GH2 How to avoid "digtial rain"?

I doubt the computer used for playback is an issue, because my i7 920 handles my own GH2 clips without flaw, but when users upload clips that have the artifact, I do see them on the same machine.

Now a less-than-stellar card might be a possibility, because it does seem the artifact is baked in.
 
Jim Simon said:
It's not a bug with PP, the artifacts are in the footage itself. I and others have seen them outside of PP as well. (And apparently now even Vegas shows them.)

I really think this is a camera problem, seemingly affecting only some models. Users affected by this may want to investigate a repair process, because not one of my clips has ever shown the artifact. Yet I do see it on samples uploaded to the web.
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I'm yet to see any digi rain in my footage, actually this is the first I've heard of it. Is this something thats easy to see or a by-product of pixel peeping? I use PP CS5.5, FLOW MOTION 2. Anybody have a clip I can see this rain in?
 
Chris Adler said:
I switched to Sanity and haven't experienced it since then, but I'll probably go back to Flow Motion and just keep transcoding.
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So, to confirm, with Sanity there are no rain artifacts at all? Is Sanity hack compatible with Sandisk 30MB/s cards (non UHS-I/older cards)?

I soon have to shoot something for someone where they will be doing the editing, so want to avoid this possibility.

I'm aware of the transcoding and higher hack/better card solutions presented here. I can't buy the cards right now.

In this case, I won't be doing post-editing and don't want to surprise them with the rain.
 
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I hacked the GH2 to Sanity 5.1 and there's no rain in the conditions flow motion produced it. There's normal low-light noise; even, not streaks.

Sanity also boosted the audio levels. Much lower video bitrates, but it looks good. I will keep this hack on for now.
 
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Hithemark said:
Guys, I have used Flowmotion 2.02 to shoot a lot of projects and have never had any problems like the "rain" you suggest. However, when I first started experimenting with hacks I did experience the "rain" as you call it. I found this to be velocity errors. Caused by either a slow or faulty flash card or a slow processor in your computer. Once I started using San Disk Extreme and Extreme Pro cards the problem went away. I believe I read that these cards are recommended especially if you are shooting anything above 50mbs. Also, Once I upgraded my computer with a faster processor and more ram, I have had no acquisition problems at all. I edit with Premiere Pro 5.5 Hope this helps.
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I've been shooting with Flow Motion and editing in Premiere Pro CS6 and I also have not seen this digital rain. I bring the footage into the suite in its native format.

Does anyone have an image of what this rain looks like, for reference?
 
The "digital rain" artifacts are a decoding flaw that afflicts the MainConcept decoder bundled with Adobe CS6, in both Premiere Pro and After Effects. This issue has been reported to both MainConcept and Adobe but neither company has publicly responded. Since the problem doesn't appear to afflict the decoders bundled in Adobe CS5 and CS5.5, I recommend using After Effects CS5.x to transcode MTS footage to Cineform, ProRes, DNxHD, or MP4 formats before importing the clips into Premiere Pro. Personally, I've uninstalled CS6 for this and other reasons, and am hoping that CS7 will prove to be a more reliable platform.
 
Lpowell said:
The "digital rain" artifacts are a decoding flaw that afflicts the MainConcept decoder bundled with Adobe CS6, in both Premiere Pro and After Effects. This issue has been reported to both MainConcept and Adobe but neither company has publicly responded. Since the problem doesn't appear to afflict the decoders bundled in Adobe CS5 and CS5.5, I recommend using After Effects CS5.x to transcode MTS footage to Cineform, ProRes, DNxHD, or MP4 formats before importing the clips into Premiere Pro. Personally, I've uninstalled CS6 for this and other reasons, and am hoping that CS7 will prove to be a more reliable platform.
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Since I was the one who started this thread, I wanted to clarify that I saw this flaw in GH2 footage before I hacked it. I mentioned Flow Motion in my earlier posts, but it's definitely not the cause. Flow Motion fixed all the horrible banding/blocking I had prior to the hack and enhanced the image greatly.

I tried Sanity for awhile and have since gone back to to FM v2. I trancode to DNxHD as part of my workflow as it not only addresses the chance that the inherent GH2 flaw will show up, but find it also compliments the Flow Motion quality.
 
Did anyone ever figure out a way to get a fully edited CS6 project to export without the digital rain?
Either through Premiere CS6 or an export to anther NLE?
 
Richy Lacey said:
Did anyone ever figure out a way to get a fully edited CS6 project to export without the digital rain?
Either through Premiere CS6 or an export to anther NLE?
Click to expand...

Transcoding the footage is the only solution I'm aware of. It's an extra step, but it works and the files won't suffer quality loss...will be a quality boost, actually.

Install Quicktime>install DNxHD codec or use Apple Pro Res>5d2rgb for transcode>import transcoded footage into Premiere>edit normally>rendered final file should be absent the rain.

http://rarevision.com/5dtorgb/

Also download the user guide. You can try transcoding and save the new file into a separate folder - your original files will still be retained. 5d2rgb doesn't destroy the original files.

You would normally do this before beginning the project, but if your NLE has a "replace file" function, you could swap out the original files with the transcoded files, even if editing has already taken place in a project.
 
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hi all
for transcoding i found this,it easy, fast, batch processing and it's free http://hdcinematics.com/tools/AWProClient.html
just in case! i had trouble installing it because windows 7 64bit kept saying the installer in the file was 16bit .MSI file and needed to be 32bit ,the work around was to extract the MSI file into a folder and use it from there instead of installing it
i'll post the instructions on extracting the MSI when i find them
hope this helps
fly
 
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