ideally i need to shoot in 1080p

@nathang2008

I found Cake V2.3 to be the most reliable patch out of all the patches that I tested. It may not be the highest bit rate patch but surprisingly offers excellent image quality. In terms of reliability it really depends on the mode that you are shooting, are you shooting 24p, HBR30p or 720p? Driftwoods patches IMO offer the best quality in the 24p mode and are very reliable in this mode. However if you shoot in any other mode other than 24p you will run into problems.

Try out Cake V2.3 to me this patch is definitely underrated and offers excellent video quality. I performed a series of tests, including lowlight, detailed scenes etc. I have 3-GH2 cameras so I loaded different patches and just changed the lens so that I have the same lens on each camera. Being an anal person that I am I also changed just the firmware on the camera to make sure there are no variances due to using different cameras. Cake V2.3 consistently offered very nice video quality with a clean noise pattern in comparison to some of the other patches that I tried including the higher bit rate patches.

The only other patch that beats it IMO is Moon T-5 in 24p mode, but even in 24p mode Cake is really good. The only modes that I tested where 24p and HBR30p modes, the other test that all patches had to pass was the death screen. Cake is the only patch that passed the death screen in every mode 24p, 1080i, HBR30p and 720p. Most of the other patches froze (battery pull), or stopped recording in the other modes other then 24p.

I hope my research and time spent testing can help you with your decision. Otherwise prepare yourself for the long an arduous task of test after test after test. That being said I have 3-GH2's so I have Moon T-5 on 1 of the cameras and Cake V2.3 on the other 2 cameras.

Best Regards

@T2iRebelvsGH2LOUIS

Between 50-80Mbps it is very good. I found this patch to be extremely reliable in all modes whilst maintaining a fairly moderate bit rate. However, there is no doubt that Moon T-5 or T-7 is absolutely better in 24p mode. Moon T-5 also has a noticeably nicer noise pattern in 24p mode as well as HBR30p mode. So it comes down to tradeoffs with Cake V2.3 you have almost half the bitrate of Moon T-5 and reliable spanning in all modes, with a slightly noisier image (PIXEL PEEPING) not very noticeable in real world testing. Against Moon T-5 superior reliable 24p mode, more latitude in post for grading, and very nice looking noise pattern in 24p/HBR30p mode.

The only downfall for Moon T-5 is that it is unreliable in the HBR30p mode, of course this is really dependent on the scene that you are shooting. I had Moon T-5 HBR30p fail on me on a shoot with an overexposed white background with 2 GH2's rolling, it was really embarrassing. The talent finally nailed there lines and when I tried to stop the recording (One man show) I realized that both cameras stopped recording.

Luckily, I was prepared and had extra SD cards with Cake V2.3, but still I had to flash the firmware right in the middle of the shoot it sucked to say the least. To top it off the when we started to roll with Cake V2.3 the talent fucked up his lines over and over and over and this is with a prompter :-( Well, I got paid for this gig so I guess I shouldn't complain, but I just wanted to share my frustration with not having a reliable hack and what I experienced due to the hack failing on me.