Spring is in the 'Air'
- Thread starter dtdyer01
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QuadZilla said:
I understand how protune works and that it comes out looking flat and mushy. However having experimented with it over several shoots and having the opportunity of a direct comparison with footage of the same subject in identical lighting conditions with identical resolution from Dave's Gopro shooting without Protune I find that it does not match up to the marketing hype. Even when you add your own colour and your own sharpening it does not look as good as the video shot without it.
ianwood
Taco Wrangler
Protune is not for everyone. It's a pain in the butt to do all the extra work to get it right vs. dragging and dropping non-Protune and moving on. But, it isn't just a marketing gimmick. Higher bit-rate means less compression, flat color and saturation means there's less data lost to crushed blacks or popped whites. But, it all requires more work to get it to the right color profile, sharpness, etc. It isn't one size fits all.
GoPro Studio can get you very close but sometimes even taht can look cartoonish with its over-saturated colors, sketchy white balance, etc. The cleanest footage will take the longest amount of time to get right. Like all things, it's a personal preference as to how far you want to go.
As an aside, I found Crumplepop HDR to be underwhelming and needing a lot of tuning. And I don't understand what makes their tuning any better than what's built-in to FCPX. That said, FCPX's color correction setup makes me want to smash things!
GoPro Studio can get you very close but sometimes even taht can look cartoonish with its over-saturated colors, sketchy white balance, etc. The cleanest footage will take the longest amount of time to get right. Like all things, it's a personal preference as to how far you want to go.
As an aside, I found Crumplepop HDR to be underwhelming and needing a lot of tuning. And I don't understand what makes their tuning any better than what's built-in to FCPX. That said, FCPX's color correction setup makes me want to smash things!
As Ken correctly says sharpening is down to personal taste, or as a features colourist would say filmic style.
FCP X has a very good sharpening filter which works very well.
It also does a pretty good job at colour grading - FCP X that is.
Colour grading video is both an art and a science. You cannot work soley by mark one eyeball reference to a screen unless you have calibrated it. Use the scopes they're the best bit of guidance you can have to get your pictures the best.
FCP X has a very good sharpening filter which works very well.
It also does a pretty good job at colour grading - FCP X that is.
Colour grading video is both an art and a science. You cannot work soley by mark one eyeball reference to a screen unless you have calibrated it. Use the scopes they're the best bit of guidance you can have to get your pictures the best.
QuadZilla said:
I would be happy to. Give me a moment and I will post the link if you agree to tune it up to how you think it should look and post the results in this post. Shall I upload 60 seconds of 2.7K ? I think 30 seconds of the fly out to the windmill which I couldn't make look any better and 30 seconds above the reservoir in good light should suffice.
I no longer have the original file from the Gopro. I have the footage still in FCPX which was imported with the option to convert to optimised media. I could save the clips as a Master file. Will this work or not?
I'm not a big lover of noise or film grain but some producers do add it for effect.
What really kills a shot for me is a sharpness halo. Around 59 seconds into Ken's film there is a close up of the TX... look at the aerial... It has a black halo all around it which makes it look as though it has been shot on a cheap camera.
Ken, don't take this as a criticism, its just a comment.
What really kills a shot for me is a sharpness halo. Around 59 seconds into Ken's film there is a close up of the TX... look at the aerial... It has a black halo all around it which makes it look as though it has been shot on a cheap camera.
Ken, don't take this as a criticism, its just a comment.
Shrimpfarmer said:
I will certainly give it a go. Will be interesting to see how many different looks people come up with.
Fair Game said:
Have no worries I have been used to constructive criticism all my life and have dished out loads in return. I want my films to look as good as possible so I am always willing to learn. I have only really used a Gopro since I switched to the P2.
As for what does FCPX do to the file, my understanding is it translates it into a larger lossless format that is easier for the editor to handle. It certainly does not look any different to the original gopro file but I have no idea if it contains the full file information or not?
QuadZilla said:
I still have the original Protune files from Shrimpfarmers GoPro. I will upload a file. Beware it will be about 2.5GB
I would be interested to see what the community can produce. I will post a dropbox link in about 7hrs from now
Ken, did you know you can creative an archive of your original footage straight from the cards in FCP X.
It's a useful feature that can save your bacon!
It's a useful feature that can save your bacon!
Hi Dave
By all means upload the file if you can. Is there anyway to cut the file in to a smaller chunk but retain the original file format?
Failing that I have selected three small clips and saved them as a Master file. Its slightly over 1gig and is uploading to dropbox now so I shall post the link as soon as I can.
Can we agree that whoever posts a tuned example also publishes exactly what changes were made. In FCPX its pretty easy to quote actual values for the various parameters. In Gopro Studio its not that easy so maybe a screen shot?
By all means upload the file if you can. Is there anyway to cut the file in to a smaller chunk but retain the original file format?
Failing that I have selected three small clips and saved them as a Master file. Its slightly over 1gig and is uploading to dropbox now so I shall post the link as soon as I can.
Can we agree that whoever posts a tuned example also publishes exactly what changes were made. In FCPX its pretty easy to quote actual values for the various parameters. In Gopro Studio its not that easy so maybe a screen shot?
Hi Guys. Thanks for persisting with this topic. I'm sure a lot of readers will be following for the learnings from this. I for one appreciate the constructive comments.
I still suffer from rushing the projects to get the result out the same day and have a tendency to make my videos too long. I keep watching the videos in personal awe of this marvellous technology forgetting that others don't carry the same attention span to my hobby.
Living in Perth, Australia I have some great subjects and great weather to exploit it - albeit a little hot at an average of 35C+ recently.
I still suffer from rushing the projects to get the result out the same day and have a tendency to make my videos too long. I keep watching the videos in personal awe of this marvellous technology forgetting that others don't carry the same attention span to my hobby.
Living in Perth, Australia I have some great subjects and great weather to exploit it - albeit a little hot at an average of 35C+ recently.
Shrimpfarmer said:
I'm not sure how to cut it down in size without putting it through gopro studio or FCPX. But I have a big Dropbox size so it's not a problem.
So long as you are happy I do this, as it is your copyright property.
Ok this is the link to the Master file export from Final Cut Pro X. It looks like Dave may upload the entire flight which is of course the original Gopro file. Anyone who wants to have a crack at getting the most out of pro tune please have a bash and post details of what you did to it. If its difficult to explain particular settings, e.g. what you did to the colour then please try and post a screen shot of your final settings so we can all learn from those with more experience.
File approx 34 seconds of 2.7K untouched protune
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kdtciot88cfwo ... 20Test.mov
Shrimpy
File approx 34 seconds of 2.7K untouched protune
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kdtciot88cfwo ... 20Test.mov
Shrimpy
Hi Shrimpy,
Here is my 15 minute colour grading fix of your ProTune footage using nothing more than FCP X. My intention was to do a five minute tutorial but half of my new ram has failed and I can barely run FCP X 10.1.1 let alone do a screen recording at the same time.
If people want me to show how I did what i did I will continue with the original plan after the new ram arrives from Crucial. There are no magic numbers in colour grading. Six of this, ten of that and thirty of the other doesn't work!
Comment:
The format is a before and after so people can see what we started out with.
The windmill shot is very clipped in the highlights. I should have been able to bring this back but I suspect optimisation has introduced this problem!
These scenes are of the UK in winter, they are never going to look like Florida in summer.
People should also appreciate that FCP X is an Apple programme - You need a MAC to run it on rather than a PC.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE6GvcpYMC0
Here is my 15 minute colour grading fix of your ProTune footage using nothing more than FCP X. My intention was to do a five minute tutorial but half of my new ram has failed and I can barely run FCP X 10.1.1 let alone do a screen recording at the same time.
If people want me to show how I did what i did I will continue with the original plan after the new ram arrives from Crucial. There are no magic numbers in colour grading. Six of this, ten of that and thirty of the other doesn't work!
Comment:
The format is a before and after so people can see what we started out with.
The windmill shot is very clipped in the highlights. I should have been able to bring this back but I suspect optimisation has introduced this problem!
These scenes are of the UK in winter, they are never going to look like Florida in summer.
People should also appreciate that FCP X is an Apple programme - You need a MAC to run it on rather than a PC.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE6GvcpYMC0
Hi Fair Game.
Thanks for having a crack at tuning the footage. You have certainly brought out more than I did and I would love it if you could do a screen capture on the process you go through, I think that would help a lot of us. There is still a huge difference though between what Dave's camera captured and what mine did. The protune footage appears very flat. I have to say I still prefer the look of what Dave's non protune captured. I take your point about it being winter in the UK but the reality looked a lot more colorfull than what was captured.
Thanks for having a crack at tuning the footage. You have certainly brought out more than I did and I would love it if you could do a screen capture on the process you go through, I think that would help a lot of us. There is still a huge difference though between what Dave's camera captured and what mine did. The protune footage appears very flat. I have to say I still prefer the look of what Dave's non protune captured. I take your point about it being winter in the UK but the reality looked a lot more colorfull than what was captured.
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