PTool patch settings are already modular: each patch modifies one little part of the firmware image. In many cases it is possible to have different patch settings for different modes, e.g. AVCHD 720p and 1080p. But some patch settings are shared by different modes, e.g. the frame limits for 24H and 24L. That's just the way the firmware is designed. There's no getting around that without rewriting the firmware.

People are already doing this. There is patches that only alter the MJPEG modes and are ment to be loaded after you loaded another settings file. I believe due to the crossplay we could only have 3 modules: 24p, 50&60p/i and MJPEG.

Although 1080p24 and 720p60 patch settings are separate, the 1080i60 video modes share some patches with 1080p24 modes and some with 720p60 modes. If you attempted to combine 1080p24 and 720p60 patches from different sources, you'd most likely end up with dysfunctional 1080i60 modes. While this may not be a problem for those who have no use for 1080i, it's not a good way to promote the overall reliability of GH2 hacks.

@Meierhans If you modify only the "Patches for end users" and stay below 100Mbps, then yes, you can experiment without much hazard. High levels of AQ, however, can provoke the encoder into sporatic Fall Back Mode GOPs, which will seriously degrade image quality. Since the camera will continue to record during Fall Back Mode, the only way to detect this pitfall is to examine sample video streams with a tool like cbrandin's Stream Parser.

I see, but my problem right now is that the latest patch sets from Driftwood are ultra bitrate spenders and require über expensive memory cards... I'd prefer to have a more conservative patch that doesn't fill my Samsung 16GB (15MBps) SD before I can say Mississipi. Should I go back to SpanMyBitchUp (from November 2011)?

Along those lines @Chhatrapal I've tried combining the very latest Quantum 100 with Timelapser and made a file - it works great for 24p H and 24p L (100Mb/s and 50Mb/s) and the AVCHD 720p 60fps modes (SH and H). And timelapser. But not so good for the AVCHD 1080i 30fps modes, though I wasn't really focused on them. But having 24p and a 60fps slow-mo option and timelapse is the objective. Rec times on a 32Gb card are 41 mins for 24pH, 1h22mins for 24L and 52mins for 720p SH 60fps.

@duartix What settings will u change say for Quantum 100 ... what it will affect 24H/L,720p/60/50. Btw i am also not very happy with MPEG time lapse too

Well, @Chhatrapal the test is done...

Amazingly there is a MJPEG 2048x864 mode in Quantum 100-50 that has a very very fine edge on AVCHD for horizontal resolution. However there's a problem I spotted as soon as I put the camera in MJPEG mode: recording time! As it was, the camera would only record for ~2min! :O

My first thought was... "What kind of bitrate hell is going on in this mode???"

The second was... "How on Earth is it that my Samsung 16MB (benchmarked at 15MB/s) is still holding on ???"

Then it hit me! "Spanning!" MJPEG doesn't span! And to add insult to injury, the file limit is probably 2GB! :(

So what about my first plans? I went ahead, dropped the frame rate from 30fps to 2fps and got 15x the duration. I also took the quantizer values and tables and doubled them (which is still around half the default values and twice the quality). Another 2x gain.

Now the camera says it will record 56min on MJPEG which isn't so bad, but man, I have AVCHD timelapses that spanned over 15GB for nearly 2h on Full Intra (the 13 GOP trick)!!!

I've just tried Quantum 100 with 2fps AVCHD and it predicts 26min so Quantum 50 should still give you nearly one hour on 16GB. The thing is that even though it's skipping about 1 and 2 frames alternatively, it's still 50i so you have around 10x more Intra Frames than needed because they'll be identical at 2fps... :(

If you are really serious about long 2fps timelapses, sacrificing either the 24p or 50i is the way to go. You'll probably get 10x more duration because you can enlarge the GOP by that much and (for example decrease the L bitrate by the same amount) ending up with roughly the same quality. And considering that typical timelapses on tripods are by nature easily compressible, you might even consider giving up Full Intra (at every 1/2s) and use very long GOPS. If the light isn't changing, I'm sure the P frames can keep the quality going strong with marginal use of bitrate and in no time there will be an Ultra Long Recording patch set that tries to run for 24h if the camera doesn't burn first... :)

Well, another big reason to ditch MJPEG: http://sonnati.wordpress.com/2010/10/19/h-264-for-image-compression/

I get your point @Vitaliy, but I was giving out information to @Chhatrapal & @mickos who are in similar grounds to mine and that might interest other members.

This information is coming out several hours apart so I guess it didn't make sense to keep updating the same post, as those changes might escape someone who is following the thread.

As for the last one line comment, you are right, I was talking to myself but, you know, I may die unexpectedly today and no one else might think of trying it for another 2 months...

I'll try to hold the horses from now on.

I wanted reply but i am trying to figure out things. @duratix is already into it ... it will take me some time catch up.

@driftwood: Been all night trying working to get your Quantum 100-50 to do GOP 13 on 60i (this way I could use it for 2fps timelapses and keep 50i and 24p untouched) but to no avail, it's still Full Intra... I must be missing something very basic. :(

I could only get longer GOPs to work on 24p and even then I had to mess with 1080p Low Bottom Setting to get the bitrate to drop to reasonable 2fps bitrates. But since that messes with 24p Full Intra, it's out of the question...

@driftwood & also @tycho: Even though I haven't given out yet, my feeling right now reflects what others have said before: the settings seem too much connected to get an efficient and dedicated timelapse mode from AVCHD without either breaking the 1080p modes or Full Intra.

I'll surely try Baby Quantum tomorrow but my hopes aren't too high, meanwhile I have attached a MJPEG only timelapse modular patch set that uses the MJPEG HD and VGA settings on that magical 2048x868.

On HD it gives 56m58s and it's roughly based on half the MJPEG bitrate (twice the quantisers) from Quantum 100-50.

On VGA it gives 1h42m using the factory defaults for 720p MJPEG.

On a quick look, I haven't spotted any distinguishable difference between the two, but since in 2fps we're using 1/15th of the frames of 720p MJPEG, we could possibly get factory stock quality with ( 2048 x 864 ) / ( 1280 x 720 x 15 )/ ~ 8x less bitrate, so I believe there is room for further savings after I objectively check the IQ...

I tried variable movie mode 300% route on Quantum 100 in 24L settings at 1/8 shutter, lowest it allowed me. Also because it was showing 3hrs duration ... But only recorded 12 mins. Will load Aquamotion to try the same thing again. @duratix i will also try your MPEG settings ... but even default MPEG on Quantum is not good as Intra!