AX100 Firmware 3.0 is out today!!

[Filippo Mulinacci]

Originally Posted by Mark Watson

I can do that once I get back from my trip. Will try to have it posted by next weekend. Scenes with motion, some panning/slider shots, shots with lots of detail.

Mark

That would be cool, thanks!

[Andy Smith]

We have had the 100Mbps update for a few weeks now and I thought I would ask if anyone has really seen any difference other than a doubling of the storage required. I have not seen any perceptible difference in any of the posted on-line comparisons. Last weekend I took some footage at a wedding and used 60Mbps, it stood up well to some increase in saturation in post and overall I am very pleased with the results. Auto focus only hesitated a couple of times (indoors) and hung on to the foreground faces. The challenge in editing was to make the best quality DVD with minimal shimmer in leaves/gravel outside. I found 'video to video converter' with 2 pass encoding to down res the 4K to give the best results.

[Mark Watson]

The search continues...
I am working on a follow-up video, but the clips I've shot so far don't show any difference. I shot trains, palm trees, water fountains at a park, did a fast pan of a flower bed... not seeing any difference. My 1:20 video is 1GB in size already. I'll have it uploaded tomorrow sometime after I add one more scene with motion. I'm not sure what good all those extra bits are doing.

Mark

[Filippo Mulinacci]

Hi Mark,

do you have a UHD monitor or a 1080p only? I ask because I wonder whether the reason for not being able to see the difference (even in fast moving footage) may be the monitor....I mean....albeit I have only a 1080p monitor, I can see the difference when I shot 1080p or 4K, but I cannot see well enough the 4K video and hence I also can not spot difference between the "almost" same footage at 60Mbit vs 100Mbit.

I believe that in theory the difference would be similar to the one we get with a 1080p at 15Mbit vs the same at 25Mbit....not a huge difference in bitrate, but still almost the double....I would bet I should see some difference....(I am puzzle)

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Even if indeed there is not much difference between 4k @ 60 Mbps and 100 Mbps on a large screen, watched from the right distance (meaning just 1m for a 50" display) - which I doubt seriously - please do not forget that if your plan is to use 4k for 1080p projects (and use pan & scan cropping on the 4k material) - than those cropped "windows" will most certainly look better with much less compression artefacts visible if they are 100 Mbps.

But as I said - having experience on various bitrates on my nanoFlash (and that is for 1080p) - I am 100% positive that even full-frame 100 Mbps will look better with lots of "micromotion" (foliage in the wind, water splashes and waves, and alike).

[Mark Watson]

Originally Posted by Filippo Mulinacci

Hi Mark,

do you have a UHD monitor or a 1080p only? I ask because I wonder whether the reason for not being able to see the difference (even in fast moving footage) may be the monitor....I mean....albeit I have only a 1080p monitor, I can see the difference when I shot 1080p or 4K, but I cannot see well enough the 4K video and hence I also can not spot difference between the "almost" same footage at 60Mbit vs 100Mbit.

I believe that in theory the difference would be similar to the one we get with a 1080p at 15Mbit vs the same at 25Mbit....not a huge difference in bitrate, but still almost the double....I would bet I should see some difference....(I am puzzle)

No, I don't have a UHD/4K monitor or TV. For now, I just want to see a difference on my computer screen and 1080P TV. I've watched YouTube videos of other camera tests for this type of thing and had no trouble seeing the difference.

Mark

[Filippo Mulinacci]

Got it. I will also check for similar comparison on either Vimeo or Youtube (I also do not have a UHD monitor...even if the recent ones are not so expensive and I am considering.... :-) )

[Jeff Harper]

I'm no expert, but I believe the amount of difference depends greatly on the nature of your subject and lighting conditions.

Extremely detailed objects such as leaves, grass, should show a difference, as someone else has pointed out in a simlilar thread.

Well lit footage of a calm ocean or solid objects, I suspect, will look about the same both ways.

I believe footage shot in poorly lit conditions can benefit from the extra information, and should accept touch ups and FX much better as well, at least that's my understanding.

[Bruce Dempsey]

Hey Mark
Get a 4k monitor
It will blow your mind

[Mark Watson]

AX100 Bit Rate Test II on Vimeo

Another test, with some trees, water, moving objects, a panning (fast) shot and a slider shot.
No cropping or adjustments made, just editing cuts. Was uploaded to Vimeo as UHD, so if one wants to download in original resolution, they can. It's a big file though.

Mark

[Paul Hardy]

Thanks for the upload Mark - for me the section that may show the most difference between the 2 bitrates is the shot of trees between 1:10 & 1:20.

However the downloaded file from Vimeo unfortunately only has a bitrate of 22mbps so doesn't quite work unfortunately.

Would it be possible to do a full res screen grab of your video at say 1:25:00 - that should help show up some artefacts?

Many thanks!

[Andy Smith]

I can see no observable difference between the two, seems to be no good reason to shoot in 100mbps especially with the significant increase in memory required.

[Mark Watson]

Paul,

I wasn't able to upload the screen-shot of the tree until I re-sized it to 50%. Not sure why it wouldn't go at original size since it was well within the size limits listed for .jpg files.

I have also uploaded a screen shot of the toy train that is cropped in quite a bit.

I took 4 screen shots of the tree clip and it does consistently show that the left side holds up better when I magnify in. The 60Mbps looks more "muddier" and pixelated.


Mark

[Mark Watson]

Originally Posted by Andy Smith

I can see no observable difference between the two, seems to be no good reason to shoot in 100mbps especially with the significant increase in memory required.

Andy, I agree. It's really a minor improvement and what that means to me is I won't be buying any of them 256GB cards just yet (too late about the 128GB cards, jumped the gun and bought one already).

On the bright side, at least they didn't charge us for that upgrade.


Mark

[Ron Evans]

I think it may make a difference if one is cropping/panning the image to 1920x1080 and then further processing in edit. Especially if like me you would like to use Respeeder to create a 60P file. The interpolated frames should be better with the finer detail.

Ron Evans