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GF2 Stable Settings
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  • EbachervilleEbacherville

    At this point I don't think its a Vegas issue, because rendered from the Vegas timeline uncompressed it didn't change the image. I'm going to mess with it more and see what I can find out. At home I have a older version of Vegas, at work I have the newest version.. I'll do come comparisons between the two. Still shocked that XDCAM at 35mbps (highest setting possible in Vegas) accentuated it that much.. but I guess we are going from 50mbps to 35mbps.. some generation loss is expected.

  • pdluminapdlumina

    @Ebacherville It is my understanding that these patches allow us the users to pump a higher bitrate into a 'delivery' codec when acquiring images.

    Because of this, I tend to either A) edit the original Inter-frame with an application that supports the original files (Vegas, etc), or B) transcode to a proper intra-frame editing format for a smooth editing experience.

    I tend to go with option 'B', and never go below 100Mbps on transcoding (DNxHD on Vegas or MPEG-2 I-Frame on Lightworks).

    It may seems like an overkill, but that's just the surface. I am going from a highly compressed inter-frame stream to a lesser compressed intra-frame format, and a simple understanding of the main difference between these formats (GOP's VS independent frames) yields the logical conclusion that I need much more bitrate to avoid losing too much quality on transcoding.

    On delivery (web, local proxy) I then go back to H.264. I tend to use 17-20Mbps for 720p and about 25Mbps for 1080i (rare). AAC for audio and MP4 as a container. This works wonders.

    Of course, sending the file to a third party online service (the tubes, vimeo, etc) means that you lose control over the final result, since these services batch-encode the users videos at a preset bitrate regardless of content.

  • EbachervilleEbacherville

    @pdlumina, yes agreed, my shock was how badly the render to XDCAM added to the blocking.. mostly shocked because XDCAM is widely used and fairly trusted format.. As I said, doing uncompressed renders from the timeline didn't change the source image, blocking is very minimal in the source and uncompressed, but the XDCAM render made the blocking far worse. I think I'll use XDCAM renders to find flaws now, instead of render for the web. :) I messed with some MainConcept CBR settings and think I found a winner for high bitrate yet compressed renders.

  • pdluminapdlumina

    @Ebacherville If what I read about XDCAM is true (35Mbps VBR, 1440x1080 MPEG-2), then something to remember is that (I am talking delivery here) MPEG-4 is a much more efficient and optimized codec than MPEG-2.

    With this in mind, I am certain there is a world of difference between 35Mbps MPEG-2 1440x1080 (anamorphic) and 35Mbps MPEG-4 1920x1080 raster. Certainly it would be best for the video to have the highest visual quality before being sent to be re-encoded by an online video delivery service.

    Meanwhile I still argue with the production department that raster 1280x720 progressive has more actual quality than the 1280x1080 interlaced (DVCProHD) perceptual quality.

  • EbachervilleEbacherville

    Agreed Pdlumina, one small change I made was it wasn't anamorphic, but 1:1 original frame size Either way yes mpeg4 is going to be more efficient for quality vs space used for any same file size.. But still shocked how badly xdcam trashed it in that area that was blocking.. Otherwise detail was good in the xdcam formated render.

    But enoght with this render format talk .. Time to keep testing and shooting.

  • AndySAndyS

    Ebach - Is it possible on Vegas to simply edit "native" the AVCHD and output edited clips in the original "native" AVCHD uncompressed? In other words, simply edit and output in the original Codec off the camera? Maybe "smart rendering" or whatever?

  • EbachervilleEbacherville

    AndyS, yes Vegas does but the files would be way to big for internet upload with limit like 2gb on youtube 1gb on facebook etc.

    However to put this blocking issue to bed.. the attached image is a UNCOMPRESSED render still from vegas.. this is as good as the original, blocking is present but very very minor in the sky.. Vegas isn't destroying anything and when rendered to XDCAM HD the XDCAM codec went totally when bonkers on the blocking, and made it far worse. That made me paranoid and seeing blocks in everything I looked at .. yes there is blocking in the original footage in this extream shot, but its very minor.

    Uncompressed blocking minimal but still present.jpg
    1920 x 1200 - 1M
  • EbachervilleEbacherville

    Well I still have Mysteron on my GF2, decided to record a test clip with a cheap $15 Transcend class 10 16gb card.. Recorded successfully.. clip is 1:23 in length.. 851mb in size.. 85,853 kbps footage looks nice .. this patch may eat up to much space.. at almost a GB a in 1.5 minutes.. im going to experiment and if i dont like it ill go back to pvdog. going to go test spanning now..

  • EbachervilleEbacherville

    Mysteron .. no spanning.. no good for me.. on to something else.. Footage looked nice.. if you can deal with every clip under 6 minutes... but a good test to see how fast the GF2 can write data.. 85mbps.. not bad

  • gamebgameb

    Hopefully soon ClusterV2 and manual settings

  • AndySAndyS

    Is PVDOG now smooth and stable on 720p? (I understand it does not play back in camera).

  • EbachervilleEbacherville

    I just put pvdog back on and tested a 15+ minute record in 720p, worked great .. didn't try playback in cam.. but record worked great... used pvdog setf .. Im on NTSC.. dont know about PAL this patch is pretty dang good IMHO.. especially since it can work on old slower cards. Only 1 or two scenes I have thrown at it that I've seen any blocking and they were extremely motion and detail entrenched scenes..

    Now I'm trying to find the best picture settings for footage, been shooting very flat .. -1 on everything.. but don't think i need to go that drastically flat.

  • EbachervilleEbacherville

    I also tried SpanMyB**chUp... but it didn't span.. but I'm not on confirmed working class 10 cards, liek the 30mbps sandisk. I'm on Transcend class 10..

    for me spanning is a must have

  • AndySAndyS

    I had a Transcend supposedly Class 10 and it seems not even to be up to decent Class 6 level. Very disappointing. I am having to upgrade all my cards to use the PVDOG patch even.

  • EbachervilleEbacherville

    It was reported that Sedna was spanning in 1080 and 720 on gh2.. so I figured id try it..Trying Sedna q20 seta now, no spanning on 1080i, trying 720p to span now... If that works may be a nice combo, 720 for long shoots 1080 for clips under 6-8 minutes.. We shall see if it sans at 720 .. The footage was nice at 1080 had that intra look/feel very nice. My 1080 test clip went 9 minutes before it hit 4 gb and tried to span and didn't, but didn't corrupt the file or anything.. Well 720 just attempted and failed to span.. Didn't work.. Back to pvdog I think..

  • RamboRambo

    Ebacherville, try flowmotion! I remember both spanning when I had it on my gf2. I'm talking PAL here.

  • AndySAndyS

    PVDOG is the dog for me.

  • AndySAndyS

    Actually its not a dog at all. The very opposite!!!

  • EbachervilleEbacherville

    Rambo, I'll try that next. , I put cake v2.0 on now , since that is the birthmother to pvdogs patch.. testing spanning.. but takes a while on lower bitrates to get to spanned, But I have lots of footage of my sons gold fish swimming around his aquarium now.. lol :) Ill try flomotion next.. What i want to do is find a few i like then load a few cards up with patches and go test them all on the same toucher scene of the lake and sky that started blocking pvdogs patch.. a scene like that is hell on any setup.. see what hold up best. I'm still happy with pvdogs patch.

  • hi1130hi1130

    stonebat's 32Mbps AQ4 is Most Standard Stable Setting!

  • EbachervilleEbacherville

    Cake 2.0 spans, looks nice.. I'll do the lake test on this one for sure..

    BTW if you don't need spanning Mysteron looks amazing on the GF2 try it out! When my GF3 body gets here I may just dedicate that to Mysteron for short shot stuff. I was looking at the test footage from it on the GF2 nice stuff.

    Batteries are flat, cant patch any more till they are full.. more tomorrow hopefully .

  • pdluminapdlumina

    @hi1130 Agreed. Since I'm on NTSC, I combined the stability of pvdog's 1080i60 AVC, with stonebat's 720p60, and videohq's 720p30 MotionJPEG settings. Discarded everything else on the settings. Works like a charm.

  • EbachervilleEbacherville

    pdlumina, you should share a config file for that combo, others may want to use it.

  • AndySAndyS

    Would love to have it, PDLUMINA.

  • pdluminapdlumina

    Will do, left the ini at my work's comp. I'm just going to go ahead and say that for $250, what we have here is a very capable 1280x720 progressive machine. Superb image quality, easy to edit, suitable for broadcast, and upscales beautifully on 1080 displays.

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