The Truth About Compression - Re: "mud"

Calling people flawed because they don't shoot like you is just plain moronic.

Doh!. I'll put that into consideration....sort of. but not really. i'd get what you're trying to say, but i'm moronic.

Sweet! Can you point me to where anyone can buy a GH1 body for $600? I'm sure there are many here that would be interested.

ah man, i would give you my next tid bit of wisdom where you could get one, easily i might add, but you mocked me. now get out there and start making films. dammit, looks like that fortune cookie was on the house.
 
my previous AVCHD device, which was at the time of purchase a top of the range domestic camcorder, the SD5.
The SD5? Top of the range? With 1/6-inch CCDs? Are you serious? The SD1 kills the SD5 anytime, and Canon's HG10, which was released about the same time, in summer 2007, kills them both.
 
Well, it was top of the Panasonic domestic range at the time... all I'm saying is that anyone likely to be in the upgrade market from anything like those devices will be mightily impressed with the GH1 (I would have thought) - and thus it will hit its target. I was comparing some recordings from both just now, and setting aside DOF and low light, the GH1 looks like moving photos, whereas the SD5 looks like, well, video - and it used to impress me no end.
 
If the bitrate was made to be cbr instead of vbr, this may indeed make a world of difference, not sure we need more bitrate, 1080p can be stunning, just make its constant!
 
If the bitrate was made to be cbr instead of vbr, this may indeed make a world of difference, not sure we need more bitrate, 1080p can be stunning, just make its constant!

I've never seen it drop below 17Mbps looking at the files? What's the issue here? I don't think it varies too much...I haven't seen any problems.

At 1080p on this camera you're dealing with about 9% more pixels per second than at 720p at the same bitrate which probably explains the higher frequencies of mud in 1080p footage vs 720p. Also since it's recording at 24p in a 60i stream it might be sampling the scene less often for changes vs 60p?

If they gave us 1080/24pn that would actually mean fewer pixels per second (less information needing compression) than 720p/60 at the same bitrate which maybe would improve things? Assuming my other theory about the higher framerate rather than less data being what makes 720p better is incorrect.
 
In the last 24 hours I've been playing around with GH1 footage converting it to various other formats using software which provides a GUI to FFmpeg.

What software is that? I'm always interested in playing with new conversion software. Right now I'm leaning toward VoltaicHD, which seems to be the best bang for the buck.

If they gave us 1080/24pn that would actually mean fewer pixels per second (less information needing compression) than 720p/60 at the same bitrate which maybe would improve things? Assuming my other theory about the higher framerate rather than less data being what makes 720p better is incorrect.

Any of the following would actually make me very happy:

1. 24P w/o 60i wrapper in 1080

2. 24P in 720

3. Bump up the AVCHD codec from 17mbs to 24mbs.
 
Converters etc using FFmpeg (which is part of VoltaicHD I believe) are listed at http://ffmpeg.org/projects.html The Hall of Shame lists others at http://ffmpeg.org/shame.html but they are products not properly complying with FFmpeg licencing terms.

Ones I have tried are EncodeHD, WinFF, and Free AVCHD Converter (the last being in the hall of shame but at least their product is free and they do say it uses FFmpeg). I'm about to try Avanti. (Can't quite remember why but I'm a sucker for freeware...)

I tend to use MediaShow Espresso as it's very fast on a Cuda-enabled PC but it has very few settable options - it's good for creating high bitrate mpeg2 intermediaries / proxies in minimum time.
 
Woah, Avanti has all the options anyone could want. Took a little while to get it going and for best results knowing the ffmpeg options helps (eg "-threads 4" so it makes the best of a quad core) but for geeks it's handy.
 
Honestly cause the MJPEG mode sucks.

No seriously though, I find the image quality inferior to AVCHD.

I guess you could switch to it for shots giving you mud problems...but I am not sure how good it would look edited together with the AVCHD stuff.
 
man.. you need to change your core business.. there's a new cam out there.. they called it 7D

not online.. not 7D yet.. but the web is plenty of 5d2 footage

Right, so it's all well and good for you to think you want to buy one based on information that's out, etc. However, until you've shot with both of them and can offer reasons why you personally feel that one is better than the other, that goes beyond stuff you've read on the internet, or the 2 videos you've seen, and can post footage you shot to back it up, I don't think it's fair for you to tell Illya that it's time for him to change his business (one that he's clearly invested a lot of time, money, and effort in) just because a new camera is out.
 
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