I know there is a lot of topic on this but I still can't make a clear decision. I'm going to film Podcast and concert, which of the 2 would handle these type of setting best?

I would like to change the sensor coverage of the MJPG mode, but it's hard for me to find a way.

The patch i'm starting with is flowmotion 2. Sensor coverage is great on ex-tele combined with both "cinema 24P mode" and "HBR" mode. On MJPG and 720p the sensor coverage is smaller than the above, and this is what i'd like to fix.

What I'm trying to achieve, at the end, is a final result of film 3:2 aspect ratio 1920x1280 frame, possibly @24p or 25p.

Any suggestion?

thanks in advance

• Sanity X,
• Flowmotion 2.02,
• Cake 2.2

Could anyone offer advice as to the main differences between these hacks, and the advantages and disadvantages to using each of them etc? (There is advice scattered across numerous forums but it's not easy to sift through it all.)

I am also interested in using the Pasadena audio patch and was wondering again what advantages, disadvantages there might be to using it with each of the video hacks above.

Also, if anyone has recommendations as to reliable alternatives to the hacks above especially for documentary work....

My thanks.

Gear used on both videos:

• Panasonic GH2 cam with flowmotion hack
• Two Minolta MD lenses, 28mm F1.8 and 50mm F.17
• Sigma 19mm F2.8
• Mostly shot with: a rig, tripod, table slider and handheld

My goal is to eventually work more with commercial artists and especially to learn as much as possible about cinematography and cinematic aspects used in music videos.

Would love to receive some feedback on both videos!

Cheers,

D

The day I discovered the GH2 could do 2fps I got so excited, I loaded up a full battery, put the camera on the balcony and aimed it at the shopping mall door. I got over 3+1/2h of Cinema 24p footage (@2fps) and after speeding it up 15x (to 300fps) in VirtualDub I almost couldn't believe my luck. This is what I got and I have yet to grade it properly:

Since that event, I wondered about the best way to patch up the camera to capture them. MJPEG was the obvious candidate. It's a Full Intra codec and it can be setup to capture just 2fps. That means absolutely no wasted frames unlike AVCHD, so MJPEG must be great, but there was a caveat: even with stock settings there was a capture time limit that was well below AVCHD. How is that possible since it's only capturing 2fps, the bitrates have got to be frugal? Well, it happens that there is a 2GB filesize limit within MJPEG so even after taking Driftwoods Quantum 100-50's MJPEG settings and cutting the quality to take half the bitrate, you will end with less than one hour of footage. Compare that to AVCHD and you see what got me started.

Then there was the IQ issue. I stumped into this: http://sonnati.wordpress.com/2010/10/19/h-264-for-image-compression/ which made me start another full set of tests (http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/2111/gh2-mjpeg-resolution-findings-and-myth-busting/p1) in which I found that unlike most crazy MJPEG resolutions that only seem to be 720p upscaled, the one used on Driftwoods patch was the best that ATM can be extracted from MJPEG and that even rivals with AVCHD. That test ended up on a tie, so in my book AVCHD wins for flexibility and recording time.

At the same time these tests were taking place, I fought a lot with the stock settings trying to make a patch that used GOP 13 and yes, that's the frequency at which you see major block changes when you set the shutter speed to 1/2s. This GOP13 would insure excellent quality as it makes the result Full Intra once you trash the needed frames. But the frames and limits and buffers and modes were giving me all kinds of speed messages Hell. By that time I also discovered that the null B frames that encoded no changes at 2fps were much larger than P-Frames which also appeared a lot more frequently than I wished they would. Null B-Frames were 2.5x bigger than P and when there was movement, the P-Frames would take as much space (and sometimes even more) than I frames, so I had to do something about it to make it more efficient. Meanwhile Nick @Driftwood and @LPowell were kind enough to share their knowledge and let me in on a few tricks. These allowed me to suppress B-Frames altogether and starve P-Frames to death.

So here I was armed with a bazooka and a missile and I couldn't even fire a pistol. Then a few days ago @Balazer came out with his Cake patch featuring a completely VBR approach through a Constant Quantizer as if he couldn't care less about bitrates, limits or buffers or all the stuff that was putting me down. I tried it a 2fps and I couldn't believe how well it worked. And since the frame rate I'm using is ridiculous when compared to normal video modes, there are no speed/buffer/spanning issues even if you have the slowest SD card in the business. In this case, this VBR aproach is a no brainer and the cherry on top is that you get Constant Quality at Quantizer 22 which is very very good IQ!

So, hands to work, bake the Cake, mix Driftwood's MPEG settings, apply the P/B-Frame tricks and it was working on the third try. :O

It could have been a lot faster as I tried to best the 60i mode and leave all other modes alone. It ended up being the wrong choice because the 60i GOP isn't sticking and probably the Interlacing is making too big P-Frames around the I-Frames. In the end I managed to use tweak 24p for timelapses and the frame usage when there is no movement is a beautiful set of I-Frame spikes with all else almost null. 60i is now GOP13 on I/P frames exclusively and the P sizes look generous, so the starved P-Frames on 24p don't seem to affect it. 720p modes seem also unaffected. In the end this patch tries to give you the best 2fps and still leave you with 2 very workable modes without repatching: 1080i60 and 720p.

USE IT AND ABUSE IT. DON'T forget to weed out the starved frames in post. AfterEffects instructions here: http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/49325#Comment_49325 and freeware workflow is here: http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/39079#Comment_39079

Thank you @balazer for baking Cake.

Thank you @drifwood for the MJPEG settings and no B-Frame trick.

Thank you @lpowell for telling me how to starve the P-Frames.

Thank you @cbrandin for StreamParser 2.4 which gave me wonderful new numbers.

.

VERSION HISTORY :

1 - TimeBuster 1 - First Release

• Based on Cake v1. It uses GOP13, a Constant Quantizer VBR approach without B-Frames, minimum P-Frame size and quality.

2 - TimeBuster 1.1 - with 2 significant changes:

• Now based on @balazer 's Cake 1.1, it has switched to use the Rate Control mechanism from @LPowell 's FlowMotion 100.

• 720p mode was broken due to use of a very low quantizer (12) which lead to skipped frames in 720p. It now uses QP=20 on both 720 & 1080 modes which will have an observable effect in both bitrate & quality even though it still gives you 24+ hours on 64GB.

3 - TimeBuster 1.2 - with 1 significant change for a fully featured 720p mode:

• Since @balazer 's Cake 1.1 is now heavily based on @LPowell 's FlowMotion 100, I decided to copy LPowells 720p settings since they will probably play better with the other modes. The only difference on 720p is a constant QP which had to be lowered yet from 20 to 21 because it still dropped frames on torture charts and/or sometimes present speed issues at very high ISO (>3200) on Class 10 SDs.

4 - TimeBuster 1.3 - with a lot of significant changes:

• Ported to PTTools 3.64d

• Savings on P-Frames is now accomplished by using a Scaling Table that is full of 0xFFFF for 1080p modes.

• Quantizer boundaries were removed since they are now much more dependent on the new Quantizer Tables.

• Redesigned for merging, these definitions try to be as independent as possible from their re-packaging definitions (in this case FlowMotion 1.1) and are published in two flavors: Timebuster 1.3 Base (for merging) and Timebuster 1.3 FloMo (merged with FlowMotion 1.1)

NOTE1: Timebuster Base 1.3 was merge tested with @LPowell 's FlowMotion 1.1, @Balazer 's Cake 1.2 and Nick @Driftwood 's Quantum X (v2) with minimal impact on all modes except for 1080p. I recommend FlowMotion or Cake for the simple reason that the 1080p24 Frame Limit is set to a much higher value in these settings. In fact, if you care for nothing other than the 24p timelapse IQ and don't mind impacting some of the other modes, you should set it to 10,000,000.

NOTE2: Merging Timebuster Base 1.3 with other settings is easiest done by loading Timebuster Base 1.3 first and then Alt+Clicking your choice of merger.

5 - Timebuster is now comprised of 2 main variants:

a) 24h Timebuster 2.0 - with the following changes (from TimeBuster 1.3):

• The GOP for 24p is now married to 2.5fps. The bitrate hit is a little above 20% but the recording length can be easily compensated by raising the QP. As a benefit it's still very close to 2fps and it's the closest to a 360º shutter we can get on 24p.

b) 24h TimeHBusteR 2.0 (NEW, uses HBR 30)

• Similar philosophy to 24h Timebuster 2.0 Base but as the name suggests, uses HBR mode instead of 24p. There is another difference, P-Frame quality is fully preserved as this kind of frames is used for one of the interlaced slices on Key Frames.

• GOP married to 1/2.5 on HBR 30p (NTSC) and to 1/5s on HBR 25p (PAL). The big benefit is that both are using a 360º shutter. Uncheck "1080i50 and 1080p24 GOP Size=5" before merging if you don't plan to use Shutter Speed (SS) =1/5s and want to better preserve the 24p mode and HBR 25.

Both variants are now:

• Using B-Frames. There is a 6% penalty in bitrate usage but this was necessary to make sure the QP was respected. I believe the gain from setting the QP at will is just too great to ignore, since not everyone wants to record for 24h straight. QPs as low as QP=16 were tested and theoretically it could go as low as QP=12 @ISO160 when merged with FlowMotion 1.11 on regular tripod mounted footage.

• GOP married to 2.5fps. The bitrate hit is a little above 20% but the recording length can be easily compensated by raising the QP. The reason behind this was getting as close as possible to 360º.

• User definable GOP - GOP can be set at will according to intended SS, use the attached "GOP-SS-table.png" to look up the right value. Defaults settings are SS=2.5fps and GOP 1080i=10 for 24h Timebuster 2.0 and SS=2.5/5fps and GOP 1080i50/i60=12/5 for 24h TimeHBusteR 2.0.

• User definable QP - QP can be set at will according to desired IQ/recording length. I've gathered quite an amount of information so that in the future I can make an Excel tool to estimate the best QP from Card Size/Footage Snapshot/Desired ISO/Recording Length. Default settings are Q24/23 for 24h Timebuster/TimeHBusteR.

As before, there is the Base Release to be merged at wish with popular settings (load Base first in PTTools and then "ALT+Click" your choice of merger) and there is also the FlowMotion Release (already merged with FlowMotion 1.11). I've merge tested against @lpowell 's FlowMotion 1.11, @balazer 's Cake 95, and @bkmcwd 's GOP3ZILLA and no undesirable effects were observed. The key is using a VBR settings definition with a very high "1080p24 Frame Limit", especially if you are going for a low QP (<22).

(edit) If you want to merge with Nick @driftwood 's settings, I recommend going for Cluster v1 as shines in being both a long GOP set and also having the biggest "1080p24 Frame Limit" of all the sets I know.

6 - Updated Release of Timebuster/timeHBusteR 2.02 FlowMotion - WARNING HBR version IS BROKEN at 24p

• (EDIT) This turned out to be a rushed release. Several users have reported problems with timeHBusteR (the HBR variant) It looks like FlowMotion 2.0(+) is highly dependent on GOP length (trough heavy use of GOP Tables, GOP Opt Tables and GOPx2 parameters). I'm investigating other possibilities right now so watch this space for further news. In the meantime I recommend you stick to timeHBusteR /Timebuster v2.0.

Since FlowMotion 2.02 looks very stable now, I'm releasing my pre-merged versions of Timebuster/timeHBusteR. There is nothing new regarding timelapsing except for FlowMotion's 2.02 changes.

• 24h Timebuster 2.02 FlowMotion which is 24h Timebuster 2.0 Base merged with FlowMotion 2.02

• 24h timeHBusteR 2.02 FlowMotion which is 24h timeHBusteR 2.0 Base merged with FlowMotion 2.02

7 - Updated Release of Timebuster/timeHBusteR 2.02 FlowMotion variants - 24p is now fixed on timeHBusteR. There was a note telling you should remove the "1080i50 and 1080p24 GOP Size=5" for better preserving 24p but no one seemed to read it and it was causing more trouble (to most of those who wanted 24p preserved) than it was worth (for those who wanted more timelapsing versatility.

NOTE: The mergeable timeHBusteR wasn't updated! Just the the FlowMotion variant. I ASSUME that if you are using this base for merging that YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING, and read the DOC.

The day is not over. :)

This is the best thing I loaded to my GH2. Stable, reliable and excelent image quality in all modes, works for cards with 24/30/36/45MBps constant write speed or above depending on the version loaded. Best option is to use 45MBps cards and above, which I used for the tests.

setg is the recomended version, safe and great quality. seth and seti are for lower speed cards, but does not have same quality of setg. setj has more aggressive settings for even better quality.

four versions: (use setg if you have proper card, it is safe and avoids all mosquito noise and texture mud in the high bitrate modes)

setg: for cards with constant write speed 36MBps and above, I frames compression = 3

seth: for cards with constant write speed 24MBps and above, I frames compression = 4

seti: for cards with constant write speed 30MBps and above, I frames compression = 3.5

setj: for cards with constant write speed 45MBps and above, I frames compression = 2.5

The base is FlowMotion 2.02 from LPowell because he did a great careful job to tweak the quantization, matrices and tables and get perfect image quality in all modes with quiet camera or camera movements.

The modifications are in datarate and gop to make it completely stable and reliable without stop recording in all modes. For best image quality use the 24H, SH, FSH and HBR. The 24L, H, FH does not have the same quality and are for save memory space and for you to try in lower speed cards if needed.

The bitrate is very well distributed among the I, B and P frames giving a fluid random texture and noise in all modes and isos, The gops and datarate are well balanced to each other with the benefits from the quantization, matrices and tables from FM202.

In the setg 24H, SH, FSH and HBR, the texture is beautiful, noise is homogene, no macroblocking, no mosquito noise, no texture mud. Great use of the 8 bit codec in dark areas, excelent high iso performance which cleans ok with neatvideo and with a small amount of film grain you cannot tell it was shoot in high iso. Optimal results for blu-ray output and big screen projection.

720p 60p upscaled to 1080p works great for slow motion, just use your skill to denoise, sharp and upscale it. Apply film grain to your taste. If you like the feel of the original noise, just keep it, or just remove a little bit of chroma noise keeping the luma noise, and no need film grain.

No stop recording in all tests with setg. tested with green grass under sun and shadow and also tested in all modes with the four Stray's colour death charts. Tests done with 6400 iso which is very difficult to the hack to handle and it worked ok. Tests also done in the end of card space (3 minutes left) and no stop recording also. Sandisk 32GB SDHC 45MBps was used.

The audio has Pasadena settings, from FM202.

Spanning was not tested with this patch. Also it needs transcoding with 5DtoRGB free software before editing to avoid the diagonal pattern (rain). It is clean after converted to Apple ProRes. I Converted to the LT version with great results and smaller fle sizes.

If somebody wants to test spanning I recomend to use the lower bitrate modes and tweak the TOP and BOTTOM datarate limits in the advanced settings for testers in PTool.

Enjoy!

• Panasonic DMC-GH2 body with Flowmotion 2 hack (in box, with strap, manual, charger) • 3 OEM Panasonic batteries • 2 Power2000 batteries • Dual battery charger • Ownuser battery grip (holds 2 batteries) • Camera bag • LCW Light Craft Workshop Fader ND Mk2 72mm variable ND filter • 46-52mm step up ring

• Voigtlander 25mm f/0.95 (version 1, in box, only used a few times) • B+W 52mm XS-Pro UV filter for the Voigtlander

All lens caps included. Everything has always been very well taken care of. This gear hasn't seen a ton of use, so the batteries all still have great life left in them.

Payment via PayPal only, free shipping to continental U.S. (signature required).

Price for everything as a bundle is $1200.

If you'd like to buy separately:

Voigtlander 25mm and filter: $675 GH2 setup: $600

PLEASE NOTE: In the first photo there is a 20mm pancake, which is NOT INCLUDED in this sale. It was part of the original bundle but has been SOLD. Thanks!

EDIT: Just reverted back to original firmware and the HBR mode records only at 29 mbs. When before it was around 50. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks guys

Cheers,

D.

So here is my intended version of the video that we agreed upon. Shot on GH2 with Flowmotion and Nikkor AI and AI-S lenses, edited in FCPX and graded in Resolve.

Password: MyVersion

Official video (if you want to compare):

I did some research in the forum about PTools settings but I did not find the answers I need...

What happens is:

Only GOP which works good for 720p 60p are GOP 30 and GOP 3, all other GOP gives diagonal pattern (rain) in computer monitor. But the GOP 3 in 720p always stops recording and it seems the card is not the problem, I am using Sandisk 45mbps and other people says the Sandisk 95mbps also stops recording in 720p hacks... The GOP 6, 12 and 15 works for some shoots, but they are unstable (sometimes stops recording) and gives diagonal pattern (rain) in computer monitor. GOP 3 stops recording all the time, no matter the bitrate (I tested GOP 3 from 40 to 200mbps). So GOP 30 is the only option.

Problem is: when using the GOP 30 the camera encoder always keeps the bitrate very low when the camera is quiet, when there is no motion in the image, and this gives lots of macroblocking and texture lost in low light. Even when I set the bitrate to 48mbps or 64mbps in PTools the camera does not record 48mbps or 64mbps, StreamParser shows only around 23mbps... (for static low light shoots)

The auto quantizer all to motion or all to details did not make any difference. So I did some try to change settings in TESTER options of PTools. I fount the TOP and BOTTOM bitrate limits and I enabled it with 48000 and 42000 for top and bottom 720p, but this makes no effects in encoding, bitrate is still very low for static shots no matter the bitrate I type in PTools...

Only thing I found to make the bitrate encoding keep high is the GOP 3, but camera stops recording in all 720p shoots, the GOP 3 just works for 1080p.

So I am wondering if there is a way to keep the bitrate high using GOP 30 in 720p...

Any suggestion welcome, thanks.

It's sometimes fun to do a remake of a big Hollywood costume piece--just five minutes of one. All of the scores of Handel's music are now public domain, as they were printed in the 19th century.

Here is the movie version: The movie has an interesting anachronism, which is that the orchestra is conducted--in Handel's time the music flow was directed by the playing of the keyboard instrument, giving a more sinuous musical flow. Modern conductors came into view around 1820, more than 100 years after the opera was composed.

Would have been nice to rent out a baroque style opera house for a day, but that would have been expensive :)

Cams: GH3 Flowmotion (center cam), GH10s

I often have this issue which is that there is sunlight coming through a window (or two side windows), and spotlights on the stage. Currently using secondary correction for this but it is always difficult when the light mixes. As the session goes on, the sunlight moves from left to right.

Cheers, D.

I bought a BT Red One MX and shot this TV show trailer which got sponsored after by Toyota/Scion.

We used hacked GH2 and GH1 cameras through out, see if you can tell where - although I'm sure you'll be able to pick out the obvious ones. 3 person crew mostly, mad low budget and a lot of time and care went into it.

Which music works best with the trailer... version 1 or 2?

We are trying to get as many YouTube hits as possible before approaching a few networks and FX Canada,

Thanks!

About: A workshop for a school acting group to understand the difference between acting for the stage and acting for a camera. Focus on the acting in one afternoon we shot it with natural light and kept the fancy equipment to a minimum: a reflector and a home built slider.

Shot in three hours with a hacked GH2 (Flow Motion) and vintage Nikon lenses. Edited in Final Cut Pro X. Graded in Davinci Resolve 10. Sound mix in Pro Tools 11.

Winner of the audience award at the TellUs Short Film Festival.

Just to give you a bit of the process: I was asked just the day before and I was lucky that two of my students had tickets and would be in the audience. I gave the each a camera and I was backstage (We used Sony EX1/3, all handheld), but I also handed out a consumer handycam and my iPhone (with Filmic Pro) to people I didn't know in the audience to really get a documentary feel to it. And to play a little safe I had my GH2 (Flowmotion) and Tokina 11-16 on a tripod in the back. A friend of mine mixed in Pro Tools.

Of course it's not perfect, both coverage lacked sometimes and the LED lighting gave some nasty artifacts, but the raw feel of the footage and the energy of the band and the amazing old theatre we filmed in gave it all av very special feel. I edited in FCPX we're I also did my grading with Filmconvert (to enhance the raw feel and it did combat the harsh blues of the LED lighting and the grain hid a lot of the artifacts.) Not the best I've done technically , but considering the circumstances I'm happy with it and it's all about the song and helping my friend and her band to reach out.

"We will never lose our pride".

What is the best way of knowing which mode corresponds to each in-camera setting? ie. When I select Manual Movie Mode, HBR, Cinema, or variable, what am I actually getting? Is there a list of where and how I can get each of the settings? Or should I shoot a sample in each, and use media-info to figure that out?

EXAMPLE

Camera: GH2

Mode: 24p (Cinema)

Shutter Speed: 40

Hack: Flowmotion 2.02

Reasoning: I chose Cinema 24p to shoot at the rate most associated with cinematic productions. I chose my shutter speed to add filmic blur and create the illusion of judder free video. I chose flowmotion 2.02 to aid in both fronts (motion stability while keeping with the film look).

I've been tinkering with my camera set up. I wanted to monitor what I was shooting on a bigger screen, and wanted to use my macbook pro retina as the monitor. I bought a blackmagic intensity shuttle, connected it via HDMI to the shuttle and the shuttle to my mac via thunderbolt.

At first I had no picture - the camera was set to 24p cinema mode at FH.... but, in order to get the camera working through Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 capture function (and the blackmagic media express software) I had to change the settings on the software to 1080i 50 - so it looks like both pieces of software think the camera is spitting out 1080i 50 rather than 1080p 24.

As a result, I have 2 questions:

1 - does using an HDMI monitor change the footage captured on the SD card in the camera from 24p 1080p to 50 1080i? If not, then that's fine, I only want to monitor the footage and can cope with a visual change showing on my Mac. If so, then.... we have an issue.... 2 - is there a hack or option in ptools that will keep it at 24 1080p if it does affect the SD card recorded footage? I'm using Flowmotion v2 at the moment.

@Vitaliy_Kiselev - can you, or any of the geniuses on here help?

Many thanks,

Rob