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AVCHD: Stable settings
  • 288 Replies sorted by
  • @ swen24
    I am trying out your settings. I use everything except the 30min limit, pal<->ntsc, 1080i50 top setting and 1080i50i bottom setting. I noticed that the mpeg mode is affected eventhough I have not touched any of the mpeg settings. What I noticed is that the number of minutes that I can record in mpeg mode per card is greatly reduced. By default, without any change in any setting for mpeg, I should get about 30 minutes of "HD" recording on an 8gb card.

    Have you noticed this also on your camera? If anyone else is trying out swen24's settings, do you noticed what I have described above?

    Thank for all your help.
  • need help. I tried many kinds of attached patch from here. No problems with the camera. But the Bitrate of the most AVCHD(24H&FSH) files I imported to Final Cut Pro X with no optimized and the original MTS files are around 10mbps~18mbps among them. Only few of them will be around 40mbps~50mbps when i use the 60mbps GOP3 patch, and none of them will over 30mbps if i use the suggested setting with nothing else touched. 24L&FS are around 8mbps suggested setting......

    My card is Sandisk Extreme 32g HD bought yesterday works great with the 100Mbps 1080p30 patch. When I don't know how to fix AVCHD bitrate Problem, I revert the camera to the Original settings. The AVCHD files bitrate are still 10~18mbps in 24H mode!! I tried my Transcend 32g class10, the result is the same. So I don't think it's the problem from card.

    it is really unhappy to see the bitrate is 11.xxmbps :(

    Please Help!
  • @Jar_Lu That is worrying. I'm not an expert but was this with movement in the picture? Even an unhacked GH2 in 24p will do up to 28mbps (max) on heavy movement.

    Are you sure you are measuring it correctly? What was it measuring before the hack?
  • Hello,

    i have a little question about the settings (i´m a noob...) . I have pulled the bitrate for 720p50 from 16 to 22 000000 and i think the colors are better. But i dont understand the GOP settings ? which GOP Settings are the best for me ? And now i need a good compromise that offers me mixture of datarate and image quality.

    ( I use the 720p50 mode of the GH2 becouse of the good image quality AND the good motion qulity, the 24p Modus is to stutter, if anyhone has some googd advices, your always welcome )

    regards Natalie
  • in my opinion, the best patch at the moment - taking advantage of the efficiency of the codec
    (including 1080P MJPeg by LPowell and my 720p B-Frames Patch)

    sete.zip
    507B
  • @Butt what is the GOP and mbps at 24h on the above patch?
  • @JDN
    GOP12
    average MBit ~28 - 32MBit
  • Anecdotal bitrates and SD cards.

    Aplogies if not scientific enough. I have tried a variety of Kae and Butt settings at both 43Mbits and 65Mbits. All for me are useable .. couple of artefacts at the beginning of each clip, some wierdness in rear LCD panel.

    The only other thing I consistently observe is that the first time I attempt to record with a Transcend, I get card error, 2nd and consequent attempts work. Sandisk 45Mb works perfectly for me.

    Example:
    load 42 and35Mbit stable settings.
    Set camera on Tripod at contrasty speckled carpet half bright sun half shadow.
    Attempt to record at 42 .. card fails
    Attempt to record again .. records fine
    Switch to 35Mbits FH/FL ... attempt to record ... card fails
    Attempt to record .. records fine.

    This goes on ad infinitum .. everytime I change recording quality menu, first attempt always fails .. 2nd is fine.
    Apologies for lack of scientific method
    I tried it two days in a row.

    I get the same symptoms with the MJPEG settings by Lpowell.

    This is not a complaint, an observation that may point to something the camera does.
    I can only speculate that the camera might write something to disk with every format change that just overloads the speed of camera/card

    Kevin
  • Wow, I've never had a failure; and I'm doing some serious stress testing at 44M (double the default).

    A couple of things to consider: Make sure you format the SD card in the camera before you shoot. Don't erase clips in the camera (causes fragmentation). Make sure the SD card is OK. I've been using Transcend class 10 cards.

    The weirdness at the beginning is normal for now - just pretend you are shooting a high budget film with a Panavision or IMAX film camera - they take several seconds to get up to speed.

    Chris
  • Chris ..

    Good point .. the Transcend Class 10 20Mbit .. was new and not formatted.
    FYI: I am testing with 3 cards, the 20Mb Transcend and 30Mb and 45Mb Sandisks.

    I like the broken frames at the beginning .. I started as 16mm editor :)

    Kevin
  • @kavadni "This goes on ad infinitum .. everytime I change recording quality menu, first attempt always fails .. 2nd is fine."

    I've observed the very same behavior.
  • @Butt FYI - I just tried those settings you posted (sete.zip), minus the PAL/NTSC switch and 30 min limit hacks (I have an NTSC GH2). When shooting my standard test (speaker grille - always pushes codec to max bitrate), 720p AVCHD (SH) would lock up the camera immediately with a card not fast enough error. Resulting files were 0 bytes. I had gotten the card too slow error before with 720p, but never had it locked up the camera and had always written at least a few seconds of video.
  • @kavadni

    Yeah, default formatting for SD cards uses a different allocation unit size than the camera uses - that can devastate performance. Hope that's all it was.

    Chris
  • @kavadni If in doubt, apply the same patch again. This may sound like a myth though...
  • @arvidtp
    720p B-Frames Setting (However, stability is an issue. If you record a 1080p @ 24 FPS video first and then record 720p @ 60 FPS stability returns.)
  • Just FYI if you are searching for a "all-situation-stable" bitrate for Class 6 cards (Tested with Transcend SDHC 16GB) I can tell you you should use a PTool bitrate of 40 mbit/s. High ISO with normal or EX situations report 41.38 mbps and that's the best my Class 6 card has been able to handle without hiccups.

    Also I noticed that using "AUTO ISO" with the exposure comp. cranked to +3, instead of "3200" ISO gives you more sensor sensitivity in low light situations.
    Beware: Auto Focus isn't that great + most of the bitrate goes to noise encoding :D
  • And -- as you can see, you can dig some detail out of the darks too! :)
    EDIT: Added the settings INI file (if you're lazy) :D

    SUGGESTION: Vitaliy: Wouldn't it be cool if you added the support for INI files for the upload + add a function where when a INI file is uploaded it is displayed in a "available ready-sets" section of the site (with a link to the source discussion)? :) (I know my settings are hardly worthy, but for the really good ones (so they are easier to find?) Wouldn't that be dataset semantic heaven? :D

    EDIT: It's not all business, you know! I've included a picture of my newborn 5 day old daughter. I'll have more (detailed (60fps 40mbit)) memories of her being a baby because of your hacking, Vitaliy! Just wanted to remind you of the work you're doing and on the levels it affects us all. So THANK YOU, Vitaliy!
    test-orig.png
    1280 x 720 - 650K
    test-levels.png
    1280 x 720 - 745K
    setj.ini.zip
    337B
    P1000153.jpg
    1826 x 2739 - 3M
  • I filmed non-stop about 20 minutes. After creating the first about 4 gigabytes video on SDXC card my camera total "freezes" and I had to remove the battery. This next video block to SDXC card is dead, 0 kb ....
    Bitrate 25,000, GOP12, 1080 50i
    Transcend SDXC 64 gigabytes Class 10
  • Here are the very stable settings I'm currently using (based on swen's from early in this thread, but with a boost from 28 to 32 Mbits/sec in 720p60 mode). Clips seems to span fine over files on a Patriot LX 32GB SDHC card for both 720p60 and 1080p24 80%. With 28 Mbits 720p60 I could not crash the codec. With 32 Mbits I did crash it once, but it seems to be very difficult (have not been able to crash it again) and would rarely happen in real life situations.
    arvidtp-seth.zip
    397B
  • @arvidtp
    "With 28 Mbits 720p60 I could not crash the codec. With 32 Mbits I did crash it once, but it seems to be very difficult (have not been able to crash it again) and would rarely happen in real life situations. "

    Define "crash the codec"?
    Did the camera lockup?
  • by "crash the codec" I just mean get a 'motion recording stopped because card too slow' error and recording stops. The camera never locks up with these settings in my experience. Also, if it is going to give the 'card to slow' error, it will happen in the first ~15 seconds or not at all. Since it's probably very rare that this will happen in real world situations, and once it's running for 15 sec it is stable, I'm willing to live with that remote possibility of a false start to a clip for now to get 32 Mbit in 720p60.

    Since the only risk of getting the error is in the first 15 sec of a shot, and I have successfully shot video up to 42mBit/sec in 1080p 24 80% (without ever failing), I feel that the text of this error is not actually true in this case but instead is reflecting some sort of buffering issue with the higher bitrates in 60fps at the beginning of a clip, potentially related to the fact that 1080p footage looks like crap for the first second or two as the codec gets 'up to speed', but 720p60, at least with these settings, looks good from the start meaning it is writing the full datarate at the beginning of this clip when buffering, writing, encoding, etc is just starting. But I bet Vitaliy and others know a lot more about this than I do :) And I have not played around with changing the buffer settings yet.
  • My problem is

    Video Bitrate 24H = 65000000
    1080i50 and 1080p24 GOP Size = 3
    Video buffer = 0x3000000
    Video buffer 24p = 0x3600000
    1080p24 High Top Setting = 42418
    1080p24 High Bottom Setting = 29692
    1080p24 Low Top Setting = 31178
    1080p24 Low Bottom Setting = 21824

    1 second to play when it comes garbled screen. How do I fix this problem?
  • Butts sugested settings seems to be werry stable and work really well.
    Just waiting next Ptool to get more out of GH2.
  • @otcx
    thanks for feetback!
    here a new stable GOP6 1080/24pN Setting (including GOP30 720p B-Frames and LPowell 1080p MJPeg)
    GOP Struktur 1080p: IbbpbbIbbpbbI. . .
    setf.zip
    540B