GH2 Are all these new hacks and patches creating a placebo effect?

PaPa said:
I gotta say, all this talk about intra, P frames, B frames, I frames. I get cmpletely lost. I don't know what the 64MBps is at.

Does intra vs other have to do with the GOP?? Is 1 GOP meaning that they are all individual frames making them intra? IF you have 3 GOP does that mean it's not intra? hrm..
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Anyone feel like taking a stab at this?
 
This thread is epic. My wife used to give me a hard time for being a gear fanatic and an audiophile, but I am continually discovering just how much there is to learn. I'm with PaPa on the question regarding GOP and Intra frames... I just haven't seen a clear discussion of that.

I have been doing a few tests on my end and to be honest I have yet to really tell a difference on hacks above 88M. Granted I haven't put the patches through serious trials, but I would love to see what I am missing. For my purposes I have a feeling I will be settling on some medium-grade patch (if you have a suggestion in the 44 to 88M range, I'd love to hear it). Driftwood's Spanmy patch is the highest end I have tried, and it looks gorgeous. I can definitely see using the high end patches to give me all the info for post-production (especially in regards to music videos and green screen).

I plan on shooting some short films this winter and I think I might try a patch per film..

We are all nerds nerding out on nerd-centered concepts and gear. I am just thankful that Panasonic made the GH2. I had been waiting to join the DSLR craze until Panasonic did something big, and they did. Stock GH2 is great. The hack (almost all patches) give me beautiful end results. I am floored by the lack of artifacts, and laughing all the way to the bank that I did not jump on the 5D craze.
 
I think the thing about a GOP of 1, and im probably wrong, is that because every frame is it's own full frame and not a mix between a frame before or after it, it needs a higher bitrate or it just doesn't work, that's why GOP 1 generally goes along with a high bitrate seting.

Just have to wait for soemone to say.. PaPa,, wrong.
 
PaPa said:
I think the thing about a GOP of 1, and im probably wrong, is that because every frame is it's own full frame and not a mix between a frame before or after it, it needs a higher bitrate or it just doesn't work, that's why GOP 1 generally goes along with a high bitrate seting.

Just have to wait for soemone to say.. PaPa,, wrong.
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thats why i was asking if the 64mb/s works :) youre setting says its in gop1
 
You are right Papa.

A lot of people are saying they find the motion rendition to be more pleasing with the GOP 1 settings.

I can't say I've really noticed it, but I haven't done a proper test or anything. I have shot a lot with the HMC150 and the HVX200, though. They are really similar sensors, so it's a good example in terms of isolating the codec, and I've never really noticed the hvx200 to render motion any better. In fact, as I've mentioned in other threads, I think the HMC150 does a better job with it than the GH2. I could be wrong, but I haven't noticed it yet.
 
So GOP1 = great for when you've got lots of movement in a shot. GOP? = good for more static shots / things like weddings

I thought intra, not GOP meant that each frame is it's own image, not a blend.
 
dcloud said:
thats why i was asking if the 64mb/s works :) youre setting says its in gop1
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I wonder, however, that because we are doing GOP of 1 at L mode for 64MBps, if we get a lower quality image than the same bit rate at 3 GOP, meaning we get different motion but less compression per frame?
 
PaPa said:
I wonder, however, that because we are doing GOP of 1 at L mode for 64MBps, if we get a lower quality image than the same bit rate at 3 GOP, meaning we get different motion but less compression per frame?
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PaPa, right again.
 
dtjohns1 said:
While I will say that the inital hack has definitely brought more quality out of the GH2 and I give many thanks to all those that sacrifice/d their time to create these hacks and patches does it seem to anyone else that as the bitrate gets higher and higher nothing is visually changing that much but people are going crazy and saying they are seeing amazing new things. In my opinion Mugso shot on the 42mb hack still looks like the best GH2 footage I've seen quality wise. As more and more test of flowers and locked down shots of houses, barns, and wildlife (all in amazing 166mb and higher as the days go by) get posted to vimeo and youtube I get fearful that the main purpose of shooting meaningful short films and features is being lost. Then we wonder why no one will ever take our amazing GH2s serious. Ok guys we can shoot stuff that will fill our 64gb sdxc cards in 15 minutes but we've got to get back to the bigger picture: PUTTING OUT MEANINGFUL CONTENT
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Honestly?, yes - I'm sure there *is* a placebo effect.

To be honest, once you increase the bir-rate, the rest is moving into the realm of kiddology. It's becoming a bit farcical - almost 'Emperor's New Clothes' stuff.

Patches than can record for 4 or 5 seconds!??? - WTF?

There appear to be some newcomers to Panasonic who are determined to appoint themselves as Guru's - notwithstanding that the patches they become orgasmic over are about as much use in the real world as a chocolate bread knife...

To me (and this is an entirely subjective opinion) they may be 'film-makers' - but they are still spouting utter and complete b*llocks.

The GH1 benefited hugely from the bit-rate increase. The GH2 benefits as well - but not as much.

As for all the gobbledegook about 'low gop' and all the other ludicrous sh*te - well, yes, the Emperor is wearing a particularly fine cravat today.......
 
Framerate said:
Honestly?, yes - I'm sure there *is* a placebo effect.

To be honest, once you increase the bir-rate, the rest is moving into the realm of kiddology. It's becoming a bit farcical - almost 'Emperor's New Clothes' stuff.

Patches than can record for 4 or 5 seconds!??? - WTF?

There appear to be some newcomers to Panasonic who are determined to appoint themselves as Guru's - notwithstanding that the patches they become orgasmic over are about as much use in the real world as a chocolate bread knife...

To me (and this is an entirely subjective opinion) they may be 'film-makers' - but they are still spouting utter and complete b*llocks.

The GH1 benefited hugely from the bit-rate increase. The GH2 benefits as well - but not as much.

As for all the gobbledegook about 'low gop' and all the other ludicrous sh*te - well, yes, the Emperor is wearing a particularly fine cravat today.......
Click to expand...

My advice to those making statements like these is to make sure you're not being blatantly hypocritical. Practice what you preach, and make sure that you've got equal amounts of evidence (hopefully in your body of work, that you can show people) to back it up. Once you cross the line into passively insulting people, you should be ready to back that up.
 
I have see a lot of talk but very little PROPER side by side comparation between a gh2 hacked vs unhacked, I did a test an to be hoenst I didn't found any improvement, the footage is just a bit diferent. and really only noticiable at 100% crop. if someone have done any good comparation I would love to watch it and download it in my computer.
 
GOP means "group of pictures".

Now AVCHD compression is not implemented the exact same way by each camera maker, nor is it even implemented the exact same way between Panasonic cameras...
But basically it goes like this:
GOP=6 for example would have 1 whole complete discrete frame (called an "I-frame") followed by 4 frames that are "synthesized" by the computer based on what it thinks should be there - then another "I-Frame" at the end. The compression scheme uses the first and last "I-frames" to build the predicted stuff in between.
GOP=1 and the term "INTRA" mean the same thing - that every frame is its own complete discrete picture.

Honestly, the compression works pretty gosh-darn well! That's why the GH2 stock footage can look so great even with a GOP=12 setting.
This compression SAVES DATA SPACE so the bit-rate is lower and can be devoted to details in the image.
BUT...and here's the big but....GOP motion synthesis is not perfect. Very sensitive and very experienced film-makers immediately see the difference in the quality of the motion of GOP-compressed video. As you could guess - it's just not going to end up exactly the same as true 24 or 30 frame progressive imagery.
GOP=1 with a very high bit-rate allows the GH2 to have what it needs to record ALL "I-frames" while keeping high-resolution for detail quality.

I hope this makes sense and helps at all...
 
Makes perfect sense. And I'm very pleased with myself for getting this stuff :) Not normally my strong point.

Going from GOP of 12 or 24 to 3 or 1 i know is a big difference. But i wonder how much benefit there is from 3 to 1 if you can reduce the bit rate and still have the same quality.
 
I for one refuse to do meaningful content until the Red Epic is mine for less than $1,000. Until then I will keep testing hacks and patches on barns and flowers. :cheesy:
 
Here's an interesting link from wikipiedia on h.264/AVC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC

Go down to features and knock yourself out on all the possibilities that "AVCHD" has to offer. Remember most DSLR's these days are using h.264/AVC compression regardless of the transfter stream. Canon uses an MPEG4 transfer stream. Panasonic uses an MPEG2 transfer stream. The codec behind both has the exact same basis with their video stream falling under h.264/AVC.

The beauty is that the GH2 patches have the ability adjust the flavor of this h.264/AVC compression and the reason I love reading all the GH threads.

Cheers,
Pete
 
I think that one semi trend, maybe not a real trend, but a theme, is that on a couple of the audio groups, when they get a new piece of gear, or an interesting mod to a piece of gear, they put up a bunch of samples and ask ppl which one they prefer. And I think over a period of years, people then develop a wide body of online stuff to compare that is unlabelled. We are probably going to see a bunch more from PB that is unlabeled, and I look forward to that challenge.

As far as the hack goes, I'd like to see maybe four vid clips, and people again, without knowing which is which, pick the fave. And then the floor can be opened to comments along the lines of "didn't you see the difference in shading in the fern reflected in the Robot's unblinking eyes?" and we can look, see, and then say, hey, it is there, but I didn't see it, or I still don't see it, or maybe see other parts of the image that are preferable. Just an idea.

It is a strange and scary feeling to listen to some cheap piece of junk alongside a $1500 dollar audio gear and have the sinking feeling that maybe you can't tell the difference.
I had the same sinking feeling--a "Ruh Roh" moment--when I could not in any way distinguish the Olly 45mm from the Vivitar 55mm, but I kept the lens because it is small, light, silent and focuses in a jiffy. But I keep it *knowing* that it is a luxury item, and in a normal video situation, MF, tripod, no difference that I could see. And armed with this knowledge, I could then consider trading it at some point for something I need more.

The other thing is, anyone is free to say, hey, this is MY cam, and I'm going to Hack it to the Max. Card a minute. Because it is supposed to be fun on some level.
 
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