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Beginners: Basic hacks questions
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  • Hi PV,

    I'm having some issue's with the Aquamotion V2 footage playing back on my rig. I am fairly sure it is an issue with playing the high bitrate footage on my Mac, but am only experiencing it with one of the sample videos i have taken, the other videos playback flawlessly. The troublesome footage plays fine until it freezes at about 0:40 and flashes full frame green with other strange video glitches. The data for the video appears to be damaged, scrubbing through the footage does not show a preview frame for a large part of the video file.

    Thing is, playback is fine on the camera, no issue whatsoever. When viewing on my mac i have copied the footage to my HDD and have tested it in VLC and Quicktime (with the Panasonic .mts plugin). The footage even managed to crash VLC, but i am experiencing no lag in any other test videos with this patch.

    It would put my mind at rest if someone could explain this, i need a stable patch and would hate for this to be an issue after a long shoot. If it's an issue with my machine and not the footage then i have no problem!

    PS, the footage is superb!
  • @ttancredi What version of FXP and OSX do you have? Are your updates of Prokit current? Codecs installed? Do you have the retail FCP media, so can re-install if need be? Let me stress that the .mts wrapper and the file/folder structure is fickle, it's imperative that you keep the structure intact.

    Give this a try for free. http://media-converter.sourceforge.net/index.html which should include many of the Open Source files you'll need.

    Other resources:
    Panasonic's AVCHDcam Reader, which may or may not work for your system and the GH2. You'll have to test it yourself. https://eww.pass.panasonic.co.jp/pro-av/support/dload/avccam_impt/dl_e.htm

    And here a description and workarounds in German, you'll have to Google translate it or find an article about it in your language. http://finalcuttuts.de/2011/11/06/der-schnellste-weg-mts-dateien-in-final-cut-express-und-final-cut-pro-x-zu-importieren/

    Finally, there's Clip Wrap, a paid solution with a free trial for files under 1 minute.
    http://www.divergentmedia.com/clipwrap

  • @twistedtape It sounds like that particular recording is corrupted. Try the panasonic recovery tools mentioned earlier in this thread.
  • @kanintesova
    Same problem you mentioned at higher ISO 800 and above (batch WE1JA)
    Great camera - using Driftwood's Aquamotion v2 AQ2 - everything work great except for that Band that appears in the lower portion of the screen (Cinema 24p 1/50 - using mostly Nostalgic and Smooth)
    Band appears when the object is dark colored or if the lower portion of the image is underexposed - starts from the left and then fades out :/
  • @balazer Re: L setting. It depends how low you go. Many of the tests in the past have produced underuns on the L setting because in general everything is set for the H setting. Test away and see how low you can go and with that sort of quality you get on the i frames. Of course, there will be a lot of wastage in quality because of the shared setting. If it works for you - let me know. And of course they will span and record a picture. Analyse the pictures to see if it maintains quality. Watch for cadence issues.
  • @driftwood The recovery tools require an AVCHD folder to be targeted, not an .mts file so i can't test them atm. I copied just the .mts files to my HDD, are these the only files needed for playback/editing? Some of the other test footage has a habit of automatically pausing about 10 seconds in, but will continue to play fine. Sorry, as a ex-canon user i'm a bit new to this workflow.
  • always copy the whole private folder over to your hard disk - thats what you need, you can always remove mts files which arent needed later.
  • Cheers bud, will keep that in mind. Thanks again for the help.
  • Just a quick question. Hopefully someone can help me out. I'm looking into an external audio recorder right now, tascam dr-07, as I am on a really tight budget. I was told by someone that the AC3 compression hack in ptools makes it so that an external recorder isn't needed. I will be using it along with a rode videomic. So just wondering, does the AC3 compression settings at 448000bps make an external recorder such as the tascam dr-07 unnecessary? Thanks in advance.
  • The most important thing in audio recording (besides good mics placed off camera) is being able to monitor the audio. If you are using a GH! and cannot monitor the audio you need an external recorder.

    Steve
  • @sanzadez, you need an external recorder. As @stevgol correctly points out, external monitoring is essential. Also, you really want 24 bit sample depth (not the 14 bit of the gh2). The audio hacks are nice, especially for providing better emergency backup sound (which can happen anytime -- believe it or not, we've even had sound get corrupted once on a freaking alexa and had to pull from the gh2 with a small shotgun on it); but it should never be you primary source. DR-40 is a pretty decent budget recorder, only drawback over dr 100/zoom is that you can't individually adjust input levels but that's not a bit deal if you're eventually planning to run a shotgun / lav setup seeing as most lavs will allow you to adjust their levels after you've dialed in the shotgun. $200 online.

    Generally, buy the best gear you can afford and buy it once. You'll never regret it. Make sure if you can possibly afford it that it has balanced xlr inputs; you'll eventually add a "real" microphone to the kit, and if it doesn't have these, you'll have to buy a new recorder too.
  • @twistedtape even on my new maxed out macbook air with ssd vlc and quicktime can't read the avchd driftwood files fast enough always -- which speaks to @driftwood's killer work. Download the free MplayerX -- its my go to solution for screening rushes -- not only does it not choke, it automatically cues up the next file in your folder so you can roll through footage really quick.
  • @traumManufaktur thanks again for your help.
    after trying, testing and reading a lot, I can almost conclude the problem is with my FCP. I'll have the installer in about 2 weeks and after re-installing will try log&transfer again. I am positive it will work fine.
    Yes, meanwhile I have been using clipwrap trial- as most of my footage has been shorter than a minute and I am policing myself to shoot shortlenght shots-which is a kind of ridiculous but pratical situation for the upcoming weeks.

    I'll still badly need media converter for the longer footages - As it won't be a direct transfer, can I assume I'll loose some quality on the process? (I'll test it tonight) - What codec would be most appropriated? H264?

    5DtoRGB is working fine, I just didn't find a way to use it as a normal converter instead of a program to flatten the image. I'll be using footage almost straight from camera. I am not sure whether it would be better using 5DtoRGB once I'll be trying to reach something similar to my .mts files - allthough I may use it as a last solution.

    Thanks for helping! Really appreciate it.

    p.s: anyone aware of other programs with free trials? Pavtube and other programs I tried are terrible and transcode the footage with their logo in the middle. haha, disapointing!
  • Try ClipWrap, I tried several others, this was the best for me, very basic and straight forward, all codecs for FCP, no generation loss at all, ask for discount, they give you right now 50% off ($25 instead of $50), even recovered some .mts files without the whole private folder! Trial version one minute without logo.
  • Hi,

    Just bought GH2 and have a question.

    Can I set the EVF to behave in stills mode in the same way as in the movie mode? By that I mean, I would really prefer a darker image (like in movie mode) in EVF, than brighter and slower (as it is now in stills mode) for low-light situations.

    Thanks.
  • @flash, there is a hdmi to composite adapter that works but the adapter is powered. I can give u the info but need to check the company that makes it
  • Why do so many prefer Lumix 14mm f2.5 instead of Lumix 20mm f1.7? I thought that bigger aperture hole is always better.
  • it's the wider shots that sometimes count, some people prefer even the 9-18 lens even though it is only F4.0-5.6 but it is W-I-D-E!
  • There's a big difference between 14mm and 20mm on mFT.
  • What is mFT?
  • micro four thirds!
  • @tonalt two reasons, one, if you are shooting primes, you want some distance between them. The 25mm is a good "normal" lens (either the panasonic leica one or voightlander) so assuming you have that, makes sense to have 14 mm as the 20 isn't that different.

    Other reason, 14 mm much better for video -- silent and fast autofocusing. 20mm (only rented it, never owned) was very slow and loud.

    That said, nokton has a 12mm f 1.4 that is not much more than the 14mm -- I almost regretted getting the 14mm until I remembered that is my go to lens for my glidecam (focusing doesn't seem to shift weight in the slightest). But I'll probably get the 12mm at some point as it is the most cinematic you can get without getting into anamorphics.
  • @ttancredi 5DtoRGB messes with gammas so don't use it if you can avoid it. +1 on clipwrap. Log and Transfer screws up because sometimes I find that for whatever reason one of the metadata files (found in those gazillion other folders) fails to write and FCP can't square it away. So clipwrap to prores if you can.
  • in what way does 5DtoRGB mess with gamma?
  • Just read through the entire 10 pages of this topic 2 am saturday morning.
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