Hmmmm... Are there any other good patches? I can do almost any patch out there since I managed to procure a Sandisk HD Video Extreme card.

Also I need to figure out what I should transcode the footage to.

@kavadni I see you recommended using DNxHD. I'm in a PC using Premiere Pro and After Effects CS 6. Is there any benefit going to DNxHD before editing over just editing the AVCHD files directly? (Dont know it makes difference but I'm shooting with Apoc Now Boomv1 setting)

@matt_gh2 and @fredfred27.

Media Composer will work directly with the GH2 .mts as of v6 using the AMA plugin. It was extremely flakey prior to that, now it's just a little flakey (scroll too fast and get a 'consumer timeout' or some such error).

I am an advocate of always working with a proxy, unless the job is going through in less than 48Hours and is pretty much cuts only. The use of proxies will speed up the editing process.

@fredfred27 is correct, in that you should use the original files for the final encode. That said I don't. I transcode to DNxHD 185 (25fps) renaming and time-codeing, and then make the proxies from those files. I return to the DNxHD 185 for the final encode.

If I was working with one of the AVCHD Intra codecs, then I might not bother with the DNxHD 185. Remember if you try to edit anything that is not 'Intra' (using Intra as a generic term, each frame is completely self contained) then to view the frame / perform a simple dissolve / do anything, the NLE will have to 'load', for example with GOP 12 AVCHD, 12 frames from disk.

As example I can play from my drives :
9 streams of DNxHD 36 simultaneously in real time.
3 streams of DNxHD 185 not quite real time, but smooth and consistent
3 streams of AVCHD even at 24Mb stutters stops and freezes

The limits of the DNxHD are due to drive speed, the limits of the AVCHD are processing power. I have 2 x Quad Core Xeons at 2.25 GHz, and entry Quadro 600 GPU.

@kavadni @fredfred27

Thsnks-perfect-just what I needed to know. I'm using an intra codec and my system is handling everything withiut delay, so I'll just keep using the original files. On a separate note @kavadni, not sure why you play separate streams simultaneously (overlapping shots on timeline?) Also my system is only a single quad core with 2.2 GHz and 16GB ram. My biggest delay, which I dont consider a problem, might be if I apply color correction or warp stabilizer to 10 second clip...maybe it takes 15 seconds to fully render. So unless you are talking about avoiding that small delay, it would seem that your dual quad core should be very quick. (My footage is Boom usually, so it comes in around 100Mbps) Maybe you do some other more processor intensive task.

Thanks for info. Much appreciated.

Both mac and pc versions of avid will deal with pro-res

I use Flowmotion on the low setting for long events. It provides very high quality, reliable spanning and the sound stays in sync with the video which is important. I can't really see a big difference in the IQ but it definitely grades better in post, and if you pixel peep there is a small difference.

I don't transcode the video since IMHO that is a terrific waste of time and disc space. I just copy the card to the computer, open the whole card in Premiere and start editing in real time. Premiere assembles all the clips that are spanned. No big files, no extra files, no loss of IQ, real time effects plus the GPU is used for scaling, so if you zoom, pan, scan, whatever in post you get an IQ bump. In a live event, like a school play, you have to shoot a bit wider than in a studio where you can retake a shot till it is framed perfectly. That mean some cropping in post, ergo you want superscaling features.

If you are doing events, you need a camcorder to go with your GH2, like a GH10. That will allow you to do real time focus tracking and give you long zoom at the same time.

No patch that I have used is 100 percent reliable. I have had one and only one Flowmotion disc span fail during an event (out of many events), but since I normally use 6-8 cameras this is not an issue. If you are just using one camera, factor in the risk, however slight, that your event will not get recorded. Even one extra cam is a whole lot of peace of mind.

@alegomaster Those number ( 80 Mbps from Flowmotion or Sanity 8Mbps ) means nothing.. You have to test it for yourself and see how long your card could handle.

I am thinking that something around 80 Mbps for average compression would be the best IQ/space ratio I could want

Hello, This seems like a good thread to tack this question onto:

I am using a hacked GH2 with Avid Media Composer, v6.5 on a PC. The difficulty is when shooting long 24p takes that are broken up inside the SD card into around 4GB chunks. (e.g. 4,191,682 KB) In Avid, I can certainly point to each individual chunk to do a "traditional" import-- and then re-assemble the full recording on the timeline to mimic a full clip. This is not ideal, for various reasons.

However, this newest version of software now usually permits a "Link to Volume" feature, which asks to point to the appropriate SD Card or hard drive folder and which will normally instantly present a single long clip with no chunks as a masterclip in an Avid bin. (Actually, that AMA masterclip needs one more step- "Transcoding" to an Avid codec to become easier to edit within Avid).

It seems the "Link to Volume" or "Link to File" is not available with my GH2 24P media, producing an error message about "Variable Bitrate GOPS". (I have not tried "AMA - Link to Volume"on 2997 GH2 footage.)

Question: If my only choice for long-recording, 24P footage & Avid is to import single chunks, is there any software from Panasonic or a third-party that can merge the GH2's MTS chunks losslessly prior to Avid import?