@LPowell My original post is updated with one of the original .mts files with motion on white background http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/42452#Comment_42452

@DrDave Thanks, credit goes to cbrandin for analyzing the Trick Mode sample footage I supplied, and then updating Stream Parser to recognize its behavior. While it is quite "tricky", it's just what Flow Motion needed to support 4GB file-spanning at 50Mbps on Class 10 SD cards!

I have the Flow Motion v1.1 Update with firmware 1.1 installed. When I go HBR mode NTSC the 29.97 stream never passes 22.7 megabits with a low of 19mbits. What am I doing wrong.

The FSH, SH and 24H modes all behave well with this patch and great quality. The new HBR mode doesn't do a thing for some reason.

Thank you for your help and continued improvement of fantastic settings LPowell.

@LPowell Exciting times with the new firmware 1.1-friendly PTool! I've tried to keep up with things on this website, and now this is my very first post to it! Lee, I haven't installed a GH2 hack/patch yet, and frankly I intentionally held off after installing firmware 1.1 and enjoying that, but your "Flow Motion" patch from reading about it makes the most "sense" to me as an upgrade (especially now that it's firmware 1.1-compatible), although I'm sure I'll experiment with Nick Driftwood's best higher bitrate hack as well. I've got the proper SanDisk cards for spanning, and I don't doubt that both hack/patches are excellent for specific and different purposes, but I'm having a hard time drawing a dividing line there - even when I don't mind chewing up lots of card space (for a high visual quality short video). I'll admit I'm lazy not to offer to carry out the experiment myself, but I'd love to see a comparison (or "proof" at risk of sounding too bold) in video between both hacks/patches where perhaps Nick's would show flicker in high contrast areas of motion whereas yours would not, and then where Nick's would show greater detail than yours in more static shots. Frankly I think there are times where a "softer" image is quite alright, so on theory alone I'm leaning more toward your patch for most shooting.

Please correct me if I've made any wrong assumptions here. So far I've been just an observer sort of taking people's words for what they are (without doing personal testing). Not that I'm disputing your GOP3 theory as you wrote so eloquently on, or the value of your hard work! What's transpired here goes beyond even the important effort to milk more quality out of a little camera in order to empower lower-budget production - it's become a real education on how many modern cameras work, and could work better! I see both you and Nick as the primary educators, even though I know we all have to thank Vitaliy for starting this fire!

A few questions if I may regarding noise in dark areas that some have pointed out with your patch. Have you seen significant improvement in this with your firmware 1.1-compatible release by adding custom Quantizer Tables as you've mentioned you intended to do? Also, do you think there would be significant improvement in the noise by following this advice I've heard (from DREWnetwork "Episode 6: Hacked GH2" on YouTube, with my comments as stacy6903): by setting the GH2 to an indoor white balance setting for shooting everything (including outdoor scenes), and then color correcting in post, thereby eliminating much of the "noisy" red channel?

Also I'm intrigued by your MJPEG patches both for the GH1 and GH2, but again, not without some questions that come to mind. Although I realize there may be some quality issues with MJPEG compared to AVCHD that I've heard argued long ago, and that was more recently first brought up on this site by one "whose name shall not be said", MJPEG is a joy to edit with and I'm guessing easier to key in 4:2:2 color on the GH1 than in the GH2's 4:2:0 color that apparently keys worse (even with a good Driftwood hack, according to Drew's Episode 5) than other 4:2:0 8-bit cameras. More interestingly, I'm getting the impression that the GH2 can suffer at times (and under certain settings) more than other 4:2:0 8-bit cameras from color banding, but less so with your MJPEG patches which also work well (or better than Flow Motion?) in low light. Again, please correct me if I'm wrong. My goal with the GH2 is to produce the "best" possible MOTION video for Blu-Ray, within it's own 8-bit color limitations. I would imagine that might mean trying out debanding/dithering isolated areas of posterization through AviSynth or some other method, but I'm wondering if your patches including Flow Motion could save me from this and other troubles I've mentioned - or save "US" as I'm sure my verbose posting here seems familiar to what at least a few others have expressed concerns about.

I'll keep future messages shorter.

Thank you again Mr. Powell!

@LPowell Thank you so much for your work. I think this took quite more time than optimize one thing to the max. Because there are so many things to think about, light, position, panning, where start, where end, aperture, camera movement, sound recording, atmo and so on, i am glad not to worry about wich patch is on the cam. Just shooting, thats wat i like most. Will start practice with LP-FloMo patch next weekend. Now i can keep my attention on shooting scenes. No more excuses on technical limits. I think now the only next level patch that makes sense to me is a AF101, C300 or F65 ;-)

If i dont get good videos with your patch, maybe i should try basket-weaving. Thank you!

Here is small test, but there is no point to watch it from vimeo (total vaste of time). If you like to see how well these settings catsh the sonw then download orginal.

I also found quite a bit of blocking in shadow areas and reds, no high bit rates in HBR 25p modes. The previous firmware version worked much better for me.

Same low light macro blocking problem here. 1080p30 is no option for people who need to shoot 25p.

@shamhead "I tried out the previous Flow Motion patch on with great success".

But you tried out 24p mode, not HBR 25p, right?

@rikyxxx We already know 24p and 30p are good for most patches. I think PAL users were hoping to see a good HBR 25p setting. When you want to shoot 25p, you would prefer to keep everything at 25p. You don't change framerate just to maintain high bitrate in a shoot.

I tested Driftwood Quantum Xv.1 now. Lesser macro blocking in 24p and 25P/HBR Mode in low light. But this time, I left the "Auto Quantizer" settings unchecked and untouched. Again, what are these "Auto Quantizer" settings?

460mb for 1min.20sec 25P/HBR Mode

660mb for 1min.20Sec 24PCinema/High

There are more PAL-Viewers in the world than NTSC-viewersSo I hope, at least the chinese and indian population should be a motivation to provide a marvellous HBR/25P hack in the future? (Hope also you´ll have not to scroll too long to get to the next comment...)

@Frame actually the complaint for the 25p should be filed to Panasonic

@LPowell

It seems that the previous fw + patch was giving higher bitrates. What could be the cause for this difference?

I'm a PAL user too and I was thinking to upgrade to 1.1 for the 25p feature. Does it means that the 24p cinema mode will always have best quality?

This evening, before upgrading I will try to get some shot with the 1.0 version and then with 1.1 25p in a controlled condition. I have a plus account on vimeo so I can have original files available. What would be a good subject for comparison at home?

I read tha the 25p is shared with 1080i how I choose the 25p from the camera menu? Is there a specific menu option?

Thank you in advance for your great work.