Gopro 3 Black Protune Post Processing?

jcmonty

jcmonty

Member
Hey Guys,

I have been flying my GP3 black a lot recently - mostly in 1080 M 60fps Protune ON. Today I switched it up and turned protune off. Wow, I know that protune ON needs post to look good, and I have been doing that. But straight out of the camera the protune off looks way better than I have been making the Protune ON footage look after post.

Granted, I am a novice at editing, grading, etc, but I am trying to learn. Do you guys have any tips on how to make the protune footage look better than the non-protune footage? I would think with the adding bit-rate there is more to play with.

Generally, I convert to apple pro res and edit in FCP 7. I have avoided Cineform since for me it's slow and crashes a lot.

Thanks,
Jonathan
 


kloner

kloner

Aerial DP
You gotta run em through cineform, I can't see plugs vid but most likely like that. Apply protune and it comes to life
 

kloner

kloner

Aerial DP
this is 2k protune


almost overdone

this is recorded not protune 1080p med 60
 
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Chadfish

Chadfish

Member
If you don't have any grading tools such as Magic Bullet looks or something like that with lits of tools, the Cineform Studio will be easy for quickly punching up your ProTune footage. I personally use Magic Bullet looks to remove the Fisheye, then process the footage with color correctors, black crush tool, de-flare, gamma curves etc. I've made some presets that I can now just drop on and tweak to taste with minimal effort. Then last in line I put a sharpen filter on since Protune removes all in-camera processing. You get better results processing the footage with good tools, but you get decent results with the Cineform tools if you don't have tools of your own. I too am still in FCP7. I also use Motion 4 to stabilize my footage with great results, though you shouldn't try to just stabilize a whole flight of course.
 

R

Rrock

New Member
Hi, I've tried several plugins for AE including Magic Bullet but the problem is that I can't really get that sharpeness on a protuned video as unprotuned video is. It's really more easy to work with colors with Protune but I can't get rid of the blur it has. Any suggestions?
 

Chadfish

Chadfish

Member
Use a sharpening filter in whatever NLE you're working in. Protune turns off the internal sharpening of the camera expressly for the purpose of being able to sharpen to the exact amount you want on post. I do this with the footage:
1. Capture, then transcode into either XDCAM HD, or ProRex(LT) to edit with.
2. De-Fisheye filter and stabilization in Apple Motion, then export a "Smoothed" file to edit and color grade.
3. Magic Bullet looks & sharpening after I've edited.

It looks sharp enough to me after I get done with it.

Example:
 
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Chadfish

Chadfish

Member
I forgit to mention that if you are not someone who edits video much, you may want to try the free Cineform Studio app from GoPro. There you can apply a "Protune" filter to take your raw protune footage, and bump it up with color saturation and sharpening. You may ask, "Then why not just shoot in normal mode?" The reason is that in Protune you get a higher bitrate, which makes for a more solid final image with less moire, aliasing, color banding, blown out highs, crushed lows etc. But of course, if you don't know what all that is, and you absolutely don't like editing your footage, just use the factory defaults and enjoy your camera. Protune is, well more "pro" and requires more work, but has much better results.

Cheers!
 

R

Rrock

New Member
Great video! The problem is that I'm the one who at least wants to get THE BEST quality of video possible. And I'm ready to work hard for that. But I still can't make a protuned video look as sharp as unprotuned one. Your video looks great just because your colors look great but you seem to not have tested the situation: to take a video with protune, then without it, and compare them in details. And I'm pretty sure that unprotuned video would look worse in color but better in sharpeness of leaves and grass. Let me give you too screenshots - what do you think - is it possible to make the second one from the first one (the first was shot with protune ON, both are images from a 1080p unedited video with medium angle)? https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxueR7gdc_IsUU9mNWphRzM1NFU/edit?usp=sharing, https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxueR7gdc_IsN0lxVHdNajJ1NWs/edit?usp=sharing . I suggest you to pay attention to the difference on leaves and the text on the board of the shop (Russian text) - even if you try to color correct and sharpen the first photo - there is difference!

P.S. 1) As I've read from articles, cineform just makes color correction, le'ts make some sharpness correction and no noise removing (the last is not a problem to do in other instruments). And I really still can't achieve the result I want using the protune Preset and using Sharpness slider.
2) I have a problem with CineForm. it just doesn't export video when I hit the export to mp4 button - I'l try to fix it. But I can zoom the video on the preview and that's how I see the result. But what can I also see is that there is much information loss in the avi-file that was created to transcoding though I surely put best parameters (high quality, source frame rate, source dimensions etc).
3) So that's why I just open my video in Adobe After Effects and edit it there without using CineForm.

P.P.S. I can't fix my problem - CineForm does not export video! And there is no solution on go Pro Forum (http://goprouser.freeforums.org/gopro-cineform-studio-will-not-output-mp4-t2853.html). Once again: I use protune preset + slide sharpeness to maximum. When watching my video in preview it looks sharper and there is more contrast (after applyting protune preset and sharpness adjustement). But there is more noise by comparison with unprotuned (but ok - we have plenty tools to remove noise in After Effetcs). Nevertheles the sharpen made is still not enough! And how do I see it? I use "framing" options to zoom. Then compare with an unprotuned video and I can see that (besides the noise) the protuned video is still not sharp enough! The UNPROTUNED video has really MORE DETAILS, for example you can see that on unprotuned video you can see the first letter M (just like in Russian) and it's much more worse on protuned video with the corresponding preset and sharpeness. I just can't believe that Go Pro really transforms the first images into the seconds! I guess there is some informaton loss in the protune (I hope it just seems to me)! I would only believe that there is no bug in protune if GoPro's algorythms are very complicated and use several frames (past and future ones) to make the current one...Or I just don't understand how can I restore the details and remove protune blur.
 
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Chadfish

Chadfish

Member
Hi Rrock,

This thread is really about jello, which is the same in or out of Protune.

That being said, Cineform Studio is just a consumer grade app when it comes to grading footage. I edit in Fnal Cut Pro7, and I use Magic Bullet Looks to grade my footage. After MBL, I put a simple Sharpening plug-in later in the chain, that will sharpen way more than you want, to the point it looks bad. So I just use the amount I need. But earlier in the effects chain in Magic bullet looks I'm using contrast, gain, luma, crushing the blacks, de-flare, saturation, all to coax the best image out of what is basically a "raw" image. Most pro cameras can be set to record a "flat" image like Protune gives you, which is usually milky looking, washed out colors, and soft. So GoPro's version is nothing special. The only real hassle is dealing with noise in low light situations. I don't know what Gopro does to kill the noise in the camera, but it's much harder it deal with in post. It's just a limitation of the camera's sensor. Protune should not be used in low light situations IMO because you can't get rid of that noise easily, or at all. I use "Neat Video" to remove noise , but it's so processor intensive, it's just not practical for everyday GoPro use. You're suppose to use that when you made a mistake and accidentally got a noisy shot, not when you expected to get all noisy footage. I did a test last year with my Hero2 showing a side by side with and without Protune, then adding some grading to compare. In one shot I did add sharpening (too much I think) and it's noted in text. I've since gotten better at grading Protune footage, but my point is that you can get Protune footage sharp. I think the Cineform Studio sharpening is just more conservative to keep noobs from ruining their footage with too much sharpening. You need to get into a Professional NLE and good grading tools to deal with Protune shots effectively. It's a skill, not a preset you can just apply. With the right tools and practice you can get great looking footage. Just know the camera's limitations. Protune + low light = noise.

Here's my Hero2 test, part 4/4. The image ain't ad nice as a hero3 of course.

EDIT: Actually whenever there is "Neat Video" used there is sharpening too. I forgot that Neat Video has great sharpening tools.
 
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R

Rrock

New Member
Thank you for telling which instruments you used. I should try it too!
I have a good idea (is still assumption - I should check it later)! When you have 1080p medium GoPro firstly gets image from sensor which is a little more higher resolution, then the image is processed (noiser reduction, sharpeness etc) and then it's compressed to 1080p. With protune it's compressed and just after that you post-process it! In that way - you'll never get the same results! I should check it on 4k video!
 


R

Rrock

New Member
So I had some time for tests. And really - I can see less difference (I mean sharpeness exactly) in pictures protuned and unprotuned shot at 4k wide by comparison with 1080p medium (a mean a pair in 4k compared to a pair in 1080p of course). I guess this is because of compression that takes place when a medium image from sensor is converted to 1080p (I'm still not sure, but now the reason is not important for me because I know the result for sure). I also tested Neat video to sharpen the image and it really works cool - I managed to achieve the same amount of detalisation for a protuned video as it is on un protuned! By the way I suggest you to use sharpen just for smallest details - "high" slider, not "med" or "low" cause you can achieve the last by any other plugins. I personally used Nead video filter two times one after another (250% + 40%) in Sony Vegas having turned off the "conservative" check box, and of course I suggest you to use maximum amount of frames - readius option of temporal filter in Neat video. I say that because I can see difference in sharpeness on your protune test video, can't you? I can see more details on your unprotuned video, especially grass - and it looks awesome unprotuned! So I personally decided to use Protune only in extreme situations where highlights are strong. For example, when there is sun and clouds and I wanna see clouds near the sun. In all other situations I will use unprotuned video because...because there is just no reason to use protune in such situations - yet you can save MUCH time in post processing. I would spend more time for processing if protune could give better results - but I can't see it for ordinary shots like yours.
As for 4k video - you're right it's low-fps (15 fps for 4k without cin). But I wanted to take some time-lapses of my city and I got to know that GoPro takes videos better than photos (it's strange but it does) - so 4k video is the best solution for that purpose (for GoPro Hero3 Black Edition camera). On photos there is much more noise reduction but it cuts much details that's why 4k wide video is much more better than 12MP wide photos - that's my experience. Thank you for you help! I hope my experience will help somebody.
 



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