@driftwood. Nick, I think I am ready to throw in the towel for having an all around setting with Intra 24p and stable FSH/SH with very good image quality. For those who mostly use 24p and HBR, the Low Rider original version gives you an excellent quality for 24H at 140MB and HBR at 105MB all intra. But FSH/SH will not work. To fix the FSH/SH stability problem it is necessary to reduce bitrates and frame limits and by the time it is stable, image quality has been compromised. A good example of that is the amount of time and effort @bkmcwd is spending to stablize non-24p for Valkyrie settings. Also as @shian indicated in his test video which included GH3, the 70MB all intra footage of GH3 sucked while 50MB IPB looked great. Maybe Vitalie's hack of GH3 will change things for the better and give us more options but for the time being, anyone interested to have an all around setting for all modes, you are better of with longer GOP setting like Cluster series, Flowmotion, Valkyrie/GOLGOP13 or Sanity.
Nick, I would also be interested in a CLuster V8 3GOP or 6GOP settings based on Low Rider with 3GOP as preferred option.
Thank you for all your hard work you have done and still doing to help me and others out.
@driftwood. Intravenus V2 is exceptionally stable (I've only been able to get it to fail once after shooting for a few minutes). Whereas CM failed quite often (1 out of 15 shots or so). Would it be ok to push it past 150mb? Say 170 or 180mb/s like some of the older hacks to get even more detail out of it?
And I posted this is my other thread, but my tests with a 50" plasma are showing Dynamic mode to produce a richer/more quality image than both Standard and Smooth film modes. I posted earlier that standard vs standard CM looked better than IntraVenus v2, but shooting IntraVenus v2 in dynamic is about the same. Basically everyone recommends shooting Standard or Smooth but is there something wrong with Dynamic?
Yes: it is too unpredictable!
@Zaven13 Youre absolutely right for wide shots high detail. At 24p Intra Low Rider if you edit Q to default 20 (uncheck all the quantisation stuff) will generally give an overall picture quantisation range of Q18 to Q22 for the whole picture - which is still good. [Sedna Q20 is a good example of this method]
As soon as you start lowering the Q, employing AQ, or bringing down the matrix numbers for low pass freq filtering I guarantee Q for the whole picture will begin to vary - and sometimes more wildly. For shots like in tight subject matter (e.g. faces) a much lower Q can be used (such as Low Rider variation 1,2,3 or 4). Intravenus is also a very good setting for hi quality mid to tight shots/less busy shots/panning movement.
Generally, for 24p I use two of my settings when filming; e.g. Boom or Intravenus for mid-in tight shots and any of the same setting with Q set to default (Untick all Q related stuff) for high detail wide shots. That way I have the benefits of maximising my picture in close (at something like Q16 for Low Rider, Intravenus etc... which is of course better than Q20).
The rule of thumb is if theres less going on, encode the picture with the best detail you can. If there's more going on try and keep the quanitsation constant across the whole picture - and simply setting and experimenting Intiial Q (IQ in ptools) will help you achieve that.
There is no way of knowing how you're going to get the best quality with settings (and Intra!) unless you experiment. But in summary, its always best to share the bitrate out throughout the whole picture whilst you can and then measure with elecard.
I've done enough testing of settings and with the various way of lowering and keeping constant Q to know that no single setting works for all scenarious. And that includes other people's settings. Quantisation generally works from the top down and as soon as it starts running out of bandwidth the lower part of the picture will begin to suffer first with higher or poorer QP values.
With Long GOP the bitrate expectations are much lower (due to prediction techniques) and Cluster v6 and v7 (6 GOP and 12/15 GOP) are exceptional all rounders providing some of the best looking constant picture quantisation Ive seen.
However, each method Intra or Long GOP have their benefits (and fans!) whether its movement (I prefer it in Intra) or editing in the NLE (Long GOP takes a lot more arithmatic to decode and can be time consuming where as Intra is very quick as each frame is a picture). The arguments for each have long been discussed on these pages.
The other problem is 50p/60p modes and FSH 1080i60/50 which have less memory and cpu power overall for the extra frames. Its for this reason why picture frame sizes in bits are smaller, etc... and a lot more work has to be done to balance things, The GH2 is brilliant at 24p and okay for everything else.
Therefore I continue to support both Intra and Long GOP methods. Thank you once again for your excellent testing.
The same can be said of the GH3; in 'tight shots' utilising the Intra settings is very good (Ive measured them!); zoom out and go wide with high detail and you're better off using the 50Mbps settings. Only when we hack the GH3 will we know if the High Profile level 5's use of 8x8 Transform will help when we push the bitrate up whilst trying to maintain decent overall Q for hi detail wide shots (and act well as a single setting for all). Its good practice to organise your shots from your storyboard with the right setting.
Thank you for this very detailed description, Nick!
To be really flexible and quick on set, we'll need more than one body with different settings, I'd say.
@driftwood. Thanks a lot for the explanation and the tips. They are very helpful. With what I have learned from personal experience and the knowledge I have gained from you and the others, I know which settings I want and how to use them now. Cheers.
@defier "is there something wrong with Dynamic?"
That depends on your goal. Cinema actually has the most linear curve (now there's an oxymoron), all the other profiles add something to that. Adding color, raising gamma, bumping the lows, etc.
Now, there's nothing inherently wrong about adding those things in the camera instead of in post. It can even make the job easier on occasion. So if it works for your material, go for it.
@defier Dynamic ad too much noise over Standard or Cinema.
Just a note/question regarding post-prod greenscreen: I would think that to maximize the chance of pulling the most detail for keying that a 444 matrix intra hack would be the best option, wouldn't it? From what Nick has described, it seems that the 444 matrix is trying to best emulate a 4:4:4 color space for 8 bit footage by pushing as much detail into the Chroma channels. I found keying some Boom! footage to be quite successful, although, as per, to get every niggling bit of detail you can your screen lighting has to be near spot on perfect (no more than 1/4 stop variance).
I imagine true 4:4:4 footage would be easier to to key given the fact there is some latitude (especially 10-12 bit raw) than 8 bit footage, so there must be a bit more forgiveness as it were if they screen lighting isn't so perfectly even.
I tested Quantum GH3 Matrix Setting Test 2 ( tested only 24L ) and for my eyes in front of 43 inch lcd loocks superior then FlowMotion,Sanity 5,Cluster v6 'DREWnet' in terms of noise but over ISO 1600 noice tend to be irregular and create orizontal lines of noise easily observed on flat surfaces but overall looks much better than other patches tested by me.
Video shoot went well fairly good results with "Lowrider" in Low light. Haven't tried Intravenus V2 but since Shian swears by it I think Ill give it a go soon. Ill upload the raw footage when my lazyness subsides till then here is a still from PP-
I am a HUGE fan of intravenus 2. Noise looks more like grain than any other patch I've ever used. Whatever was done in the making of intravenus 2 to help it out in that way needs to be done on every patch from here on out. ; ) amazing work @driftwood
although I still want to test cinema smooth (especially if it's anything close to being as nice as intra)
also, @driftwood , I noticed you mentioned in the post above "when the gh3 is hacked" is their a topic to follow the progress of that, or can you share with us what the status is with that?
My initial, un-scientific reactions after relatively brief play...
"Apocalypse Now 'Intravenus' v2 With cbrandin 'Smooth Cinema' Matrix" Very, very sharp -- and I really, really liked it. Would love a long-gop version. Didn't try making one because of the reason below with Low Rider.
"Cluster 'DREWnet' GOP12/15 (LongGOP)" I like it -- but I can confirm irregular looking noise -- kind of an underlying static (remember television static?) under various conditions.
"GH2 'Low Rider' trial Setting" I liked it, it looked great, but I wasn't left with any exceptional good or bad impression. At ISO 3200 using the incandescent white balance setting it looked great. I was interested enough by it to modify the GOP settings back to camera default. Modified -- the 720/60p was awesome and the 24p(h) was a disaster that I can only imagine is the "fallback mode" because it looked like the old DV when overstressed.
Of the above three -- the AN Intravenus V2 w/ Smooth was the most intriguing and I liked the super-sharp resolution. The only alarm was that I seemed to be getting that sharpness type ghosting with camera movement. I assume and expect I was panning too fast for the frame rate -- but -- it was extremely noticeable.
As a side note for general audiences -- I've been using Cluster V6 "DREWnet" for everything on the current productions -- and the results have been stunning and two small time television stations think it's the best looking local stuff they've ever seen produced.
To tag along with @onionbrain as far as note for general audiences, I used Cluster V7 Nebular sharp2 6GOP with 444 matrix on a recent trip to Yosemite. Then I edited and graded a highlight video of the trip with Cyberlink PowerDirector and ColorDirector and sent it to my friends from the trip. The moment they looked at the video, they called me and told me how stunning the video looked like. I am no professional at this stuff. It's the patch or the setting.
@shian which version of Intravenus did you use on your test? and is intravenus v.2 better(Grain,Grading) than the first one and is it more stable?
To be honest, I have no idea, it might be version 1 or it might be the tester version of 2 that I might have received in advance.
Variation 1 :-) variation 2 came out later.
Here is RAW footage.... go to VIMEO and download the MTS stream --
Well, I am no good at assessment...as far complex analysis but my eyeballs were happy with lowrider and it didnt crash on the 32gig 95mbps Sandisk just the 45mbps one.
*also --there were 2 cams and there will be an edit with parts used so dont diss my camera work people was going gonzo handheld on this and I had to play it by ear...my follow focus is broken so I was ackwardly trying to adjust it by switching off auto to manual etc...
@shian @driftwood ok so i will use v.1 for now since it's already in my gh2 plus i don't know much about v.2 i didn't test it yet and didn't read too much about it. Intravenus is really dope the grain is so filmic that i think i won't even add emulations of 35mm grain in post i'll just keep the original fine grain. 25p is also amazing on this patch!
hello, I work in documentary, with hbr mode exclusivly. Would you please advise me for my choise, which patch seems to be the greteast for my kind of using? Thanks
@onionbrain Cluster v9 Boom! DREWnet coming featuring Driftwood mainly all 4s matrix.
Cluster v8 DREWnet & Nebula 'cbrandin Cinema Smooth matrix' also on the way.
That hopefully will fill all the missing jigsaw pieces...
@swiss_Boy I've used intra v1 and v2 and I like V2 better. I've not done any scientific pixel peeping, side by side, morning, noon, night, breakest, lunch, & dinner test (yes, this is a joke you could say) but from what I've seen come from Intra 2, I like it a lot. To a degree, the noise emulates grain better than most patches I've ever used. Although depending on your ISO & shutter settings I'm sure it could make a difference in the end results.
Very, very cool! Thank you! Looking forward to them.
@GravitateMediaGroup ok that sounds good! Did you also try HBR and 720p and regarding stability which one would you say is better? Cause i think i read here that 25p wasn't stable on V.2.. Right now i'm happy with V.1 but i will give V.2 a try for sure
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