@swen24
@tomaso

I am trying out your settings. I find something very strange with how GH2 calculates the capacity (time remaining) of SD cards in MPEG (HD) mode. It does not matter whether I put in an 8gb, 16gb, or 32gb card. GH2 gives me only 8 minutes and 20 seconds of recording. I have not tried to actually record pass 8m20s to see if the recording stops or not. But it is strange. I believe these settings have something to do with the incorrect calculation of the remaining time for MPEG mode:

1080p24 Low Top Setting=31178
1080p24 Low Bottom Setting=21824
720p Top Setting=31878
720p Bottom Setting=22314
1080i60 Top Setting=31598
1080i60 Bottom Setting=22118

The remaining time calculations for AVCHD are correct for all the modes. Does anybody have a problem like what I have described above or it's just me?


@Vitaliy_Kiselev

I do not know whether my finding has any value to you that the above setting affects the time remaining calculation in MPEG (HD) mode. Thank you very much for such a wonderful work.

@cbrandin thanks for this valueble info!

who cares about the garbage in the beginning of the file?
Just cut it later.

I appreciate all the hard work and testing that everyone is doing; but it seems that the title of this topic is misleading. There seems to be more discussion about what doesn't work than what does.

Maybe this one could be changed to "Almost stable" and then one could be started for ones that have been confirmed to be stable under all conditions.

Elecard Streameye Studio - Initial Buffers at startup comparison over 4 different bitrates;-
24mbps (stock GH2), 32mbps Hacked, 42 hacked, 65 hacked. Make what you will of the buffers being initialised. 24mbps and 42mpbs are exact match! See attached

shot a full 16GB Class 6 Transcend using only the suggested bitrate high and low numbers (42 and 35 . . . add the zeros??) Only 2 minor hiccups, and I was shooting outside handheld on a hot day, along with inside with the ISO maxed out. Edited short-film to come ;)

Tested these settings today but they are not stable @ 24p!
Used class Sandisc SDHC extreme 10 card but had a couple of reading errors and one freeze (waving leaves)
720 GOP 30 is really great for my slider and steadycam! Thanks a lot!
One thing what i wanted to share is how the hack influences the depth of the video.
For me it is not only about details, sharpness and colours. The colours of my Pentax K-5 look better anyway but resolution sucks! I have it for stills and steadicamshots with the Sigma 8-16mm because of it's weight.
With 62/65 mbs 1080 there is a subtle change in the depht and cleanliness of the footage compared to stock.

Butts sugested settings seems to be werry stable and work really well.
Just waiting next Ptool to get more out of GH2.

by "crash the codec" I just mean get a 'motion recording stopped because card too slow' error and recording stops. The camera never locks up with these settings in my experience. Also, if it is going to give the 'card to slow' error, it will happen in the first ~15 seconds or not at all. Since it's probably very rare that this will happen in real world situations, and once it's running for 15 sec it is stable, I'm willing to live with that remote possibility of a false start to a clip for now to get 32 Mbit in 720p60.

Since the only risk of getting the error is in the first 15 sec of a shot, and I have successfully shot video up to 42mBit/sec in 1080p 24 80% (without ever failing), I feel that the text of this error is not actually true in this case but instead is reflecting some sort of buffering issue with the higher bitrates in 60fps at the beginning of a clip, potentially related to the fact that 1080p footage looks like crap for the first second or two as the codec gets 'up to speed', but 720p60, at least with these settings, looks good from the start meaning it is writing the full datarate at the beginning of this clip when buffering, writing, encoding, etc is just starting. But I bet Vitaliy and others know a lot more about this than I do :) And I have not played around with changing the buffer settings yet.

Here are the very stable settings I'm currently using (based on swen's from early in this thread, but with a boost from 28 to 32 Mbits/sec in 720p60 mode). Clips seems to span fine over files on a Patriot LX 32GB SDHC card for both 720p60 and 1080p24 80%. With 28 Mbits 720p60 I could not crash the codec. With 32 Mbits I did crash it once, but it seems to be very difficult (have not been able to crash it again) and would rarely happen in real life situations.

And -- as you can see, you can dig some detail out of the darks too! :)
EDIT: Added the settings INI file (if you're lazy) :D

SUGGESTION: Vitaliy: Wouldn't it be cool if you added the support for INI files for the upload + add a function where when a INI file is uploaded it is displayed in a "available ready-sets" section of the site (with a link to the source discussion)? :) (I know my settings are hardly worthy, but for the really good ones (so they are easier to find?) Wouldn't that be dataset semantic heaven? :D

EDIT: It's not all business, you know! I've included a picture of my newborn 5 day old daughter. I'll have more (detailed (60fps 40mbit)) memories of her being a baby because of your hacking, Vitaliy! Just wanted to remind you of the work you're doing and on the levels it affects us all. So THANK YOU, Vitaliy!

@arvidtp
720p B-Frames Setting (However, stability is an issue. If you record a 1080p @ 24 FPS video first and then record 720p @ 60 FPS stability returns.)

@kavadni

Yeah, default formatting for SD cards uses a different allocation unit size than the camera uses - that can devastate performance. Hope that's all it was.

Chris