GoPro studio/cineform protune conversion, verses native

[Norman Black]

Right now I use protune and do my adjustments in my NLE, Vegas Pro. I use color curves, saturation boost and convolution kernel sharpening.

Am I losing anything by not converting the native MP4/AVC to Cineform in GoPro studio?

I ask since I have some some comments online about Protune being a full 10 bit 4:2:2 wrapped as 8 bit 4:2:0. I have also read about a special 3D LUT which you only get with Cineform.

Right now my MTB GoPro video gets passed through Mercalli 3 stand alone which cannot read Cineform. It is dependent on libavcodec/ffmpeg. If I am losing anything significant, I can purchase the plug-in version and do stabilization in Vegas and get anything special only protune in Cineform can provide.

[David Newman]

You are fine using that workflow.

[Norman Black]

Thanks. Good to know. I assumed nothing was really being lost, but there is an old saying about assumptions.

[Steven Kornreich]

David,
I am new to video capture, using a GoPro Hero 3+ Black Edition using it for aerial work.
I am a photographer by trade but getting into the latest buzz. Drones.
I have actually been flying RC Helicopters for 10 years so Drones come easy to me.

So I am still trying to figure out "Protune" and working with these files.
I have of course GoPro Studio and the fully Adobe Creative Suite 2014

Right now I have my GoPro set to Protune, 5500K, Flat Profile. Then I import the go pro files directly into Premiere. I have read numerous posts and watched videos on processing Protune files yet my color still sucks.

I realize I can load the Protune files into GoPro Studio and convert them there, yet this seems to be very slow.
I am on a 2010 MacPro 6 core CPU 48GB Ram, Raid 0 for storage and SSD for OS, Programs, etc.

Curious, if I changed from "Flat Profile" to GoPro Color, which I assume bakes in the "GoPro" look, when I import to Premiere do I still have the flexibility to work on tone using curves? or do I need to stick with the Flat Profile.

Any help or tips would be greatly appreciated. Oh yeah I have seen the latest Blog entries on the Cineform website which is helpful yet does not go into detail about workflow.

Thanks

Steven

[David Newman]

I biased, I run everything through GoPro Studio before using Creative Cloud, so I not super hands on with your workflow. I do all my selects and trimming in the import room of Studio, so overall I find the workflow to be faster than native H.264 editing (I find CineForm AVI/MOV editing is faster in Premiere.) If you projects require long untrimmed clips, that can take a while to convert on an older MacPro. Flat color to nice looking, shouldn't require much more than a contrast curve, but color correction in Premiere has always been unnatural for me (I use GoPro Studio Premium for all my color correction). GoPro's own Media team uses Resolve for color.

You can use "GoPro Color" rather than flat (must users do,) and for all but extreme color work, you will be fine. The HERO 3+ Black is has more dynamic range than our older cameras, so even the stock modes are more friendly for color correction than in the past.

[Steven Kornreich]

David,
Thank you for answering my questions.
Your workflow probably makes the most sense and I will try it out.

One of the reasons I was staying away from GoPro Color is I use a ND/CP filter on my 3+ and when I did a test with GoPro Color turned on the colors were oversaturated to my taste yet when I brought in a clip earlier today into GoPro Studio shot in Protune, Flat, and 5500k WB and just converted it, no editing in GP Studio, then loaded the 39GB file into Première the color looked good / natural. Like you mentioned its a bitch getting the color correct in Première bringing in native Protune files.

When just converting on GP Studio, what is the file format?

I have played around with the WB setting on the 3+ I tried camera raw, auto, and fixed 5500k, I mostly shot in sunny days , I was hoping camera raw would be just that, yet I noticed some shifts in color during a flight, so I figured to just lock it in a 5500k. Does this sounds correct?

Lastly in terms of GoPro Studio and hardware support, does it use GPU acceleration and does it run any faster a similar specter Windows machine? XEON 6 core 3.9 GHz CPU

Thanks
Steven

[David Newman]

RAW does not shift in color, never seen that, however it does undergo auto exposure like all other modes. I only use CAMRAW for may quadcopter video.

GP Studio use CineForm compression in MOV or AVIs -- this the CineForm DVInfo thread after all.

The faster the CPU/Memory the first the conversions and editing. GPU helps accelerate with H.264 decoding in Studio, but not much else.

[Steven Kornreich]

David,

I guess what I was seeing in camera raw was exposure shifts which Is normal.

So basically bring raw video into GoPro studio, convert, then do you do any adjustments in the edit module or do you go into Première?

I am also trying Studio Pro on my Windows 7 machine, XEON 6 core 3.6 GHz CPU with 32gb ram, SSD and raid 0 HD setup. I noticed that Studio Pro is a 32 bit app, is there any plans to go 64bit?

Lastly is there any advantage to upgrading to Studio Pro Premium for my purposes, improved performance, better quality, etc. Oh yeah, are you still using 1080p 60 on your quad?

Thanks again for all your help.

Steven