GH4 4K Panasonic video camera, official topic

MRfanny

thats some clean low light footage. that nikon vs gh4 though, not so good ha.

Ian_T

You can see the GH-4 is more detailed than the Nikon. But the Nikon showed a bit more DR (slightly). I think though when using Cine-D you will see an improvement in the GH.

johnnymossville

This looks pretty good to me. ungraded flat profile.

kellar42

He who must not be named weighs in: http://www.eoshd.com/content/12319/andrew-reid-frank-sauer-shoot-panasonic-gh4-production-diary-day-1

bleach551

@Ian_T,

I own the Nikon d7100, and the "Standard" picture profile, which the Youtube info says both used, is one of the most contrasty , least dynamic profiles along with the "Vibrant" picture profile. The wider dynamic range picture profiles are "Neutral" and "Portrait", which is based on the "Neutral" profile.

Ian_T

Yeah Nikon is known for their high dynamic range. I'm hoping the GH-4 can go really flat like that. As a 1080p camera the Nikon image looks good when compared to the 4K down conversion.

MRfanny

now thats more like it, better blacks =)

bleach551

@Ian_T,

I am thinking of selling my d7100 for the gh4, but I will have get a metabones adapter to compensate for the 2X crop factor. I'm just waiting to see what problem/s the "early adapters" will have with the camera when their pre-orders get filled.

driftwood

GH4 Encoder on the Chart Analysis:

The GH4 uses the h264 JVT standard codec implementation with Panasonic's own additions. At high profile level 5.1 the 4K files have been analysed at 24p and 25p using Elecard Streameye Studio Pro 1.3.

Elecard seems a bit buggy in the way it reports the GH4's frame rate so Im going to ignore the results of my findings so far. Also the firmware of the GH4 in these recorded files is NOT release candidate so you can probably take these results with a pinch of salt.

It appears 4K QP initialises the first frame of the 12 GOP at a QP of 20 - like that of previous Lumix GH series. QPs come down considerably after the first GOP (in a similar way to my GH2 Cluster X settings and the GH3). The encoder is using CABAC arithmetic - description here - for both 4K and C4k. None of the six 4x4 scaling matrices were found. Two 8x8 matrices were reported (see txt files). mb count under level 5.1 is 34560 for full 4k and 32400 at UHD 4k 3480x2160, 4x4 mb prediction comes into play like the GH3 at high luminance differences. More information is found inside the txt files.

As you can see the encoder is extremely effecient.

jonpais

@bleach551 exactly what kinds of problems are you expecting? The camera has been in the hands of dozens of professionals around the world, and none has reported any hiccups. And the GH3 isn't known for having any serious manufacturng defects. It's not a beta camera or anything.

MRfanny

that hotshoe better not fall off this time =)

natureflixs

I read alot about the GH3 hotshoe problem. I am planning on attaching an Atomos recorder on the GH4 and although I like to keep everything light I will probably get the Honu cage. Not going to take a chance on the hotshoe failing.

mpgxsvcd

@driftwood

Just to confirm. There is no option for All-I with 4k, correct? I have seen some confusion with that elsewhere. Thanks for the info.

On a side note. What computer are you using to edit this footage? I am concerned about what computer is necessary to efficiently edit this footage. My old I5 machine completely freezes up with the 4K @ 30 FPS stuff. Hopefully a new Quad core I7 with a high end graphics card will be up to the task.

jonpais

There's nothing wrong with the GH3 hotshoe and no reason to worry about it. This is the only forum where someone has had an issue with it, as far as I know. Believe it or not, the eyepiece hasn't self-destructed, the hinges on my monitor haven't broken, the SD door doesn't ever open unless I intend to open it, the lens mount hasn't been ripped off the body. The camera is well-constructed. But I would also be wary of putting a monitor on the hotshoe. Makes more sense to have it mounted via the tripod screw and off to the side of the camera.

bleach551

@jonpais,

Every new camera has a problem, rather it be real or perceived.The canon 7d, which i owned, had moire and aliasing. The nikon d600 with oil spots. My nikon d7100 has some banding in dark areas and fixed pattern noise as well. Every camera has some imperfections rather it is experienced by all who own it or not.

The gh3 had a whole tread dedicated to issues.

http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/5488/gh3-issues-topic/p1

All I'm saying is that no camera has been or will be perfect. There will be some thing/s about the gh4 that some members on this board won't like once they have used it.

mpgxsvcd

As far as reliability goes Panasonic is as good as any other company. However, they still can have their issues.

I always buy the newest GH camera the day it comes out and every single one I have purchased on day one has had a fatal issue. My GH2 had an issue with not recognizing the factory certified batteries that it came with and the certified spares that I bought for a ridiculous amount.

I sent that GH2 back and it was replaced without any hesitation.

The first GH3 that I bought had an issue where the sensor that detects whether the flash is open or not would not work properly. I didn’t detect this issue right away so I wasn’t able to return it to the store. I went through the Panasonic repair service and it was a hassle but it got sorted out in the end and they replaced the camera entirely.

If you plan on buying the camera on day one it is entirely possible that something could be wrong with it. Make sure you buy it from a store with a good return policy. It is much easier to return a defective camera to a store than to go through the repair process.

That being said the Panasonic repair service is not as bad as it sounds. Just be patient with it and ask for help here. There are plenty of people here with contacts at Panasonic that can help if you are not getting the proper response in a timely manner.

The biggest thing to remember if something does break is to stay calm and let the people in charge of the repairs work with you. If you get irate with them they won’t want to help you as much.

I really believe that Panasonic’s quality control is as good as anyone else’s. I am buying the GH4 on day one even though I have had issues with doing that in the past.

driftwood

@mpgxsvcd

All Intra 4K is a no-no. You'd need a ton of on-board camera processing and memory to handle it plus write speeds.

Editing: I've edited on my i7 Hackintosh with a breeze, and my year-old retina Macbook pro comfortably. You're actually only dealing with 100mbps h264 streams so data throughput isn't the issue - If your existing computer can easily handle my 154Mbps Cluster settings you're getting close to a good setup...

Its graphics power you need to check - at 4K you're shovelling around four times the number of pixels than 1080. I think if you have a fairly modern comp then now's the time to ensure you've got a decent gfx card - I'd suggest a gtx580 (fairly cheap 2nd hand) upwards for a downscaled image but you will get some stutter (e.g. on a 30 inch 2560x1600) or the latest GTX 770/780Ti models if you want pure C4K/4K editing modes at 24p / 25p and 30p of the GH4. 4K monitors is where the big expense is right now but they're beginning to drop in price and by Christmas they'll be some great deals around.

Im doing some real world tests with Resolve at the moment so Ill keep you posted.

Ian_T

Glad you mentioned Graphics card. I've been having problems in Sony Vegas 12 using Open GL (i5/4 Gigs Ram) and rendering 4K video. It would crash on rendering and I couldn't figure out why. Then something told me to disable Open GL and wala...it now works with 4K. I agree with you about if folks have a somewhat modern computer then a good graphics card is the real investment (which is on my list).

BTW...what's good? Anyone? Or is that another thread? :)

driftwood

Around June time the GTX 880 :-) Seriously, the 780ti s are coming down in price all the time - but yep over to gfx card threads...

4K monitors - try this ;-) http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/179486-samsung-launches-28-inch-4k-billion-color-monitor-for-just-700

mpgxsvcd

@driftwood

Thanks for the info. That all makes sense.

I understand that most people use Macs for this. However, I am a PC guy. I just can't see spending twice as much for a computer with a smaller screen even if it has more resolution.

I bought the computer below last week. It should be plenty for the GH4 with the 4th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-4800MQ processor, 8GB DDR3L memory, and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M graphics card with 3GB dedicated video memory.

It is probably overkill but it also was only $1399 for the brand new 17.3" laptop with a 1 gig hard drive. That is a reasonable price I think. It is huge and heavy with terrible battery life but I am ok with those things. Now I have a few extra dollars for some extra memory cards.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/gt70-dominator-895-17-3-laptop-8gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive/5142092.p?id=1219111591490&skuId=5142092&st=pcmcat138500050001_categoryid$abcat0502000&cp=1&lp=6

Vitaliy_Kiselev

Please, we have topic for graphics cards :-)

MRfanny

14 days till your pre-order is dispatched they say........I'll believe it when I see it at my door =) would be a nice surprise

Mistas

The free Lite version of Davinci Resolve only supports UHD 3840 resolution, and not the Cinema 4k mode 4096. Little bit of a bummer, but if downrezzing anyway I guess it doesn't matter much.

Anyone have experience with using Resolve to output a 1080 from 4k?

kellar42

@Mrfanny where is that preorder that claims two weeks?

johnnymossville

I'll be tempted to just put it in cine-d and just leave it there. I like this.

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