The Reality of Editing 4K

[Chimerix]

An associate of mine had an inspiration for a documentary a couple of years ago. He assembled a team, solicited talent, and shot it. It's been languishing on a hard drive ever since.

I did sound for him on a cute little indy RomCom, and in the course of conversations afterwards, he mentioned he needed an editor who could take the raw footage from this documentary and put it in some form that would allow him to begin selecting the story.

The premise was that he'd read an experiment in a scientific journal about a series of 16 questions. Take two strangers, put them in a room together, have them ask each other these 16 questions, and by the end, they end up with a bond akin to years of friendship. So, he recruited six pairs of strangers, had them go through the questions, and shot it.

For the first interview, he used 7 cameras. For the others, he used 5. There was a BlackMagic PCC for the cover shot, and he had begged/borrowed 4 DSLRs to do OTS and CU shots of each person. The OTS shots were 4K; the CU shots were HD; the cover was 2.5K. Master audio was recorded on some form of Tascam; each of the cameras had some form of onboard mic for scratch tracks.

The interviews totaled about 16 hours. Multiply that by the 5 cameras, it's a ton of footage to wade through. Add in the fact that much of it was resolution above HD, it was too much for him to process.

So, I thought I'd do him a favor. Lay the interviews out, sync the cameras, do a multi-screen presentation, add in burns for file names and time code. After a couple of hours of noodling, I settled on this layout.

Screenshot.png

Now, getting everything synced was painful. When you record long segments of video, it gets broken into multiple computer files. On a REAL video camera, these files go back together seamlessly. On the hodge-podge mix of DSLRs he had to work with, that was not the case. Some of the cameras put gaps between every. single. file. and the gaps were of variable length. Some cameras were prone to overheating, and would scramble file names so that the proper order might be file20, file21, file25, file22, file23. Sometimes an overheated camera would make duplicates of the same file name, but with differences in length. (If I had been a camera snob before this project, I'm twice the snob now. I won't work on another project where principal footage is acquired with a DSLR.) Here's the Timeline attached to the image above.

Timeline.png

Anyway as annoying as it was, my newish iMac and Adobe Premiere performed well. I wasn't hindered by choking or lagging. Well, not much. For having 5-6 scaled images on the screen of a 4K sequence, each one generating 2 distinct pieces of text information, literally the only concession I had to make to computing power was that when I repositioned the playhead, I had to wait about a second before I could resume playing. Other than that, full real-time functionality.

I was quite impressed. I'd done a little bit of 4K stuff before, but this was a monster project, and my mainstream computer was handling it beautifully!

(Fred, Dave, Leila, and Mike are laughing already. They see the punchline coming.)

Then it came time to export the project. The first segment I completed, 20 minutes of Brady Bunch video in 4K.

.....

It took 22 hours. Twenty-two hours to get out of my machine!

Keep in mind that I had 16 more hours of content to do. At roughly an 72-to-1 ratio... ick!

I decided to finish all of the editing, then do a batch export. I was working on this over the holiday break, so walking away and leaving the office computer grinding for a week wasn't a problem. I did stop in to check and make sure it hadn't crashed, but it performed flawlessly. It actually only took 5 days instead of the month I was expecting, so... yay?

On the one hand, I was impressed with the stability, reliability, and functionality of the platform.

On the other hand... having to wait for such an extended time on an export... it was like a time machine back to the early days of HD video. And the early days of DVD authoring. Pretty much all projects had 2 or 3 segments of "and walk away and let the computer grind all night." I thought we were past that!

Anyway, just sharing an experience in the exciting new frontier of 4K. I wonder what my little iMac would do with raw 8K from a Red Weapon?

[dlodoski]

It seems like it's always been like that - the computer hardware just keeping up (sort of) with the demands of the newer video formats.

I don't know about macs (too pricey for me), but if it weren't for gaming, guys editing on PCs would find the going a lot rougher. I'm sure we could still get things done, but it would cost a lot more.

The good news is that (at least in my opinion) 4k is going to satisfy our requirements for quite some time, at least in terms of resolution and color depth. The output from the newer gadgets I would like to try will not tax my hardware any more than it is burdened already.

[Duncan Edwards]

Some cameras were prone to overheating, ...

Anyway, just sharing an experience in the exciting new frontier of 4K. I wonder what my little iMac would do with raw 8K from a Red Weapon?

Love the way you put this together and thank you for discussing it. The cameras that overheated? Just a hunch based on past experience, Canon?

... 4k is going to satisfy our requirements for quite some time...

Yeah...remember that when the 8K 3D VR hits big next year. I want to be able to see Anabelle's reflection in Summer's bubbles as they break the surface.

[Chimerix]

Love the way you put this together and thank you for discussing it. The cameras that overheated? Just a hunch based on past experience, Canon?

He told me what the cameras were; I didn't pay a lot of attention to which models because I never have believed in using DSLR for video, but it seemed like things I had heard people gushing about in the recent past. I think that the two 4K units were Canons of the same model. The other two... maybe a Canon and a Panasonic? Not sure. Looking at the timeline, you can see the differences in file naming formats. Someone who was REALLY into cameras might be able to identify them based on that

It seems like it's always been like that - the computer hardware just keeping up (sort of) with the demands of the newer video formats.

Yeah, looks like we're back to the days of proxy editing, at least for a while!

I don't know about macs (too pricey for me), but if it weren't for gaming, guys editing on PCs would find the going a lot rougher. I'm sure we could still get things done, but it would cost a lot more.

There was a time when Apple was a clearly superior platform for video and graphics work. That time is long past. I actually lobbied with my boss to switch the lab over to PCs the last time we had a large replacement scheduled, but he believes (and I think rightly so) that there's a prestige factor attached to Apple machines. He likes students getting the campus tour to see the one Mac lab, and how it belongs to our department. I won't deny that it looks sexy!

[Fred588]

I agree with Chimerix about not using DSLR still cameras for video. I have two Nikons that can shoot video but I use neither for that. The newer one is used to shoot stills and the older one sits on the shelf except when I have enough crew to shoots stills with two cameras (well with four actually, as the video cameras can shoot stills while shooting video.) Its my opinion only but when a tool is built as a "jack of all trades" it is pretty likely to be master of none.

[dlodoski]

Love the way you put this together and thank you for discussing it. The cameras that overheated? Just a hunch based on past experience, Canon?

He told me what the cameras were; I didn't pay a lot of attention to which models because I never have believed in using DSLR for video, but it seemed like things I had heard people gushing about in the recent past. I think that the two 4K units were Canons of the same model. The other two... maybe a Canon and a Panasonic? Not sure. Looking at the timeline, you can see the differences in file naming formats. Someone who was REALLY into cameras might be able to identify them based on that

Yea, the IMG_XXXX.MOV would be Canon, most likely. I can't say much about anything else in the graphic.

I had one overheat on me, once. It was shooting unattended in direct sunlight on a hot day. I should have known better.

Other than having to keep an eye on continuous recording times, I have found shooting video on DSLR's very worth while. It helps to keep things from looking the same. You can't realistically get a nice depth of field with a typical camcorder. And the ability to change lenses should speak for itself. You pretty much get the ability to have results close to much more sophisticated video equipment provide, without having to spend $10,000 or more.

The only time I felt it couldn't do what I needed was when I needed stabilization during handheld situations.

Looking back at the learning curve, if you're serious about getting good results, it's not for the faint of heart.

[Duncan Edwards]

... I have found shooting video on DSLR's very worth while. It helps to keep things from looking the same. You can't realistically get a nice depth of field with a typical camcorder. And the ability to change lenses should speak for itself. You pretty much get the ability to have results close to much more sophisticated video equipment provide, without having to spend $10,000 or more...

Looking back at the learning curve, if you're serious about getting good results, it's not for the faint of heart.

And there's the magic in a DSLR. It's a relatively inexpensive way to get control over the exposure and optics and produce a nice image with affordable lenses. I wish somebody could afford nice toys that were dedicated to the purpose. I'm saving for a lottery ticket -

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ ... _19mm.html

My current personal quest - https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ ... _body.html

[dlodoski]

.... I wish somebody could afford nice toys that were dedicated to the purpose. I'm saving for a lottery ticket -

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ ... _19mm.html

Well, there's the "or more" stuff I was talking about.

But if you water that down to the way we are distributing our content within the markets in question, you're talking about vastly diminished returns with that. And if you matched that investment with the appropriate lighting etc.?

My current personal quest - https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ ... _body.html

Nice.

[Sydney]

He told me what the cameras were; I didn't pay a lot of attention to which models because I never have believed in using DSLR for video, but it seemed like things I had heard people gushing about in the recent past. I think that the two 4K units were Canons of the same model. The other two... maybe a Canon and a Panasonic? Not sure. Looking at the timeline, you can see the differences in file naming formats. Someone who was REALLY into cameras might be able to identify them based on that

I've done shooting with my wife using the video mode on a DSLR. The trick is to recognize that it's not going to provide the whole host of options a "dedicated video" camera is going to provide, like image stabilization, ability to pause and restart without having to stitch the clips together later, and will come with things like a limit in how long a segment you can shoot in one go, but we've done pretty well with it. Trick is my wife did video shooting on the side back in the days where the video camera shot onto tape, using broadcast capable equipment of the day, and she's pretty sold on using the DSLR for the same thing. It just takes planning for the equipment you have.

I'd agree with Duncan that it can provide a certain look if you're looking for a photographic appearance, and DSLR units can provide a much wider variety of lenses unless you're dipping your toes into professional video cameras, which are a whole different beast.