Finally saw GH2 footage first hand.. I am not upgrading. Staying with GH1.3

[Chris Light]

I have found not going to an intermediate codec to produce superior results on my hacked gh1s than going through cineform. Any steps of further compression, even cineform, introduce slight changes and slight noise. Sony vegas pro uncompresses into 2 bit color space and then into whatever format of your choice... so 1 less step of convertion... but, you need a beefy machine... or neo booster 2.

fair point. i'm struggling with the choice of editing MTS in Vegas vs transcoding w/Cineform....i do both on a regular basis for comparison purposes, and i can't tell the difference in my renders...i do a fair amount of CC, but still, i can't see the difference either way...but i'm saving drive space just editing the native file.

 

[plasmasmp]

No, no, no...not at all. This was one of the main reasons I gave up my 7D for a GH-1.. The 60/720p is outstanding. As a matter of fact I think it was Plasmaxxxx who did a test shot with 7D 1080p vs GH-1 720p...and the 720p looked sharper (with more detail). It looks more like downscaled 1080p to me. IMO

But then again...that's in comparison with the 7D...

The 60P out of the GH13 is fantastic! It's equivalent in sharpness to the 1080p modes of the Canon DSLRs

 

[Blackout]

I don't know if it is just me, but a lot of the very clean fooatge that I have seen in the GH1/13 footage section, has been through Edius. It almost looks sometimes as though the footage is playing straight from the card and that's viewing Vimeo versions. Either the output/encoding from the timeline is responsible, or you're right about native editing. Wished I could get this for Mac!


Blackout, thanks for putting forward your opinions on what you've seen. I'm in no rush to jump on the GH2 at the moment, but I do hope that Panasonic do something ( are able to? ) about this.

You're not imagining things, the footage IS cleaner. Even in the HIGHEST quality setting, neoscene cineform muddles with the footage just a little bit... there are slight color changes and slight introductions of noise. Again Sony vegas pro is my fav now but that is for shorter projects.. if I did a full movie I would have to edit in Edius or go the cineform route.

 

[Blackout]

The 60P out of the GH13 is fantastic! It's equivalent in sharpness to the 1080p modes of the Canon DSLRs

The 60p is fantastic for LIVE looking stuff but I don't like conforming from 60p to 24p. It never looks right and you can instantly spot it. The footage is a tad soft especially on native big 1080p monitors and the motion cadence is stroby. To me, if you consider the 60p GH13 footage to be fantastic, than I would say the 1080p footage is absolutely outstanding in comparison. DOUBLE the detail.

again.. look at this clip, look at the city detail, then the bushes and the little bricks in the building behind me. Ultimate detail, no breakup:

http://blackout.com/clients/top-of-ghostbusters-building.MTS
When I uploaded that to vimeo, the 720p looked like mush to me in comparison to the full detailed 1080p file.

and this one:
http://blackout.com/gh13hack/00028-blackout-gh13-freaktimeb-roll.MTS

Opening sequence of of music video.. tis has some re compression going obviously:

Notice it looks great at ALL youtube encode levels... even at the lowly 360p.... that's the power of soney vegas and edius editing in native codec. None of my encodes out of CS5 media encoder EVER stay this clean on youtube. Now click on it an watch fullscreen on 1080p and even with all the lowlight madness it looks pretty damned good for a youtube vid, the 25mbit master is flawless.

 

[plasmasmp]

I only use 60p for slow motion and for intercutting with Canon cams. The sharpness of the 1080p mode is beyond the capabilities of youtube (Original mode (2386x1080) is another story) and vimeo, without downloading the original files.

 

[Blackout]

I use the 60p for slow mo but I upscale it into my full 1080p 24p edit.

On medium to close ups you can't tell much but on wides you definitely can. The detail on native 24p off the gh13 is amazing.

 

[Homunculus]

I finally got to toy with a GH2 here in NYC. I am not allowed to say by who or how... and perhaps there will be improvements before actual release date, but as of now, I am not satisfied and am not upgrading. There is still mud, noise, streaking and issues with 24 mbit, and I shot some complex monitors and patterns and saw mud. The same old mud.. just less of it than with original unhacked GH1.

So I am sticking with my gh1.3s for now... next look will be at the af-100. The GH2 is a pos as I have seen it and a downgrade as far as I am concerned from hacked GH1.3s.

big surprise. this is what me you, vitaly and many others have been saying MONTHS AGO. gh13 is still more powerful than gh2 and possibly even af100

 

[Blackout]

big surprise. this is what me you, vitaly and many others have been saying MONTHS AGO. gh13 is still more powerful than gh2 and possibly even af100

Well... "more powerful" may not quite be the right words to describe it because clearly the GH2 has a faster processor... what I am getting down to is simply the fact the 24mbit limitation of the GH2 avchd codec (I have not seen the AF-100 yet other than Barry's one clip that I was not that impressed with... no offense to you Barry I just saw clear noise all over the man's face and shirt) is still a serious problem and simply not enough data to handle fast highly detailed motion, and therefor the actual image quality - in my eyes and to most others I have shown - is far superior from a hacked GH1.3 in almost every sense. Should Vitali be able to hack the GH2 - we'd have another horse in this race. Again - I am speaking from the Jobless D hack settings where my camera maxes out at about 52mbit on highly complex scenes... I hacked 3 GH1s with the same hack file, and have had nothing but OUTSTANDING results... so much so that I have not even ever fiddled with the hack settings again.
So other people's hacked GH1s may not be performing as well as mine depending on how THEY set it.
My camera outperform the GH2, hands down... clear as night and day on a good monitor. That is what happened, that is what I reported. If the bitate was doubled on the GH2, it would most likely be the outstanding winner.

PS - I use transcend class 10 32gb cards, and out of thousands of takes I have gotten maybe 3 or 4 lockups. So I consider it HIGHLY reliable.

 

[mimirsan]

Well... "more powerful" may not quite be the right words to describe it because clearly the GH2 has a faster processor... what I am getting down to is simply the fact the 24mbit limitation of the GH2 avchd codec (I have not seen the AF-100 yet other than Barry's one clip that I was not that impressed with... no offense to you Barry I just saw clear noise all over the man's face and shirt) is still a serious problem and simply not enough data to handle fast highly detailed motion, and therefor the actual image quality - in my eyes and to most others I have shown - is far superior from a hacked GH1.3 in almost every sense. Should Vitali be able to hack the GH2 - we'd have another horse in this race. Again - I am speaking from the Jobless D hack settings where my camera maxes out at about 52mbit on highly complex scenes... I hacked 3 GH1s with the same hack file, and have had nothing but OUTSTANDING results... so much so that I have not even ever fiddled with the hack settings again.
So other people's hacked GH1s may not be performing as well as mine depending on how THEY set it.
My camera outperform the GH2, hands down... clear as night and day on a good monitor. That is what happened, that is what I reported. If the bitate was doubled on the GH2, it would most likely be the outstanding winner.

PS - I use transcend class 10 32gb cards, and out of thousands of takes I have gotten maybe 3 or 4 lockups. So I consider it HIGHLY reliable.

Absolutely how I feel (and agree about the AF100 footage... not too great examples for a £4000 camera)...I have 2 hacked gh1's and bought a couple of high speed sandisks to cope with the highest bitrate,image possible...and I find the image is truly astounding and robust for editing.
Ironically I have a friend who also hacked his GH1 but with minimum settings and he was dissatisfied...sold it for a canon 2ti. lol

Were spoiled thats for sure because of the hack...in a way it'll deter some people like me off GH2 (my biggest complaint is that is it so hard for panasonic to have a more solid codec implimentation without the bizzarre artifacting issues? Their camcorders do so why not their dslrs? All footage ive seen looks like they made similar mistakes with GH1)...but if the GH2 gets a hack?...Oh my!

As it stands for me as a general shooter...and really I dont want to hate on the GH2...but..GH1s are crazy cheap and a ludicrous peformer.
GH2 just has some gimmicks (Im looking at you 3d lense and touch screen) and has a leg missing right now....nothing has set me on fire about it.

 

[Blackout]

http://blackout.com/clients/top-of-ghostbusters-building.MTS
This shot is amazing for testing max resolvable detail. No mud, just a hint of aliasing. Looks really really fantastic.

Thank you, I thought so too as well. Look at the city detail, look at the bushes detail, and look at every single tiny brick in the building behind me.

 

[Boncrek]

Hmmm so does anyone know when Vitaly will be able to hack the GH2? The test shots I've seen on Vimeo dont look too bad to be honest but I may not be looking for the right things. I only wonder why Panasonic would limit their own camera to 24mbit. Wouldn't they sell more cameras if they doubled the bitrate? seems weird to me...

 

[roei z]

Hmmm so does anyone know when Vitaly will be able to hack the GH2? The test shots I've seen on Vimeo dont look too bad to be honest but I may not be looking for the right things. I only wonder why Panasonic would limit their own camera to 24mbit. Wouldn't they sell more cameras if they doubled the bitrate? seems weird to me...

let them sell enough AF-100 before that...

 

[Blackout]

Hmmm so does anyone know when Vitaly will be able to hack the GH2? The test shots I've seen on Vimeo dont look too bad to be honest but I may not be looking for the right things. I only wonder why Panasonic would limit their own camera to 24mbit. Wouldn't they sell more cameras if they doubled the bitrate? seems weird to me...

This has something to do with panasonics 'official spec' of their AVCHD being decided to top out at 24mbit I think. Also, I don't think they WANT the GH2 to have better image quality, as they don't want to endanger their high end market cameras I would assume... but I am just speculating.

They HAVE to be well aware of the hack and have never made any official statement about it, so they have to be well aware of the amazing advantage in image quality a higher bitrate provides, yet still they only increased the max bitrate of the GH2 and the AF-100 to 24mbit which I just don't think is enough for acquisition in a real time camera.

Now sure, with the AF-100 at least in theory you can just go out hdmi or sdi and uncompressed into whatever codec you want but that is not what I am talking about here. I am talking about the actual acquisition format that can be recorded to memory card with the camera.

 

[GrahamH]

If you look at their product page you will see they highlight the ability to plug the card from the camera directly into one of their TVs or BluRay players. That's why they stick to the AVCHD spec (and probably why there is no 30P or 25P). But I wish they would have a least bumped all the data rates to 24Mbps - sigh.

 

[north heart]

It isn't just the bitrate that is concerning with the GH2, it's panasonic's whole video processing systems within the G series. From what I can fathom, there will still be a certain amount of the banding and mud that have plagued the GH1, and I would asume that quick movement still stacks up badly compared to many camcorders out there. Many video people have left the 'dark side' of prosumer camcorders to explore the quality available within the VDSLR trend, where interchangeable lenses and good stills performance are a big bonus. If the GH2 can't produce say quick movement video to the standard of say the Panasonic TM700, then I really don't see it's appeal to a video enthusiast over a hacked GH13 at it's price point.

 

[mpgxsvcd]

Guys the support issue is the sole reason why we don’t see bit rates above 30 mb/sec. They have to guarantee that this camera will work with all of their TVs and everything that uses the AVC-HD standard. Since that Standard doesn’t include bit rates above 30 mb/sec(Right now) we are not going to see that for quite awhile.

Face it, the only way we are going to get 30+ mb/sec in the GH2 is if they issue new firmware. Your time is much better spent trying to find a flaw in the GH2 as it comes from the factory and reporting that flaw to death!

The only way we will get new firmware is if they add a new lens or need to fix something in the camera. So here is to hoping that someone finds an obscure problem with the GH2 so we can all report it over and over again.

 

[stonebat]

The only way we will get new firmware is if they add a new lens or need to fix something in the camera. So here is to hoping that someone finds an obscure problem with the GH2 so we can all report it over and over again.

I'd rather try a crapshoot to get a hackable GH1 from amazon...

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

yet still they only increased the max bitrate of the GH2 and the AF-100 to 24mbit which I just don't think is enough for acquisition in a real time camera.

That is something that has piqued my interest... if the AF100 and the GH2 have the same bit rate, what do they 'do bettter' in the AF100 to... well... make it 'better'... or are the visuals
the same, and it is the other 'videographer's' compatibilty/comfort features that distinguish the two... (You know, using db gain instead of ISO, or XLR audio inputs, zebras, etc...)

For me, my question would be, is the AF100 'visual' significantly better than the GH2 (or heck the GH1) to warrant the rather excessive premium of $3K more for the unit's price???

 

[GrahamH]

At about comment #170 on his "3 days with the AF-100" blog post, Phillip Bloom got asked that question:


Question: other than ergonomics and xlr, are there significant differences between af100 and GH2?

Reply Philip Bloom: enormous!! SDI, overcrank, no image issues. Full HD 24mbs 24, 25,30p. viewfinder…the list goes on

http://philipbloom.net/2010/11/11/japanaf101/

 

[PDR]

. if the AF100 and the GH2 have the same bit rate, what do they 'do bettter' in the AF100 to... well... make it 'better'... or are the visuals
the same, and it is the other 'videographer's' compatibilty/comfort features that distinguish the two... (You know, using db gain instead of ISO, or XLR audio inputs, zebras, etc...)

For me, my question would be, is the AF100 'visual' significantly better than the GH2 (or heck the GH1) to warrant the rather excessive premium of $3K more for the unit's price???

In terms of compression, the codecs are different as well. Not all AVCHD is the same

For example, the GH2 @ 24pN streams have 2 reference frames, and use CAVLC , but the AVCCAM models (including AF100, HMC150 etc...) use 4 reference frames and CABAC. CABAC vs. CAVLC alone accounts for ~10% better compression. So on paper AVCCAM is more efficient (ie. better quality at a given equivalent bitrate)