4k Gopro 4 to Cineform to Final Cut to Compressor to Cineform

[VillasManzanill]

Hello Friends

Question.

Im editing 4k gopro 4 black footage

first step its to change my compressed footage to gopro cineform format and defish footage with the app gopro studio

then i edit those files in final cut pro x

then the final edit i send it to compressor

and then i want compressor to compress my files again to gopro cineform format (basically to keep the same codec as the one i edited with CFHD)

but at the end it gives me video that looks like corrupted with green lines

Why is that?

i can also export at the end to pro res 422 to keep quality but i would like to keep them always as cineform and then upload to youtube instead of upload the pro res file ( wanna keep max quality as possible, upload time its not a problem for me, i believe every time there is a change of codec its no good for quality, correct?)

is there a way to do it?

all my software its up to date.
im using a mac pro 5,1
3.46 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon
64 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
amd rx 480

sample of how the video looks
https://villasmanzanillo.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Screen-Shot-2017-08-01-at-5.24.12-PM.jpg

 

[MSastre]

There is no reason to compress back to cineform. You can share directly from FCPX to youtube, or save a master file in pro res 422 and then have Compressor encode it for youtube or whatever other use you want it for. You alreadyhave max quality in pro res.

 

[VillasManzanill]

There is no reason to compress back to cineform. You can share directly from FCPX to youtube, or save a master file in pro res 422 and then have Compressor encode it for youtube or whatever other use you want it for.

I want to avoid more transcoding for a second time (pro res). So at the end I wanna keep it as cineform. Is there a way to do so that actually works?

 

[MSastre]

What are your FCPX timeline video properties? If pro res, it has already been transcoded and needs no more. If it is cineform, just share your completed movie to youtube via FCP. Or export as master file and save to your desktop, to send to Compressor for youtube encoding and anything else you want. Going back to cineform after being in pro res is just added compression and your results will suffer. You already have max quality in pro res.

 

[VillasManzanill]

My videos are GoPro cineform format codec. And I want to keep them that way if possible. Don't really want them to be conveyed
[doublepost=1501785709][/doublepost]My timeline It is in cineform and not pro res. I didn't optimize them to be pro res.

 

[MSastre]

My videos are GoPro cineform format codec. And I want to keep them that way if possible. Don't really want them to be conveyed
[doublepost=1501785709][/doublepost]My timeline It is in cineform and not pro res. I didn't optimize them to be pro res.

OK just share to youtube from FCPX. Simple

 

[VillasManzanill]

OK just share to youtube from FCPX. Simple

That option to go to YouTube will convert it to h264

I wanna be able to upload straight on the original format cfhd so there is not so many transcodings and loose of quality.
Compressor it's got the option to transcode to cineform. But the final outcome looks bad just as the picture I posted at the begginign. Any work around to make it look good ?

 

[joema2]

I want to avoid more transcoding for a second time (pro res). So at the end I wanna keep it as cineform. Is there a way to do so that actually works?

Your GoPro videos are recorded in H264, they are not recorded in Cineform. You only need to import those camera native files directly into FCPX. If you import with "leave files in place", that is very fast.

If editing the camera native files, FCPX automatically creates a ProRes buffer or render file. So in a sense the camera files are always edited in ProRes.

If you want smoother editing performance, during import you can transcode those to proxy (which is ProRes) or ProRes optimized media. In general proxy is good for these cases because it's smaller and produces good editing performance. Generating the proxy files takes a little while but greatly speeds up editing performance.

The final output can be either H264 or ProRes. FCPX exports very high quality H264, which is double the bit rate Youtube recommends. Normally that is sufficient but you can export as ProRes if you want. I don't see that you need Cineform or Compressor. You can export straight from FCPX to either H264 or ProRes at very high speed and good quality.

 

[VillasManzanill]

Your GoPro videos are recorded in H264, they are not recorded in Cineform. You only need to import those camera native files directly into FCPX. If you import with "leave files in place", that is very fast.

If editing the camera native files, FCPX automatically creates a ProRes buffer or render file. So in a sense the camera files are always edited in ProRes.

If you want smoother editing performance, during import you can transcode those to proxy (which is ProRes) or ProRes optimized media. In general proxy is good for these cases because it's smaller and produces good editing performance. Generating the proxy files takes a little while but greatly speeds up editing performance.

The final output can be either H264 or ProRes. FCPX exports very high quality H264, which is double the bit rate Youtube recommends. Normally that is sufficient but you can export as ProRes if you want. I don't see that you need Cineform or Compressor. You can export straight from FCPX to either H264 or ProRes at very high speed and good quality.

Please look at the image im attaching

https://villasmanzanillo.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Screen-Shot-2017-08-01-at-7.23.26-PM.jpg

codecs its CINEFORM
Go pro Owns Cineform, thats the reason they use that codec when you first transcode form h264 (straight from gopro protune) to Cineform, also in the process you are able to De-fish the footage. also thats what they say its the absolute best to keep quality instead of editing with the original h264 (extremely compress files)

so thats my question how do i keep the same codec until export time?
adobe media encoder can do it.

compressor can't (at least properly )

here the result of it
https://villasmanzanillo.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Screen-Shot-2017-08-01-at-5.24.12-PM.jpg

if someone knows how to fix this help please!

 

[joema2]

....Go pro Owns Cineform...they say its the absolute best to keep quality instead of editing with the original h264 (extremely compress files)...

Transcoding to Cineform does nothing to help quality. You cannot improve over the quality of the acquisition codec. You have created the workflow problem by transcoding to Cineform in the first place.

I strongly suggest you try importing camera native content directly to FCPX, edit it and export directly to either H264 or ProRes and compare this quality to your Cineform workflow. See if you can tell a difference and which one is better vs which one creates more work and more problems.

 

[VillasManzanill]

Transcoding to Cineform does nothing to help quality. You cannot improve over the quality of the acquisition codec. You have created the workflow problem by transcoding to Cineform in the first place.

I strongly suggest you try importing camera native content directly to FCPX, edit it and export directly to either H264 or ProRes and compare this quality to your Cineform workflow. See if you can tell a difference and which one is better vs which one creates more work and more problems.

I suggest this reading for you to see what's best for go pros.

http://www.fcp.co/hardware-and-soft...be-the-best-way-to-get-your-footage-into-fcpx

 

[joema2]

I suggest this reading for you to see what's best for go pros.

http://www.fcp.co/hardware-and-soft...be-the-best-way-to-get-your-footage-into-fcpx

My documentary team has 15 GoPros -- we use them frequently. Are you simply reporting something you read or have you actually tested whether you can see a quality difference between transcoding to Cineform vs importing straight into FCPX?

 

[VillasManzanill]

My documentary team has 15 GoPros -- we use them frequently. Are you simply reporting something you read or have you actually tested whether you can see a quality difference between transcoding to Cineform vs importing straight into FCPX?

If the creators of go pro says it's better I trusts that they know what they are talking about.


It does look better cineform than pro res.

Plus defish looks better than the plugin.

So that's for sure what I want.

If anybody knows that would be great.


Thanks all for your suggestions.

 

[VillasManzanill]

If the creators of go pro says it's better I trusts that they know what they are talking about.


It does look better cineform than pro res.

Plus defish looks better than the plugin.

So that's for sure what I want.

If anybody knows that would be great.


Thanks all for your suggestions.

I FINALLY GOT THE ANSWER

it is possible to do what i needed but there is a bug in cineform that they didn't fix here the email i got from cineform explaining

its possible as long as i keep my relotucion up to HD 1920 x 1080

"Okay i see what is happening. My first render that worked was HD resolution. When i tried a UHD export, I also get the lines.

This is actually a bug that i reported two years ago when we discontinued the paid versions of GoPro Studio and chose to only offer the free version. At the time, the free version only supported HD. We had intended to remove the licensing restriction from the free version to allow it to encode higher than HD. That work was never done, and like i said, i reported it as a bug and tried following up on it many times...to no avail. I don't know if you know, but the team responsible for GoPro Studio has been let go as GoPro is focusing more on Quik and mobile apps now so no new development or bug fixes are going into GoPro Studio.

Part of the reason this work was never done has to do with Apple's sandboxing of their products and their diminishing support for QuickTime. Apple restricts 3rd party codecs from being seen by FCP/Compressor without the use of QuickTime and they have publicly stated that QuickTime is being retired. So our engineers did not pursue fixing something in a legacy product.

What we have done, instead, is to make the codec available to 3rd parties as part of our CineForm SDK. Adobe has taken advantage of this and incorporated CineForm into their products and Blackmagic Design has been working on this as well. For you to be able to use CineForm in FCP or Compressor (in 4K) at this point, would require Apple to use our SDK and incorporate it themselves.

Sorry that this is probably not what you want to hear...its not what i wanted to have to say. But this is where we are at.

Let me know if you have any questions.


Kind Regards,

Jake Segraves
CineForm | GoPro"

 

[joema2]

....it is possible to do what i needed but there is a bug in cineform that they didn't fix here the email i got from cineform explaining....its possible as long as i keep my relotucion up to HD 1920 x 1080....

After your post saying that transcoding to Cineform produced better video quality from a GoPro than just importing to FCPX, I was going to test this.

However you are now reporting a bug in GoPro Studio prevents use at over 1080p resolution, and this bug will not be fixed since GoPro has laid off the development team for GoPro Studio.

At this point I don't see any reason in testing it since it's obvious that 4k GoPro video imported to FCPX will be better quality than 1080p transcoded to Cineform via the buggy GoPro Studio software. The entire workflow of importing directly into FCPX, editing and exporting from FCPX will probably be a lot faster as well.

Being stuck at 1080p means you are also restricted from cropping/zooming into a 4k frame for 1080p distribution without loss of resolution. E.g, here is an example of virtual panning/zooming in a 4k frame. This was shot on a single stationary GH4 and all the virtual camera movement was in post. You can't do this if restricted to 1080p, so that is a severe penalty: https://vimeo.com/channels/humcrush/101051502

As a general educational note, you cannot significantly improve the quality of the acquisition codec by transcoding. There are only so many bits per color channel and bits per second data rate, and so many stops dynamic range.

When we transcode to ProRes that is usually for editing performance not for image quality. FCPX always edits in ProRes, even for H264 material, so there is never any issue of losing quality by iteratively recompressing camera native H264.

You can export in ProRes if desired, but for web upload and playback on typical devices, I usually can't tell any difference between that and the high-bit-rate H264 that FCPX exports by default.

 

[VillasManzanill]

Jake Segraves (GoPro CineForm Software Support)

Aug 4, 11:37 AM PDT

Yes. You can also just edit in 4K and just change the export settings in Compressor to HD.
The settings showing in the attached screenshot worked for me...4K source file, changed to HD in Compressor.
Kind Regards,

Jake Segraves
CineForm | GoPro



Attachment(s)
Screen Shot 2017-08-04 at 11.35.10 AM.png

 

[joema2]

...
it is possible to do what i needed but there is a bug in cineform that they didn't fix...

Since my documentary team has 15 GoPros I decided to do several tests. In short I don't see a significant quality difference whether I transcode 4k GoPro Hero 5 material to Cineform with GoPro Studio and export to Cineform with Compressor vs just importing H264, editing in FCPX and exporting to H264. There might be a very slight improvement if I export to ProRes but it's hard to see even when viewing 1:1 pixel size.

The main difference is going through Cineform is much slower. Performance numbers to import and export edited 1 min 30 sec H264 4k material (675 MB) from a GoPro Hero 5 Black:

Import/convert from H264 via GoPro Studio: 2 min 11 sec
Export from GoPro Studio to Cineform 4k: 1 min 37 sec (4.15 GB)
Import to FCPX and edit
Send to Compressor: a few sec
Export from Compressor to 4k Cineform: 1 min 37 sec (10 GB)

Total time spent transcoding, importing or exporting using Cineform workflow: 5 min 25 sec

Import directly H264 from GoPro Hero5 Black to FCPX: 1 second
Edit in FCPX
Export directly from FCPX to 4k H264: 55 sec (332 MB)
Export directly from FCPX to ProRes 422: 55 sec (6.4 GB)

Total time spent transcoding, importing or exporting using camera native or ProRes output: 56 sec

I defished it with CoreMelt's free "lens undistort utility. This had zero rendering time. CrumplePop also has a fisheye fixer designed specifically for GoPro: http://www.crumplepop.com/gopro-fisheye-correction/

I notice on the other forum you also got the same advice from a professional filmmaker who uses 60 GoPros on a reality TV show. There is no significant reason or advantage to transcoding to Cineform. This consumes additional time, adds complexity, and consumes storage without any offsetting benefit.

BTW I didn't see any image corruption problem when using Cineform 4k. I was using GoPro Studio ver. 2.5.12, macOS 10.12.6 and FCPX 10.3.4. However even without that corruption problem I would never use Cineform for the reasons previously stated.

 

[VillasManzanill]

Since my documentary team has 15 GoPros I decided to do several tests. In short I don't see a significant quality difference whether I transcode 4k GoPro Hero 5 material to Cineform with GoPro Studio and export to Cineform with Compressor vs just importing H264, editing in FCPX and exporting to H264. There might be a very slight improvement if I export to ProRes but it's hard to see even when viewing 1:1 pixel size.

The main difference is going through Cineform is much slower. Performance numbers to import and export edited 1 min 30 sec H264 4k material (675 MB) from a GoPro Hero 5 Black:

Import/convert from H264 via GoPro Studio: 2 min 11 sec
Export from GoPro Studio to Cineform 4k: 1 min 37 sec (4.15 GB)
Import to FCPX and edit
Send to Compressor: a few sec
Export from Compressor to 4k Cineform: 1 min 37 sec (10 GB)

Total time spent transcoding, importing or exporting using Cineform workflow: 5 min 25 sec

Import directly H264 from GoPro Hero5 Black to FCPX: 1 second
Edit in FCPX
Export directly from FCPX to 4k H264: 55 sec (332 MB)
Export directly from FCPX to ProRes 422: 55 sec (6.4 GB)

Total time spent transcoding, importing or exporting using camera native or ProRes output: 56 sec

I defished it with CoreMelt's free "lens undistort utility. This had zero rendering time. CrumplePop also has a fisheye fixer designed specifically for GoPro: http://www.crumplepop.com/gopro-fisheye-correction/

I notice on the other forum you also got the same advice from a professional filmmaker who uses 60 GoPros on a reality TV show. There is no significant reason or advantage to transcoding to Cineform. This consumes additional time, adds complexity, and consumes storage without any offsetting benefit.

BTW I didn't see any image corruption problem when using Cineform 4k. I was using GoPro Studio ver. 2.5.12, macOS 10.12.6 and FCPX 10.3.4. However even without that corruption problem I would never use Cineform for the reasons previously stated.

As estated at the beginning I want quality over fastness or size or steps in the process. Defish from go pro looks better than core melt. I have that plugin too. I know this is not for everyone. But works for me to squeez every bite of quality of the little GoPro.

 

[ColdCase]

As estated at the beginning I want quality over fastness or size or steps in the process. Defish from go pro looks better than core melt. I have that plugin too. I know this is not for everyone. But works for me to squeez every bite of quality of the little GoPro.

Are you watching this on a large screen quality HDTV or just a computer monitor. I don't think a Delfish produced video looks very good on a 60 inch plasma... but if thats not your intended destination then use what looks good.... but understand that look is very subjective. Looking good may not be accurate color or contrast, and what looks good to you won't look good to another.

 

[VillasManzanill]

I'm just trying to keep maximum quality of the final video. Example. If I bought the greatest camera with the highest resolution and biggest specs, I wanna use it with the maximum output possible, im not gonna configure it to take jpegs at 1024x 768


So same with the GoPro. I'm trying to get maximum quality. My hardware allows me to do it and I have the time and bandwidth to upload large quality files.

I'm not a filming company that makes 100 videos a month and I need to make things as fast as possible.


Quality it's what I look for. Thanks all for your comments and ideas and methods.