Does the Canon EOS 5D Mk. II have a quality codec?

Oleg Kalyan · December 12th, 2008, 01:42 PM

Don,
thank you,

my colleagues had a hard time to get full 0-255, on different editing platforms,
it seem to always cut it off to 16-235

Is there a workaround, do you get 0-255, are you on a Mac, which editing program?

sorry for double post..

Barlow Elton · December 12th, 2008, 02:28 PM

We just got one yesterday, and after a bit of testing, I would say that although the bit rate is higher, it's just about the same as HDV in quality--maybe slightly better, and I would compare that to Canon's HDV implementations, not Sony or JVC.

I think it has a higher bit rate than prosumer AVCHD because it's not doing quite as much efficiency encoding as, say, the 24mbs AVCHD of the HF11.

It's definitely decent quality, but I see artifacts on certain scenes with fast movement, just like HDV.

Luis de la Cerda · December 12th, 2008, 05:06 PM

Oleg,

On NewTek SpeedEDIT I can see the full 0-255 range. With a little contrast adjustment it can be made to fit into 8 bit RGB without clipping. Maybe there's a setting on other products to interpret the colorspace correctly and get the whole range. I've been seeing a lot of clipped video going around so it appears to be a problem for most users.

Oleg Kalyan · December 12th, 2008, 06:33 PM

Luis, thank you!

I can't wait to see a solution, fix, on FCP platform !

Robin Lobel · December 17th, 2008, 04:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barlow Elton

I think it has a higher bit rate than prosumer AVCHD because it's not doing quite as much efficiency encoding as, say, the 24mbs AVCHD of the HF11.

It's definitely decent quality, but I see artifacts on certain scenes with fast movement, just like HDV.

How surprising, 24mbps on HF11 better than 40mbps on 5DMII ?
Maybe that's because the HF11 has variable bitrate, I'm not sure 5DMII has it.

Do you have a screenshot with movement artifacts ?

Don Miller · December 17th, 2008, 04:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barlow Elton

I think it has a higher bit rate than prosumer AVCHD because it's not doing quite as much efficiency encoding as, say, the 24mbs AVCHD of the HF11.

From specs H264 should be better quality as its designed to need more processing power. It would have been a lot easier to implement HDV.

Isn't avchd and h264 implementation also?

Chris Hurd · December 17th, 2008, 04:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Don Miller

It would have been a lot easier to implement HDV.

Nope, because then it would have to be a tape-based camera, per the provisions of the HDV consortium.

Robert Morane · December 17th, 2008, 05:19 PM

What about XDCAM, isn't a faster yet similar codec than HDV? Can we expect Sony to offer it with their new photo camera line?
How would that compare with the Canon codec? (maybe I m getting little bit to speculative)

Jon Fairhurst · December 17th, 2008, 07:17 PM

The 5D Mark II has a few things that I'm disappointed in. The codec isn't one of them. The only appreciable step up for me would be a compressed RAW option. h.264.MOV, HDV, AVCHD and XDCAM are all just different flavors with the similar bit-depth limitations.

Don Miller · December 17th, 2008, 07:36 PM

How well will the HF11 30p AVCHD edit with the 5DII in FCP? I assume colors can be made to be pretty close. Is FCP all happy with AVCHD now?

Seems like a nice camera to have with the 5DII. I've never even seen one of the HF models.

Luis de la Cerda · December 17th, 2008, 08:10 PM

From my observation, the codec seems really nice, except it doesn't really hold up well in the shadows, which is, incidentally, where digital hold most information. The solution is simple though. If you want something good for post grading, make a picture style that expands the shadows and compresses highlights a bit to make this information fall in more useable segments of the codec. This is particularly useful for very contrasty situations such as backlit scenes.

Here's such a picture style, in case anyone's interested.

Mathieu Kassovitz · January 19th, 2009, 03:24 AM

A few weeks later . . . do you stand your prior statements about the quality of the codec?

Elizabeth Lowrey · January 19th, 2009, 10:02 AM

My only testing so far with the video was a night shoot of local Christmas lights and some statues in a veteran's memorial.

The codec handles individual frames pretty well, so that a still pulled from the video would look good (I saw some slight banding in a clear blue sky as the gradient changed on the horizon, but nothing earth shattering). But from my tests, it's fairly clear that this codec is not optimized for motion as there is very slight mosquito noise even in shots that are on a tripod if there's high contrast AND high detail at the same time. Panning across a bronze, lit statue at night, for example, where there's a lot of luminance contrast and fine detail in the wrinkles of clothing and texture on the statue reveal this problem. Even some areas of grass lit by the vapor lamps showed this when the tripod was completely locked down. There's just a jittery quality to the fine details that appear to be due to shifts in the compression from frame to frame that I find annoying.

Mathieu Kassovitz · January 19th, 2009, 10:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elizabeth Lowrey

But from my tests, it's fairly clear that this codec is not optimized for motion as there is very slight mosquito noise even in shots that are on a tripod if there's high contrast AND high detail at the same time. Panning across a bronze, lit statue at night, for example, where there's a lot of luminance contrast and fine detail in the wrinkles of clothing and texture on the statue reveal this problem. Even some areas of grass lit by the vapor lamps showed this when the tripod was completely locked down. There's just a jittery quality to the fine details that appear to be due to shifts in the compression from frame to frame that I find annoying.

What's the best post-production work-around in your opinion?

Jay Bloomfield · January 19th, 2009, 10:30 AM

There are statements in this thread speculating that the 5D MKII shoots in sRGB (16-235). I thought that issue was resolved before and that the camera shoots video in cRGB (0-255):

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/944824-post22.html

The problem is that the QT decoder is clipping the histogram and producing sRGB in most NLEs. If you install the DirectShow h.264 (MPEG4 Part 10) decoder, CoreAVC, you can decode the 5D MKII MOV files as cRGB in any software package that doesn't force the use of QT for decoding, such as Cineform.

Also, MPEG4 is a far more efficient codec than MPEG2. What this means is that for a given bitrate, MPEG4 will always be of higher quality than MPEG2. But there are various implementations of the MPEG4 standard, so people see different results when making comparisons between the two codecs. The point of the MPEG4 standard was to make more compact files and video streams than MPEG2, not higher quality. The limitations were either the capacity of an optical disk or the bandwidth available for cable or satellite broadcasting. To really compare specific implementations of the two codecs, you would have to conduct a double-blind viewing test to see whether a large population of viewers find the level of compression artifacts acceptable or not.

December 17th, 2008, 05:19 PM	#23
Robert Morane Major Player Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Tucson, AZ Posts: 267	What about XDCAM, isn't a faster yet similar codec than HDV? Can we expect Sony to offer it with their new photo camera line? How would that compare with the Canon codec? (maybe I m getting little bit to speculative) __________________ Measure twice, cut once!

December 17th, 2008, 07:17 PM	#24
Jon Fairhurst Inner Circle Join Date: May 2006 Location: Camas, WA, USA Posts: 5,513	The 5D Mark II has a few things that I'm disappointed in. The codec isn't one of them. The only appreciable step up for me would be a compressed RAW option. h.264.MOV, HDV, AVCHD and XDCAM are all just different flavors with the similar bit-depth limitations. __________________ Jon Fairhurst

December 12th, 2008, 01:42 PM	#16
Oleg Kalyan Major Player Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: MOSCOW Posts: 860	Don, thank you, my colleagues had a hard time to get full 0-255, on different editing platforms, it seem to always cut it off to 16-235 Is there a workaround, do you get 0-255, are you on a Mac, which editing program? sorry for double post..

December 12th, 2008, 02:28 PM	#17
Barlow Elton Major Player Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: UT Posts: 945	We just got one yesterday, and after a bit of testing, I would say that although the bit rate is higher, it's just about the same as HDV in quality--maybe slightly better, and I would compare that to Canon's HDV implementations, not Sony or JVC. I think it has a higher bit rate than prosumer AVCHD because it's not doing quite as much efficiency encoding as, say, the 24mbs AVCHD of the HF11. It's definitely decent quality, but I see artifacts on certain scenes with fast movement, just like HDV.

December 12th, 2008, 05:06 PM	#18
Luis de la Cerda Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Mexico City Posts: 181	Oleg, On NewTek SpeedEDIT I can see the full 0-255 range. With a little contrast adjustment it can be made to fit into 8 bit RGB without clipping. Maybe there's a setting on other products to interpret the colorspace correctly and get the whole range. I've been seeing a lot of clipped video going around so it appears to be a problem for most users.

December 12th, 2008, 06:33 PM	#19
Oleg Kalyan Major Player Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: MOSCOW Posts: 860	Luis, thank you! I can't wait to see a solution, fix, on FCP platform !

December 17th, 2008, 07:36 PM	#25
Don Miller Major Player Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Chicago Posts: 706	How well will the HF11 30p AVCHD edit with the 5DII in FCP? I assume colors can be made to be pretty close. Is FCP all happy with AVCHD now? Seems like a nice camera to have with the 5DII. I've never even seen one of the HF models.

January 19th, 2009, 03:24 AM	#27
Mathieu Kassovitz Major Player Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: paris Posts: 289	A few weeks later . . . do you stand your prior statements about the quality of the codec?

January 19th, 2009, 10:02 AM	#28
Elizabeth Lowrey Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Milton, FL Posts: 27	My only testing so far with the video was a night shoot of local Christmas lights and some statues in a veteran's memorial. The codec handles individual frames pretty well, so that a still pulled from the video would look good (I saw some slight banding in a clear blue sky as the gradient changed on the horizon, but nothing earth shattering). But from my tests, it's fairly clear that this codec is not optimized for motion as there is very slight mosquito noise even in shots that are on a tripod if there's high contrast AND high detail at the same time. Panning across a bronze, lit statue at night, for example, where there's a lot of luminance contrast and fine detail in the wrinkles of clothing and texture on the statue reveal this problem. Even some areas of grass lit by the vapor lamps showed this when the tripod was completely locked down. There's just a jittery quality to the fine details that appear to be due to shifts in the compression from frame to frame that I find annoying.

January 19th, 2009, 10:30 AM	#30
Jay Bloomfield Major Player Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Voorheesville, NY Posts: 433	There are statements in this thread speculating that the 5D MKII shoots in sRGB (16-235). I thought that issue was resolved before and that the camera shoots video in cRGB (0-255): http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/944824-post22.html The problem is that the QT decoder is clipping the histogram and producing sRGB in most NLEs. If you install the DirectShow h.264 (MPEG4 Part 10) decoder, CoreAVC, you can decode the 5D MKII MOV files as cRGB in any software package that doesn't force the use of QT for decoding, such as Cineform. Also, MPEG4 is a far more efficient codec than MPEG2. What this means is that for a given bitrate, MPEG4 will always be of higher quality than MPEG2. But there are various implementations of the MPEG4 standard, so people see different results when making comparisons between the two codecs. The point of the MPEG4 standard was to make more compact files and video streams than MPEG2, not higher quality. The limitations were either the capacity of an optical disk or the bandwidth available for cable or satellite broadcasting. To really compare specific implementations of the two codecs, you would have to conduct a double-blind viewing test to see whether a large population of viewers find the level of compression artifacts acceptable or not.