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Beginners: Basic hacks questions, series 2
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  • I have just installed @driftwood Cluster v6 and noticed its 1080i when going into the recording setup. On previous camera setups and what i have learnt before progressive is better than interlaced, so can anyone explain why it will only let me record on 1080i and why people dont really mention 1080p on here. Sorry if this has come up before I have check as much as I can but cant find anything.

    I want to shoot 24 fps 1080p and im guessing I should be shooting in manual movie mode rather than HBR? Thanks

  • @superdantey whilst you are logged into the site you will find some posts with zip files attached, the settings are provided by other members for you to freely download (at no cost) and apply to your camera. It might be a good idea to look through the post below to get you started..

    http://personal-view.com/talks/discussion/2386/beginners-guide-to-setting-up-stable-settings/p1

    a range of patches can be found in this post...

    http://personal-view.com/talks/discussion/953/gh2-settings-vault-most-popular-settings-in-one-place#Item_1

    Also read through the FAQS which can be found on the top (green) bar, these contain a lot of useful info :)

  • how do i get thes patches do i juss downlode them or buy them ??? :)

  • Ah! Good call - it says frame rate:50. So the next question is why is premiere thinking its 25fps? (When I try to remap or change speed it behaves exactly as if it was 25fps.

    edit:Ok this will seem stupid, but after rebooting it seems that whereas movs will import as 50fps that you slow down to get slowmo, avchd will import at 25fps which you speed up to get normal speed. (And if you're wondering why I couldn't tell the footage was slowmo - it high shutter speed close up of water)

  • Open your footage in VLC and see what VLC has to say about it.

  • I want to get my head around the GH2 stock firmware and menus before I hack it. Shot some stuff on holiday with the camera setup to 720p (manual movie mode, rec mode= avchd720p, rec quality set to SH). Bring it into premiere and its all 1280x720@ at 25fps.

    I tried again yesterday. set to 720p: I dont get whats going on - I was shooting in manual but with auto iso and auto exposure, but surely that shouldnt make a difference

  • It's got nothing to do with PTool. You just need to select the right mode on the camera. Read the manual and read the GH2 usage FAQ. Set the top dial to creative movie mode and then select 24P Cinema mode or HBR.

  • I look at these tables and it might as well be chinese for me. Just tell me once I get into the Ptool where what do I have to click to get 1920 x 1080 24p (or 25p). Changing to PAL has gotten me 1920 x 1080 25 INTERLACED but I´d like to know how to get 24p and 25p.

  • See the table of video modes: http://www.personal-view.com/faqs/gh2-usage/gh2-usage

    See about the PAL/NTSC menu: http://www.personal-view.com/faqs/gh2-hack/gh2-hack-faq

    24P cinema mode is 24 fps. HBR mode in PAL is 25 fps.

    If you're getting write errors, use a different card, a faster card, or different hack settings.

  • Hi, I´m sorry if this is not the place to post this (I´m new here). So MODs feel free to move it if you feel you must. I´ve just installed the GH2 100Mbps Flow Motion v2 Patch and now I have these REC MODE options: - AVHD (1080i) - tried this one and it worked but it shoots at 29i and I want 1920 x 1080 24p (or 25p if 24 is not possible) - AVCHD (720p) - it´s shooting at 60p but I want 24p (or 25p if 24 is not possible) - Motion JPEG - haven´t tried it

    What option do I have to select on the Ptool to get this exact same patch but with 1920 x 1080 24p (or 25p) instead of 29i?

  • It´s scaled up.

  • Hi Everyone! Look what I`ve found on vimeo:

    Is this possible?

  • @driftwood My Sex Pistols references not withstanding, Cluster v6 is high detail approved! Shot some charts, bushes, water and the footage looked really good. Great hack! Thanks again for all your help.

    v6Test.JPG
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  • Hi @eddietemple (not Tudor?!) If you use search on this site there should be links somewhere to the death charts. @Stray 's colour death chart is particularly useful.

  • @driftwood I'd like to record a death chart but I'm unclear how to do it. I assume it's a resolution chart of some kind. I really wanna push these settings. Please let me know how I can get a death chart. Thanks.

  • Thats fine for the detail you were recording at the time. Try some high detail recordings now.

  • @driftwood Tried the Cluster v6. Really liked it. Gonna try it with a low GOP and test again. Here's the Stream Parser results. Do they look average/normal?

    Cluster V6.JPG
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  • Try the newly released Cluster v6 over on my thread and let me know what you think - it uses lower bitrate but it is targetted more to always on average achieve it.

  • @driftwood Thanks for the info. I adjusted the bitrate down as you suggested (from 132 to 100) and I got a proportional drop in average bitrate of the footage. I also shot some high detail footage. I shot up through trees, bushes, grass, brick etc.) and the average bitrate was 79. My only concern was/is that I don't seem to ever be getting even close to the target bitrate of the hacks. I only ever get to about 1/2. If this is how it always is with hacks, I apologize for my ignorance and I'll stop bothering everyone about it. Also, Forgive me for being a noob, but what is a "death chart" and which do you recommend? Since I'm using old settings, do you have a newer hack that you recommend for narrative fiction filmmakers that is or is similar to 65mb GOP3 that doesn't use up too much memory? All I want to do is avoid the too sharp video look. This is what I'm going for:

    132.JPG
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  • Okay, many thanks for this complete answer @driftwood ! The lower is the shutter speed, smoother is the motion, am i right ?

  • @bechou PAL HBR25fps/1080i & 720 is 50fps. So use the correct ratio shutter. 25ss, 50ss, 100ss is best. For 24p, equally shoot in 25ss, 50ss, 100ss, etc... multples, give the best results.

    With 60fps/HBR30 (NTSC) shoot in 30/60/125, multiples etc...

  • Hi everyone, i am very confused about which shutter speed to use so i always use 1/50. But which shutter speed should i use to get the best slow-mo in post prod? I am mainly shooting in PAL 720 60p or HBR...

  • @eddietemple Go shoot a death chart or something with high detail. The bitrate is measured to accomodate detail, if you're filming stuff that won't require all the target bitrate - it won't! Hence why youre only getting something less. Besides, thats an old setting which I havent looked at under any of the new ptools. Adjust the bitrate down somewhat and see how you go - the time will always adjust according to how much bitrate is being consumed / calculated to how much space is left on the sd card (running at this current bitrate). So things will move up and down.

  • Okay, I think I have the problem narrowed down. Now I just need to figure out how to fix it.

    The hacks aren't giving me the bitrates that they should. I seem to be getting between 1/3 and 1/2 the full bitrate. I had a 65mbs GOP3 hack originally, and I was only getting 19-24mbps. So I put on Driftwood's 132 GOP3 on there and it looked great. Very close to what I wanted. Only problem was I was only getting around 62mbps. Normally, I would only care that the footage looks how I want, but the problem is it throws all the footage counters off on the camera.

    Example: I put the 132 hack on the camera and my "footage remaining" timer goes down to about an hour (that's what would fit on my card if I was recording at 132mbps). But then when recording, the actual footage timer is reading about 3 times more. If I shoot until the "remaining footage" timer says one minute has gone by, the actual recorded clip is 2 min 50 seconds.

    I put the footage into Stream Parser and it confirmed my suspicions.

    So, basically, I'm just not getting anything close to the advertised bitrate for any of the hacks I'm using. Has anyone else experienced/fixed this?

    132 Test 1.JPG
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    132 Test 2.JPG
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  • @eddietemple Maybe post which city you're in, and some more experienced GH2 shooter might be able to help. From what you've written, it sounds like everything is correct and you know what you're doing.

    What exactly don't you like about your footage? Can you upload a sample that shows the defects, and explain what should be improved?

    I'm pretty sure that a higher bit rate should respond well to motion in the frame.