@balazar Hi there - I'm a bit behind the times here but because my computer was in many pieces I wasn't able to try out Cake when it came out, on the 1.0 / 3.63d ptools, and then I didn't go for it on the new version of ptools 3.42d. But I thought I ought to try it on 1.0 / 3.63d and it's amazing! Thank you - really good stuff. Looks wonderful - and I appreciate your work on it. If you can sort it for 3.64d it will become my go-to setting, but until then I'll keep this one. Thank you!!

@duartix @balazer Thanks guys - for the moment I'll try out Cake with the 1.0 firmware using the prev version of ptools. Cheers!

Are there any plans to port cake to HBR mode? :)

@_gl & @Mark_the_Harp : I believe you guys should wait for an updated patch since there's a lot of new GOP related settings that might need adjustment when transferred from the previous version.

@balazer, just tried Cake 1.1 with 1.1 firmware/3.64d - quick indoor test shows it working fine, with expected 24H bitrates (~50 average, 70+ top). Very exciting from reading your detailed description, I've been using Chris' 66mb as my go-to as it was totally reliable for me (except for spanning) & the right quality/filesize tradeoff.

I'll need to test outdoors in anger (will report back), but apart from the expected quality & motion increase and spanning @ similar file sizes, the lower GOP should also be faster to edit: win/win/win/win : ).

what duartix said.

@balazer Do you know if the 720P/60 mode works well in Cake 1.1? I need that sometimes? If not, what do I do to merge a good 720p/60 patch with Cake 1.1? Thanks Izhar

Quantum is still beta. There are other 146-Mbps intra settings that are stable and perform similarly.

The best thing you can do to keep the noise low is shoot at a low ISO. Do some tests and see how the noise increases at higher ISOs. Of course to shoot at low ISOs you'll want to do what you can with lighting, choose a fast lens, and keep the shutter speed as slow as you can tolerate.

If you shoot at low ISOs, your choice of patch settings doesn't matter too much. Cake, Flow Motion, Aquamotion, or Quantum 100 would all be fine. At higher ISOs, you're going to want to record that noise as accurately as you can, so it can be removed using Neat Video. Cake has no significant loss up to about ISO 3200. Above 3200, you'll be better off with 146-Mbps intra setting like Driftwood's Reaquanted or Seaquake, or Gop3zilla.

In the FAQs you'll find some generic patch setting recommendations and tips for low-light shooting. There's a link to the FAQs at the top of this page.

Thanks to LPowell's work on Flow Motion, I have a new version of Cake that does away with the frame limit and instead uses LPowell's method of limiting the bit rate. This approach combines the best features of both patch settings:

• GOP3 for better efficiency than GOP1

• Consistently high quality at a variable 20-80 Mbps; under 50 Mbps, on average

• Spanning. (tested with SanDisk Extreme HD Video cards)

• Now you can have quality and spanning at the same time - no need to choose one or the other as you do in Flow Motion. The camera automatically varies the bit rate so as to achieve consistently high quality, using high bit rates only when necessary.

• P-frame quality matches I-frame quality extremely well (better than Flow Motion's B-frames)

• Frame sizes are unconstrained, for better quality in high detail scenes

I've done a fair bit of testing, and the results look extremely good. In the old version of Cake, I-frame quality could be limited for detailed, low motion, low noise video. But now for these scenes Cake does just as well as Flow Motion, and potentially better than 100-Mbps intra settings. Playing back footage shot on a tripod at ISO 160, the frames are so similar to each other that I thought my player was stuck, until I saw a truck drive by in the video.

At this point just 1080/24p and Variable Movie Mode are working. Other settings are copied as-is from Flow Motion, and might not work correctly.

In my testing, the patch settings are stable. But we'll need to have other people test before I can call these settings non-experimental. The new version is in the second post of this topic.

Big thanks to LPowell for making these new settings possible.

Thanks for testing, @erw456.

Just to be clear, there's no question that 100 Mbps and 146 Mbps intra patch settings will beat Cake for quality every time. If you need the maximum quality, Cake isn't for you. Cake is about increasing efficiency while maintaining consistently high quality and spanning with a variety of cards. Cake is an improvement over existing 44-66 Mbps patch settings.

Test, after test after test... listen up motherfuckers. Youre never gonna be happy.