Nonsense of the settings

tonalt

I became very frustrated when I saw again another topic about "top settings" and people started posting their sample videos how amazing the settings are. Because of my frustration, I posted this message:

"If you ask me, all these different settings are just a big hoax. There's absolutely no real difference that the end user will notice. Random videos from random users, usually with no comparison to anything."

Luckily one person got my point. Hoax is big word and I admit it was little provocative - no offense for the settings developers. But when I see new settings, I have absolutely nothing where I can compare it and what proves the greatness of the settings.

For me, simple screen capture from same scene vs. other settings could do it. But there is no such thing. Always different compressed videos in vimeo or youtube about random scenes. It doesn't tell me anything. And then the bitrate charts or what you call them. Do you look at the bitrates or at the video?

If someone asks me what are the best settings, I say that them are probably Intravenus. Why? Because shian says so, not because I have "seen" it myself.

And with end user I meant normal people, like my friends or co-workers. They don't give a **** about the settings, because they won't ever never notice the difference.

And yes, I see the difference between stock and some popular settings. Put not after the video is in youtube.

tonalt

Forgot to mention how frustrating this situation is for newbies who come to the forum. Hundreads of pages about settings discussions, with no real comparison. I believe most users chooses their hack what they think is the most popular one, not because they see proof about it's greatness.

tetakpatak

What else did you expect? Vimeo and YouTube are equalizers and downgrade all uploaded videos to just a fragment of the original files' quality. But the original files of many videos on Vimeo can be downloaded for those who are interested in watching them.

For BD disc productions it makes quite big difference to use some good settings compared to stock quality. Especially visible during and after the PP.

Newbies have to learn hard in all kinds of complicated professions. Only idiots could expect to know all about videography after reading through only few topics of the p-v site. Hunderds of hours, days, weeks or months may pass until newbie is no more newbie anymore.

To be honest, I really don't like your idea to create new topic about this.

tonalt

Well I'm a newbie or not. But still I don't see anything that proves the difference of the settings.

tonalt

Amazing, are everyone here systematically missing my point?!

nomad

Yes. Since we are systematically working ro get high quality video for high-quality distribution. Not for Vimeo or Youtube. If your films are:

– Never color graded – Never shown from Blu-ray (or better) on a good flatscreen or projection - Never get any VFX like keying added

These settings are useless for you! Don't use them, please.

hay

.

tonalt

@nomad @jasonp If you read carefully, I meant screen captures (meaning stills, uncompressed ones) for the comparison about same scene, not youtube about different scenes.

Does everyone here really think that all of us should always do tests by themselves? In my opinion it takes a lot of unnecessary time.

Are the settings somekind of occultism science that is not measurable? From screen capture stills, you could see macroblocking, grain etc..

cbrandin

It's true that lots of "tests" aren't really tests. But don't discount some of the very thorough testing done by people like Lee Powell and Nick Driftwood. Nick, for example, has provided metrics produced by StreamEye that relate directly to image quality. Also, read Lee's initial tests for Flowmotion. He shows, in pretty convincing fashion, that Flowmotion does a much better job with flowing water (one of the most difficult things for a CODEC to get right). His evidence is robust from a technical standpoint, very convincing, and easy to see.

Granted, improvements offered by some patches may be "subtle" under "normal" circumstances. But in some cases, like Flowmotion's rendering of flowing water, the improvement is starkly apparent. The same can be said for motion rendering improvements offered by Nick's high bitrate GOP1 patches.

matt_gh2

@tonalt There is a lot of information and a lot of settings, so it would be cool if someone did a comparison, but I found my way through by looking at lots of videos posted by people. After a while you can recognize the different types of images that the different settings produce, even when viewing on YouTube/Vimeo. Maybe try different settings out to see what you like. Also I think its important to remember that the more experienced guys are saying that the high bitrate settings hold up better when color correcting.

EYESOUL

I think the best way to determine what settings are right for you is to test them yourself.I do look at other people videos here and even download the mp4's when available but I take all of this with a grain of salt.I rather do my own testing an not totally rely on other people efforts,which are greatly appreciated but only the user will know what works for and satisfies them.

Did this guy say it takes to much time for testing?lol your right it takes time but I would say time well invested.

Far as the newbies I think it should be mentioned or promoted that the most beneficial testing is that conducted by their own camera"I never believe the hype just because someones says something is so".I appreciate all the videos here but by no means can that be your ultimate frame of reference.I think your entire rant comes from a position of being dependent on others to make up your mind about settings.I can tell you the GH culture of hacks and such is something your into or not.You can't knock people on their take of testing which I would assume in some cases are private test that are shared to benefit the community,some not at all meant to be technical.

tonalt

@subco very funny but that's actually something I'd like to see :)

GravitateMediaGroup

@hay im guessing you are refering to the people involved with Upstream Color?

Meierhans

Thanks subco, very enlighting! Quite amazing what different settings can do. g

vicharris

For what it's worth, IV2 is the first time I've noticed a difference without looking for something closely. I shot a bunch of footage in a bar for a client and couldn't use lights so it was all at 1250 and 1600 ISO and when I got home and looked at the footage, I couldn't believe how good the grain looked. I had to zoom in to make sure I wasn't seeing things. The blocking was almost gone and it looked like a fine film grain. Like I said, I wasn't even looking for this or expecting it but it jumped off the screen. I shot some other stuff with Sanity5.1 and compared them and the difference was huge. My Sanity footage was for timelapse so I didn't care but this was the first time where I really sat back and thought, yep, there it is. I'll dig up the footage and post as soon as RGB finishes.

EYESOUL

@subco those are the exact results I'm getting over here.testing is the way to go.

tonalt

@vicharris Could you show comparison screen shots?

vicharris

Sure, I'm in the middle of a huge as render so once FCP get's done, who knows how long this crap will take, I'll get something up.

vicharris

Here's some grabs straight from 5DtoRGB. The first one is Sanity5.1 with the 20mm 1.7 wide open at 1250 ISO I believe. The second is IV2 with the Rokinon 85mm Cine at 2.8 with 1600 ISO so not really a good comparison but you can see the grain in the IV2 easily over Sanity. I'll try to look for some stuff shot on the same lens with the two hacks but I'm pretty sure all the Sanity stuff was shot with the 20mm 1.7. I'm also to push the IV stuff a little further in post than the Sanity before it starts to fall apart.

sanzadez

@tonalt There are various comparisons done with screen shots. Truth be told, I'm not about to look through hundreds of pages to find some, but they are out there. I have been following a few threads for a long time now, and I can say, there have been some comparisons that do show differences. I do agree that most "normal" people won't notice a difference, and that the differences may not always be there. But I believe the patches do prove themselves worthy on occasion, at least for me. Whether it be noticeable or nor most of the time, I'm glad I used the patch when I know it would have made a noticeable difference had I used stock. I can't say too much as I still consider myself a "newbie," but as everyone says, test it yourself. You may think its a waste of time, but that's they only way you will know which patch you like best, and if you don't notice a difference, then use stock, its your choice.

BurnetRhoades

Huh...right there on the page for the Flowmotion patch are still frames showing the same scene with his patch and with a stock GH2.

LPowell

@tonalt

For me, simple screen capture from same scene vs. other settings could do it. But there is no such thing.

Here's a link to what you claim you want to see, original downloadable footage and etc:

http://www.personal-view.com./talks/discussion/3337/gh2-flow-motion-v2-100mbps-fast-action-performance-reliability-for-class-10-sd-cards/p1

shian

back when I first came here, i tried to compile a list of settings, what they were, what uses they were good for, etc.

but I gave up.... too many, not enough time to test them all, and a LOT of subjectivity. It's a giant mess. I admit. I do not have an easy solution.

soundgh2

@BurnetRhoades He was trolling the Cluster X post too so must have missed them. I'm failing to see his point - if he can't see any difference .... he can't see any difference why feel the need to post (in multiple threads) about it.

shian

but I definitely see a difference between the unhacked and hacked versions. When using the camera the way I use it. I think everyone will experience different results because everyone uses the camera differently for different things.

I try very hard to NOT stress the codec, and let my post workflow handle the heavy lifting. Not everyone does this.

B3Guy

@subco Wow! it is amazing the difference between unhacked and hacked, evident even at 640p. I'm a tad bit suspicious that you've put the unhacked version through YouTube's processing five or six times, though ;-)

Seriously though, Telling the difference between some settings is difficult, the best way is to try different ones for yourself as comparisons are difficult to make. It is easier to see the more minute differences once you start grading footage.

There ARE immediately evident differences between the larger categories of settings. For example, discerning the differences between al the various Driftwood GOP-1 settings can be quite tricky. They all look fairly similar. But the difference between GOP-1 and GOP-3 as wider categories is an easier difference to see. The difference between a good GOP-1 setting and the stock setting is immediately discernible to my eye.

My best suggestion is to try out a few of the "popular" settings from each of the more general categories of settings. Try Sedna, try Sanity, etc. Once you find a type of setting that your'e more pleased with, try the other more similar settings.

For example, I know that I love GOP-1, and Driftwood's semi-recent GOP-1 settings to be specific. I'm not so much a fan of his ones that recently have been getting hyper-specific ("for night" "for morning" "for day", etc.) I never know what I am going to be shooting to that level of specificity, so I sport Sedna most of the time.

P.S. If any former Sedna lovers have found a newer Driftwood hack that they like even better, PM me, I'd love to hear your thoughts on differences.

I understand the frustration. The wide number of ever-specialized Driftwood hacks has overwhelmed me as of late, and I simply haven't tried most of them. To someone just getting started, I'm sure it is that much more daunting.

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