Personal View site logo
Make sure to join PV on Telegram or Facebook! Perfect to keep up with community on your smartphone.
Please, support PV!
It allows to keep PV going, with more focus towards AI, but keeping be one of the few truly independent places.
Best setting for PAL 1080P25 shooting
  • Hello, was wondering if anyone can recommend a best quality patch for documentary work to be shot in PAL 1080P25 mode?

    Thank you in advance

  • 32 Replies sorted by
  • Hi, Mastroiani,

    After all my various trials, Nebula 444 is the best suited to what you after but it is entirely up to you to choose from many other patches. Nebula produces average 54 mb in manual movie mode and excellent qualities both in low and bright lights. Thanks to Driftwood for tremendous work.

    Re

  • @mrbill Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to evaluate the files yet. I will post my impressions here as soon as I have some info.

  • @mastroiani - how did you find cluster x?

  • @mrbill Thank you. I tried FlowMotion and liked it. Have been testing Cluster X for now.

  • Hi @inqb8tr Thank you so much for your explanation, You have helped me out in so many ways:) thank you I really appreciate what you have done for me. I will take your advice and Shoot 24p rather. thank you

  • Hi, 2k hack is for MJPEG mode, not for AVCHD, and AVCHD has better image quality in many situations, but there is still an ongoing debate on that obviously. Let's say that vast majority of people here shoot AVCHD, that is limited to 1920x1080. For MJPEG you can enter any resolution or aspect ratio that you like.

    Maybe a thing for you to consider is that 24p is superior to 25p, regardless of settings (hack) used.

    25p in GH2 is actually wrapped in 50i format. It is called PsF, progressive footage split in two fields, but unlike interlaced video, in PsF both fields are from the same moment in time, and are automatically rejoined in one full progressive frame by most NLE, without loosing any resolution or introducing any motion artifacts. So you should not worry about progressive and interlaced.

    If you can shoot 24p, and choose your weapon here:

    http://www.personal-view.com/talks/categories/hack-top-settings

  • Hi Everyone. I am new to this forum so please excuse my dropping in. I'm not sure who to approach with my questions. I recently got a job on a feature film. They have given me the GH2 to shoot on. I have been reading your threads for weeks now. Basically I heard their is a 2k hack available? is this true? The film I am shooting is for a small indie cinema release, I would need to shoot PAL 25p 1080 and the edit will be done in avid. I was wondering what the best hack would be for a cinema quality film. Its low budget, so low light would be key. Is there a stable hack that can shoot slow motion @50fps 720 and 25p 1080 hbr and handle low light? with any hack would external monitoring still be available? I read up on your thread about the sanity 5.5 hack , does this only allow interlaced or could I still shoot in 25p 1080 hbs? I hope I'm not intruding but I would appreciate your input. thank you in advance.

  • @mastroiani - using flow motion 2.02 for 25p hbr filming - works reliably and gives me an image I really like. Never seen any mosquito noise..

  • Doesn't the hacked GH1 (unlike the GH2) offer native 25p at 1080? From what I recall of previous discussions the sensor output is 25p which in the Panasonic firmware becomes wrapped (?) into 50i. The hack removes the wrapper, no?

  • @towi Thank you towi !

  • @mastroiani

    25p derives from 50i. So it's 50i wrapped...

  • @towi hi towi, sorry just another question. Is 25P on GH2 native or is it still wrapped in 50i? When I check the files they say 25P, but does that mean it's native or wrapped in 50i? I know that previously it was only possible to shoot 25P in 50i wrapped, was wondering if anything has changed. Thank you very much

  • @towi Thanks a lot for your input!

  • @LPowell

    since I am not a native speaker I don't get the meaning of that phrase in this context ...

    Who cares... let's leave it at that (or switch to PM ... but don't expect any reply from me)

  • asshole! I'm not a troll.

    OK, then show us how you can stop anytime you want.

  • @LPowell

    I thought you gave up on this vendetta after producing nothing tangible to back up your highly personal claims.

    I don't think that my camera takes something "personal". It either works ... or not. With your latest version of FloMo it does not. What's the problem? Actually I thought this forum is about the exchange of experience and knowledge...

    Trollwi

    asshole! I'm not a troll. Never have been. Just reporting about my experience with your setting. It doesn't work in 25p mode. That's all. No reason to feel offended nor to be insulting. Buy better lenses and test it again ...

  • @Trollwi

    Only FlowMotion either crashed my camera in 25p mode or produced mosquito noise on highly detailed scenes with sharp lenses.

    I thought you gave up on this vendetta after months of producing nothing tangible to back up your highly personal claims. Didn't we just see you promise to "stop talking about FloMo at all"?

  • @inqb8tr

    Ok, not a thread, but simplified explanation. Apologies :)

    no worries!

  • @towi

    Then again the initial post is about 25p.

    Yes, I was referring to Op's comment about why is there not a thread about all the settings and what they do and so. Your explanation was extremely useful, I couldn't agree more, I even learned something, so no doubt you were spot on.

    EDIT: Ok, not a thread, but simplified explanation. Apologies :)

  • @LPowell

    I designed and tested Flow Motion v2 for GH2 users who are looking for a single, unified fast action patch that covers all the GH2 bases without requiring further testing and development on the user's part.

    That's cool. Only FlowMotion either crashed my camera in 25p mode or produced mosquito noise on highly detailed scenes with sharp lenses. This is why I've modified the 50fps modes (esp. the frame limit) of FloMo. And my modified version runs trouble-free in PAL modes (at least on SanDisk 95MB/s cards). Too bad other users won't have access to these settings ... ;-)

  • @towi

    I've also used a modified version of FlowMotion developed by @LPowell for a while. But since he has forbidden me to post my revised version for PAL users I've stopped talking about FloMo at all.

    I designed and tested Flow Motion v2 for GH2 users who are looking for a single, unified fast action patch that covers all the GH2 bases without requiring further testing and development on the user's part. For those who enjoy comparing and customizing GH2 patches, Driftwood's vast collection of settings and experimental investigations provide much depth to explore.

  • SPIZZ and NEBULA are the best patches for my case, especially since they have lowest GOP settings

    not quite. Spizz is 3GOP, Nebula is 6GOP. Intra settings are 1GOP ... so the shortest GOP possible (1 frame).

    from what I understood in your post, you prefer to use patches with lower GOP (GOLGOP and SPIZZ) for static scenes

    for max. detail in 24p I prefer those 3GOP settings. But mostly I use Intra settings for 24p.

    3GOP for brighter scenes with larger DOF - Intra for low key scenes with narrow DOF on tabletop-style shots.

    Does that mean they re not as good for motion or moving camera?

    not at all! Read the headline of driftwood's respective posts about the patches ("pro motion" / "best motion"). With regard to motion with 25p (!) I think the Valkyrie settings are clearly the smoothest (especially Valkrie 444 - http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/111829#Comment_111829 ). But Spizz is damn close. From the benchmarks the latest revision of GOLGOP should also produce really good motion (large B frames)... but I haven't had the time to test it yet.

    I'd be interested to know both in case of 24P and 25P

    don't worry about 24p. All these setting are fantastic in 24p with static scenes as well as with motion. Since 25p derives from low bitrate 50i it's really, really hard to make a good setting. Thanks to @driftwood and @bkmcwd we have a handfull of settings that look really good in 25p ... (to be fair: FlowMotion -at least my revised version - also looks really good in 25p, but it tends to produce compression artefacts on fine details sometimes).

    Now, all that might sound a bit complicated and awkward. The reality is that you don't have the time to change settings when under time pressure. So this is what I do...: as all around setting for 25p I use Spizz or Nebula (Nebula - or even Sanity V3 - when I have to worry about card space. Well, I have plenty of cards, however I am a security fanatics ... I also carry a second copy of everything when I shoot a job. For personal work it's different, of course).

    Or - to make it very short - I load Spizz as my to go setting for everything. Only for specialized purposes I load other settings ... I always carry 4 cheap and slow 2MB cards with 4 settings on them (Spizz, Nebula, Valkyrie, GOLGOP). On my laptop I have all my favorite settings and PTools ... so I can load any other setting pretty quickly. We've just used my GH2 as a kind of Gopro cam for a TV event production in low light (ISO800) with Spizz and it spanned 10 4GB files without issues. I would not have used Spizz if I would not trust it ...

    Of all the settings mentioned above Spizz constantly produces the lowest QP on comparable scenes in 25p mode (even lower than GOLGOP). So from the technical benchmakrs Spizz should be superior (again: I am referring to 25p here!). Nebula on the other hand produces much larger I frames than Spizz ... so in good lighting Nebula should be superior (theoretically). In practice you won't notice any real difference between Spizz and Nebula... take one of these two and you'll be happy. Really!

  • @towi Thanks towi. In the midst of trying to figure out the technicalities, I myself forgot that I was asking a recommendation for a patch that works best with PAL/25P. :) So thanks again for directly referring to that part of my initial question.

    From your reply, it seems that SPIZZ and NEBULA are the best patches for my case, especially since they have lowest GOP settings.

    A bit wayward question: from what I understood in your post, you prefer to use patches with lower GOP (GOLGOP and SPIZZ) for static scenes. Does that mean they re not as good for motion or moving camera? I'd be interested to know both in case of 24P and 25P whenever you can spare some time.

    Many thanks!

  • @inqb8tr

    It is hard to give such simplified explanations because many times it depends on your shooting scenario and preferences

    True!

    Then again the initial post is about 25p. IMO we do not have a wide range of settings to choose from when you have to (or want to) shoot 25p/50i.

    I absolutely do admire the work of @driftwood on Intra settings and I have learnt a lot from him. Unfortunately 24p and 50i is coupled in the GH2's firmware and this is why you can't set a different GOP for 24p and 25p. But 25p Intra requires to set a really low 50fps frame limit. Frame size is below 500K... and therefore highly detailed scenes look totally compressed (just like with the All-I settings in the GH3 ... which are ridiculous, to say it in a friendly way... I can't wait for the first Intra hack/setting of @driftwood for the GH3 ...).

    For 24p only I almost always use one of @driftwoods Intra settings (Sedna A AQ1, Intravenus and recently Moon). For max image detail on static scenes with 24p I prefer to use 3GOP settings (GOLGOP and recently Spizz). But quite often I do have to shoot in 25p/50i ... but also want to use a setting that works great in 24p at the same time for B-Roll (video only) shots to import into a 25p timeline. The only settings that really meet these requirements and work satisfactorily for me are Sanity V3 (very old setting), Valkyrie (both 444 and Cinema Smooth), GOLGOP, Spizz and Nebula. Well... I've also used a modified version of FlowMotion developed by @LPowell for a while. But since he has forbidden me to post my revised version for PAL users I've stopped talking about FloMo at all. FlowMotion is dated anyway since GOLGOP and Spizz are so much better in all modes (IMO). So since the choices are pretty limited for 25p I think it's pretty easy to give simplified advice in this particular case ...

    ... IMO

  • @towi @inqb8tr Thank you very much. This really does explain a lot and makes many things clear. Now I have a solid base to go on from. Appreciate your responses