@mk47:

Sorry for the mess and the unspeakable wait. A new job has kept me away from here for quite a while...

The longest recording time should be achievable by using the longest GOP available, married with the right shutter speed for that GOP. For 25p that is GOP13 (because it marries to 1/2s).

That won't give you a 360º (100% FLUID) shutter though. If you want this characteristic in your captures, you'll need to go for GOP10 and 1/2.5s.

You can find that info here: http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/2396/gh2-motion-fluidity-360%C2%BA-shutter-test-on-slow-shutter-speeds.#Item_12

(The patch was updated: http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/157793#Comment_157793)

@turbines : That is the reason why I changed it and updated it. In your case (and most other user's cases) you don't need to do anything NOW, if you download the latest version of Timebuster Flowmotion (2.02 alpha) from here: http://www.personal-view.com/talks/uploads/FileUpload/91/6881bc0e949cd51f7c0b64d2205c76.zip or from the OP. Flowmotion's 24p mode is now fully preserved in timeHBusteR.

What you had before the last update was a fully dedicated timelapsing patch that could address 2 different SSs in different modes, but that would very likely break for regular video (in 24p).

What you have now is a mixed patch that will address timelapses in ONE single chosen SS in HBR mode, and that will behave like Flowmotion in 24p and the other progressive modes.

If you go with 1/2.5s, you don't need to touch the patch. If you go another SS then you should change the GOP lenght and I would use 1/10s (it's FLUID) instead of 1/8s. More info on that here: http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/2396/gh2-motion-fluidity-360%C2%BA-shutter-test-on-slow-shutter-speeds./p1

@turbines : No, there's not.

You want one? Just pick up the last base from the first post (timeHBusteR 2.0), uncheck "1080i50 and 1080p24 GOP Size=5" and do your merge.

Basically (if you leave out the MJPEG stuff) it all amounts to this:

1080i60 GOP Size=12

Encoder setting 1 1080i/p=3

Quantizer for 1080 modes=23

1080i Scaling B=0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF, 0xFFFF

No idea, sorry... :(

It can be anything from a hardware protection to a firmware limit... Another poster mentioned a 2h limit.

I had some near 4h long recordings too, but my tests were always limited by the battery juice as I don't have a mains adapter.

When I find the time I'll do some testing on this to see if it's a common thing.

@JackBayer:

The GOP setting is shared between 24p and HBR 25 (PAL). The default for this setting on timeHBusteR is now 3 (like Flowmotion).

If you want to use timeHBusteR for timelapsing, you need to change your camera to NTSC (which will use the HBR 30 GOP setting of 12 instead) otherwise you can theoretically lose up to 75% of the bitrate from the keyframes that will be discarded.

You can use After Effects on Mac, but i don't know about any freeware.

@glee719:

Yes, depending on the patch you use (timebuster/timeHBusteR) it will leave HBR/24p untouched.

timebuster redefines 24p for timelapse, and leaves HBR as Flowmotion

timeHBusteR redefines HBR for timelapse, and leaves 24p as Flowmotion

That's was the idea, to leave one mode tailored specifically to timelapse whilst leaving the other as plain FlowMotion and let you film regular footage without limitations.

Cheers @frogman2

The answer is yes if you are looking exclusively at HBR25 (PAL). You should use a 1/2.5 shutter speed in that case.

To be completely honest with you, I haven't looked at patching in quite a while, so I'm not 100% sure on this, but IIRC, 1080i50 and 1080p24 GOP Size is shared, so any GOP change that you do to target HBR25, also reflects on 24p, that's why I would suggest you to target HBR30 instead. Why do you need specifically to use HBR25? Flickering shouldn't be an issue at such long shutter speeds (unless you need to preserve HBR30 for flickering sources). And you can change freely from PAL to NTSC and back if the camera is hacked.

BTW, GOP 10 is indeed adequate for a 1/2.5s shutter speed on HBR25, but for HBR30 you should use GOP 12 instead.

@frogman2: I've used Adobe Première and After Effects to speed up to 4h footage and I've never noticed audio desynch after conforming. OTOH it's also true that I never use the audio from the footage.

The purpose of my hack was twofold:

1 - Squeeze out every possible bit to go from P/B-frames into I-frames.

2 - Allow the quality/size compromise to be adjusted so that you could lower the IQ and record for 24h if needed be, or raise the IQ of the I-frames if you need the absolute best for shorter timelapses.

Factor 1 is the reason why the GOP length needs to be married to shutter speed. Factor 2 allows you to up the IQ according to your recording length.

In the light of this, you can indeed obtain better I-frames than vanilla Flow Motion. It is measurable but will anyone ever notice? I don't know. Does it make sense to setup the camera this way? If you only do short (10m) timelapses, and you are happy with Flowmotion IQ then the answer is a clear no, because it's not worth the hassle to keep reminding yourself what mode you are using, and keep changing from PAL to NTSC and to 24p, and risking accidentally using a timelapse mode for regular footage, just to find out you recording is totally trashed later. When using slow shutter speeds, Flowmotion will still record for hours on end, most probably for longer than a full battery will last.

What I'm getting at here, is that if you need and have the means to record 24h on a 64Gb card, then you will have to make some compromise (either by allocating all bitrate to I-Frames or by raising the Quantizer) because regular Flowmotion might not cut it. This is where Timebuster/timeHBusteR comes in. If you are not marathoning timelapses or your hack of choice gives the IQ you need, then keep with it.

Note: As we are talking here about true VBR approaches, all of this is heavily dependent on content and shutter speed. Less detailed, less sharp content as well as slower shutter speeds will always be less demanding on bitrate. This alone will have more impact than a switch from Flowmotion to Timebuster.

@thebugskiers

455kbps doesn't look unreasonable when you are only recording 2.5fps. Remember that the purpose of this codec is to allow very long recordings, and this is achieved by using very low framerates and trashing everything but the I-Frames.

Sure, some of the frames will look like trash. In your case only 1 out of every 10 frames will look good. But THOSE are the ones that matter, all the others have to be weeded out.

See:

http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/49325#Comment_49325

and also:

http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/80990#Comment_80990

For astro, you definitely need to step your SS into 1/2.5s territory, use your fastest lens available and also boast up the ISO. Milky way shots are usually taken at F/1.4@30s SS, so you see you have a 6EV stop handicap already. That's ISO 6400! Sunset and Sunrise are different beasts. Because of changing light, you'll need to be either using a VND filter or continually adjusting SS (a terrible thing to do with this hack).

Ok a "Go ahead and read Timebuster Settings Documentation.zip" would have helped me a lot. I take it, it isn't possible to merge my settings with Timebuster as I need to be able to use 24p Cinema mode and 720p/50 as well. Anyway, thanks for your help.