Personal View site logo
Make sure to join PV on Telegram or Facebook! Perfect to keep up with community on your smartphone.
Please, support PV!
It allows to keep PV going, with more focus towards AI, but keeping be one of the few truly independent places.
GH2 Cake v2.3: reliability and spanning in 720p, HBR, 24p, and VMM at 2-2.5x stock bit rates
  • 609 Replies sorted by
  • gamebgameb

    @balazer I have been working with cake now for a long time and didn't have any problems... Suddenly, since a month, I have these two errors: Playback doesn't work in camera anymore, Camera crashed several times. Same sd cards etc Should I update the hack?

  • AlkhafajiAlkhafaji

    Thank you so much blazer, it is all working fine now, just very new to this. The hack was already recognised, it was a user error :) . Cheers

  • balazerbalazer

    Some people have reported that Cake works fine on the GF3. I haven't tried it myself. Just follow the FAQ: http://www.personal-view.com/faqs/ptool/ptool-faq

  • AlkhafajiAlkhafaji

    Hi all, great work here, just need your help, i have downloaded PTool and firmware for my GF3 and PTool doesnt seam to recognise the cake 2.3 for this firmware, is it due to this being made specificly for the GH2? What do i need to change to make it compatible with the GF3? Sorry for the simple question but i need to start somewhere, been reading as much as i can for 3 days :)

  • Timx98Timx98

    PSA shot with Cake v2.3, HBR mode

    Very satisfied with the hack, as I needed one for broacast that was reliable. Thank you balazer

    20mm 1.7, Tiffen White Water ND 1.8

    HBR mode, Smooth -2 -2 -2 -2

    Glidecam HD-1000

    GoPro Hero 2

    Color Graded in After Effects with Colorghear Toolkit (colorghear.com) and Neat Video.

    Color Corrected in Color Finesse for AE

    On a side note, be cautious using the gh2 in dusty climate. On my 6th month of shooting in Afghanistan my camera starting giving me the error message "please turn camera off and then on again" about 20% of the time I use it. I have to continuously play with it for it to fix.

  • balazerbalazer

    kletkeman and Azo, thanks for the feedback. Glad it's working for you.

  • AzoAzo

    @balazer

    I got a chance to test out your patch. The HBR30p mode is very very nice :) and to top it off very reliable with a modest bit rate to boot. Thank you so much for your help and this awesome patch.

    Best Regards

  • kazuokazuo

    @mee

    The nightclub shots look washed out, especially the whites. Was this created in post, or shots were severely overexposed?

  • kletkemankletkeman

    Thought I'd chip in my own praise for Cake 2.3. I have been able to fill a 64GB card at 65mbps with no problems on the GH2 and the GF3 (at 49mbps.) Very impressive on both these cams. The GX1 does not like it as much, unfortunately. I have also been able to fill a 16GB class 6 Patriot at 65mbps with no problems. This patch is unbelievably stable. And the video quality is pretty impressive too. I linked this video into another topic, but I will repeat it here:

  • balazerbalazer

    1080i uses the same encoder settings as HBR mode, so in theory they work similarly. But I've done no testing specifically for 1080i. Use at your own risk.

  • eleazargrayeleazargray

    WIll the manual movie mode(AVCHD1080I60) work well with this?

  • meemee

    The club shots were with Driftwood's Moon, but the city shots from the monorail were with Cake 2.3. I darkened it a bit and color graded to match the club footage, but I was blown away with how nice this patch looks for night footage like this. I will try to post one of the original files soon.

  • balazerbalazer

    I don't know. I try to do as little grading as possible. Please try and let us know how it works.

  • AndySAndyS

    @balazer - Do you know many people that have done quite heavy color grading of 24p shot with Cake? Does it seem to handle it well? I will probably use Magic Bullet Looks.

    I look forward to your reply.

    -Andy

  • balazerbalazer

    Thanks for the feedback and praise.

    The encoder settings span equally well with any type of SanDisk Extreme or Extreme Pro card. Peak bit rates in 24p mode can be 80+ Mbps, but the max average bit rate is around 66 Mbps.

  • tetakpataktetakpatak

    @balazer
    Although you don't recommend those cards, I find it important to mention here that using your Cake v2.3 with Sandisk SDXC 95MB/s 64GB card gives as result the most reliable spanning imaginable.

    From my own experience I can say this patch is fantastic and it is pity it remains somehow underrated among many good patches for the GH2. But there are no so many patches with such high IQ in combination with so reliable spanning in 1080p24.

    The bitrates (many people seem to find it so important) with Cake 2.3 are also very high, in high detailed scenes are around 80-90Mbps average, so that my old PC system can't handle it. It is far higher than 2-2,5x stock bitrates.

  • ronmenronmen

    @Blazer

    Thanks for the patch. Shot a bunch of interviews this week with Cake 2.3 at 24p. It all looked great and no problems at all with Extreme Pro 32GB cards.

  • balazerbalazer

    Cake HBR Test 1:

    • HBR 30p mode GOP5 at 65 Mbps; not spanning

    • HBR 25p mode GOP3 at 61 Mbps; not spanning

    • SanDisk Extreme Pro cards recommended

    • 24p and Variable Movie Mode same as Cake 2.3 (high reliability and spanning)

    • 720p H mode same as Cake 2.3 SH mode (high reliability and spanning). Don't use SH mode.

    This was a small experiment to maximize the quality of HBR 30p mode, especially for dealing with the noise of ETC mode. I gave HBR 25p mode a boost also.

    HBR 30p spanning is not reliable, at least not with my cards. It might span with an Extreme Pro 64-GB card.

    These HBR 30p encoder settings are more aggressive than in regular Cake. Write errors and lock-ups are possible, though in two months of use I had just two lock-ups. Using a Lumix lens slightly raises the chances of a lock-up. I did the bulk of my testing with manual lenses.

    I've tested ETC mode with these HBR 30p settings against top settings from other developers, and mine compare favorably, with higher bit rates, higher quality, and more consistent frame-to-frame quality.

    GH2 Cake HBR Test 1.zip
    955B
  • briangeorgebriangeorge

    Done with Cake 2.3 24H setting

  • balazerbalazer

    I don't recommend 64-GB SDXC cards simply because of the "file number limit exceeded" problem that can happen probably with all SDXC cards in the GH2, hacked or not. (see http://www.personal-view.com/faqs/gh2-hack/gh2-hack-faq ) Aside from that, I expect Cake to work fine with the SanDisk Extreme Pro 64-GB card.

    I have no film mode recommendation for Cake. The encoder can handle whatever you choose.

  • emynachemynach

    which film mode do you recommend to use with cake v2.3?

  • tetakpataktetakpatak

    Hi, @balazer!
    A question regarding spanning, this is what still says in your first post:

    I recommend the SanDisk Extreme Pro 32-GB 95 MB/s card. (not 64 GB)

    For some reason I haven't noticed this remark, so I've used the Cake 2.3 for months with the Sandisk 64GB card - but it just always worked perfectly well. I did many very long takes and the spanning problem didn't occur at all- not once.

    Please explain that remark why not 64GB card, or is it outdated? If so, maybe update your first post and I will delete this comment afterwards also - to avoid any (imaginable) confusion.

  • balazerbalazer

    I already answered your question via private message. Check your inbox.

  • AndySAndyS

    @tetakpatak - Thanks Tetak. Yes - I will. It seems to me the best option as far as I can tell. Up until now I have just used Hacked GF2 - but just got the GH2 for this movie project. Does anyone know if the "2.3" patch in the 2nd post on this thread is the absolute "latest" one?

    Thanks! - Andy

  • tetakpataktetakpatak

    @AndyS Dude, just try it and check how it works for you. Hope you didn't want to start shooting your full feature film before trying the patch in detail? I like this patch a lot, but it is no guarantee it will serve you as good.

Add a Comment