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Does 5DtoRGB Yield the Absolute Best Quality DSLR Footage?

09.3.10 @ 4:43PM Tags : 5dtorgb, dslr, fcp, gamma, premierepro, quicktime

Months ago here on NoFilmSchool I tried to call attention to a little-known DSLR plugin in development known as 5DtoRGB. 5DtoRGB is a software plugin from Rarevision similar to Canon E1, MPEG Streamclip, and Magic Bullet Grinder in that it is designed to transcode your DSLR footage into something that’s eminently more editable. 5DtoRGB claims to offer the highest quality output of all of these options, but despite my posting about the plugin repeatedly, I could do no actual tests with it since my lowly laptop was restricted to 32-bit processing (5DtoRGB requires a 64-bit processor). Now that I’ve successfully built a 64-bit hackintosh, however (the how-to article is coming soon!), I was looking forward to putting the plugin to work. But I was beat to the punch by NoFilmSchool regular Robin Schmidt, who has done some great tests of his own, and as a result the word is out; now even 24 DP Rodney Charters is tweeting about 5DtoRGB. So now that we have our hands on the plugin, what’s the verdict? More »

15

Color correcting DSLR footage on a Mac is a clustercuss

06.3.10 @ 12:46PM Tags : apple, colorcorrection, dslr, gamma, h264, mac, quicktime

In Zacuto‘s most recent DSLR/film comparison, one of the commenters noted that upconverting to ProRes gave much better results (than editing native h.264 footage) in post. While ProRes is definitely a better codec (in terms of color space and compression), the clip showed as a reference seemed to exhibit a perpetually-annoying gamma shift bug that applies to a lot of DSLR shooters — more specifically, anyone editing h.264 video on a Mac. When I shot some stuff on my 5D for Focus Features, I noticed that the clips looked desaturated and flat in Quicktime 7, and supersaturated and contrasty in Quicktime X (Quicktime X ships with Snow Leopard, and Quicktime 7 is an optional install). Jerome Stern at MotionLife corroborates this experience, decrying the lack of consistency when it comes to viewing and editing h.264 footage on a Mac: More »