@balazer Re: L setting. It depends how low you go. Many of the tests in the past have produced underuns on the L setting because in general everything is set for the H setting. Test away and see how low you can go and with that sort of quality you get on the i frames. Of course, there will be a lot of wastage in quality because of the shared setting. If it works for you - let me know. And of course they will span and record a picture. Analyse the pictures to see if it maintains quality. Watch for cadence issues.

@twistedtape It sounds like that particular recording is corrupted. Try the panasonic recovery tools mentioned earlier in this thread.

Hi PV,

I'm having some issue's with the Aquamotion V2 footage playing back on my rig. I am fairly sure it is an issue with playing the high bitrate footage on my Mac, but am only experiencing it with one of the sample videos i have taken, the other videos playback flawlessly. The troublesome footage plays fine until it freezes at about 0:40 and flashes full frame green with other strange video glitches. The data for the video appears to be damaged, scrubbing through the footage does not show a preview frame for a large part of the video file.

Thing is, playback is fine on the camera, no issue whatsoever. When viewing on my mac i have copied the footage to my HDD and have tested it in VLC and Quicktime (with the Panasonic .mts plugin). The footage even managed to crash VLC, but i am experiencing no lag in any other test videos with this patch.

It would put my mind at rest if someone could explain this, i need a stable patch and would hate for this to be an issue after a long shoot. If it's an issue with my machine and not the footage then i have no problem!

PS, the footage is superb!

.

Hi
I hacked my GH2 with Driftwood's TerrAQuake patch today and my camera seems like it is stuck on ISO even in fully manual modes. I choose my ISO and then when I hit record, the indicator on screen turns to Auto ISO? I don't know if the camera is in true AUTO ISO mode but I am a control freak and like to be in control of everything. I have been trying every setting for the past hour and cannot find how to disable Auto ISO.
Has anybody encountered this?

Okay, so I just got my GH2 in the mail today and I would like to use one of the great hacks here. To say this site is overwhelming is an understatement. So I'll just leave my questions here and if anyone can answer them or point me to the link with the answer, I'd greatly appreciate it.

1. Picking the hack. I need to film interviews with my GH2, so I'd like to have longer record times and spanning capability. I'd also like to look at the footage in camera. Of course, INTRA and the lowest GOP would be great. Finally, I'd like the camera to be reliable. I'm thinking 88M would be fine? Am I really losing a lot not going with 176? Could I really see the difference? What hack would you suggest?

2. How do I apply the patch/hack? I've read about Ptools. Does it work on a Mac, because that is all I have? Anywhere I can go for a step by step introduction to the hacking process?

Thanks so much for your time. I can't wait to get shooting!

Hi Kanintesova.

I did a test setup for the band at 1/50, with three different light sources. Moral of the story, don't underexpose the entire scene at ISO 1600 (few cases of 800) and above.

@kanintesova for the sake of completeness... i'm sure you did too... some people claim that they don't have the horizontal stripe/band issue (also prominent users like philip bloom and andrew reid from eoshd). i have a hard time believing that since the guy who discovered the problem did try seven (!) different gh2 models and all of them showed the same defect. there was one guy claiming that his third gh2 finally had the problem to a much lesser extent. his serial number started with WE1CA just like yours. it would be good to have ultimate certitude if there are really models that behave different - since the stripe is sometimes hard to perceive even if it's there especially on lower iso values. that kind of insecurity is almost as bad as the technical problem itself.

btw the only known workaround seems to be putting the shutter down to 1/30 or 1/25...

Ok, I really need help.
I still haven't managed to convert my mts files for FCP. Log and transfer is not working for me - Final cut does recognize the files ( I always format the card, shoot and than try transfering without touching anything). I've tried 5drgb (asks for thm file) pavtube( free version comes with their logo in all videos converted) and downloaded clipwrap, although it's not free. Can anyone, sugest a free transcoder, please?
The problem with final cut is once I drag one file to the queue, it starts thinking, thinkig, once I drag another file it gives "error: no data". If I touch anything else, comes the rainbow ball and than after one hour waiting I have to force quit Final Cut pro.
Besides that I have been grading and editing other footages with no problem at all.
any sugestions would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

@driftwood, can you please explain this? "If you lower the L setting too much in the bitrate whilst you have the frame limit set to high value for the H bitrate setting, the L setting will underrun and be screwed."

I know you recommend against it, but I have set the L bit rate to below the frame limit * frame rate. (frame limit: 3640304 bits; bit rate: 66 Mbps) The frame sizes of such videos varies, and it seems to jump between a variable mode and a constant mode. And the decoder buffer seems to be on the low side. But the videos all look great, and they decode without errors. There is no underrun that I can tell, and Elecard Buffer Analyzer doesn't report any underruns.

Incidentally, the stock GH2 encoder settings use a very large frame limit and low bit rate.

I will not let myself be caught without a lower bit rate L setting. Once in a while a detailed scene causes recording errors in H, or I need longer recording times, or I need to use a slower memory card, and I won't have time to reflash the camera with different settings.

@kanintesova i'd also love to know if in fact all GH2s behave like that!?

When I use manual movie on the dial with a third party battery the exposure reading does not work so I cannot fix the right exposure. It works fine with the original Panasonic battery. Any suggestions what to do?

Steve