It is not the codec, it is the onboard computer!

[Cranky]

I think for what you want to do with the camera, same as me, it is fully capable. I think you will find too often there are certain people here who attack the camera when they should be looking into their composition.

What you are saying is equivalent to saying that Chevrolet Corvair was fully capable for what a sane person wanted to do with the car. That is, driving slowly on a straight highway. Sadly, the car oversteered in fast tight turns, killing dozens of people. Oops. These were just insane boneheads who did not look into their composition, I mean, did not drive slow and straight.

I don't think that the Corvair had a "To be driven very slowly" sticker. I don't remember the GH1 having a "Do not shake, do not pan/tilt fast, do not put too many detail in the frame" sticker.

Philip, I find your explanation very plausible. I want to believe that Panasonic did not cripple the GH1 deliberately (but then why it did not use native 24p? Oh, well.)

 

[commanderspike]

Yeah but you don't have the camera either. I haven't seen problems with my GH1. If you hold it like an average consumer would hold the camera and expect to see Spielberg like images then the problem isn't the camera. There are a lot of people like that. Why not wait til you actually get to play around with one first? All images in any camera can be broken. Some people will tell you all this negative stuff about it but I think they might just need to look at their composition instead. Either way I wish you luck on your future endeavours what ever camera you do decide to choose.

This is an example of the rubbish which pops up every time there is a 'mud' discussion on these forums and I really kinda sick of it.

The OP posted a GREAT technical run down of what's lacking with the GH1's image processor, is the most plausible and concise explanation of why it occurs I've yet to read on these forums but all you feel fit to do is to discredit his composition skills?

Well I think that is totally unacceptable.

 

[commanderspike]

I must have a GH1 from the magical batch because I have no "mud" problem with 1080p, unless of course I whip it around like a crazy person just to see how it reacts.

There is no such thing as a 'magical batch' of GH1s.

If you are a good cinematographer you will have absolutely no problem whatsoever with it because you would know how to properly shoot.

I can see where this view comes from and yes there is a small relationship between mud and poorly shot footage, but it is simply not true that the camera suddenly becomes 'fixed' in the handles of a talented artist. The GH1 doesn't appraise your craft. It's a machine.

 

[Barry_Green]

The OP posted his SPECULATION as to what MIGHT be happening in the GH1. The OP has no more inside knowledge of what's actually happening in there than any of the rest of us do.

 

[commanderspike]

There is an onboard computer revolution about to happen with all manufacturers. Recently a Canon rep said that the DIGIC IV chip was designed for stills with live view but the DIGIC V chip will have a core designed around real time codec encoding. Only then will DSLRs move from being still cameras with stacked still images and become true video cameras.

Spot on. Canon and Panasonic are the first to react to this demand for DSLR video. I think Canon themselves were in fact taken aback by the response their video mode in the Mark II produced in the DSLR / pro video market. Both the 5DMII and GH1 have been selling faster than they can be produced. Canon have therefore seen fit to put the necessary investment into making the architecture of the next DIGIC chipset based around video. That's my take on it anyway. Bring on the 1D Mark IV and GH2.

PS

I really do admire the break-through of Philip's common sense here. Whilst I have often criticised the GH1's firmware more than the hardware / encoding chip, what Phil said in his first post makes crystal clear sense. And none of the usual distracting talk about 'story-lines' that mud deniers like to bring up so often. Two thumbs up.

 

[commanderspike]

The OP posted his SPECULATION as to what MIGHT be happening in the GH1. The OP has no more inside knowledge of what's actually happening in there than any of the rest of us do.

I think speculation is the wrong word for it. Speculation is done when you don't have many facts, don't have much knowledge.

The OP has at worst a very good educated guess, and at best 100% truth. I honestly think he deserves a lot more credit from you guys.

Nobody is rubbishing the GH1.

People come on the forum to look for information which will make or break their purchase and in my opinion 'mud' is a real factor worth mentioning, not speculation and it deserves the kind of quality explanation that the OP was able to provide. I for one am thankful for it.

Look, I know those who own a GH1, me included since May have hands on experience and we like to justify our investment in a certain brand or a certain model sometimes, but why deny it's shortcomings altogether? It may bite you in the ass one day. I am trying along with everybody else to increase the knowledge-base and to identify the camera's strengths and weaknesses.

The composition, story and editing is down to you and you alone, and of course it's important with regards the quality of your film, but it helps to separate that issue (of human talent) from the technical judgement of the GH1's capabilities, which is information well worth taking on board. If story is the 'only' thing that matters, why not go and shoot it on a 640x480 webcam?

Today is my first day with a 5D Mark II and it's interesting to compare the two. The GH1 is MUCH smaller and lighter, and is a very progressive camera - it will win the battle one day in the future as long as lens designs (especially fast wide lenses) can keep up with the smaller sensor which will no doube improve in leaps and bounds as the years go by. But the 5D's Live View system is not as prehistoric as I first feared and it's very useful for giving you a live preview of DOF and checking focus, GH1 style. Even contrast detect AF, whilst nowhere near GH1 levels of performance, is not as bad as I feared.

But the main reason I went to the 5D. Image quality.

As Philip Bloom mentioned on this forum today, he prefers the IQ of the 5D over the 7D any day, and the GH1 just cannot compete with either on the basis of image quality. It has mud. It has general compression artefacts. It has worse low light performance and a 2x crop factor which takes the edge (literally) off your lovely wide SLR lenses. I want my work to look as professional as possible for the money, and the 5D is worth that £500 extra over the GH1 unless it's poor usability as a video camera really does get in the way. I will see over the following week.

GH1 - great camera. Go and buy one. But be armed with the right knowledge about mud. It can happen. It can happen if you shoot with a steadicam as attractively and as carefully as possible, as I found to my disappointment during the music video shoot. It doesn't just happen on whip pan handheld home movies in the back yard.

 

[Barry_Green]

The O.P. stated it as fact. It cannot be known to be fact. In other places we often hear that the 5D "skips pixels", and it's stated as fact. I've asked everyone who states it as fact -- how do you know? And the typical response is -- er, well, everyone else says so, so it must be?

No, it must not be, just because "everyone says so".

Canon themselves have emphatically denied that they skip pixels. They say they bin pixels in groups of six. But still you'll hear people quoting the "pixel skipping" line as if it's true.

So if the O.P. had come in and said "okay, looking at these symptoms, could the explanation be as simple as that there isn't enough processor power in there to handle everything?" And my response would have been "well, yeah, that was my guess -- cheaper price tag, less powerful components inside, so ... seems reasonable." But instead, the tone taken is "this is the answer" and then people start jumping on it as "thank you for delivering us the answer" when -- nobody KNOWS if it's the answer.

So it is speculation. That is exactly what it is. It may be an educated guess, but I doubt the original poster would even deny that what it is, is speculation. And there's nothing wrong with speculating, as long as it's kept clear that that's what's going on.

 

[Barry_Green]

People come on the forum to look for information

Yes, INFORMATION. Not speculation. Speculation's fine when it's labeled as such, but when it's presented as factual information -- it's not so fine then.

 

[Cranky]

If this is true then requests for a firmware upgrade are futile

It appears that the lens team presented the computer team with a lens that required more correction than the computer team had allocated.

This looks like a speculation/educated guess to me. But I tend to mentally prefix every statement with "AFAIK" unless it comes from a well-known hardcore tech guy.

If Panasonic does not want to explain why mud happens all we have is to make guesses.

To me this is a good guess. Good enough to think better -- not worse! -- about Panasonic. They rushed the product, ok, they wanted it faster on the market. At least they did not deliberately cripple the codec for the camera not to steal the market from pro cams.

Now I want another speculation about 24p-over-60i. Why it was done, why not native 24p. Presently I believe that Panasonic wanted to artificially separate pro digital cinema and amateur camera markets, but maybe there is a better explanation, for example "most NLEs including Panasonic's own video editor do not support native 24p". It this true? Was it the reason? Any takers?

 

[Barry_Green]

it deserves the kind of quality explanation that the OP was able to provide. I for one am thankful for it.

I think I should point out that I generally agree with the O.P., by the way -- I think the problems are limited processing power. And I said so over three and a half months ago.
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=1653265&postcount=129

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=1653270&postcount=130

It's not a case of us not thinking he's right -- it's a case of things being presented as fact, rather than as "I think" or "well, what if it's ..." or some other qualified statement.

Now, if someone disassembled the camera, found out exactly what chips they're using, and got the specs for those chips and found out that yes, this is unquestionably the problem -- then yes, I'd be just fine with them declaring "the problem is in inadequate processing power." But until that happens, the most we can say is "my best guess is that it's inadequate processing power."

 

[commanderspike]

I think potential GH1 buyers are an intelligent bunch and they don't need every statement to have a disclaimer after it. They'll make their own minds up. I hardly think the OP posted speculation or misinformation. In the case of DIGIC 5 and the 5D's aliasing issues, computing power is exactly why it happens and is exactly why Canon are building the next chipset around video rather than stills. This is not speculation, this is information from the horse's mouth and 100% accurate.

24p-over-60i... well it you'll allow me to speculate .....

This was done (in my opinion) because the 60i format is compatible with so many existing HD TVs and raw 24p output is not.

 

[Barry_Green]

Are you thinking that speculation = misinformation? Because it most certainly does not. Speculation means that you're guessing, attempting to figure out, etc. It doesn't mean it's wrong, it just means that you have no way to know for sure.

Would you prefer the term "theorizing"?

 

[commanderspike]

I think I should point out that I generally agree with the O.P., by the way -- I think the problems are limited processing power. And I said so over three and a half months ago.
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=1653265&postcount=129

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=1653270&postcount=130

Yes, and mud comes around and around like a merry-go-round, but I have no problem with that because people need to know, new forum members like to discuss it, it's interesting from a technical stand point to camera geeks like me, and it's a way of lobbying Panasonic to address the issue in the future which I am sure they will.

It also puts our mind at rest about a firmware update and stops the conspiracy theories about "intentionally crippling products". The only fix to the GH1's issues is the GH2.

In my opinion the GH1 has too many image quality flaws to be considered in the same class as the 5D for professional work. Yes you can work within certain parameters and operating windows to get professional standard of work out of it as Kholi showed us with the Heineken ads, and of course there is beautiful footage shot with the GH1 as it's open's to a broad range of creative uses and talents. But GH1's the fixed pattern noise, banding, codec bandwidth issues, mud, bit-rate and 2x crop factor make the 5D a much more attractive proposition to me right now.

Believe me, I was the biggest GH1 fan boy around and I got annoyed about the mud discussions when mud wasn't affecting me. But when I saw that it can effect carefully shot, attractive footage, on a music video project I knew I had to step back and find an alternative, as there isn't a work-around to mud. No matter how many times I could have moved that GH1 around the scene on the steadicam, the level of detail and nature of scene was such that the GH1 simply couldn't cope.

I'll give a final opinion in 2 weeks which is truly the best all round VDLSR at the moment when I decide to return to the GH1 or stick with the 5D, but my view and opinions are always evolving. I don't think the 7D is better all-round than the 5D though.

I can tell you now that the 5D with the same lens on it as a GH1 will always produce the better picture in a broader range of shooting conditions.

And so it should do, for the money.

And Barry I know we don't see eye to eye over the mud discussions sometimes, but I do have a good amount of respect for you. I'd just wish you'd let other people catch up to your level before shooting them down so harshly. People aren't trying to pass stuff off as fact, they're not pretending to be Panasonic engineers, it's just the way it's written... so go easy on us, otherwise we'll keep going round in the same circle over and over.

 

[Barry_Green]

It also puts our mind at rest about a firmware update

Firmware updates don't add features, they fix bugs. In the three and a half years that the HVX has been out, no new features have been added by firmware. I can only think of two cases of Panasonic Broadcast ever adding features, and that was the flash band compensation for the HPX300 and the addition of 24p to the HPX2000 (if it was the 2000 I'm thinking of). Canon hasn't added any features via firmware to their camcorders; JVC has only done so once that I can think of, Sony doesn't, and Canon has done it once and only once and said they don't normally do it and not to count on them ever doing it again.

In my opinion the GH1 has too many image quality flaws to be considered in the same class as the 5D for professional work.

Neither should be being used for professional work, they're both consumer cameras that are sold at Best Buy. And the 5D costs 3x as much as the GH1, so it had better have some improvements.

And the 5D has all sorts of image quality issues of its own, including aliasing, moire, and the limitations of only operating at 30p.

but I can tell you now that the 5D with the same lens on it as a GH1 will always produce the better picture in a broader range of shooting conditions.

Not when you need 24p, or 60p slow-mo it won't. And the GH1 has shown little to no aliasing or moire issues, the 5D is famous for them.

I would certainly expect the 5D to do better overall, but none of these are professional products and none of them are perfect.

 

[Barry_Green]

shooting them down so harshly. People aren't trying to pass stuff off as fact

Who am I shooting down?

Look at the thread title. Is that not a statement of "fact"? It is certainly presented as such.

Look, I said I AGREE with him. I just don't like misinformation to be repeated (hence my constant request for verification on "pixel skipping" or speculation passed off as fact.

 

[commanderspike]

Firmware updates don't add features, they fix bugs. In the three and a half years that the HVX has been out, no new features have been added by firmware. I can only think of two cases of Panasonic Broadcast ever adding features, and that was the flash band compensation for the HPX300 and the addition of 24p to the HPX2000 (if it was the 2000 I'm thinking of). Canon hasn't added any features via firmware to their camcorders; JVC has only done so once that I can think of, Sony doesn't, and Canon has done it once and only once and said they don't normally do it and not to count on them ever doing it again.

Firmware updates don't add features, they fix bugs? Is that speculation or to be taken as fact? Because I sure think manual controls on the 5D are not just bug fixes. Firmware is the entire software basis of the camera, and has NEARLY as much control over the hardware as a operating system like OSX has over a Mac. Nearly as much, because most camera chipsets are not programmable to the same degree of flexibility as an Intel CPU on a PC or the latest NVidia GPU chipset which offer a huge degree of control to the software.

Not when you need 24p, or 60p slow-mo it won't. And the GH1 has shown little to no aliasing or moire issues, the 5D is famous for them..

For the sake of balance, let's state the pros and cons of each:

5D
Aliasing

GH1
Mud occurrences
Compression artefacts on detail
Motion artefacts
Fixed pattern noise

The scale is tipped slightly more than Barry let on with

 

[commanderspike]

Look, I said I AGREE with him. I just don't like misinformation to be repeated (hence my constant request for verification on "pixel skipping" or speculation passed off as fact.

Oh yes I agree, for sure.

Misinformation is okay when it's stated as a rumour, opinion or personal view but it's especially annoying when it's passed off as fact by someone who doesn't know what they're talking about.

But I don't think the OP's post is misinformation.

I think it's of a very high standard and well put. He's bang on the money and well up to date with the industry, it seems. And in turn, while that is just MY opinion of his opinion, it is an opinion based on over 4 months of using the GH1 and seeing it's advantages and disadvantages first hand. What the OP says rings true to me... very true. Especially in light of what Canon said recently about the 5D's own processing limitations and what they plan to do with DIGIC V.

 

[Barry_Green]

I never said his post was misinformation! I said "pixel skipping" is misinformation.

 

[commanderspike]

I never said his post was misinformation! I said "pixel skipping" is misinformation.

Misinformation? I think pixel binning does happen on the 5D & 7D, otherwise the resulting video would not have issues with aliasing.

I can see why you think it IS misinformation though, because it doesn't come from Canon, it comes from 'sources' close to Canon or rumour sites, like the following:

"Digic IV was not designed as a video processing chip, hence it cannot downscale multi Megapixel images in real-time at a frame rate needed for video. The fastest camera ever released by the company is the 7D and it can only down sample by pixel binning close to ten 18MP images to any smaller size a second. Current implementation skips vertical and horizontal lines then averages pixel values."

But again, this does have a habit of backing up what we see in the image, i.e. aliasing.

And by the same token, what Phil said backs up what we see in the GH1's image.

 

[Barry_Green]

Firmware updates don't add features, they fix bugs? Is that speculation or to be taken as fact? Because I sure think manual controls on the 5D are not just bug fixes. Firmware is the entire software basis of the camera, and has NEARLY as much control over the hardware as a operating system like OSX has over a Mac. Nearly as much, because most camera chipsets are not programmable to the same degree of flexibility as an Intel CPU on a PC or the latest NVidia GPU chipset which offer a huge degree of control to the software.

It's a statement based on observing all these manufacturers for years, as well as taking Canon's statement of "firmware isn't for adding features, it's for fixing bugs." They reserve new features for new models. That's what they said they do, so if you have a problem with it, you'll have to take it up with them.

For the sake of balance, let's state the pros and cons of each:

Do you *really* want to do this here? We can, if you want...

5D
Aliasing
Costs 3x as much, or no kit lens included, take your pick
Chroma moire
Major rolling shutter issues
Can't take PL-mount lenses
Can't use c-mount lenses
No flip-out LCD or swivel screen
Films in a non-video-standard 30.000 fps, instead of video-standard 29.97
No 24p
No 60p
No autofocus when shooting video
vertical banding
black dot noise (source)

GH1
Mud occurrences (which is the same as Compression artefacts on detail)
Motion artefacts -- what motion artifacts?
Fixed pattern noise

The scale is tipped slightly more than Barry let on with

What kind of statement is that?