@GH2_fan The answer is to invest in the proper memory card -- an even the very best hack (Quantum 9b) spans clips and is rock solid.

The card that pulls off everything is the Sandisk "Extreme Pro SDXC UHS-1" 64 gig, 95MB/s card. Only this one, other variants (like the 32 gig version) don't work. It relates to this card's file structure -- and it works flawlessly with the high bitrate patches. Both stability and spanning.

You can buy cheaper Sandisk cards (avoid generics like "aData" and "Transcend"), but that's where you run into problems with spanning. "Spanning" means you can hit record and the camera won't stop recording until the card fills up. Depending on your editor, the spanned files will import into your editor as one long clip. For example, this is flawless with Premiere Pro CS5.

Remember, memory cards are almost, almost like lenses -- invest well and they'll last you for many devices for several years to come. For example, I still have class 6 Sandisk Extreme Pro 30 MB/s cards from 2008 that have never once generated any error on any camera -- including HUNDREDS of hours of use on an old HMC-150. They don't work with Driftwood's Quantum 9b, obviously, but they did work for other lower bitrate hacks on the GH2. The point being -- don't go cheap on your media. Invest properly up front, and you'll get years of reliable use.

@driftwood It's a very wonderful idea! Very interesting! I am also looking forward to the release of your final Quantum AVC Intra patch. :-)

Thanks Driftwood! You're the spine of my Frankenstein GH2 setup.

@ jdn quantum v9c is not a stable one. its under development. still not finalized like 9b and 100. 129 mbit patch. not 100mbit. but sure in final version it will reach the expectation. lets see.

@sid yes quantum v9b is stable with 64g sandisk 95m/s. i feel qv9b is better than seaquake. but for post and bitrate seAquake wins. but qv9b and seAquake will eat memory card so fast. i love quantum 100!! compromised on every side. a suggestion @driftwood sir, will you develop something which can give better quality than quantum 100 in 100 mbit range?? i feel 100mbit and less is always better. memory card space and time limitation problem is concerned a lot. will quantum 100 will get a new stage of quantum 100 v2???

Interesting @Zaven13 (probably because Seaquake is more constant than others) but could you offer some more indepth summaries?

is quantum v9b much improved over seaquake?

all the talk is about quantum these days!

Nope. Nothing to do with that. This patch is purposefully left on 20/20/20.

Here, I am using AVC-Intra 50/100 spec bitrates, logical memory usage video buffer control, frame buffers from AVC-Intra spec , fb2, and frame limits all combined for stabilising AVC INTRA rate control. This is not the final version of this setting - purely experimental until the new ptools comes out.

I have been playing with special Intra matrices and a few other bitrates / coded picture sizes borrowed from AVC Intra. Of course, we can never replicate AVC-Intra 100 in its purety as that is a 10 bit 4:2:2 implemtation, the GH2 is only 4:2:0 8 bit. But we run it bloody close, and its looks good with tighter Q and the ripped AVC Intra 100 matrix to provide the closest colour implementation we can get to the Panasonic spec.

This means, all being good, that the final Quantum AVC Intra patch (when its released next week) will mix well with camcorders using the P2/AVC Intra specced implementation.

It won't be 100% but its close - my own findings have shown close resemblance to the AVC-Intra 100 footage but don't forget 10bit (1024 colour space) offers 4 times the colour space of 8 bit - 256 shades in the range (8 bit is responsible for the poor colour gradations seen in particularly in blue skies, etc...)

Later tonight a test patch of AVC-Intra 50 settings will be released in Quantum 9d (Quantum 50 v2). Remember, these are test patches for you. Don't treat them as final BUT give me feedback.

I am withholding my Q settings until the next ptools comes out sometime end of next week.

@driftwood

Initial impressions on Quantum 9c...

Clips spanned at 24h and 720SH on a Sandisk 64gig 95Mbps card. Three times at 24H and twice at 720. I stopped the recordings both times because I need to leave soon. Ran these tests using the "kit lens" 14-42mm, image stabilization on, sweeping motion all over the place with very detailed scenes.

Image quality looks very similar to the Quantum100 patch -- to me. It doesn't kick me in the face like 9b, but it certainly looks good enough for serious applications.

Windows 7 reports "total bitrate" of 78927 kbps on the 24H and 57709 kbps on the 720SH.

@ignatius -- can you edit your post to include what card you used?

Thanks man! No worries -- was just curious :-)

@driftwood

Did the most strenuous test I could this morning before work:

Panny 14mm, autofocus continuous left on, filming television full frame with the worst card I have (ADATA class 10 32 gig). Did two tests, one at ISO 160 one at 640 -- the main two iso use. Both failed to span. By way of reference, Aquamotions span fine on this card. Although weirdly the files show they get up over 4 gigs before failing which makes me wonder if there is something there that can be recovered.

Ran tests again with Sandisk 30mbps (extreme video cards). Spanned no problem at both ISOs.

Mac based so sorry, no stream parser.

Thanks again for the continual improvement of these. Nice to know all my 30 mbps sandisk cards won't be gathering dust!

(as an aside, can confirm the minor difference in record times with different isos -- 8 1/2 minutes for 4 gigs for iso160, compared to 6 1/2 for 4 gigs for iso640).

@shian Hey thanks for the fast & instructive response. Yea i know you can save 4 presets of white balance but i'm not sure that if you can also save the one where you set the colors vector + K number the last one on the right so i will have to check that. And I think i will also start to use the full stop Iso but i find this video where it shows that iso 640 is kinda good

@mozes Yeah, our composer, Christian, is pretty badass.

@Swiss_Boy @Alex I always seem to get in trouble for "shameless self-promotion" when I cross post - even when its relevant, so the details of the shoot are in the ColorGHear thread, where I posted them last week http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/1817/colorghear-toolkit-color-grading-system-for-ae#Item_348 But the smooth skin tones is a special application of ColorGHear's GHrain Killer. There are some before and after stills in the thread.

There was a really nice grain on the v2 footage, not as nice as 9b, and I only treated it in spots for effect.

And Swiss_Boy, I only encountered noise when trying to sample for WB, so I've gone back to dialing it in the way I've done from day one. I see no need to sample, or auto WB ever again. It's not very hard to figure out what color temp your lights are and adjust for it (and/or gel them to get them where you want), and then save it as a preset. I haven't done any kind of scientific test on the subject because it hasn't been a big enough problem for me, and one easily avoided.

Just like the ISO bug. I never use the 3rd stop ISOs only the full stop ones 200, 400, 800, 1600 and 3200, I do all my in between exposure adjustments with scrims, dimmers, gels, and moving lights closer or farther away if necessary.