MJPEG FPS setting for Timelapse on GH2

balazer

On the GH2, time lapses from 1080/24p AVCHD with a 1/2 s shutter speed should work fine: the camera shoots at ~1.8 fps and writes 13 identical frames for each picture taken. Naturally, you'll want to use a long GOP (ideally 13). If you use GOP1, the compression efficiency is very low. With a long GOP, the bit rate of the generated file ends up being just a fraction of what you set in Ptool (and that's a good thing), and not much higher than you'd get with MJPEG. There should be no problem spanning, so no file size limit. Your card size and battery should be the only recording length constraints.

As @GH13Timelapser pointed out, Vegas will only do 4x speed-up, though there are tricks to go higher than that in Vegas. I can use Avisynth to go as high as I want and retain control over how the blending is performed.

As for using an external timer, if you put the GH2 in burst mode with the burst rate set to SH, it shoots using the electronic shutter only - no mechanical shutter. If the shutter button is pressed briefly, it takes only one frame. Frames can be 4:3 or 3:2 with 4 megapixels, or 1920 x 1080.

Edit: GH2 1080p AVCHD time lapse confirmed. I can start a new topic or upload a sample, if anyone really cares to know how it's done.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@Luc

I'll make time limit patch, so you could specify limit in seconds.
And could use intervalometer to start recording again.

Luc

@tida
yes i also thought about this idea. But I think there will be a problem with the time the camera need to fully save a file. During this time you can't push the record button again. And the intervalometer normally only sends one signal to the camera - You need two. Stop and then again Start

tida

@GH13Timelapser and @Luc could an intervalometer help to extent timelapse if it comes close to the 2GB limit. Maybe just stop it every 45 minutes and start operation immediately again.

Hallvalla

@GH13Timelapser

Thanks, that makes sense. I don't have the FaderND, but I do have a .9 and a .6 that I stack if necessary on my panny 20 1.7.

GH13Timelapser

@Hallvalla Always 1/2 second shutter if you're planning to use frame blending so that the shutter is open for the full length of each frame recorded. Otherwise you'll get several ghost images of moving objects on each blended frame instead of one long streak.

This makes a variable ND filter very, very useful. I suggest the Light Workshop's Fader ND - good quality and won't break the bank - apparently the mk.II out now is even better.

Philip Bloom talks about it and more expensive filters in the comments here: http://philipbloom.net/2009/07/22/loving-the-fader-nd-and-singh-ray-vari-nd-life-savers/

I shoot practically everything with 1/2 second shutter - just spin the variable ND filter around to obtain the right exposure hit record.

Hallvalla

@GH13Timelapser

What shutter speed do you recommend for timelapse at 2fps?

GH13Timelapser

Doesn't matter what frame blending you do in post, if you're shooting 2fps footage with a shutter of 1/30 you'll never get smooth motion on moving subjects.

@White_Widow Make sure you're in manual focus mode - you can't select a shutter longer than 1/30 second otherwise.

Not sure why 1080p isn't working for you - can anyone with a GH2 confirm that it works for them?

Hallvalla

@White_Widow

Do you have After Effects? Interpret footage to comp settings (in my case, 23.976) and then turn on frame blending.

Just found this for Premiere:

When frame blending is turned off, Premiere Pro duplicates frames to create the necessary interpolated frames. When frame blending is turned on, Premiere Pro averages the frames to create the necessary interpolated frames.

Frame blending is off by default.

Choose Clip > Video Options > Frame Blend.

White_Widow

@GH13Timelapser My first post here - love the spirit of this threat.

I couldn't get your program to start using crossover on my mac, so I tried using premiere cs 5.5 instead. I set interpret footage to 25 fps. Looks pretty cool, but I am not there yet - not enough motion blur. I followed the instructions on your page and increased the MJPEG size to 1920x1080. The resulting file is still 1280x720. Not a big deal but I thought I mention it. Probably some mistake on my side...

On the GH-2 in Motion JPG and I can't set the shutter to anything below 30. If I switch to AVCHD 720 I can set it as low as 25 but then I record at 50 fps.

How can I get the beautiful motion blur and frame blending that your video displays? Any help is welcome.

Thanks!

Luc

Thanks for that information.

GH13Timelapser

You won't need to press record every 10 minutes. At 1080p, quality 160 I get close to an hour usually.

If you leave the resolution at 720p, then at quality 160 you might get a few hours - depending on the complexity of the scene.

Luc

How long can I take a continious timelapse video? I would like to make a timelaps of 3-4 hours but I don't want to click on record every 10 minutes because the file size reached its biggest possible size... Is there any solution on the video mode timelaps? Or do I need to use the regular methode for timelapse?

GH13Timelapser

@lowrider

"do I have to erase the blackpowell patch in order to load the gh13 timelapse on my card"

No. I believe the patch you are talking about modifies AVCHD and MJPEG settings. To record footage for GH13Timelapser you just need to modify the MJPEG settings on your camera to record at 2fps, so you can record normal footage with AVCHD and timelapse with MJPEG

Open PTool and load whatever presets you like. Modify the MJPEG frame rate to 2 - you can use whatever quality settings you like, but I suggest those listed here [scroll down to "How do I set this up"]:
http://timelapser.net/about/

lowrider

GH1 - BLACKPOWELL
hi
I have the blackpowell patch on my gh1 now, only 1 card; 16GB class 10 card, how do i install the gh13 timelapse?
do I have to erase the blackpowell patch in order to load the gh13 timelapse on my card and boot from there?
just drag and drop the timelapse on my card drive?
Thanxs

stoney

beauty of @gh13timelaper's method is the smooth motion blur from timelapse. you can't get it from taking photos.

izash

@GH13Timelapser - Thank you!

lolo

@Hallvalla lol, from your test i can see less macroblocking in the 1920*1080, specially noticeable in the black lens
a pity though

btw @GH13Timelapser thank you! for sharing your effort :)

GH13Timelapser

@izash - Scroll down to "How do I set this up?" here: http://timelapser.net/about/

GH1: The fps is under "Patches for end users"
GH2: The fps setting us under "Patches for testers"

GH1 and GH2: The quality settings are under "Patches for end users"

Using the presets people are posting here is probably easier.
,
@jfro - Yes using this in conjunction with the custom AVCHD settings is fine

Hallvalla

@jfro

Driftwood's latest + 2fps MPEG

jfro

Any suggestions on whether it would be wise to put the the 2fps patch on top of any of the 1 or 3 GOP settings?

izash

GH13Timelapser, could you please post simple instructions on how to set the 2fps patch?
Thanks.

GH13Timelapser

@Halvalla - It would be so much better if we could get clean 1 or 2fps footage in an AVCHD package - it is undeniably sharper than MJPEG and with an external power source and spanned files you could probably record for days if not weeks on a 32GB card. That said, the slowest shutter you can use in FHD mode is 1/30sec. 1/2 second only works in 720p mode when using AVCHD - so this problem would need to be overcome also. Sadly, I suspect it will remain in the too hard basket.

@Dazza Correct, 1fps doesn't work. Neither does 5fps and some other settings. I would have based GH13Timelapser on 1fps footage if it worked. No way to stop audio recording currently.

Dazza

Strange my camera works fine at 2fps but not at 1fps, oh well. Is there any way to stop the recording of audio to further minimize filesize?

Hallvalla

@Vitaliy - can AVCHD have a FPS setting of 2fps? Would be nice with some of the high-end patches for nice clean images.

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