No. Only with external recording.

Both the GH2 and the GH3 record 25p video differently than 24p. In both cases, the sensor is scanned progressively at either 24fps or 25fps. However, with 25p, the AVCHD encoder first divides each progressive frame into an interlaced pair of 1920x540 fields. It then encodes the even field like an I-frame, and the odd field like a P-frame. Subsequent frames within each GOP are likewise encoded as pairs of P-fields or B-fields. This makes the 25p video compatible with European 50i broadcast standards.

The side-effect of this interlaced encoding technique is the possibility of introducing spurious interlace artifacts in decoded video renders. The GH2 fails to embed the proper metadata within its 25p and 30p HBR files to flag them as containing progressive video streams within an interlaced container. As a result, there is no explicit way that a video editor can distinguish GH2 HBR 25p files from FSH 50i files. In Adobe After Effects, for example, it is necessary to manually turn off the Separate Fields property in the Interpret Footage dialog of each imported HBR file to avoid spurious interlace artifacts.

With all that in mind, I invite you to try the HBR patch in Flow Motion v2.02. To minimize interlaced encoding discrepancies, I explicitly crafted its I-frame scaling tables to use the same encoding quality on P-fields as on I-fields. This produces results that in many of my test cases have been visually indistinguishable from 24p videos. I've included links to downloadable samples here:

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

HBR mode is harder to hack than 24p mode. HBR mode quality won't be quite as good as 24p, but it can come pretty close for typical shooting scenarios, assuming you interpret the footage correctly like lpowell said. The sample HBR frame you posted is only showing one field.

When HBR footage is interpreted properly, you should see little or nothing resembling interlacing artefacts. Can you post a raw MTS file for us to look at? It is not really an issue of metadata. There is no metadata for AVCHD to say that the video originated in progressive but is formatted as interlaced. It is just something that you have to know about the GH2's HBR footage, and manually tell your software to change the formatting back to progressive. GH2 24p footage and GH3 footage is already formatted as progressive, so there is no issue for those.

Try playing your footage in VLC. Pause it and step through frame by frame, and see if it looks any better than in your NLE. VLC by default will interpret all frames as progressive, which is the right way to handle HBR footage.

I could tell that your still frame was a single field because it was only showing half vertical resolution. Every other line was a duplicate of the line above it.

@balazer

https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=D1C536481F81198!797&authkey=!AM2e0bBOTzAuw6M

a little piece of footage trimmed with tsMuxeR, so should be original.

When I set seperate fields to off in after effects, quality increases and I get rid of the 'spurious interlace artifacts', but it introduces 'normal' interlacing artifacts (where there is normally motion blur, there are now lines..)

Its a bit strange though, with other gh2 25fps clips I recorded I don't get interlacing artifacts as soon as i set the seperate fields to off; is it a wrong recording mode I choose for this particular recording session?

thanks for your help by the way!

bZ

@Alex_K I'm not sure what you're referring to as "interlace artifacts", as I don't see any evidence of that in your still frames. In Flow Motion v2, as in all GH2 HBR patches, progressive B-frames and P-frames are encoded as separate B-fields and P-fields. When you turn off the Separate Fields flag in After Effects, it combines the fields into complete frames, eliminating interlacing artifacts.

I don't have a GH3 and I'm not sure whether its 25p and 30p are flagged with the proper metadata to indicate that they contain progressive video streams embedded in an interlaced wrapper. I know the Panasonic AF100's 25p and 30p MTS files are flagged properly, and After Effects has no difficulty distinguishing them from true interlaced video files.

@manstok, your clip is true interlaced, not progressive segmented frame. It was recorded in 1080i mode, not HBR mode.

@alex_k, I believe those artifacts are the result of the way the GH2 compresses the field pictures separately in HBR mode. It might help a little to use different hack settings, but what you have does not look too bad to me. Check frame-by-frame in VLC and see if it looks the same, to rule out an interlaced chroma upsampling bug in Premiere.

Maybe. I believe driftwood has GOP6 settings for HBR mode, and I've also experimented with longer GOPs for HBR 30p mode.

Okay, getting to technical for me. From now on I will shoot HBR for my 25fps needs, no more 1080i because of interlacing=sucks. And in after effects set seperate fields to off. Thx bZ

FYI GH3 108025p IPB modes - truly progressive (no interlacing)

Here's a good link for those who don't understand what's going on.

http://www.neuron2.net/LVG/interlacing.html