CAKE seems, from it description, almost exactly what I am looking for. High Quality, Spanning and reliability. Truth to be told, the quality is atm TOO high for my budget. Why? HD Space and usability. First of all, I sometimes need to film performances, so I need a recording time of 1h40minuts (or 2H) on a 32GB Card at least. Second I will be shooting approx 100 hours for a doc in Africa soon and I dont want to carry more than 2TB Harddisks with me.

By default, on a 32GB Card, Cake 2.1 records

24H > 1h1m
24L > 1h17m
HBR (25p) > 1h17m
720p PAL > 1h17m

I intend solve the problem like that:

Change the bitrate for 24L to, lets say, 35Mbit
(End Users>AVCHD Compression > VideoBitrate 24L > changing to 35000000)

So here's my noob question: Is this the right approach? Will 24L record stable and flawlessly? Or does that interfere with the other settings in the experimental section? GOP size, etc...

Needless to say I don't care about Interlaced modes. :)

Ok, then use 24H. I didn't do much testing in 24L. 24L is there with a slightly lower bit rate just in case something goes wrong in 24H.

paralion, the GOP3 I am using in Cake is not well suited to lower bit rates. Changing the bit rate settings on your own may have unintended consequences, and would require testing. For lower bit rates with spanning, try Cbrandin 44M or Sanity, in 24L mode.

hm, so then I guess I have to just change 24H to 35Mbit, since I dont have a working HQ-LQ option.

Sanity and Cbrandin 44m span in 24L, not 24H.

I don't think you'll be disappointed with Cbrandin 44M or Sanity in 24L mode. At lower ISOs, you'll hardly notice the difference.

There is no such thing as perfection here. Every choice is a trade-off, and we're quite constrained by the way the GH2 encoder works.

For rate control problems like that, it really depends on what you're shooting. The problem might not be noticeable at all.

Better stick to 24H mode. I'll make that my standard recommendation from now on. Cake was optimized for 24H, HBR, and SH, not 24L or H. I put 24L mode in there with a slightly lower bit rate, but I had only done a little bit of testing. Everything seemed fine, but I can't say whether the problem Rammstein is reporting now is an isolated anomaly or a bigger problem with 24L. And even if I thought that there is a problem with 24L mode, I'm not even sure how I could fix it, because I make the rate control work by tuning the GOP table values to the Top bit rate setting, and there is no separate GOP table for 24L. If I were to change 24L mode at all, I would probably just change it to match 24H mode. But that would of course remove 24L as a lower bit rate option in case of problems in 24H. So I'll probably just leave things the way they are. 24L should be thought of as a back-up option, in case you can't get a shot in 24H. If you need lower bit rates, Cake cannot deliver. My approach doesn't give me the flexibility to set 24H mode and 24L mode much different from each other. 24L was set only a little bit below 24H, so you're not losing much by not using it.

@Rammstein seems like lost focus, do jou have autofocus on?

@cbrandin so basically a stream parser graphic with IBP spikes at different levels on a single shot doesn't necessarily mean that the settings/bitrate/scaling are wrong, but is natural since the bitrate adjusts to detail and motion on the scene?

Does this mean that a perfectly stable and 'healthy' looking stream parser graphic is achieved with static shots with objects, panoramas that rarely change?

Manual focus only.Seem to be the only one with this problem.

Thank you all for advice. When I finish college exams I'll do detailed tests. I have not much time now.

This is with Cake 2.0 (can't keep up!!). Just on-board sound, and a very silly story my daughter and I put together, so she could have a go at planning and editing a video as she and her friends are starting to have fun with cameras. A late Easter present. Enjoy!

@arvidtp Interesting observation as I'm editing in Sony Vegas and getting quite a few glitches in that software too. Mine are strange random black / green frames, or strange random video level changes. Might be my software rather than the camera files, but am going to try converting first before editing Cake rushes to narrow down the problem. Maybe some of these high / variable bitrate settings cause problems with editors?

EDIT: no - it's just Vegas not playing nice with my CUDA GPU card, so nothing to do with Cake.

However, can anyone else using Cake use touchscreen to do touch-af using Cake? Just that my GH2 refuses to do this now - it just brings up the yellow "set area" dialogue. I have posted this elsewhere on PV and plan to re-flash with Cake 2.2 but I thought I'd ask the Cake People if anyone's noticed this issue with their GH2.

@Rammstein Thanks for confirming the AF thing - and the files you posted look good, so for both those reasons I'm going to reflash with Cake 2.2