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Beginners: Basic hacks questions
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  • So, I've hacked my GH2 with the EOSHD Unified patch (88 Mbit). Everything seems fine in e camera. The ISO 12800 option is available and I'm only allowed to film for 22 minutes on my 16GB card. However, when I import my movies to my Mac (I've tried both iMovie and Adobe Bridge), the filesizes are as big as before and I really can't see any difference between the old and the new movies. How can I double check that my material actually is comming out at 88 Mbit?

  • Yes, I had it on this time,

    But I think it was also when switched off, because it was there when filming in ia mode.

  • @Jaapsb i have it some times.
    Did you have I.DYNAMIC on?
    Also in the profile that you use, set it all to -2 -2 -2 -2
    And try it again... must be better then...

  • 24H MODE VS HBR MODE QUESTION SURROUNDING 25P:

    I've installed the @driftwood AQuamotion hack v2 which has blown me away. I have shot test footage today in every video setting and received an average bitrate of around 90mbps in its highest quality mode (24H). However, this shoots at a frame rate of 24fps (or more accurately 23.98).

    I am based in the UK so I favour 25fps shooting (PAL).

    Shooting in High Bitrate mode (HBR) allows me to shoot at this desired frame rate (PAL 25p). However, I have noticed that the bitrate is significantly lower in this mode when shooting with the Aquamotion v2 hack. My tests (shooting the same water fountain) averaged at around the 60mbps mark as opposed to 90.

    My question is this: how can I up the bitrate in the HBR mode which shoots at my desired 25p? I can't see any options for this in the PTool program, only 24H, 24L, FSH/SH and FH/H. I presume the HBR setting adopts the bit rate from one of these? If so, which one exactly?

    I also read that in the 25p mode, it's not "real" 25p. If this is true can somebody explain what's happening here please?

    If it is the case that it's not "true" 25p, would you recommend I actually shoot in 24H after all and convert to 25p Prores for editing?

    I'd love to know your thoughts on the matter.

    Many thanks.

  • MPGXSVCD: "@Jaapsb Post a sample so we can see what is going on. Just post it to youtube or something. IS is image stabilization. With the 14-42mm it is controlled in the menu."

    Ok, I had the image stabilization alsways on mode 1, can this be the reason of jitter ? It's to dark outside now, to try again. Here is my test of today; mode S, 720, 100, autoiso, lens 14-42 on 14, sanity 3.1 on it, IS mode 1.

    Just a small test with moving the cam. It's already much better, but not what it needs to be I think?

    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8309705/00011.MTS

    If someone wants to look for me ? Thanks in advance for the great help already!

  • @sanzadez

    They become your words when you state them. :) We will just have to see about changing the FAQ then. Won't we?

  • @mpgxsvcd, the ETC part was copy and pasted directly from the FAQ, not my words

  • @sanzadez

    ETC mode makes the camera appear to have more of a rolling shutter effect (“jello”) and not less. The affect is not decreased because the readout of the camera is still 1/120th even for the smaller cropped sensor area. The affect is actually the same. However, the reduced field of view makes the jello affect more pronounced.

  • @Vittowar, please refer to the FAQs at the top of the page when researching such.

    from the FAQ: With ETC mode turned off, the GH2 uses a 14-megapixel (4976 x 2800 pixel) area of the image sensor covering its entire width, downsampling it to an output of 1920 x 1080 or 1280 x 720 pixels. With ETC mode turned on, the camera uses a 1920 x 1080 or 1280 x 720 pixel area of the center of the image sensor, mapping each pixel 1:1 from the sensor to the output video. ETC mode gives you a narrower field of view - 2.6 or 3.9 times narrower, a picture that's slightly less sharp, has less aliasing, less of a rolling shutter effect (“jello”), and is much noisier for the same ISO setting - equivalent to raising the ISO setting by 2 and 2/3 stops.

    From Wikipedia: The GOP is a group of successive pictures within a coded video stream. Each coded video stream consists of successive GOPs.

    A GOP can contain the following picture types: I-picture or I-frame (intra coded picture) - reference picture, which represents a fixed image and which is independent of other picture types. Each GOP begins with this type of picture. P-picture or P-frame (predictive coded picture) - contains motion-compensated difference information from the preceding I- or P-frame. B-picture or B-frame (bidirectionally predictive coded picture) - contains difference information from the preceding and following I- or P-frame within a GOP.

    Hope those help

  • Please don't kill me for these questions but i am not able to find out what does stand for:

    GOP ETC

    As you can check i am new in this bussines. Sorry for my english I am from Spain.

  • @Jaapsb

    Post a sample so we can see what is going on. Just post it to youtube or something. IS is image stabilization. With the 14-42mm it is controlled in the menu.

  • Just did a quick test; Mode S, 720, 100 in yellow, Auto iso on

    And still got the effect in grass?? . It was sunny.

    Sorry feel really dumb..

    Afc is on But don' t know what you mean with IS ? Can't find it..?

  • @Jaapsb

    Use the 14-42mm, at 1/100, with Auto ISO(Not Inteligent ISO), and turn the IS off. If it is a bright Sunny day then the lens will stop down automatically. That is a good thing up to F8.0 with the 14-42mm.

    Slow Motion will look so cool if you use 720p @ 50 FPS.

    Oh and post the videos here. I really want to see that one.

  • Ok thanks I have the 14-42 original lens, and I do already fly with for photo's with greay results. So need mode S, and then 1/100, ( i do use Pal) ?

  • @jaapsb

    Use 720p @ 60/50 FPS, with the movie shutter priority mode and use auto ISO. Auto ISO is neccessary because the lighting will be constantly changing. Set the shutter speed to a fixed 1/120 for NTSC(60 FPS) or 1/100 for PAL(50 FPS).

    What lens are you using? I would use something wide and sharp like the 12mm F2.0 or the less expensive 14mm F2.5. Image stabilization won't help because it is fixed to the copter. The 14-140mm might work well but it is heavy and I don't know how much lift your copter has.

    You could also use the NTSC 1080p @ 30 FPS if you really want the resolution. However, that frame rate is not really fast enough. Don't use 1080p @ 25 FPS or 24 FPS. Those definitely are not fast enough.

    Also make sure that you are in true manual movie mode and not just manual still mode. If you can take a picture then you are in still manual movie mode.

  • So.. After trying a lot, I need some help. I have a GH2 with stock lens. Updated to 1.1 Pal,I first tried with stock firmware, and all different modes. As soon as I am panning, even slowely, I see some jitter/ artifacts in things like grass etc. Because I am a beginner I first used the ia mode, and 720, and the 1080, the 720 is a bit better. Because of the 50p I assume. I did try manual modes, hbr, and all of them. Best results i get on manual 720. But I have to less experience to know about all the shutterspeeds etc. Anyway I played them direct from the sd, fast 10 class, 30mb/sec, card, on my computer ass well on my Ps3. ( old one with sd slot.) also copied to ps3, it looks fine but always those jitters in the grass and fences. So now I tried the hacks, sanity 3.1 and 4.0, hoping it was better, it looks nice but I can not get lost of those problems with grass etc. I need the video for using from a flying hexakopter, which is stable, but moving, and also moving objects, and I need to pan. And I assume the camera should be able to pan, on daily family use also. Can anyone get me in the right direction? Would be great, because I am stuck. Regards, jaap

  • @mpgxsvcd.. thanks but I just tried Flowmotion that works fine in all modes. Orion vb also works well. I'm using a SanDisk Extreme 45mbs card, so if the patch is supposed to work on a very good SD card than it should work for on the second fastest card available. And I think I discovered a mistake in Sedna 720p FB2 and Frame Limit setting that needs to be changed.

  • @islanders66

    The "no adverse affects" settings won't crash with any cards. I think it uses AQ4 for 1080p and AQ3 for 720p.

  • Keep in mind that 720p has write errors in AQ1 or Q20. At least on a 45mbs sandisk. 24p is excellent.

    I'm trying to find a patch that doesn't crash a very good class 10 card and works well in both 30fps and 60fps.

    I don't like the idea of upgrading the firmware for every shoot. That increases the risk of ruining your camera at the worst possible time.

  • @driftwood

    Is there any plan to update the matrices for the "Auto" Settings? Maybe an AQ5 or AQ3.5? The auto settings simply it for people who don't want to mess with trying to figure out each individual setting.

  • @ChrisPeters A lot of the queries about quality stem from the fact that a lot of people are used to AQ3 or AQ4 (Auto Quantiser 4) which promotes high bitrate and suggestive better Quantisation. Indeed, this is a great feature and works by trying out Q on the fly. But its not the 'Be all and End all'. I believe its NOT perfect. Whole lines of macroblocks in the picture can be 'misinterpreted' next to a correctly quantised raster line. Then on another occasion filming the same subject - its fine and other artefacts happen elsewhere. Its very hard to predict whats going to happen!

    However, tuned matrices like Sedna can help and are designed in such a way to handle frequencies and offer closer matching quality overall for a 'desired' setting. We're trying to wrestle a bit of control back here!

    Where in the past you might get razor sharpeness in one area, you could actually get a very blurry Q 'decision' in other areas of the picture. Some matrices work well with AQ4 because the matrix design is employs average use of low pass filtering compared to some of the newer higher settings shown in Sedna. Things can go wrong when you're pushing it with AQ on top of your matrix. Hence, from now on, why I design from a starting point of IQ/Q = 20 (Q20) and push it from there. So Q20 should give a great all round picture in the CASE of SEDNA as it employs very low Quantisation settings (low is best in simple terms). But we can't go over the top or you introduce other problems and not enough bitrate to handle the job of low Q.

    In the end a lot of other factors come into play when assessing sharpeness and Q - and these factors can blind your judgement. For instance, are you correctly exposed? Has the lighting changed? f stop, shutter, picture profile, etc... etc...

    A wiki is being made which will explain items like your question.

  • does the gh2 hack have false colors like magic lantern?

  • Driftwood's latest settings have an AQ1 and a Q20 version. What does this mean? Thank you!

  • Is it possible to have both a good 24p and 720p firmware hack on a 45mbs SD card? So far the 24p works very well, but the 720p always produces a write error. The first thing I do is go outside and try a slow pan to see if it freezes up. Then I start making adjustments that is hit or miss. So, I'm wondering if it will always be poor 720p and I should expect to change the firmware for each 24p and 720p? If that is the case at least I won't be spending so much time trying to make one firmware work for both.

  • @Driftwood Cluster v1 didn't work on two cheap class 10 patriot cards. They are my crappiest cards though.

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