Micro Four Thirds - the start of low cost shallow DOF videography?

[Evan C. King]

Originally Posted by Mark Williams

but unless it can deliver a close or superior image to the 5d then I don't think it could be considered a professional piece of equipment.

It's not considered a professional piece by anyone or even panasonic. Look at the marketing materials, look at the website. Who is this intended for? This thing is less than half the price. As it stands the 5DMK2 is barely a pro body in the first place, canon will be the first to tell you that, and it's video is largely a novelty feature, they haven't designed it for a proper production format or broadcast or what have you.

Remember these are the all among the first of their kind, none of these are supposed to be true hybrids yet. You might be expecting too much.

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Bill Koehler

Mark,

I wouldn't expect anyone to try and match the Canon 5D2 codec.
Reason? These are consumer market products, so expectations are going to be 24 Mbps, tops.

Canon, in pushing their codec to ~42 Mbps, is clearly playing in pro territory.

If I remember correctly -- the Canon uses M-JPEG. So 42Mbps isn't pushing the bit-rate at all. That's low for HD M-JPEG.

[Bill Koehler]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

If I remember correctly -- the Canon uses M-JPEG. So 42Mbps isn't pushing the bit-rate at all. That's low for HD M-JPEG.

The Canon 5D Mark II uses 42 Mbps MPEG-4 in an Apple QuickTime MOV wrapper.

See here, second paragraph.

Canon Digital Learning Center - EOS 5D Mark II: Movie Mode Basics

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Bill Koehler

The Canon 5D Mark II uses 42 Mbps MPEG-4 in an Apple QuickTime MOV wrapper.

So much for my memory. :)

But now I understand why there are reports of crashing while editing long clips. I don't know of any other device that pushes long GOP MPEG-4 to such high bit rates.

Of course, Canon has to use a super high bit rate because it seems they are using the now out of date MPEG-4 codec rather than the far more efficient h.264/AVC codec. Strange choice.

[Bill Koehler]

According to Apple, H.264 is MPEG-4 part 10. So H.264 is actually a subset of MPEG-4.
See here:

Apple - QuickTime - Technologies - MPEG-4

So it could very well be that what Canon is identifying as MPEG-4 is H.264.
Either way, I don't know anyone else who is pushing this codec to that high a data rate.

[Paulo Teixeira]

If you look at the properties of the clips from the 5D Mark II, you can clearly see that it’s H.264.

[Bill Koehler]

Originally Posted by Paulo Teixeira

If you look at the properties of the clips from the 5D Mark II, you can clearly see that it’s H.264.

Oh that I could be so lucky ;-(

But getting back to the original topic of discussion...

What this confirms is that even if Canon didn't get all the bits and pieces fully baked for professional use, they certainly went for the gusto when it came to the codec+bitrate. All of which means these consumer oriented cams, at roughly a 1/3 of the price, are unlikely to measure up to the Canon 5D2 codec+bitrate. I would be VERY pleasantly surprised if they went over the 24 Mbps maximum specified for recording to tape. Of course, these don't record to tape, so why that is a concern/issue, I don't know, other than the raw processing power/silicon that it requires.

But it does provide a convenient stopping point for manufacturers targetting a consumer market.

What would be really cool would be for someone to run the HDMI output into something like the FlashXDR or the to-be NanoFlash and see what the results look like.

[Ethan Cooper]

What I don't get is why Nikon doesn't come out swinging and make the perfect DSLR with video option. They don't have a video product line to protect and could make a killing if they'd do it right.

Lots of Canon owners are using Nikon glass anyway, why not sway them with a great camera?

Things they need to improve:

1) better codec or bitrate or both
2) little less skew please (faster read times)
3) full manual control over ISO, shutter, and aperture while in video mode
4) 1920 x 1080
5) 24p, 30p, 60i as options
6) mic input


Nikon is in perfect position to do this, Canon and Panny have to sell more expensive "proper" video cameras. I'll keep hoping.

[Paulo Teixeira]

The D300 have been out for a while so I suspect we shouldn’t have to wait long for a successor which should hopefully have an HD video mode.





http://nikonrumors.com/2009/02/04/ni...july-2009.aspx

[John Vincent]

Originally Posted by Ethan Cooper

What I don't get is why Nikon doesn't come out swinging and make the perfect DSLR with video option. They don't have a video product line to protect and could make a killing if they'd do it right.

Nikon is in perfect position to do this, Canon and Panny have to sell more expensive "proper" video cameras. I'll keep hoping.

Man, what a perfect way to say it. The other companies, sure, you can see why they keep the lid on the tech. But Nikon? No high end video products.

Perhaps they're simply doing the best they can wit what they have... or are waiting for the competition to wear themselves this year.

john

[Bill Koehler]

Japanese companies can be very aggressive, but also be very careful about the fights they pick.

In the early 1980's Yamaha Motor thought it would take on Honda in motorcycles. Honda responded by almost crushing Yamaha. My memory is that the head of Yamaha Motor was forced to apologize, personally, to Honda for his impudence, and then resigned. Not what you would call a proud moment. But once done, Honda relented, things went back to "normal" and Yamaha survived.

As things are now, Canon and Nikon are the two companies that are cleaning up in the camera/photography business, collectively commanding ~85% market share. Everybody else is fighting for scraps. I don't think Nikon is going to do anything that could and probably would trigger a market share war and hammer margins. Especially when the economy already stinks.

Of course if Nikon produces exactly what you want, I'll be very happy to be wrong.
But it is something to think about.

[Bill Koehler]

Originally Posted by Liza Witz

Because the camera puts out video over the HDMI port. So, I believe they do this so that they can send the same stream out the port as they are recording to flash.

Thanks for the explanation Liza. I am sure you're right.

It's still annoying, because it means a good chunk of their 17 Mbps datastream is being wasted storing what are in fact redundant fields. Storage that could have been used for either higher quality at the same data rate or longer record times at the lower 'true' data rate.

Given that HDMI is an uncompressed output, I would have preferred in 24p mode they simply remembered to repeat properly the uncompressed fields they have already recently decoded and transmitted rather than baking the pulldown into the compressed datastream. Oh well.

By comparison, the Canon 5D2 can go straight for the codec+bitrate quality gusto because operating at 30p, it is doing precisely zero frame pulldown. So unless I'm missing something, this Panasonic ends up operating at an effective ~1/3 the bitrate of the Canon. How does everyone here think that will measure up and compare?

Actually doing a rough calculation, Both doing 1920x1080:
Canon 5D2, 42 Mbps, 30 frames/sec., so about 1.4 Mb/frame
Panny, after subtracting for pulldown, more like 14 Mbps, so 14 Mbps, 24 frames/sec., so about .583 Mb/frame.

If you don't like the numbers, tell me what I did wrong.

[Bill Koehler]

Just to be fair, another camera, doing 1920x1080i60 or 1920x1080p30
with 24 Mbps ends up with ~.8 Mbps / frame.

This should be close to where the Panasonic HMC150 and Canon Vixia HF S10 live.

What this comparison leaves out of course is the difference in lenses, sensor size, raw detail resolving power, depth of field characteristics, and low light sensitivity differences of the sensors. This is a comparison ONLY of what Panasonic has done with the codec.

[John Wyatt]

On one webpage I saw quite a lot of adapters are already available to use a large range of lens types for the Micro four Thirds mount. I was surprised to see that even C-mount was included in the options. Now, I have several C-mount primes, so this is a very interesting possibility to explore. But I find it hard to believe that a C-mount designed for Super16mm can cover a Four Thirds sensors area? Is it really possible? I hope so...

[Bill Koehler]

Originally Posted by John Wyatt

But I find it hard to believe that a C-mount designed for Super16mm can cover a Four Thirds sensors area? Is it really possible? I hope so...

The sensor size is listed as 18mm x 13.5mm.
I believe a Super16 frame is 12.5mm x 7.4mm frame size.
So using a Super16 lens may be like using a lens intended for an APS-C sensor on a Full Frame 35mm camera.

Sad but true...