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GH2 Bundle by Apefos, complete solution for GH2
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  • Why I called these patches as "The End NR4"?

    When I started hacking my GH2 I perceived there was different patches with different purposes and different levels of stability. So I asked myself: why there is no patch with everything good on it?

    So I started long time ago developing patches in an attempt to get the best, the maximum possible from GH2, to be used in all situations.

    I studied different patches to perceive the benefits from each one, and I got the help from the masters of hack, they teached me important things. I also studied two H264 books, and wikipedia articles about compression and DCT transform. I remember the stress charts on the computer screen...

    After infinite versions and patches names, when I perceived that everything was ok, so I called it "The End" because I saw no reason for use other patches, it was the end of hack for me, the camera could not do more.

    Every settings in PTool was tweaked, including the most dificult things like quantization, gop tables, deblocking and matrix, with careful tests to understand what each setting could do.

    The End is stable, good noise, good texture, good image quality, good for steady shots or movements, night or day, dark or light, detail of flat surfaces, low and high iso, making GH2 useful without denoise at iso 2000 and a top limit at iso 4000 which works perfect for neatvideo denoise.

    The camera was at maximum datarate possible and the data was very well distributed among the I, P and B frames, IP for 720p and IB for 24p. And then a intra version started developing.

    People can say: but there are matrices for more noise, less noise, jumping texture, flat texture... Yes there are, but The End matrices are set at a magical point of maths to get the best from the sensor, the most agreable point between gross and fine, balancing texture, noise and compression. The matrices adjusts the noise and texture but they also need to compress the image, because if they do not compress enough, other compression like quantization and datarate after it would hurt the image.

    The End solved the diagonal rain pulsing pattern calibrating the mathematic in matrix and deblocking. This was a pain in the ass, and nobody knows what to do to solve, including considering it was a problem of decoders.

    NR4 is the best level of denoising adjusted on the matrices.

    There are two versions of The End NR4 because one goes to the camera limits and other goes for perfect stability. And both versions was tweaked and tested for NTSC and PAL.

    Intra frame is All-I for 24p at 120Mbps and 70Mbps gop4 for 720p60. 720p50 is gop 3 and higher datarate. It is perfect stable for intraframe, but 720p60 can use only one or two electronic features at a time: ois, auto focus, auto exposure, idynamic... Also 25p is intraframe because it shares the same gop from 24p, i did not want this, but it is impossible to change.

    Stable version is perfect stable and all camera features can be used simultaneously. It is gop3 for 24p at 96Mbps and gop 6 for 720p at 55Mbps. It is gop5 for 720p50. Excelent quality with perfect stability and a little longer recording times. Here 25p is gop3.

    Spanning was not possible because the high datarate makes the camera stop recording at 4GB, so I focused on image quality and stability, reliable 4GB files, if you do not stop recording, the camera records 4GB and saves the file.

    People who needs HBR 30p or 25p can also trust in The End NR4 patches, because all recording modes was tested and calibrated. I recomend the Stable version for HBR. Considering HBR, probably there are other patches pushing the HBR limits, but The End NR4 goes to the maximum stable point.

    With all respect to the other patches, unless you need spanning, I see no reason tho use them anymore, but patches are a personal-view choice, so everybody is free to try and choose. Whitout the other patches I would never reach these accomplishments, because I used the knowledge and achievements from them. At first moment I used settings from other patches, and after experimenting, reading and getting help to understand each thing I developed my own settings. About spanning I uploaded some attempts in this topic, but they were not tested.

    Enjoy The End NR4 Stable 33356 and The End NR4 Intra-MS 11334, download them here:

    http://personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/230212#Comment_230212

    And also remember to download the NeatVideo presets and profiles for perfect denoise, and the Dyanmic Range presets to get a more cinematic image from GH2, see the other posts in this topic.

  • @juanpablo_ayala Last uploaded patches can be "The End" for your never ending problem.

  • Let me just get this straight; your patch is the solution for my never ending problem? Is this what you mean by "Diagonal rain pulsing pattern"?

    16388950_10154108737257821_1542934252_o.png
    1095 x 618 - 828K
  • When developing the Dyanmic Range Presets, the GH2 camera settings was set to:

    Profile: Standard

    Contrast -2

    Sharpness -1

    Saturation -2

    Noise Reduction -2

  • These two DR presets are an attempt to solve everything with just two presets:

    HC = high contrast for scenes like sun and shadow

    LC = low contrast, better for faces and homogeneous light

    DR-HC-LC.zip
    340K
  • Interesting things when using the dynamic range presets:

    The user can make your own option among the three different sets, and each set have three levels. In each preset, there are three effects, and the user can enable/disable each effect doing own combinations. When there is sun and shadows the Color Corrector RGB helps a lot, when there is low contrast situations, disabling the Color Corrector RGB is good. Sometimes the curve shadow lifting helps a lot, sometimes disabling it can be better...

    So user can try different presets and in each preset can enable/disable the effects.

    Modest away for a while, I am pretty happy with this bundle, it gives a new life for the GH2.

    This bundle and the gpuresize plugin for upscaling the 720p makes a long living for the GH2.

    I also perceived that using the neatvideo presets and profiles uploaded in this topic is good idea for vimeo and youtube. The heavy compression for web streaming hurts the image texture and noise, so the original images in high iso becomes a dirty look, so a neatvideo denoise is welcome if the final result will be web streaming. Web streaming is not friendly to iso noise and film grain effects, a clean image is much better. I prefer to apply the dynamic range presets first, upscale the 720p and last thing is neatvideo denoise.

    If the delivery will be a 35mbps gop6 bluray or a high datarate DCP file or a high datarate pendrive then neatvideo can be avoided.

  • Video looks pretty good (The End NR4 Stable 33356)

    Stream Parser screenshots:

    stable_24L.jpg
    1299 x 686 - 286K
    stable_SH.jpg
    1304 x 688 - 280K
  • Thank you Apefos! Great work! :]

  • When using the presets for the GH2, I perceived that disabling the RGB Color Corrector when using the 1DR and 2DR deliver best results. 3DR is too much shadow lifting.

    For the Nex-5n keep the RGB Color Corrector enabled is great to save highlights, when using these presets (1DR and 2DR)

  • The final bundle is here, patches stable and intra, with new dynamic range presets with new curves:

    GH2 Blundle by Apefos 24-01-2017

    gh2_bundle_24012017.zip
    2M
  • Dont stop apefos.there are still a lot of low budget people using the GH2 for film making including me who`s still learning for the best shot.But thank you for all you already did ,may the GH2 still work forever!!!!

  • Thanks,

    I think my work for the GH2 is finished now!

  • Dear apefos,

    if the world had the same dedication that you give to the gh2, then all the world's problems would be solved.

  • The patches in previous post are correct, but the dynamic range preset is wrong.

    Here are the correct dynamic range presets, two sets, in three levels each.

    Third upload have the two sets, read txt file inside the zip to understand.

    gh2_dr.zip
    510K
    gh2_dr_2sets.zip
    1021K
    gh2_dr_abc_123.zip
    1021K
  • A little fine tune in the settings, patches and dynamic range preset:

    fine-tune.zip
    191K
  • Stable and IntraMS versions are working ok for me in 24p and 60p.

    For the polite people who asked for spanning, these are an attempt (10 patches).

    I did not test on camera, but the settings in the ini file are ok.

    Differences are in gop lenght and in datarate.

    See the yellow box in ptool, mouse over patch letter.

    Or see the txt file inside the zip

    Feedbacks welcome.

    The End NR4 Spanning Attempts:

    the end nr4 spanning attempts.zip
    99K
  • Try a different hack. There are some great ones that span properly and are very reliable. My favourite was GOLGOP13 for shooting PAL format. Moon T5 or T7 are also extremely good. My camera was always unreliable with apefos patches.

  • Hey guys,

    Hoping someone can help me out. First time hacker here. I got the hack installed on my GH2, and it looks fantastic! I went out to shoot a car show this past weekend and the camera kept crashing / turning itself off. Even when I'm not recording. I would turn the camera on, and as soon I I pushed in the click wheel, it would turn off. Any ideas? From the comments, it looks like the is a pretty stable hack.

    Gear:

    GH2 w/ LUMIX G Vario f/2.8 12-35mm lens

    64GB SanDisk card (Class 10 / 95mb/s)

  • Hi apefos,

    I tried using your hack. It looks like an improvement over previous versions, specially on noise at high ISOs and colors. However, while recording, ISO icon turns to auto ISO and metadata shows nothing ( I used lumix lens). How does this hack compare to Driftwood Cluster X series/Drewnet T9.

  • Thanks Apefos nice work........

  • Hi. Sorry to ask this (if it sounds stupid) but which one of those hacks allows higher ISO in video mode while filming (more than 3200) ?

    Thanks to answer

  • Thanks for detailed explanation. So my patches are ok, it does not spanning because the datarate is high, the gop is low and the camera buffer cannot handle the data overflow in the spanning moment, but it records reliable 4GB files, when the file reaches 4GB the camera stops and saves the file.

  • Spanning is purely determined by the hardware buffer. If there is data overflow, then spanning fails. There is no setting for spanning as it is a hardware feature.

  • Great job Apefos ,yes viva GH 2 dont need another camera too .

  • I did some reading about spanning in other P-V topics and it seems to be a mysterious thing which people just do not know exactly how to make it works.

    It seems that low datarate and long gop can help but not just this. If datarate must be low and gop must be long, so my patches will never do spanning...

    Better thing using my patches is to start a new recording after 4GB and get reliable files, this is good for short takes in cinema production, but not good for events like weddings...

    There are also reports about missing frames in spanning moment and also changings in image quality in first frames after spanning, so I will keep my patches as they are, reliable for 4GB files.

    For reliable spanning it would be better to use other patches from other developers.