@Imaginate Those are some interesting looks. Where is that beach? Very unusual to see a railroad track running along it.

I loaded up Sanity 4 and took it down to the beach. Standard -2-2-2-2 with a Nikon 50mm 1.8 Transcend class 10

I had no problems recording or playback. I'm loving what I see. I've graded different scenes with different looks, the patch grades very nicely.

Thanks Ralph_B this is great work you have done.

@peternap

"Time to toss another donation in the kitty I think!"

very true and great advice!

How much would you spend on a good lens? Think about it and evaluate how much the great work of Vitaly and all the busy patch creators (driftwood, cbrandin, bkmcwd, LPowell, Ralph_B, balazer etc.) is worth to you in $ ...

@peternap

"@towi You've used Flo Motion a fair amount"

Actually I didn't. I need 25p and the Flowmotion patch doesn't cut it in HBR/PAL mode IMHO. I do like the look of Flowmotion at 24H, but then again even at 24H it shows more artefacts on fine edges than bkmcwd's GOP3 patches. YMMV ...

@rorykane

in what mode? For 24H you have plenty of great choices. For HBR/25p the choices are more limited (HBR/30p I don't know).

"Wedding" asks for long takes and probably also for spanning, right? So I would use a setting with moderate bitrates (Sanity or 24p25p-NINE). I have not yet tested "Cake". This version of the former Sanity patch is rock solid (in PAL mode!): http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/42716#Comment_42716 ... or just take Ralph's original patch for NTSC-mode. 24p25p-NINE does not span if the codec is stressed (it will span if only moderate bitrates are utilized).

Generally ... I would NEVER use a patch for an important job (you can't repeat a wedding...) that I have not tested by myself under a lot of different shooting scenarios on my camera with my lenses and my SD cards (we are talking about consumer products with a relatively high sample variation). In case of doubt just use the stock firmware (really!).

@AKED

"Can we gt your evaluation for the Sanity 4.1 as well, once you havbe tried it?"

Just a first quick test with Sanity V4.1 ...

As expected at first glance footage looks super (24h & HBR/25p). This goes for the PAL version.

However HBR/25p on a death chart produces "only" 22Mbit/s with I-frames below 700K in a GOP-18 stream (see attachment), while for instance 24p25p-NINE produces around 42Mbits and I-frames above 1MB (also larger P-frames and B-frames) in a GOP-9 stream on the very same death chart (see here: http://www.personal-view.com/talks/uploads/FileUpload/45/9a51aa12eb928592e5b827302e1c14.png )

I've shot a static texture (to moderately stress the codec) containing deep blacks. When I lift the blacks on HBR/25p in post I notice the noise pattern is "pulsing". So I think something is not working quite right yet (in HBR/25p ... 24H looks clean).

I've not yet tested real world scenes in daylight ...

Call me dumb if you like ,but I did not know you can upload the (.m2ts) files right from the camera to YouTube. saves me time in Sony Vegas rendering just for a test. Here is a short test of sanity 4.1. Panasonic GH2 Hack ..SANITY 4.1( by Ralph_B) 1080 24 FPS ,average 68 MBS , Vibrant -2-2-2 0 mode

@peternap Glad it's working for you. You can deposit the moonshine into my Paypal account.

@Zaven13 "I noticed you changed the GOP for 720p60 from 39 in Sanity 3.1 to 18 in Sanity 4. Any particular reason?"

Yes, for a very good reason - In Sanity 4, I turned on B-frames for 720p, and this required a different GOP to work efficiently. It's funny, when you look at these numbers in the ini file, they all look kind of innocent, but they're like the tip of an iceberg for huge underlying processes that are going on, and they're all interconnected.

@Ralph_B. I loaded Sanity 4 and tested. Nice job. Seems like a good all around setting for those who like good quality combined with compatibility with majority of the class 10 cards and low storage usage. I noticed you changed the GOP for 720p60 from 39 in Sanity 3.1 to 18 in Sanity 4. Any particular reason?

@spike08

"@towi . I know you are testing also bkmcwd's patch. How you would compare sanity vs bkmcwd's patch in 24p or HBR 25p? I'm not talking about stability, only image quality"

It depends on what you call "IQ". I also use the term "image quality" as if it would refer to a clearly identified criteria. But in fact we all have a different take on what "IQ" actually means for us personally. As far as "imaging" goes I am actually a photographer. And I only shoot cameras without anti aliasing filters. Consequently for me personally "sharpness" is important (to me "sharpness" means the reproduction of fine details but without a harsh/oversharpened look). With video I also pay attention on flicker-free, artefact-free motion and "grain-like" noise. As far as "tonality" goes the GH2 sucks anyway... (the same goes for other DSLR videos - the GH2 suffers from banding, Canons always look extremely "digital" (candy shop colors + mushy)... I have no experience with Nikons, though).

First: I have not tested the latest Sanity patch yet (I will, of course). I was a big fan of the former Sanity patch and used it very often as it was clearly by far the best setting for 50i (and at the same time also great at 24H). Since the advent of firmware 1.1 and HBR things may have changed. There are some really great settings here on the forums. For me it's important that 24H AND HBR/25p AND FSH/50i work well. This is why I now rarely compare patches against each other. I mostly compare HBR (25p) against 24H of the same patch. I fully expect Sanity will do great in all 3 modes.

So here's my (very personal) take on some of the patches I've tested:

• Driftwood's Sedna A AQ1: phantastic at 24H / weak at HBR when the codec is stressed much (footage looks highly compressed and shows a lot of mosquito noise). Then again great at HBR when the codec is not stressed much. FSH/50i is almost unusable for me personally.

• LPowell's Flowmotion: I really like the look of the 24H footage. HBR/FSH sucks IMO (it depends on the actual scene... but mostly HBR/25p looks somewhat mushy... the same goes for FSH/50i)

• 24p25p-NINE (my modfied "Sanity MK II" patch): super sharp at 24H, HBR/25p and FSH. HBR/25p is almost indiscernible from 24H (and 24H of 24p25p-NINE is indecernible from Driftwood's high bitrate Intra settings on static scenes). Also quite good with motion (little flickering/motion artefacts). I doubt the new Sanity will be "better". But again, I have yet to try it.

• bkmcwd GOP3 settings: now, in all three settings you will be hard pressed to tell 24H from HBR under most shooting scenarios (and 24H is absolutely great!). Here's a comparision of 24H and HBR/25p from the "natural" setting in ETC mode / static scene / ISO400, 1/50''/Zeiss 2.0/50 / smooth -2|-2|-1|-2: http://www.file-upload.net/download-4177568/natural_modified_FOTOJPEG.zip.html I do like the look of short GOP motion, so I assume one of these bkmcwd settings will be my standard setting for the time being.

• Matrices: Driftwood rocks the house! Different matrices have only little impact on "IQ" at first glance but in fact they can make a big difference. 24p25p-NINE contains the "HQ Matrix". I've just made some preliminary bkmcwd GOP3 settings with the "HQ Matrix" applied ("GOPZILLA3_HQ" is great at 24H, HBR/25p. I have yet to check FSH/50i). Most likely I will also try to apply the HQ Matrix to Ralph's latest Sainty patch.

I'm not quite sure which of the patches will be my favorite. But I'm almost sure it will be a patch containing the HQ Matrix (very sharp, flicker-free with motion, especially in conjunction with short GOP when the setting is "right"). I owe @Ralph_B a BIG THANK-YOU for his first Sanity patch. So of course I'll also carefully test the latest Sanity patch. I wouldn't be surprised if I end up with Sanity again ... (but, again, only if it works with the "HQ Matrix" ... right now I lean towards GOP3ZILLA & HQ and GOLGOP3 & HQ).

Just to see, I put a 4 gig class 4 Sandisk card in and it gave a Card Speed error within a few seconds. I'm testing a long run with a 95MB Sandisk now on the log of death with TE on.