During the last decade, almost each skilled within the media and leisure enterprise has developed an opinion on the professionals and cons of shooting camera raw.
Some are unrelenting supporters of uncooked, whereas others protest that it’s simply one other buzzword.
No matter your place, you would possibly suppose that after so a few years of debate the business would have collectively agreed on a solution by now. However when a disagreement goes on for this lengthy with out simply quantifiable or definitive solutions, it in all probability means the subject is much more complicated than it seems.
I’ve spent 15 years in Hollywood’s post-production and manufacturing workflow scene. Even in spite of everything that point, I’ve discovered that the subject of uncooked picture seize remains to be twisted up in misinformation, misunderstandings, and mystification.
So in in the present day’s article, I’m analyzing three widespread views about uncooked picture seize, in an try and make clear a number of misconceptions and dispel a number of myths.
However earlier than we dive in, within the spirit of full disclosure, I’ll admit that I’m a powerful supporter of uncooked picture seize and uncooked workflow
The truth is, I based one of many first publish homes to deploy a real end-to-end uncooked workflow again in 2007. Through the years, my group and I carried out budgetary comparisons throughout lots of of tasks, and whereas we imagine uncooked is at all times the perfect, it doesn’t imply that we blindly inspired everybody to make use of it.
All that to say, to ensure that us to ask the appropriate questions on uncooked workflows, we have to first acknowledge that there isn’t at all times a single reply. One of the vital essential points of discovering the “greatest” reply is understanding when it applies and when it doesn’t.
I hope the next breakdown will assist offer you higher readability about when uncooked picture seize is an precise, qualitative profit versus when it’s merely a buzzword.
On the subject of technological progress, what was as soon as true might not proceed to be true eternally. That is particularly essential in the case of uncooked picture seize as a result of everyone knows uncooked information are a lot bigger and costlier than RGB…or are they?
Merely put, not all uncooked information are created equal. The way in which during which uncooked knowledge is encoded can have a dramatic impact on the price to archive unique digicam information (OCF). After all, the actual digicam, codec, settings, and lots of different components affect how that uncooked knowledge is encoded, and subsequently, how large it’s.
RED, SONY, BlackMagic, Apple, and Canon all use compressed uncooked, whereas Arri and Panasonic use uncompressed uncooked. And bear in mind, particular person decision settings in every of those cameras independently influences different components.
So to get a good suggestion of the variations, right here’s a chart to check the scale of 1 hour of the best high quality uncooked recording these codecs can muster (of their respective variations of 4K/UHD).
With all resolutions at 4K, uncompressed uncooked cameras prime 1 terabyte per hour, whereas compressed uncooked cameras hover round half a terabyte per hour.
However what about when every digicam is about to even increased resolutions? If we issue within the precise full decision for every of those methods, issues look just a little completely different.
Within the chart under, we will see that the delta between uncooked recording codecs of the preferred skilled cameras in the present day isn’t that vital—with the best high quality cameras and their greatest settings typically capturing roughly 1 terabyte per hour.
Clearly, this snapshot doesn’t characterize each digicam format in the marketplace, however in the case of the dialogue of price, the distinction between capturing ARRIRAW 4K, RED 8K, and SONY 6K is lower than 10 p.c. Between these cameras, the distinction in storage price is barely marginal.
How is it these cameras all handle to land so carefully on storage necessities, when they’re capturing uncooked so otherwise? Engineers have labored arduous to make their cameras aggressive. If their digicam required a degree of storage past what their goal clients may fairly carry to their workflow, they wouldn’t promote very many as a result of the prices related to it will be too excessive.
So let’s debunk the parable that knowledge from increased decision cameras should be vastly costlier than decrease decision cameras. Because the real-world knowledge exhibits, this isn’t inherently true.
The truth is, as a result of an LTO 8 tape prices roughly $150, the distinction in price between the three uncooked codecs within the instance quantities to lower than the price of the LTO tape itself. That’s an simply quantifiable price when designing a workflow, and shouldn’t be a stumbling block.
On the subject of capturing widespread top quality uncooked codecs, the market unfold is definitely a lot narrower than folks typically assume. As well as, compressed uncooked cameras supply choices that permit customers to extend delicate compression to shrink file sizes and additional scale back archive prices.
Nevertheless, the most important drawback with charts like these is that they affect folks to make choices which might be primarily based on just one issue. So be warned. Giving the uncooked knowledge price an excessive amount of weight in your choice can doubtlessly dictate a workflow that is likely to be lower than best for a given undertaking.
For instance, if you wish to use a most popular digicam, however see a chart like this, you would possibly assume that digicam’s required price (from the upper uncooked knowledge price) is just not viable to your undertaking. That’s why when high quality counts, it is likely to be a greater wager to not shoot uncooked.
Since 2015, the variations between uncooked and RGB have continued to develop into smaller and smaller. The truth is, in the case of non-HDR functions, I not imagine it’s important to at all times shoot uncooked with a purpose to expertise the identical visually-tangible and qualitative advantages that solely uncooked offered for thus a few years. It’s because RGB codecs like ProRes have added 12-bit encoding assist and far milder compression than previously.
For instance, ProRes XQ is a 4:4:4, 12-bit codec with a really environment friendly compression scheme. Everyone knows it appears to be like good, however is ProRes XQ a viable substitute for those who can’t justify the storage expense of capturing uncooked?
A helpful rule of thumb for me is as follows:
Capturing ProResXQ when mastering in same-as-source raster sizes is so just like the uncooked equal that the price benefit is extra vital than the qualitative commerce off.
With decision, dynamic vary, colour, and bit depth all visually equivalent, solely a slight change in compression turns into an element for many digicam configurations. As a result of ProRes XQ is barely a modest 4.5:1 compression, the distinction is just not solely negligible, there are circumstances the place the slight denoising and softening of delicate compression could be a bonus.
You may argue that this wasn’t at all times the case, however so far as current skilled know-how goes, a picture generated by in the present day’s prime CMOS sensors and captured in a digicam doesn’t essentially imply that full dynamic vary is barely obtainable to the uncooked recording.
In different phrases, digicam engineers do the whole lot they will to protect the identical linear knowledge fed into the uncooked stream as they do in a log-encoded RGB stream (or YCbCr stream) like ProRes.
I used to be personally obsessive about this when it got here to the Panavision DXL digicam, as a result of I’m an enormous driver of proxy workflow, and that requires the dynamic vary of ProRes to match the dynamic vary of the uncooked in SDR configurations.
After quite a few discussions, spreadsheets, and analyses over time, I can’t universally decree that capturing uncooked saves cash in lighting or supplies publish with extra latitude and freedom in publicity, visible results, or colour.
When a digicam encodes a debayered picture (with or with out compression), the log processing of that picture has the power to retain the supply bit depth. So even with out uncooked, you possibly can retain a lot of the element you want for inventive and technical changes in publish.
For instance, in Alexa, the sign processing to ARRIRAW is 12 bits per pixel. Equally, the sign processing to the Alexa ProRes is 12 bits per pixel (when encoding in XQ or 4444). As a result of the 12-bit linear supply is identical for each codecs, coupled with the truth that Arri delivers a log-encoded uncooked, the identical dynamic vary is maintained in LogC for each the uncooked and RGB ProRes (XQ).
The same precept applies to paint. Within the case of capturing the identical decision (e.g. 3.2K), the distinction between uncooked and ProRes (although extraordinarily refined) is within the distinction in compression—not within the dynamic vary or colour.
Due to this fact, there’s no demonstrably vital benefit in lighting time, colour correction time, or picture vary/flexibility for visible results. Whereas there are conditions the place a pc may discern a distinction throughout superior compositing or keying, it’s restricted to extra excessive circumstances.
Within the case of Arri, previous to the introduction of ProRes XQ and of three.2K ProRes recording, there was a extra vital distinction between ARRIRAW and ProRes. In the present day, that hole is nearly closed, because of the developments of wonderful engineering. This paves the way in which for capturing ProRes to develop into extra financially helpful, with out sacrificing high quality.
So why accomplish that many individuals insist on capturing uncooked if the distinction is pretty minimal? I think the reply is that they bear in mind when the delta between uncooked picture seize and RGB was much more vital, when RGB photographs like ProRes had larger compression ratios, decrease bit charges, and have been restricted to 1080/2K decision.
Mockingly, decision was a major issue as a result of when RGB streams have been restricted to 1080p, they have been virtually at all times scaled. In-camera scaling was notoriously poor high quality, particularly since many codecs didn’t scale with complete numbers, creating aliasing and artefacting in 1080p file streams. In-camera scaling additionally needed to be performed at excessive pace, one other tradeoff that put an extra dent in high quality.
Nevertheless, given the enhancements over the previous 4 years, in-camera RGB streams now are likely to measure as much as uncooked file rasters (as much as 4K) and could be captured at 1:1 pixel, which considerably reduces in-camera aliasing and scaling artiefacts.
Which means though the technological hole between uncooked and RGB has not been absolutely eradicated, it has continued to shrink—and it’s purpose why ProRes is turning into the popular methodology for the overwhelming majority to shoot with, pushed by the stability between high quality and price
So when is uncooked one of the best resolution?
For my part, it’s truly pretty easy: when you possibly can afford absolutely the highest high quality, why not? If archive prices and obtain instances aren’t vital driving components, you possibly can by no means go mistaken by capturing in uncooked.
Uncooked additionally contains different advantages reminiscent of higher dealing with of noise, edge element, and out-of-gamut colours, with the headroom for enchancment, as future debayering applied sciences are sometimes backwards appropriate.
For DI amenities prepared to undertake superior uncooked DI workflows, there are vital benefits to working with uncooked. One sensible benefit is that altering white stability and tint to normalize a desired white level will produce fewer colour artefacts than utilizing colour controls like slope, energy, offset or carry, gamma, or acquire to realize the identical white level.
However when price is a significant factor and uncooked isn’t within the finances, exploring RGB choices might help you employ the digicam you need and get the standard you want. I noticed this firsthand after I seen RED Monstro and Panavision DXL develop into widespread episodic cameras in 2019.
Although a lot of the episodic world solely required 4K or HD mastering, many DPs wished to shoot massive format to make the most of enhancements in depth of subject, subject of view, and low-light efficiency. Given the upper price of storing 8K uncooked, many creatives began capturing in ProRes mode, deliberately disabling 8K uncooked.
This gave DPs nearly equivalent dynamic vary, colour flexibility, and enormous format advantages as capturing uncooked, however the ProRes knowledge was between 50- and 75 p.c smaller than the uncooked knowledge using the identical picture space. Utilizing RGB on this means allowed productions to leverage the advantages of 8K uncooked massive format in an HD ProRes workflow, making it equivalent to the acquainted Alexa 2K workflows that many episodic productions choose.
Even for those who solely plan on mastering in HD, large-format sensors and lenses offer you distinctive optical traits that carry by means of to a low-resolution HD grasp.
So is uncooked a qualitative profit or an overhyped buzzword? From my expertise, the reply is sure to each.
The largest drawback as I see is if you don’t know when capturing uncooked improves or complicates your manufacturing workflow—and easy methods to assess its benefits or disadvantages.
It’s additionally essential to withstand the need to carry the decision argument into the uncooked dialogue as a result of, as I’ve demonstrated, they’re not mutually unique. If something, in lots of cameras, a 4K ProResXQ file can truly be bigger than a 4K uncooked file.
However the restrict to RGB begins to hit its threshold in the case of HDR mastering. The naked minimal for prime dynamic vary to be efficient is 12-bit information, so when HDR is the goal for mastering, with RGB information already working at their restrict, uncooked information with extra environment friendly compression and better knowledge charges and bit depths might have extra knowledge to work with that may be assigned to a bigger, extra malleable set of code values.
Conserving in thoughts that know-how is ever-evolving, on the heels of ProRes limits for HDR software and future-proofing, Apple launched ProResRAW, a brand new codec with ultra-high effectivity compression and optimization. Because the adoption of ProResRAW trickles all through the market over the following three years, it’s possible that the widespread utilization of in the present day’s RGB ProRes is reaching its peak.
The truth is, the thought of a brand new resolution-independent codec that opens up prospects for compressed uncooked is good. Producers of post-production instruments like the thought of codecs not being pushed independently by digicam corporations as a result of it’s more difficult to maintain up. ProRes is a very powerful skilled digicam codec within the historical past of digital cinema. ProResRAW is the right mix of a trusted codec platform coupled with the benefit of uncooked.
Maybe sooner or later we’ll have one resolution for each digicam to shoot and edit as an alternative of getting to debate which taste is sweet, quick, or low cost. However for now, we have to do not forget that each workflow is completely different, and which means we at all times must test our assumptions to reach at one of the best resolution.
