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Panasonic AF100 joins forces with Sony encoder for 25p Euro spot in Miami

Recently I was put in charge of the technical workflow for an HD 1080/25p real estate commercial spot to be shot in Miami, Florida, and broadcast in several European countries. I suppose my years of writing articles and giving seminars about 25p workflow in (ex) NTSC countries had something to do with my being chosen. This article covers: why director Rubén Abruña chose the Panasonic AF100 rather than the Sony FS100, the lenses used, how the Sony “Beyond XDCAM-HD” encoder in the nanoFlash recorder achieved a superior 4:2:2 recording, the technical workflow used in the production and post, and even how we were able to display the final 25p spot on the client’s segregated HDTV set (which normally rejects anything 25Hz or 50Hz) without having to convert the signal. You’ll also be able to view and hear all four language versions of the 30-second spot: Castilian, English, French, and Italian.

In this article:

• Why the Panasonic AF100 rather than the Sony FS100
• The lenses used and why
• What’s a nanoFlash; how to record 25p on the nanoFlash; how to correct the nanoFlash’s incorrect metadata; when to record on the nanoFlash and when not to do so
• Workflow to Apple Color and back out
• Critical monitoring
• How to fool a segregated USA HDTV set into accepting 25p

Why the Panasonic AF100 rather than the Sony FS100?

Director Rubén Abruña explains:

“The two candidates were the Panasonic AF100 and the Sony FS100. Obviously, the Sony FS100’s Super35mm sensor is mathematically more appropriate and more efficient for 16:9 capture than the Micro Four Thirds sensor in the Panasonic AF100. I would have really loved to have been able to compare them side-by side, but Sony made the decision for us because the FS100 simply wasn’t available on time for this production. So we used the Panasonic AF100, which fortunately comes standard as ‘WorldCam’. But ironically, Sony was involved in many of the scenes, by virtue of the fact that we recorded many of them on the nanoFlash recorder from Convergent Design, which uses a ‘Beyond XDCAM-HD’ encoder manufactured by Sony. I call it ‘Beyond XDCAM-HD’ because it has the same 4:2:2 encoder technology used in cameras like the US$42,000 Sony PDW-F800 camera, but fortunately breaks the 50 megabit/second limitation of the F800 and allowed us to record 4:2:2 at 140 megabits/second. I am very happy with the motion pictures we’ve been able to create with the AF100 together with the ‘Beyond XDCAM-HD’ Sony encoder in the nanoFlash recorder. Having said that, I will strongly consider the FS100 for future projects, but only when Sony can offer a WorldCam version of it. The fact that we produced this spot in 25p in Miami for Europe should make it clear that production today is global, and Sony shouldn’t expect us to purchase two separate camera bodies just to cover 50Hz and 59.94Hz framerates.”

The Castilian-language version of the spot

Here is the Castilian-language version of the 30-second spot in native 25p. Castilian is the official language of Spain, and is also the most widely used Spanish language spoken in Spain, Latin America, and the USA, but is certainly not the only Spanish language. Other Spanish languages include Catalán, Euskera (Basque), and Galician, which are also official in their respective territories, as guaranteed by Article 3 of the Spanish Constitution. Ahead in this article you’ll see the English, French, and Italian versions of the same spot, and read all about the technical workflow. As with all of the videos in this article, they will work with your computer, iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch. If on your computer or iPad, feel free to click the button on the lower right to go full screen. If you have a good Internet connection, feel free to activate the HD option if not already set that way on your computer.

What lenses?

Director Rubén Abruña:

“We used two lenses. All of the interior shots were done with a Nikkor 17-35 mm f/2.8 zoom lens using a Nikon to Micro 4/3 adapter.

It renders warm images that are sharp but without too much contrast.

All the interior shots were done in relatively small spaces, so I mainly worked in the 17-20 mm range, one in which the lens excels with no noticeable distortions or aberrations. I also prefer it because its iris and focus controls are on the barrel, and I don’t have to go into a camera menu to adjust them. This was key for the aerials where we constantly went from shadow to bright areas, depending on the angle of the building in relation to the early morning sun. Its fast speed allowed us to get a beautiful night shot of Ocean Drive bathed in neon lights. Using the ATM Gyro Stabilized mount, all the aerials were done with the Nikkor lens as I mentioned, because of its wide field of view proved to be ideal in getting the entire building in the frame, while also seeing the surroundings, a very important factor in a real estate commercial.

We used a Lumix G Vario 45-200mm f/4.0-5.6 zoom lens for three of the four quick shots at the beginning and the ocean shot at the very end. We chose it mainly because we needed the space compression, to get close from quite a long distance, which meant that we mostly shot near the 200mm end of the lens. Its slow speed was not a limitation because all those shots were naturally lit by the very bright Miami Beach sun and skylight.”

What’s a nanoFlash?

nanoFlash is the name of a popular external recorder manufactured by Convergent Design. The nanoFlash contains an encoder manufactured by Sony, which encodes the same style of MPEG2 used in high-end XDCAM-HD camcorders like the Sony PDW-F800. However, the maximum bit rate allowed by the XDCAM-HD format is 50 megabits per second, while the nanoFlash can record at a much higher bit rate.

How to record 25p on the nanoFlash from the AF100

The AF100/AF101 manual says that the camera’s HD-SDI is 1080/50i when shooting 1080/25p internally, but this way of stating it is deceiving. The AF100/AF101 manual neglects to explain that when shooting 1080/25p, the HD-SDI output in essence is outputting 1080PsF25 (progressive segmented frame, 25p over a 50i train). I don’t know why, but the only reference to PsF in the AF100/AF101 manual is about 23.976PsF over HD-SDI (which is a more complex signal and has to be activated specifically in the menu, and not appropriate for this project). The AF100/AF101 manual is really underselling the capabilities of the camera as it is currently written. So to record 1080/25p on the nanoFlash from the AF100, we first set the camera for 1080/25p, connected an HD-SDI cable to the nanoFlash, and made sure to set the nanoFlash menu to PsF.

After setting that, the nanoFlash will display the abbreviated message “1080sf25” on screen (see photo above). That means that the nanoFlash knows that the source is 1080/25p being sent over a 50i train (PsF), and is treating it as such in order to create a true progressive recording… but here comes both the problem… and the solution.

How to correct the nanoFlash’s incorrect metadata

As stated in the prior section, the nanoFlash (as of firmware 1.6.248) indeed makes a perfect 1080/25p recording when used as explained. However, unfortunately the recording has incorrect metadata that falsely indicates that the recording is 23.976p. While Convergent Design fixes that problem in a future firmware update, it is easily fixed by conforming the footage to 25p (its true native framerate) using one of two methods:

• Using the Conform command in Apple’s CinemaTools.
• Using the Interpret Footage command in Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 or in Adobe Media Encoder CS5.5 prior to transcoding to any other format

Once we did that, the metadata properly matched the actual 25p recording that had been made. No actual manipulation of the video occurs, so no generation loss. Note that the Conform command in CinemaTools is only available with i-frame footage. Long-GOP footage would need to be transcoded first to an i-frame códec like any of the ProRes variants (leaving the framerate as “Current”) before conforming with CinemaTools. With Adobe Media Encoder CS5.5, it doesn’t matter, since it will accept both long-GOP and i-frame and allow for this.

When to record with the nanoFlash, and when to record internally in the AF100

Actually, even the scenes that were recorded in the nanoFlash (at 4:2:2 MPEG2) we recorded simultaneously inside the AF100 (at 4:2:0 H.264) to have a simultaneous backup. We carried out exhaustive testing before actually shooting the spot, and determined that the quality of the external “Beyond XDCAM-HD” Sony encoder in the the Convergent Design nanoFlash for all of the “normal” (non slow-motion) scenes was visibly superior. In those cases, both recordings were at 1080p25, and the quality of the “Beyond XDCAM” Sony encoder at 1920x1080 4:2:2 140 megabits/second beat the quality of the 1920x1080 4:2:0 H.264 Panasonic encoder at 24 megabits/second.

However, due to limitations both in the Panasonic AF100 and in the nanoFlash, there is currently no way to record 1080p59.94 or 1080p50 externally. (Neither the AF100 nor the nanoFlash has dual-link SDI or 3G-SDI, and so far, no external recorder accepts 1080p59.94 or 1080p50 from HDMI, as explained in this recent article. In fact, I don’t know whether the AF100 even outputs 1080p59.94 or 1080p50 over HDMI anyway, but even if it does, we didn’t have any way to record it.) The only way to record the highest possible progressive framerate for slow-motion in the nanoFlash from the AF100 is at 720p (1280x720) from a 59.94p source, which has high temporal resolution, but lower spatial resolution. When comparing the same demanding footage (slow pans on buildings with bricks), the 1920x1080 4:2:0 H.264 Panasonic encoder at 24 megabits/second beat the 1280x720 4:2:2 140 megabits/second of the nanoFlash. Bottom line was that it’s better to use the nanoFlash for all non slow-motion footage, and to record the slow-motion footage inside the camera only. In order to get the highest temporal resolution (maximum frames per second), we shot the slow motion scenes using the AF100’s own VFR mode at 1080/59.94p over 1080/23.976p and then conformed the result to 25p for use on the 25p timeline. As stated earlier, no actual manipulation of the video occurs when conforming. Only manipulation of the metadata occurs, so there is no generation loss with this process.

Rubén and I were both curious to see how the nanoFlash would compare with one of the ProRes recorders, but we didn’t have access to one at the time of the production. The 10-bit capability of ProRes wouldn’t have made a difference since the AF100 only outputs 8-bit, but we don’t know for sure whether it might have been more transparent than the MPEG2 at 140 megabits/second.

On page 2 of this article:

• The USA English version of the spot
• Workflow to Apple’s Color and back out
• The French version of the spot
• Critical monitoring
• The Italian version of the spot
• How to fool a segregated USA HDTV set into accepting 25p

Continue to page 2.

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It’s remarkable how good the facades of the buildings look from the AF100 – I’d never dare to try such shots with a DSLR…

BTW, the AF100 works very well with the Ninja too, but you’ll need to tell FCP the footage is interlaced as well.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  06/13  at  01:30 AM

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Correction: You need to tell FCP it’s progressive, duh!

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  06/13  at  03:27 AM

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Nomad,
Thanks for reading and for commenting. That’s what I thought you meant, and I am familiar with the function in FCP to let it know that a particular source clip is really 25p (not 50i) or 29.97p (not 59.94i) so that it will treat it accordingly (not de-interlace a video that is already progressive, but just arrived on an interlaced train.

Thanks again.

Allan Tépper

Posted by Allan Tépper  on  06/13  at  03:46 AM

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I do not understand , if the AF100 can do 25p why the AF101 for the European market?
As far as I know the FS100 bought in NTSC countries cannot do 25p either.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  06/14  at  08:00 AM

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The different models of the AF10x are just packaged for different markets, maybe the choice of languages or the power plugs or whatever. But the European AF101 switches to ‘NTSC’ just with a reboot.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  06/14  at  08:18 AM

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TTTULIO:

On Sunday, November 07, 2010, Adam Wilt attended at an event at Hollywood rental and sales facility Birns & Sawyer, where Panasonic USA AF100 product manager Jan Crittenden presented the AF100 camera. Adam’s full article from that date is available here.
The relevant information to your inquiry from Adam’s November 07, 2010 article is:

“The AF100 is (or will be) US warranted and supported, the AF101 will be warranted and supported in Europe; both the 100 and 101 work the same and have the same 50 Hz / 59.94 Hz switchability, so it’s just a question of who’s got your back if something breaks.”

But beyond that, I personally saw and invoked the 50Hz modes in an AF100 during the production covered in this article. I don’t know why you would think that I would make that up. The production in this article and all of the technical details covered here are real life. This article is not a work of fiction!

Allan Tépper

Posted by Allan Tépper  on  06/15  at  04:32 AM

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Thanks for the reply. I didn’t say I don’t believe you, I said I don’t understand the logic in Panasonic’s Marketing department to create 2 models of the same camera. Anyway, even if the AF100/1 is a great camera, it is still an cumbersome box with a retro viewfinder. I still prefer the GH2 and hopefully Vitaly’s hack is coming soon to bypass Panasonic’s crippling firmware.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  06/15  at  05:12 AM

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I’m afraid it doesn’t come – has been quite a while and Panasonic is learning.

BTW, out of the box I like the highlight behavior of the GH2 better than the AF10X.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  06/15  at  06:22 AM

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On the contrary, he has already moved from dumping to reversing the code on the GH2. The GH1 mk2 has already been cracked and it is available.
http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/50/official-gh2-stalin-hack-development-topic

all the best, Vitaly.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  06/15  at  07:03 AM

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That’s great news, thanks!

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  06/15  at  07:42 AM

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Are you sure that the WDTV deinterlace your 25PsF properly, joining the fields? My Asus player has a decent deinterlacer for video content, but it cannot do jack with film-based content.

As for HDMI output, funny that the Panasonic HDC-SD600, which one could buy $300 on Amazon sale a couple of months ago, records 1080p60 onto SDHC card and it outputs 1080p60 over HDMI !

Do the files from NanoFlash come in the same directory structure and with the same naming convention as from XDCAM cameras? If not, then this is not exactly XDCAM despite the Sony circuitry, this is just MPEG-2 Part-2, same stuff that Canon uses in its XF Codec and Ikegami uses in its GFCam. BTW, Ikegami can go as high as 100 Mbit/s, intraframe, 4:2:2.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  06/16  at  08:17 PM

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Burn-e:

The file we played back from the WDTV is fortunately pure progressive (not PsF) and therefore contains no fields.

The encoder in the nanoFlash is from Sony, but the recorder is not from Sony. It offers 3 different possible file structures to facilitate direct importation into your particular NLE. In this case, we used the .Mov option. However FCP still recognizes the files as XDCAM-XD 4:2;2. More info is at http://www.convergent-design.com

Posted by Allan Tépper  on  06/16  at  10:36 PM

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