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Top Rez 24p ONLY - FOOTAGE TEST AND SETUPS
  • I started this topic editing an old post. Many shooters use theirs camera for different usage: interview, TV, documentaries etc. Some needs 1080i, some 1080p, some slow motion etc. Some don't need top quality or they want to use average cards. But I thought, let's start a topic ONLY focused on the best quality achievable by the GH2 to shoot movies. For best quality I mean minimum 1080P, 24p or slow motion, minimum 100Mbps, best dynamic range possible and lowest compression. Where people post footage test and only patches for top. I'll start by posting our test shooting hand held (to see how the camera and codec handles vibrations), car moving and different Davinci grading.

  • 37 Replies sorted by
  • Sounds fantastic.

  • @terry2 it would be nice if you posted some frames - samples from your testing so far! If you can, that is.

  • Great work @terry2

    Would be interesting if this could be developed into an FXPlug... in the future...

  • Hi all,

    @we don't have coder capability, a macro it's easier but willing to do visual testing for a coder. @RRRR I have to rerender everything because there was an accident on the external drive with the source material. @sebben Thank you, it all started from acknowledging that an hacked gh2 cannot compete with a d65 or a genesis but it put you in a condition of creating beautiful visuals that can be used, if well lighten, to shoot an indie movie. A little as it was with s16. Besides, what matters is the story, and a touch of surreal retro' create always a vibe of nostalgia that works well in movies.

  • We actually changed direction. This is what we achieved so far

  • nice double post

  • @cyfernoa The original S16 idea didn't give the hoped results. So, we changed direction and now focusing on getting the best out of the gh2 for movie configuration. You see, the idea is to be specific and only posting test, patches, settings specific for best movie setup. Example, we noticed that an advantage of using 35mm lens on the gh2 is the lower vignetting effect. Fotodiox adapters need matte black tape on the inside surface to work well. Zeiss zf2 lenses work better than 4/3 lenses when it comes to "cinematic effect". The idea is to help the coders and developers to create a 1080p avchd 10bit (even if 4:2:0 it's ok) that has maximum bitrate. Another idea would be a 2k 24p MJPEG. They could lower the sound bitrate, anyway the camera sound should be used only as reference at the most. At least the reader of this post will know clearly the room he has with this camera if he wants to push it 100% of the current possibility.

  • Haha no worries man, just referring to how you posted the exact same video twice. I'm all about the idea of the post.

  • I am in agreement regarding the sound. I will personally be using GH2 primarily for music videos, so all I need is quality video. I don't even need sound as a reference as most of my videos are going to be created to preexisting recordings. A minimal sound quality patch maximum video quality patch is where I need to be.

  • @terry2 You wrote: "Fotodiox adapters need matte black tape on the inside surface to work well."

    Tape is not dead black and can come off unnoticed. There is a really dead black paint for model airplanes from the Japanese brand Tamiya, which is great for stopping inner reflections by adapters.

  • A more productive post would be to discuss "why" certain patches and lenses are used vs asking for "the best." Out of courtesy and respect to patch developers who work hard. Again depends on the look you want - I tried a mjeg Flomotion hack from Lpowel this morning and LOVED the results. Shocked me because I remember trying Flowmotion AVCHD and thought Quantum was better. Goes to show that all these hacks are so good that the differences are quite minimal.

    The best..?...hate using that term....perhaps is Quantum 9b with PL glass - Zeiss, Leica, Schneider, or Cooke - running Smooth -2,-2,0,-2 with Sandisk 95mbs memory cards - making sure to use ISO settings one row up after selecting a setting from the second row (GH2 ISO bug).

    lensrentals.com or borrowlenses.com for lenses and HotRod PL adapter.

    If you can't stomach the price of buying or renting the high end PL glass - rent the M4/3rd Zeiss CP2 lenses - under $200 a week - no adaptor needed as they are light enough to be used without a lens support rod. The GH2 mount can support around 4lbs without help.

    http://www.zeiss.com/cine/cp2

    Not much more to say really. Is there anything better?...well.. It would only be "different" - and the beauty of the GH2 is that we can use all these hacks and lenses to suit the look we want.

    No trying to be a downer, but there isn't any point in posting clips - nobody would be able to tell the difference without access to the mts files anyway. Heck people are having a hard time telling GH2 footage from $60,000 Red Epic footage.

    I have rented lots of PL glass so if anyone wants input on the pro's of all the big brands ill gladly toss in my opinion.

  • Here's a screen grab from a video I took recently using the kit 14-140mm lens...24fps in cinemamode with smooth settings, -2, -2 , -2, -2. It was at a 50mm focal length outdoors at noon on a sunny day. I have the Terraquake hack installed. My subjects (my sons) were on their bikes and I tried to catch quite a bit of panning. I must've thrown 80% of the footage out due to the jello effect. The 20% I did keep looked awesome and very film-like.

    arboretum(1).jpg
    1920 x 1080 - 253K
  • @troyjason True, there is no sense to post non MTS nor R3d for certain analysis. But I think that when you are in the industry you can "understand" even by watching ungraded footage on how the "setup" (gear+codec) handle latitude (sorry Dynamic range) and motion. As for non visual differences between Epic and GH2? Come on... I mean, if the gh2 would pump out a raw codec or at least a 10bit 4:2:2 then yes maybe competition would be (at least at 2k)... I agree Zeiss gave us best results overall. But didn't notice any big visual difference between Cooke and my ZF2 (PL mount vs Nikon mount). I haven't notice any difference between the CP2 and ZF2. I'm purchasing Duclos zf2. I find it always difficult, with pro lenses, to find "the best". They all have characteristics that make them "writing" a visual the way we feel. So it's more of a search of personal look. But again, I'm not a DP. I'm a director and photographer. Different specializations.

  • @troyjason Flomotion mjpeg is 30fps right?

  • @terry2 Yes, all MJPEG videos are hard-wired to record at 30fps. The MJPEG frame rate patch in PTool is flawed and cannot genuinely change the 30p rate at which the shutter fires. If you set the patch to 24p, all it does is force the MJPEG encoder to discard 30p frames as necessary to approximate a 24p frame rate.

  • @terry2 - I guess I am still at a loss as for what you are looking for.

    Everyone uses a small handful of patches (Quantum, Flowmotion, Sanity etc - these patches are in flux right now and the creators are working hard to tweak them - follow their threads for more info).

    Everyone uses smooth or nostalgic for profile set to -2,-2,0,-2. This gives us the most DR.

    Everyone uses an ISO setting on the top row after selecting one in the second row (GH2 iso bug).

    And lenses create the final look (PL primes being the top choice).

    What else are you looking for? Those are the best "movie shooting setups."

    Take care.

  • @LPowell

    @Vitaliy doesn't agree with you about the hard wired 30fps thing. Why your positions differ? So, can we rule out that real 2k (not upsampled from 720p) real 24p mjpeg will ever happen?

  • @troyjason what I'm trying to create here is a one thread that reunite all updates and infos for a specific usage of a gh2. In a way that a shooter can quickly pick the updates and visually test them. Example, a 88mbit patch that works well on 720p is not a setup that push the camera at the limits. So that patch or setup would be in a different thread. I'm surely not asking dps to post their more advanced research, they wouldn't do anyway even if they say they will. Like photographer don't like to have people knowing too much about their light setup before the shoot (less nowadays since photoshop)

  • How did you get Davinci to ingest GH2 footage? I've tried a number of different transcodings and it won't work with any of them for me..

  • @terry2 - What else is there apart from what I just posted?

  • @terry2 - "So, can we rule out that real 2k (not upsampled from 720p) real 24p mjpeg will ever happen?"

    Please link to your sources for these rumors.

  • @LPowell That's exactly what I'm referring to. But in a post between you and Vitaliy you wrote that a real 24p was not possible because the gh2 was hard wired and Vitaliy said that it is not true. So, I'm trying to establish, once for all, in a straightforward, yes-no-not yet answer, if a real 2k from the sensor (downsapled from the sensor full rez, not upsampling nor crop Scarlet-style), with a real 24p (not the 23.976 nor 30fps with 5 frame taken off) in a mjpeg codec at high bitrate is possible or not. Trust me, I have my assistant going crazy to patch all infos together, his wall looks like "Flashforward"

    @svart you need to convert it to a 4:2:2 codec first and wrap it in a mov.

  • @terry2 - "So, I'm trying to establish, once for all, in a straightforward, yes-no-not yet answer..."

    Fair enough, the answer is NO.

    However, if you're interested in recording with a 4:2:2 MJPEG codec, I'd suggest picking up a used GH1 and installing my 75Mbps Peak Reliability Patch:

    http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/334/gh1-75mbps-peak-reliability-patch-v2-update#p1

  • @LPowell Could removing sound or minimizing sound quality have any potential effect on the video stream density able to reach the SD card? I am assuming that the limits of the hardware has been issue primarily because of the slowness of storage medium so far. Hypothetically, lets assume an unlimited storage speed. Would video bandwidth be limited by bus speed or code or ...?