1 GOP Intra 'moon' T7 - Top Grading - Best Motion - Best Setting Ever? (You decide)

Update News (updated 21/07/2013) Two months after the experimental moon T6 and lots of new research I present you 'moon' T7.

• INTRA 24p minimum 130-147Mbps - best looking ever with extreme Quant values - period.

• INTRA 25p/FSH50i at 80Mbps

• 3 GOP 30pHBR/FSH60i at 72Mbps+

• 720p modes minimum 50-70Mbps max - best ever 720 setting? ;-)

• new softer matrix - targeted at Pany lenses.

• iA modes working it appears

• iDynamic mode on 24p best on Low.

• Great sound from per (Per Lichtman of Pasadena Pulse AKA thepalalias!!!!) ;-)

• Includes the long-time best looking mjpeg setting and greatest Quant.

• Please don't forget to donate to personal-view and help this site continue.

What's so good about moon T7? In simple terms, after looking at the rate control, quantisation and scaling matrices found in the GH3, Nikon D800 and Canon 5DMKIII I decided upon a radical approach to find out if the GH2 was capable of getting near their very low QP values (which range from predominantly 1 to 30 depending on the detail and luminance of the subject).

What I found was (and this had me concerned before) was that Panasonic's implementation / or ptools labelling!) of rate control using the GH2's quantisation parameter isn't too clear. I needed a way of having a minumum Quant and a desired maximum quant. Strangely with Initial Quantizer = 30, Quantizer for 1080 modes = 3 (+-2 can offer a QP of 1 !) and Quantizer for 720 modes = 30 I could sortof achieve this!!!!

With 720 using B frames (switched on in the 720 encoder 1 settings as = 3) Quantizer for 720 modes seems to work as a highest Quantisation setting (high is worse, low quant is best) together with Initial Quant of 30 (don't worry about such a high starting value here - after the first frame it settles straight back to lowest achievable (best) for the scene. Subsequently, Quantizer for 1080 modes = 3 gives me my lowest desired (best quant).

This quantizer rate control now seems to work as in newer High Profile Level 5 (5.1) cameras such as the 5DMKIII and Nikon D800 (and seemingly the GH3) and when matched with a new softer looking matrix - as analysed on the Canon 5DMKIII (with adjustments) - brings a degree of softening to the over sharpe Pany lenses.

I'm also sure that 1080i/FSH?HBR modes work better with half the coded picture buffer size of 720p modes (indeed I switched off 720 Bottom setting (the buffer amount) whilst offering a fairly low buffer in bitrate settings in 'patches for testers'.

In summary, the range of QP will be (certianly in 1080p24 modes) from 1 to 30 - often staying very low (less than 10) all round. I believe (although only tested by myself) that the result offers extremely good looking 720p modes (probably the best ever), certainly superior 24p WITH Intra, and great looking HBR/FSH and iA mode control (though further strenuous tests may well be required). High dynamic functions work it seems too.

Your reactions are now needed - so give it a try and lookout for similar based theories employed in the other Cluster X settings shortly - 'DREWnet' coming next. Enjoy :-)

moon T6 is now demoted. moon T7 can be downloaded by right-click saving on the icon below.

Big thanks to VK for his great work and site.

Cluster X Series: 'Moon' includes 1 GOP Intra 24p & HBR25/ 3 GOP 720p50/60 and HBR30p/FSH modes Trial 6 - (Released on 21/07/2013) A very experimental set of three settings. Tryout only to test.

Update News (updated 18/02/2013): Released after 720p/HBR/FSH renumerations - Great quality and QP all round in the moon tradition ;-) - 'moon' (trial 5) 1080p24 stays with the sharper 'Blue moon' matrix and the QP of Trial 3 - nice all round mix.

Cluster X Series: 'Moon' includes 1 GOP Intra 24p & HBR25/ 3 GOP 720p50/60 and HBR30p/FSH modes Trial 5 (Released 18/02/2013)

Including;-

• 1080p24 All Intra - Low 14-16 QP avg picture quantisation - hi-bitrate 100+ to 151Mbps superior quality

• 1080i50/HBR 25p All Intra - 14-16 avg QP - 60Mbps Med detail scenes bitrate excellent quality to 90Mbps hi bitrate/hi detail great quality

• 1080i60/HBR30p 3 GOP with P frames avg 14-16 QP 50Mbps Lo bitrate great quality to 72Mbps Hi bitrate hi detail

• 720p50/60p 3 GOPwith P Frames - avg 14-16 QP - 50+Mbps to 72Mbps stabilised hi bitrate / detail / quality

• 80% Mode recordings should be operated on the high bitrate 'L' setting primed for this mode.

This setting is primed for 1080p24 'in tight', medium, and busy detail scenes offering even sharper quantisation performance and is in the middle of trial 3 and trial 4 to please everybody (inc. me).

6 GOP - Middle Earth 'Nebula'

Latest update notes: Trial 6b - 1080p24 mode massively adjusted HUGE quality improvement. 1080i/720p modes stabilised and tested for iA modes. *Minor update to HBR25 for stability reasons as reported by top tester @towi - many thanks.

Cluster X Series: 6 GOP - 'Nebula' Trial 6b (Released 03/3/2013)

Great middle ground setting - even 6 GOP with i frames closer together than classic GOP reporting quality in motion and excellent picture resolvement at decent bitrates - adjusting itself to picture requirement accordingly.

• Excellent 1080p24p around 90Mbps Lo detail to 130Mbps Hi detail.

• Superb quality 720p60/50 50Mbps lo scene detail to 70Mbps Hi detail and fast action.

• Top notch 50Mbps HBR30p/25p/FSH 1080i50i/60i setting.

Earlier Nebula trials can be found on the Cluster X Series 1 thread.

Cluster X 'Slipstream'

A series of GOP combination settings drawn from the Cluster X series but set at nominal bitrate settings (40 to 72Mbps) to achieve a better spanning percentage for longer recordings plus the ability to be used on slower sd cards. Slipstream attempts to correlate the actual clip duration to the TS (transport stream) duration whilst providing error free population of the cpb buffers. And it seems to work very well at these settings. :-)

Slipstream #1: (Rev B): Release Date: 10/03/2013

A mix of Nebula and DREWnet settings all tightly packed into 72Mbps max 24p and around 40-52Mbps for everything else which in my PAL tests SPAN! You also get 80% mode at 24H and iA modes working. NTSC 720p60 and FSH/HBR30p should now span.

1080p24/1080i50/HBR25p/720p50 at GOP 6 1080i60/HBR30p & 720p60 at 12 GOP

Slipstream #2: Release Date: 10/03/2013

Including;-

1080p24H 88Mbps GOP3

FSH1080i50/HBR25p 60Mbps GOP3

720p50 62Mbps GOP6

FSH1080i60/HBR30p 44Mbps GOP12

720p60 52Mbps GOP12

Slipstream #3: Release Date: 15/03/2013

Including THE GH3 MATRIX ON ALL REC MODES;-

1080p24H 150Mbps GOP1 (moon style)

FSH1080i50/HBR25p 70Mbps GOP1

720p50 62Mbps GOP6

FSH1080i60/HBR30p 64Mbps GOP3

720p60 52Mbps GOP12

NB: Ive had one occasion where the camera just freezes with no apparent error. If this happens simply leave the camera alone for a minute or two until it fully writes out to sdcard (emptying all buffers) THEN turn off/battery pull. Hopefully you will notice that all your spanned files are there on next powerup.

DON'T FORGET TO PRESS THE 'FOLLOW' BUTTON TO KEEP INFORMED OF NEW UPDATES TO CLUSTER X SERIES

@mirrorkisser hi I am not the expert here, but to my eyes moonT5 is sharper than T3 and Slipstream 3. I maybe wrong in the sense of judging the matrices. that's why I wrote I wish I have more bodies to make a side by side test. I think @driftwood knows the best and really whats going on inside the cam and also the end results according to the settings. and as you said we're dealing w/ slight differences between X series variations.

@manu4vendetta I stopped using my 45mbs sandisk. try to stay away from those ones. planning to buy 95mbs ones

@dado023 Ive set max bitrate for a reason to 147000000 It will never use that amount. Its just to set up a high buffer. Don't worry all is good. Use streamparser found on personal-view for viewing your streams/mts files :-)

@cjdincer, Why do you say, is unstable with 45MB/s card?

@manu4vendetta Nothing wrong with the settings. Some of the 45mbs sandisk cards may cause problems. this has been talked over in previous pages if you take your time and read them; you'd see. We are getting out of topic as we discuss this card issue. and also it is adviced that we use 95mbs cards, cause these are mostly high bitrate settings.

@driftwood

"@dado023 Ive set max bitrate for a reason to 147000000 It will never use that amount. Its just to set up a high buffer. Don't worry all is good. Use streamparser found on personal-view for viewing your streams/mts files :-)"

thanks for clearing that up :D

@dado023, you are mixing mega BYTES per second (MB/s) with mega BITS per second (mbps). Card is in MB, the camera is in mbit. 1 MB = 8 mbit.

Screen capture on moon trial 3 smooth -2,-2,0,-2. I seem to prefer T3 to T5

@T1000

I guess it depends on how much detail is shot in each clip.