@proaudio4 I have using the ETC mode with a lot of motion. I dunno what to do to fix it though.

I hadn't tested ETC mode before, I forget the camera has it as I never use it, which is crap of me really. It seems to be fine with relatively static shots using ETC, but it isn't with detail and motion with the quick test I did this morning when I saw the post. I'd have to look at replicating it more reliably though, but yeah, there does seem to be a problem with the ETC mode under some conditions. I'll look at it again tomorrow to make sure that ETC is the cause of what happened with the grass cutter shot.

No, I have never ever seen it before today as I don't use ETC. I only used ETC today to try and replicate the result. I'm not convinced I did replicate it exactly, but as I wrote at the end of part one of this thread it did create an issue whereby frames were basically dropping out (< 8,000 bytes size).

Thanks Stray and bdegazio.

I had not tried the 80% or ETC mode with the 88M setting.
I can understand why the 80% would fail, I'm not sure why cropping the sensor which ETC does would though?

You don't get a card is too slow error though, it seems to record perfectly fine. Its just the file itself isn't right, it has excessive blocking accross the whole frame. Also it doesn't happen everytime either, I'm trying to work out the conditions whereby the ETC mode causes it to get really blocky. Mostly the ETC mode works perfectly well.

Yep there the ones, thanks.

@Stray
Just to be sure that it's not an issue with my Sandisk Extreme Pro 45MB/s, I'll borrow a 'approved' Sandisk 30MB/s extreme to test your 88M again.

@Stray
I get the same result like @bdegazio.
I am using Sandisk Extreme Pro 32GB UHS.
24H - ETC on, works OK; 80% mode fails with card speed error about 50% probability.

Edited: I found a thread with the most popular patches - http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/953/gh2-patch-vault-most-popular-patches-in-one-place

:)

Thanks stray. I'm going to keep your 88m loaded on my camera despite the occasional card speed error. It seems to be the best compromise between motion quality, image quality, and file size.

@PixCanFly I really cannot recreate the problem with ETC mode that you get, and with the same card too. The image quality of the 176M isn't actually that different. If you look at stills in post of the same scene and push the image a lot, the size of the blocks are actually the same as the 66M AQ2 GOP12 settings. The I-frames themselves are quite a bit smaller with the 176M. However, the motion of GOP1 is breathakingly good, but when it comes to post work it's actually no better. http://personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/18767#Comment_18767 the motion does make it look amazing, but it doesn't actually mean the image quality is better in terms that relate to post work (grading, compositing, colour correction etc).

But if you are doing a lot of heavy post work, and you aren't transcoding your footage first to another intra format then the GOP1 will be better everytime as it won't suffer the generational loss as badly as a long GOP stream. If you love the look of the 176M GOP1 though I'd say stick with it, you'll only be constantly hankering after it's look now you've experienced it shooting everytime that you use other settings. ;) Actually the codec is doing more work arguably with a longer GOP than GOP1 really (creating spatially based I-Frames alone is probably a lot easier than creating B and P temporally based frames), maybe thats the problem/difference with the 88M settings.

More HDMI Testing - BATTLE OF THE TITANS

It's come time to test the high end contenders against the absolute reference - lossless HDMI output. This was a punishing nighttime test at ISO 6400. HDMI capture was done simultaneously with in-camera recording. The lineup:

Driftwood's 176M GOP1
bkmcwd's 154M GOP3
Stray's 88M GOP12

These are Photoshop TIFs with layers. HDMI is on the bottom, AVCHD on top. Toggle the top layer on and off and compare the two.

[url]http://www.sendspace.com/file/spv5b4[/url]
[url]http://www.sendspace.com/file/ithhfj[/url]
[url]http://www.sendspace.com/file/jdsfrp[/url]

IMPRESSIONS:

It's a tie between bkmcwd's 154M GOP3 and Driftwood's 176M GOP1. Both are perfection. I don't believe you can get any closer to the the HDMI than these two patches. Stray's 88M comes close, very close. And at half the data rate, it's a viable option for high end recording.

EDIT:

I have since run these clips through stream parser.

@Stray 88M can become unstable (in controlled testing). I have made a motion deathchart in After Effects and I get occasional drop-outs with Stray's 88M patch. It only happens once in a while but it indicates a buffer overrun. I see it in other patches too, where you get one or 2 frames that are like 10k in size.