75Mbps GH1 Peak Performance Patch

OK. I'm keeping the 75Mbps Peak Performance Patch! I loaded it up, then used [H] quality for 720p/60 zooming in and out on the same wall of books and clutter as last night, and could not get a failure. Now I have to get some bigger memory cards, b/c boy have the file sizes grown!. But...that's a problem I don't mind for better resolution. :-)

Of course, yes, I had the misleading 'fail to write to memory card errors' when I tried to zoom in [SH] mode, but, that's no surprise, since the Max BR is 54 Mbps. But, in 720p/60 [H] mode, the max BR is 29 Mbps, and, that seemed fine for the wall of books and clutter while zooming. I'll have to wait till this weekend for any outdoor testing, since I've not been getting home from work before dark.

But...these settings seem good for my use: I can gain the boosted resolution in 1080/24p (in the 1080/60i wrapper) and still have the ability to shoot 'higher res' than factory default when zooming in 720/60 if if I use the [H] quality and still have the faster focusing that comes from 60 fps.

Pretty sweet!

Cheers,
 
You can also just press the AF LOCK button.

I do that as well; just know that you can't activate AF lock while recording, and once you start recording, if you disengage it, you can';t reengage it. But I use it a lot to lock focus before recording.
 
Something that might also be of help to you, the 45-200 Panasonic lens is very fast in auto focus mode if you half press the shutter while recording and have the green square centered, it's virtually instantaneous. I use this lens for shooting surfskis moving on the ocean from the back of a jetski and it's very impressive. Also cheap ($250) with OIS.

Example http://vimeo.com/19926458


Thanks for the lens recommendation. Nice videos. I can't believe how fast those kayaks are going! I assumed you played with the frame rate and sped them up, but, I guess not? So, what kind of rig do you have to hold the camera so steady as you're following the kayakers? Clearly, you are not doing hand-held! I've been wanting a higher zoom lens for awhile, but...it may need to wait for next Christmas...[sigh] ;-)

And, from viewing another of your videos on Vimeo, I learned that WA does not stand for Washington State, but "Western Australia". I like learning new things, especially how to amp up the ability of my over-year old camera. I can't wait to 'play' with it this weekend.
 
Hi lpowell.

is it possible to just take your high performance patch and insert the 41 Mbps value from you high reliability patch under 'H' - in order to move from high performance to high reliability by switching from SH to H?
 
is it possible to just take your high performance patch and insert the 41 Mbps value from you high reliability patch under 'H' - in order to move from high performance to high reliability by switching from SH to H?
No, there is more to these patches than the bitrate setting, and this would actually reduce the reliability of the 'H' video mode in the Peak Performance Patch. I optimized this mode to the highest 720p60 bitrate that would reliably record extended-length video takes requiring file-spanning beyond 4GB. A 41Mbps 'H' setting would be too high a bitrate for this purpose.
 
I almost thought so. Thanks for the quick reply. So I will prepare two SD cards for switching between your two patches.

Thanks again.
 
Thanks for the lens recommendation. Nice videos. I can't believe how fast those kayaks are going! I assumed you played with the frame rate and sped them up, but, I guess not? So, what kind of rig do you have to hold the camera so steady as you're following the kayakers? Clearly, you are not doing hand-held! I've been wanting a higher zoom lens for awhile, but...it may need to wait for next Christmas...[sigh] ;-)

And, from viewing another of your videos on Vimeo, I learned that WA does not stand for Washington State, but "Western Australia". I like learning new things, especially how to amp up the ability of my over-year old camera. I can't wait to 'play' with it this weekend.

No the video i posted above was hand held with a monopod held against my body. Apart from the obvious sped up clip at the start, that is the real speed these guys paddle at for a 16mile race. I will confess to using software stabilization on some of the clips, that's why i shoot at shutter 1/250. WA yes Perth, Western Australia, there are a few i shot in your neck of the woods, NY and San Fran last year.
New York http://rambos-locker.blogspot.com/2010/08/ny-mayors-cup-race-is-iconic-45km-26.html
San Francisco http://rambos-locker.blogspot.com/2010/08/us-surfski-championships-video.html
 
Loving the GH13 Hack, and the lpowell high performance patch!

Loving the GH13 Hack, and the lpowell high performance patch!

No, there is more to these patches than the bitrate setting, and this would actually reduce the reliability of the 'H' video mode in the Peak Performance Patch. I optimized this mode to the highest 720p60 bitrate that would reliably record extended-length video takes requiring file-spanning beyond 4GB. A 41Mbps 'H' setting would be too high a bitrate for this purpose.

Thanks again to all, and especially to Vitaliy and lpowell. I am very happy with the hack and patch. I just posted a short clip to YouTube (not art, but shows some good detail out of the hack).


I also posted soome props to all. This is such a great forum.

Here's the description text for the clip:

Ocean clips from Point Judith Light House, RI, USA. Lumix GH1 with the lpowell high performance patch. Shot 1080/24 (in 60i wrapper). Pulldown removed using Cineform's Neoview 5. Zero Post Processing was done except for editing, adding titles, and a couple slow-motion clips; all done in Premiere Pro.

All clips shot with the kit 14-140 mm lens, and all hand-held.

Note that any of the jaggies and mud seen in the clip is due to YouTube's re-encoding of the mp4 I sent. There are none of those artifacts in the original mp4.

I used to always shoot in 720p/60 before the GH13 Hack, since the results were so muddy using 1080p. Now..wow. I was even able to get good results with a very fast pan to follow the flight of some geese. That would never happen before the hack/patch!

Many thinks to Vitaliy Kiselev for creating the hack and to lpowell for all the testing that lead to his 'high performance patch'. I'm no videographer, just a hobbyist catching scenes from his daughter's life, but I recommend the DVX Users forum as a great place to learn about video.

Cheers,
 
Just a heads up that this works great with a GF1. I turned on FHD in the Middle Level Reearch (still a waste of time) nd ticked the 59.95 -> 30 and 50 -> 25 option for 720p.

Setup c1 with manual values and I am rocking.

I think for low light filming at 24/25p, the Gf1 is a better option than GH1. The decimation to 720P removes more noise than 1080p and the lower bitrates make it rock stable. Also, the GF1 does not suffer from banding..

Its still a shame that MJPEG is unusable at 24p/25p :-(
To have 4:2:2 lossless 720p at 24p/25p would be the best option.
 
Thanks Ipowell - great work (as usual;-)

Is it correct, that the 4:2:2 mode does only work in 720p30 and not in 720p25?

I thought 30/25 doesn't matter and just depends on setting the camera to NTSC or PAL.

If 4:2:2 does only work in 30p mode, is there any insight why?
 
What if I set my GH1 to PAL mode and record in Mjpeg?

Sorry for the question, I haven't tryed the Mjpeg mode at all.

(Setting 720p30 -> 720pXX and 25 will give bad frame skipping I guess.)
 
help!!!

help!!!

I write to the following, I have been using the PTOOL since last year in my GH1, through its various versions 3.36, 3.40, 3.50 and using different user setting dvix hack and I always worked all happens that today starts another setting hack to test how it worked and my machine which is the W09 version and if you upload a new version of the firmware hack that appeared in the viewfinder I was; ver.1.0 and now I change to 1.3 and now see that attempt to change I setting the load, ie does not give me the option to upgrade, I'm doing wrong? .. help!!how to have the GH1 return to a previous firmware??
 
Thanks again for the great peak performance patch

Thanks again for the great peak performance patch

Thanks again to lpowell for developing the peak performance patch settings. We went to the ocean again last weekend and came back with some nice high resolution clips.

Both were shot in 1080/24 with the Peak Performance Patch using the 14-140 mm kit lens (all hand-held).

I just wish that you could see the mp4 before YouTube re-encodes them. They are much better than they appear on YouTube. The detail with the peak performance patch is really great.

BTW: You'll probably notice some very poor editing between the many small clips I pasted together. I used the default cross-dissolve in Premiere Pro when I pasted the clips together, and, several times the clips were too short to really do a cross dissolve. So...when you see evidence of poor performance, it is just my poor quick edits. But, again, I'm juts a hobbyist, so, look past the poor stitching together of the clips and observe the nice resolution from the GH13.


Clip 1:



Clip 2:

 
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Hi, I am new in dslr world, so my question may be silly: does the GH1 still available to patch? If I purchase one now, the patch will works?
 
lpowell, I am using your 75mb hack and it is working beautifully on my GH1 with zero crashes. I primarily use the 720/30p Mjpeg feature because of the stability of the bitrate, which is 50mbps, and with this lens it is ultra, ultra crisp. Sharp as a knife even, lol. I have the 32MB Sandisk Extreme Pro 45MB/s SD card, and the lens I am using is the Voigtlander Nokton 50mm f/1.1. It seems to work seamlessly with this high bitrate hack. I will be trying out the AVCHD SH mode in the next few days and then post my results as well.
 
Question: peak performance patch or new blackout/powell native 24p

Question: peak performance patch or new blackout/powell native 24p

Hi All, I notice that there is a new blackout/powell NATIVE 1080 24p hack. I have been using Cineform Neoview to remove the pulldown and convert from 4:2:0 to 4:2:2. It works well and is fast. I do not find it much of a bother to send the MTS files through Neoview (though the resulting avi files are quite large).

So: in terms of final resolution, is there any significant difference between the two patches? I used to always use 720p/60 before I hacked the GH1 since I couldn't stand the poor quality of the unhacked 1080/24. But, now that I have seen the 1080/24 from the peak performance patch played back on a TV: I don't want to go back to shooting in 720/60. The clips shot in 720/60 look quite a bit less sharp on an HD TV compared to the hacked GH1 1080/24.

So, now I'm spolied. I know I might not be able to capture fast motion with 1080/24 as well as 720/60...so, I may sometimes shoot 720/60 if it is a scene of very fast motion, but...I really like how the 1080/24 looks, so: want to be sure I'm using the best 1080 patch I can. Any opinions on which is better, the 75M Peak Performance or the new native 24p patch?

I just obtained a vimeo account. Wow. Just moving around the site I see videos from *real* filmmakers. I'm just a papa catching scenes from his daughter's life, but...I expect I'll learn a lot from vimeo (just like I already have from dvxuser).

I only have one HD camera (GH1) with one lens (the kit 14-140 mm) and no tripod. I'm saving up pennies to get a good 'prime' lens and maybe a tripod. But, for now....

Below is a vimeo video of a 5 minute clip shot with the lpowell peak perf patch. It has a lot of motion, and I've pasted together a lot of clips *with no transistions*. It seems like inserting transitions was causing some artifacts on YouTube, so, I made this long clip *without transitions*. So...if you see what looks like a frame skip, it's probably just my poor editing pasting 'look alike' clips together.

But, I did have the first failures I've ever seen with the peak perf patch shooting 1080/24. It occurred when zooming while filming moving water. There was no error message, the clip just ended. No big deal. I just restarted, but, this was the 1st time I've had a problem with the peak perf patch in 1080/24.

And. though the video looks "OK" on vimeo (be sure to turn 'HD' on), it isn't nearly as sharp as it is in its original 1080/24 format. But, if you are really curious you can download the original mp4 and see the full 1080/24p resolution (but...it's a huge file).

 
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I only have one HD camera (GH1) with one lens (the kit 14-140 mm) and no tripod. I'm saving up pennies to get a good 'prime' lens and maybe a tripod. But, for now....

To get a tripod is certainly a good idea - and even a cheap one is better than none. Why don't you try a Canon FD lens - such as a 50mm f1.4 - one can get those for a couple of bucks on e-bay and they a great for filming with the GH13 - in particular at low light.
 
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