Introduction

Welcome to Apocalypse Now and two new matrices researched & supplied by Chris Brandin - adjusted by Nick Driftwood & bkmcwd and incorporated into a new selection of top quality settings - each tested by our 'Apocalypse Now' Beta team.

The theory behind the 444 matrix is an attempt to simulate a process that turns the codec into the equivalent of 4:4:4 encoding.

Many people complain about the “video” look. In part, this is caused by excessive sharpness and rather “crunchy” rendering of gradations.

These matrices are designed to soften the image and improve gradation rendering (smoothness). The softening was specifically targeted toward Panasonic lenses (or other, modern 4/3 lenses) – which are very sharp. Many people use soft lenses wide open to get a more “organic” look. The '444 Soft' and soon to be released 'Cinema Smooth' matrices were designed to provide some of that effect with the sharper Panasonic glass.

So, if you are using only soft lenses with the '444 Soft' matrix settings that amounts to double softening - and that may be too much in some cases.

In this scenario we will be providing a series of sharpened 444 matrices to offer a bit more balance between soft and sharp lenses (the first of which can be found in the Cluster v7 444 Sharp settings).

The factory matrices render detail rectilinearly, which results in more detail along diagonals than at right angles. Film renders detail the same at all angles. These matrices were designed to more closely render detail the way film does.

The ‘444 Soft’ versions of the matrices render color and luma detail with the same resolution. The effect is that detail, although softer, is rendered in a way that is similar to a 4:4:4 color space. This is accomplished by lowering the luma detail and raising the color detail. It’s not exactly the same as 4:4:4 – but its close.

The best way to test these is with sharp lenses because the entire design goal was to be able to produce a more filmic, organic look with standard optics instead of having to use soft lenses.

Older lenses designed before the digital era will nearly always be somewhat soft with digital sensors. This is because of the way the image is presented to the sensor. Film era lenses supply the image to the film/sensor at all angles. This worked because film is relatively flat compared to digital sensors so it doesn't matter at what angle light is presented. Newer lenses are designed to present the image to the sensor at a right angle - which is necessary for optimal sharpness with digital sensors.

The ‘444 Sharp’ versions of the matrix render color and luma detail with, of course, sharper detail. This is accomplished by lifting the luma detail from the softer 444 variation whilst retaining the color detail of the 444 matrix.

The best way to test the sharper 444 setting is with manual lenses because it slightly compensates for the somewhat softer matrix without overloading it and looking video-ish. This setting may need further adapting so look out for more adjusted matrices soon – and please give us feedback.

The 444 matrix set could also be good for green screen work – assuming, of course, that it still results in QP values of 16-18. Although this matrix is mainly directed at longer GOP's even the Intra based settings at mid to tight scene shots should produce exceptional results (as far as our tests go). The only problem we foresee with the Intra setting with these '444 matrices' is if there is a lot of detail and not enough light the range of Q values will vary greatly - beyond +-4 (the bitrate required to make Intra fully utilise this matrix would be greater than 250M). With Cluster's Long GOP implementation, prediction sampling affords us to use lower bitrate to achieve the same quality as top-end Intra.

The initial design of the Chris Brandin's matrices were intended for 1080p24 modes only but we've provided similar matrix versions in HBR/FSH and 720p patches anyway to see how people receive / perceive them. You will see that the encoder settings of all the 'Apocalypse Now' releases have been fine-tuned or rewritten from the ground up - including detailed analysis of data rate bandwidth, Rate Control, GOP weighting, etc - to bring even better performance.

The Cluster v7 '444 Sharp' releases have been tested under iA and iDynamic on their top settings - if you are of the consensus that you DO NOT require intelligent modes iA/iDynamic, we have decided to offer you additional 'AN' settings that make use of this bandwidth in the basic encoding patches and provide stronger GOP weighting - at the risk of failure in Intelligent modes.

The second Chris Brandin defined matrix, 'cbrandin Cinema Smooth' will be incorporated inside forthcoming Apocalypse Now settings. Details and info TBA.

We hope that you like these settings, a great deal of time and effort has gone into making what could be the last in the line of GH2 hacks with the announcement of the GH3 in the pipeline. Finally, a HUGE thanks to our team of Apocalypse Now beta testers for putting in the hours and testing dutifully.

Thank you guys,

cbrandin, driftwood & bkmcwd

CREDITS

These settings are dedicated to VK @Vitaliy_Kiselev and to all GH2 hack users. Long Live the GH2!

IF YOU DOWNLOAD THESE SETTINGS PLEASE PAYPAL DONATE (ABOVE) TO VITALIY FOR HIS BRILLIANT & TIRELESS WORK ON GIVING US THE HACK & PATCH TOOLS TO MAKE THESE POSSIBLE.

UPDATE: NEW EXPERIMENTAL SETTINGS CAN BE FOUND ON THE DRIFTWOOD EXPERIMENTAL THREAD 2