Hello, was wondering if anyone knows if there is a way to work with the H265 files from the I2 in FCPX? They come up all black with no image. Any help is appriciated
-Andre

(newest version of final cut installed)

you might find some useful info on the P4 Pro forumhttp://forum.dji.com/forum.php?m ... D386%26typeid%3D386

Apple Final Cut does not currently support H265 natively -> Click here to view Final Cut Pro X Specs, scroll down to Supported Formats & I/O

Additional Apple Support forums discuss options using a converter similar to BIGDZ reply -> Click here to view one of many Apple Support forum posts...

Looks like transcoding to ProRes is the current workflow for FCPx

jimhare Posted at 2016-12-31 18:38
Looks like transcoding to ProRes is the current workflow for FCPx

I must not know all the benefits of H265... but that seems to defeat the purpose of it? I thought the benefit was less data for the same quality of H264? Or is there more to it? Just seems like a waste of time and storage if I have the ability to capture H264 at the same bitrate.

Gybo102 Posted at 2016-12-31 20:17
I must not know all the benefits of H265... but that seems to defeat the purpose of it? I thought the benefit was less data for the same quality of H264? Or is there more to it? Just seems like a waste of time and storage if I have the ability to capture H264 at the same bitrate.

Half the data for the same quality of H264 also means TWICE the QUALITY at the same bit rate using H265.  

That's the advantage!   100Mb/s using H265 will look twice as good as 100Mb/s using H264.

Don't think of it as using less space, think of it as better using the space you have.

Then transcode to ProRes as it won't lose any quality but will be easy to edit and grade.

jimhare Posted at 2017-1-1 20:14
Half the data for the same quality of H264 also means TWICE the QUALITY at the same bit rate using H265.  

That's the advantage!   100Mb/s using H265 will look twice as good as 100Mb/s using H264.

Thank you for explaining it to me like that, Im all for it now

Gybo102 Posted at 2017-1-2 04:09
Thank you for explaining it to me like that, Im all for it now

My pleasure!

For those new to H265/HEVC, here's a good article summarizing the codec -> Click here to read the TECHSPOT guide to HEVC/H265 encoding....

Daroga Posted at 2017-1-5 03:49
For those new to H265/HEVC, here's a good article summarizing the codec -> Click here to read the TECHSPOT guide to HEVC/H265 encoding....

Thanks Daroga,

A very good and informatif article.

Patrick

I've been using this program for over a year and I have no complaints - it is just resource intensive:  http://www.wondershare.net/mac-video-converter-ultimate/?icn=nav

I've been using this program for over a year and I have no complaints - it is just resource intensive:  http://www.wondershare.net/mac-video-converter-ultimate/?icn=nav[/url]

H.265 is meant to reduce file sizes. Until more CPUs have inbuilt routines to decode it, stick to h.264. Wait till the end of this year. DJI is thinking ahead.

jimhare Posted at 2017-1-1 20:14
Half the data for the same quality of H264 also means TWICE the QUALITY at the same bit rate using H265.  

That's the advantage!   100Mb/s using H265 will look twice as good as 100Mb/s using H264.

Wonderful. But what is the recommended MAC-app to transcode H265 to ProRes? In trouble here because FCPX can't read them.

I've done some stress testing of H265 versus H264, applying extreme grades to see where each codec "broke". In DJI's current implementation, the quality of the two codecs appears to be identical, no differences. I'd recommend just shooting H264 at this point. The workflow on a mac for 265 involves transcoding with a 3rd party app, but, based on the tests I ran, there simply isn't a benefit to doing so.

stalker Posted at 2017-2-2 01:45
Wonderful. But what is the recommended MAC-app to transcode H265 to ProRes? In trouble here because FCPX can't read them.

Good question.  Hopefully the next version of FCPx will incorporate it but not really sure in the meantime.  

Barry Goyette Posted at 2017-2-2 07:12
I've done some stress testing of H265 versus H264, applying extreme grades to see where each codec "broke". In DJI's current implementation, the quality of the two codecs appears to be identical, no differences. I'd recommend just shooting H264 at this point. The workflow on a mac for 265 involves transcoding with a 3rd party app, but, based on the tests I ran, there simply isn't a benefit to doing so.

Hey Barry,

Good stuff, great to hear from someone who has pushed the content!   Question - was the data rate the same for both or was the H.265 file size smaller.    Everyone talks about H.265 looking the same but at a smaller file size and I can't figure out why they wouldn't both be 100Mb/s.   

Can you clarify?  Thanks!

jimhare Posted at 2017-2-2 16:55
Good question.  Hopefully the next version of FCPx will incorporate it but not really sure in the meantime.

Since you brought it up in your post: what app do you use for transcoding H265 into ProRes, and do you prefer ProRes422 or ProResHQ? Even if FCPX won't accept H265, at least Compressor should.

stalker Posted at 2017-2-3 01:46
Since you brought it up in your post: what app do you use for transcoding H265 into ProRes, and do you prefer ProRes422 or ProResHQ? Even if FCPX won't accept H265, at least Compressor should.

There are several converters out there. The one that I've used in by brorsoft. they have a trial you can download to check it out. Workflow is pretty straight forward  http://www.brorsoft.com

As I mentioned before. In the stress testing I did here, the h264 and h265 codecs by DJI appear to be identical. There is absolutely no benefit to shooting 265 at this point, you are not getting anything extra.

As far as a proRes codec to convert too, it doesn't really matter. You won't get any extra bit depth out of the conversion. In theory, if you were going into a broadcast chain, the HQ would survive multiple generations better, but given that the sources is 8bit 4:2;0, it's doubtful that there's much of a benefit to going with a higher bit codec.

Barry Goyette Posted at 2017-2-3 08:39
There are several converters out there. The one that I've used in by brorsoft. they have a trial you can download to check it out. Workflow is pretty straight forward  http://www.brorsoft.com

As I mentioned before. In the stress testing I did here, the h264 and h265 codecs by DJI appear to be identical. There is absolutely no benefit to shooting 265 at this point, you are not getting anything extra.

Thanks. In another thread I was advised to use iSkysoft and so far it's been OK. It looks a lot like Brorsoft. Many apps are very similar, so it seems. Also I have Pavtube, less OK but it still works. I couldn't really see the difference between ProRes422 and HQ and your comment explains why - thanks again

Barry Goyette Posted at 2017-2-3 08:39
There are several converters out there. The one that I've used in by brorsoft. they have a trial you can download to check it out. Workflow is pretty straight forward  http://www.brorsoft.com

As I mentioned before. In the stress testing I did here, the h264 and h265 codecs by DJI appear to be identical. There is absolutely no benefit to shooting 265 at this point, you are not getting anything extra.

"As I mentioned before. In the stress testing I did here, the h264 and h265 codecs by DJI appear to be identical."
Did you compare footage with extreme detail like moving water and grassy fields and was the data rate/file size of the H.264 and H.265 exactly the same?    I haven't done my own tests but I'm surprised to hear they look the same unless the source material didn't have obvious flaws.

jimhare Posted at 2017-2-3 22:33
"As I mentioned before. In the stress testing I did here, the h264 and h265 codecs by DJI appear to be identical."
Did you compare footage with extreme detail like moving water and grassy fields and was the data rate/file size of the H.264 and H.265 exactly the same?    I haven't done my own tests but I'm surprised to hear they look the same unless the source material didn't have obvious flaws.

My test was designed to expose bit depth, color resolution and compression artifacts. It did not look at temporal resolution, which may be an area where h265 excels,. A test for complicated movement of fine detail like this would be difficult to design, and quantify. How would you do it?

jimhare Posted at 2017-2-3 22:33
"As I mentioned before. In the stress testing I did here, the h264 and h265 codecs by DJI appear to be identical."
Did you compare footage with extreme detail like moving water and grassy fields and was the data rate/file size of the H.264 and H.265 exactly the same?    I haven't done my own tests but I'm surprised to hear they look the same unless the source material didn't have obvious flaws.

I just did a similar stress test involving a camera movement across some fine detail (leaves). As I said earlier, it's difficult to design such a test with any accuracy. I shot a relatively static scene with a slow gimbal tilt across the scene. I picked an identical spot in the camera movement and compared a frame from h264 and h265. Viewed at 400%, the shots were largely identical. The H265 seems to have slightly more noise reduction and perhaps more sharpening. Applying a strong unsharp mask failed to reveal any significant differences. Applying an an extreme contrast adjustment showed no differences in the files. Applying an extremely strong saturation adjustment did reveal some very slight aliasing in the H264 file, that was not visible in the h265. This may be related to the increased noise reduction in the H265, as it starts out slightly smoother than the H264.

I'll stand by my original comment that these codecs deliver largely identical results, and that there is no practical benefit to H265 at this point.


The only way I can check the Data Rate on the H265 is in BrorSoft. It shows the bit rate of both the h264 and h265 as 101Mbs. QT player shows the H264 data rate at 101.4Mbs.

Barry Goyette Posted at 2017-2-4 09:37
I just did a similar stress test involving a camera movement across some fine detail (leaves). As I said earlier, it's difficult to design such a test with any accuracy. I shot a relatively static scene with a slow gimbal tilt across the scene. I picked an identical spot in the camera movement and compared a frame from h264 and h265. Viewed at 400%, the shots were largely identical. The H265 seems to have slightly more noise reduction and perhaps more sharpening. Applying a strong unsharp mask failed to reveal any significant differences. Applying an an extreme contrast adjustment showed no differences in the files. Applying an extremely strong saturation adjustment did reveal some very slight aliasing in the H264 file, that was not visible in the h265. This may be related to the increased noise reduction in the H265, as it starts out slightly smoother than the H264.

I'll stand by my original comment that these codecs deliver largely identical results, and that there is no practical benefit to H265 at this point.

Thanks for the clarification Barry!   I'm sure the 100Mb/s data rate is a major improvement all around.  I got very frustrated with the Inspire and how easily the footage fell apart.  

jimhare Posted at 2017-2-5 15:13
Thanks for the clarification Barry!   I'm sure the 100Mb/s data rate is a major improvement all around.  I got very frustrated with the Inspire and how easily the footage fell apart.

I completely agree, the 100Mb/s data rate is night and day! I truly can not stand the footage off the I1 anymore, I am spoiled! I technically had my first day out testing the I2 and the X5s yesterday and I am completely in love with what it spits out. still waiting on my SSD to arrive. But if the footage off the SD is as good as it is, can only imagine what RAW / ProRES is going to be like.

Gybo102 Posted at 2017-2-5 18:36
I completely agree, the 100Mb/s data rate is night and day! I truly can not stand the footage off the I1 anymore, I am spoiled! I technically had my first day out testing the I2 and the X5s yesterday and I am completely in love with what it spits out. still waiting on my SSD to arrive. But if the footage off the SD is as good as it is, can only imagine what RAW / ProRES is going to be like.

https://youtu.be/Z2AKlL9SYgw

i saw this clip earlier today..nice job!

Gybo102 Posted at 2017-2-5 18:36
I completely agree, the 100Mb/s data rate is night and day! I truly can not stand the footage off the I1 anymore, I am spoiled! I technically had my first day out testing the I2 and the X5s yesterday and I am completely in love with what it spits out. still waiting on my SSD to arrive. But if the footage off the SD is as good as it is, can only imagine what RAW / ProRES is going to be like.

https://youtu.be/Z2AKlL9SYgw

So jealous, that looks fantastic!   Time to upgrade!  

FCPX doesn't support H265 right now

WYHSniper1007 Posted at 2017-2-8 12:39
FCPX doesn't support H265 right now

Yeah, best to transcode to ProRes.  I'm sure the next rev will be native.

Yes, there are too many video converters that support to handle HEVC to Prores for FCP. I also use Pavtube Video Converter Ultimate, nice work. http://www.pavtube.cn/blu-ray-video-converter-ultimate/

Has there been further findings regarding 265 vs 264? I am having a hard time understanding why 265 would have the same quality with 264 when both are 100mb/s? Where does all the extra data go into?

H.265 has better compression so you either get the same quality with a smaller file size <OR> you get higher quality (more digital information) with the same file size. This has been discussed ad nauseam for a while now. Bottom line is that you should take sample video of each codec and compare them yourself. If the finished video will be on YouTube then it will be highly compress by their system so splitting hairs on the original codec matters much less. If you can't tell the difference in quality then choose the codec that works the best on your system.

BTW, the next release of MacOS will have native H.265 support including in FCPX. Windows has had that support for several years.

Anothe method is to convert H.265 HEVC files to Final Cut Pro more supported Apple ProRes or DV video format with the help of iDealshare VideoGo