A few months ago, Panasonic released the GH5, which is considered the first "consumer camera" to tout 10-Bit 4:2:2 video internally. This is usually something reserved for higher end dedicated cinema cameras, which are built specifically for filmmaking. But what does all of that stuff even mean and why is everyone sacrificing their first born to attain it?
In a short, the first term, 10-Bit, is referring to something called bit depth or color depth. Essentially this tells you how many color possibilities there are for any given pixel. The second term, 4:2:2, refers to something called chroma subsampling. Chroma subsuming is the process of only taking color data from certain pixels while skipping others. The numbers 4:2:2 tell us how often color data is recorded.
Check out the video above to learn how you can decipher theses hieroglyphics the next time you’re watching a camera review or reading over tech specs.