40Mbps AVCHD High Reliability Patch

crunchy said:
Why not? Why f1.7 or f11 and whatever ISO is more or less "realistic"? If you don't have much light, and want to achieve a little deeper DOF than at F1.7, the above settings seem quite right.

BTW, I am always using 1/30s shutter speed at low-light (instead of recommended 1/50s for PAL camera).
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I use 1/30th a fair bit too hence my quest =). I'm sure you have shot at f5 iso 320 in low light without assisting light right? its terrible, may as well use the kit lens. this is what I mean about being realistic.

Guess what I am trying to say is that testing with realistic settings for 1/30th may prove to actually work in real life scenarios with the higher bitrate that I nutted out instead of freezing when it did on the chart.

It is also strange that at 30Mbit setting it froze, 32Mbit it didn't, and 34 it did. Same for when I set H to 22Mbit it froze, but at 24Mbit it didn't. Might be a numbers/multiples thing? who knows.
 
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lpowell said:
With the standard AVCHD recording modes, I suspect there's no reliable way to force high bitrates on low-light scenes that won't fail when confronted with well-lit, high-detail scenes. The AVCHD codec will inevitably reduce its bitrate when encoding dim and/or soft-focus image details.

In addition, the GH1's sensor gets pretty grungy in the dark end of its dynamic range. With a 1/30 sec shutter speed, random sensor noise will tend to get averaged out, but fixed pattern noise will be emphasized. Increasing the bitrate in this situation may only serve to enhance the details of the FPN, when what you really want is to dither down the posterization.

Also, please note, it's Lpowell, not Ipowell :)
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Ha sorry mate. I and l look too similar =)

Interesting point, might have to do some video comparison to see if that is the case
 
So I've been using Ipowell's patch for a little while, I haven't shot anything serious, just various test shots to see if I can kill it. I haven't had the footage stop on me at any point, but then again the bit rate hasn't gotten above 30mbps. I'm guessing that I could have trouble with my class 6 cards when it goes above 40.

Saying that, I shoot reasonably dark most of the time - I was going to go out and buy a couple of Sand Disk Extreme class 10 cards, but I don't think the boost in quality is worth it - any ideas?
 
for me class 6 cards are fine....and I dont think its about cards anymore.its the limitations of the hack with the cam cells and the scenes one shoots.I make my life simple...if you can get 30mbps or even slightly below, thats way better than the 12 or 15 mbps I used to get unhacked. I think when shooting a project, stability is realy important.Mediocrity sucks but it works!
 
Using the "Reliability Patch", my GH1 fails instantly on the PappasArts test chart. It either stops recording immediately or the camera freezes with the red record symbol on, requiring the battery to be removed from the camera.

Using a Sandisk Extreme Class 10 30MB/s 32gb card.
 
swyzlstyx said:
Using the "Reliability Patch", my GH1 fails instantly on the PappasArts test chart.
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Is this the only case where the patch fails for you? If so, I'd like to try to reproduce your results. Are you using a printed test chart or displaying it on a monitor?
 
lpowell said:
Is this the only case where the patch fails for you? If so, I'd like to try to reproduce your results. Are you using a printed test chart or displaying it on a monitor?
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I'm just shooting it handheld off the monitor...nothing scientific.

The only other settings I've tried are with the C-settings....and the test chart causes it to instantly fail as well.

So far, I haven't been able to make it fail shooting anything else...even on my Sandisk Class 4 32gb cards, but I don't use the hack much. That crazy test chart about causes my brain to fail as well when looking at it. :D
 
Ran it a few times on my transcend class 6, failed once on 720p mode (had to battery pull to restart it, just froze). Otherwise 1080p, MJPEG, and 720p are OK. According to VideoLan, which is probably not accurate, I was getting up to 45mbps+

It's interesting, the last time I tried the 422 MJPEG tick - which was months ago - my transcends couldn't take it at all, the only SD card that would work was one that I found on the street a year or so ago, its 2gb, some crazy name I can't recall, and doesn't have a rating.

Anyway fairly happy, will try the patch in the real world but confident that I don't need to splash out on Class 10 cards.
 
Thanks lpowell! Just loaded this for my first ever GH13 hack :D

The MJPEG looks pretty incredible so far. That's what I plan to use for this project as I have some After Effects work to do. I just did a 1 min clip and it was 200MB, so 10 minutes per clip with the 2GB limit.
 
Correction: used a different bitrate analyser (rather than the stats tab in VLC) and I was maxing out at around 35mbps doing pappas spinning test.

Pretty good, double original.
 
i have an gf1 ( 1.1 body version) before crack i like to upgrade to 1.2 , that's ok?

and after that... in the future, when pana will release some new firmware upgrade .. i'll can go to 1.3 ?
 
Went out today and shot at the prairie that locked up both the C and C settings with 24pn checked.
Using these new settings I didn't have any issues and the camera never locked up once.

For someone who shoots pretty much nothing but bushes and tress, this is a good, good thing!
 
Hi there. I am using Ipowell seetings (J) on GF1 PAL, FW 1.22, latest patch, 720p with pappasarts is giving me 32Mbps, handhold, Program (camera) mode, 14-45 lens, sandisk extreme 30Mbps: no failures, file playing on camera, foliage tests tomorrow. One dumb question: cannot find FHD mode on camera :D.

Thanks.

Update: MJPEG on pappasart chart does not play on camera, 43MBps, camera gives read error
 
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GF! doesn't have FHD-- right?

Kevin-- do you see much difference in quality in your prairie shooting between standard C settings and this 40mbps reliability path with the average bitrate settings?

Or does anyone have any input on differences they've seen between C or D settings and this patch? Low light high contrast scenes? High details outdoor?
 
garhodes,

It all looks pretty good to me. I shot similar footage with both so I can upload some here in the next day or two.
 
OK, I finally got a chance to test LPowell's settings and they worked like a charm! I took lots of shots of landscapes with water / rivers in them. This would f**k up the default settings and indeed the A & B settings and cause half of the image to mud out. With these new settings, I have no problems. I can still see some mud in areas of low light, but nowhere near the amount seen previously. I think this is about as good as you will get with Panasonic's implimentation of AVCHD in the GH1. Remember, it is NOT a professional codec, so you have to accept compremises. Then again the GH1 isn't a professional camera, so all things considered, these images are fantastic and great "bang for the buck"! I tried the MJPEG settings too, and again they looked fine (if a little contrasty), but as it shoots at 30fps this is of no use to anyone outside of Japan and America, so I don't intend changing over from AVCHD. All of this was done using Transcend and Kingston 8Gb Class 6 cards.
 
Hello!

I'm thinking to buy a LUMIX DMC-GH1.

Just one question, about the LPowell's settings, with the 40Mbps AVCHD High Reliability Patch, the SH and FHD movies go up to 40Mbps, what are the file size of one minute video? What are the minimum requisites of the PC?
In the H mode at about 24Mbps, what are the file size of one minute video?

Thank you all,
 
You can calculate file size in Bytes for one mimute by: Mbps X 60 seconds / 8. For example at 40Mbps it would be: 40,000,000 X 60 / 8 = 300,000,000 Bytes (or 300MB).

Note that AVCHD is a variable rate codec so you'll only see files that big with very high detailed, in focus, low motion scenes. Otherwise, the file sizes will be smaller. Consider the calculation a theoretical maximum.

Chris
 
tanks Chis.

I'm reading posts here for the past 8 hours and still don't know if my Pentium Dual Core 2.8 Ghz E6300 can handle those kind on files. Any body solve this question or suggestion on What PC is the best.
 
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