As someone who uses RED One, Epic, and Alexa on a regular basis (at least 3-5 days a week), I have to admit the GH2 is still a ways away from that quality. I'm still trying to master the GH2 which is a tricky beast at times, but even when I nail it with Driftwoods patch or any of the others, there is still some things about the image that just don't stack up to the big boys. Namely, the codec. RED is doing some amazing things to get all that information into a relatively manageable codec size. The amount of room one has to play with REDCODE RAW is incredible. Comparably, the GH2 is not nearly as flexible and that's to be expected based on the codec and where it is positioned in the market.

Perry and others who know me from Reduser can tell you I am pretty objective and I've defended some attacks on this camera by trying to put things in perspective. For $1000 plus a hack you get a compact, run and gun camera that allows you to shoot in ways that are even tough for Epic's form factor. I have stolen shots I could never have grabbed with a RED. But when quality is the top priority, I have no doubt which camera I'm reaching for.

@driftwood. I am having some issues with my SD cards and the Quantmebaby hack. Seems to stop recording after a few minutes. The Sandisk Extreme Pro HD Video 16GB 30MB/s cards seem most stable. The 45MB/s cards I picked up stop recording after about 4 or 5 minutes. I'll try low level format to see if that changes anything. I need the ability to record full capacity of the card when needed.So far, the most stable hack for me has been the 42/32 version. That worked really well with the cards I have. Lexar and Transcend have also been no gos with the 176mb/s.

Keep up the good work guys. I'm hoping to find a version of the hack that works on my cards and has just enough quality to use for those times when I can't take out RED. Seems like you guys are getting close.

@PerryWilson. Cage idea sounds good. I did order the Rewo version which should be here any day, but it is expensive, so I'll report back in another thread on build quality, ergonomics, and how it impacts my shooting with GH2. I'll also get around to posting some footage from Driftwood hack this week.

Are you guys uploading .mts files to Vimeo? Some of these videos seem soft and sometimes blocky. I'm wondering if Vimeo is compressing those .mts files more than say an MP4. Anyway, I may do a test of that too. I'll upload .mts so you guys can see original, and also MP4 to see what the compression looks like when comparing the two.

Steve S.

@Cosimo. I'd have to go back and look at my shots from Red One M sensor. I still think the 4K material would look better to me, but I'd also have the advantage of running it through new Color Science which makes some of my old RED footage look better than it ever did. The beauty of RAW I Suppose. I would probably agree with you about 2K. The key to 2K on the Red One has always been to use the sharpest lenses you can get your hands on (Master Primes being a good example) and making sure that the scene is lit very well. That allows for some pretty good 2K. But if you use soft lenses and don't give the sensor enough light it can look not so nice.

Is the reAquanted more stable on the cards? I'll give it a shot. Need to get the cards low level formatted first.

I-frames help with conversion to Pro Res

Not to beat a dead horse, but LowGOP means more iFrames which allows your NLE(Final Cut, Adobe, Avid) to better interpolate when moving to an All-Intra codec like ProRes.

IFrames are for editing and enhancing.
You may not see a difference in the MTS files but there is a world of difference between ProRess422 files derived from 24Mbps GOP12 vs 65Mbps GOP3.

Will hack fix this issue? noise.. artifacts..

http://postimage.org/​image/​q14b3k9wf/​full/​

Finally got my graphics card (cuda). Pure heaven working with Premiere 5.5, this is as fast as it gets.

Just reAquanted my GH2 :D . Did some stupid home-shots with home light at 3200 ISO - obviously really bad quality but way, way better than before (had already done some stupid shooting with the camera when I was bored at home).

Tomorrow I'll go record some stuff, hope I can show you at least tiny pieces of it. Let's see if that makes any of you want to come to Gran Canaria (Canary Islands) :P

PS: About the cards, it's all kind of a mistery. A lot of people has had no problems with Transcend's even with 176mbps, just as with Sandisk's. Of course, it's better Sandisk @30 or 45 mbps, yet again some people have recorded as said with Transcend's. I'll try myself tomorrow. Just remember that paying a tiny bit more for an SD card to be sure that you're getting an original instead of a fake is really worth it.

@smsjr what you're saying is that it's not spanning? 'Cause that would be completely normal no matter the card. 4 mins is the max we'll get with 176mbps firmwares for example, as it's about 1GB/minute.

@lolo the miracle is that you can record on the Kingston 8GB I guess, not that you cannot record on the 16GB one. Did you record the same stuff on both of them? Those are really slow cards...

@crackermd can't see the image

@Raysito22 yeap, i recorded the same stuff
but it may actually tells something about why the patch doesn´t work in all the cards??
but.. damn it those are the fastest cards i can get in a regular store in my country :P

@lolo let's see what the experts tell us about it. The only real conclusion up till now is that there are no problems with Sandisk's 30/45 mbps cards. Other than that, results are kind of irregular, though up till now my guessing was that a lot of people here buy stuff where they souldn't :P .

Probably your 8gb card is a miraclous one, since it's just 15 MB/S.

Anyhow, I guess you already know you'll have to buy SD cards abroad then, just as myself :P .

@Raysito22 but is a minimum of 15mb/s, the sandisk advertise with the maximum mb/s, so that maybe the issue here, for why it may not be a miracle that the 8gb works fine, but still doesn´t resolve the issue of why the 16gb doesn´t work

but of course hahah "let's see what the experts tell us about it". :)

GH2 INTRA Demo: Guys, its time for me to ask a favour.
I would like to put together a demo of the GH2 in INTRA mode to show off various settings for a Driftwood (Vimeo & downloadable) Spectacular to show its capabilities. I would like as many different scenes, lenses, EX Tele, iDynamic, etc...

The subject matter can be anything so long as it only ONE scene location and lasts a maximum of 10 seconds. I want a collage of great variety to put together from around the world. Can be landscapes, wildlife, water, trees (groan!), people, whateverthef@ck you want (within reason!)
You may have already filmed something spectacular which this would be good for.

But it has to be filmed in ANY of the INTRA settings posted by me or adapted by yourselves.

So those interested private message (PM) me with a link to your mts & graded file (pro res HQ minimum) - the location, the lens, the extra settings, etc... etc... The link must be on a fileshare site for me to download so that we can edit in your original mts/proresHQ with the rest.

Any titling will be put on by my editor following the details & specs you supply us. Therefore,everyone will get a credit on the footage so no problems :-)

And take great care getting perfect exposure for the subject required!

Cutoff date: 10th November 2011.

Thanks,
Nick Driftwood

Driftwood,
Just think of the landscape and visuals coming from world wide.
All in one clip, fuck yeah!

Brilliant idea!

@PerryWilson I'm sure you can donate to the cause 10 seconds of your most spectacular footage! :-)
@bkmcwd thanks mate - that would be very cool - love your hand-built steadi. :-)
@proaudio4 thanks pro.

UPDATE: There is a special thread for this lill' project at
http://personal-view.com/talks/discussion/1268/gh2-intra-demo-its-collaboration-time#Item_1

Please say 'Aye' there if you want in.

Forgot to put that it was shot using "Smooth" with everything @ -2