@shian thanks man the music is a big part of the video. I chopped it a bit though to make it work with the different clips

This is my first post so please bear with me if I'm missing something.

I'm a professional, and have delivered several music videos and corporates shot with the GH2, sometimes side by side with 5Ds (mk II and now III). I also have Sony XDCAM, RED and Arri Alexa s-log footage, and even shots from old super-16 and 35mm neg, to compare. I love the convenience of working with the GH2, and I'm excited by what everyone here is doing. So excited, I found a spare body going cheap and hacked it. So now I have one hacked and one unhacked body, which makes it easy to do more or less scientific side by side testing.

I've been comparing a bleak rainy view of the back garden, and a soft grad of bathroom tiles and underexposed noisy areas, using cinema mode, 0,-2,0,-2, 200 or 400 ISO, and either a 1.7 Pancake or a Zeiss 45mm f2 prime from a Contax G2. I've mainly been looking for improvements in 1080p25 HBR which is what I would generally use in real life. I've used a combination of static, slow and wild panning shots, and analysed the results imported as ProRes HQ in FCP7, at 100%, 400%, 800% sizes, frame by frame and moving, on an accurate broadcast monitor.

I've tried a range of popular settings, compared side by side with the exact same shot using stock HBR. I'm posting in this thread as the Mysterion setting was the only one so far where I could see anything much of note going on at all. While the improvement in 24p is there for anyone to see, and not altogether surprising given the lower 24p bit rate, in HBR mode the improvement seems at best subtle, or perhaps even debatable.

Am I missing something, or have I done something wrong? Or is stock HBR already pretty close to the limits of the AVCHD format, 4:2:0, the chip, and other non-codec related factors?

Hopefully, I'm in a good position to help test which settings really make a difference. Thanks for any advice on the best direction to go to see genuine improvements in HBR mode.

@Itsguy

Could clarify your comment that the improvement with the settings is apparent in 24p, but not HBR mode, "given the lower 24p bit rate"?

I believe the rate of both is 24mbs, if you use the 24H setting for 24p. Are you saying you see definite improvement in 24p, but not HBR?

jrd - Sorry, my mistake. Stock 24p and 25p are of course running the same bit rate. I thought I saw a big improvement in 24p but on closer examination it was just a focus issue with the stock footage. Obviously I would hope for major improvements over lower bit rate stock 720, which is very useful.

JWalters - I was also stunned by my hacked test footage... until I compared it frame by frame with unhacked stock HBR of the same scene shot at the same time, and could see very little difference at all. Mysterion did at least have some results (a different grain feel), while in my tests so far many other popular settings did nothing much at all in terms of detail and compression artefacts. It's all too easy to get carried away here, bring on the science!

Sorry for this voice of doubt, I hope it's temporary, I love the GH2 and I want to believe! But I haven't been able to create a convincing side by side, split screen test yet, and I haven't seen anyone else's. For some reason this isn't what people are concentrating on - just great looking films in isolation, without side by side evidence. This has to be scientific, as a lovely shot with a good lens will always look convincing, regardless of the actual encoding - even recompressed on Vimeo or YouTube where it's meaningless.

It is not my intention to talk down all the fantastic work being done by everyone here, and I hope to help with it. I want the best possible settings too. However, since I am using hacked and unhacked bodies side by side, shooting out the window of a fairly well specced edit suite, I am trying to understand better why I see very little improvement as yet as compared to stock HBR, just minor tonal variations or slight sharpening of grain, without much if any perceptible detail improvement in still or moving footage. Perhaps it has something to do with the scenes or settings I am using, with is why I'm checking with you all here - though they are typical real-world scenes where I'd want to see some results to make it all worthwhile.

None of this applies to other, lower bit rate modes, which are no doubt vastly improved. Other improvements like PAL-NTSC switches and record limit removal are obviously also extremely welcome. But my goal is to find side by side improvements over stock HBR mode which non-scientists can clearly see and appreciate!

Of course stock GH2 footage looks great. If it didn't, Vitaliy would never have bothered to hack it. Here, there's been endless display of showing differences between hacked and not hacked. If you're not seeing it, go back to stock and be done with it.

@jrd Some of the LA people are doing tests but I don't think they've put anything together to look at. As a rule, everyone is doing their own testing because we all have different needs. I shoot mostly in 720-60 so my choices are a little more limited.

There are also so many different things to look for, how a setting responds to color correction or grading, macro blocking, etc, you could write a book on it.

Then you have to consider the different lenses used to test. I have 9 lenses I use with the GH2 and the settings respond differently to each one.

Asking which is better is a little like asking what the best rifle to hunt Deer is.

I think it's kind of like MP3 files. Not everyone can notice the difference between a 128kbps and a 320kbps file. You have to have an ear for that sort of thing.

Of course with video it is a little different but the comparisons are there. You just have to find out what works for you and do that.

I shoot quite a bit of landscapes and buildings here in Japan and I notice that the higher bitrates do help with keeping things looking sharp and clean. Especially in low light. Using a GOP1 setting with a high bitrate really does make a difference to me.

@APXmusic

The differences between an uncompressed audio file and a highly compressed mp3 version of the same program should readily be perceived by a technical examination of the files, whether everyone can hear the difference or not. At least, we hope so!

On that basis, and under shooting conditions most favorable to revealing the strengths of the hacks, what does close examination of the video files reveal? Obvious differences? Differences too subtle to be readily perceived in projected footage? No significant differences at all?

Is this question really unanswerable? Or unreasonable?

@Itsguy, I'm a professional, and have delivered several music videos and corporates shot with the GH2, sometimes side by side with 5Ds (mk II and now III). I also have Sony XDCAM, RED and Arri Alexa s-log footage, and even shots from old super-16 and 35mm neg. Question, with all that fire power what are you hoping to achieve with the GH2? Maybe you should go to Vimeo and search Gh2 and be intrigued with what results are there. It surely would help you feel comfortable using this "Mighty Mite" if you invest the time as most of us here. I was s Producer in Los Angeles and remember the camera department, and what I remember is not pretty. Good luck with Your testing.

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@mee - thanks for the advice.

@Itsguy you are right, HBR is not much better.
24p on the other hand, Is a BIG different.............
If you film in 720p/50 and upscaled to 1080 it is still better then HBR.
Or in 50i and interpolated in post to 25p even looks sharper, more clear and clean...........

Thanks @thepalalias, boring tests, that's perfect!