@neveraholiday

I also think it's your card. I have the same card and those settings work fine for me. There are a lot of counterfeit cards out there.

Edit: I was wrong about using the same card as neveraholiday. Mine is the 32 gig Sandisk class 10 30 mb/s card and it works flawlessly.

@chauncy Yep, saw the thread. However, a lot of us are using these cards on high bitrate settings and we're definitely using the bitrate we've set (streamparser graphs), and for shots of good lengths too. So, suspect or not, the majority of us using them are having absolutely no issues with them at all. So. I see little point going over it again either, especially as there is a thread all about it, and you're the only person I can see questioning their ability whereas most of us have had no problems with them. Apart from neveraholiday who else has had problems with them ?

Edit: Don't get me wrong, as a result of the great information and research on the other thread I won't buy any of these cards again, I'll get something much cheaper. However experience so far shows that the write speed is definitely good enough for the bitrates we're running at for most of us. In fact I think the extreme III cards that get the nod in that thread are probably over specced for the 66M settings as these 45M Extreme Pros are definitely handling it.

I have a problem with the 66mb setttings. Works great with Sandisk Extreme Card 30MB/s at 1280x720 50p and 24p, but fails when using FullHD 50i every time. I am not shooting bushes of death either. I wonder if people aren't testing the 50i settings as they aren't usually very popular. Are most of the tests done with 24p?

What's even more weird is that I just tried the 66 with a class 6 card SanDisk Extreme 20MB/s card and it records with 720p and 24p but not 50i. Weird indeed.

So for me at least 66Mb is not working. I have gone to the 44Mb settings and these work on class 6 cards too

@stray It would be nice to know that really. I want the camera to work in all modes so I have flexibility in camera. Obviously one could have a load of saved firmwares for the different settings that allow for different scenarios. But as far as these threads go it would be great to see some disclaimers here or there.

@Vitaliy_Kiselev I'm happy to help with the PHP coding. It's been a few years since I've coded in PHP (I've since moved onto to Ruby/RoR and Python) so I may have to study whatever framework you're using (if any), but it sounds well within my ablilities.

720p Latest: Having done nearly 120 720p/1080i50/i60 combi tests most of which eventually fail either pappas/bush of death tests, buffer tests, we are still some way from finding ideal settings... the search continues.

@driftwood Sorry asking this, but what is you current best image quality settings? I would like to try it on my next work. Thanks!

Its nearly there... I know the correct buffer setting working on the minimum GOP and bitrate. I hope to have a 100% stable setting soon... Don't expect massive results.

@bdegazio I guess it comes as a bit of a bombshell - it did to me. Nope its AVCHD Lite implemention. Check your camera - select 720p - see the message scrolling upwards - AVCHD Lite. Poor man's version of 720p50/60. Its fields NOT frames you're seeing - doesnt matter what you think you're seeing - its repeated fields. This means you are seeing 25 frames and 30 frames respectively. However, we're gonna do our damndest to get the best bitrate to buffer ratio sorted. :-)

@towi I am using the 44mbit settings and they seem very stable in all modes. I'll try a hybrid 66/44 see how that goes

@driftwood:

720p50/60 delivers real 50/60 fps non-interlaced. It's encoded without B-frames by default. By setting "Encoder setting 1 720p=3" you can make it record real B-frame 720p.
Drawback is that you have to record at least a second of 1080p before 720p (probably to initialize something)

My tests show that stock-GOP B-frame 720p delivers absolutely stunning picture, with spatial resolution akin to Canon 1080p. Even better, you don't need high bitrates to achieve good IQ. It is very effective and 40Mbit/sec is plenty enough.

It would be very nice if Vitaliy could check what needs to be initialized before recording 720p with B-frames, so we can avoid shooting 1080p first.

All my tests for 720p are trying to keep it to P frames - and to work without having to record 1080p first. Still doing loads of tests... spreadsheet getting longer...