WORKFLOW: How do you take h.264 garbage and make it useable for editing (per requests)

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This video will probably bore you. DISCLAIMER: THIS VIDEO IS LONG, TEDIOUS, MONOTONOUS and not for fun. This is learning time. If you don't want to learn, go read about how far the latest antenna gets you. Sorry didn't mean to sound condescending but if you don't want to learn this, then just don't. It's only fun if you are excited to become an actual pro and not be told you will be one by "hitting this".

Not the best sentence to pull you in but there is something you guys must know and I've said it before. If you ever hear someone say "Here are the settings so you can look like a professional", you should not listen to that person any more, tell them thank you and move on.

There is one way to look like a pro and that is to practice. Ahhhh, but what to practice? Of course there are the things that separate us aerial photographers from everyone else and that's how to do cool maneuvers, how to fly the thing and make it not just go up, down, left and right but to really know how to strafe, roll, curve, pivot and every other cool trick like that. Tilt shots, panning shots, tracking shots, mixed focal lengths, depth of field play, and so much more. Putting this button on 4k, that on 30fps and -1 on sharpness will NEVER EVER EVER make you a pro.

With that I will stop on what won't make you a pro and start on the basics. IMPORTANT: There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting a prosumer camera for non-professional needs like just bringing it to the park and shooting your family or maybe a step up and bringing it with you to Joshua Tree just to get better pictures than a point and shoot but if you really want to step up your game and make this barely prosumer camera (its a pro bird, consumer camera) and make it look prosumer or even professional, you need to do some work. Even if you have a professional camera (like the Zenmuse X5R), you still need to know these things so you can't just buy a professional camera and be a professional artist. That's like buying a paint brush and calling yourself an artist.

In our craft, there is a small hurdle before you can get paint on that brush (at least the paint you want), sorry for all the analogies. Don't worry though, once you get past this initial what's what phase and have a good understanding of what you are doing, you will be able to take your vids and stills and make so much more with them.

I promised that I would give you guys my "prosumer workflow" as it pertains to shots shot with a prosumer camera that spits out h.264 video (in either QuickTime or Mpeg-4 [mp4]) which are only containers carrying in them the EXACT same ones and zeros but with different interoperability with the machines. Mp4 is usually good for PCs while Quicktime is good for all. It can get confusing as Quicktime is considered a format but people call h.264 and WMV formats when in actuality those are really codecs (compressor/decompressor).

I am not going to go over all that here because I made a video already (a boring one) explaining the differences between the different resolutions and formats that are afforded us on our Phantom 4s (and 3s and some other birds). The process is the same if your original master is not an uncompressed or at least a very lossless codec such as Avid DNxHD 75/150 etc.

Well I am not going to say the whole thing here because I already said it on the video.

My credentials: I have been working in the film and video business for decades in some fashion (usually VFX). If you want to see some of my work, let me know and I will show it. If you have questions, ask them here and if it's off topic, PM me. I am happy to help anyone I can, if I can. I was also an instructor at USC for a couple years and a small stint at Full Sail which has lead me to be, I believe, a fairly good teacher but it's a lot easier for me to teach face to face than like this. In fact, I am still trying to find an identity teaching using digital tutorials.

The information here that I am presenting, I could show you how to do in literally 3 minutes but that's not what I am trying to do. If I was to tell you how to get to the goal, but not give you a reason, or some other things that I go on tangents on, it's pointless. You need to be able to take it and apply it to other things because there are literally 100s if not 1000s of codecs, 10s of worthy editors and 10s of worthy birds.

The reason I am made this video is because I once said that you CANNOT (well you can but SHOULD NOT) use h.264 to edit with EVER, NEVER EVER NEVER EVER. There are so many reason but the two you should care most about is 1) the editor (no matter what editor be it Avid, Premiere, Final Cut X or 7) or any other editor HATE h.264 and WMV (WMV is the PC version of h.264 which eventually just became h.264). 2) Because if you don't, you will lose at least ONE GENERATION of quality (explained in video)

Disclaimer: I am a Mac user and I am not at all a fan of PCs. I used to use PCs exclusively and felt the inversion of that but the Macs in my opinion work better simply because the software designers know exactly what hardware you are using (in general) when with a Windows machine there are literally millions of configurations and the SDK people knowing what you are using is huge for speed.

So here we go:

This is how we take h.264 and with an automated process, blow it up to a useable file (set it and forget it, come back and edit). I had no idea that would rhyme! Nice little jingle.

All video that you see in here is D-Log and un-color corrected and seen through the QuickTime screen capture so don't think you are looking at a final product. Please make sure you switch the resolution to the highest that is available to you, they are both in 4K, but 1080P and below are also all available.

Here is the new video and below that is the video that you should WATCH FIRST if you haven't already. Without the knowledge of what the different formats are, you will have trouble understanding what exactly is being said in the new video. Believe me when I tell you that if you think you know it and you just learned it, you don't. It takes years to really understand encoding, encryption and their counterparts but it's a necessary evil that hopefully one day, your assistant editor will take care of for you but even if he is, you need to speak his language, your DPs language and just to know how to do it.

HOW TO MAKE AN H.264 OUT OF A BIRD TURN INTO A USABLE ITEM (Formats and resolution video link below it)

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FORMATS AND RESOLUTIONS (should watch this first if you haven't)

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Watched the newest video (I have 15 years in Video Production and Photography and firmly understand codecs and formats), and it is full of fantastic information for those interested in getting the best workflow. There are a few niggles I have about some things but I will not bring them up here as they aren't Phantom related. Please keep this up, you are doing everyone a great service by breaking these methods down.
 
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I thought it was illegal to fly in Joshua Tree National Park. It appears you're suggesting it's OK. Maybe you really mean the little town of Joshua Tree, which nobody visits.
upload_2016-6-6_16-9-10.png


Mp4 is usually good for PCs while Quicktime is good for all. It can get confusing as Quicktime is considered a format but people call h.264 and WMV formats when in actuality those are really codecs (compressor/decompressor).
When you say Quicktime, just to clarify you mean MOV file format, as labeled in the Phantom, correct? Because my Quicktime player will play MP4 also. I don't think Quicktime (.qt) is a format supported by Phantom, MOV is considered the format you work with from a Phantom, right?
 
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I thought it was illegal to fly in Joshua Tree National Park. It appears you're suggesting it's OK. Maybe you really mean the little town of Joshua Tree, which nobody visits.
View attachment 56275


When you say Quicktime, just to clarify you mean MOV file format, as labeled in the Phantom, correct? Because my Quicktime player will play MP4 also. I don't think Quicktime (.qt) is a format supported by Phantom, MOV is considered the format you work with from a Phantom, right?
Yes, when I said QuickTime, I did indeed mean MOV as opposed to MP4 which are the two formats used by the Phantom.

Mov or MP4 are CONTAINERS, not codecs. For example a QuickTime component could be h.264, Animation, ProRes, and everything between from Xvid, dvix, redcode and anything that can be designed to play inside a QT container. Thank you for catching that as the idea was right but I worded that sentence poorly.

Same thing for MP4 but there is one thing I should have noted as well because it is the cause of confusion everywhere. There is also an M4A extension and it to is MP4 (MPEG-4) but audio only. Your iPhone records most video in MP4 and audio in M4A which is ironic since it's more of a PC format/player. The iPhones that used to record .3GP; 3GP was also an MPEG-4 format. It's beyond nuts, believe me.

M4V will play in your QuickTime player as well but it's a separate format which is almost identical to MP4 but it had DRM encryption (encryption is a whole other video which I won't cover here but that's what m4v is which is a very small and good format).

The formats/codecs/players (for example QuickTime can play non QuickTime files in it as a player if that makes sense). QuickTime 7 used to do it natively but QuickTime X converts them which is annoying. Mac users should be using QuickTime Pro 7 over the latest QuickTime.

Learning what is a format, player or codec simply comes with time as you learn what each thing is.

An example of QT acting as a player as opposed to a container is for example, VLC player can play QT files but an MOV with an h.264 file in it is considered to be "in an MOV QuickTime container".

Hope this clears it up a little and doesn't convolute it which I was trying to not do.

When you say you don't think QuickTime is supported by Phantom, it is. When it records an MOV file, that is a QuickTime container. MOV is synonymous with QuickTime and although MOV files can indeed be played in other players with whatever codec that MOV is, MOV is QuickTime.

Hope this clears it up a little and doesn't convolute it which I was trying to not do.
 
Watched the newest video (I have 15 years in Video Production and Photography and firmly understand codecs and formats), and it is full of fantastic information for those interested in getting the best workflow. There are a few niggles I have about some things but I will not bring them up here as they aren't Phantom related. Please keep this up, you are doing everyone a great service by breaking these methods down.
Thanks man. Appreciate the kudos!
 
Thanks for your post. I've only watched part of the first video and I have a question. Bear in mind. althoughI have 50+ years experience as a still shootier I'm essentially a vidiot (video idiot--if I can coin a phrase :) That, and I'm a blithering idiot when it comes to math.

Anyway, in your discussion of the Tarentino flick I thought you said he shot it at 12 fps and played it back at 24 fps. Did you mean that the other way around? If It was shot at 12 fps and played at 24 fps wouldn't that speed everything up and make it run twice as fast? Wouldn't it be that what took one second to shoot would be played back in a half second? It looks like it's in slo-mo.
 
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Thanks for your post. I've only watched part of the first video and I have a question. Bear in mind. althoughI have 50+ years experience as a still shootier I'm essentially a vidiot (video idiot--if I can coin a phrase :) That, and I'm a blithering idiot when it comes to math.

Anyway, in your discussion of the Tarentino flick I thought you said he shot it at 12 fps and played it back at 24 fps. Did you mean that the other way around? If It was shot at 12 fps and played at 24 fps wouldn't that speed everything up and make it run twice as fast? Wouldn't it be that what took one second to shoot would be played back in a half second? It looks like it's in slo-mo.

Well done sir!!!!!

It is true that the more frames you put in a second (usually 24fps in film) if you were to shoot at 300fps, you will get a TON more detail and much more slow (slow motion). It is caused by taking 300 frames and sticking them into the same 24 you would get a very detailed slow image.

They figured this out even before they had a camera that didn't need to be cranked. When they over and under cranked those old film cams, you would see noticeable differences in speed (think those old sports videos that either look way too fast or slow).

And the inversion, indeed you are correct, if you were to record less frames like 12 (as I DID say) and play it back at 24, you would get a FASTER image with LESS detail.

HOWEVER, what quentin did in that scene and I said it wrong in the video and I am impressed you caught it is he didn't record at 12 and play it back 24, he RECORDED AT 24 and played back and recorded for film at 12 which gave him a slow mo look that had LESS DETAIL.

It's a VERY cool trick that a lot of people say he stole from Kubrick in that walk in A Clockwork Orange but the reason you get a slow mo look with that stuttering motion if you watch it, is because on every frame he actually gets some black so it sort of strobes. You also need to know how to tell the editor to give it a linear interpretation of the playback rather than bezier (which will make is slowly mesh with the missing frames, like a rubber band).

So to summarize, you are right. I misspoke. IT IS NOT played back at 24 and filmed at 12. It was filmed at 12 and played back at 24 (and recoded and finally played back at 24) and color me SUPER impressed you caught that. :)

Do you have a YouTube channel. Would like to spend some time watching your videos mirroring on my TV. I have much to learn.

Thanks! :)
I do have one and I'm trying to build some content. Slowly but surely. Thanks again. Really appreciate it.

Up To Level 6
 
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do you by chance have a straightforward meat and potatoes version? To your own admittance, you are long-winded and it did make it a little difficult to follow along. Your tenure as a college professor definitely shows LOL. I am very eager to learn and grasp the fundamentals. I'm just more of a straightforward to the point kind of student. Thanks!
 
do you by chance have a straightforward meat and potatoes version? To your own admittance, you are long-winded and it did make it a little difficult to follow along. Your tenure as a college professor definitely shows LOL. I am very eager to learn and grasp the fundamentals. I'm just more of a straightforward to the point kind of student. Thanks!

This isn't elementary math. It's rather complicated stuff. I'd love to learn all of quantum physics and string theory in one reading but it aint gonna happen.

What exactly do you want to know?

If you want to learn how to just set up some decent settings, there are a million videos for that. What I cover here in these videos are made for people that really want to learn how to understand the formats and how to use the proper workflow but without knowing why you are doing what you are doing, you will do it wrong and it won't matter but the nuts and bolts of what I said was to:

1) Immediately, if you plan on editing, take all of the footage (coverage you plan on using) and blow it up to a larger color space format/codec such as Apple ProRes 422, NOT HQ or 444, or even Apple Intermediate Codec, DNxHD 75 or some sort of larger codec so you can color correct and edit without it being bogged down and losing a generation.

2) edit, add vfx and send out a final deliverable that is not h.264. The next version should be your master of which you can make any versions and you save yourself one generation which can mean a lot as far as quality is concerned.

There ya go. :)
 
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This isn't elementary math. It's rather complicated stuff. I'd love to learn all of quantum physics and string theory in one reading but it aint gonna happen.

What exactly do you want to know?

If you want to learn how to just set up some decent settings, there are a million videos for that. What I cover here in these videos are made for people that really want to learn how to understand the formats and how to use the proper workflow but without knowing why you are doing what you are doing, you will do it wrong and it won't matter but the nuts and bolts of what I said was to:

1) Immediately, if you plan on editing, take all of the footage (coverage you plan on using) and blow it up to a larger color space format/codec such as Apple ProRes 422, NOT HQ or 444, or even Apple Intermediate Codec, DNxHD 75 or some sort of larger codec so you can color correct and edit without it being bogged down and losing a generation.

2) edit, add vfx and send out a final deliverable that is not h.264. The next version should be your master of which you can make any versions and you save yourself one generation which can mean a lot as far as quality is concerned.

There ya go. :)

I've spent nearly 20 years in Information Technology. I have seen my fair share of people come and go because they cant get past simply applying a solution that they found on the Internet. I've succeeded at it for 20 years because I made it a point to understand HOW things worked and WHY they were designed to work that way. It's the only true way to find the solutions on your own.

I DO want to understand theory and the "how and why it works". Like you said, you have to understand the rules before you can break them. My learning has always been the hands-on approach and I reverse-learn it from there. Once I get my hands into something and wrap my head around the mechanics, I start asking the questions and the theory makes more sense. It's how I became a master in my IT profession and it's how I became a master gun builder.

I appreciate the direct bullet-points above. That's where my learning starts!
 
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I've spent nearly 20 years in Information Technology. I have seen my fair share of people come and go because they cant get past simply applying a solution that they found on the Internet. I've succeeded at it for 20 years because I made it a point to understand HOW things worked and WHY they were designed to work that way. It's the only true way to find the solutions on your own.

I DO want to understand theory and the "how and why it works". Like you said, you have to understand the rules before you can break them. My learning has always been the hands-on approach and I reverse-learn it from there. Once I get my hands into something and wrap my head around the mechanics, I start asking the questions and the theory makes more sense. It's how I became a master in my IT profession and it's how I became a master gun builder.

I appreciate the direct bullet-points above. That's where my learning starts!
Understood. No problem.

Feel free to throw anything my way if you need to. Best of luck.
 
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Jussaguy, thanks for your videos... I've watched both and now I understand why it was such a pain in the *** to use Final Cut Pro after adding a couple of things. I tried now creating the 422 and the difference is like day and night ;)

Quick question... once the final project is ready and it is time to export it and create the master. Am i correct in assuming that the best option would be to create a 422 mov/mp4 as a master, and then use that one to upload to youtube, vimeo, etc ?
 
Jussaguy, thanks for your videos... I've watched both and now I understand why it was such a pain in the *** to use Final Cut Pro after adding a couple of things. I tried now creating the 422 and the difference is like day and night ;)

Quick question... once the final project is ready and it is time to export it and create the master. Am i correct in assuming that the best option would be to create a 422 mov/mp4 as a master, and then use that one to upload to youtube, vimeo, etc ?
There is not really a correct answer to your question. Or rather what I should say is there are lots of different correct answers to your question.

First, yes, your assumption that ProRes 422 as a final deliverable is accepted and common-place on many shows and other professional workflows. If you are working with a team of people, you would decide what is best for everyone.

For example, I think as I stated in the OP, if you are sending it out many people, even before creating your master, you would send out most likely an h.264 (we usually sound out MOV, but MP4s are probably more compatible down the line) or m4vs for iPads and stuff so that it can get the okay by the EPs, Standard and Practices, and Legal, etc. Then once you got that okay, you would then render out a final master that you would send back to the digital services and yes ProRes, unless they want it back in the same format you could use an uncompressed version but usually yeah, ProRes or some other professional codec and then they would take that and make their own master of the episode, film, documentary, whatever.

I ALWAYS use ProRes when I can if that helps you.

So that was the long way of saying, yes. :)

I am THRILLED that you are getting better results from your FCP with ProRes as opposed to h.264. It is indeed night and day and for people that are using Premiere Pro, the difference is even greater as Premiere dislikes H.264 more than FCP.

Thanks for the feedback.

Adam
 
the difference is so big, that with a Macbook 12" (1,1GHz processor) I am perfectly capable of editing, moving along the video, perfectly smooth... with the H.264 it was completely impossible to even think about doing it !
 
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the difference is so big, that with a Macbook 12" (1,1GHz processor) I am perfectly capable of editing, moving along the video, perfectly smooth... with the H.264 it was completely impossible to even think about doing it !
Sweet!
 
Thanks heaps for both videos jussaguy. Been using h264 and swapped to pro res and the difference is unbelievable. I was always wondering why the quality was quite never there in post production and learning about generation loss etc explains it all! Pro res is the bomb! I don't think I would have figured that out by myself so thank you !


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app
 
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Thank you Adam, you saved a lot of my time, money, and nerves. Have NUC5i7 16GB and use DaVinci Resolve. To edit in h264 was tedious and it crashed often. Today first try converted my holiday video with Brorsoft converter to Prores and it works flawlessly. As the my desired output is mostly home video either 1080P or UHD what output format you'd recommend? H264 MP4 or?
Thanks for advice.
Once you come to CZ I owe you good beer;)
 
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Could you explain what the differences between Cineform (now Gopro) and Prores are and the cons and pros of each?
 

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