I've worked on the "Varigop" setting during last two weeks, searching how to improve its stability by keeping its high bitrates. Except some minor improvements I still didn't find the way to keep the stability absolutely under control.

BTW: I must unfortunatelly also report here that in the test shootings where "Varigop" tends to freeze, also @LPowell's settings "Max Latitude" and "Blackout" which I considered so far to be rock-stable (and recommended to use instead in the GH1 instead of "Varigop") both have collapsed regularly and didn't make it to record even one minute without camera freeze (card speed error).

Especially my shooting footage of lavender in the sunshine, tack sharp in focus, just slightly moving in the wind was simply impossible task for all those three high bitrate GH1 settings under 24p1080 AVCHD (FHD). Saying that, the lens I've used wasn't even the sharpest one can get (Minolta Rokkor 28mm f/2.8 at 5.6) but none of the settings made it to one minute mark without freezing. I've used the fastest SD card I have, several different units. (photo of the lavender is attached on the bottom).

My dream is to find some rock-stable high bitrate setting for the GH1. I still use a lot my GH1s (I own four bodies) and really like them, especially in the low ISO situations it is still my favourite camera body. "Varigop" beta version is so far the closest to it.

I will keep testings through longer time, meanwhile I tend to leave the "Varigop" just the way as it is, as in the most of shooting situations it doesn't cause any problems. I assume to possibly have faced the limits of the GH1 hardware which seems to have very tight data transfer bottleneck, which is either in GH1's buffer part- or in GH1's writing speed ability (the SD card slot).

• "GH1 Survival Check List" :-) I share my impressions with all there who use high bitrate settings on their GH1 no matter if "Varigop" or "Max Latitude" or "Blackout" is flashed, mind following behaviour of the GH1 which I could observe and during my own tests:
  • GH1's card speed error happens preferably by shooting highly resoluted, well-lit green scenery (like leaves, grass etc) the more of the frame is in-focus, the bigger is the chance of camera freeze, it seems to me that the green scenery is especially difficult task for the stability of the GH1
  • the sharper the used lens is, the bigger is the chance of camera freeze
  • the wider angle of the used lens is, the bigger probability of camera freeze (I had no errors at all so far by using tele lenses) due to higher amount of details
  • smoother film modes are improving the stability of the GH1 (use preferably modes standard, smooth or nostalgic instead of vibrant, nature or vibrant)
  • smoother settings are improving the stability of the GH1 (saturation, sharpness, contrast and NR: rather all to -1 than 0, if the objects are contrasty, set all to -2 rather than -1. My personal advice: set the sharpness just always to -2)
  • slight underexposing improves stability, while slight overexposing tends towards card speed error
  • GH1 freezes easier if Panasonic lenses are mounted, as they challenge the small GH1's CPU to its utterly limits with in-camera sharpening and with correcting the optical distortion of the Panasonic lenses (both automatical, not switchable)
  • check whenever possible before an important shot if your GH1 is behaving stable in that scene and rather shoot few shorter takes than one long one, as if the camera freezes the data is lost.

Any additional information by Varigop users, or GH1 experts who could help me to improve this setting are most appreciated!

Here is the photo of the critical test shooting, how the lavender I've mentioned looked like. My GH1s weren't able to reach even one minute of footage before freezing, neither with Varigop, nor with Blackout, nor with Max Latitude (the lavender was moving in the wind):

@yyeah, @tinbeo, @kolargol guys, thank you very much for keeping me informed about the bugs. I confirm that the Varigop freezes very easily by recording grass or trees after some 15 seconds. The "card speed error" occurs no matter if Panasonic or vintage glass is used. I will try to improve the "Varigop" further and your feedbacks help me a lot for the development of this setting. I couldn't force freezing by shooting another highly detailed objects (also if green ones), but the reaction on grass and trees is unfortunatelly nearly allergic. I will report this bug in the first post.

Last week I had very successful production with four GH1 cameras simultanousely running using "Varigop". It was a classical concert recording in excellent tungsten lighting. All four cameras ran for bit longer than 2 hours perfectly well, spanning worked in all four cameras perfectly fine. The sizes of the produced AVCHD files (24p, FHD) in little longer than 2h were between 18GB (tele lens) and 32GB (Panasonic 14mm f/2.5)

EDIT 2013-08-02 unfortunatelly no more recommendation to use LPowell's high bitrate settings instead of "Varigop": both "Max Latitude" and "Blackout" are also freezing in the GH1

I use SanDisk Extreme Pro 45MB / s. Camera freezes after 15 seconds with card error.

Dunno if any one using 95MB/s 64gb Sandisk Extreme Pro had memory card reader error in GH1. I had no problems at all in GH2 with same card. GH1 with 45MB/s patched with this setting Varigop showed errors after 15seconds or so.

I wondered if GH1 can't read 64gb_95MB/s card? or just mine ?

@yyeah which recording mode did you use and on which value did you set in-camera sharpening?

I love this patch It's given me only 1 heart attack and that is because I didn't format the card in the camera before shooting photos, I just used a card that had been in my GoPro and I recorded video but erased my photos. User Error in my book. I Love This Patch!!!

First of all well done! But I have a question.. I have a 45mb/s SD Card (Sandisk Class 10, 16GB), do you think i can use the hack or it might be dangerous?

@tetakpatak Is there a 40-50mbps version of your patch?

@rigs
mate, I am very honoured to get your response, as you with your 3GOP patch was my biggest inspiration to develop this patch.

I am also happy to see day after day how stable it seems to work, sofar without any crashes. The bitrates are higher than we dared to expect from the GH1 and so far without stability problems.

I think both the latest Ptool version with its new options in "patch for testers" as well as the rapidly fast 95MB/s Sandisk card were very important factors to provide "Varigop" the reliability, so not only the settings were the key for success here.

Well, who cares now anymore, important is that old good GH1 rocks again ;-)

@mmband
The setting you've uploaded in your post is my file with saved 3GOP settings by our mate @rigs, I uploaded this file with his settings on his topic in December 2012 for the reason he never did it himself (old Ptool couldn't extract and save settings.... :-)
http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/100765#Comment_100765

Besides, you are spreading wrong information here:
* rigs 3GOP has slightly lower bitrates in 24p mode, definitely not higher than "Varigop"
* it does not work better, as his "S" mode (shutter priority) is broken
* rigs' patch is not fully stable, it freezes on the dead charts with extremely high details (all in focus / well lit / sharp lens) sometimes it freezes even with fastest cards and after only several seconds, what "Varigop" doesn't. That was the reason why I added 95MB/s card as recommendation, I think these cards didn't even exist yet when rigs released the setting.

Rigs' 3GOP was my big inspiration for developing "Varigop", I desired to unify its high bitrates in 24p with the reliability of @LPowell's fast action 3GOP patch. So speaking about 24p mode only: "Varigop" is the most improved low GOP patch for the GH1 I was able to achieve.

And please read carefully my first posts: 25p was not target of this patch, there are better patches for that mode. The "Varigop" only accomplishes already developed well-working GH1 patches done earlier by our other p-v mates and improves its AVCHD 1920x1080 24p mode.

So, after all I really don't understand your motivation to upload someone else's settings here without mentioning the source (maybe you would notice it was uploaded by me) and why do you post simply wrong information without testing both patches very carefully as first?

@Aria The reliability+spanning+quality in 1920x1080 24p was my motivation for developing this patch. There are indeed great patches for the GH1 existing, but out of my experience, this SD card was a key to success, no matter which patch we talk about:

Hey, mate- don`t worry. I indeed have uploaded Parser screenshot of an old and solved S-mode problem in wrong post.... I attended to upload it after second post where I described it, not after third post.

@zcream No, I'm sorry but I really doubt I'll be able to improve 25p- this patch rocks in 1080p24 on costs of all other modes. I am surprized how good actually 720p60 looks meanwhile "on paper" after fixing some bugs. But it also definitely needs more testing.

For 1080p25 I strongly recommend @LPowell's patches "Blackout" and "Latitude" which work great in PAL modes.

Here you can get impression of the integrated timelapse in "Varigop":