Currently we are using Apocalypse Now 444, soft matrix.

I'm confused and surprised that a card rated up to 95mb/s is crashing with a hack that is at 44mb/s??? Has anyone else experienced this? It also crashes on my older Transcend Class 10 16GB cards but not that much more frequently. Completely lame given the cost differential between these two cards.

I'm considering reverting back to baseline, but nervous to do so in the middle of a shoot (the vanilla hack was my first hack on the GH2 so this is still new to me). For now I'm working around it. Any advice or thoughts are appreciated.

I created the video below to show new users how to update their Panasonic GH2 with the new customizable version 1.1 settings using Ptool. The intent is to get new users to try the extremely stable settings first so that they don't jump right into extreme settings that their memory cards can't handle.

Hopefully, this will reduce the number of threads that are created that say something like "Why won't XXXXX Settings Work For Me"? The settings used in the video will work with any card in any situation. Once they play with those settings then they can move on to other settings once they have decided what they want to get out of the camera and how much they are willing to spend on faster memory cards.

No adverse affects settings http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/953/gh2-patch-vault-most-popular-patches-in-one-place#Item_5

I got a Panasonic GF2 and have some trouble with the analog video output. I want to use the output to preview video during recording. I already found that you can enable the live output by pressing Q.MENU for some seconds. This works fine for capturing stilts, but if you start recording a video, the output shows only black as long as you record the video. After stopping recording, you have normal output again.

I think this is just a firmware restriction that can be removed! Any suggestions?

And I really need the analog output all the time, because I want to operate the camera remotecontrolled and get the preview via an analog video transmitter.

Other discussion about this issue: http://www.aplanding.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5179

Regards

Igor

Is it possible to make a "hack" menu for GH2, something like a standalone menu category, where all of the cheats, shutter speeds, AOVs, guide numbers and all of those things may be "written down"?

Yes, no?

:D

just got back here after a long while. i'm resurrecting my GF1 after losing Gh2 from carjackers. haven't used the GF1 for a long time hence i dropped in here searching for the updates. but i was out for a year or so and coming back in pview i think i'm i a maze. anyways, kindly point me to a link to the latest ptool and firmare for the GF1. thank you.

It's been around a Year I signed in here for the very first time. So now, after many test shoots, I'm planning to choose GH2 for the next film project.

Film is about 85 minute long documentary. Films shooting style is mainly situation-based documentary (Cinéma Vérité aka Direct Cinema) with some "cinematic scenes". So some of the scenes are classic documentary and some more stylistic - fiction like - with lightning crew, dolly, directed action etc.

These situation-based events I'm going to shoot with GH2 attached to the Steadicam Pilot. And yes, no interviews. This means I don't have very long takes.

I really like Lee's Flow Motion v2 and Nick's Sedna (AQ1-A) or Cluster v6&7. These I've tested quite a lot. What I'm looking for is best combination in detail and in fluid motion (motion rendering - no strobo effect). And of course hacks reliability is a virtue too! =D

So does anyone has any extra pointers about taking a project to Big Screen? Or if You think there is superior Hack for this kind of project - please don't hesitate to speak out.

Thanx and all the Best, MisterJ

All I need is the cleanest rendition of human movement, and only at 720p. I have GH2, second system sound, Panny 25/1.4, CV 12/5.6 on adapter, and Lumix 14/2.5, ancillary gear.

I have watched footage from Sanity, Driftwood, and others; I would very much like other's input on this. The camera will only be used for video; I shoot other gear for stills. TIA, KL

1. Sedna aq1 (for being an epic legend)

2. Intravenous / Moon (this is a tie for now until I do more testing with moon. Intrav. has the best looking noise IMO)

3. Apoc Now Cluster 7 Sharp 2

4. Cluster v8 DREWnet

5. Quantum 9b

honorable mention: sanity 5.1

Also, if you want to explain what or why you like that setting, feel free. It is really hard to pick favorites, but If I had only 5 to pick from, it would probably be these.

I would make this "top 10" but I wanted to force people to pick the settings they REALLY like. Feel free to update your list as testing continues ; )

@driftwood, I'm especially curious to know what your top 5 would be, if it's even possible for you to decide. lol

I'm sure that someone's written a good outline of how the patches work. Explaining what higher bitrates do. Explaining what matrices are, and how they affect the footage. Explanations of what "intraframe" means. Something that I can read, understand, and use that understanding to evaluate the patches. Does such an outline exist?

While I cannot see yet an immediate beneficial use of my results, I thought that they may inspire other experiments or just add to the knowledge of the GH2 internals.

At first I wanted to know what precisely a GH2 writes to my 64GB SDXC card when doing the usual "Format" before use. The answer:

The GH2 creates a DOS-style partition table containing one primary partition that starts at an offset of exactly 32768 sectors (of 512 byte, each), or 16MB. This seems like a reasonable choice to me, as it makes sure the start of the filesystem is aligned to a 2^N byte offset that is almost certain to be a multiple of the erase block size of the MLC NAND flash memory that SD cards commonly consist of. The type ID of the primary partition is set to 7, a value used by Windows for NTFS as well as exFAT (and also for HPFS with OS/2, which may rest in peace). (Notice that with SD and SDHC cards, partition type 0xb is used, which is common for use with FAT file systems.) The unused 16MB before the first partition start may also help (when never having been written to) the SD card internal Flash controller and its wear level management to prepare completely empty erase blocks for writing. (NAND Flash can be read and written to when empty in small blocks such as 512 byte, but erasing NAND Flash memory is possible only in much larger "erase blocks" - such as 512k to 4MB - so the controllers in SD cards, USB sticks or SSDs need to employ some sector allocation management of their own to make sure they can erase blocks of that size before new data can be written.)

The GH2 writes an exFAT filesystem to the primary partition with the following characteristics:

• Volume serial number: A seemingly random number that changes with each format
• exFat filesystem version: 1.0
• Sector size: 512
• Cluster size: 131072
• First sector: 32768 (consistent with the start of the partition)
• FAT first sector: 16384
• FAT sectors count: 16384
• First cluster sector: 32768
• Root directory cluster: 4
• Volume state: 0x0000
• FATs count: 1
• Drive number: 0x80
• Label: (none, empty)

This is the same filesystem layout that results if you format the partition using e.g. the following Windows command line (replacing X: with your actual drive letter):

format X: /FS:exFAT /Q /A:128k

The GH2 writes a directory structure and some files to the initialized exFAT filesystem:

size name
     0 DCIM/
     0 MISC/
     0 PRIVATE/
     0 PRIVATE/AVCHD/
     0 PRIVATE/AVCHD/BDMV/
     0 PRIVATE/AVCHD/BDMV/PLAYLIST/
     0 PRIVATE/AVCHD/BDMV/CLIPINF/
     0 PRIVATE/AVCHD/BDMV/STREAM/
 504 PRIVATE/AVCHD/BDMV/INDEX.BDM
   66 PRIVATE/AVCHD/BDMV/MOVIEOBJ.BDM
     0 PRIVATE/AVCHD/AVCHDTN/
   72 PRIVATE/AVCHD/AVCHDTN/THUMB.TID
     0 PRIVATE/AVCHD/AVCHDTN/THUMB.TDT
     0 PRIVATE/AVCHD/IISVPL/
607776 PRIVATE/FILEINFO.TBL
   76 PRIVATE/FILEMNG.DAT
1672 PRIVATE/cache.dat

If you archive this directory structure on a computer of yours, you can re-create a "blank" SDXC card for use with the GH2 at any time, just by creating the same filesystem type and copying these files to it. I tested that indeed, the GH2 behaves completely normal if you use a card prepared such, indistinguishable from an "original in-camera formatting".

Now I wanted to know whether changing any aspects of this "formatting" would yield interesting results, and indeed, it does.

First, I checked whether the offset of the first partition does make a difference to the GH2 when changed. Doubling or halving this offset didn't change anything, the GH2 seemed not to take notice of the difference.

Next, I checked what would happen if I used a different allocation unit size, e.g. 256kB or 64kB. Such change causes the GH2 to display a warning when inserting the SDXC card, saying (as far as I can remember the wording): "This card has not been formatted with this camera. It will not be suitable for recording video." After displaying this message for a few seconds, the camera behaves normally regarding the taking of still pictures. When starting to shoot video, it first seems that all is normal, too, but whatever allocation unit size different from 128kB I tried, video recording will stop after a few seconds with the well known error message that "the cards write speed is insufficient". This happenes even when recording low-bandwidth video, so I wonder what special meaning the 128kB allocation unit size has for the GH2 that it is working so badly with other sizes.

Notice that when I benchmark writing to the same card from my PC with allocation unit sizes other than 128kB (within reasonable limits), I do not measure significantly different performance. But of course, the SD card interface of the GH2 may be very different from the Kingston USB 3.0 card reader that I use with my PC.

Well, that's about it with my experiments on this, so far.

BTW: The "SD Formatter" offered at https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_3/ claims that it has one mode of operation where it pre-erases the Flash memory on the card, which would plausibly allow for faster writing, but only until all the blocks have been written to at least once. I also wonder under which circumstances this tool is able to issue the ERASE_WR_BLK_START/_END etc. SD protocol messages to a SDXC card that is connected via a card reader, the documentation of the formatter indicates that the tool falls back to just overwriting the blocks if it cannot erase them - but just overwriting blocks would not leave the card with empty erase blocks, so subsequent writes would require erase operations by the cards internal controller, resulting in no write performance benefit.

http://www.cineplus.ch/cinema.html

Thanks!

For my next music video project I'll be shooting scenes in 60p which will be processed using twixtor to emulate approximate speeds between 500-1000fps.

I have invested in some SanDisk Extreme Pro 95 MB/s cards and I've searched around similar threads but most other posters are using slower cards.

So, I'm wondering if anyone has had experience shooting with these cards and if anyone can give recommendations for the best hack to use in this instance. I would like to push the cards to their upper limit without sacrificing stability.

Some of the shots I have in mind will contain large amounts of detail - splashing water, dust, etc so the higher the bit rate the better. They will all almost all be locked off frames.

Other posters have suggested the Flowmotion 2.02 is good for this purpose but the bitrate maxes out at 95 MB/s for this patch and if possible I'd like to make the most of the cards' capabilities and record at a higher bitrate. Will I be able to use one of Driftwood's 176MB/s patches? Does anyone have any experience shooting at 60p with these?

Are there other factors that I need to consider here to ensure the best workflow through twixtor?

Thanks JB

Is it still Canis Majora series? Or is it Apocalypse now or 444 or GH3onaGH2?

Anyone give a short answer? I know its complicated, but I just want the most detailed image, file size be damned (I have plenty of 64gb sandisk ultra cards). Reliability and playback also secondary to simply the best image quality.

The short story: 31-OCT, the day the Portuguese Budget for 2013 was approved. People gathered in front of the Parliament to say we're being governed by thieves. Not very original I know, but it's a great place to shoot video and take pictures (well at last until it degenerates into mayhem which is rare around this parts but not unheard of until very recently). This is how I worked it.

1) The extremely simple setup:

GH2, screen folded back as a monitor, Transcend 32GB class 10, Samyang 7.5mm fisheye (my favorite video lens), set and forget to hyperfocal, ISO 400 I believe, SS=1/25s. Flowmotion 2 was used as I never know before hand how much video I'm going to capture or how many photos I'll be shooting, so I need something that is very good quality but doesn't make me have to change cards when something very important is happening. If the card is pre-formatted (the extended, not the quick format) it has never failed me to span.

2) The capture:

This is all about getting there up front and trying not to shake the camera. The police until very recently (and only after a 1h stone shower) has been instructed not to charge, so it's an easy job, you just dodge the TV reporters and other amateurs like me. So, here's my first mistake: the aperture is fine, this lens is sharp as an axe, but should have upped the ISO and set a faster SS because in these situations you are always bound to get bumped and it shows in wobbles after software stabilization.

3) Defishing the Samyang:

Load the MTS into AE. Export as image sequence. Use a batch (http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/69869#Comment_69869) to defish the images and import the output again to AE now as image sequence. The defishing was done using the Panini projection. It's loads more natural on people than Rectilinear, it preserves a lot more corner resolution and still manages to keep a few lines straight. This was the first export and not reasonably quick because the synthesis part takes it's toll: ~2-3fps.

4) Stabilizing:

Throw AE's Warp Stabilizer on the footage. Set the "Smoothness" to 15-25% (it will require much less cropping later) set borders to "Stabilize, Synthesize Edges" (again a lot less cropping) but drop the "Synthesis Input Range" to 0,2s otherwise you'll bog AE. In this kind of footage there is usually little point in using a higher value. Skim the footage looking for black borders and try to resize and reframe it so that they don't become evident. Note: defishing after stabilizing should make more sense as you would have more image to work with (defishing crops it) but from a few rough tries, the AE stabilization isn't clearly as effective when working on fisheye footage. This was the second export and a very long one: below 1fps.

5) CC & Denoising:

Used some of ColorGHear's gears, notably GHrain killer to kill a bit of noise and blockiness, but the footage was already very clean from the start and little color correction was used, just a little bit of levels adjusment. This was the third export and I believe it was even longer than the third due to the noise reduction filters: below 0.5fps.

6) The "so long" part: video effects, tracking and subtitling:

Translations were pretty quick, the hard and long part (at least until I found out how to smooth it) was tracking. It was fastidious to track people's features, takes a long time and needs constant review and adjustment. In the end I found out a few tricks (like increasing the tracking area) and smoothing the tracking points. This eased the job a lot and gave much better results. In the end I had to do it sometimes up to 3x until I was satisfied with it. In the process I had to learn a lot about tracking, smoothing, 3D objects, texting, transitions and light sources. This was the forth, the quickest and last export, probably around 10fps.

7) Audio mixing.

This was the part I was more ignorant about, but turned out to be pretty simple. Even though it's pretty rough, the footage is little demanding with so much crowd noise. It was as simple as importing the last video export from AE into Premiere, importing the original sound, importing also "Le Tigre - Dike March 2001" cutting and pasting a few pieces of this track and adjusting the volume here and there to serve the original events while leaving the words of the protesters audible when needed and off I was to the final export.

The resulting video can be found here:

Here are a few pictures of the event.

Anything more you may want to know about any part of the process I'll be glad to detail it.

I'm curious if anyone has hacked the GH2 firmware to develop lower ISO settings than 160. Is that even possible with the camera? I'd love to be able to shoot at 100 or even 80 or 50.

Once again I am pondering a decision to which I would like to inquire on this forum's awesome knowledge of all things GHack2 related.

So what is this all about? You see, I am in pre-production for a no budget webseries called JÄSØN (http://creativemonkeys.org/jason/), a satire about a failing wannabe serial killer klutz. The style I am going for is grimy dark and dusky narrative. A lot of Se7en and 8mm. The first episode has a long low steadicam shot going through several rooms of Jäsøn's trashy apartment, showcasing his failed and broken life. There are moments of serenity, when light breaks through barred windows and plays with dust in its path, there are many dark corners and an overall low saturated, mid/hard contrast range and a wicked eeriness I want to achieve. Then there is a low light scene in a bathroom with flickering fluorescence light, and one ultra slow motion moment.

Our DoP will light it properly, I have no doubts, but I would like to have the proper Hack for the right shot prepared. I thought about getting a couple of cheap and slow SD cards and store different hacks on them and use them on set as we need them.

But here is my problem: My DoP is not familiar with the GH2 - he has a 5D MKII he suggested to use, but I think the GH2 has a nicer film look - and I want to make it as easy for him as I can, by having the best settings ready. And since I am not so good with cameras to understand the finer details as much as many of you do. This is why I am turning to you for help.

I need a set of 3-5 hacks that I can swap on set when needed, to accomplish the best shots. The premises are:

Best Quality - The best possible image quality. Is 2k HD MotionJPG an option? Any other suggestion? Film Look - as close to narrative cinema (80/90ies) as possible. I am considering to use anamorphic lenses here and there, so that should work too. Slow Motion and Ultra Slow Motion - I don't mind using 720p and upscale it later for those shots. How much difference is GOP1 and GOP3. Good Low Light - I do have light, so I am not too worried about low light situations, but I might want a shot were we deliberately do not use any light and for that, I would like to be prepared. Equal Quality/Equal Style - All the hacks need to work and/or work together flawlessly. 25FPS - Living in Europe, I have to adjust to the 50Hz issue. This is why I am opting for 25FPS, but IIRC it should work just as well with 24FPS as long as the shutter is set to 50/100 etc. right? [Edit] Greenscreen - For some effect shots, we will use a greenscreen and a good setting for that, to preserve as much color and details as possible, would be great too.

I am looking forward to your suggestions (including in-camera settings, workflow etc.) and thankful for your help.

PS: I forgot to mention: I have a 64GB 45MB/s SanDisc Ultra and currently no budget to buy the 95MB/s version, as I have to put the few bucks I have into other things, but spanning is irrelevant for me, as there are no shots that should be longer than 3-4 minutes. Thoughts?