The Sony a7R II and a7S II gives you three choices of internal codecs at 1080p (We’ll look at 4K and external recording in another lesson). Two of them can record at lower bit rates, so are they good enough?
This lesson will show you how to separate the men from the boys (this lesson was shot on the a7R II, but everything applies to the a7S II as well):
Takeaways
Here’s an easy chart that will help you take your decision (click to enlarge):
As you can see, AVCHD has the following disadvantages:
- 2 GB file size limit
- Stronger compression, so it’s not as good for chroma keying or heavy color grading
- No 120/100 fps option
MP4 has the following disadvantages:
- Very poor compression rate, only intended for direct to Internet uploads and no grading
- 20 min recording limit
- No 100/120 fps option
On the other hand, XAVC S is the best codec to use if image quality is your primary goal. The only negative it has is it’s 50 Mbps, or double the file size. In my opinion, it’s totally worth it.
Note: All codecs are 8-bit 4:2:0, and the underlying family is H.264
