Last week we told you that the new codec that will be introduced early in 2018 for the C200 will be XF-AVC YCbCr 4:2:0 8bit. I now have further information about the bitrates the 4:2:0 8bit codec will be recorded at in both HD and UHD.
HD
XF-AVC YCbCr 4:2:0 8bit @45Mbps
UHD
XF-AVC YCbCr 4:2:0 8bit @160Mbps
If we compare this to the current MP4 internal 4:2:0 8bit recording options (HD @35Mbps and UHD at 150Mbps) it is only a very marginal increase in bitrate.
As I mentioned in the last article, the 4:2:0 8-bit XF-AVC codec in its current form only exists as a Long-GOP proxy recording option on the C300 Mark II and C700, at 24/35 Mbps. This new information only confirms that this is clearly the reason why the XF-AVC codec won’t be available till early next year. The XF-AVC YCbCr 4:2:0 8bit @45Mbps and @160Mbps codec doesn’t currently exist in any other Canon camera.
I’m not sure why Canon would go to all this trouble of coming up with a new variant of the XF-AVC YCbCr 4:2:0 8bit codec when they could of just used the 8-bit 4:2:2 XF-AVC codec (305 Mbps in UHD and 50Mbps in HD) that is already in the XC10 and XC15. Even the same 4:2:2 50Mbps HD MPEG-2 codec that is found in the original C300 would of seemed like a better option.
There was a lot of debate in our previous article about the lack of a 10bit internal recording option in the C200. Al I can say is that numbers are just numbers, and in a lot of cases they don’t mean anything unless you are working for a company or client that specifies a particular standard for deliverables.
From my time shooting with the C200 I was impressed by just how good the internal MP4 recordings were. The images the camera is capable of producing far exceed its specifications on paper.
What do you think about this new codec? Are you disappointed that the bitrate is only marginally better than that of the current MP4 recordings? Let us know in the comments section below.
