You might be able to write 176 Mbps GOP1 all day long, but have you looked at the instantaneous bit rates of the streams it generates? They go up to 130, maybe 140 or 150 Mbps - still under 20 MB/sec. A full 176 Mbps, if you could achieve that, is 21 MB/sec.
The old discontinued SanDisk Extreme and Extreme III "30 MB/s Edition" cards support a SanDisk-proprietary signaling spec that is 50% faster than the normal SD HS-mode spec. Only some SanDisk card readers and Nikon cameras support the proprietary signaling mode. In any other camera or card reader, including our GH1s and GH2s, you will get HS-mode speeds of up to ~20 MB/sec, not 30 MB/sec.
And if I'm not mistaken, our GH1s and GH2s also do not support UHS. They are HS devices, which means card performance will never exceed the HS top speed of 20 MB/sec or so.
Thus for our purposes there is not a huge difference between SanDisk's discontinued "30 MB/s Edition" cards, and the UHS "Extreme HD Video" cards and "Extreme Pro" cards. When you benchmark your cards, make sure you are not using a UHS card reader or a 30 MB/s card reader like the ImageMate.
I have been using the Sandisk 45mbit/s cards on all of driftwood patches with NO issues, and I know mine is a legit card because its right from BH... been reading a lot about these cards being faked
My 32gb San Disc Extreme Pro works fine on C Brandin's 44MB but I'll admit I have some crashes and playback issues with the 176MB gop1 patch.I did HYBRID this with 720p settings but all the parameters I set for 24p were including the Frame buffer were exact as in the patch set.Still... Its enough to make me jump back to the 44MB patch tomorrow.
I've just received my 32 Extreme Sandisk HD VIDEO (uhs-1 :x) Card ... So I will be taking it for a spin in a few hours- (I do have to sleep sometimes- possibly Sunday...)
Can anyone confirm which variation is best. I find 2 Sandisk Extreme Pro SD cards. I've read that some of the 45/mb card have problems. Also are either discontinued? In a search on B&H it shows discontinued.
I can confirm @Rambo report that Sandisk Extreme 30mb/s Video SDHC-I (UHS-I) card does indeed work at high bitrates (at least for me). Done a few short tests with @Driftwood 176 settings. Will test with longer recordings but at least for now 60 sec recordings at 640 ISO seem to work.
@alcomposer, well I suppose the hack is great for people like me and others who cannot spend £2000 on a hard disk recorder. Year hopefully the new Ptools will have some new features to solve these small issues. I not sure if the GH2 can do 1080p progressive or AVCHD 2 but if it can well.... yahoo!
Just any min now Vitaliy will spring among us "stop talking crap you two" :-)
Personally I support a HDMI recording solution for this cam. (Not just 4:2:2 but also recording time is a no issue- also for ease of format recording - Prores422 etc).
That said - I have fallen in love (against my will) with the ease and elegance of in camera recording. Also it feels more like I am 'sticking it to the man'- a true hack- not an add on.
I think that I will use both on projects - in camera for backup... (and in camera for small shoots when I can't be bothered running around with a Atomos Ninja!)
Considering that the update should come out any day now- (from Panny) nobody really knows what they have in store for us... AVCHD2? Possibly even UHS-1?
@alcomposer- yes in a way we have pushed the GH2 bit rate way up there. The spanning issue is something that gets on my back since it would be nice just to have a feature were you could turn it off. In some way I don't think a faster memory card will solve it. I don't know why Panasonic made the GH2 to support SDXC and it write to the memory card in FAT32 format. Then again it comes down to the camera TAX issue and they didn't want us to push the bit rate past its manufacturer rate. O well we done it now and why would we want to go back :-)
@Rambo >I have both the sandisk extreme 30MB/s and the HD video i version and they perform identical.
Have you tested this? (Ie: they both crash at the same time with the same chart?) (Actually @Rambo- thanks for letting me know that they are both similar, even without numbers this is at least some sort of proof)
Just a general note: This SD card discussion is completely all over the place. The ONLY conclusive way to test speed for the GH2- is in the GH2- USB isn't fast enough- and USB3 readers have UHS-1 (and lots of other bells and whistles that may cause false positives).
Maybe we could use a death chart count down? (1-5 - with 5 being crazy complex deathchart- and 1 being simple??)
Any ideas? (or is taking photos better (how many photos can be taken in a sequence?)
I currently have a 45MB/s 8 gig Sandisk Extreme Pro that I am 'not' happy with. Will be getting a 30gig Sandisk Extreme HD Video (only one I can get fast-Cheapchips).
I have SanDisk UHS-1 95MB/s on order, but if you all think there's no benefit with the Hack, I'll cancel them and pick up Sandisk 30MB/s instead. Any ideas?
@cosimo_bullo Do you think it's better to get the 30MB/s Extreme Sandisk or the Sandisk 95MB/s UHS-1?
Fragmentation happens because when you "delete" file from SD card, it's not actually deleted. It is just marked as "hidden". With special software it's possible yo unhide the files, so be careful when selling your old cards. Quick format doesn't really delete your files either.