Driftwood Quantum X Settings, Series 2: Sedna A, B, C

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*** THIS IS A CONTINUATION THREAD FROM SERIES ONE CAN BE FOUND HERE

ALL PRESENT DRIFTWOOD SETTINGS LINKS ARE NOW INCLUDED BELOW ALONGSIDE THE SETTINGS - SEE LINKS. THANK YOU. ***

Driftwood Sedna 'Settings' for ptools 3.64d- Release 15th March 2012 ETA 01:00am

(Panasonic firmware v1.11 & ptools 3.64d '200212' required). Settings for GH2 & GF2 Lumix cameras. Stats: 24p Intra, 1080i/HBR Intra, 720 GOP3/GOP6 all settings as Orion with Sedna Matrices:-

A = High Detail matrix Good for Wide full detail shots.

B = Good allround detail matrix Great all round wide / mid shots.

C = Softer detail matrix Softer skin tonal detail.

*You can rename the set.ini files to suit your A to J button placements - just change the letter using right-click rename in Windows/Mac PC)

There's not too massive a difference between them - just fine adjustments. Look great on STD Picture Profile.

Two packs;- one pack set on AQ1, the other Q20.

NOTE: These are balanced high Quantised matrix settings disabling the need for pushing AQ to 2, 3 or 4 or lower manual Q

TECH INFO: Who needs 150M to pull off good looking pictures? You don't. Good to Hi quality Type 10 sdcards only.

NOTES: It seems a lifetime in a week trying to achieve the best possible bitrate, Q, matrix etc... settings to date. Sedna is the work of around 50+ odd hours of continuous testing with 4 GH2s working around the clock with different lenses, ISO's, shutter speeds and stopping up and down... but even that's not enough testing.

Some of these settings have also been put through their paces by @onionbrain (incredible and extensive chart work, thank you Andrew) and @thepalalias and I am deeply grateful for their reports. Per @thepalalias has also been of great help in assisting in visual testing and also for his tireless work testing audio. Therefore, I have included his latest 'Pasadena Pulse Audio V2 Beta 2' audio settings within Sedna - which I know he (and his team) have spent an age developing and getting right. I can vouch that they sound superb - bringing the best audio and recording mic setups available to date to the GH2. Well done fellas. They are to be applauded.

But a week's testing by so few of us is never enough to cover every single conceivable problem. And for that we rely on you filmmakers, documentary makers, videographers, and all to report back your findings.

Personally, I have been rather selfish - trying to achieve the best settings for my up-and-coming film project with the gh2 - fundraiser will be up soon ;-) Predominant testing has therefore taken place at 24p level. Although extensive work has also gone to achieving closeish HBR & 720p settings for users of those settings. I believe more time on these will be spent in the future.

The main objective of Sedna has been to look at ways of calming down the noise, knock down the overblown Reds whilst wrestling with the blues and without the colour space values of 4:2:2, 10bit et al, its near on impossible - we can only mess with the luminance and chrominance. Most of the testing has taken place in real world conditions - the others from my chart basics and the chart profile tests by Andrew @onionbrain. I think all of us testing so far have seen better performance than the stock matrix by Panasonic. Whether you prefer them to Orion or Dark Matter settings is up to you. After all, the human visual system means what's good for one is not the best for another. But now there's more choice.

But enough banter, soon it will be your chance to try out the new settings.

Nick

Driftwood 'Cluster' v1 With Orion (AVC Intra adapted) Matrix VBR 'Settings' for ptools 3.64d- Released 9th March 2012 1am

(Panasonic firmware v1.11 & ptools 3.64d '200212' required). Settings for GH2 & GF2 Lumix cameras. Stats: Upto 72M 24p, Upto 36M HBR, Upto 36M 720p modes. (*All REC MODES include B frames)

INFO: Very simple Long GOP cluster of i/p/b frames principle, Low Bitrate, conservative settings for all round use with a nice matrix for Type 6 card users. After so many requests from non GOP1'ers to provide the Orion Matrix in a Long GOP configuration I settled on this one to hopefully satisfy the need. I like 12 GOP / 15 GOP for Long GOP - as far as editing goes and converters out there, the Ibbpbbpbbpbb (12 GOP PAL) and ibbpbbpbbpbbpbb (15 GOP NTSC) is the most universally supported GOP structure outside of Intra. A nice cluster of i/p and b frames and appropriately titled methinks. Hopefully, this will keep long duration seekers, type 6 card users, and HBR peeps happy (though I doubt I can please all of 'em).

Driftwood Quantum X (v4d Orion) 'Dark Matter' Matrix Pack + HBR FIX - CBR 'Settings' for ptools 3.64d- Released 18:30pm 06/03/2012