@sir_danish Personally, I am happiest with either smooth or standard for skin tones (when I first got it, I was happy with cinema but the yellow tinge to the highlights really started to frustrate me quickly), so I think you are on the right track.

@thepalalias - very useful. thx all.

@mee I won't give answers until later tonight, but I will say that (in general) Sedna is not smoother than Stock (sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't), but it is consistently more detailed.

@itsguy I looked at your comparison photo and understand the reasons for your original question. Allow me to emphasize something about the settings. I have more experience testing 24H than HBR, so my comments will apply to that for now.

The places where you will notice the greatest difference between stock settings and the highest quality Driftwood intra offerings are in the places where the codec is limiting the detail of the original scene. If the stock settings are able to handle it adequately, then you won't notice much of a difference. Noise, detail in lower third of the histogram and edges obscured by noise (and therefore softened by the factory settings) are all examples of details that are better preserved with the hacked settings.

Also, in high motion scenes where any encoding artifacts are present with stock settings, it is easy to see an improvement with the hacked settings. The JPEG you showcased does not seem to be an example of this - the detail is neither dark enough, nor noisy enough nor fine enough for the difference to be very obvious without grading. Hopefully my 24H example is somewhat clearer.

@jrd That is part of the difference. The clip was shot as ISO 3,200 and the way the two settings handle the noise is very different.

@mee Remember, the stock settings and Sedna AQ1 A switch positions about halfway through. Glad the direct visual examples are helpful!

@thepalalias

At the risk of looking foolish (or possessing very bad eyesight), I see more detail in the left side shot (at the beginning of the clip; later it goes to the right side). However, the quality of the noise also alters the look of things. The noise appears to be very different, from one shot to the other.

@sir_danish Just to clarify, do you mean advice on how to process the footage you shot to get skin tones you prefer, or advice on how to shoot in the future?

UPDATE: Currently re-encoding to include a 400% crop comparison after the 200% one. The settings will be presented in the same order and fashion as before for the 400% crop as well.

@jrd @itsguy

Here, I made this from the files linked on the page in my last post reference that page for the settings used). Each side is a 480x540 crop scaled to 960x1080 (in other words, a 200% crop).

One side is FW 1.1 stock and the other Sedna AQ1 A. Partway through they switch. Look for the clarity of the text near the upper left in particular.

Password is Driftwood1

I didn't check the filenames to see which was which, but I was pretty sure about the right answer after I watched it once on Vimeo.

Right! I also abandoned 25p for 50p.

Some of the round 1 footage from the L.A. footage should hopefully be available within the next few days.

As to the "lack of 1 to 1 comparison footage" I am gusesing people just keep forgetting about the boring tests I did of that a while back?

Sedna (all 6 versions), Orion (all 4 versions), Factory FW 1.1, etc.

http://perlichtman.com/pasdenapulse/wordpress/2012/03/15/panasonic-gh2-new-patch-tests-sedna-a-b-c-released-today/

@exilenorth - No worries, I already love the GH2, even in stock form. Such a pleasure to use, it makes sense for all kinds of jobs, and the result are generally stunning. I certainly don't get to use an Alexa on every shoot, and don't get me started on the &^ RED. But it's good to do some serious comparisons, and see how far it will go, that's what we're doing here, no? Trouble is, what I'm seeing on screen is this. FYI Mysterion is on the left. Oh no, right. Stock HBR on the left. Or is it the other way round. Well, you can tell, it's totally obvious isn't it?

Hopefully with the help and advice of all those here I can post some positive results soon. I'll be doing side by side tests only from here on until I get somewhere, if that's of interest then don't shoot the messenger.

I am a relative amateur, but when I first got my GH2 (with plans to hack) I tested it stock, and though the overall image was fantastic, I was a bit shocked how terrible power lines, fences, and various objects looked. I didn't remember ordering jello with my camera (har har). After the first hack I tried (maybe aquarius) I breathed a sigh of relief since I was seriously worried my camera had come flawed. The difference for me was dramatic. But if nothing else I have always had very good eyes (better than 20/20). Then going to the likes of seaquake, and terraquake I once again was pleasantly surprised. I often shoot a big funky modern moving modern art fountain by my house which has very complicated things going on, the earlier hacks looked nice, but some detail was lost in the speed of motion. With Seaquake and Terraquake the details were outstanding. Sometimes I still wonder if these weren't my favorite patches to date, but I am a big fan of fine detail. The newer patches seem to be more focused on overall flatness and smooth colors (also a good thing). I think right now Driftwood has us all waking up early to check if it's Christmas again.. I don't like hype, but I suspect there will be some smiles with what's coming.

In the mean time Itsguy I would recommend checking out seaquake for detail (you may have to revert to pre firmware update and ptools 3.64?) and for color check out sedna or orion v4b and film the sky on a slightly cloudy day, and then go look at the results compared to stock. As my wife says "it looks like the real sky". I liked the original panasonic color profile for it's ultra blue, but the newer hacks are definitely more dead on for true skies. If you still don't see it, maybe you are not patching it correctly.

Alright, I rambled enough, maybe by the time you all finish reading this it will be Christmas =")

@jrd - thanks, that's exactly my point. I have a split screen running on a broadcast monitor here, that's my process. I can't wait to see something 100% convincing on it!

@APXmusic - thx I will try that. I agree some people can't tell SD from HD, and 50% can't tell CD from SACD. But I've been in and out of edit suits for nearly 25 years, including high end grading and BBC, so I do hope I'd be able to notice.

Enough posting for one day...