@qwerty123 I am using Chris's 66M most of the time when I need spanning and longer than 30 mins times. I just ticked the relevant options in ptool before saving the patch. Just yesterday, for example, I was filming some long interviews with it, some going near 1 hour at a time. It all passed with flying colours and the quality is certainly satisfactory (Thanks @cbrandin so much!). Now, regarding the in-camera playback, all works until the recording starts spanning- from that point the clip becomes unplayable. Otherwise if there's is a problem switching the camera off and on cures the playback issue. Also, after long spanning I must record a short clip, otherwise the next time the power is turned on the camera refuses to record anything further. These are the only niggles I can think of with this patch. I like the quality of this patch and it became my all-rounder. You must remember about the ISO bug each time you power on. The noise macro blocking is there, sure, but you have to really put it under the loupe to notice it. In this respect of course it's not as good as the consistent grain you get from excellent @Driftwood patches which I admire, however when it comes to the quality versus reliability (spanning, cheaper cards, longer recording times) the choice is clear. I only wish not almost everyone here was so obsessed with short GOP (please don't flame me now, I fully understand and cherish the need for GOP1 and love the results); there is a clear need for some people for long GOP patches to be taken further. I attached a few snaps from the recent clips with Chris's 66M patch. Good luck!

@Driftwood I am very intrigued by Quantum v9b. Believe me, I follow your brilliant developments very closely. I am certainly going to play with your latest one very soon.

@piotremanuel, long time no see, must meet up sometime for a jar down the Lord Nelson.

In the meantime, here's a very quick comparison (self portrait knackered Driftwood after a long day patching!) of the quality on a voit 0.95 lens. These are the the three modes (1080p, 1080i, 720p) with Quantum v9 straight from Windows Media Player - no editing! blown up to full screen on Paint ! All recs looking good. ;-)

Yes @Driftwood, you look very sexy :o))) 720 seems to look great indeed. I'd love to meet up for some "jarry" conversations soon. BTW, VLC does a nice job with snapshots.

@driftwood when you say you get playback on Quantum v9... I'm assuming this is on the very high end Sandisk 64gb 95/s cards?

I'm wondering if there are some easy and creative second best alternatives for getting playback on set. For example, having a laptop and loading up the card is one option. But this is less than ideal as it eats up too much time. Maybe some tablet option would be better...?

I'd be happy to use any driftwood patch as my go to for narrative filmmaking if I could somehow easily get playback--and I'm (begrudgingly) willing to get the highest end card. (grumble grumble)... I'd even get the higher end cards if I could get consistent playback in cam.

@piotremanuel Yeah... I recroded a 6 minute clip with chris's 66mb, and even then I was having problems: it plays back for one second, and then stops. Restarting doesn't help. So far 44mb seems ok. But I'd love to have the higher quality....

fucking brilliant, thank you driftwood!

Buy two camera bodies, problem solved ;)

Gotta shoot with 2-3 bodies (no excuse - they are cheap) and multiple firmwares loaded on 95mb/s cards.

Problem solved.

qwerty123 - not trying to nag, you typed a very worthwhile post. I enjoyed reading it and it should be a good reference for newbies to the GH2.

But a second GH2 can be rented for under $100 a week (borrowlenses, lensrentals.com) I don't shoot without 2 or 3 and don't know anyone that does either. If you can't buy, rent.

Also there is nothing wrong with saying to an actress/actor or crew "looks good, but lets improve xyz."

Read this article about David Fincher:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac_(film)#Principal_photography

He and directors like Ridley Scott are known for dozens and dozens and dozens of takes (if needed).

Best of luck in the future.

There is one very simple and most reliable solution to the problem. Have several cards ready and bring a laptop (preferably one with a built in card reader). Always play back on your laptop, rather than in the camera. Obviously, it might not be an option all of the time (if you are out shooting with minimal gear somewhere remote) but for shoots where a lot of equipment is already used then it's no trouble to bring a laptop, really.

The better/bigger monitor will also help in terms of avoiding some mistakes that can happen with smaller monitoring..

Hi Driftwood! I have a big problem with your's Q100 patch. On the settings of 1080i, 720p i can't take more videos than 10sec even on fsh, fh or sh and h (motion record was cancelled due the limitation of the writing speed of the card - or something like that). But on the highest setting of 24h and 24l is all fine. What is the problem? I have a 32Gb Sandisk extreme (30mb) card and tv out is ntsc.

Thanks!

@quaresz check Quantum v9b & see if the same happens and let me know. I'll take a look to see if 60 changed when I was doing 50 (which I did last) could be some correlation thing.

There must be something wrong with the 30/60fps, becouse on pal settings all is fine...!:I