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GH2 Cake v2.3: reliability and spanning in 720p, HBR, 24p, and VMM at 2-2.5x stock bit rates
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  • @Mark Yep i noticed :) I was reading alot about it yesterday.. But still, im very happy for recommendation. I go for Sandisk extreme 45 mbps (as @gameb recommended). Although ill buy 62Gb later. And wtf is Panasonic SDcard co expensive? :X

    One more question, do you ppl use only original batteries?

  • @Majlo Cool - I use original batteries. There are some good topic on this forum about batteries (and cards, as you've found out!). Basically NEVER flash your firmware with a non-original battery, because the camera won't accurately know how much charge is left in it, and if it allows you to flash the firmware and the battery dies before the flash is complete, it will brick the camera (and you will be able to use it only as an expensive paperweight).

    But do see other topics on this, as Vitaliy doesn't like it if the discussion gets too far off-topic!

  • @Mark Thanks for reply :) Its all i wanted to know. Ill post new video from tomorrow shooting if things goes well with 1/50 and 1/25 shutter speed . . I hope my camera don´t froze that much as last time did.

  • They also have Transcend 32GB Class 10 for EUR 25,00. I bought one about 2 weeks ago for ~40€ and benchmarked it writing at a solid 18MB/s.

  • I'm using a SanDisk Extreme 45MB/s 64GB with Cake2.3 in 24H mode. Never had a hick-up.

  • my brother's wedding... cake 2.3 and gopro in this shortcut. thanks

  • GH2 (Cake 2.3) + Voigtlander 25mm/F0.95 + SanDisk Extreme 32GB 45MB/s Class 10

    Thank you @balazer for your delicious cake.

  • Really nice, Stanley. Looks even better on Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/stanleyhsu

  • Nice shots and editing stanley! Nice to see some decent stuff :) were you running a steadicam rig there? or just hand held. Noticed some 60fps stuff though youtube showing 1080?

  • Thanks, @ricker.

    It was a mix of handheld and steadicam. I used a DIY steadicam Baby Merlin. At the time it wasn't balanced very well. I did some adjustments to the balance after this video.

    I didn't shoot 60fps. All the footage was recorded in Cinema 24p. In which part did you notice 60fps? Just curious.

  • Ok having issues all of a sudden. Using cake on HBR mixed with timbuster, which only affects 24p. I have been shooting with this fine for a while now. THen suddendly doing a professional job and all is going fine.

    I transfer footage off card, and the footage plays back with huge glitches all through it. I play it back on the camera and its playing completely fine.

    I ended up having to capture it via hdmi out from the camera into a blackmagic decklink to save the footage which captured just fine no glitches!

    Bloody scary!

    Anyway wondering what is going on?

    Its like there is an issue in the transferring from the card?

    .....

    Ok further testing in 720p it works fine, but 1080 24p or 25p its stuffed. SO WEIRD! anyway gonna be reverting back to just cake without timebuster to see if thats causing the issue.

  • I can't say what's happening without knowing how TimeBuster modified the settings, but the fact that it played back correctly in the camera suggests there was a problem reading the card or with the player. Try a different card reader. Try using the GH2 as a card reader over USB. Try a different player.

  • @ricker : What do you mean by "cake on HBR mixed with timbuster"?

    Are you using the version that balazer posted? Are you mixing timebuster on your own? Can you upload the settings or the mts file?

    Is the PC a reasonably fast one? I've got an i7@2.8Ghz with a GT430 and some players will still choke with the mts. What kind of glitches?

  • Yeah it was super weird. I just reloaded cake solo with the audio hack and all is working again. So something from timebuster was stuffing it up. BUT TOTALLY WEIRD how it would play back on the camera fine! It wouldnt happen in 720p which 100% shows it was timebuster causing it! i.e I could record a 720p and open it on the computer absolutely no problems.

    Makes me think there is something going on differently between how a computer reads a .mts file and how the camera reads the .mts files.

  • The glitches were like digital mess, it was as if there was literally only 1 i frame per second and the rest inbetween had a bit rate of nothing, which indeed is what timebuster would be doing. But then it cant of been cause it played of teh camera fine ??

    I had loaded cake first in ptools, merged audio hack and then merged the time buster hack (using the version that only affects 24p, i.e keeping HBR unaffected)

    I will check tomorrow evening. I'll bring home the file and check on streamparser to see what was going on inside.

  • Is there a cake v2.3 pre merged with time buster and audio hack?

  • @ricker Balazer had posted a while back in this thread his take on timelapsing with Cake. Merging the audio should be trivial. In my own releases I started advising against merging Timebuster Base (you used the base variant, right?) with Cake because the way Timebuster is now designed, it needs B-Frames enabled in order for the encoder to respect the Quantizer parameter and Cake doesn't use them.

    NOTE: he proper way to merge timebuster is to load it before and then "alt click" the merger AFTER! If you do it the other way around, NONE of the common parameters that Timebuster will have with the merger will stick. From memory, you'll end up with 100% Cake and 25% Timebuster when you should (if the proper order was chosen) end up with 95% Cake and 100% Timebuster.

    BTW, unless you need extreme efficiency (should read: small cards, very very long recordings or extreme IQ with quantizers below 20) you should stick with pure Cake. It's use of P-Frames will already deal efficiently (although not optimally) with the temporal redundancy of timelapses. Just matching the GOP with the slow shutter speeds gives you 2/3 of the advantage of Timebuster's efficiency over other settings. The other 1/3 of it is just extreme tuning.

    Have you followed the timebuster thread recently? Some users reported a bug which I believe could also be related to this and that is already solved.

  • Many thanks for the information duratix. I do believe I had done the load the proper way round with timebuster first as I followed the instructions on that thread specifically. So just to make sure I understand what your saying I should just stick with pure cake, and use that for timelapses when needed. (i'm not really one for having multiple patches ready to load up) the orginal plan was to have just everything on the camera ready to go, so C1 - HBR 25p, C2 - timelapse, C3 - 720p50.

    But if I cant have the timelapse part thats not a killer.

    The weirdest thing about all of it was the fact the file plays fine off the camera as if it recorded it fine, but off any computer (tested 3 now, and 4 different card readers) it plays back full of digital glitches. Tried formating the card, both on the computer and on the camera and still had the same issue. Doesnt make sense to me how its possible.

  • @ricker

    It is indeed a strange issue but without seeing the files it's hard to guess the problem, but as I said before, Cake and Timebuster aren't friendly mergers. :(

    What I'm saying is that with straight Cake I guess you'll probably fit 4h of timelapsing on 16GB card which is on the limit of what your battery will last. Using a 64GB card you'll fit about 16h and patching with Timebuster you'll get up to 24h.

    As I said before, unless you settle for 2.5s you need to tailor the GOP for a specific SS and that means preparing. What Timebuster gives you is a way to establish a precise compromise between IQ and recording length. Now, it's also important to say that the IQ on Cake is already very good, so you'll be hard pressed to tell a difference for a lighter quantizer should you opt for it in Timebuster. I'm not saying not to use Timebuster, I'm just telling that it's main purposes might be a little different (and thus less adequate) to your intended use.

  • Yup sounds like plain yummy cake is the way to go for me. 3 hours timelapses is ample for me! Thanks for the help on this one

  • Hey sorry just to clarify here. Normally I've been converting all my cake files across to Pro Res 422. But i'm making the switch to premiere and though maybe I could work native with the files. But I think i'm still thinking their Driftwoods style files i.e being in a avc intra format. I'm assuming cake is not in avc intra but rather a h.264 style codec? Is that correct? i.e should I be switching these out to a i-frame codec like pro res before editing for speed sake?

  • Cake uses interframe coding, with short GOPs in most modes. I expect there would be little or no speed advantage for editing by transcoding to an intraframe format like ProRes, but you'll just have to try it to see. I do my editing natively.

  • I've been trekking through the hacks tonight looking for the best one to use for shooting my web series pilot on (I just want the best quality, as I intend to do a bluray version of my web series at a later date). I've tested quite a few patches just in handheld shooting tonight, and although that doesn't really tell me accurate results... it gives me an idea of what to expect from each patch.

    I've tried Flowmotion 2.2 for the second time ever, and I've found that it gives the absolute best results IQ wise at ISO1600 (lights around my house aren't crash hot). But the filesizes are wicked high, and this hack doesn't span. Thats fine, I don't need it to span if I'm shooting takes that will be less than 5 minutes. I use Sandisk Extreme 32gb 40mb/s cards... and this hack seems to fill that up VERY quickly.

    While I'm busy looking at hacks, I'm also looking at ones I can use for events shooting. I primarily shoot live performances and special events, which require me to have a camera rolling for extended periods. Flowmotion is out, because I only own two Sandisk cards, and one sits in my GH1 for multicam shoots... and as I said, it doesn't span. I've tried Sanity 4.1... I've shot on that for close on a month now... and got some alright footage with it. I've spent some time sitting at ISO1600 on a lot of shoots, and depending on lighting I can get some seriously beautiful images out of that hack. My only issue, is that spanning is ho-hum, it works sometimes and doesn't work others. Image quality CAN be a bit flaky as well.

    Now I've come across Cake. And you know what? I like it. I don't quite understand it at the moment... I'm still learning what modes equal what. I'm in a PAL country, and although I don't shoot for broadcast... I may end up shooting for DVD with clients, so I need 25p. Cake appears to do this, and it looks pretty nice. I'm not going to use Cake for my web series, but for events shooting this looks to be the hack I'll rely on.

    I have a few questions though: 1) Is there any hiccup at all with spanning? I haven't tested it out personally, because I'm not in a position to shoot long takes of something.

    2) What is the difference between all modes. For instance, "Manual Movie Mode" gives me 24p at FSH (I think), gives me 50i at FH and same again at the lower resolution. I assume these to have the same resolution as stock firmware. HBR gives me 25p, which I'm familiar with seeing as I shot with Sanity 4.1 for a while. Cinema Movie mode (or 24p mode) works as expected, but whats the difference between 24H and 24L?

    3) Just how far can I push the hack? Does it work in high ISO's (over 1600)?.... Can I shoot with the kit 14-42mm lens without issues? Can I actually shoot with Panasonic lenses in general without having problems?

    Appreciate any response. Truth be told, I'm a complete noob to this hacking thing. I have hacked my GH1 in the past, but I did it three times... stuck with a hack that worked with the cards I had at the time and haven't touched it since. So... if none of my questions make sense, be nice :)

  • I also neglected to mention. I've not had this before on any camera I've owned... but Cake seems to make Rolling shutter so much worse on the GH2. Is this a problem you're aware of?