GH5 Firmware Update, Stymied by Apple?

[Ronald Jackson]

I'm an Apple man, strictly amateur, and the owner of a brace of GH5s, strictly wildlife.

My Apple hardware is quite old, iMac 2013, ditto MBP with an Air 2015. I can edit 4K okay with this lot (iMac in practice) and I can view on either my desktop 4K monitor, my Panasonic 4K TV or via an Epson "4K sort of" (but not bad) projector.

However I'm stuck when it comes to 10 bit content, let alone, 10 bit as enhanced by the latest GH5 firmware.

Apple Quicktime for instance simply won't play 10 bit, at least GH5 10 bit, so I have no means of checking filing and storing 10 bit video files prior to an edit.

Whether FCPX can handle the latest firmware enhanced 10 bit files is neither here nor there if I cannot simply view the things.

Any information out there about what if anything Apple is likely to do about this? Is this just a problem with Panasonic 10 bit or other 10 bit eg Sony?

As an aside sort of, Apple Safari cannot handle YouTube 4K 50p 8 Bit which it shows as 1080 50p. (It works though with Google Chrome)

Ron

[Brent Kaplan]

I use sony catalyst browse to view the clips

[Gary Huff]

VideoLAN (aka VLC) will easily play back the clips, and I highly recommend using it.

[Ronald Jackson]

I'll have a bash at VLC but I reckon Apple need to get on with it as well and soon.

Their store in Liverpool full of kids of all ages farting around with iPhones and iPads. I'd made an appointment a month back to see whether there was a way to improve how my Air connects to my/a 4K monitor and particularly a 4K projector as the text becomes almost invisible when "mirroring displays". The bloke in the store couldn't get their display to recognise a signal from my Air and simply gave up. Said they'd contact me online which they didn't.

(Fixed as it happens by increasing font and ikon sizes to max and then ensuring that the display(s) are un-cluttered. One isolated screen item to click "play", not a column.)

Ron

[Robert Lane]

This may or may not help but...

You're right that QT can't playback *native* GH5 footage in 10-bit, not even in Sierra. (I won't switch to High Sierra until Davinci and some other apps are fully compatible - so it's possible that HS might be 10-bit compatible.)

What's strange is that Finder will give you a thumbnail of 10-bit video, but QT can't play it.

VLC can play them however, if your'e a Mac guy through and through I'd highly suggest getting either Edit Ready or the standalone Compressor app and converting your footage to ProRes. The benefits being that once converted QT can play it and, it's far less work for your NLE to edit.

Once I make the migration to High Sierra - which will depend on how soon BlackMagic makes a stable version of Davinci that's HS compatible - I'll report if QT becomes 10-bit capable. My guess is it will since they've developed the new H.265 HEVC codec.

[Robert John]

It doesn't play them in High Sierra either. It does play the H.265 files.

[Ronald Jackson]

Thanks for the above. My workflow is "SD card into reader - view clips in QT - copy selected clips into the appropriate file on external drive - format card ".

Most of what I shoot, wildlife, birds, is ditched. In fact a lot more will get ditched from the external drive once I get to edit a movie in FCPX.

Am I right in assuming that with VLC I will need to download all the clips from the SD card, convert into ?? Pro-Res? before I can view and sort/file them?


Ron

[Gary Huff]

You can play GH5 clips directly in VLC straight from the card, but I have noticed there is some artifacting that happens. Rest assured this is not actually part of the clip, but VLC not quite decoding the video properly. Once you bring the clip into your NLE of choice, it will be fine.

[Ed Fiebke]

Hi - I recently purchased the GH5. I'm also experiencing the same situation with QT & Compressor not recognizing the 10-bit ".mov" files. Being VERY new to HD video, even newer to 10-bit video files, I do feel a bit of relief knowing that I'm not the only one experiencing this issue. I have not upgraded to High Sierra and, at present, don't plan on doing the upgrade. With the exception of this particular issue, I enjoy a relatively stable audio/video set-up with audio I/O equipment (my MOTU 2408 MK3 devices) that don't seem to be compatible with High Sierra. (At least I can't find any information on the internet where users with these devices have made the upgrade to High Sierra.) So, it looks like I'll be staying with El Capitan and lose out any opportunity for take on any new features that Apple might introduce to its video programs like opening up these 10-bit ".mov" files.

However, as others have suggested, there are programs that can. Adobe's video programs recognize these files. I was thinking about stoping the monthly subscription to Adobe's Creative Cloud programs, or at least scaling back on them. But I'll probably keep the subscription because Adobe's Media Encoder and Premiere do recognize these files.

So far, I'm happy with purchasing the GH5, and even happier knowing that I can edit these larger files (if I want to). Still, I do wish Apple's Compressor would recognized them. . . .

[Robert Lane]

Just to clarify:

The native QT player wasn't ever setup for 10-bit video files, and the old "pro" version of QT 7 isn't either. However, you CAN view 10-bit files directly in a Finder window and even play them (press space bar). So the OS is absolutely 10-bit capable, just the QuickTime app won't play them.

It's all very strange because the components that allow Finder to play clips are built into the QT engine, so exactly how or why Apple parses out this 10-bit capability between functions is strange...

I promised an update about High-Sierra: Davinci Resolve 14.3 works flawlessly in OSX 10.3.3.