I'm trying to see if I can overcome the 1080p and 8-Bit limitations of recording with my Nikon DLSR by connecting the DSLR to my PC with HDMI cable and camlink capture card and then recording the video with OBS. My monitor is 4K so that won't be a limitation and I have an RTX 2060 super graphics card. Is it possible to produce 4k 10-bit video in OBS with the D5300? Also, would I be able to use a ProRes codec on my windows 11 PC? It seems like I should be able to record with ProRes.
Record 10-Bit 4K Video w D5300
- Thread starter Mark Am
- Start date
Tomasz Góral
Active Member
What?
D5300 send 1080i60 or 1080p30. Of course you can interpolation resolution to 4k.
Screen resolution doesn't matter to recording in OBS.
I can use small screen (720p) and camera with 2160p and record 4k.
D5300 send 1080i60 or 1080p30. Of course you can interpolation resolution to 4k.
Screen resolution doesn't matter to recording in OBS.
I can use small screen (720p) and camera with 2160p and record 4k.
Ok, thanks. So I would have to upscale to 4k outside of OBS then is what I think you are saying. Can I still record to a 10-bit file in OBS? The D5300 only records 8-bit files internally. I think an external recorder like the Ninja V would permit this, but if I can do the same in OBS there's no need to get the Ninja V.
Tomasz Góral
Active Member
but 10bit saving nothing change.
Only one plus, 8bit with higher bitrate, Nikon only use 50 Mb/s, OBS can higher.
Only one plus, 8bit with higher bitrate, Nikon only use 50 Mb/s, OBS can higher.
koala
Active Member
If you connect the camera with hdmi, then capture the hdmi signal, you need to check what resolution and quality the camera is able to send. If the hdmi output of the camera only supports 1080p with sdr colors, you will not be able to capture anything better through hdmi, no matter what the camera is able to create internally as image.
Thanks - yeah, the D5300 only puts out 1080p so I'm stuck with it unless I upscale in DR or with some other app. I'm hoping I can at least encode to a 10-bit file in OBS, ideally ProRes but I'm running the hdmi to a PC and not a Mac.
To answer my own question - it looks like I am not able to encode to a ProRes file. The encoder options I get with my Windows 11 PC do include Av1 and HEVC, but not ProRes. When I go to advanced settings it looks like I am able to record to a I010, P010, P216 and P416 10-bit or 16-bit files.
koala
Active Member
If you get a 1080p SDR signal from hdmi, it makes no sense to upscale this to any higher resolution, since upscaling doesn't add quality. It's just bloating the video. In fact it's reducing quality due to the application of the upscaling algorithm. And converting 8 bit video format to 10 bit doesn't make sense as well, because transforming color spaces also negatively impacts quality, no matter the destination format. It's the conversion process that's changing the video. You don't have the original video and the original colors any more. If it comes to 8 > 10 bit, it's not just adding 2 more bits to the number that can be saved, so there is more finer grained numbers, it's also about upscaling the brightness range, and this conversion is changing the video color and brightness, and after that the video is not the same. Even with converting to a format that's able to store more detail.
If you intend to upscale some video, save the original video 1:1 as it was created to retain the original quality. Then perform upscaling in a later postprocessing step by your video editor software. Not by OBS during capture.
If you intend to upscale some video, save the original video 1:1 as it was created to retain the original quality. Then perform upscaling in a later postprocessing step by your video editor software. Not by OBS during capture.
Thanks - my understanding is that recording to a 10-bit file/container might improve grading results in Davinci Resolve. It might be marginal improvement but we'll see.
Just wondering - how different is this than recording to an external recorder like the Ninja V, which on a Nikon DSLR like the D610 records to a 10-bit Pro-res file? There's a Chris Judd YT video in which he uses a Ninja recorder with a D610 to encode a ProRes file with seemingly some improvement. The D610 like many other pre-Z nikons records internally to an 8-bit BT.709 file.
At one time Atomos said the following about one of its recorders: The Ninja Blade always records in 10-bit, even from an 8-bit source. We add color registries for incorporating higher bit-depth graphics from CG, animation and special effects. This avoids banding and makes editing and grading, in fact any precision effect, more accurate.
I guess my question is - is that also what is happening in OBS when it records to a 10-bit file?
I guess my question is - is that also what is happening in OBS when it records to a 10-bit file?
Just an FYI - I'm a noob to OBS so this is all new to me. I will say this - I connected the D5300 to OBS with a camlink capture card and turned on the camera but did not hit the record button. I had set up the video and output settings in OBS to HVEC and one of the 10-bit settings. Then I put it in live view and without hitting record on the camera I just hit the record on OBS and started recording. When pulled into Resolve the file was an HVEC 10-bit file. So the HDMI clean feed to OBS will create an 10-bit file. I've guessing if I hit the record on the camera that would not make a difference.
koala
Active Member
No. What creates an 10-bit file from OBS is setting Advanced > Video > Color format to a 10-bit format. 8-bit sources are colorspace-mapped into 10-bit this way.
Don't get obsessed with 10-bit. If you're new with video recording and OBS, I propose you first get familiar with OBS and recording in general, and how to postprocess and produce edited video from that. Once you know how to create good video, look how you can improve this. 10-bit color depth is not about quality and not about banding. It's about the higher luminosity range. About that "bright" can really be as bright as a blinding flash on a computer monitor. If you don't have genuine 10-bit sources that actually creates this luminosity range, it makes no sense to record something in a 10-bit format.
According to Nikon the HDMI feed to external HDMI devices is a clean uncompressed movie. (https://www.nikonimgsupport.com/na/NSG_article?articleNo=000053545&lang=en_SG) I plan to compare what happens when I actually hit record video on the Nikon. But it seems simply recording from OBS without hitting record on the Nikon lets me avoid the 30-minute time limit that Nikon imposes on the D5300. Also, if I'm not actually recording any video from the Nikon it seems I'm not subject to the 8-bit limitation at all.
Thanks I really appreciate the advice. Yeah, I'm still trying to figure out what actually is happening if I'm not recording with the Nikon at all. I'm not creating any video file with the Nikon - I'm just sending a video feed from the camera to OBS which is doing the recording. I'm going to compare the colors, exposure, saturation I get when I record to the Nikon vs when I just record straight with OBS. I'm guessing they will be identical except for that I'm recording to different files and with different encoders.
Part of why I'm trying to run the D5300 video through OBS or an HDMI recorder is my difficulty in getting clips from the D5300 that are color accurate. The D5300 is a great camera for photography, but in my view those great Nikon colors are not so great when it comes to video, even when shooting with a neutral profile. I'm hoping with a 10-bit file, it will make it easier to tweak the colors in DR.
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I edited some of my earlier posts, so I'm not sure when or if they will show up. Here is an article about Nikon HDMI feeds - https://www.eoshd.com/news/prores-v...-nikon-d5200-vs-the-blackmagic-cinema-camera/ -
but it looks like skipping Nikon's encoding altogether may result in files that are easier to work with. Didn't realize I could record video with the Nikon, without actually recording video on the Nikon.
but it looks like skipping Nikon's encoding altogether may result in files that are easier to work with. Didn't realize I could record video with the Nikon, without actually recording video on the Nikon.
Tomasz Góral
Active Member
After 30 minutes nikon poweroff.
HDMI send only uncompressed signal yuv422, doesn’t matter how you save on computer.
Yes, one diffrent on hdmi got yuv422(16bit per pixel), if you record in nikon file got surface with yuv420 (12bit per pixel).
On hdmi signal will be more colors.
HDMI send only uncompressed signal yuv422, doesn’t matter how you save on computer.
Yes, one diffrent on hdmi got yuv422(16bit per pixel), if you record in nikon file got surface with yuv420 (12bit per pixel).
On hdmi signal will be more colors.
Thanks again. You are right - according to Nikon's online manual for Z cameras (https://onlinemanual.nikonimglib.co...al will be,recorders that support this option) the YCbCr value and bit depth for footage output to external HDMI devices is 4 : 2 : 2 8-bit when the video file is H.264. Still I would imagine what OBS does to the 8-bit file to get a 10-bit output is not much different than what Atomos does to get a 10-bit file from Nikon DSLRS's.
I'll answer my own question-in my case there isn't much difference if the Source settings are partial and the Advance settings are partial or if the Source settings are full and the Advance settings are full. At least in my case when recording to a Rec.709/ProRes file, problems creep in when the Source settings and the Advance settings are not the same. Setting the Source setting to partial and the Advance setting to full introduces a lot of contrast, while setting the Source setting to full and the Advance setting to partial results in the opposite-a clip that looks washed out. These comparisons are drawn against a clip of the same scene shot in BT.709/H.264 in camera. As I indicated in another thread, with just some slight tweaking to saturation both the limited/limited and full/full clips line up almost precisely with the BT709/H264 clip on a vectorscope in Davinci Resolve.