The card should be readable by any SDXC reader, but I like this el cheapo USB 3.0 one - works great for me: http://goo.gl/Umsyf
@nobbystylus Run a test before you shoot. Don't risk anything. Use 24L. Make sure everything works. If it doesn't, try a different card. People have reported problems with some 45mbs cards.
These videos were shot along the Schuykill River and along the Wissahickon Creek in Philly, to test out my Panasonic GH2. I've used Vitaly's hack and the Sanity 5 patch. All GH2 shots used the ISO setting of 640 (and yes, I did the routine to avoid the noise bug, i.e., switch to 800 then switch back to 640).
The Sanity 5 patch uses a 24H bitrate of 38000000. The TM7600's bitrate is about 28000000.
I can't see much of a difference between the two cameras. There is a bit of noise in the darker areas of the GH2's footage-- it's visible when I played the video straight from the GH2 camera-- but it doesn't seem to be very noticeable.
I'd love to hear opinions, observations, etc. about the image quality.
The standard 14-42 Pannie lens.
(I forgot to label the first shot as one I did with the extra-auto-zoom feature switched on. That's the shot that's just the stone bridge. The ones that follow are all in standard mode.)
I'd like to present my last professional job with the GH2, and since I'm here of course I used the Sanity hack. It's fairly long - 25 minutes. Took it up and down Philippines' highest mountain with no problems (except my rib that got busted on a fall!). The grading held up very nicely too. Highly recommended! Client was stunned at the quality that came out of this li'l beast - which of course goes without saying here! (Sorry can't embed) vimeo.com/43752943
@Superset : i also get 15K bitrate 24p when filming a scene with very little detail, and i think this is exactly the purpose of this patch, it uses only the necessary bitrate in any given situation. If the situation has little detail, then you save space on your card. (or at least i hope i got it right). Bitrate is exactly the same as microprocessor frequency... you can have quad 2,5 GHz, but i doubt this potential is used when all you do is type a text in Word, and it's better like that cuz it saves electricity :p
Haven't had time to look at FlowMotion in depth, so I can't really say. I know Lee has worked hard on it, so I'm sure it's a quality patch.
But here's my take on the patches in general. If we just consider picture quality, with 100 being the absolute best possible, then the stock picture for 24P might be 85. And it might be 80 for 720P and 1080i. Now all the good patches get the quality up to the 95 - 98 range. Yes, there are differences among the patches, but those differences are slight. So to me, it's the factors other than picture quality that determine whether you use one patch over another... you know, things like: stability, file size, spanning, high quality in all shooting modes, gadability (as peternap says), etc.
The good news is there are now high quality patches to cover just about everyone's personal mix of needs.
Now when the GH3 gets here, we can do it all over again!
@Zeko I use Ralph_B's Sanity v5 a lot. It spans in 24H, L, and 720p60 modes; and also it should span in HBR (30p) mode if you are NOT using electronic lens. Meaning, any lens via the dumb adapter should span you in HBR mode. I personally can vouch for 24H/L and 720p60 modes which span on GH2 all the time reliably, and with any lens (electronic or not), if you use this particular card: http://goo.gl/gbQf4
@Ralph_B and @mo7ies : thanks guys..... so if i need longer cinema-style video, i'd be kinda stuck with 24L and no electronic lens... but quality should be almost the same as 24H, if i got it right ? :) And then....would there be any point in using 24H ? (except for gaining 0.5% image quality or so ? )
if i need longer cinema-style video
Actually I'd be surprised if your film takes were longer than 11min each ;) You probably don't need spanning for film sequences.
Corporate/events, on the other hand, do tend to have long takes, at which point spanning dat bitch becomes crucial.
Sanity v5 WILL span in 24H mode, do use the card linked above and you'll be fine. Why sacrifice quality? 24H it is.
I'll go back and quote something Ralph posted, in just a second. Not to take anything away from either LPowell or Driftwood because they have come up with great patches.
Last week I videoed a Marathon for one of the sponsors. I used three cameras because I knew what was going to happen. The 2 GH2's I was using with fairly new patches caused problems. One locked up in the middle of a pack shot and the other gave some real problems panning. I still got the whole thing on the XA10 though.
Neither patch was Sanity but if it was...this is the quote from Ralph:
Stability - I hate write errors - hate em', hate em', hate em'. Sanity 4 is rock stable. I use Sandisk 30M Class 10 cards and have not had any write errors in any mode, including ETC. Of course, your milage may vary, but I hope not.
That is a major plus when you only get one shot at the clip!
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