GH2 Recording Problem - Can anyone help me with this

J

Jeffoo97

New member
I have two Panasonic GH2's, three different cards I have tested, and I keep experiencing this problem - a video jump or bounce. In the clip below I have numbered the times it happens in this scene:

http://youtu.be/x4kbnlrzHP4

It only happens during recording. Here it is in slow motion:

http://youtu.be/4iNk7xcD_6o

This is recorded in Vibrant color mode, 50 shutter speed, 24P, Sandisk Extreme Class 10 45MB card. It happens in every video mode I have tested, and with three different cards. I record in other video modes at 60 shutter speed, I have even tested 60 shutter speed on 24P. You can see it happen in the viewfinder when it does this.

I know I have to be doing something wrong - I just have no idea what it is. Could anyone help?

Thanks very much.
 
Jeff,

+1 on what lense are you using?

* Do you have OIS on?

Also, are you testing outdoors only? If so, are the condition windy? Just thinking that wind could be making the ois act a little funky if there is a slight issue with it.


If it were happening to me, I would try:

* Factory reset to Panny firmware
* Reformat memory cards inside the gh2 only
* Turn Auto Focus off
* Turn OIS off

See if it still happens.
 
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gundar said:
Jeff,

+1 on what lense are you using?

* Do you have OIS on?

Also, are you testing outdoors only? If so, are the condition windy? Just thinking that wind could be making the ois act a little funky if there is a slight issue with it.


If it were happening to me, I would try:

* Factory reset to Panny firmware
* Reformat memory cards inside the gh2 only
* Turn Auto Focus off
* Turn OIS off

See if it still happens.
Click to expand...

Thanks very much for the suggestions.

It happens indoors and outdoors on every card I have (2 class 10s, 1 class 6), on both of my cameras. One camera has the 14-140mm lens, the other the 14-42 lens. It happens during hand held shots and during lock offs, it's just much easier to see during a lock off as demonstrated.

I have reformatted cards only inside the GH2s. Demo scene posted was on a newly formatted card - no new files were on it.

Reformatted each camera to Panny 1.1 firmware, no hacks yet.

I need to do more thorough testing with autofocus and OIS off. I will get on that and report back. The problem comes and goes - I have not been able to isolate a specific sequence of events that causes it to happen.

I am suspicious that autofocus and OIS are not the problem, because it only happens during recording. In examining the recorded video, it appears to me that certain frames are just not recorded completely, being somewhat stretched, which makes them appear to be a camera movement, but I know it's not that.

However, I cannot rule out autofocus and OIS until I do more testing to make sure.

Thanks again.
 
Jeff,

I am equally as interested to see what happens with IOS and AF off.

With all of your other troubleshooting pretty much done, I wonder if your post production software could be emphasizing the autofocus or image stabilization and "creating" that glitch.

What post-production software are you using? Can you view the viideos raw (such as with Windows Media Player or VLC) and does it still jump?

G
 
I can pretty much guarantee it's not the post software. I can see the problem during recording in the viewfinder of the GH2, during playback in the GH2, during playback in the Panasonic capture software, and then on the timeline in the editor.

I am using Sony Vegas 11 for post - I do mostly commercials for broadcast, about 50-50 HD and SD release, lower cost stuff, as well as some longer form projects.

I hope to get some testing done this weekend - actually have a shoot coming up pretty soon and I would like to use the GH2s for it. Just finished using both cameras for a big event in Dallas - most of the footage was okay, the problem did surface a few times during interviews (handheld - OIS and Autofocus were on for those scenes).

Again, I really appreciate the advice.

I by no means am fully up to speed on these cameras and I certainly could be mistaken about anything concerning their operation. However, it just seems odd that I only see the problem during recording, that I can clearly see it in the viewfinder when it does happen, and that it's usually only one or two frames in length (usually a camera bump is around three to six frames). I bought the second camera because of this problem, since I could not find anything about it on any of the boards I read, so I was thinking it was unique to the first camera - and then the second one started doing the same thing.

Since it does not seem to be happening to anyone else, it must be something I'm doing.

I'll report back as soon as I have had time to do more testing.
 
Thanks so much for your ideas.

Autofocus had no effect, but with IOS off I could not get the problem to come back. I was very surprised, but after extensive testing, I believe that was indeed the problem. I can't believe I missed testing that the first time.

Again, thanks so much for that.

I did the hack on the older camera, and it's very impressive so far. (It will not record video to slower cards, but works great on the faster ones.) I can't wait to do more testing.

Thanks again.
 
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Jeff,

Really glad to hear that you figured it out! I still wonder why it does that... odd. But at least you know what it does you can keep it off and focus on hardware ways to keep the image stabilized like a flycam or a shoulder rig on the cheap and a merlin on the $$ side...
 
Absolutely. I have a steady tracker, and I can plan shoots around the limitations of the cameras. As to why it only does it when recording, my suspicion is that the OIS only kicks in - at least in a final mode - during recording. When it does, if there is no movement, something may happen in the camera to overcompensate thus causing a video bump or shift in the lens. Given the DSLR tendency to not process swift movement well, this appears as if the unit is not writing to the card properly. Part of the testing I did was to actually bump the camera, shoot in high wind, etc., to see what happened and how the camera reacted. It tended to smear the video - the Jellocam Effect - in every test. So if anyone else is experiencing this, hopefully this thread - and your advice - will help them.
 
Jeff,

Thanks again for coming back on and letting everyone know the resolution of the problem... Like you said, hopefully it can help others too.
 
Jeff. OIS should ALWAYS be OFF when mounted on a tripod and probably also on a shoulder mount or stabilizer. If left on it interprets ANY movement as something to be compensated for.

What caused your problem could be anything that caused a slight movement you likely couldn't even feel, a gust of wind, a "flexing" of the floor a bit of a distance away from you. You've already found out you can record without getting that jump by keeping the OIS OFF so you essentially solved your own problem.
 
I encountered the same problem while shooting an indie feature this past weekend with my GH2. Random video stutter, just like in Jeff's vids. My first suspicion was that it might be related to monitoring on an LCD via HDMI, and I know Panasonic cripples this output with random frame drops. But then I looked back at some video I shot without the HDMI monitor and saw the same stuttering. The OIS on the lens was my next suspicion, although it seemed counter-intuitive that something that's supposed to stabilize an image can actually destabilize it!

I checked some footage from the same shoot where I used a Canon lens instead of the Panny 14-140. No stutter. There ya go.

Hoping others can verify this, and maybe we can get Panasonic to solve it with a firmware upgrade? Until then, OIS goes OFF.
 
I have had the same effect where you get an occasional "blip" where the picture jumps for about a couple of seconds. It seems to only occur when the MEGA OIS is being used. I might have expected this effect if the camera was on a tripod or some other support- but in my case the camera really is being hand held for which the OIS is intended! I noticed that on the various firmware updates most relate to the OIS in video mode with the last one saying it was improving the stability of the OIS in video. So perhaps it is a bit of a weakness in that area?
 
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