ProRes 422 HQ Noise
 

So I'm setting up for a shoot and I'll be recording S-Log to an external recorder using the ProRes HQ codec (422) and exposing to a grey card at 38%. I'm testing in a variety of light conditions and am finding an awful lot of noise as compared to recording to the SxS cards. I'm actually kind of surprised by how great the difference can be. I will be doing a full grade on the footage, but am definitely thinking of recording to both mediums now. What are others thoughts on this?

Re: ProRes 422 HQ Noise
 

Which external recorder?

Re: ProRes 422 HQ Noise
 

I'd almost guarantee whatever your editing or viewing your footage in does not or isn't setup to handle Super Whites correctly.

Re: ProRes 422 HQ Noise
 

I'm using the SideKick HD

David, I'm actually seeing noise in the blacks, but I will look into this. I'm editing on a calibrated fcp system. Anything specific you think I should look at?

Re: ProRes 422 HQ Noise
 

Super Whites somehow get concatenated strangely with Quicktimes. Apple have always done bizarre things with gamma. No idea about FCP sorry, I use a PC.

I'm looking at night shoot footage right now shot with my F3 to a Samurai in ProResHQ. Using Edius at the moment, files not marked Super White have noisy washed out blacks, those marked correctly are clean as a whistle. Spotless in fact, amazing. 0DB and I can pick out stars.

Re: ProRes 422 HQ Noise
 

Interesting. My system is set up for a gamma of 2.2 and a white point of D65.

Anything file-wise I should be looking at?

EDIT: I found the setting for superwhite. That actually does seem to help a bit!

Re: ProRes 422 HQ Noise
 

I don't think it's anything to do with monitor calibration, it's how Quicktime interprets gamma and displays it.

Unless the Sidekick is faulty, or the F3 setup poorly, you should be getting very clean blacks.

There must be some settings in FCP to enable proper Super Whites? Can't help you there sorry.

Re: ProRes 422 HQ Noise
 

Yep, I found it. If anyone else searches on this it's under sequence settings.

Re: ProRes 422 HQ Noise
 

Also the high compression ratio of the 35Mb/s XDCAM codec does have a noise reducing effect. I do believe that there is a little bit of noise introduced by the ProRes codec. That combined with the noise reduction in the XDCAM codec can mean there is quite a big difference between the two.