Driftwood ClusterX series 2:│moon│ЅріzZ│nebula│drewnet│Slipstream │Redshift

spreeni

@driftwood I'm planning to do some testshootings with slipstream #3 today. In your description you wrote

FSH1080i50/HBR25p 70Mbps GOP1

Isn't this far too less bitrate for an Intra codec on GH2? I always thought with bitrates around 70Mbps you need 3-GOP minimum for keeping a good quality, or did I miss some new developments? Anyway, I will post my slipstream test results.

robbin

@ caveport Did you test intravenus or any other intra setting??

sleewok

Hey everyone, I have slipstream 3 installed. I'm taking video at 720p60 (I need to ensure stability for an hour straight shoot). I'm getting some really obvious aliasing in my video. I've attached images to show what is going on. Is there any way to reduce this, or is this just what I should expect with 720p? I have the in-camera settings set to -2.

driftwood

@sleewok Ill take a look

spreeni

Here's the result of my quick Slipstream #3 test. I only testet 1080i50 FSH because this is my prefered mode for documentary. I compared quality with FlowMotion 2.02. Quality of Slipstream is better than FM, especially in dark areas where FM tends to build blocks. In my tests the pictures of Slipstream seem to be sharper and with more gamma, which can be an effect of the GH3 Matrix and looking not bad in my eyes.

Unfortunately I got card errors (card not fast enough) messages when switching on some of the automatic functions like cont. autofocus or ex-tele (used 95MB/s Sandisk). So stability was very poor in my test.

powderbanks

this is a short video i shot with moon trial 5. i had been using gopstoppa, then sedna, but i'm really liking moon. this is also the first video i transcoded the avchd footage to DNxHD. i didn't notice a ton of difference the final look of the video, but during editing, video playback seemed a bit smoother/less taxing on my computer. shot all handheld..i added warp stabilizer to a few clips that were very shaky and i'm pleasantly surprised with the results. the only grading/color correcting i did was RGB curves and 3-way color correction.

lyrical content may be NSFW..mute if need be

Manu4Vendetta

¿This card work with Cluster X series of Driftwood?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/889909-REG/Sony_16GB_SDHC_Memory_Card.html

thepalalias

@Manu4Vendetta "Work with" is a little vague. :) If you mention what you are looking for (what mode you intend to shoot with; what type of material; whether you are using electronic or manual lenses; whether you need spanning; etc.) then it may be possible to give more specific suggestions.

At the moment, the only across the board card suggestion that can be offered is that the SanDisk 95 MB/s 64GB card has the best performance with the hacks of any card tested so far (and has maintained that advantage for a long time).

Also note that different versions of the Cluster X Series will have slightly difference card performance characteristics.

For what it is worth, I've found that on relatively slow cards (like the Transcend Class 10 series) even with the most demanding settings out there, I can get shots in 24H as long as there isn't too much detail. Covering the lens for the first 5 seconds of a shot has made it possible to shoot with settings that "shouldn't work" on a slow card in some situations.

But in terms of consistent spanning performance, I have no benchmark data (either positive or negative) on the specific cards you linked to.

PaPa

@powderbanks That video was great. I had a browser open and thought thta this was a video form that cam. Some amazing DR you got going on there. What picture profile were you using? Would love to see some raw stills and then what you did in post.

vicharris

@powderbanks That's one nice looking imagery and grade you have going there sir.

powderbanks

@PaPa & @vicharris, Thanks! I was shooting 'smooth' all at -2. 1/40 shutter speed. ~f/2.8 with a smc takumar 1.8/55mm, iso 160 (i think..might have been 320). white balance: 5300K, -2 Amber, -2 Magenta. The ND filter is variable, so I have no idea what the actual stop adjustment is..I just go by the histogram for exposure.

As for grading, there were a few clips I tweaked the brightness & contrast for consistency between shots, but overall I didn't do much. I did sharpen a tiny little bit ('2' with the premier sharpen effect). Here are a few stills (final grade stills are letterboxed)

Bird raw

Bird with brightness & contrast

Cistern raw

Cistern graded

Road raw (black bar at top is because I had to shift the frame down to fit the crop better)

Road graded

I don't really use scopes, just my eye and what I think looks good/fits the mood

caveport

Some detail frame grabs from my stainless steel sink test. I think the Moon 1GOP noise vs the stock firmware Long GOP is fairly obvious. I increased the contrast and saturation was set to 100% in Resolve 9. The blockiness of the stock firmware is quite clear.

At this time I have not tested any other 1GOP firmware; maybe soon. I did have some corrupted files when shooting a plane in an bright overcast sky. More testing required!

vicharris

@caveport Thanks for the test. It's nice to see very obvious outcomes of the hacks.

caveport

I just did a quick test with Intravenus 2. It was similar to Moon 1GOP but in any mode other than 24P showed serious artefacts. In 24P there were some artefacts in extremely fine detail. Nothing to worry about though. I prefer Moon 1GOP for critical grading work or stock firmware for general use. Panasonic have done a great job!

appyinau

Don't take this the wrong way. I love my GH2, and i love playing and trying the Hacks, im starting to do more serious work now , and really carn't afford to look back and find that it stopped recording 3s in. Im just wondering whether to use my GH2 as a bakup and invest in a GH3. Detail and look is great, but when you only have a few seconds to get the shot and the subject is more important than the composition. So my question is, has anybody thought the same way, and is the GH3 any better. Mr Drifwood (Sir) may i ask, if you were to shoot a Medieval Fair for example, would you take your GH2 with Moon5 or your GH3. Thanks all i hope im not to of topic.

vicharris

@appyinau Just to throw it out there, in over a year of using two GH2s, the only problem I've ever encountered after hacks have been stabilized while filming was entirely my fault. I turned off my Bcam while recording and it locked up the SD card till I was able to copy the files and format it. This is of course shooting 1080P/24 and using only the 95mb/s 64GB cards.

proaudio4

Thanks for your input @caveport. Your examples are a good display in compression differences and also confirms what @driftwood informs us regarding Moon 1GOP. Fuckin nice, thanks

driftwood

There will be a series of new slightly amended trials. Im currently conducting the best deblocking matrices I can make for various rec modes and GOPs. Also I gotta get round to sorting out 720p50/HBR25p in some of the settings....

Put it this way @appyinau I prefer the quantisation and detailed 4x4 transform of the GH2 (the GH2 picture is broken into finer sub blocks than the mainly 8x8 blocks of the GH3 - but the GH2 consumes more bitrate in doing so).

The sensor and slightly better DR (half to 1 stop) of the GH3 is excellent but - and particularly in the All-I settings - is let down by the encoder and by its overuse of 8x8 transform (only big luma differences in vert/horizont lines produce sub-blocked 4x4 transform in the GH3). So its a close call but I still prefer the GH2 at the moment...

appyinau

Thanyou for your reply. My question was more of reliability rather than quality. The GH2 in the right hands is truly amazing. It's just i have been useing the cluster x Drewnet (i loved the version 7). Admit ably i didn't get many problems in 1080p but in 720/50p it stopped recording many times. I think that as i am not as proficient as most in here it might be best using a lower more reliable hack. I was using a 95mb card. Maybe i should give moon 5 a try.

appyinau

Ohh here is the Vid i did.

driftwood

@caveport moon 24p uses way better quantisation over stock as you noticed.

blah_dogs

Scene shot for a contest using Moon Trial 3, motion was fantastic and it graded beautifully. Smooth profile all -2 and ISO from 160 to 250.

Wish I had more time to fix the audio, but overall I think it turned out ok.

sleewok

@driftwood did you happened to find anything regarding the aliasing at 720p60 (SH)? I'm just curious if your upcoming tweaks might have an impact. Thanks!

driftwood

@sleewok Put it this way, Ive never been impressed with the GH2s 720p60 ANY setting from anyone. Im doing a few amends which may improve diagonals. You'll have to wait till weekend out cus Im busy atm. Sorry.

In the meantime, could you provide a shot test of all the Cluster X settings at 720p60 (load each of the last trials for each setting) and run them against your picture scene with the diagonals. Report back if you see any improvements. Thanks

caveport

Hi all, I just did a Neat Video noise reduction on my stainless steel sink test. I used Chroma NR only set at 100% using the auto analysis function. There was no clean area to sample noise from so I will need to do some grey card noise sample tests to grab noise prints that are clean and free from picture detail. Preliminary results: Stock firmware looked VERY nice with some blockiness in dark grey areas, especially with some motion in the reflection from the water flow. Overall look was good with a slight softness visible in the fine scratches on the steel surface.

Moon 1GOP looked totally detailed and clean. Only the tiniest amount of luminance noise which was almost undetectable. This confirms my suspicions about all the GH2 noise being chroma noise and artefacts caused by 4:2:0 sampling of the sensor output combined with the lossy long GOP compression.

In my opinion Moon 1GOP rules!

Extra notes: I did have some corrupted files when shooting into a bright cloudy sky. I also found that testing 1080 50i (interlaced) produced lower noise than High Bitrate 25P. This requires further testing too! I have not tested any 720 settings as I don't use them. Extended Tele mode showed some horizontal banding in quite a wide band pattern. This is also something I will test further.

driftwood has done great work with this patch and I am indebted to his hard work.

Now if only we had a camera that shot 4:2:2 in 10 bit! Dreaming again!

Howdy, Stranger!

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