I've been trying various patches, at 24H and 24L, and here are my results: Sanity 5.1 and Flow Motion don't span in 24H, but they span in 24L. Intravenus 2, Quantum 9b, Quantum 2 don't span in either mode. I'm trying Cake 2.3 right now.

Now, I understand that one needs a Sandisk Extreme Pro 64gig card to be absolutely sure that spanning can work. I'm not sure why that is, but that's been reported. But others seem to be able to get some of the above to span on the 32gig card (for example, Quantum 2's supposed to be able to do it).

So I have two questions. Is there a patch that reliably spans the 32gig card? And is this an indication that I got a bum 32gig card?

ADDENDUM: Cake 2.3 seems to be spanning in 24H m mode. But my questions still stand.)

I did some research in the forum about PTools settings but I did not find the answers I need...

What happens is:

Only GOP which works good for 720p 60p are GOP 30 and GOP 3, all other GOP gives diagonal pattern (rain) in computer monitor. But the GOP 3 in 720p always stops recording and it seems the card is not the problem, I am using Sandisk 45mbps and other people says the Sandisk 95mbps also stops recording in 720p hacks... The GOP 6, 12 and 15 works for some shoots, but they are unstable (sometimes stops recording) and gives diagonal pattern (rain) in computer monitor. GOP 3 stops recording all the time, no matter the bitrate (I tested GOP 3 from 40 to 200mbps). So GOP 30 is the only option.

Problem is: when using the GOP 30 the camera encoder always keeps the bitrate very low when the camera is quiet, when there is no motion in the image, and this gives lots of macroblocking and texture lost in low light. Even when I set the bitrate to 48mbps or 64mbps in PTools the camera does not record 48mbps or 64mbps, StreamParser shows only around 23mbps... (for static low light shoots)

The auto quantizer all to motion or all to details did not make any difference. So I did some try to change settings in TESTER options of PTools. I fount the TOP and BOTTOM bitrate limits and I enabled it with 48000 and 42000 for top and bottom 720p, but this makes no effects in encoding, bitrate is still very low for static shots no matter the bitrate I type in PTools...

Only thing I found to make the bitrate encoding keep high is the GOP 3, but camera stops recording in all 720p shoots, the GOP 3 just works for 1080p.

So I am wondering if there is a way to keep the bitrate high using GOP 30 in 720p...

Any suggestion welcome, thanks.

I keep getting noise on these files. Any tips? SanDisk 32gb 95mb/s Extreme Pro 24p cinema Smooth all -2 24H f - 7.1 iso 160

"THE MAGNETIST is a short documentary about Micke, also known as 'The Magnetist', whose life revolves around cassette tapes.

Most of Micke's time is spent on varius tape-related projects; he blogs about them, he makes music with them and he got a monthly tape club in his hometown Stockholm. Sometimes it's a struggle. Here we get an insight to Micke's life as a tapeologist and joins him to his tape-only club to find out the motivation behind his interest."

Does anyone have problems watching since it's in 1080p, I'm not sure if some computers might struggle?

A huge thank to Vitaliy the Personal View community for hacks and information!

Attention, noob questions ahead !

I would like to know a few things : - Which is the smoothest hack on the GH2 ? (All the detail, no macro-blocking) - What does "Intra" or "AVC-Intraa" mean ? - What is Auto Quantitizer ? I'm not sure if a higher number means a better image (lower compression) or it's the inverse. What is better, AQ0 (all to motion), or AQ4 (all to details) ? - What does GOP stand for, and there is "Low-GOP", but then does that mean there's "high GOP" ? What are 12/15 GOP, 3 GOP and 6 GOP ? - What are P-frames, B-frames... ? - What is "Matrix" and "444 Matrix" ? - On some settings there's written "14-16 QP", or "QP16". What does QP mean ?

I've not seen much smooth looking GH2 videos on Youtube (unlike the canon videos), lots of them have a lot of macroblocking or whatever and causes the video not to be smooth, and sometimes there are some sort artifacts (I think it's because of the compression or something...). I'm a bit of a pixel-peeper :P Could someone explain me the causes of the un-smoothness, and why are some videos really clean compared to others ?

Example of smooth videos I've found :

PS : Can someone give me the link to download the 244mb/s hack ?

And here on EOSHD there's an article about Intra :

http://www.eoshd.com/content/4452/gh2-gets-avchd-intra-at-176mbit

But I still don't understand the difference between the 176mbit so-called "Intra" hack and any other one ! I'm confused...

Please answer !

Thank You.

It's been around a Year I signed in here for the very first time. So now, after many test shoots, I'm planning to choose GH2 for the next film project.

Film is about 85 minute long documentary. Films shooting style is mainly situation-based documentary (Cinéma Vérité aka Direct Cinema) with some "cinematic scenes". So some of the scenes are classic documentary and some more stylistic - fiction like - with lightning crew, dolly, directed action etc.

These situation-based events I'm going to shoot with GH2 attached to the Steadicam Pilot. And yes, no interviews. This means I don't have very long takes.

I really like Lee's Flow Motion v2 and Nick's Sedna (AQ1-A) or Cluster v6&7. These I've tested quite a lot. What I'm looking for is best combination in detail and in fluid motion (motion rendering - no strobo effect). And of course hacks reliability is a virtue too! =D

So does anyone has any extra pointers about taking a project to Big Screen? Or if You think there is superior Hack for this kind of project - please don't hesitate to speak out.

Thanx and all the Best, MisterJ

These lenses are so sharp, crystal clear and well built with smooth focusing so for an almost giveaway price you should really consider looking into them. A must buy if you are on a budget.

This was made in 3 weeks including devising a storyline and pre-production. All comments are appreciated and I will answer any questions you have.

Thanks, Aaron.

I shot this last August. I got Flow Motion v2 hack and shot this 720p/50fps.

Thank´s all working around these amazing hacks :)!

• Reliable 100Mbps peak performance in AVCHD 24H, HBR, FSH, SH, and MJPEG HD.

• Exclusive 140Mbps turbo mode boosts peak bitrate to handle 80% Slow-Motion 24H mode.

• Records reliably with Class 10 30MB/s cards, with 60Mbps file-spanning in 24L, FH, and H modes.

• 95MB/sec SD cards support file-spanning in all video modes (except NTSC HBR 30p and FSH 60i).

• Full support for all NTSC and PAL video modes and options, including ETC zoom mode.

• In-camera playback of all AVCHD video files. (MJPEG HD videos not playable in-camera.)

• Failsafe operation with any lens, in any video mode, under any type of shooting conditions.

• Consumer-friendly auto-exposure features fully supported in 60Mbps 24L, FH, and H modes.

• Fast Action 3-Frame GOP performance with B-frames visibly indistinguishable from I-frames.

• Optimal motion picture quality consistently maintained in underexposed low-light conditions.

Flow Motion v2 is the culmination of over three months of investigation into the core encoding parameters of the Panasonic GH2 AVCHD encoder. The goal of this project has been to produce a unified patch that combines failsafe reliability with consistent, high quality performance across the entire range of video modes and options provided by the GH2. These criteria include not only still-frame image quality, but frame-to-frame motion picture continuity as well, evaluated perceptually at 24, 25, 30, 50, and 60 frames per second. Rather than simply maximizing the encoder's peak bitrate, Flow Motion v2 is fine-tuned to produce optimal motion picture quality with minimal degradation from undesirable aliasing and digitizing artifacts. The result is an unmistakable improvement in video quality with no significant drawbacks, using Class 10 30MB/sec SD cards and virtually any lens compatible with the GH2.

Functional Limitations of Stock GH2 Video Firmware

Although it offers a wide variety of video modes and options, the GH2's stock firmware is restricted in both functionality and video bitrate. Thanks to the dedication of Vitaliy Kiselev, many of these limitations can be overcome through the custom firmware settings provided by PTool v3.65d. Flow Motion v2 is an integrated set of patches that enable the following extended features:

• Selection among all supported interface languages.

• Access to both PAL 25/50p and NTSC 30/60p frame rates.

• Extended low-light exposure settings up to ISO 12800.

• Removal of 30-minute recording restrictions in EU locales.

• Enlargement of MJPEG videos to 1080p FHD frame size.

• Pasadena Pulse Audio Patch V2 B2, thanks to Per Lichtman.

Image Quality Shortcomings of Stock GH2 Video Firmware

The GH2's stock firmware limits its AVCHD encoder to a peak bitrate of 24Mbps in 24H and HBR modes, and to 17Mbps in FSH and SH modes. In addition, it uses long-GOP recording sequences of 12-30 frames that produce only about two keyframes (I-frames) per second. Flow Motion v2 boosts the AVCHD encoder's peak bitrate to 100Mbps in all video modes and uses a short 3-frame GOP in all 1080p video modes (and a 6-frame GOP in 720p modes), that produce 8-10 keyframes per second. These improvements enable Flow Motion v2 to capture highly detailed, fast moving images with far more fidelity than the stock firmware's restricted bandwidth can accommodate.

At a deeper level of operation, the GH2's AVCHD encoder uses built-in Quantization Tables designed to compress the video data as efficiently and compactly as possible. When shooting highly detailed subjects, quantization often produces undesirable rectangular artifacts ("macroblocking") which are then filtered by built-in Deblocking Tables. Unfortunately, the tables used by the stock GH2 firmware sacrifice image quality in favor of compression efficiency, producing consumer-grade results. In a further reduction of image quality, highly compressed P and B-frames are encoded with coarser quantization tables than I-frames, degrading frame-to-frame consistency within each GOP.

Flow Motion v2 replaces the GH2's Quantization and Deblocking Tables with custom matrices, hand-tuned for each video mode, that are crafted to minimize macroblocking and digitization artifacts. This enables the encoder to make full use of its available bitrate to encode genuine image details rather than wasting bits attempting to correct macroblock encoding flaws. In addition, Flow Motion v2 applies equal levels of quantization to all types of frames, producing P and B-frames that are visually indistinguishable from I-frames.

Below is an example of the digitization artifacts produced by the GH2's stock firmware, compared to results produced by Flow Motion v2. On the top is a 200% crop of a 24H mode frame grab from the unhacked GH2 AVCHD encoder. You can clearly see jagged macroblock encoding artifacts due to the stock firmware's inadequate bitrate. Below it is the same stream of water shot with Flow Motion v2 in 24H mode:

Support for GH2 Auto-Exposure Features

Flow Motion v2 works reliably with the GH2's consumer-friendly auto-exposure features in both 24p and HBR video modes. However, in 720p SH video mode, auto-exposure operation may cause recordings to fail sporatically and the camera may need to be restarted. To avoid this pitfall, I recommend using Flow Motion's 60Mbps 1080i FH and 720p H video modes when using any combination of the following features:

• P, A, or S exposure modes or when shooting in iA mode.
• Auto-ISO mode.
• iDynamic auto-contrast mode.
• i.Resolution mode.
• Motorized zoom lens operation.

I've tested and confirmed these features to work reliably at 60Mbps in 1080i FH and 720p H video modes. The 60Mbps FH and H video modes also support 4GB file-spanning on 30MB/sec Class 10 SD cards, and produce excellent motion picture quality that is just a notch more compressed than Flow Motion's 100Mbps FSH and SH video modes.

Flow Motion v2.02 Patch Settings File

This zipped INI file can be used to apply complete patch settings to firmware loaded into PTool 3.65d. To use, unzip the INI file into the same folder as the PTool application. Launch PTool and load the firmware v1.1 binary file for GH2. The settings contained in the Flow Motion v2.0 INI file will automatically be installed in the "F" button at the bottom of the PTool main window.

Note that with the following PTool Settings File, you may at any time re-install the original Panasonic GH2 v1.1 firmware into the camera. You may also copy each patched or original firmware file to separate SD cards, and use them to quickly switch between patches as often as you like.

I want to thank everyone who has helped me out with information so far. I plan to donate a small amount to the site soon, having some financial issues currently though.

Anyway, I have a GH2. I also have FLow Motion V2.2 on a 32gb Class 10 Transcend SD card. I also have Kit Lens 14-140 & an M42 -> M43 adapted Helios 44-2 Lens.

I would like to know which settings (iso, etc etc) to use for wildlife photography and video work in my garden in the UK this December.

I have some time off from studies so wish to film a wildlife short based in my garden. If you can help I really appreciate your time!

Thanks.

I just recently bought a 64GB Sandisk Extreme Pro Card (With 95mb/s) and I applied the Flow Motion v2 hack and tried the Driftwood Apocalypse hack and 720p at 60fps doesn't work. It cancels the recording and says the write speed of my card isn't fast enough. I don't understand why it won't work. The card is the top SD card for the GH2.

Welterwerk Filmkompani recently shot this short promo for Sagene, a district of Oslo, Norway. Shot exclusively on our hacked GH2. Zeiss glass! :) Time was short, and the budget was ridiculously low - but we’re quite happy with the result.

The rain-like, diagonal noise showed up in quite a few shots, but disappeared when transcoding in 5DtoRGB. Weird! Other than that, the GH2 - and the hack - performed like expected: top notch!

Enjoy! And if you haven’t already, check out Welterwerks own promo video: http://vimeo.com/welterwerk/welterwerk

I think that can be the sd card because whit the other sd card (16GB) i have no issue...

For more info, see the following link:

http://www.personal-view.com./talks/discussion/3337/gh2-flow-motion-v2-100mbps-fast-action-performance-reliability-for-all-class-10-sd-cards/p1

GH2 100Mbps Flow Motion v1.11 Failsafe Patch with HBR 25p & 50p modes

Released below is a minor revision to Flow Motion v1.11, tuned and tested for failsafe operation in all PAL video modes, including ETC zoom mode. In addition, it also supports failsafe operation in all NTSC modes except for ETC mode in HBR 30p and FSH 60i. As an alternative to using ETC in HBR 30p mode, I recommend using ETC with either 80% Slo-mo 24H mode, or MJPEG HD mode, both of which produce high quality results at 1080p30. To download the Flow Motion v1.11 Patch INI file, select the last attachment at the bottom of this post.

In short, this is the 100Mbps GH2 version of my Reliable In-Camera Playback Patch.

Congratulations once again to @Vitaliy Kiselev for cracking Panasonic's recent firmware v1.1 update for the GH2! PTool v3.64 now provides support not only for the new HBR 1080p25 and 1080p30 video modes, but for custom Quantizer Scaling Tables as well. Custom tables enable patch developers to tailor the compression properties and image quality of each of the AVCHD 1080p, 1080i, and 720p video resolutions. In addition, @cbrandin's invaluable Stream Parser and Scaling Table development tools have made it possible to quickly take advantage of these new PTool features, providing an unprecedented level of control over the GH2's video recording functions. Combined with the capabilities of Panasonic's v1.1 firmware, this has resulted in numerous improvements to the reliability and motion picture quality of Flow Motion v1.1. Here is a concise list of its features and specifications:

• 100Mbps AVCHD in 24H 1080p24 and SH 720p50/60 at 8-10 keyframes/sec.

• 75Mbps AVCHD in HBR 1080p25/30 and FSH 1080i50/60 at 8-10 keyframes/sec.

• 50Mbps AVCHD in 24L 1080p24, FH 1080i50/60, and H 720p50/60 video modes

• 100Mbps MJPEG 1080p Patch maintains high bitrates regardless of light levels.

• Full support for all NTSC and PAL video modes.

• In-camera playback of all AVCHD video files. (MJPEG HD videos not playable in-camera.)

• 4GB AVCHD file-spanning in all video modes with 95MB/sec UHS-1 SD cards.

• File-spanning in 24L, FH, and H modes supported on all Class 10 SD cards.

• ETC zoom mode with failsafe operation in all modes except NTSC HBR 30p and FSH 60i.

• 80% Slo-mo 24H video mode with ETC and file spanning in 24L mode.

• Combines optimal I-frame size with compact, 3-frame GOP file size (GOP-6 in 720p modes).

• Customized Scaling Tables produce P and B-frames that match I-frame quality.

As with any complex video camera, there are a number of considerations and limitations to bear in mind:

• Listed bitrates are the maximum seen in practice, filming well-lit, sharply-focused, highly detailed scenes. Average shots will produce average bitrates. In low-light conditions, I recommend trying MJPEG HD 1080p30 mode for its ability to maintain high bitrates in near dark conditions.

• If shutter speed is set longer than the frame rate (e.g. slower than 1/60 at 60p), low-quality video files may be produced. High shutter speeds will reduce motion blur, which may force the encoder to operate at higher bitrates.

• ETC zoom mode increases the bitrate and puts significant stress on the encoder. With Flow Motion v1.11, Failsafe ETC mode is now supported in all PAL video modes, and in all NTSC video modes except HBR 30p and FSH 60i modes. ETC actually does work in all modes, but I've found that with Panasonic distortion-correction lenses, it's not 100% failsafe in HBR and FSH modes under the most extreme conditions. With manual-focus vintage lenses, it has so far proven to be failsafe in all modes.

• Flow Motion v1.1 has been tested extensively at ISO 3200. It is not tuned to work reliably with PTool's extended ISO patch, but higher ISO can be used reliably in underexposed, low-light conditions.

• Panasonic Lumix distortion-correction lenses are now fully supported in Flow Motion v1.11. For smoothest results, I recommend using these lenses with a mild diffusion filter to reduce their over-sharpened edge artifacts. My favorite is the Tiffen Black Diffusion FX3.

• The 24L, FH, and H video modes make use of a special "Trick Mode" that ensures reliable file-spanning at 50Mbps. It does this by setting the video file's transport stream bitrate to a much lower level than the video stream's bitrate. These files play back correctly in video editors with no need for post-processing. However, MediaInfo and Windows will report incorrect duration and bitrate for these files when examined on the desktop.

• I recommend using the camera to format your SD card at the start of each shoot, to guard against SD card memory fragmentation.

For that I focused the camera on a strong light, started recording and then I quickly panned the camera horizontally on the tripod while varying the shutter speed. Then I looked at consecutive frames and measured the light interruption (measures.jpg) and computed the fluidity normalizing it as a percentage of the average segment length.

The results are in the attachment (MotionFlow.zip) which is also shown as a screenshot (MotionFlow.PNG). They are approximations as the values can have some variation, but will clearly show you which are the good ones and the others to avoid at all cost.

The resulting videos can also be downloaded (they are very small) from here: http://www.mediafire.com/?ezz6zroqcronq28,ova2axx3qjev573,ca6o3g4cjhx46lc

As you can see, HBR 25p easily beats all other 1080p modes with no less than 5 100% FLUID motion shutter speeds, 4 of them very useful indeed. Now it's time to perform some tests to see (subjectively of course) how much we can notice it and how high can we tolerate the interruption before the motion flow stops looking natural.

(EDIT) The ideal patch GOPs should be useful in this thread. Here they are:

SS - Frequency of new frames - Ideal patch GOP

24p & 25p HBR

1/2s - 1/13 - GOP13

1/2.5 - 1/10 - GOP10

1/3.2 - 1/8 - GOP8

1/4 - 1/7 - GOP7

1/5 - 1/5 - GOP5

1/6 - 1/4 - GOP4

1/8 - 1/4 - GOP4

1/10 - 1/3 - GOP3

1/13 - 1/2 - GOP2

1/15 - 1/2 - GOP2

1/20 - 1/2 - GOP2

SS - Frequency of new frames - Ideal patch GOP

30p HBR

1/2s - 1/16 - GOP16

1/2.5 - 1/12 - GOP12

1/3.2 - 1/10 - GOP10

1/4 - 1/8 - GOP8

1/5 - 1/6 - GOP6

1/6 - 1/5 - GOP5

1/8 - 1/4 - GOP4

1/10 - 1/3 - GOP3

1/13 - 1/3 - GOP3

1/15 - 1/2 - GOP2

1/20 - 1/2 - GOP2