What is your opinion of the PVDOG 1080i, PDLumina?

@AndyS I'll be honest, the best results from pvdog's 1080i60 I've managed to get, were from low-light closeup shots. I don't mean low-light as in candle light, just not full mid-day brightness. Anything else outdoors is so-so. The bitrate stays around 40+Mbps, but for some reason I just don't see superb quality.

I recall using another user's settings for 1080i that gave me really good results and was playable in-camera. I'll have to search for that one too and add it to the mix.

@Rambo Yes, after I found out that 720p60 AVC is doubled frames, I decided to simply use stonebat's settings to increase the bitrate and do nothing else, because Motion-JPEG 720p30 delivers a whole lot more quality (just not playable in-camera). So really, I upped the bitrate on AVC 720p30x2 just in case I need it, but I doubt I will use it (maybe for the EXtender sometimes).

Andy need to know more... do you need spanning, 720p? ext tele? I did shoot allot on pvdogs setf and many agree its dang good.. spanned , did 720p (ntsc) didn't try ext tele.. yet

I know the feeling , I'm in a 4 week project right now with my GH2 and also using it to sell the company on switching to GH2's for certain things .. so its got to be top notch stuff.. and it is.. and I'm only on stock settings with upped bitrates. But locked into that setup on that body because I'm in the middle of that project. pvdog is good unless your filming highly complex scenes.. like that waves shot.. that have a portion of no complexity.. that's where I found the minor blocking issue.. other than that its the best I've found so far for the GF2 that is stable and reliable and spans etc.. if all I ever had to do was 4-6 minute takes id go with Mysteron.. but meetings and event stuff allot.. must span for me.. but that's why I scored a cheap second GF3.. going to dump all intra on that and have a body for shooting short take stuff at the highest possible bitrates.

My project at work I previewed the trailer to the main video and droped some jaws today.. and that is without the voice over, just B roll, lots of slider and mini boom stuff and music and a couple interview shots :) Budget Approved :-) I love my GH2!

did some more testing with cake2.0, nice looking footage and lower bitrate.. seems like a happy medium. spans etc.. this is what pvdog based his patch off of to some extent. going to add this to my list of patches to really pummel at the lake. because it might make great format for super long shoot times.

meep meep, once again I must wait until daylight comes to do more serious testing of landscapes and various subjects. Preliminary results of a new mix of settings yielded an adequate image quality with a modest bitrate (in-camera playback available).

quick indoor test at night, handheld, 4 CFL ceiling lights, moving and rotating this tool in my hand for a couple of minutes. The resulting file was 651 Megabytes (2 minutes, 2 seconds). I believe P & B frames adapt to the health of I frames (whatever that means).

The last screengrab is of a CFL decorative lamp on the wall, which led me to a very interesting discovery on manual settings I will share in the near future. Similar results from streamparser.

@pdlumina any news about manual settings would be great

@gameb & @Preetam Is no big deal really, maybe is even on the manual (that I kind of read).

Basically, the GF2 does have manual controls for the iris (sort of) that doesn't involve flicker reduction settings. Manual lock made me think of a physical dial or button, when in reality is all digital. Basically on M, A, or S mode simply tap on the screen to select both where the camera will focus, but also where to lock the iris aperture.

With proper planning this is all that's needed to have properly exposed video (example: talking head interview with a big bright window on the background).

lol. We won't have manual settings until VK says we do :)

Hello all. I decided to post this on YT - I did a shot last week using pvdog's settings. Quite impressive so far. I did all editing effects on Sony Vegas MS11.

@Rambo I'll explain what I mean with a video in the future. I really have selective iris that can be changed while recording with a GF2, with manual 'trigger points' as you call them. In the meantime, a few shots from today.

I just found something interesting , got my GF3 body today and in M mode , with a manual lens, once you start the recording and then close the aperture after recording , it does not seem to adjust ISO.. Was just a quick finding messing around.. anyone else have a GF3 they can test vs a GF2? Maybe I'm wrong and it was just because I had a lens that went to absolutely closed on it .. just the GF3 seems to handle it far better.. the GF2 got super noisy before absolutely closed.. GF3 didn't get nearly as noisy

@chief OK :-(

very unscientific quick test. Night, indoors, single 60Watt bulb on ceiling, AVC 1080i60 converted to 720 MP4 for web, iris wide open, 1600 ISO, stock lens. Attached stream analysis of said video.

http://minus.com/mgklKdWe/1f

@Rambo I don't, only the stock Panasonic lens that came with the camera. But it's OK to doubt. By proving anyone wrong I gain nothing, so I'll continue to tweak my settings and posting results here.

@Ebacherville that some nice looking footage there. Did you punch the saturation or/and contrast a bit? What sort of lens do you have?