GH2 Curious case of the time meter after 42mbit hack

ed_lee83

ed_lee83

Well-known member
Apologies if this has been discussed or noted by VK:
I've been using the 42mbit hack for a while but I noticed something rather erroneous today during a lengthy interview.
AFTER the hack a 16gig card registers 48 minutes.
Today, after a continuous 20 minute shoot, I noticed the remaining time meter now says 38 (thereabouts) minutes?? Shouldn't it be about 28 minutes remaining? Through this I only noticed now the remaining time meter doesn't count down normally - it skips every 3 secs.
Is this normal or is my math way off?
 
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There is a simple logic in that which has been discussed before. If your recording at twice the bitrate, file size will be bigger and logic is that you will have less minutes on a 16 gig card.
 
i think he's asking something slightly different. If I'm not interpreting him wrong, he (and his camera) knows that he'll get less time on the same size card with the hack, but the camera seems to be confused about the rate of memory used up during recording. The camera seems to think that it will need more memory than it actually uses for the same amount of time.
 
Just to clarify, I am not asking about the amount of space on an SD card pre-hack vs post-hack. The problem is my remaining time meter is not consistent: Empty 16gig card has 48 minutes remaining. I recorded 20 minutes of footage. Now it says I have 38 minutes remaining. At the onset that suggests my footage isn't really 'twice' as big as before. Perhaps I should just record through the entire 16gig card and count how much footage I can really take... Or will some export chime in so I don't have to waste 48 minutes of life? :)
 
it's seems that unlike GH1 countdown of remaining time, the GH2 one is "cleaver" : so, the remaining time depends of the bitrate used during ur take. If the sequence is static with not much details, maybe the average bitrate used allow more time than a complex sequence. To be clear, it's like the indication of remaining KM (or miles) in your car : if you drive like crazy, max speed in urban roads you'll have a small remaining distance ; if you drive like granpa on the freeway you'll have a big remaining distance with the same amount of gas. It seems through that calculation is harder in real time with a boosted bitrate.
Sorry for my english ; not sure I'm clear :)
 
@astraban Ah, right, it's 42mbit - AVERAGE - isn't it? I did not account for the variable bit rates under different circumstances... I guess there is no real way to calculate your actual time remaining then?
 
Yep average, so maybe it's difficult to have an accurate actual time remaining. The thing u can do (if you have time) is to shoot a very complex sequence (like a death chart) and see the minimum lenght of a small card, so u can transpose the result to each capacity of your different cards ; but Vitally will update Ptool with a boosted low bitrate to increase the quality on static or low detailled sequence : I believe that then, the average bitrate will be more narrowed (? not sure of the word : not a big distance between low and high bitrate) so the remaining time will be more accurate and predictable, I guess.
 
astraban,
If I'm going to shoot a death chart as you suggest - what would be better: pictures of Zombies? Or will simple Cadavers do?


But seriously - that sounds like a good way to test the card/time capacity.
 
I just left my camera recording with the Kae 65mbit patch on an empty 16gig card. Time remaining says 32 minutes. Recorded for one hour and still going!
 
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