You mentioning Bentley's ownership by Volkswagen made me think: the Volkswagen app is the best one, hands-down, in the UK App Store, of all the car manufacturer apps. I think I've tried most of them. To that extent, they are the most Apple-friendly of the automobile industry. And yet, no CarPlay! Go figure.
Annoying flickering like that would probably be unacceptable in a traditional cinematic production.
I think it may depend on how you define "cinematic production." The production values on "Top Gear" are perhaps not as stringent as a Hollywood feature but are very good by episodic TV standards and the flicker is frequently seen on that show.
Nice to know. I spent hours looking for every car commercial I could find and not once did I see even a single LED flicker. Kia, Hyundai, Mazda and Jeep all flickerless. Of course BMW, Audi, Mercedes, and Jaguar all clean as well.
What it shows is the power of a $4.99 app, FilmiC.
I think you're giving credit to the tip of the iceberg for the rest of the iceberg. The app merely allows the user to access and exploit the full capabilities of the underlying hardware.
I replied to someone who was giving all the credit to a 64 bit operating system. I feel that my 32 bit iPhone 5 has hardware capable of producing equivalent video but without the FILMiC app you cannot shoot in 24 frames as far as I know and the crew specifically mentioned the app as really important to the production. In fact they mentioned almost everything else except the Apple hardware as being instrumental to the production, although that aspect of the production was probably taken for granted..
I'm unsure of the point you are trying to make. My point is that the Apple iPhone and MBA are good enough in their own right to allow professionals to complete the shoot. For example, if the iPhone lens were of an inferior quality, then any additional lenses added to the camera would not give professional quality results, no matter the skill of the photographer. Were the MBA too wimpy of a computer to run the programs needed to edit the captured video, then again the professional would be stymied in completing the project. The essential elements of technology were met by the iPhone and Apple's low-end MBA. THAT impressed me!
I'm impressed too, and I agree with you as well that if the iPhone and MBA were not outstanding devices, even with the rest of the pricey gear they would not be able to produce a result near this good. But I also agree with the article itself- results this good would also not be possible with just the iPhone/MBA without the pricey supporting gear. As much as people here seem to want to read hate into that statement there simply isn't any.
These results are stellar. You could show me this and another ad done on even more expensive traditional professional quality gear and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
What a ridiculous setup. With these accessories they've just as easily use a fourth thirds camera like the GX7 or a BMPCC. Then they would have had a much better codec and the ability to use decent lenses.
That being said, camera's in general are just accessories just a lens or stabilizer. You can now shoot 4K Raw for $6K, most likely pro lenses set you back for $20K
What a ridiculous setup. With these accessories they've just as easily use a fourth thirds camera like the GX7 or a BMPCC. Then they would have had a much better codec and the ability to use decent lenses.
That being said, camera's in general are just accessories just a lens or stabilizer. You can now shoot 4K Raw for $6K, most likely pro lenses set you back for $20K
I don't know who makes it, but there is also an Android phone available that shoots 4K.
That's a really nicely done film/ad, and the iPad integration is brilliant.
What is not surprising is that when you have a professional director, cinematographer and editor combined with thousands of dollars worth of support equipment and optics, you get professional results out of a phone camera. They could have gone even less expensive/higher quality and used an old $250 Canon 550D running Magic Lantern. Using an iPhone, while creating fine results, is a bit of a gimmick, but I imagine that will be lost on most.
That's a really nicely done film/ad, and the iPad integration is brilliant.
What is not surprising is that when you have a professional director, cinematographer and editor combined with thousands of dollars worth of support equipment and optics, you get professional results out of a phone camera. They could have gone even less expensive/higher quality and used an old $250 Canon 550D running Magic Lantern. Using an iPhone, while creating fine results, is a bit of a gimmick, but I imagine that will be lost on most.
It was the iPhone's camera which processed what came through the lens and the iPad's 64 bit processor that handled all the editing.
It was the iPhone's camera which processed what came through the lens and the iPad's 64 bit processor that handled all the editing.
Those are the important points.
You think the sensor and editing software are the biggest contributor to the ad's brilliant look and feel? The devices didn't hold them back, but much more went into this great piece than a camera sensor and a tablet processor.
I would say that the important point equipment-wise would be the $5k worth of support equipment. That did more for this ad than any other equipment.
The Note 3, Galaxy S5 and Sony Xperia Z2 all shoot 4k, whether it is any good is another story.
There are probably others among the Chinese OEM's, it's the latest number to throw on a specs sheet.
I had a 10 megapixel Nikon CoolPix pocket camera from several years back where the actual picture resolution was no where near 10MP, more like 2MP, after all the digital compression, geometry correction, and poor, tiny optics where done mangling the image.
I spent hours looking for every car commercial I could find and not once did I see even a single LED flicker. Kia, Hyundai, Mazda and Jeep all flickerless. Of course BMW, Audi, Mercedes, and Jaguar all clean as well.
I wonder if that's the result of ad producers having a vested interest in taking the time and effort to "fix" the flicker so it's not evident in the commercial, or a case of modulation frequency versus camera frame rate? Perhaps some tail lights show visible flicker at some frame rates while others don't?
Or maybe it's a conversion artifact. Top Gear shoots a lot of its segments on film, which is probably (but not certainly) running at 24 frames per second. That's then converted to 25 frames per second for British TV, then converted AGAIN to 30 fps for North American broadcast. Maybe somewhere in that mess the tail lights go squirrely!
I suspect it's probably being corrected for the ads.
I don't know who makes it, but there is also an Android phone available that shoots 4K.
Am I the only person in the industry who thinks that 4K will look WORSE than current HD?
First, jamming more pixels into a given image size raises both light requirement and noise levels. For a 4K sensor to look better than a 1080 sensor it has to be WAY bigger.
Second, the biggest issue affecting image quality is data compression. Increasing resolution will require even more compression to fit into existing pipelines, so any benefits of increased resolution will be swamped by increased compression artifacts.
The net result of "affordable" 4K will be poor low-light performance and noisier images with more banding and "jelly" effects. Yay.
I wonder if that's the result of ad producers having a vested interest in taking the time and effort to "fix" the flicker so it's not evident in the commercial, or a case of modulation frequency versus camera frame rate? Perhaps some tail lights show visible flicker at some frame rates while others don't?
Or maybe it's a conversion artifact. Top Gear shoots a lot of its segments on film, which is probably (but not certainly) running at 24 frames per second. That's then converted to 25 frames per second for British TV, then converted AGAIN to 30 fps for North American broadcast. Maybe somewhere in that mess the tail lights go squirrely!
I suspect it's probably being corrected for the ads.
This would have been easy to correct with a DSLR (even cheap old $250 models that shoot HD). If you go to a manual aperture and shutter setting, you can dial the shutter speed until the flicker is gone, then dial the aperture to get the correct exposure.
[CONTENTEMBED=/t/179739/behind-the-scenes-of-bentleys-iphone-filmed-ipad-air-edited-ad/60#post_2535895 layout=inline]<span style="line-height:1.4em;">I don't know who makes it, but there is also an Android phone available that shoots 4K.</span>
[/CONTENTEMBED]
Am I the only person in the industry who thinks that 4K will look WORSE than current HD?
First, jamming more pixels into a given image size raises both light requirement and noise levels. For a 4K sensor to look better than a 1080 sensor it has to be WAY bigger.
Second, the biggest issue affecting image quality is data compression. Increasing resolution will require even more compression to fit into existing pipelines, so any benefits of increased resolution will be swamped by increased compression artifacts.
The net result of "affordable" 4K will be poor low-light performance and noisier images with more banding and "jelly" effects. Yay.
You seem to know a thing or two about video. Can you tell me why it is that close-ups of running water always look blurry in HD? I presume it's because it can't cope with the motion; it's one area in which analogue is superior.
You seem to know a thing or two about video. Can you tell me why it is that close-ups of running water always look blurry in HD? I presume it's because it can't cope with the motion; it's one area in which analogue is superior.
A lot of it depends on your source. Compression is the major factor. If a quality OTA signal, like NOVA on PBS decided to show video of running water, it would be spectacular. Cable and dish signals are heavily compressed, but the compression varies based on what you're watching and when you're watching it. NBA playoff games are going to be compressed less than soap opera reruns, even if the source video is the same HD quality.
Generally, digital media has a huge compression problem with dark colors. If you watch the intro to House of Cards streaming on Netflix, the night scenes of DC are incredibly muddy in low contrast areas. There is a similar issue with light colors in many instances, for the same reasons. Within a given frame of highly compressed HD video, you will see the higher contrast areas exhibit more detail (less compression), but the gradients of a night sky or a large shadow are very heavily compressed and result in a lot of muddiness and banding.
Even with the low compression cable stuff though, it's still pretty bad with artifacts. If you pause a frame of an NBA game where the camera is panning, you'll see the crowd is made of of relatively large rectangles that have some tonal change to them. Really bad compression artifacts.
It is hard to tell but those iPads don't look like they would be easily removed. You know, like you carry an iPad all the time anyway and then pop it into a holder while in the car. They look more like a permanent installation. If so, why use an iPad at all? The configuration looks more like a MacBook instead. It doesn't seem to me that they are using the main advantage of an iPad, its portability.
It is an amusing idea to use iOS devices to film iOS devices but still just a publicity stunt. I would have thought Bentley was above such a gimmick. Cracks me up that a "Pro" lens can go for $37.95. Using an iPhone camera for professional filming only makes sense, if you need extreme portability, the space is really constrained or the device is expendable, as in an action scene. Otherwise, it makes more sense to use real professional rigs. Just my opinion. I know most on this forum think that iOS can do anything and is always the best tool for the job.
I thought Apple using iPhone to shoot their documentary was brilliant though.
The iPads are always connected and eminently usable without a keyboard. I don't know why there isn't an option to include cell and gps chips in laptops. I'm willing to bet the pads are easily removable. Is it a problem that equipment they used can be purchased for $37.95? Would you have preferred that everything be thousands or tens of thousands? I'm sure that would have been a bigger laugh/problem/issue for people like yourself. Now that this quality of production can be achieved with a multifunction device that over a twelfth of the planet owns, it's a gimmick. Why not criticize all other promotional films for using out of reach, insanely expensive equipment. You could try this at home with your android device, or do you not have the talent or ability to do anything except bitch about people who do? There are youtoob vids showing how to make almost free steadycams, or you could buy a real one for less than $200 (I tried one at a trade show on my old 4 and it was amazing, especially after treatment with a $2 app).
Just my "opinion", or possibly even fact.
Audio is actually my area of expertise, but since the sound I do is for TV I'm forced to listen to the vidiots blather on about picture. Since they aren't any smarter than I am, take whatever hearsay I spout with an appropriate serving of salt.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Benjamin Frost
Can you tell me why it is that close-ups of running water always look blurry in HD? I presume it's because it can't cope with the motion; it's one area in which analogue is superior.
You're right, except that it's not HD per se, it's probably the data compression being applied to the product in order to get it down to a file size and data rate suitable for delivering it to you. Probably. There are other potential causes.
TV production is trending towards cheaper and cheaper equipment, and one of the sacrifices made with less-expensive cameras is a compromised ability to track fast moving objects accurately.
It may also be an optical decision made at the time of the shoot. A consequence of a 500 channel universe is a need to fill those channels with<*ahem*> "affordable" content. This is a market of opportunity for budding filmmakers who may not have quite as much expertise (or equipment) as their Hollywood-type contemporaries. Choices of aperture and shutter may result in the effect you describe, particularly when just left on "auto."
You think the sensor and editing software are the biggest contributor to the ad's brilliant look and feel? The devices didn't hold them back, but much more went into this great piece than a camera sensor and a tablet processor.
I would say that the important point equipment-wise would be the $5k worth of support equipment. That did more for this ad than any other equipment.
Yet they didn't choose to use a different brand. Scamsung is probably trying to offer Bentley any number of devices as we speak, and will have to make their own Bentley lookalike after being repeatedly rebuffed, criticising Bentley owners as dumb sheep. Btw, $5000 worth of filming hardware is less than peanuts, barely making a petty cash voucher. It's also unlikely that people with taste or talent would choose devices that make their work more difficult or compromise results. Nokidow devices could probably have been used to capture, but their post production options would not have been "in house". Interestingly, Bentley didn't choose to feature Surface devices either. That must also make them stupid sheep or cultists as no other explanations are logical.
Try try buying an SLR or similar with suitable lens(es) and mounting equipment for less than $5k, and then make phone calls, spreadsheets, web surf, etc with it.
Yet they didn't choose to use a different brand. Scamsung is probably trying to offer Bentley any number of devices as we speak, and will have to make their own Bentley lookalike after being repeatedly rebuffed, criticising Bentley owners as dumb sheep. Btw, $5000 worth of filming hardware is less than peanuts, barely making a petty cash voucher. It's also unlikely that people with taste or talent would choose devices that make their work more difficult or compromise results. Nokidow devices could probably have been used to capture, but their post production options would not have been "in house". Interestingly, Bentley didn't choose to feature Surface devices either. That must also make them stupid sheep or cultists as no other explanations are logical.
Try try buying an SLR or similar with suitable lens(es) and mounting equipment for less than $5k, and then make phone calls, spreadsheets, web surf, etc with it.
What does any of this have to do with other phones, or your childish nicknames for them, or fantasies about anyone begging Bentley for anything? I'm suggesting that the iPhone didn't limit them too horribly, but it appears that you are suggesting that the iPhone is ideal and the best value for shooting a commercial. I think they made it work, and did a great job of it, but I doubt the crew is planning to switch to iPhone for their assignments on a permanent basis.
Comments
Great article from Apple Insider.
You mentioning Bentley's ownership by Volkswagen made me think: the Volkswagen app is the best one, hands-down, in the UK App Store, of all the car manufacturer apps. I think I've tried most of them. To that extent, they are the most Apple-friendly of the automobile industry. And yet, no CarPlay! Go figure.
I think it may depend on how you define "cinematic production." The production values on "Top Gear" are perhaps not as stringent as a Hollywood feature but are very good by episodic TV standards and the flicker is frequently seen on that show.
Nice to know. I spent hours looking for every car commercial I could find and not once did I see even a single LED flicker. Kia, Hyundai, Mazda and Jeep all flickerless. Of course BMW, Audi, Mercedes, and Jaguar all clean as well.
What it shows is the power of a $4.99 app, FilmiC.
I think you're giving credit to the tip of the iceberg for the rest of the iceberg. The app merely allows the user to access and exploit the full capabilities of the underlying hardware.
I replied to someone who was giving all the credit to a 64 bit operating system. I feel that my 32 bit iPhone 5 has hardware capable of producing equivalent video but without the FILMiC app you cannot shoot in 24 frames as far as I know and the crew specifically mentioned the app as really important to the production. In fact they mentioned almost everything else except the Apple hardware as being instrumental to the production, although that aspect of the production was probably taken for granted..
I'm unsure of the point you are trying to make. My point is that the Apple iPhone and MBA are good enough in their own right to allow professionals to complete the shoot. For example, if the iPhone lens were of an inferior quality, then any additional lenses added to the camera would not give professional quality results, no matter the skill of the photographer. Were the MBA too wimpy of a computer to run the programs needed to edit the captured video, then again the professional would be stymied in completing the project. The essential elements of technology were met by the iPhone and Apple's low-end MBA. THAT impressed me!
I'm impressed too, and I agree with you as well that if the iPhone and MBA were not outstanding devices, even with the rest of the pricey gear they would not be able to produce a result near this good. But I also agree with the article itself- results this good would also not be possible with just the iPhone/MBA without the pricey supporting gear. As much as people here seem to want to read hate into that statement there simply isn't any.
These results are stellar. You could show me this and another ad done on even more expensive traditional professional quality gear and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
That being said, camera's in general are just accessories just a lens or stabilizer. You can now shoot 4K Raw for $6K, most likely pro lenses set you back for $20K
I don't know who makes it, but there is also an Android phone available that shoots 4K.
I don't know who makes it, but there is also an Android phone available that shoots 4K.
The Note 3, Galaxy S5 and Sony Xperia Z2 all shoot 4k, whether it is any good is another story.
There are probably others among the Chinese OEM's, it's the latest number to throw on a specs sheet.
That's a really nicely done film/ad, and the iPad integration is brilliant.
What is not surprising is that when you have a professional director, cinematographer and editor combined with thousands of dollars worth of support equipment and optics, you get professional results out of a phone camera. They could have gone even less expensive/higher quality and used an old $250 Canon 550D running Magic Lantern. Using an iPhone, while creating fine results, is a bit of a gimmick, but I imagine that will be lost on most.
That's a really nicely done film/ad, and the iPad integration is brilliant.
What is not surprising is that when you have a professional director, cinematographer and editor combined with thousands of dollars worth of support equipment and optics, you get professional results out of a phone camera. They could have gone even less expensive/higher quality and used an old $250 Canon 550D running Magic Lantern. Using an iPhone, while creating fine results, is a bit of a gimmick, but I imagine that will be lost on most.
It was the iPhone's camera which processed what came through the lens and the iPad's 64 bit processor that handled all the editing.
Those are the important points.
It was the iPhone's camera which processed what came through the lens and the iPad's 64 bit processor that handled all the editing.
Those are the important points.
You think the sensor and editing software are the biggest contributor to the ad's brilliant look and feel? The devices didn't hold them back, but much more went into this great piece than a camera sensor and a tablet processor.
I would say that the important point equipment-wise would be the $5k worth of support equipment. That did more for this ad than any other equipment.
I had a 10 megapixel Nikon CoolPix pocket camera from several years back where the actual picture resolution was no where near 10MP, more like 2MP, after all the digital compression, geometry correction, and poor, tiny optics where done mangling the image.
I wonder if that's the result of ad producers having a vested interest in taking the time and effort to "fix" the flicker so it's not evident in the commercial, or a case of modulation frequency versus camera frame rate? Perhaps some tail lights show visible flicker at some frame rates while others don't?
Or maybe it's a conversion artifact. Top Gear shoots a lot of its segments on film, which is probably (but not certainly) running at 24 frames per second. That's then converted to 25 frames per second for British TV, then converted AGAIN to 30 fps for North American broadcast. Maybe somewhere in that mess the tail lights go squirrely!
I suspect it's probably being corrected for the ads.
Am I the only person in the industry who thinks that 4K will look WORSE than current HD?
First, jamming more pixels into a given image size raises both light requirement and noise levels. For a 4K sensor to look better than a 1080 sensor it has to be WAY bigger.
Second, the biggest issue affecting image quality is data compression. Increasing resolution will require even more compression to fit into existing pipelines, so any benefits of increased resolution will be swamped by increased compression artifacts.
The net result of "affordable" 4K will be poor low-light performance and noisier images with more banding and "jelly" effects. Yay.
I wonder if that's the result of ad producers having a vested interest in taking the time and effort to "fix" the flicker so it's not evident in the commercial, or a case of modulation frequency versus camera frame rate? Perhaps some tail lights show visible flicker at some frame rates while others don't?
Or maybe it's a conversion artifact. Top Gear shoots a lot of its segments on film, which is probably (but not certainly) running at 24 frames per second. That's then converted to 25 frames per second for British TV, then converted AGAIN to 30 fps for North American broadcast. Maybe somewhere in that mess the tail lights go squirrely!
I suspect it's probably being corrected for the ads.
This would have been easy to correct with a DSLR (even cheap old $250 models that shoot HD). If you go to a manual aperture and shutter setting, you can dial the shutter speed until the flicker is gone, then dial the aperture to get the correct exposure.
You seem to know a thing or two about video. Can you tell me why it is that close-ups of running water always look blurry in HD? I presume it's because it can't cope with the motion; it's one area in which analogue is superior.
You seem to know a thing or two about video. Can you tell me why it is that close-ups of running water always look blurry in HD? I presume it's because it can't cope with the motion; it's one area in which analogue is superior.
A lot of it depends on your source. Compression is the major factor. If a quality OTA signal, like NOVA on PBS decided to show video of running water, it would be spectacular. Cable and dish signals are heavily compressed, but the compression varies based on what you're watching and when you're watching it. NBA playoff games are going to be compressed less than soap opera reruns, even if the source video is the same HD quality.
Generally, digital media has a huge compression problem with dark colors. If you watch the intro to House of Cards streaming on Netflix, the night scenes of DC are incredibly muddy in low contrast areas. There is a similar issue with light colors in many instances, for the same reasons. Within a given frame of highly compressed HD video, you will see the higher contrast areas exhibit more detail (less compression), but the gradients of a night sky or a large shadow are very heavily compressed and result in a lot of muddiness and banding.
Even with the low compression cable stuff though, it's still pretty bad with artifacts. If you pause a frame of an NBA game where the camera is panning, you'll see the crowd is made of of relatively large rectangles that have some tonal change to them. Really bad compression artifacts.
The iPads are always connected and eminently usable without a keyboard. I don't know why there isn't an option to include cell and gps chips in laptops. I'm willing to bet the pads are easily removable. Is it a problem that equipment they used can be purchased for $37.95? Would you have preferred that everything be thousands or tens of thousands? I'm sure that would have been a bigger laugh/problem/issue for people like yourself. Now that this quality of production can be achieved with a multifunction device that over a twelfth of the planet owns, it's a gimmick. Why not criticize all other promotional films for using out of reach, insanely expensive equipment. You could try this at home with your android device, or do you not have the talent or ability to do anything except bitch about people who do? There are youtoob vids showing how to make almost free steadycams, or you could buy a real one for less than $200 (I tried one at a trade show on my old 4 and it was amazing, especially after treatment with a $2 app).
Just my "opinion", or possibly even fact.
Ha! Fooled 'em again!
Audio is actually my area of expertise, but since the sound I do is for TV I'm forced to listen to the vidiots blather on about picture. Since they aren't any smarter than I am, take whatever hearsay I spout with an appropriate serving of salt.
You're right, except that it's not HD per se, it's probably the data compression being applied to the product in order to get it down to a file size and data rate suitable for delivering it to you. Probably. There are other potential causes.
TV production is trending towards cheaper and cheaper equipment, and one of the sacrifices made with less-expensive cameras is a compromised ability to track fast moving objects accurately.
It may also be an optical decision made at the time of the shoot. A consequence of a 500 channel universe is a need to fill those channels with<*ahem*> "affordable" content. This is a market of opportunity for budding filmmakers who may not have quite as much expertise (or equipment) as their Hollywood-type contemporaries. Choices of aperture and shutter may result in the effect you describe, particularly when just left on "auto."
Yet they didn't choose to use a different brand. Scamsung is probably trying to offer Bentley any number of devices as we speak, and will have to make their own Bentley lookalike after being repeatedly rebuffed, criticising Bentley owners as dumb sheep. Btw, $5000 worth of filming hardware is less than peanuts, barely making a petty cash voucher. It's also unlikely that people with taste or talent would choose devices that make their work more difficult or compromise results. Nokidow devices could probably have been used to capture, but their post production options would not have been "in house". Interestingly, Bentley didn't choose to feature Surface devices either. That must also make them stupid sheep or cultists as no other explanations are logical.
Try try buying an SLR or similar with suitable lens(es) and mounting equipment for less than $5k, and then make phone calls, spreadsheets, web surf, etc with it.
Yet they didn't choose to use a different brand. Scamsung is probably trying to offer Bentley any number of devices as we speak, and will have to make their own Bentley lookalike after being repeatedly rebuffed, criticising Bentley owners as dumb sheep. Btw, $5000 worth of filming hardware is less than peanuts, barely making a petty cash voucher. It's also unlikely that people with taste or talent would choose devices that make their work more difficult or compromise results. Nokidow devices could probably have been used to capture, but their post production options would not have been "in house". Interestingly, Bentley didn't choose to feature Surface devices either. That must also make them stupid sheep or cultists as no other explanations are logical.
Try try buying an SLR or similar with suitable lens(es) and mounting equipment for less than $5k, and then make phone calls, spreadsheets, web surf, etc with it.
What does any of this have to do with other phones, or your childish nicknames for them, or fantasies about anyone begging Bentley for anything? I'm suggesting that the iPhone didn't limit them too horribly, but it appears that you are suggesting that the iPhone is ideal and the best value for shooting a commercial. I think they made it work, and did a great job of it, but I doubt the crew is planning to switch to iPhone for their assignments on a permanent basis.