@Tinbeo : Over? 24h Timebuster isn't your regular settings pack. It's mostly a merger and it's pretty stable right now. It's only as dynamic as the settings you choose to merge it against. :)

It took me some time to understand your second question, but I believe you are asking which mode would I "sacrifice", right? That question can't be truly answered by anyone but yourself... Check the documentation here: http://personal-view.com/talks/uploads/FileUpload/18/279c72fc37e31d2264f42b7b380937.zip (especially where it says Goal 3)

IMHO and if you are using moderate speed up, HBR is the right mode for that. People move more fluidly and fast lights trails are continuous. Fluidities below 95% will show noticeably jittery. If the motion in your footage is limited then 24p can be more efficient. It also depends on whether you want to use it sporadically and will flash on demand or you want to have a 24h Timebuster variant permanently loaded on the camera, so you need to balance your timelapsing needs against regular footage. It's up to you to choose which is more suited.

@ahbleza : It's not the best match for reasons discussed here: http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/53912#Comment_53912 but it will depend on whether:

• Are you ready to sacrifice absolute control over IQ (either down for reaching 24h or up to get better IQ) and can you settle for the default quantizer parameter =20?

• Must you use a 360º shutter (and therefore use HBR) or you don't mind about it and prefer to sacrifice 24p instead?

Mainly the reason is 24h Timebuster/TimeHBusteR needs B-Frames enabled in order to maintain an absolutely constant IQ while Cake relies on a GOP structure that suppresses them.

Anyway, head to the main Cake thread as I'm thinking of tailoring a Timebuster version to merge with it.

Initial post was updated with some heavy documentation, how-to and settings write-up. It tells what are the goals of the settings, how they were achieved and how they can be easily tuned for particular cases. Probably the part that is most useful is this:

Distribution – These settings are distributed here and as noted before, at the moment they come in two flavours:

1. 24h Timebuster - which targets the 1080p24 mode for those who want to preserve 1080i, HBR25/30 and VMM modes as functional as possible. 1080i50 and 1080p24 GOP Size was set to 10 to suit a 2.5fps SS.

2. 24h TimeHBusteR – which targets HBR30 and HBR25 (also impairing 1080i and VMM) for those who want to preserve the 1080p24 Cinema mode. 1080i60 GOP Size was set to 12 to suit a 2.5fps SS on HBR30 and 1080i50 and 1080p24 GOP Size 5 to suit a 5fps SS on HBR25 and an extra sweet spot for timelapsing even though with some possible impact on 24p Cinema.

Each of these flavors which are found in the equally named zip files, comes itself in two variants inside the zips:

1. (24h Timebuster/24h TimeHBusteR) Base - which can be used to be merger with a user choice of other settings, for those who want to have a saying in the final result.

2. (24h Timebuster/24h TimeHBusteR) FlowMotion – which ATM is already pre-merged with FlowMotion 1.11 and is pretty much prepared to flash away, for those who don’t feel confortable merging settings.

Usage – The way the settings should be prepared for use, can be described in the following workflow, but don’t be scared at the number of steps, a typical workflow only includes steps 1, 3 or 4, sometimes 6, 7, 13 and 14:

1. Head to the relevant thread http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/2135/gh2-2.5fps-avchd-24h-timebustertimehbuster-2.0-settings-the-day-is-not-over/p1 or the settings vault. http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/40074#Comment_40074

2. Which 1080 mode flavor do you want to keep most functional for regular footage? If your answer is Cinema 24p then go to 4.

3. Download 24h Timebuster and extract to your PTTOOLS folder. Go to 5.

4. Download 24h TimeHBusteR and extract to your PTTOOLS folder.

5. Are you uncomfortable merging settings? Don’t you know or have a preference for other developer’s settings? Do you feel more comfortable with the well tested and tried FlowMotion instead? If so then go to 7.

6. Download your choice of merger and extract it to your PTTOOLS folder. Rename settings file if it exists already.

7. Fire up PTTOOLS, load your flavor of 24h Timebuster/TimeHBusteR. Note: If on step 5) you have chosen to merge, then you’ll be loading the Base Variant in this step, otherwise you’ll be loading the FlowMotion Variant.

8. Are you going to use the default 2.5fps shutter speed? If so, go to 10.

9. Adjust 1080i50 and 1080p24 GOP Size as mentioned on Goal 4.

10. Do you need to record 24h of footage on ISO160 or are you already satisfied with the default IQ? If so go to 12.

11. Adjust Quantizer for 1080 modes (Q) by favoring either IQ or RL. Bear in mind that a 6 unit decrease in Q will roughly double the bitrate / halve the RL and the same happens when you raise the ISO by 2EVs. Going just 1EV from ISO160 to ISO320 will roughly increase the bitrate / reduce the RL by only 50%.

12. If you went through step 6 and choose a favorite merger, now is the time to merge by “Alt + Clicking” it.

13. Save Firmware. Flash. Set camera to MF. http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/39079#Comment_39079

Set your previous choice of 1080 mode and shutter speed. Go film!!!

1. Load footage. Delete duplicate frames. http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/49325#Comment_49325

(EDIT) Updated to v 1.02

@Rambo does it make sense to sacrify AVCHD 750p. You have MJPEG mode with 2fps and comparable 720p quality. And with the new version of ptools you can decide time limit and use in combination an intervalometer to overcome spanning issues.

Ditto what Keith said and we have the mjpeg mode for 2fps time lapse in the interim.

@all : Sorry for the late reply but I've been away on vacation and rendered incommunicado since Monday.

@kome : Thanks! I'll consider your offer, should this work be continued.

@Rambo & @KeithLommel : My lack of a GF body and consequent ignorance on the GF patch features lead me to believe this could be achieved. This lack of control you have mentioned raises 2 very serious issues with timelapse IQ: no chance of a 360º shutter (and I mean not even close!!!) and objectionably IQ in low light. That being said there is only one simple advantage to developing such settings: recording length.

So, if there is a consensus that it's still worth pursuing, I can give it a go.

@Rambo @duartix : I suspect that the inability to actually set the shutter speed to 1/2.5s or 1/5s is going to make this impractical for the time being (until VK figures out how to add manual controls)...

I own a GF2 and would be willing to beta test for you.

@duartix : I appreciate that you're busy. No hurries!

I agree with @KeithLommel . 720p could be sacrificed for timelapse, since I use 1080p for "real video".

EDIT: And I can also do testing on my GF2.

Thanks to Duartix I can make my own Timelapse using TimeHBuster (25PAL). Here is my first test footage (speed stretch 50%) of a sound rehearsal in a tv studio. I kept the audio because I find it amusing.

Any GFn users that would like to see Timebuster on 720p or could test on 1080 modes? I could derive such a version but I would need test feedback on it.

@RawB : 40m = 4GB? Seems excessive unless you were filming at 1/5s shutter speed (SS), as you should, since you were using HBR 25 and these settings marry the GOP in that mode to 1/5s. That should go for around 10h on 64GB.

If you intended 1/2.5s SS you should be using HBR30 instead.

In camera playback is usually not a problem (even less with near stock settings) but I haven't tested it extensively.