Friday, May 5, 2017

Re: [Avid-L2] Shooting with Sony A7 to XAVC S compared to AVCHD or MP4 Quality?

 

A quick look at Sony's primer says this:

What are the differences between XAVC and AVCHD?

XAVC format provides 4K/HD, 4:4:4/4:2:2/4:2:0 and 12/10/8 bit sampling which can cover a wide range of applications from professional to consumer products, from high-end 4K production through to online streaming and consumer imaging applications. AVCHD, by contrast, is capped at 24Mbps for 1080 50i/50i or 28Mbps for 1080 50P/60P at 4:2:0 8bit sampling and is fully compatible with the Blu-ray disc format. Both XAVC and AVCHD formats adopt the same MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 compression technology, but there is no compatibility between them.

What is XAVC S?

XAVC S is a subset format, using many of the superlative techniques and technologies used in XAVC, but intended for consumer products and workflows. It supports the 3840x2160 pixel version of 4K only, known as Quad Full HD, QFHD, UltraHDTV or UHDTV. XAVC S is a lighter codec with Long GOP compression and relatively small recorded file sizes. XAVC S also uses the .MP4 file wrapper for greater compatibility and suitability in consumer workflows.

So yes, I would agree that XAVC-S has the potential to be far better than AVCHD.


On Fri, May 5, 2017 at 2:10 PM, John Moore bigfish@pacbell.net [Avid-L2] <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
 

Now that we have talked with the camera person he is of the opinion that shooting XAVC S is higher quality than shooting AVCHD.  I found the specs below and I'm not sure I see a clear indication that XAVC S yields a better image.  I see in the Image Size specs that the Mbps seem to be higher with the XAVC S.


XAVC S HD: 1920 x 1080 (60p/50 Mbps, 30p/50 Mbps, 24p/50 Mbps)
compared to
AVCHD: 1920 x 1080 (60p/28 Mbps/PS, 60i/24 Mbps/FX, 60i/17 Mbps/FH, 24p/24 Mbps/FX, 24p/17 Mbps/FH)
and
MP4: 1920 x 1080 (60p/28 Mbps, 30p/16 Mbps)


I've read on the L2 that data rate isn't always a clear indicator of image quality as the type of compression and it's efficiency play a part so a lower data rate can be deceptive.

Can any of our more production savvy folks confirm of deny or explain if shooting XAVC S on the Sony a7RII is better quality than shooting AVCHD or MP4?  Our camera person is convinced that shooting XAVC S yields better quality even if it means we have to transcode to make it work in Avid.  Any insight would be appreciated.







Recording (movie)
Recording Format
XAVC S/AVCHD format Ver. 2.0 compliant/MP4
Video Compression
XAVC S:MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, AVCHD: MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, MP4: MPEG-4 AVC/H.264


Image Size (Pixels), NTSC
XAVC S 4K: 3840 x 2160 (30p/100 Mbps, 30p/60 Mbps, 24p/100 Mbps, 24p/60 Mbps), XAVC S HD: 1920 x 1080 (60p/50 Mbps, 30p/50 Mbps, 24p/50 Mbps), 1280 x 720 (120p/50 Mbps), AVCHD: 1920 x 1080 (60p/28 Mbps/PS, 60i/24 Mbps/FX, 60i/17 Mbps/FH, 24p/24 Mbps/FX, 24p/17 Mbps/FH), MP4: 1920 x 1080 (60p/28 Mbps, 30p/16 Mbps), 1280 x 720 (30p/6 Mbps)
Image Size (pixels), NTSC*
XAVC S 4K: 3840 x 2160 (30p/100 Mbps, 30p/60 Mbps, 24p/100 Mbps, 24p/60 Mbps), XAVC S HD: 1920 x 1080 (60p/50 Mbps, 30p/50 Mbps, 24p/50 Mbps), 1280 x 720 (120p/50 Mbps), AVCHD: 1920 x 1080 (60p/28 Mbps/PS, 60i/24 Mbps/FX, 60i/17 Mbps/FH, 24p/24 Mbps/FX, 24p/17 Mbps/FH), MP4: 1920 x 1080 (60p/28 Mbps, 30p/16 Mbps), 1280 x 720 (30p/6 Mbps)
Image Size (pixels), PAL
XAVC S 4K: 3840 x 2160 (25p/100 Mbps, 25p/60 Mbps), XAVC S HD: 1920 x 1080 (50p/50 Mbps, 25p/50 Mbps), 1280 x 720 (100p/50 Mbps), AVCHD: 1920 x 1080 (50p/28 Mbps/PS, 50i/24 Mbps/FX, 50i/17 Mbps/FH, 25p/24 Mbps/FX, 25p/17 Mbps/FH), MP4: 1920 x 1080 (50p/28 Mbps, 25p/16 Mbps), 1280 x 720 (25p/6 Mbps)

 
John Moore Barking Trout Productions Studio City, CA bigfish@pacbell.net


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