I mean, I guess it’s theoretically possible that more sensor noise is making it into the image instead of being smoothed out by all the compression, but “external recorders introduce noise” has to be one of the more technically implausible things I’ve heard a professional say aloud.
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You’re probably not going to win an argument with a DP about what camera to use but if you want to fight for this, what they’re describing sounds like what happens when using a lower bandwidth HDMI cable with a recorder. You can read about it here: https://atomos.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000067195-GH5-S-Hints-for-10bit-4K-Set-up
The relevant part is:
Another important item needed is a high quality HDMI cable that is capable of handling the bandwidth of a 10Bit 4K60p signal. These cables are generally labeled “2.0a” (though not every 2.0a cable is made well enough to work properly).
- 4Kp60 compatible HDMI Cables are available from Atomos at retail partners, under item numbers ATOM4K60C5 , and ATOM4K60C6 .
- If the HDMI cable that is being used is not good enough, you will experience signal dropouts and breaks in your recording. An Intermittent connection between the camera and recorder when using a 4K60p output, is almost always caused by using a cable that can not handle the full signal bandwidth.
I assume this job won’t be shooting 60P but maybe their past experience was.
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H.264 is not an intermediary format, end of story.
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Preach
It’s 400 megabits per second.
Nit-picker out!
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8 bits to the byte 
Hahaha. I hate that there are mega bits at all. Imagine saying “that car is worth three million pennies!”
I did more export tests:
24f of UHD 10 bit color noise.
422hq: 95 MB
422 regular: 43 MB
422LT: 39 MB
h264: 1.5 MB
1.5MB is huge
To be fair to the DP, they’re not just boasting about how big their bitrate is - the format in the camera is actually called “400Mb All-I”. As far as I’m aware, that actually is what the datarate is but I’ve never actually use any footage recorded that way.
I know I’m a bit late to the game, but just a little something to throw in here re: budget cameras and shoots…
After purchasing a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K last year, it’s become my go-to for small inserts / elements / etc, and has retired my 5d (remember when everyone was using these? 
) for anything moving picture related that isn’t a proper Alexa / RED / Big boy camera shoot (which is always most desirable).
You can record direct to a big 'ol inexpensive USB-C SSD for longform, Resolutions up to 4K DCI (higher with the BMPCC 6K), natively records ProRes 422HQ, and can record CinemaDNG RAW and Blackmagic RAW at 3:1 or 4:1, if you really want to key your brains out. No external recorder needed. Comes with a free copy of Resolve Studio for all your transcoding needs…
If you’re doing inserts/tabletop/talking head, or anything on a tripod where you can plug this bad boy in, you’re golden. Battery life is crap for longform, but does use Canon LP-E6 batteries (yay 5d battery stash), and can also receive 12VDC from a larger battery source if you can’t plug in to the wall.
To echo what’s been said in this thread, shoot with a grownup camera at all cost, but for well under 2K, it’s hard to beat this one… Plus home videos of the kids have improved dramatically
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I just scrolled up, and bitrate discussions aside, if they shoot 4:2:2 you are throwing away half your chroma info. How do you think that’s gonna go for the key pulls?
Used to be we’d archive jobs off to HDcam and Digbeta tapes. Those were all 422. I think you had to pay extra for SR’s to do 444 and no one ever seemed to have that.
I’m not saying it’s fine (“AND I TURNED OUT FINE!” being my new catchphrase it seems…) but it’s better than h264 compression. For one, if you shoot green screen, that’s quite close to the un-subsampled Y channel, which helps.
Given the excitement this thread has caused, we should all take a moment to count our blessings that we usually work on high quality footage. Eric’s mention of the 5D brought back some 2009-era nightmares for me.
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“The focus is on the talent’s eyes, so the bridge of his nose and his ears are out. Can you fix that in post?” I don’t miss the 5D at all!
I guess maybe I was spoiled in working at a place that had an SR deck? But yeah…I remember keying off digibeta being not great, and having to break every key into a bunch of different sub-keys to get everything looking nice. These days, a Master Keyer or two with some Pixel Spread and you’re generally set when keying well-lit Red or Alexa footage.
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You beat me to the punch. There’s an wealth of work that’s been done in 4:2:2 that looks amazing and arguably just as much done in 4:4:4 that looks like crap. This is true of keying as well as all other aspects of the work.
There seems to be a misconception that the quality of an image is measured by the size of the pipe…
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It’s not the size of the pipe, but the skill of the stylus! 
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Tee’d that up perfectly, didn’t I?
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Yeah, pretty much couldn’t help myself with that one…
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OK Just got the rushes from the shoot and I didn’t get my prime lens request or external recorder. I didn’t even get 3 records of each talking head. They are expecting to push in. I already told them that it won’t look good unless we go with a better camera. “they no listen”. The talent is the client so they decide what we shoot, right?
Anyway, the keys will be straight forward. I’m now told it’s for a streaming event so I guess that takes a little pressure off.
Off to edit I go… Might be a while before you see me again…
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Just to let you all know that the job is done and dusted. They liked it so much I’m making another one in 2 weeks.
Some keys were a struggle as the green channel from the gh5 was very noisy but with the help of splitting the channels and denoising I got a reasonably good result. I got a chance to learn some techniques that were suggested here like using a clean plate, splitting the channels and OMG the croc_IBK is amazing! (Thanks Joel for that suggestion)
They also through in a curve ball at the beginning of the job. They didn’t want to show the client the offline green screen rough comps so I had to do final comps in the first week. 19 hour days got me there.
Anyway on the next one I’m going to insist on a better camera or more time/money to do the same again.
Thanks everyone for the feedback.
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I’m glad you survived!
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