Forgot to mention how frustrating this situation is for newbies who come to the forum. Hundreads of pages about settings discussions, with no real comparison. I believe most users chooses their hack what they think is the most popular one, not because they see proof about it's greatness.

Well I'm a newbie or not. But still I don't see anything that proves the difference of the settings.

Yes. Since we are systematically working ro get high quality video for high-quality distribution. Not for Vimeo or Youtube. If your films are:

– Never color graded – Never shown from Blu-ray (or better) on a good flatscreen or projection - Never get any VFX like keying added

These settings are useless for you! Don't use them, please.

@nomad @jasonp If you read carefully, I meant screen captures (meaning stills, uncompressed ones) for the comparison about same scene, not youtube about different scenes.

Does everyone here really think that all of us should always do tests by themselves? In my opinion it takes a lot of unnecessary time.

Are the settings somekind of occultism science that is not measurable? From screen capture stills, you could see macroblocking, grain etc..

@tonalt There is a lot of information and a lot of settings, so it would be cool if someone did a comparison, but I found my way through by looking at lots of videos posted by people. After a while you can recognize the different types of images that the different settings produce, even when viewing on YouTube/Vimeo. Maybe try different settings out to see what you like. Also I think its important to remember that the more experienced guys are saying that the high bitrate settings hold up better when color correcting.

@subco very funny but that's actually something I'd like to see :)

Thanks subco, very enlighting! Quite amazing what different settings can do. g

@subco those are the exact results I'm getting over here.testing is the way to go.

Sure, I'm in the middle of a huge as render so once FCP get's done, who knows how long this crap will take, I'll get something up.

@tonalt There are various comparisons done with screen shots. Truth be told, I'm not about to look through hundreds of pages to find some, but they are out there. I have been following a few threads for a long time now, and I can say, there have been some comparisons that do show differences. I do agree that most "normal" people won't notice a difference, and that the differences may not always be there. But I believe the patches do prove themselves worthy on occasion, at least for me. Whether it be noticeable or nor most of the time, I'm glad I used the patch when I know it would have made a noticeable difference had I used stock. I can't say too much as I still consider myself a "newbie," but as everyone says, test it yourself. You may think its a waste of time, but that's they only way you will know which patch you like best, and if you don't notice a difference, then use stock, its your choice.

@tonalt

For me, simple screen capture from same scene vs. other settings could do it. But there is no such thing.

Here's a link to what you claim you want to see, original downloadable footage and etc:

http://www.personal-view.com./talks/discussion/3337/gh2-flow-motion-v2-100mbps-fast-action-performance-reliability-for-class-10-sd-cards/p1

@BurnetRhoades He was trolling the Cluster X post too so must have missed them. I'm failing to see his point - if he can't see any difference .... he can't see any difference why feel the need to post (in multiple threads) about it.

@subco Wow! it is amazing the difference between unhacked and hacked, evident even at 640p. I'm a tad bit suspicious that you've put the unhacked version through YouTube's processing five or six times, though ;-)

Seriously though, Telling the difference between some settings is difficult, the best way is to try different ones for yourself as comparisons are difficult to make. It is easier to see the more minute differences once you start grading footage.

There ARE immediately evident differences between the larger categories of settings. For example, discerning the differences between al the various Driftwood GOP-1 settings can be quite tricky. They all look fairly similar. But the difference between GOP-1 and GOP-3 as wider categories is an easier difference to see. The difference between a good GOP-1 setting and the stock setting is immediately discernible to my eye.

My best suggestion is to try out a few of the "popular" settings from each of the more general categories of settings. Try Sedna, try Sanity, etc. Once you find a type of setting that your'e more pleased with, try the other more similar settings.

For example, I know that I love GOP-1, and Driftwood's semi-recent GOP-1 settings to be specific. I'm not so much a fan of his ones that recently have been getting hyper-specific ("for night" "for morning" "for day", etc.) I never know what I am going to be shooting to that level of specificity, so I sport Sedna most of the time.

P.S. If any former Sedna lovers have found a newer Driftwood hack that they like even better, PM me, I'd love to hear your thoughts on differences.

I understand the frustration. The wide number of ever-specialized Driftwood hacks has overwhelmed me as of late, and I simply haven't tried most of them. To someone just getting started, I'm sure it is that much more daunting.