GH2 Cake v2.3: reliability and spanning in 720p, HBR, 24p, and VMM at 2-2.5x stock bit rates

feha

@balazer i like using Film Mode: Vibrant 0,0,+2,0 as it gives nice contrast and colors already, often less need for color grading in my videos and shooting purposes.

balazer

Thanks for the tests, feha. I'm pleased to hear that HBR mode is working well so far. HBR mode is a challenge to work with. Of course it's impossible for me to test all of the conditions that people will shoot with, so I just need to trust that I actually understand how the encoder works and hope I got the settings right. :) Everyone else's settings that I tried I could crash within a few minutes.

rory, I don't have any picture profile recommendations for Cake. The encoder should be able to handle whatever you set. I use Standard -1,-2,-2,-2 generally.

safari, Vegas will blend frames if it is doing frame rate conversion. Make sure your imported media frame rate matches the rendering frame rate exactly. (e.g., 23.976 and not 24.0; 29.970 and not 30.0. Just select the presets from the pull-downs, and Vegas will use the appropriate full-precision value) Also, set the project properties to match, so you get an accurate preview. If you actually want to do frame rate conversion, the video event's resampling setting will determine how it's done: force resampling means blend frames; no resampling means don't blend.

feha

THANK YOU : @balazer Here comes controlled light, test videos

"GH2 Hack, Cake 2.0 settings from @balazer Lens: Canon FD 50mm f/1.2. Aperture: 1.2 Exposure Mode:M shutter speed: 1/50 ISO: 160 (controlled lights 2x ZDV-96) White Balance: Auto Film Mode: Vibrant 0,0,+2,0

HBR 25p / PAL"

rorykane

Gonna' enjoy a little cake tonight. @balazer Which picture profile settings would you recommend for your new setting? Thank you

feha

Here comes another test video Video is waiting online on vimeo ... You can download raw mts at vimeo

GH2 hack, Cake 2.0 settings, HBR - 25p PAL ,Test Video

"GH2 Hack, Cake 2.0 settings from @balazer Lens: Canon FD 50mm f/1.2. Aperture: 1.2 Exposure Mode:M shutter speed: 1/50 ISO: 160 (controlled lights 2x ZDV-96) White Balance: Auto Film Mode: Vibrant 0,0,+2,0

HBR 25p / PAL"

rikyxxx

@feha

WOW!!!

feha

@safari, sorry i cant post the video, filmed this at home. But there will be a real video soon with other theme :-)

safari

feha ...Amazing screen grabs. I would like to see the video..:)

feha

I tested spaning on HBR/PAL works great ... Extreme HD video 32GB / 30mb/s Update: Also tested with Cinema 24p , it spans OK ... ETC mode spans OK ...

some screen shots below using Cake 2.0 Lens: 14mm 2.5 pancake Exposure mode A: Aperture control at 2.5 , ISO: auto, Film mode: Vibrant 0,0,+2,0 Dynamic contrast on (standard) Pictures taken from raw video via GH2 save image function, no grading ... I'm impressed, thank you for these great settings @balazer

safari

I use Sony Vegas...Could you explain the blended frames you see?...I am pretty new to this.

Thanks!

balazer

Looks nice, thanks for testing. I see some blended frames. How are you editing/converting?

safari

safari

A quick test of cake 2.0...Not too scientific ...I am new to this camera and the hacks. Windy overcast day here,so light was not the best. Some shot in Smooth -2-2-2-2 and the rest vibrant. I did try the 720 60FPS and looked fine to . Cant wait to get it out with some good light for contrast comparisons. I did try the Sedna before this but had it stop with the 720 60fps and the files were huge !..Nice for 1080 24p though. Using a Sandisk extreme 64g 95mbs .

duartix

Got to the same P/B conclusions in my Timebuster settings. P were more efficient, even though my settings were rather unconventional...

feha

@balazer, ok will do some testing tomorrow and see how it holds, the bit rate is great ... I'm using Extreme HD video 32GB / 30mb/s hope it will span ...

balazer

Thanks for the feedback, guys. Crossing my fingers that no one will be able to make these settings crash. Do your worst. ;)

Feha, I just see no advantage to using B-frames. The GH2's B-frames, from all my testing, are not much more efficient than its P-frames, and the P-frame quality matches the I-frame quality very closely even without changing the scaling tables. P-frames always worked well for me through the iterations of Cake, so I just kept them. P-frames are simpler, so they might be helping the stability.

safari

I am liking this cake more each time I try it..trying Cake 2.0 now...Video to follow! Thanks Blazer!

feha

Just checked, I and P frames are there , @balazer is there a reason no B frames ? It seams to work ok with HBR 25 PAL ... I think this will stay on my GH2 for the while :-) Thank you

feha

OK, I'm flashing now with Cake 2.0, exciting ...

Mark_the_Harp

Cool - looking forward to trying this once my camera is charged up. I'm a big cake fan!

balazer

How did I make it stable with a quantizer setting of 18? Basically, I didn't change any settings except for the ones that I understand and needed. ;) Changing GOP tables is how I got adaptive quantization rate control to work at the desired bit rates of each of the different modes. That was independent of the quantizer setting. I-frame quality is matched to P-frame quality as best I could make it, same as with previous versions. The I-frame and P-frame bit rates are both adaptive. Under high noise or high motion, the P-frames will be nearly as large as the I-frames, to achieve the same quality. Under low motion, the P-frames can be much smaller, still with equal quality.

P-frame scaling matrices are copied from the stock I-frame scaling matrices. This wasn't strictly necessary, as the stock P-frame scaling matrices are already very close to the I-frame scaling matrices, but I did it anyway just so they'd match.

duartix

Holy shit!

How did you manage to work it that stable at QP=18? It's the GOP table trick? IIUC you are giving equal bitrate to I/P right? How did you enable adaptive quantization? Which matrices are you using? Sorry for all these questions but I'm still longing for the wiki...

Thanks! Good work!

balazer

New: Cake v2.0

Designed for reliability
All modes
2 - 2.5 times stock bit rates
Rate control by adaptive quantization
Spanning in HBR (NTSC and PAL), 24p, and Variable Movie Mode
SanDisk Extreme cards recommended for spanning

The settings are attached to the second post of this topic.

Cake v2.0 has reliability and spanning as its highest priorities. It's intended for event coverage, where you need long recording times and reliability. My testing is based on the most extreme shooting conditions, and I've set the bit rates very conservatively to ensure consistent spanning with SanDisk Extreme cards.

Special attention was given to HBR mode, to keep its reliability and quality high. Last I checked, I have the only stable high bit rate inter-frame settings for HBR.

Of course quality is still a priority, and these are my best looking settings yet. Rate control is by adaptive quantization, very similar to how the stock encoder settings work. When operating at the bit rate limit, adaptive quantization has better image quality than do settings using fallback mode or frame limits.

Cake v2.0 is my attempt to be done with the testing and the pixel peeping, so I can get on with the shooting and never have to worry about my encoder settings not being up to the task.

Mark_the_Harp

@_gl It was after a cold night's frost, and the sun basically hitting all these surfaces and the frost evaporating. It lasted about 10 minutes, and I was lucky to catch it just as the sun was getting onto the garden. Plus it was a very still day and the light was shining in the right direction to capture all this. The foreground steam is rising up from the roof just beneath my window.

I thought it was quite fun to be able to shoot a whole sequence of stuff through just one window!

_gl

@Mark_the_Harp, v. cool. What caused that?

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