Panning 'mud', reasons why and firmware update

commanderspike

commanderspike

Carbonite Member
Okay so many of us have found that the GH1 is a very promising camera but it's biggest flaw in my eyes is not the lack of 24mps AVCHD or HDMI live out, but rather the major bug with the full HD mode and motion blur.

Anything approaching a fast pan removes all the detail from the picture, making it look like an ultra compressed 700kps web stream. The problem is a lot worse on my GH1 than I was expecting. I have the Japanese model.

I have also found when playing back the full HD footage after removing pull-down artefacts with JES and Final Cut Pro, the moment the pan introduces the 'mud' effect this puts a bigger toll on my CPU and the footage stutters to a halt. I have a Core 2 Duo 2.16ghz Macbook Pro and will do more research into what is causing this. But it's as if the effect of motion blur overloads the codec.

So could the problem be with the way the GH1's processor is handling motion, overloading the codec?

I don't think the issue is with the auto-ISO control or high ISO, because in full manual mode with ISO fixed at 100 it happens as bad as ever.

And what do I think of 720p? The mud effect is indeed lesser. But I don't like it as much as 1080p 24p. It's not making use of even 720p's reduced resolution. Lots of jaggies, which would have to be smoothed over by time consuming post processing.

I really really want to get a fix for this.

24p full HD is a must have. Nothing a good firmware update can't fix! (I hope)

Screen grabs:

Static handheld shot:

good.jpg


Start of pan (continues like this until the pan ends)

bad.jpg
 
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Until someone shoots tests with film shutter speed (1/40th to 1/50th) with proper pulldown removal and factors out OIS, we don't yet know what the codec issues are.

From what I read here, Neoscene is the only tool removing pulldown correctly - although a patch for VoltaireHD is due soon.

Handheld pans at higher shutter speed could well cause problems but I avoid those anyway.

It should be noted that panning speed causes problems with all 24p - from film to HD, so until some better tests are done, the jury is still out.
 
There are pans out there already that don't look anything like that. I dunno but thats way too extreme looking. Something else must be at play there.
 
John Caballero said:
There are pans out there already that don't look anything like that. I dunno but thats way too extreme looking. Something else must be at play there.
Click to expand...

I agree...If this is what happens during pans, which I pray isn't the fact, I'll have to re-evaluate my purchase. I'm pretty careful with pans as it is, but this screen grab looks horrid and unacceptable.
 
I am thinking maybe the SD card lower speed might affect the data capture, thus affecting the footage. Panasonic has their own cards specifically marketed for their AVCHD cameras. Is like the Compact Flash cards for the Red One. They have to be Red One certified because of the special needs of the camera's data capture speeds and processing.
 
I don't think this is to do with pulldown or my computer. Reasons:

- Followed the workflows recommended on this forum very closely, the panning corruption cannot be removed no matter what I try, I have successfully deinterlaced and followed the pulldown stuff to the max, with FCP and JES. Checked and double checked settings.

- The same corruption appears in raw AVCHD footage MTS files, and on the GH1's LCD screen when playing back recorded footage, but not when panning in live view. 90% sure anyway, it's hard to judge it from a small screen - will double check later.

- Computer is a Macbook Pro 17", Core 2 Duo, ATI Radeon X1600 GPU. Latest version of Final Cut Pro (FCP), JES, Leopard, etc.

The corruption does not occur all the time, seems to be due to the amount of detail present in the frame but even then... it sometimes takes me by surprise. Had a lot of normal on the fly footage damaged from this bug with the GH1.

I am none too happy about it. Firmware update please!!!!!
 
John Caballero said:
I am thinking maybe the SD card lower speed might affect the data capture, thus affecting the footage. Panasonic has their own cards specifically marketed for their AVCHD cameras. Is like the Compact Flash cards for the Red One. They have to be Red One certified because of the special needs of the camera's data capture speeds and processing.
Click to expand...

I hope it is this.

Most plausible suggestion I've heard so far.

I am using a cheapo brand 8GB SDHC card, with high specs. 22MB read, which is pretty fast, but write is quoted lower - as 10MB.

They have a Sandisk Extreme III SDHC which quotes 30MB read AND write speeds. I believe it when I see it. Its very expensive... but may buy it anyway to see if it improves matters.

Like I say...I HOPE SO.
 
Will buy a Sandisk Extreme 30mb 8GB card later and report back.

It may be that the 24p artefacts are not due to a fault in the GH1 processors, or the codec or a firmware bug after all, but due to the camera being very demanding on card write speeds.
 
Card speed was suggested earlier on in one of the workflow threads, as a possible cause of the codec breaking. Panasonic have just announced high, speed high capacity cards. In the marketing blurb, it states that these cards will specifically benefit avchd recording, obviously they want to sell their own cards so take that with a pinch of salt. Interested to how you get on with the Sandisk cards.
 
Yeah dude, my breakage looks NOTHING like that. That's HORRID. I don't know what's going on with your footage but at worse mines looked like Sonics (sams) footage. And actually, I think I even got less than Sonic.

I'm using SanDisk Extreme III SDHC cards bought from Best Buy. if you jump on google you'll find out purchasing them online is a gamble because people are selling fake Sandisk cards.

It's a really good idea to start with OIS (on/off) and especially your SDHC cards.

That still looks GROSS, but I seriously didn't experience it THAT much.
 
Kholi neither did I. A bit shocked to be honest.

Will have results from fastest card I can get my hands on in Taipei within the next few hours... fingers crossed. Buying from the high street so not too afraid of getting a fake.
 
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In my experiece so far with the kit lens, I now only use the "movie camera icon mode", even though you can shoot HD in most modes. I noticed breakdown with the kit lens in the "non-camera icon modes."

I haven't had major codec faults at all with in "movie camera icon" mode, or if I did it was only in moments of extreme motion, when everything was a completely blur anyway, and it ended as soon as the motion slowed.

If I can get the chance/permission from the filmmakers, I'll upload something to Vimeo.

I.

Illya Friedman
Hot Rod Cameras
 
I am using the kit lens but will test with the 14-45 and 45-200 G1 lenses with OIS and auto focus, etc. OFF.

But I can't see how the lens is part of the problem. It doesn't look like an optical cause does it?

The break down appears to be either a bottleneck in the GH1's processing, and yes the bottleneck might be due to a slow SDHC card and hence an easy fix.

But what worries me is how random the problem is. It's as if the processor loses the plot once a pan starts and takes some time to reestablish itself, the continued motion prevents it from restablishing the bit rate or something...

I have noticed that the original G1's auto focus was awful when the whole scene is moving around, i.e. from a car window. Not had time to test this aspect on the GH1 yet.

17mbps AVCHD = 17mbps write to card, right?

If so not even a Sandisk Ultra II at 15mbps will be good enough, and the 10mbps max on my card is nowhere near.

It's find it implausible that even the Sandisk Extreme can sustain 30mbps write speeds for the duration of recording a clip especially when there are lots of files on the card, and it's nearly full.

One other thing that makes me doubt that it's the card speed causing the break down is that the Canon HF100 and numerous other camcorders also record at 17mbps without a hitch.

You can say something similar about the Nikon D90.

Meanwhile Canon 5DM2 is happy at 48mbps!! Though not sure what Canon quote about memory card suitability... seems like it's only the GH1 which has this problem.
 
the SD cards are rated megabytes per second not megabits 17Mbps = 2.125 megabytes per second
 
commanderspike said:
Meanwhile Canon 5DM2 is happy at 48mbps!! Though not sure what Canon quote about memory card suitability... seems like it's only the GH1 which has this problem.
Click to expand...

If I recall correctly there were users who had problems with some memory cards just when the 5DmkII came out and it dropped frames when the card choked.

When it comes to all memory media, be it hard drives or flash cards, don't forget that for video sustained transfer speed is what matters, not peak. Cheaper brands have a tendency to overstate the latter.
 
This does look really bad. Personally, I've been shooting tons of video on both my SD9 and the 150 to both the panny cards and also the Transcend media, both without problems and both deliver the same results and the Transcend card is 1/3th the price.

I don't think the mbps is really the issue with why things aren't up to snuff. The SD9 shoots at 17mbps and the panning and shots and all of that are pretty darn good for a 400 dollar cam. The colors can be a bit too saturated and don't look as natural as they should but it handles motion very very well and handles vibrations very well too. The SD9 is what we mount to our RC helicopter and it really resolves everything very well. I was hoping for live view out for the Panasonic one so I could buy that and shoot both stills and video with the same cam.


Thanks so much to all of you bleeding edge pioneers.. I know we all appreciate your reports and candid info and reviews. It's great to have this out there and you guys being so open and supportive of each other and in delvering a viable solution for all of us to buy a great cinema style camera at a fraction of the price it would have been just a few years ago. KUDOS to all!
 
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