Personal View site logo
GSpot, make your GH2 multi-orgasmic
  • 57 Replies sorted by
  • @apefos The camera freezes. A datarate of 104 works fine on 80Mbps cards. Even a 112 and 120 are ok, but sometimes SH and H mode crash using AFon stabilizer and shaky movements.

  • @driftwood already downloaded them, did an initial look, interesting gop table settings. I will experiment as soon as I have time to do a careful test. thanks.

    @frullaccia thanks for reports, did you got stop recording or camera freeze? I think that the way to go is to use a lower datarate version, you are experimenting with the highest versions, so please, give a try on the 96Mbps PAL setG, it should work ok. or try loading each version to perceive the highest you can use.

    As I said before, my card just allow me to test up to the setG versions 96Mpbs, higher than this I cannot do fully tests. but all the things in the ini are the same in all versions, just a change in datarate, frame limits and buffers, so it should work in high speed cards. in each version the frame limits and buffer settings are math calculations using frames size measurements from streamparser, including the H, I and J using the seconds that I could record, the same measurements that I did to the lower versions, so I was wondering it would work. The 24p can handle more high settings, but maybe these very high datarate versions touch the limits of camera hardware for FSH, FH, SH and H. My intuition and feelings are telling me that there is nothing to do in terms of stability anymore, it seems to be the limits of the camera. I will do tests with the patches pointed by driftwood to perceive if they have something which can help, and in other patches also, including the new ideas I got in last posts. but to be honest I think now is the moment to find which datarate you can use among the available datarates from setA to setJ.

    I bought a 32GB 95Mbps sandisk today, hope it is not fake one... it will take some weeks to arrive here (45 days)... so I will can test better the higher datarate settings. I think it will be waste of time to try to test the set H, I and J with the 45Mbps card, so better wait this new card to arrive. It will also help me to develop my new matrices ideas.

  • @apefos I have been testing gspot nebula pal 112, compared with workhorse flowmotion pal 120. The camera stopped in Fh mode gspot nb, using a Lexar80Mbps; it also stopped in h mode wk fl, using a Lexar90Mbps. As for the picture quality, differences are so little that I couldn't decide. Maybe workh fl has a stronger contrast, while gspot nebula has a best control in overexposed high lights. But this should be tested again in all modes. If I would choose, I'd rather say Workhorse in 24H and Gspot in Hbr (where maybe this patch has a better noise performance).

  • @apefos Dear Apefos, I couldn't test your gspot because I decided to use a better known version (the 13th september Workhorse Flowmotion 120). As soon as I can I will give you some report about the last gspot nebula 112, which at first sight look like one of the best.

  • @driftwood Here it is 4 test versions of the GSpot FlowMotion NTSC 96Mbps for compare the 720p60 stability:

    G = GSpot original (gop tables 43 + gop 3), for comparison.

    H = gop tables 42

    I = gop 4

    J = gop tables 42 + gop 4

    feedbacks welcome

    gspot_test_versions.zip
    40K
  • I got two ideas to try to improve stability in 720p60 NTSC. These two ideas changes the goal of the GSpot configuration but they are an attempt to improve stability, see:

    1 - change the 720p60 to GOP4, this way there will be 3 P frames in each GOP, and the amount of I frames within a second will reduce from 20 to 15. I do not know if this can improve stability but is and idea to try. I think the I frames size will increase a little, I do not know... and maybe more P frames means more encoding calculations... I do not know... this can be good or bad for stability... needs tests...

    2 - in both 720p60 gop tables (opt1 and opt2) there is the number "43". an attempt to increase stability would be to change both "43" to "42" This will make the I frames a little smaller and the P frames a little bigger, but I also do not know if this can improve stability or not. what I know is that the number "44" in these places did not work ok togheter with the other numbers, the "44" works ok with the "13" in the other place and the "43" works ok with the "14". both combinations have similar results but the "14, ..., 43" and "43, ..., 14" gives a more constant size in the frames flux in my tests, but the tests was handheld... lowering for less than "42" in combination with the "14" will hurt the gspot noise/details benefits in the same patch.

    As you can see both ideas can hurt the GSpot configuration where it is possible to get both good noise and good details, because in 720p60 the I frames and the P frames are both in the lower limit to allow both things in same patch. also gop4 will be worse than gop3 to show a filmic noise due to more P frames means more changes to mud the noise.

    At this moment I cannot see other options to change for 720p60 stability, just lowering datarate or deal with short shoots with high datarate... maybe increase the frame buffer, but it is already very high and even a higher buffer would not be able to keep all frames if the flux to card is slower than what the codec needs. seems to be the limits of the camera hardware or memory card for 720p60.

  • @frullaccia good news, curious to know about your feedbacks.

    @spreeni in my tests with the GH2 I found that keep the same datarate in the SH and in the H slots helps to improve stability. I did tests with different datarates, higher in SH and lower in H, but then recording in H freezes the camera, when both have the same datarate the camera does not freeze anymore. I do not know the reasons for this, it just happens... so I perceived that keep the same datarate in both slots was better for stability, this is the reason I did 10 versions for PAL and 10 versions for NTSC, starting at 48Mbps and ending at 112Mbps from setA to setJ. If you want to try, change the datarate in the H slot to a lower value in the ini file and also the H top limits near the end of the ini file and do some tests.

    @driftwood thanks for the feedback, appreciate it. please read the elaboration below:

    In my tests I perceived that the number of fps is something that makes the stability difficult. In a first moment I thought that if the datarate was the same, so 1080p24 and 720p60 would work ok, but it is not like that. when increasing the fps to 50 and 60, even with a lower datarate and even 720p being smaller frames, the camera becomes more prone to stop recording and/or freeze. it seems that the calculations to pack more frames stress the camera, so 720p60 is more difficult than the 720p50.

    there are two kinds of fails: 1-when the camera just stop recording, save the file and go back to stand by mode, so you can use the saved file and can start recording again: if this happens I believe it is a problem of low speed card or datarate is high to the camera to handle, so maybe a faster card will help, or load a lower datarate version will help. 2-when the camera freezes and needs a battery pull: if this happens I believe there are bad settings in the ini file. In all my tests with the GSpot I got no freeze, I tested the 112Mbps version in the 45Mbps card and it recorded some seconds without camera freeze, so I am wondering that the settings are ok. the frame limit and frame buffer are already very high which I perceived to work better than lower values and increases proportionally to the datarate following measurements in streamparser, but maybe there is something that can be done... suggestions?

    so, in 720p60, which is the most difficult mode for stability due to the number of fps, if the camera does not freeze in gop3 high datarate it is something already good. I got stop recording in 720p60 in the death charts also after some minutes, but I did not get camera freeze. depending on the datarate version I load to camera I can record more time or less time and I perceived that the 96Mbps version setG for NTSC 720p60 works ok for recording some minutes in real world situations. so in the real world shoots it is working fine for cinema production with short takes, because real world shoots are not so heavy in terms of details as the death chart. Maybe the lower datarate versions can record more time or a faster card could be a good idea. (my tests was with the sandisk 45Mbps)

    I agree that it would be much better to record a full 4GB file in the death charts in 720p60, I did not test the lower datarate versions in long time recording, I just tested the setG and it gives me some minutes without freeze. But there is something we need to consider: the GSpot try to reach the limits of the camera, the highest possible quality in 720p50 and 720p60, so maybe the setG versions are already touching the limits of the camera hardware and there is nothing that can be done in the ini file anymore... maybe... So using a lower datarate version can be useful for long time recording and a high datarate version useful for maximum quality in short shoots. but maybe there is something which can be done... maybe...

    I would like to ask: which card did you use? was it the 95Mbps sandisk? which ini file version you tested? was it the setG NTSC or other? did you test in the still chart or in the movie chart? which still chart you used, was it the SDC4? did you get camera freeze or just stop recording? how many time you can record before stop? did you compare the FM versions with the Nebula versions? these answers are important for me to perceive what happens.

    suggestions to improve are welcome!

    thanks.

  • @apefos Today I'm testing your patch. Shooting contemporary art, open air, in a sunny september day.

  • FM: 720p50 always passed the death charts. 720p60 didn't.

    That's right, but FM uses 6-GOP for 720p50, GSpot works with 3-GOP in that mode. As far as I know all other 3-GOP-patches use 6-GOPS in 720p, too. I'm still testing if this makes a difference in quality.

  • FM: 720p50 always passed the death charts. 720p60 didn't.

  • @apefos Thank you for the explanations. I just tried the 72 Mbit settings and spanning in 720p50 seems to work as stable as in original Flowmotion. Now I will check quality compared to the higher bitrates. A stable 3-GOP value in 720p50 mode seems to be very attractive :-)

    Just as an idea: How about using high bitrates in FSH/SH and lower bitrates (for longer recordings) in SH/H. So I could easily switch between safer settings for filming concerts or interviews and high bitrates for the rest. I think LPowell did it that way, would it be possible for GSpot, too?

  • GSpot Nebula all datarates for PAL and NTSC - versions 29 september 2014

    same GSpot configurations of FlowMotion versions

    Nebula Matrix: Scalling, FallBack and Deblocking Tables adjusted to work in GSpot

    GSpot_Nebula_29_september_2014.zip
    200K
  • @spreeni If you got 3 or 5 4GB files in 720p you can consider it pretty good, much more than expected. It is very difficult to get spanning working in 720p at high datarates in gop3, so your results surprises me. I don't think that changing settings in the ini file will do it better, it is already in the limits of stability. One way I think would deliver better spanning would be using a lower datarate version, try the set E version for PAL, it has the minimum datarate for gspot good noise/details and the lower datarate maybe can help spanning to work better. But as I said 3 or 5 4GB files is pretty good, I was expecting only one 4GB file.

    @frullaccia next post I will upload the Nebula versions in all datarates.

  • @apefos I did some further 720p50 tests with GSpot FM but unfortunately spanning does not work reliable. It failed after several minutes, after 3-5 4GB-files. I used a Sandisk 95MB/s card and tried PAL settings 96 and 80 Mbit.

    I know, spanning is not important for you, but maybe you have a tip which ptool setting I could change for making spanning more reliable?

  • @spreeni thanks for the good reports. interesting comparison.

    I will upload new versions as soon as I have time.

  • @apefos

    I did some tests with GSpot FM (setting G). Very promising! So long I only testet the 720p50 SH mode and it felt a bit like a new camera. Can't see aliasing or slight moiré with my Panasonic lenses anymore (like I had with FM 2.02 in some situations).

    I also did some ISO tests: The very nice FM matrix is now having a cleaner noise structure in very dark areas, which has always been a (little) problem for FM. Maybe this is because of the 2x higher bitrate. I had the feeling, that the GSpot settings produce a noticeable brighter picture than FM settings at same ISO/f-stop. But this is always a bit hard to check at daylight because of clouds etc. I'll check it again in the evening with contollable light conditions.

    I also checked two testclips with same motive/setting in Bitrate Viewer and saw another interesting detail: GSpot is using real 3-GOP while FM uses 6-GOP in 720p50. Look at the screenshot, the upper one is FM 2.02.

    vergleich.jpg
    593 x 607 - 60K
  • @zsound Thanks for pointing to the 'Space' patch. I saw this one before but I'm mainly focused on shorter GOP patches.

    @apefos Thanks for the detailed explanations. Sounds very promising, so I will do some tests.

  • @apefos "I am advancing other tasks which was delayed due to efforts in the patches... So It will take a while to try other matrices and upload new versions."

    Dear Apefos, I think your patches are extremely good. Try something new if you like it, but don't loose your personal touch!

  • @spreeni

    best thing to do is to try it and compare, seeing the same image with different patches will bring you the answers you need.

    1-at this moment, matrices are from FlowMotion or Nebula, so noise and texture are different. GSpot means that the frames size are balanced to get good noise, good textures and good details in low iso at same time. this is difficult to get in 720p and it is the main achievement of gspot. the other modes also works this way. datarate, gop size, gop tables, frame limit and frame buffers are tweaked in gspot to get this, and then I change the matrix, The flowmotion matrix are same as original, the nebula matrix have tweaking in gspot version, sometimes there is the need of adjusting the original matrix to make it work good in gspot.

    2-the goal in GSpot is to show the texture in all areas of the image without texture mud. to show the high iso noise, not hide it. and good low iso details at same time. It just try to show what the sensor outputs and what the matrix does. To do this it increases the datarate, use low gop, and balance I-P/B frames size, to extract the maximum from the camera in the encoded video.

    I like to use NR-2 in camera, but you can try increasing noise reduction in camera to perceive the best results for your purposes, experiment the different noise reduction amounts in the GH2.

    3-I do not have the answer for this question. My card is the 45Mbps so I cannot answer. The goal here is the image quality, not spanning. some people reports that got spanning using my settings, but my main goal is image quality for short shoots 5 - 8 minutes. mainly for cinema production. The GSpot Flowmotion versions have datarate options from 48 to 112Mbps so probably one of them will be the best for you to get quality and stability. The Nebula versions just have one datarate option at this moment, when I have time I will do it in other datarates.

    @zsound @frullaccia

    I am advancing other tasks which was delayed due to efforts in the patches... So It will take a while to try other matrices and upload new versions.

  • Hi @spreeni, have you seen that @Driftwood has created a patch for documentary, it's called "Space" : http://personal-view.com/talks/discussion/10978/driftwood-cluster-x-series-4moon-t8spizz-t7/p7

  • @apefos
    As a user of Flowmotion 2.02 I shoot documentaries (mostly 720p50) with long takes, so spanning is important for me. Is it correct that your patch is a further development of LPowell's patch?

    1. I'm not sure which is the newest development of your patch, is it GSpot FM or GSpot Nebula, or are they completely different?

    2. What are the benefits of GSpot FM compared to FM 2.02? Is there, for example, less aliasing in 720p50 or less noise?

    3. The good thing in FM 2.02 is, that all other modes work stable (also with spanning) when using 95MB/s Sandisk card, is GSpot FM also that stable in all modes or is your focus of development more to 720p50(60)?

  • @zsound thanks for feedback. appreciate you follow the work. I will take a look in the smooth cinema.

    after the hard work to learn how things works in PTool and in the ini file (it was a deep dive into it), now I am doing things in paralel with my other tasks. I will experiment the other matrices. just a little bit slower work to not prejudice my other tasks. I think this is good also for people to experiment one new matrix version at a time.

    I also need to perceive if there is the need of changing quantizer values when changing the matrix, things worked ok on nebula version with same quantizer values from flowmotion versions, but not sure yet if I can keep same quantizer values for all types of matrix.

    I will upload versions for lower speed cards as I did before, but I think the way to get the best benefits from the beautiful image texture it is good idea to use a 95Mbps card. Or at least the 45Mbps card which I own and works ok with the setG.ini versions. The Sandisk 32GB SDHC 95Mbps is not so much expensive these days, I am considering to get one to test the setH.ini, I and J versions with the higher datarates.

  • Hey @apefos, i have followed your (incredible) work since weeks, i'm impressed!! I have done quick test of your patch with my gh2, that's really good...unfortunatly i have a slow card (sandisk 30mo/s) so i can't have a real opinion of your high bitrates patches. In your last message, you have talk about matrix, do you have tried to include the "smooth cinema" matrix of @cbrandin to have a "filmic" result?

    Thanks

    P.S: sorry for my bad english, i'm french....