@peaceonearth For the reportage & web delivery, the Sanity-powered GH2 did the job. If I've had to rent for that, it would never have happened. It empowered me to get a new client and a follow-up job. For the DVD production, I'll rent equipment and turn the GH2 into a B-cam.

I guess I'm sticking with Flow Motion then... Thank you for the replies!

This is Sanity 5 in a low light situation, in a very simple production. I used some power masks to crush the blacks and a light blur to combat blotchy noise in areas of no interest. The client was very happy with the result and is strongly considering ordering a DVD release of the whole concert, to be shot with 3 cameras.

@GravitateMediaGroup Low-level noise is generated by the image sensor and effectively amplified by the ISO setting. While a patch doesn't have the ability to produce more or less noise in an image, it can have an effect on how noticeable it is. In extreme cases, (such as the unhacked firmware) inadequate bitrate can smear the details in a way that makes them look less noisy. On a more subtle level, the Quantizer Matrices used in a patch can suppress the fine-grained distinctions in a region of noise.

Both Sanity 5 and Flow Motion v2 use individually customized Quantizer Matrices designed to suppress highly detailed chroma noise. This helps smooth out low-level gradients, such as shadows and dark skies. The drawback is that the lack of chroma details can sometimes make dark colors look blotchy. To minimize this tendency in FM2, I customized the luma matrices to preserve the fine details that are lacking in the chroma matrices. This technique correlates well with the eyes' greater sensitivity to luma details than to chroma.

Judging from the two patches' different Quantizer Matrices, Sanity 5 will suppress ultra-fine details in both chroma and luma channels relatively moreso than Flow Motion v2. In cases of very rapid motion, I've found that suppressing fine luma details can produce noticeable macroblock artifacts which are partially smoothed over by encoder's Deblocking Filter. My hunch is the unhacked encoder was tuned to work this way to compensate for its inadequate bitrate.

With Flow Motion v2, I had enough bitrate to eliminate almost all traces of macroblock artifacts solely by preserving the ultra-fine luma details. Since I no longer needed to use the Deblocking Filter to conceal macroblock artifacts, I was able to use it to smooth low-detail gradients instead. This is one of the core techniques that makes FM2 look and perform the way it does.

From a broader perspective, what this analysis revealed was an inherent trade-off between noise suppression versus artifact suppression. Flow Motion takes a zero-tolerance approach to macroblock artifacts, and is less concerned with suppressing low-level noise. This likely reflects my own preference to shoot at the lowest practical ISO setting using very fast lenses, rather than underexpose or use higher ISO settings that incur more noise. With largely static scenes, however, macroblock artifacts are less problematic, and underexposed areas may benefit from some noise suppression of the ultra-fine details.

@anthonyw I just took a look at that video and finally spotted what I think he's referring to: At 00:15 there are some short white diagonal lines just above the man's collar. I'm confused though, because this video is labeled "Quantum v9b", though the text description claims that he's only seen this artifact in Flow Motion v2.02 footage. Although the footage is downloadable, it's been transcoded to MP4, which makes it impossible to determine what the source of the diagonal artifacts may have been. If he can provide examples of the original, unedited footage, I'd be very interested to analyze it.

sanity is amazing in low light flow motion is better all around

I have been testing sanity 5 a bit the past few days and have been seeing weird blotching spots with a sandisk extreme pro 95mbs card. As far as minimal noise in low light, it is probably the best i've seen out of all the patches, which makes me think whatever it's doing to reduce noise is causing blotching in other areas.
I will probably load flowmotion back onto the camera, and keep a 2nd SD card with me with sanity for low light situations.

I consider both core settings. IMO Sanity is a tad better in low light and cuts better with camcorder video. Flow Motion handles color a little better, especially blues and is better around water.

If I was going to be stuck with one or the other, it would be Sanity...but not by much.

Using both. Sanity for weddings, concerts etc where i need maximum quality, stability and long recording times and Flowmotion in personal projects, music clips, short films where i care only for quality and stability. Love them both!!!!