XF-AVC better than RAW?

[@kevinbatts2804]

You sir are a legend. So much great info in such a short time.

[@landyiscandy]

Wow, you're truly an expert. I was confused coming from the photography world. I thought raw would make a huge difference but I've been mistaken!

[@felipemuci5944]

I was looking for this information everywhere, and your video is by far the best!

[@scottievee330]

Wow. Eye opening and clear. Without doing much testing I always liked shooting WDR. Less hassle and great results. I thought I was sacrificing quality but apparently I'm not. Win win.

[@Mr.Zen_73]

Simply amazing! Thanks for the info it will change the way I shoot on my r5c and c80 that is on its way

[@ansenvideoproduction]

This review has been incredible, thank you! Canon always pushes the limits of their cameras when recording in compressed files. Just amazing!

[@damnGerman]

Thank you!

[@tomgilchrist553]

Thank you for these insights. In addition to your main points, I did not realize the Canon Raw tool made a difference in the final look. So much to learn! Thanks again!

[@thefilmpoets]

@7:35 - I noticed the same color problems on the c70. Definitely looks like moire.

[@damnGerman]

I am afraid its more a problem of premiere pros inferior debayer algorithms. Debayering the raw in Canons own Software gives you way better results. But its another tedious workstep and will fill up your harddrives pretty fast. You have to decide whats more important to you. :-)

[@thefilmpoets]

@@damnGerman I'm seeing it in FCPX as wel

[@NickDelDuca]

Wow this is so good! Very well explained. I have an R5C that has raw ST and LT as well as XF-AVC. I'm thinking what you are saying here also applies to the R5C. The RAW is pretty noisy and takes a ton of work to look as good as the XF-AVC.

[@photographyRI]

This was illuminating - thank you for putting this together

[@ryanleininger8244]

This was an incredible video, thank you so much!

[@albertcurielx]

AMAZING findings!! Damn, this changes everything! Thank you so much for this!!

[@damnGerman]

Thank you! 🙂

[@marcelbrandel9078]

immediately subscribeed, kurtenbachfilm rulesssss! Finally a truly in-depth video on Canon RAW

[@damnGerman]

Thank youuuuu! 😁

[@timothyariel]

this video is soooooooooooooooooo good. On my C70, the best part about shooting Long GOP is that I can use V30 SD cards and still shoot full resolution at 60FPS

[@damnGerman]

Thank you! :-)

[@prismcollectionmusic]

What a fantastic video, very demystifying!! Thank you

[@wright96d]

Amazing work! Awesome to see one of my favorite technical breakdown videos ever has a sequel!

[@damnGerman]

Haha thank you!

[@Gleebi]

I remember the OG video between avchd and prores. I'll never forget the voice of truth.

[@thefilmpoets]

one note, I like the HEVC codec over the longgop XAVC, It's noticeable cleaner.

[@CrisBaggins]

This is enlightening. Thanks so much for sharing this. I was blown away especially by the performances of long gop vs intra in static, very detailed shots. In your opinion, would a rich detailed, moving shot benefit more from long gop or intra frame compression?

[@damnGerman]

I think it depends on the type of Movement. A slow panning shot would still be easy to solve for a Long-GoP and it will still provide a better overall quality over Intra. If the movement is erratic across the frame (like Snowfall, water, lots of tiny incoherent moving parts or very quick whipping shots), Intra or Raw has definitely the advantage. In my world these erratic scenarios are rather the exception, which is why i usually stick to Long-GoP.

[@damiencooper]

really nice and in-depth review! I've been saying this for years (with far less evidence :D) What I would really like to know is how the XFAVC holds up to the HEVC codecs int he R5C and the C70

[@damnGerman]

Thank you, Damien! Without having tested it myself, my guess concerning HEVC would be that in terms of imagequality it won't make a huge difference in the C70. On the one hand HEVC is supposed to be twice as efficient as h.264 (the Codec that XF-AVC uses), but on the other hand the Bitrate of the HEVC-Formats is roughly only half of the XF-AVC. So i think the choice between these formats is more about editing-performance and storage-space. But would be an interesting artefact-peeping test nevertheless! ;-)

[@naludog8087]

Great video. Thank you for posting. What’s your settings recommendation for video shooting surfers in 4k 120 slow motion on a Canon C camera? I have the R5C. XF-AVC with Canon Log 3?

[@damnGerman]

If you shoot in daylight i would always go for Clog2, as it has the best dynamic range. Clog3 is more for High-ISO shooting in dark situation, as it is a bit cleaner at the expenses of having one stop or so less of latitude. Format-wise i would go here for the Intraframe Codec, as with surfing you have lots and lots of Motion in the frame the whole time, so here i am shure you get less artefacting with Intraframe. Happy shooting!

[@mcneilbelle]

In my heart of hearts I always felt like canons cinema raw lite really wasn’t a real raw format esp compared to RED RAW OR ARRI RAW and this video really furthered my speculation also I suggest you use davinci resolve for decoding raw not premier but thanks for this video it did so much for me and the community and also the cherry on top for me to get rid of canon and go to RED CINEMA

[@billyoung9538]

Very thorough analysis, but the one thing that I've often wondered is how Canons RAW light differed from other RAW formats. Obviously the mosaic issues would remain and vary from program to program based off whatever de-mosaic algorithms a give program uses, and the CA solutions would also have to be a post process, but those are pretty standard issues one gets use to dealing with in RAW workflows in my experience. The real question in my mind is how are the XF-AVC files managing to pull the extra information from the sensor data and yet the RAW data seems to be lacking that information that, unless the RAW data was somehow compromised in the "light" process, should still be there. This also raises the question of if these same issues would happen with other RAW variants? In someways the findings of this video suggest a hybrid RAW format that resolves the core flaws of a mosaic RAW, while retaining the data in a 12bit log or equivalent data form to retain all the post adjustment potential might be the better way to approach this. In many ways the route Blackmagic has gone with their Braw format suggests that might be a better direction for for a more dynamic yet post flexible format even though Braw, to my knowledge, doesn't solve the moire or CA RAW issues as it currently stands, but perhaps a 12bit XF-AVC base RAW format with a metadata side cart file is something we might see in the future.

[@damnGerman]

I think the 12bit Raw CRL is definitely better, if you develope it in the proprietary Software with Canons own algorithms. What i didn't know before i did these test, was that Premiere obviously uses some generic demosaicing algorithms which really make your footage look worse. But if youre willing to go this extra mile through DPX Conversion and denoise, "de-CA" and de-Vignette yourself it definitely will look better than any XF-AVC. Its just too much work for me personally in respect to rather marginal image improvements. ;-) How it is with other Raw formats - i don't know. In some ways it could be similar (with BRAW in Premiere for example, whereas it will definitely be best when decoded in DaVinci Resolve) but RedRaw might be a different story altogether. I just think that many people are pretty emotional regarding this topic. I heard so many people saying that Canon Raw "looks so much richer", "richer blacks", "smoother gradients" where i find thats not the case at all. I think lot of people just feel that way, because they know its raw and its their belief that it should be so much better.

[@JeffSpeers]

Wow, you put a lot of good work into this video. I hope you succeed in this KZbin jungle.

[@damnGerman]

Thank you! :-)

[@thomas.hintze]

Excellent! Thanks a lot for sharing. VG Thomas

[@pedzsan]

The chart that you give at 3:05 explaining OETF solved a huge mental problem I've had with "RAW". The snappy answer is that "RAW is straight off the sensor" but then you process it either as CLOG2 or CLOG3 (according to other videos I'm watching -- perhaps you disagree). But... that made no sense to me because I assume RAW would be linear. But, as you explain, it isn't. Thank you!

[@damnGerman]

The OETF Conversion before AD Conversion is something EVERY digital camera is doing. Just with Raw it can be different. As Red holds the Patent for compressed linear Raw, all other manufacturers who dont want to pay license fees have to come up with another solution for Raw and so we have a lot of "undebayered video"-Codecs that are labeled as Raw ( and thats not a bad solution in most cases). But the OETF is not to be mistaken as Clog2 or something similar. The OETF is tailor-made for the specific camera-sensor and the End User never deals with this. The Customgamma you can choose in your camera menu are further Conversions that are made AFTER that.

[@pedzsan]

@@damnGerman Thank you again. Part of my confusion comes from videos that are using DaVinci Resolve -- which I don't use and I think you said you don't use it either. Apparently you can process Canon's RAW as either CLOG2 or CLOG3 and that just doesn't make any @#$% sense to me at all. Perhaps I should just pretend I never saw those videos. So... the OETF is before the AD conversion. That also makes excellent sense. I'm an E.E. and most AD are linear but with today's chip densities, there is no reason why designers couldn't use a logarithmic ladder of comparators. If you have the RED patent number quickly available, that would be very interesting for me. If not, I can probably search and find it. I'm also on a quest to find information that details how Raw HQ, Raw ST, and Raw LT differ but that quest I think I'm going to give up on. After watching your video, I think I'm going to go with XF-AVC Long GOP until I get a lot more experience under my belt.

[@BlackMediaWorks]

Fantastic explanation and comparisons. Thanks so much for the detailed analysis. I've done my own tests (not to your extent) and have always scratched my head wondering if the time dealing with RAW was worth it? I think you clarified my concern - for all the extra effort there is minimal benefit. Thanks for your dedication to our artform.

[@damnGerman]

Thank you! 🤗

[@mecan5196]

Interesting to see this. I have never given the Long GOP a look on my C500MKII. But like you, I was underwhelmed with RAW considering the files size differences, and I only use Resolve. However, it makes perfect sense for the intention of the camera, as a Run and Gun, single op, doc, wedding etc. I think Canon’s thinking was just to give users pretty much the same image within the choice of XFAVC or RAW - flexibility, not resolution. The RAW is there if you need it. In slower, predicable workflows the XFAVC is there. Now with the Long GOP, there’s another option, and as you’ve discovered, it holds up pretty well.

[@mmolokichrystie9760]

People misunderstand that Intra requires more compression overhead, so usually Long GOP implementation is better on most cameras. People see the higher framerate and assume that Intra is better. It isn't usually (apart from for moving detail, obviously).

[@genxtechguy]

Great analysis. It would be interesting to see this on higher resolution cameras like the R5c and R3.

[@damnGerman]

Yes it would be. I don't own these cameras so i cannot test it. The R5c (and i am guessing the R3 as well) have more Subcategories to Cinema Raw light (HQ, ST and LT) with decreased bitrates. So my educated guess would be that you would see even worse artifacts on the same pixel magnification than the 50p 10bit in this Video. 8K = 4 x pixelamount of 4K 1650 Mbps for 8K25fps (CRL ST)= just 1,65 x the bitrate of 4K CRL 12bit in the C300Mk3 so, you do the math: 8K CRL ST has only rougly 40% of the Bitrateestate per pixel compared to CRL 4K 25p.

[@wenjun_n]

This is incredible! But what about recording a clean feed from the camera externally in proresHQ, would the compression artefacts be better controlled than the xfavc, albeit larger file size?

[@damnGerman]

I would recommend to that topic my other video about prores vs AVCHD (XFAVC is pretty similar). So tldr i would say it depends on which flavour of Prores you gonna use.

[@wenjun_n]

@@damnGerman seems like you unlisted or removed that video? Couldn't find it in your channel page

[@damnGerman]

@@wenjun_n Its public but i didnt give you the exact title, sorry for that: kzbin.info/www/bejne/e2qVm3eHpdSoarM

[@peterleix]

I wish you would have said you were using premiere in the beginning! Have you not tried resolve? I used premiere when I was first switching from stills to video professionally 10 or so years ago and quickly learned what other professional colorists, cinematographers, and editors were all telling me, it's garbage. I recently had to use premiere again to convert prores raw clips and was surprised just how bad the color correction/grading tools are, pretty much every slider and even curves affects way too much of a tonal range, it uses up so many computer resources and still is so much slower than resolve. I appreciate the idea behind this as I recently tried out a few canon cinema cameras to see how canon raw compares to braw. I have been happy with what I'm getting but I'm using Davinci resolve and my results have shown to me that raw is better every time and when I accidentally shoot in any other codec the log files grade horribly compared to similar shots. I would urge you to take a few of these shots into even the free version resovle open the color panel grade just using contrast and pivot to see the difference. If you going to this trouble you might as well try the far superior and cheaper editor that is probably skewing your results and ideas about the quality of the different codecs

[@EricGiovon]

Amazing video! Wow so much depth and detail. Thank you for this! I generally use Alexa and Red cameras more but occasionally I have a job which requires a C series like the C300 and C500. I have one coming up. Do you know if Angenieux Optimo lightweight zooms play nicely. I'm not looking to shoot raw and your video confirmed it. Also, with regard to proxies is it true that it only does 2k mxf proxies? Thank you in advance and I hope you do more videos.

[@damnGerman]

Thank you for the warm compliment! ;-) Angenieux Optimo will certainly play nicely with this camera - however it does not support the electronic compensation for it, but in that pricerange, it should also not be necessary. I have a colleague who owns a C300 mark2 and he spend a fortune to buy himself an Optimo Zoom. He is very happy with it, as i hear. And yes, you heard right, the proxy resolution does not exceed 2K. But on the other hand - If you want higher resolution and your editing machine supports it - just use the original 4K footage for editing. ;-)

[@Topher0089]

Hello! Excellent video, especially for someone new-ish to shooting. Codecs have always been a bit of an intimidating subject for me. When the RAW dropped on the C70, I instantly jumped on it as an assumed better codec. A bit off subject, but I wanted to ask about the lens corrections in the camera that you briefly went over. I've never really used them, and I am curious about them, the chromatic aberration specifically. Are there any downsides to running that correction... just all the time? I currently only have zooms, and I have noticed a bit of abberation in some of my footage on occasion. I am curious if I can turn the correction on and just leave it for the time being. Or, is it something that is better to use only in specific situations?

[@damnGerman]

Thank you for the feedback! Concerning the CA Correction feature, i dont see a negative leaving it on all the time. It does an excellent job with native Canon lenses. I noticed however, when i was using a third party lens (Tokina 11-16) that my C300 mistook it for a different lens and applied a completely wrong correction profile to the picture. So it was ADDING CA instead of removing them. So if youre using Canon lenses - no need to worry. If youre using third party lenses - better check if the camera plays well with them. I switched to the Tokina 11-20mm and with this lens i had no problems at all.

[@Topher0089]

@@damnGerman Thank you! Appreciate the info!

[@jedgould5531]

4:50 funny. Love your voice.

[@damnGerman]

Thank you! Finally someone noticed! 😀

[@alloneword154]

Is this when you choose xfavc?

[@patrick.munich]

Du hast sooo eine schöne Sprechstimme, echt krass! :) Ansonsten auch tolles Video! Bin gerade darauf gestoßen, weil ich die R5C bekommen habe und wissen wollte was denn so die allgemeine Meinung zum Thema XF-AVC ist ;)

[@damnGerman]

Haha vielen Dank für den lieben Kommentar! :-D

[@HaydenSummers]

This was amazing

[@AdityaNath0710]

How come raw is ipb

[@vladyslavkosulin6413]

8K RAW is a pain to capture and process, but it does not make sense to compare RAW and XF-AVC capture directly; the whole idea of capturing RAW is its ability to do a heavy PP, especially color grading, NR, etc. The same BS is video saying that AVC-HD is better than ProRes. This is like saying that Corvette is better than F-350. It is for your daily commute on highway, but it is not when need to deliver 3 cubes of mulch.

[@corneliustitiu8739]

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

[@kevinkuroda]

I want to make a video too that is not very boring to watch, and if you watch it to the end and gain knowledge, you will be happy, I want to put memes in my videos too. I am afraid of being sued, but that's ok.