What's so good about all these new Cluster X settings? In simple terms, after looking at the rate control, quantisation and scaling matrices found in the GH3, Nikon D800 and Canon 5DMKIII I decided upon a radical approach to find out if the GH2 was capable of getting near their very low QP values (which range from predominantly 1 to 30 depending on the detail and luminance of the subject).

What I found was (and this had me concerned before) was that Panasonic's implementation / or ptools labelling!) of rate control using the GH2's quantisation parameter isn't too clear. I needed a way of having a minumum Quant and a desired maximum quant. Strangely with Initial Quantizer = 30, Quantizer for 1080 modes = 3 (+-2 can offer a QP of 1 !) and Quantizer for 720 modes = 30 I could sortof achieve this!!!!

With 720 using B frames (switched on in the 720 encoder 1 settings as = 3) Quantizer for 720 modes seems to work as a highest Quantisation setting (high is worse, low quant is best) together with Initial Quant of 30 (don't worry about such a high starting value here - after the first frame it settles straight back to lowest achievable (best) for the scene. Subsequently, Quantizer for 1080 modes = 3 gives me my lowest desired (best quant) for each opt 24p, 1080i, HBR and 720 modes.

This quantizer rate control now seems to work as in newer High Profile Level 5 (5.1) cameras such as the 5DMKIII and Nikon D800 (and seemingly the GH3) and when matched with a new softer looking matrix - as analysed on the Canon 5DMKIII (with adjustments) - brings a degree of softening to the over sharpe Pany lenses.

I'm also sure that 1080i/FSH?HBR modes work better with half the coded picture buffer size of 720p modes (indeed I switched off 720 Bottom setting (the buffer amount as in automatically works it out) whilst offering a fairly low buffer in bitrate settings in 'patches for testers'.

In summary, the range of QP will be (certianly in 1080p24 modes) from 1 to 30 - often staying very low (less than 10) all round. I believe (although only tested by myself) that the result offers extremely good looking 720p modes (probably the best ever), certainly superior 24p with Intra & Long GOP, and great looking HBR/FSH and iA mode control (though further strenuous tests may well be required). High dynamic functions work it seems too.

All the new Cluster X series settings for each GOP attached below have been tested on the notoriously sharp Pany OIS lenses. Give me feedback.

Its as simple as A, B, C, D, E, F ! Each .ini setting in ptools for Cluster X Series will equate to setA ('DREWnet' 12/15 GOP), setB ('Nebula' 6 GOP), setC ('Spizz' 3 GOP), setD ('Moon' 1 GOP/3 GOP). Any updates will stay on these sets.

"Cluster X Series isn't for pussies!" Driftwood 2013

If you enjoy these settings please don't forget to donate to personal-view by clicking on the link above. Gratitude and thanks to Vitaliy Kiselev.

*** THIS IS A CONTINUATION THREAD FROM SERIES 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 WHICH CAN BE FOUND BY CLICKING ON THE LINKS BELOW - ALL EARLIER DRIFTWOOD SETTINGS CAN BE FOUND & DOWNLOADED ON THESE LINKS ON PAGE 1 OF THEIR RESPECTIVE THREADS***

EXPERIMENTAL SERIES 1 - Apocalypse Now Series & Boom! Also the place to find Cluster v7 settings with cbrandin 444 matrix and sharp variation.

Series 1 Link

Series 2 Link

Series 3 Link

Series 4 Link

Series 5 Link

The old Intra VY Canis Majoris Link

ALL Settings require Panasonic firmware v1.11 & ptools 3.64D '200212' OR 3.65d required). Settings for GH2 & GFx Lumix cameras.

DRIFTWOOD NEWS

11-01-2013 NEW Cluster v8 'DREWnet' 'cbrandin Cinema Smooth' setting 12/15 GOP released. See below.

12-01-2013 NEW Cluster v9 'DREWnet' 'Boom 4444 matrix' setting 12/15 GOP released. See below.

PLUS New Cluster X in trial amongst the thread. Nebula versions (6 GOP) of all three Cluster 12/15 settings will appear here soon.

CREDITS

These settings are dedicated to VK @Vitaliy_Kiselev (master in control) and Chris Brandin @cbrandin (thee font of information).

IF YOU LIKE THESE SETTINGS PLEASE PAYPAL DONATE (ABOVE) TO VITALIY FOR HIS BRIILLIANT & TIRELESS WORK ON GIVING US THE HACK.

I have found a gap between stock and extreme settings in the forums for us interested in an enhanced GF3. In current version of PTool 3.65d @vitaliy_kiselev in the background of the tool have built in the experience from the testing by the core team so when we end users are using “settings for end users” a lot happens in the background. I have tested a number of different settings only using “settings for end users” with bit rates spanning between 24 and 66 mbits and stock GOP’s of 12/15 as well as 6 and 3. When doing this I have adopted cbrandin’s method of using a multiple of stock bitrates.

With this Topic I encourage people like me to discuss and disclose basic settings in between stock and “extreme”. I start to include three different settings, one stock GOP, one GOP6 and one GOP3.

My Standard GOP caled Nature and my GOP 6 GOP 6 you now find bellow:

Here is the new version of Sanity for firmware 1.1. What makes this special is:

Picture Quality - across-the-board, no-compromise, high quality images in all modes: 24P, HBR, 1080i and 720p. And all at very modest bitrates. There are improvements in all modes. 720p is especially notable because I have successfully got B-frames working in it, and it makes a huge difference.

Stability - I hate write errors - hate em', hate em', hate em'. Sanity 4 is rock stable. I use Sandisk 30M Class 10 cards and have not had any write errors in any mode, including ETC. Of course, your milage may vary, but I hope not.

Spanning - Sanity now spans in 24L, FH, SH & H mode.

Two versions - Because of HBR mode, I was forced to make two versions of Sanity 4, one for NTSC and one for PAL.

Samples - I've uploaded a zip file containing four raw MTS files, which show the same scene in 24P, HBR-30P, 1080i60 and 720p60. The shutter speed was set to 1/2000 sec, to really torture the codec. Even if you're a confirmed intra-junkie, you owe it to yourself to check this out. You just might be amazed.

[url]http://www.sendspace.com/file/9j72rc[/url]

NOTE: When downloading from Sendspace, click the button that says "Click here to start download from sendspace". Do not click anything else.

SANITY 4.1 UPDATE - March 27, 2012

Here is an update for SANITY with vastly improved stability for the PAL version. This sucker is STABLE. In fact, so stable that I was able to raise the data rate in FSH/SH mode to 36M. So, there's better picture quality, too.

I've also updated the NTSC version, although there was nothing wrong with version 4.0. I simply applied some of the things I learned from the PAL version, to make it even more stable. Call it preventative maintenence.

Again, what SANITY is about is top picture quality is ALL shooting modes with reasonable data rates and 100% reliability.

SANITY 5 UPDATE - April 14, 2012

Here is a new version of Sanity with some major changes. First, it fixes a problem with a subtle pulsing in the shadows in HBR mode. But more importantly, in the process of fixing the pulsing, I discovered a way to create monster size I frames, while still keeping the bitrate low. In 24P, we're talking about I frames approaching the one million mark with certain subject material. And this applies to 24L, as well! For 24H I had to lower the bitrate from 66M to 38M, and yet the image quality is the same (and maybe better). I applied this technique to all modes; 24P, 1080i, 720P and HBR.

Sanity 5 is unified for NTSC and PAL - there is only one version.

Spanning works with 24L, FH, SH & H modes. When spanning, do not go above ISO 5000 and do not use ETC. Spanning works in HBR mode with third party manual lenses. Do not go above ISO 3200. Spanning does not work reliably in HBR mode when using Panasonic lenses.

SANITY 5.1 UPDATE - December 29, 2012

SANITY 5.1 fixes a problem of the image severly breaking up and prevents it from occuring. I strongly recommend SANITY 5 users install the update.

SANITY 5.1 works reliably in all shooting modes - 24H, 24L, FSH, FH, SH, H, HBR, ETC in all modes, and all variable frame rates.

I did extensive spanning tests of SANITY 5.1 and it's the same as SANITY 5 with one addition - ETC spans when shooting in 24L mode. Here are the patch notes for spanning:

Spanning works in 24L, FH, SH & H modes. When spanning, do not go above ISO 5000. Spanning works with ETC in 24L mode. Do not go above ISO 3200. Spanning does not work with ETC in any other mode. Spanning works in HBR mode with third party manual lenses. Do not go above ISO 3200. Spanning does not work reliably in HBR mode when using lenses with electrical contacts.

Enjoy, and good shooting!

In a nutshell the GH3 produced much more noise than I expected. And an overall lower quality image vs the GH2 under the same shooting conditions. (Both cameras shooting with the same f-stop, S-speed and ISO)

It was recommende3d by @robbin that I try the 50Mb/s IPB setting. I did so but still don't see much improvement or change in the noise with lower light. Was shooting at ISO 400 so I should be fairly safe right? Per many other professional shooters I have Sharpness at -5, Contrast -5, Saturation -2. Noise Reduction at 0 as -5 allows too much noise and +5 seems to muddy or soften the image as a whole to me.

Any feedback is welcome on best video settings for GH3

• QP step sizes table.
• Scaling tables just like in GH2.
• Min and Max QP.
• All intra turner.
• I-frame or somelike limit constant.
• Min frame size limit(works incorrectly)

Main problem is i can't control min bitrate, for example when shooting deep black scenes. There is steel error out after 3 sec shooting in such scenes. There is min frame size limit, i guess, i have found. But it's just increases last frame in 1-sec sequence. So need more and more testing.

I look forward to sharing and learning from you all.

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. :)

What's everybody using for their export settings these days for YouTube? (and Vimeo for those interested there too)

Thought I'd get your advice and opinions on setting up a new mac for feature film editing. I've been on a Windows machine for some time now, and went through the process of determining the best settings for performance, and the best settings for export. My goal is optimal quality, particularly with export quality. So do you guys have preferred settings you use on your macs for the best editing and exporting results? Will be using FCP 7, FCP X, After Effects, Audition. Also any thoughts on antivirus - needed or not, conflicts with FCP or not?

Thanks, Matt

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!

I have the FZ1000 but I hear the problem is the same for GH4:

I can currently only playback individual 4k clips in camera over HDMI to a 4k TV, but I wish to make an edit and play it back...

Is it possible, once I have edited a 4k Video, to make it playable in camera so that the edit can be displayed over HDMI on a 4K TV or monitor?

Many Thanks for any solutions, as my friend has a 4K TV and I have a FZ100 so we would like to be able to playback an edit in camera over HDMI so that we can watch my work..?

I want to make a documentary, in connection to a research project. I'm in the possession of a GH-1 camera and would like to install the hack for this camera. Can anyone direct me to a good tutorial for the hack and settings. My technical skills are unfortunately very limited. I would like a tutorial with instructions for the hack and settings, to make my camera ready to go with an optimal setup for filming.

Please excuse my bad english.

Greetz

I'll Include pictures of each item.

1. There is some sort of square in the middle of the screen. I believe it has to do with the focus assisting. Is there a way to get rid of this square? I understand it's purpose, but I think it gets in my way, especially with the touch screen becuse it can move.

2. The AF box in the lower right hand corner. Again, I understand why it's there and what it does. But I don't always want that option available. It's just taking up real estate on my display.

3. My guides and info dissapear from the display after 1 minute of sitting. Is there any way to keep them displayed?

4. (no picutre included) This is one I've kind of grown to enjoy, but is there any way to remove the side quick menu from the display?

I'd appreciate any help! Thanks!

All tested with GH2 + Sandisk SDHC 32GB 45MBps card

I did not test spanning because I do not need it.

seta = modified FlowMotion 2.02 with high datarate for both 1080p 24p and 720p 60p, gop3 for 1080p 24p and default Panasonic gops for other modes, long gop for 720p is more stable than short gops. avoids the diagonal pattern (rain) noise in 1080p 24p, the other modes needs transcoding with 5DtoRGB free software before editing to avoid the diagonal pattern (rain) noise in dark low light. (best choice, workhorse)

setb = modified FlowMotion 2.02 with high datarate for 1080p 24p and mid datarate for 720p 60p, gop3 for 1080p 24p and default Panasonic gops for other modes, long gop for 720p is more stable than short gops. avoids the diagonal pattern (rain) noise in 1080p 24p, the other modes needs transcoding with 5DtoRGB free software before editing to avoid the diagonal pattern (rain) noise in dark low light. (for low speed cards)

setc = modified FlowMotion 2.02 with mid datarate for both 1080p 24p and 720p 60p, gop3 for 1080p 24p and default Panasonic gops for other modes, long gop for 720p is more stable than short gops. avoids the diagonal pattern (rain) noise in 1080p 24p, the other modes needs transcoding with 5DtoRGB free software before editing to avoid the diagonal pattern (rain) noise in dark low light. (for low speed cards)

setd = modified FlowMotion 2.02 with high datarate for both 1080p 24p and 720p 60p, gop3 for 1080p 24p and gop9 for other modes, avoids the diagonal pattern (rain) noise in 1080p 24p, the other modes needs transcoding with 5DtoRGB free software before editing to avoid the diagonal pattern (rain) noise, more noticeable than in the previous patches in this list. (highest quality for 720p)

sete = conservative settings with just datarate and gop changing, high datarate for 1080p 24p and mid datarate for 720p 60p, gop3 for 1080p 24p and default Panasonic gops for other modes, avoids the diagonal pattern (rain) noise in all modes.

setf = conservative settings with just datarate and gop changing, mid datarate for both 1080p 24p and 720p 60p, gop3 for 1080p 24p and default Panasonic gops for other modes, avoids the diagonal pattern (rain) noise in all modes. (for low speed cards)

Feel free to share the settings that you are using and the results - unfortunately I did not have enough time myself to make some research yet :)

I've just got registered on this forum, after only reading (and learning!) for a while. Thanks for that! I've recently bought the Panasonic GH4 and now I'm about to finish my first videoproduction with it.

I've attached my project properties and render settings, but i'm wondering: what are the best render settings for the best image quality? And what are the best settings for Vimeo/YouTube purposes? In terms of bitrate, etc.

I will capture my footage @ 4K, but I will render it as a .mp4 full HD file.

Hope to hear from you!

First of all my compliments for all those who made an effort to buid this site!

i loaded a certain ini setting onto ptools yesterday and saved it as an .bin file. But now im not certain which one it is, beaceause ptools has saved 2 settings.

Is there a way to read the .bin file and see the settings?

Thanks

I've been looking all over the web for forums on how to use my cam (which happens to be a GH3, so ... what mostly) AND to do something with it ... and either there are esoteric and pointedly detailed discussions on the technical bits of shooting OR a highly detailed esoteric discussions of say, specific tasks in DV Resolve ... I'm sure at some point I might find interest in this, but it's not helpful now. It's handy to see that say, several here feel the .MOV on the GH3 is great at lower ISO, but the AVCHD better at higher ISO. Practical and handy.

That said, when I get into Premiere Pro and Speedgrade, where I've been totally lost at the settings to actually make the end result meet what my monitor shows ... I'm not finding a lot of help. I've tried (in SG) various settings from "no calibration" to about everything on that long list ... most things chosen in rendering make for an output that is harshly contrasty/saturated and a lot darker ... except for a couple of the gamma/MOV ones that result in a "thin", bright and washed-out final. No one on the SG forum even responds to requests on things like that, and I can't find any info that isn't contradicted by every other article out there.

I'd just love a practical discussion of what settings, practices, and patterns seem to work smoothly and consistently. Not just shooting or just post, but ... when combined ... make for a smooth workflow from planning through delivery. What kind of rendering settings work best for the files created by this camera? What LUT's or protocols or whatever to look for, what to avoid ... clearly, there are some good folks here at doing this stuff.

ANY comments would be so appreciated!

R. Neil Haugen