only use external recorder if the client budget is there, most of the time we shoot native internally
GH4 and XDCAM EX. Most client's wouldn't even know what mosquito noise is! they probably think its something buzzing in our ears.

My work flow is based on shooting GH4 4K and XDCAM EX internally, edit and mastering in HD timeline
down converting master HD file to SD then final encoding to DVD. results...quite nice.
Same workflow but recorded externally to Shuttle, results...much cleaner and sharper.

Andreas

Gary Huff · June 13th, 2015, 08:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andreas Andreou

its when you do colour work in post

What specific color work are you talking about? Adjusting contrast? Applying Magic Bullet looks?

Quote:

The benefits of an external reorder over internal recording are very noticeable when your final delivery is SD or DVD.

You won't notice any difference with downconverting.

Andreas Andreou · June 14th, 2015, 05:51 AM

The difference in image quality, mosquito noise and compression blocking when down converting from 4K to HD to SD to DVD is as plain as night and day in my workflow.

No way can you compare the final DVD with original HD footage and say you can not notice the difference,
maybe I'm seeing things!

I would be interested to know how you downcovert HD footage to DVD without noticing an image loss, maybe I have been using the wrong settings ?

Gary Huff · June 14th, 2015, 08:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andreas Andreou

No way can you compare the final DVD with original HD footage and say you can not notice the difference, maybe I'm seeing things!

That's not what I said.

Andreas Andreou · June 16th, 2015, 05:56 AM

You won't notice any difference with downconverting.[/QUOTE]

Can you clarify?

Bo Skelmose · June 17th, 2015, 07:13 AM

It is always a good idear to record and edit in a better quality than the final video will be transcoded to. But HD will do very fine for SD DVD's. GH4's 4k 8bit recordings and Shogun's 4k 10 bit recordings - you will never see any difference after they have been converted to SD mpeg DVD's - Never... If you have another experience - it must be from problems with your edit system.

Gary Huff · June 17th, 2015, 07:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bo Skelmose

GH4's 4k 8bit recordings and Shogun's 4k 10 bit recordings - you will never see any difference after they have been converted to SD mpeg DVD's - Never... If you have another experience - it must be from problems with your edit system.

Absolutely agree.

Andreas Andreou · June 18th, 2015, 05:28 AM

Bo - Gary
Thanks for following on with this thread, can you guys share the method/workflow you both use to get from native HD to MPEG2 DVD so that you don't see any difference in the downconvert?

If you guys don't get any noticeable difference in image quality in the downconvert then I may very well have issues with my edit system.

Ray Lee · June 23rd, 2015, 11:25 PM

I believe they are saying you will not see any difference on the final DVD regardless if you shoot 4k ProRes with a recorded or 4k internal on the Gh4.... I doubt I could see any difference between good HD and 4k once it was on DVD

Bram Corstjens · July 11th, 2015, 02:26 PM

Good to read some down to earth replies about this subject! I did see a demonstration on Youtube once which showed the difference between the 8bit and 10bit color, but it was on such a specific situation that 99.9 % of your normal shots would not apply. What they did was shoot a blue gradient sky, make the image black and white and add very strong contrast. The 8bit would show banding, where the 10bit would not. And although you will read a lot of comments on the internet which say you will see it also in other real world situations, I haven't seen a single example which supports this claim.

Same for 422 vs 420. Yes, there's a difference on paper, but the real question is how it translates to noticeable better recordings. I did a shoot once on a Canon C100 combined with a Ninja and compared the internal 420 recordings to the 422 from the Ninja. It was VERY difficult to spot the difference even when I was looking for it. Only a red book on a shelf showed a little bit of blockyness near the edges (red is a difficult color, more so than green for example), but the rest of the image was visually identical and color graded exactly the same.

So yes, in the end your 10bit 422 image might be a tiny improvement over 8bit 420. If you color grade gradients very heavily, the 10bit will help. If you film a lot of red with distinct edges, the 422 color sampling will help. Greenscreen? Not so much of a difference. Certainly not something your average viewer would ever notice.

At a cost of almost 2000,- I think its hardly worth the investment. Also be prepared to invest in A LOT of harddisk space and get used to carry spare batteries and extra cables around to set things up every time. You do get a nice screen though!

But then for 2k you can get a decent lighting kit which can arguably improve your image more than 10bit 422 ever can!

Bo Skelmose · July 12th, 2015, 02:15 PM

Well - I must say that I love my shogun for a lot of reasons. Great picture with focus help is fantastic. Sometimes I record on it from my GH4 from remote places - via hdmi to 6g sdi BM converter.
Although i am tired of my friends talking about how much the footage fill up the disk's - they are right. Sometimes it just aint worth it.

March 7th, 2015, 03:24 AM	#1
Ronald Jackson Major Player Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Southport, United Kingdom Posts: 723	Shogun With GH4 -What Do I Get? I have a couple of GH4s which used for wildlife videos with in the main long lenses. Amateur but keen. I upload (4K now) quite a lot to YouTube as well as preparing and editing full length videos for showing, via projection, to local Bird Clubs and the like. Cannot afford any of the current 4K projectors. Hoping for the hopefully inevitable price drop. Perhaps edit in 4K and "share" (FCPX) in 1080p for the time being. My question is what improvements will the Shogun add to my stuff? I already use a focussing monitor, hangover from my XLH1/EX3 days, when I also used a nanoFlash, so quite used to a plethora of cables, batteries etc. I have looked at the Shogun Facebook site but I'm not into the cultish kind of stuff you can see there. Shogun, like a GH4 or a RED whatever merely a tool as far as I'm concerned. Ron

March 8th, 2015, 05:28 PM	#2
Bo Skelmose Major Player Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Denmark Posts: 495	Re: Shogun With GH4 -What Do I Get? Hi Ronald I have the shogun and used it with my GH4. Honestly you do not get a lot with the shogun. A little more quality when colourgrading but I do nomally use my recordings as they are. I went back to use the onboard SD cards normally. Have not tested if there is a difference in compression artifacts.

March 8th, 2015, 05:55 PM	#3
Gary Huff Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Austin, Texas Posts: 2,006	Re: Shogun With GH4 -What Do I Get? You can get less compression artifacts in scenes with a lot of motion or complexity. How much you'll actually notice of this is hard to say, plus to get any benefit over the efficiency of 4K AVCHD (essentially what the GH4 is shooting), you'll have to record in ProRes HQ, which can top out at 800Mbps. So, the question is, how much is ProRes HQ recording worth to you? Will you be able to handle 400GB/hour?

March 9th, 2015, 01:41 AM	#4
Ronald Jackson Major Player Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Southport, United Kingdom Posts: 723	Re: Shogun With GH4 -What Do I Get? Thanks chaps, good to hear something other than hype which is why I asked on DV Info. The file sizes was something that concerned me as I'm out shooting several times a week, intention is hour long movies, so would have needed a stack of new hard drives. I need to pay a lot more attention than I do to colour grading in post, something that won't require any new hardware, rather some mental effort on my part. Ron

June 13th, 2015, 02:09 AM	#5
Andreas Andreou Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Athens, Greece and London UK Posts: 52	Re: Shogun With GH4 -What Do I Get? Another area to consider is if you're intending to convert your 4K footage to HD or to SD for final delivery on DVD. The cleaner the original footage - the cleaner the final DVD image. Comparing native GH4 clips recorded internally with the same footage recorded externally to a recorder may not look any different at all when viewed at normal working distance from a monitor or 50inch TV, its when you do colour work in post or down converting to SD or even DVD that you see a big difference between the two image. The benefits of an external reorder over internal recording are very noticeable when your final delivery is SD or DVD Although mosquito noise and blocking artifact may not be obvious in your internally recorded footage it is there. I only use external recorder if the client budget is there, most of the time we shoot native internally GH4 and XDCAM EX. Most client's wouldn't even know what mosquito noise is! they probably think its something buzzing in our ears. My work flow is based on shooting GH4 4K and XDCAM EX internally, edit and mastering in HD timeline down converting master HD file to SD then final encoding to DVD. results...quite nice. Same workflow but recorded externally to Shuttle, results...much cleaner and sharper. Andreas

June 14th, 2015, 05:51 AM	#7
Andreas Andreou Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Athens, Greece and London UK Posts: 52	Re: Shogun With GH4 -What Do I Get? The difference in image quality, mosquito noise and compression blocking when down converting from 4K to HD to SD to DVD is as plain as night and day in my workflow. No way can you compare the final DVD with original HD footage and say you can not notice the difference, maybe I'm seeing things! I would be interested to know how you downcovert HD footage to DVD without noticing an image loss, maybe I have been using the wrong settings ?

June 16th, 2015, 05:56 AM	#9
Andreas Andreou Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Athens, Greece and London UK Posts: 52	Re: Shogun With GH4 -What Do I Get? You won't notice any difference with downconverting.[/QUOTE] Can you clarify?

June 17th, 2015, 07:13 AM	#10
Bo Skelmose Major Player Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Denmark Posts: 495	Re: Shogun With GH4 -What Do I Get? It is always a good idear to record and edit in a better quality than the final video will be transcoded to. But HD will do very fine for SD DVD's. GH4's 4k 8bit recordings and Shogun's 4k 10 bit recordings - you will never see any difference after they have been converted to SD mpeg DVD's - Never... If you have another experience - it must be from problems with your edit system.

June 18th, 2015, 05:28 AM	#12
Andreas Andreou Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Athens, Greece and London UK Posts: 52	Re: Shogun With GH4 -What Do I Get? Bo - Gary Thanks for following on with this thread, can you guys share the method/workflow you both use to get from native HD to MPEG2 DVD so that you don't see any difference in the downconvert? If you guys don't get any noticeable difference in image quality in the downconvert then I may very well have issues with my edit system.

June 23rd, 2015, 11:25 PM	#13
Ray Lee Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: South NJ US Posts: 138	Re: Shogun With GH4 -What Do I Get? I believe they are saying you will not see any difference on the final DVD regardless if you shoot 4k ProRes with a recorded or 4k internal on the Gh4.... I doubt I could see any difference between good HD and 4k once it was on DVD

July 11th, 2015, 02:26 PM	#14
Bram Corstjens Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Netherlands Posts: 126	Re: Shogun With GH4 -What Do I Get? Good to read some down to earth replies about this subject! I did see a demonstration on Youtube once which showed the difference between the 8bit and 10bit color, but it was on such a specific situation that 99.9 % of your normal shots would not apply. What they did was shoot a blue gradient sky, make the image black and white and add very strong contrast. The 8bit would show banding, where the 10bit would not. And although you will read a lot of comments on the internet which say you will see it also in other real world situations, I haven't seen a single example which supports this claim. Same for 422 vs 420. Yes, there's a difference on paper, but the real question is how it translates to noticeable better recordings. I did a shoot once on a Canon C100 combined with a Ninja and compared the internal 420 recordings to the 422 from the Ninja. It was VERY difficult to spot the difference even when I was looking for it. Only a red book on a shelf showed a little bit of blockyness near the edges (red is a difficult color, more so than green for example), but the rest of the image was visually identical and color graded exactly the same. So yes, in the end your 10bit 422 image might be a tiny improvement over 8bit 420. If you color grade gradients very heavily, the 10bit will help. If you film a lot of red with distinct edges, the 422 color sampling will help. Greenscreen? Not so much of a difference. Certainly not something your average viewer would ever notice. At a cost of almost 2000,- I think its hardly worth the investment. Also be prepared to invest in A LOT of harddisk space and get used to carry spare batteries and extra cables around to set things up every time. You do get a nice screen though! But then for 2k you can get a decent lighting kit which can arguably improve your image more than 10bit 422 ever can!

July 12th, 2015, 02:15 PM	#15
Bo Skelmose Major Player Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Denmark Posts: 495	Re: Shogun With GH4 -What Do I Get? Well - I must say that I love my shogun for a lot of reasons. Great picture with focus help is fantastic. Sometimes I record on it from my GH4 from remote places - via hdmi to 6g sdi BM converter. Although i am tired of my friends talking about how much the footage fill up the disk's - they are right. Sometimes it just aint worth it.