5D video and Imacs

pragmatist

pragmatist

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Name
Matty
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Iv'e just started using the 5D mk2 video mode with the intention of posting stuff on youtube ( My crap guitar playing for one ) but struggling to get it onto my imac, It may be the fact that Aperture 3 does not recognise it, Do i need to install any drivers?
 
h264 is a delivery codec, not an editing codec.

You'll want to convert it into a proper editing codec like Prores, DNxHD or DVCProHD in order to edit it optimally.

The video I shoot on my D300s, the Sony EX1 & Z7 video cameras, even my timelapse sequences made from sill images I render out as 1920x1080@24p (175MB/sec) or 1280x720@24p (90MB/sec) 10 bit files using DNxHD before being brought in for post work and editing.
 
Exactly what it says.

A delivery codec is exactly that. A codec used for delivering the final product. It is encoded in such a way as to retain as much quality as possible in as small a filespace as possible. They don't record every individual frame. At 30fps, it may have 1 complete frame every second, then 29 frames of "changes to the previous frame" in order to concentrate on just the detail, leaving parts of the scene that don't move, or are just background blurs to their display the same thing for several frames in a row. This means that in editing software, you might see 5 or 6 identical frames next to each other (even though they're actually not when played back in something like Media Player). DivX, H.264, MPG2, they're all 8Bit delivery codecs. They're not designed for editing.

An editing codec is also exactly as the name suggests. It's a codec specifically designed to keep as much of the original information as possible, using complete frames.

An h.264 @ 30fps, as I said above, may only be 1 complete frame per second, then sets of instructions like "in frame 2, this group of pixels moved from here to here", "in frame 3, that group moved again to here, and this group of pixels moved to here". Obviously it's a little more technical than that, but that's basically how it works.

A DNxHD file on Frame 1 it would load a complete image, on Frame 2 it would load a different complete image, on Frame 3 it would load a different complete image, and so on.
 
pragmatist said:
What does that mean in English???
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lol

it means the video straight from your 5d is far too co pressed to easily edit.

i would use the standard eos importer software to get the mov files off the 5d into the desktop, then if you want to just upload as is you can do if you like, but if you want to do any editing you need to convert it. apple prores is a codec that most use, it retains the quality but it balloons in size. i have final cut so i use compresser to do this conversion, but if you dont have that you'll need to use something else, someone else will have to suggest a piece of shareware that does it.

once it is converted to prores you can edit it more easily then once done you'll export it probably to 1280x720 as thats the max that youtube allows at ghe moment.
 
joescrivens said:
1280x720 as thats the max that youtube allows at ghe moment.
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Ummm no? I see plenty of 1080p videos on Youtube, and Vimeo's supported them for even longer than that.
 
Kaouthia said:
Ummm no? I see plenty of 1080p videos on Youtube, and Vimeo's supported them for even longer than that.
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looks like its been on youtube for 6 months or so, good to know, ho hum, dunno what it is around here lately though about people being so arrogrant when someone has made an error. ive seen so many people lately doing this, must be the hot weather msking everyone grouchy
 
Making a statement of fact is being arrogant? lol
 
Kaouthia said:
Making a statement of fact is being arrogant? lol
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not that part. the ummm no part. its like lately i've seen a lot of people reply with

incorrect.

whats happened to the friendliness that makes this place such a nice place to be, ah well just thinking out loud, ignore me ;)
 
What's happened to people being so sensitive in this place? Every day I get the desire to post less and less.

Yes, I could play all nicey nice. I could start off every post with "my dear fellow, I do believe you are mistaken", but to me that's even more arrogant and condescending. :)
 
Kaouthia said:
What's happened to people being so sensitive in this place? Every day I get the desire to post less and less.

Yes, I could play all nicey nice. I could start off every post with "my dear fellow, I do believe you are mistaken", but to me that's even more arrogant and condescending. :)
Click to expand...

ah dear, anyway ... moving on
 
When I first got my 5Dmark II I read all over about different codecs and conversions to prores and all this. In the end I just imported the movies into iMovie and they worked fine. However, I think they get reduced down to 720p in iMovie (I may be wrong), so I saved all the original .mov files too.

When I got Aperture 3 the movies just imported straight from the camera, no problem at all.

I think if you want to start using final cut then you will need to go the conversion route as explained above. For me, shooting clips of my kids and putting them together with still slideshows, aperture or iMovie both work.
 
I think iMovie works along similar lines to Windows Movie Maker. It sort of generates the "missing" frames on the fly, or creates a real-time preview version when you import the file, so you can scrub through to do your edits and whatnot.

The problem with more advanced editing and post software like FCP, AfterEffects, Premiere, Edius, etc. is that it's just impractical to do this on the fly. It's possible certainly, but horrendously slow. Plus if you convert into a 10Bit or higher Prores or DNxHD file, you get much better quality results in post from any effects you may apply or colour grading you do.
 
Basically what you need is something that will allow you to convert from the native h.264 into another format using an editing codec.

On Windows, you could do this with VirtualDub and the DVCProHD codec ( which produces the video in an AVI wrapper) or (my preferred method) AfterEffects and the DNxHD codec (which basically gives me a video file in a Quicktime MOV wrapper). On the mac, using AE with the DNxHD codec should work too, although if the only person that's ever going to be using your footage is you, and you're not sending clips to other people to edit, grade, etc. for you, then I'd probably go with Prores. As for what software to use, I couldn't tell you what's out there for the Mac, but a google search should come up with some results.
 
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