720p 24p on GH2? is possible?

valdez

valdez

Active member
I'm getting ready for a shoot of my own to test myself a little with my new camera, but theres so much to wrap my head around since I'm just now jumping into HD from the old DVX100.
I much prefer the look of 24p, and lived by it with my DVX, but I think I'd prefer to shoot in 720p for my upcoming doc shoot. Can I NOT shoot in 24p when it's in 720p mode with this GH2 camera? It only shows "cinema 24p" as being for 1080p. I thought I could do it in 720 as well.
The 1080p 24 is pretty fluttery with even small pans and it's a little disconcerting since I'll be doing a fair amount of handheld. Am I missing something big here about my setup options? should I just live with 720 at 60fps?
If I like the 24p look do I HAVE to shoot 1080p or is there a way I can shoot 720p and somehow convert it to 24 fps in a way that looks nice?
I'm sorry if this has been heavily covered somewhere, I'd also welcome a redirect to some thread that covers it for an HD noob like me.
Just for some context I'm going to shoot in a relatively remote area for a few days with no way to dump footage until I return so I have limited card space - I'll probably have a backpack of gear and 4 charged batteries and maybe 5-6 16gb sd cards. I'd rather not shoot 1080p if possible since every bit of space counts until I leave, I just don't have the luxury of carrying a laptop too, to back things up as I go. (remote village in the northern part of Haiti, doc about water quality)
thanks for any advice

(my kickstarter link for the film here in case anyone's interested)
 
I'm not sure what the difference in terms of fluttery image (I'm assuming you mean rolling shutter?) between 720p and 1080p would be if you were to shoot at 24p... it's still recording that from the same rolling shutter sensitive sensor... so the rolling shutter "flutters" would be the same in either mode.

Regardless, the GH2 doesn't have a 720p 24p mode. I would shoot at 1080p if I was you... you get the highest bit rate possible in 1080p 24p mode. You can shoot at 720p60p, but it's at a lower bitrate... But you could shoot at 60 and conform it to 24p fairly painlessly.
 
The file size is the same isn't it? 25mbps in the highest quality mode? And buy another card for crying out loud. What if the one you have fails?
 
The GH2 can record 1080p24p @24mbs bitrate
It can record 720p60p @17mbps

So you'd save some space in 720p. But you'd also risk getting mud in a shut if the codec can't handle it at 17mbps.
 
awelgraven said:
The GH2 can record 1080p24p @24mbs bitrate
It can record 720p60p @17mbps

So you'd save some space in 720p. But you'd also risk getting mud in a shut if the codec can't handle it at 17mbps.
Click to expand...

This may be answered in another thread, and I may be totally off base, but if 1080p is 24mbps and 720p is 17mbps, wouldn't there have to be a bigger data stream for a larger frame? That is to say: both will be similar in quality, 1080p only being larger?
 
Thanks for the advice, folks. I think I'll just go for 1080p since I want to shoot 24 anyway. It eats up cards a little faster, but I really want to check out the full quality for myself. I'll just have to keep everything really slow moving.
Like I said in the first post I did already get 5 cards (16gb), but I can't dump them till I get home after the shoot. It's getting pretty pricy, though, and I'll barely get my batteries in time (4 batteries, too, since I'll have limited access to power). It should be an adventure.
I've been really lucky, it sounds like people are having a hard time finding GH2 stuff, but I found a place that had everything each time I called (Kenmore camera in washington).
 
paralion said:
it might be worth investing in one of those little guys: http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/computers/wolverine_flashpac.html
Click to expand...


Wow, this is the kind of thing that I was looking for and after some searching it looks like there are newer higher capacity ones for cheap (160 - 250 gb), but I'm leaving tomorrow so it's probably late.
Also, sadly it still looks like these are a little cheaply built. Many of the user reviews report things like failed drives, and poor battery life which is part of my issue in the first place. Even the product description says "copies up to 15 gigs on a single charge!". Pretty funny. each of my cards is 16 gigs. Still it would've been useful for when I have an outlet to sit and dump things.
seems like something I can only order online, wonder if I could find one in Chicago somewhere today.
 
buy a small used 160gb netbook on craigs. for what they charge for a flashpack it's more versatile to get a netbook.
 
I'm seeing that I should have done that earlier, but less than 24 hours to go, I think I'm too late. I think I'm going to get a dell mini for the next one so I can "hackintosh" it too. They look way cool, and hold plenty. At this point it won't matter if I don't get more batteries anyway. I can only shoot so much with 2 batteries and an outlet only every other day or so.
 
Why not just stock up on the 8 or 16 gig cards.. They are super cheap and you won't have to offload them in the field....
 
valdez said:
I'm getting ready for a shoot of my own to test myself a little with my new camera, but theres so much to wrap my head around since I'm just now jumping into HD from the old DVX100.
I much prefer the look of 24p, and lived by it with my DVX, but I think I'd prefer to shoot in 720p for my upcoming doc shoot. Can I NOT shoot in 24p when it's in 720p mode with this GH2 camera? It only shows "cinema 24p" as being for 1080p. I thought I could do it in 720 as well.
The 1080p 24 is pretty fluttery with even small pans and it's a little disconcerting since I'll be doing a fair amount of handheld. Am I missing something big here about my setup options? should I just live with 720 at 60fps?
If I like the 24p look do I HAVE to shoot 1080p or is there a way I can shoot 720p and somehow convert it to 24 fps in a way that looks nice?
I'm sorry if this has been heavily covered somewhere, I'd also welcome a redirect to some thread that covers it for an HD noob like me.
Just for some context I'm going to shoot in a relatively remote area for a few days with no way to dump footage until I return so I have limited card space - I'll probably have a backpack of gear and 4 charged batteries and maybe 5-6 16gb sd cards. I'd rather not shoot 1080p if possible since every bit of space counts until I leave, I just don't have the luxury of carrying a laptop too, to back things up as I go. (remote village in the northern part of Haiti, doc about water quality)
thanks for any advice

(my kickstarter link for the film here in case anyone's interested)
Click to expand...


Wow what a great cause; best of luck to you out there and stay safe.
 
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