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Driftwood - Experimental Series 2: Low Rider, Cluster v8, V9, Intravenus II, GH3onaGH2, AN, Boom
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  • @driftwood How will Cluster V9 Boom differ from Apoc Now Boom. I'm using AN Boom v1 and love it, so I'm curious to what the goal for Cluster V9 Boom will be. (BTW AN Boom v1 has been perfect over 100's of shots. No errors ever. I use 24P. I once got an error "file limit number exceeded", but I think that was because I was using the Sandisk 64GB/95 Mbps SD card and failed to record a short clip before shutting down.) Thanks for your great work.

  • @Swiss_Boy not sure about 25p, but I've not had any issues with 24p. Although I haven't just set the camera on a tripod, hit record, and let it set for 3 hours either.

  • @matt_gh2. I believe Cluster series are longer GOPs (6, 12/15) as opposed to Intra GOP1 with AN Boom1.

  • I finally plunged into Intravenus. Been a long time satisfied Flowmotion user. Tested on Sandisk 32gb 45mb/s cards. Doesn't span after 5mins, but it went thru the whole card fine. Really looking forward to testing more on it. Thanks again PV

  • @griplimited. would be interested in your opinion about IV and how it stacks up against FM? In terms of quality as well as size.

  • @aashay you might also want to try the valkyrie settings by bkmcwd, they are excellent and gop3 aswell, like FM. I like Intra Venus 1 a lot and use it a lot these days. Its not as reliable though as FM or Valkyrie. For wider high detail shots or lots of action and panning you get to change the Qs in pttools though or use another setting. If i was just able to use one setting i would probably choose valkyrie, due to its stability and nice characteristics. If its close to medium shots, IntraVenus is maybe the best there is...have not tried lowrider though...

  • Thanks @hay for your answer. The reason why I haven't tried IV or BOOM so far is because for me In camera playback is important while shooting things. I'm not yet grown so confident as a Cinematographer although I feel it is a journey that I'm already midway through. Another reason is I really don;t have a lot of TB's to spare so file size matters a bit. I have tried Cluster 6 and FM mainly and I think FM is the sweet spot of quality and size. I took FM on my holiday to GOA with me. Everything I shot was handheld but I was amazed by the quality and no artifacts from FM. I'm mainly making narratives (short films and feature) and I think in proper lighting or even some guerilla lighting situation, FM is your trusty companion that can be graded to beautiful looking frames. Ofcourse If I have the money to get more hard disks, I would definately try IV or BOOM or as I hear, long gop versions of these. I'm excited. For now I think FM is a good choice for me. It is also interesting to see that a quick search on youtube about all patches reveals while for all patches you got test footage ranging from Tree tops to Birds, FM has the most finished projects. Like Music videos and things. Just an observation. I could be wrong. :)

  • Video I shot if anyone is interested.

  • @mirrorkisser, Yes. Even I'm taking of trying out Vakyrie on my next shoot. But there are so many of them! Which one is most reliable at 24p and 50p slow motion with In camera playback ,Sir?

  • Valkyrie hasn't changed much in recent versions regarding 24p, bkmcwd has just made the settings for higher frame rates more conservative to improve reliability there.

  • Cluster X 'DREWnet' 12/15 GOP Trial @onionbrain A mix of tight grain and very low Q for your testing. :-)

    Cluster X - sete.zip
    1K
    Cluster X - Nature -2-2-2-2 - Q16 throughout whole picture - 800 ISO 50ss 7.1 aperture 45-175mm lens 1.png
    2507 x 1369 - 4M
    Cluster X - Nature -2-2-2-2 - Q16 throughout whole picture - 800 ISO 50ss 7.1 aperture 45-175mm lens 2.png
    2497 x 1363 - 758K
  • @aashay: go for the latest version. bkmcwd provides us with constant updates, so its always best to go for the latest one.

  • @driftwood

    Downloading now...

    Thank you!

  • @onionbrain Andrew, Ive just been out and got Cluster X 24p using Dynamic (the other profiles seemed to pass fine) to fail on a dense park: trees/bushes/ very busy scene. So I am aware I may trim back the frame limit ever so slightly (as its quite high) :-) Apart from that most pictures code at Q16 throughout the whole picture - better than anything before it. Its coming along but I need your feedback.

    UPDATE: Updated 1080p24 Frame Limit to 8808080 in the battle against freezes - see new sete.ini attached. Pic below has been set to new frame limit and seems fine.

    Warning: This is HIGH bitrate Long GOP which translates to Intra equivalent at around 250+Mbps.

    Cluster X Dynamic profile -2-2-2-2 - 5.6apt - 50ss - 45-175 lens - notice the whole tree and leaves are Q14.png
    2545 x 1377 - 610K
    Cluster X Trial 2 Frame Limit modified - sete.ini.zip
    1K
  • @driftwood Does this mean "higher quality" overall? Maybe I don't have my facts right, but isn't Intra better for anything "fast-motion"?

  • @driftwood

    I just got back and just saw the update. I'll make those changes and take it back out on the test range tomorrow morning.

    My initial reaction is extremely positive. Extremely positive.

    I've got a few random notes I'll send by PM.

  • @onionbrain Thanks Andrew.

    @defier Different technique Intra motion I love :-) and the quality looks amazing if the lighting/scene is right. Cluster X is not as tight grain as Intravenus or other Intra settings but is nevertheless very powerful and looks amazing. Just may need some fine tweeks over the next few days. Try it and report back.

  • I'm new to the forums, and new to hacking in general, and my first hack was the Driftwood Cluster V6. By chance I tried out the .mov settings and was shocked to get 100 Mbps 2K video. Wow.

    But the audio is 16-bit 16k? Is this reported (by QuickTime Player) properly? It also does not span. It stops at around 2 minutes/ 1.8 GB on the card. Is this a limitation of .mov and there's no hope of getting longer videos in this 2k mode?

    I'm especially jazzed about 2k as it allows me to use non-stabilized primes and other creative lenses, stabilize in post, then zoom in to the image to hide the edges- and still have a full HD image.

    But I need the in-camera audio to be a lot better.

  • @driftwood. I did a quick test of the Cluster X using Panasonic 14-140mm and Sandisk SDXC 64GB 95MB card. Shooting street with trees and houses.

    • 24P with your suggested frame limit (8808080) freezes as soon as I start zooming.
    • HBR and FSH work fine but low bitrates of 35-39MB.
    • SH works fine with bitrates of around 50MB but fails when I start zooming. Cheer.
  • @Zaven13 Early days :-) Try not zooming and just get a picture and tell me what you think.

  • @IEBA1

    2K huh? This would be the first I've heard of this.

  • @driftwood. Image quality is very good in all modes. Streamparser numbers are good too for frame rates. Comparable to CL7 Nebula in 24P but not as high for non-24P.

  • @GravitateMediaGroup, @IEBA1 might be referring the MJPEG 2K record mode. Shame MJPEG mode is so soft/jaggy, yet still useful.

  • Yea, MJPEG. It looks nice to me (I'm not really pixel peeping). But more importantly, it plays a lot nicer with my older edit machine than AVCHD does. Even when it has to be resized to 94% to fit in the frame, I can scrub it easily on my Core 2 Duo machine. Saves me from having to spend a several grand on a new i7, with a new nVidia card, new CS6 suite, big power supply, etc, etc. just to edit AVCHD as nicely as MJPEG, or HDV for that matter.

    But the audio quality sucks eggs.