I had a Transcend supposedly Class 10 and it seems not even to be up to decent Class 6 level. Very disappointing. I am having to upgrade all my cards to use the PVDOG patch even.

I just put pvdog back on and tested a 15+ minute record in 720p, worked great .. didn't try playback in cam.. but record worked great... used pvdog setf .. Im on NTSC.. dont know about PAL this patch is pretty dang good IMHO.. especially since it can work on old slower cards. Only 1 or two scenes I have thrown at it that I've seen any blocking and they were extremely motion and detail entrenched scenes..

Now I'm trying to find the best picture settings for footage, been shooting very flat .. -1 on everything.. but don't think i need to go that drastically flat.

Hopefully soon ClusterV2 and manual settings

Well I still have Mysteron on my GF2, decided to record a test clip with a cheap $15 Transcend class 10 16gb card.. Recorded successfully.. clip is 1:23 in length.. 851mb in size.. 85,853 kbps footage looks nice .. this patch may eat up to much space.. at almost a GB a in 1.5 minutes.. im going to experiment and if i dont like it ill go back to pvdog. going to go test spanning now..

Ebach - Is it possible on Vegas to simply edit "native" the AVCHD and output edited clips in the original "native" AVCHD uncompressed? In other words, simply edit and output in the original Codec off the camera? Maybe "smart rendering" or whatever?

@Ebacherville If what I read about XDCAM is true (35Mbps VBR, 1440x1080 MPEG-2), then something to remember is that (I am talking delivery here) MPEG-4 is a much more efficient and optimized codec than MPEG-2.

With this in mind, I am certain there is a world of difference between 35Mbps MPEG-2 1440x1080 (anamorphic) and 35Mbps MPEG-4 1920x1080 raster. Certainly it would be best for the video to have the highest visual quality before being sent to be re-encoded by an online video delivery service.

Meanwhile I still argue with the production department that raster 1280x720 progressive has more actual quality than the 1280x1080 interlaced (DVCProHD) perceptual quality.

@Ebacherville It is my understanding that these patches allow us the users to pump a higher bitrate into a 'delivery' codec when acquiring images.

Because of this, I tend to either A) edit the original Inter-frame with an application that supports the original files (Vegas, etc), or B) transcode to a proper intra-frame editing format for a smooth editing experience.

I tend to go with option 'B', and never go below 100Mbps on transcoding (DNxHD on Vegas or MPEG-2 I-Frame on Lightworks).

It may seems like an overkill, but that's just the surface. I am going from a highly compressed inter-frame stream to a lesser compressed intra-frame format, and a simple understanding of the main difference between these formats (GOP's VS independent frames) yields the logical conclusion that I need much more bitrate to avoid losing too much quality on transcoding.

On delivery (web, local proxy) I then go back to H.264. I tend to use 17-20Mbps for 720p and about 25Mbps for 1080i (rare). AAC for audio and MP4 as a container. This works wonders.

Of course, sending the file to a third party online service (the tubes, vimeo, etc) means that you lose control over the final result, since these services batch-encode the users videos at a preset bitrate regardless of content.

Ebach - what version of Vegas are you running? If it is the new version, it is pretty shocking that it worsens these problems.

My gosh I'm totally dumb founded.. here is a render to QT uncompressed of that 10 second shot from my Vegas Pro timeline.. blocking is totally gone.. Sony HAS indeed screwed me again.. this 10 second clip in QT uncompressed is over 2.5gb.. WOW pvdogs patch is going back on my GF2.. And I'll figure out a better way to encode video for showing to everyone than Sony's own xdcam @ 35mbps... it is absolutely scary that sony's own format is totally messed up! I think I'll bring this to work tomorrow and drop try it in final cut at 2560 x 1440.. should total prove it as a solid patch. my god totally unreal!

@Ebacherville

These are stream frames from Mysteron posted by driftwood http://www.personal-view.com/talks/uploads/FileUpload/ef/2408936b64fc25841039e5db70377d.png

These are stream frames from pvdgo's settings posted by me http://www.personal-view.com/talks/uploads/FileUpload/1f/753041f8833cf41fbe59315eed36ba.png

Notice the 'health' of P & B frames compared to Mysteron.

@pvdog, finally stressed your patch to breaking point.. well it didn't break, as in stop recording. But was able to throw enough at it to make it do some major blocking .. the high motion shots of the water (like the first shot in this video, look at the sky , major blocking .. however only on those shots with massive motion detail.. the other shots that have sky are not blocking .. now that being said, considering I tested this on older class 6 cards and one was a class 4 I think.. and it worked perfectly, its still a great compromise for quality and reliability even on slow cards. In my quest for perfection of the GF2, I think I might go to a higher bitrate patch and higher class cards .. Might try cake 2.0 as feha posted above.. but still like your patch allot.. great performance even on slow cards unless you kill it with extreme motion shots that have chunks of non motion in them. Youtubes reencode lessens it , in my original footage, and 35mbps YT upload, its very apparent.

I think that until Vitaity, does not come with the option of manual video, try all these settings, it is a bit useless ..

@Ebacherville Good footage. Manual setting is needed after all