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AVCHD maximum image quality settings and testing
  • 1002 Replies sorted by
  • stoneystoney
    @driftwood Thanks. 720p60 AQ4 56/48Mbps sounds great. Have you tested it at 125 or 250 shutter speed?
  • donniewagnerdonniewagner
    @sam_stickland , thanks that worked, no more image issues, except now I don't think my macbook has enough RAM to play the footage. I've got a 17" 2.4GHz core 2 duo w/ 2GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, am I correct in thinking its a memory issue for playback of @cbrandin 's 44M footage? That being said, is there a discussion or instructions anywhere on editing workflow with these huge files?
  • BotvinicBotvinic
    Again!

    "Hello. I want to use 720 50p mode! What settings should I use? Thank you!"

    42M AQ2 Gop12. The camera crashes, if I shoot small parts (grass, leaves, etc.)

  • Ralph_BRalph_B
    @proaudio4

    Anybody can test the hack against the stock settings. The point of my tests was to utilize HDMI recording, which most people don't have access to.

    Besides, I've got my hands full exploring Driftwood's 60i and 60P work.
  • driftwooddriftwood
    Where to now? PAL land is next on my test list. I'll be doing tests on 1080i50 / 720p50 and checking out the possibilities of 25p on the GH2. Should be fun!

  • RamboRambo
    Driftwood> Where to now? PAL land is next on my test list. I'll be doing tests on 1080i50 / 720p50 and checking out the possibilities of 25p on the GH2. Should be fun!

    Things are about to get interesting!
  • proaudio4proaudio4
    No problem Ralph.
    I must not of had enough coffee this morning. You're right regarding the test.
    Last week I dug out of my garage and old motorized pan/tilt base for camera.

    It has a speed control which I can set and leave for motion comparison.
    In order to maintain one-for-one comparisons, I thought about setting up a test under controlled lighting.
    Can you suggest what I could use as a fine detail target? Maybe some kind of printable image ( I can zoom in on with my 14-140mm lens and pan across) that has enough detail to work up the bitrate, but also be able to visually look at the result video and be able to see differences.

    I thought about papas death chart, but will this be too hard to compare when comparing frame captures?
    I also thought about just taking a highly detailed still shot, print it out and zoom in on this as a target.

    I may take a still shot zoomed in on chair back (very fine mesh) I have on my back deck.
    This may be a good target to see a comparison.

    I can perform these tests at ISO160 and ISO800.

    Word
  • chrimsbroomechrimsbroome
    The 50i fps 1080i bit rate boost has made the quality much better @ 56 Megabytes per sec and the 132 megabytes @ 24p 1080i is just clean and sweet. It be nice to see the 50i fps 1080i bit rate mode go higher which I'm sure sombody will get sorted. Sorry for sounding lazy and I let everybody do the work but it would be nice to see the Audio bit rate to be further boosted from 448 kps to something like 1MB or more like Blu-Ray HD audio.
  • proaudio4proaudio4
    The higher audio datarate sounds good, but I question how much benefit this will offer when we're limited to the onboard mic and internal mic pres. Our best bet for high end audio is to record it seperate and just use the GH2 audio track to sync the external recorder. Having said that, the GH2 does record fairly decent audio.
  • Ralph_BRalph_B
    @proaudio4

    My personal preference would be to shoot a real world scene. That is, after all, what we use our cameras for. Shoot a scene that has a ton of detail and a full range of brightness from shadows to highlights. And use a fast shutter speed to freeze the motion. That will tax the encoder more.
  • driftwooddriftwood
    @Ralph_B First impressions Ralph? Seems ok doesn't it? Can't wait for your analysis.... Incidentally tried a 59.94fps to 30fp slo mo transcode using 5DtoRGB which failed half way thru, Premiere Pro 4.1 was fine using interpret footage. :-)
    Don't forget tip>>

    Tip: In case 56M video bitrate FSH/SH setting causes a crash, just drop it down 1M to 55M. Nothing else. Its a tad more reliable ;-)

    GH2 Hack 55M/48M/AQ4/720p60 - 5DtoRGB v Premiere Pro 4.1 60p to 30p test from Nick Driftwood on Vimeo.

  • johnnymossvillejohnnymossville
    Thanks Driftwood! I'm gonna go shoot some stuff with this tomorrow.
  • nic2011nic2011
    @driftwood

    Thanks for all your effort!

    >>Here's my favourite settings. 'Beautiful buffers' - maximum use of bandwidth = highest quality AQ2 for 1080p24 and AQ4 for 720p..............................
    Great 720p/1080p24Tip: If 56M video bitrate FSH/SH setting causes a few crashes, just drop it down 1M to 55M. Nothing else.>>

    Can someone (nick, chris?) give us (me) a patch where the cbrandin settings 44mb, gop12, aq4 (1080p24) is combined with this latest 720p60, 1080i patch of driftwood? I´m satisfied with brandins 44mb patch, but 720p60 needs more tweaking imho. And if there is a danger that 56mb causes crashes: why not use 55mb from the get go?




  • UlisseUlisse
    @Driftwood,
    thanks man for the great work, at the moment Im testing the 720 60p with sandisk extreme pro class 10 and different panasonic lumix lens, 100-300mm, 14mm, 20mm and 14-140mm. with autofocus and OIS on and also ETC.
    You think is better reduce the AQ to 3 or reduce the bitrate if stability issue occur?
  • ButtButt
    @driftwood

    and they are sure that these settings better than 44MBit of cbrandin????
  • driftwooddriftwood
    @Butt These are the best stable bitrate to buffer ratio tests I can get. And Ive been everywhere testing them. I'm not saying theyre better - but the charts & my own tests suggest they are - thats for you to test.
    56M to 55M was just a precaution because I wasnt sure if one of my tests finished - the graph for it was ok though... Actually 55 sounds nice ;-)
  • driftwooddriftwood
    30p users. FYI Using my settings if you check the '1080 progressive patch' in Patches for Testers, 60i seems to correctly convert to 29.97fps without problems on recordings. The 50i (still) dies at 1 second into the recording...

    UPDATE: Dont bother with the 1080 progressive patch setting in Patches for Testers.
  • MeierhansMeierhans
    Don´t cry for me Argentina..... really hoping this can be fixed. Or even better real 1080p25@133 with newer firmware. Want to record stuff at night in the city without flicker...
    Thanks alot for the new settings, will test in the next days.

    It stays exciting.
  • sam_sticklandsam_stickland
    @Meierhans - You should be able to do this by making the shutter speed a multiple of 25 (e.g. 1/50). Don't forgot that people shooting 24p in NTSC/60Hz land have long dealt with this problem that way.
  • v10tdiv10tdi
    @driftwood
    "30p users. FYI Using my settings if you check the '1080 progressive patch' in Patches for Testers, 60i seems to correctly convert to 29.97fps without problems on recordings."

    Thus far I've been using the 80% 24H setting to achieve 30p - albeit with no sound. I just tried your Beautiful Buffers patch, including the 1080 progressive patch, but l had "garbage" in the lower half of the screen when using FSH record quality setting. Is there something more that I might be missing? Thanks.
  • driftwooddriftwood
    @v10tdi yep, youre right, visually garbage still there. The conversion doesnt work albeit correctly halves the fps. I only looked at the buffer for that test, and it shows up perfectly hmmmm... Guess the settings need a good look at or Vitalitiy maybe can enlighten us to whats happening. I know this has been seen before. I wonder if any of the encoder settings will effect it... time to test... for the time being ignore the 1080 progressive patch.
  • driftwooddriftwood
    @Ulisse Like any hack, youre only gonna get stability probs on the 720p/1080i60 when you start raising the shutter. Ive been ok up to 125 shutter with 60% success. 250 shutter and youre talking possible failures. Thats why Panny left it so low - they couldnt push it safely anymore.
  • driftwooddriftwood
    @nic2011 for 12 GOP AQ4 Best settings are to change 1080p24H to 88M and L to 66M for stability. The other settings appear unaffected according to my tests.

    Charts for 88M and 66M with these settings.
    Driftwood Best Quality - 1080p24 88M 12 GOP AQ4 - streamparser.png
    1301 x 686 - 86K
    Driftwood Best Quality - 1080p24L 66M - 12 GOP AQ4 - streamparser.png
    1296 x 683 - 86K
  • stoneystoney
    I use 720p60 to get smooth slow footage. Conform to 23.976 fps. Then apply AE CS5 TimeWarp effect to 25% speed. Then a final footage has 10% speed of an original clip. 1 sec original becomes 10 sec footage. Preferred shutter speed at 1/250 to get sharper image quality which helps AE CS5 create new frames. Yes tripod gives sharper image, too.

    What ruins the workflow is motion artifact or macroblocks. Does this latest setting use 720p60 12GOP?
  • stoneystoney
    I use 720p60 to get smooth slow footage. Conform to 23.976 fps. Then apply AE CS5 TimeWarp effect to 25% speed. Then a final footage has 10% speed of an original clip. 1 sec original becomes 10 sec footage. Preferred shutter speed at 1/250 to get sharper image quality which helps AE CS5 create new frames. Yes tripod gives sharper image, too. The codec will be stressed... a lot.

    What ruins the workflow is motion artifact or macroblocks. Does this latest setting use 720p60 12GOP?
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