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Help me choose the right hacks for a live event!
  • dishedishe

    I'm supposed to be shooting a concert in a couple of weeks, and I have a GH2, GH1 and AF100 at my disposal.

    Since the concert hall will be lower lighting than I'm used to, I think the GH2 (and GH1) would benefit from a decent hack. But I'm concerned about recording times- all the good quality hacks that I'm reading up on appear to be high bitrate, but I'm going to be recording for a long time continuously, and would like to swap SD cards as infrequently as possible. I need some sort of balance between image quality and file size.

    Also, since it is a live event, reliability is more important to me than it is normally (I don't mind fumbling around and experimenting on a shoot in a controlled studio environment, but this is different).

    I'm open to any suggestions, for both the GH2 and the GH1. Thanks!

  • 18 Replies sorted by
  • inqb8trinqb8tr

    Sanity?

  • mpgxsvcdmpgxsvcd

    If you have a solid class 10 card then Lpowell’s flow motion settings will work best for 1080p @ 24 FPS footage. You should definitely shoot @ 24 FPS because it uses a longer shutter duration(1/50th) that will help with the low light situation.

    Check Lpowell's ttopic on his Flow Motion settings.

    If you use a card lower than class 10 or perhaps if you have a good reason to shoot 720p then you might consider using the “No Adverse Affects” settings described in the video below. These settings won’t fail no matter what you do or use. However, the Lpowell settings will give you the best quality especially if there is noise and constantly changing lights or lasers that can trigger the codec’s fallback mode.

    Whatever you do I would record the audio with a secondary device like a dedicated inline audio recorder. Then you have the freedom to record in separate locations and splice the sections together and synch it up to the music. You can also take some still frames to inter cut in if there are gaps in your footage.

  • dishedishe

    Thanks for your replies! I've looked into FlowMotion, it sounds like an excellent option for high quality, but I'm concerned about the bitrate. I'd like to cram as much onto my cards as possible, since the concert may be 2-3 hours, and I have to share my cards between 3 cameras recording. How much time will flowmotion get on a 32GB class 10 card?

    Sanity seems like a lower bitrate, from what I'm reading. I want some sort of a happy compromise here.

    Also, as far as audio- I'm pretty sure it is being professionally recorded off the mixer by a sound engineer. I'll double check, but I think I'm covered on that for now. Thanks!

  • mpgxsvcdmpgxsvcd

    @dishe

    It is up to you to decide. Is quality most important. Is recording time most important. Or is reliability most important. You can get 2 of the 3 with either of those settings but nothing will give you all 3 in a low light situation.

    Personally I would use the flowmotion settings @ 24p in that situation. Just buy a couple more cards. The cards that work great @ 24p with those settings are dirt cheap.

    I wouldn't even bother using the other cameras unless you are going to use them as b-roll cameras. The GH2 with the Flow settings is simply far superior to those other cameras for image quality.

    You could use the AF100 for the audio though. Just put a 64 GB card in it and let it record the entire thing from one angle. Then you are free to move about with the GH2 and get high quality shots from wherever you want.

    You can mix the GH2 video in with the AF100 audio and use the AF100 video as filler for the gaps.

  • dishedishe

    Do you mean the 24L modes?

    I just read now that the 100Mbps is peak for the flowmotion higher bitrate (24H), but the lower 24L setting adds a bit more compression for longer recording times.

    Obviously I know I can't have both super-high quality AND long recording times, I'm looking for a compromise between the two. Perhaps 24L is the answer I seek. I wonder how much recording that will get me?

    As far as using all 3 cameras, perhaps I didn't explain earlier- this is a band playing a live concert to a sold out show, and are very excited about it. They want a DVD made of the concert, which means at least 2-3 cameras for multiple angles. The AF100 isn't even mine, I'm bringing in another camera operator with their own gear (the AF100) for a 3rd angle, at the request of the band. And again, I don't need to record audio, as I believe it will be professionally recorded by the stage technician right off the mixer.

    So, AF100 will be stock, GH2 I'm leaning towards flomotion, what do you suggest for the GH1?

  • SangyeSangye

    @mpgxsvcd "You should definitely shoot @ 24 FPS because it uses a longer shutter duration(1/50th) that will help with the low light situation."

    No, it uses whatever shutter duration you want it to. And if you're struggling to get enough light into your camera without too much ISO noise, it'd be foolish to set your shutter speed to 1/50 just to uphold a dubious filmmaking convention. If your camera is locked down and there isn't too much movement on stage, I'd set it to 1/25. Easily double your light!

    I'm not familiar with GH1 patches, but I'd recommend finding the best one that'll last a full three hours on the cards you have. Sanity in 24L mode lasts a really long time, but I was disappointed with the quality. Have you thought about just going stock? Stock isn't bad at all.

    Anyway, I'd have the GH1 and AF100 locked down getting two different angles, put a higher quality patch on the GH2 (CM Night is a good choice if you have a fast enough card), and move around with it to get creative angles, as mpg said.

  • DrDaveDrDave

    I recommend Flowmotion for the GH2 and my own Event Hack (24p) for the GH1. I have never had my Event hack crash INDOORS (no guarantees, but it is very reliable), and I have had only one crash with the Flowmotion, which happened at the very end of a 45 minute take, and all my data was safe. Normally four cams is a good number for an event. Flowmotion gives you a lot of room in post. My event hack runs at a slightly lower bitrate than Flowmotion so you get rock steady file spanning, 24p, longer record times, etc. Plus if you are shooting at ISO 800 or lower with a sharp lens you will get less grain noise. Flowmotion on the GH2 controls FPN (in general, and vs GH1) a bit better on angles where you have large, flat gray or dark areas.

  • LPowellLPowell

    For extended recordings of one-time events, I'd recommend using Flow Motion v2's 60Mbps 24L, FH, or H video modes. These modes work exactly the same as FM2's 100Mbps modes, with just a notch tighter compression. They also support reliable 4GB file-spanning on standard Class 10 SD cards rated at 30MB/sec and higher.

    In the Flow Motion v2 thread, I recently posted matching GH2 and AF100 Scene Files for recording in daylight conditions. These should work fine in daylight-balanced fluorescent or LED staging lighting, but probably not so well with tungsten lights. I'm planning on investigating that next.

  • mpgxsvcdmpgxsvcd

    @Sangye

    I guess we really need to know what type of concert this is. I was envisioning it as a more fast pace concert with singers moving on stage and lights constantly changing. Who knows. It could just be a guy sitting in a chair playing the guitar.

    Either way 24p is still the best option because if there is any movement at all 1/50th will still look good for it where as 1/50th or slower is not going to work for 30p or 60p.

    I would definitely agree with @LPowell's advice. I would use his 24L settings if spanning is important or the 24H settings if it really is a an environment with lot's of colored lights changing constantly. That type of setting is extremely hard on the codec and would require equally extreme settings.

    No matter what settings you use. I would try them out in advance. Test them on things you think will Tax codec and try them out in situations you think would be easy. I have found that the easy situations in dark environments are usually more taxing than you would think.

    In addition I would not record long clips. If 1 long clip fails then you could loose all of the data. Now I am not saying that any of the suggested settings will fail because I have never seen an error with LPowell's 24p settings. However, I do think it is better to be safe and record 1-3 minute clips instead of 1 gigantic 2 hour clip.

    Note that the battery will run out in 2 hours or less. How many batteries are you bringing. I always take 3 full batteries with me but I would love to have 4 just in case.

  • mpgxsvcdmpgxsvcd

    @LPowell

    Have you tried your settings in a rock concert type of environment? I would think that it would be very taxing on the codec. I know almost all of the Music Blu-rays that I have are terrible because they use too much compression.

  • LPowellLPowell

    @mpgxsvcd The reason Blu-rays do poorly with stage lighting is because illumination levels can change so quickly that the long-GOP encoding has trouble keeping up with the pace. This isn't a problem for Flow Motion, since its short-GOP encoding is optimized for capturing fast moving objects. I recently shot a 2-hour stage performance with erratic lighting and it turned out great, the only problem I had was staying in focus. For extended recordings, I'd definitely recommend buying two 64GB Sandisk 95MB/sec SD cards, they have been well worth the investment.

  • mpgxsvcdmpgxsvcd

    @LPowell

    How do I open the elementary streams and show the data like you have it in your post. Sorry I am just having trouble seeing the elementary data right now.

    Note: Sorry I figured it out.

    Click Use elementary streams for calculations in Configuration menu. Then click Make elementary streams. Finally Click Tools/Decode Video Elementary Stream.

  • dishedishe

    Hi LPowell, (thanks for responding- I started this thread before our PM conversation on the other forum)

    The concert is a Gospel band, with jazz-style musicians and a choir. Not exactly an 80's hair band as far as movement, but hardly just a guy sitting with a guitar either.

    I've thought about the battery issues- I have an AC plug for both cameras, so I'm hoping I can keep one of them over by an outlet as a stationary cam. The other, I plan to use one of these CCTV batteries that cheesycam recently featured: http://cheesycam.com/gh2-external-extended-battery-power-pack/

    Thing is actually, I don't know if I can get it in time- these things ship from China. :/

  • CRFilmsCRFilms

    I shot some footage with Cake on the GH2 at a convention a week ago and even with the stock 14-42mm at f5.6 and 1600 iso it looked good. Even then, I only got around 55m on a 16gb card, even switching to L mode didn't get me much more time. On the GH1 the 100mb Max lat patch will get you almost 2hrs on a 16gb.

    The GH2 is just way more data hungry, but gives you better low light. And ultimately no hack can fix the FPN on a bad GH1. The lens is more important. Try and shoot at F3.5 or faster and keep it at iso 800 or less, or shoot the GH1 in black n white smooth and you can use iso 3200 with a little NR.

  • 545rene545rene

    I also got a shooting of music performances tomorrow working together with a team that films with a panasonic sd 99 using iframe 960x540 which is not compatible with avchd material according to the manual. I m shooting with my gh2 cake2.3 and dont know what settings to use to be able to mix our material.

  • balazerbalazer

    What frame rate are they shooting in? You just need to match the frame rates. You can downsample your output to 960 x 540 in post processing.

  • 545rene545rene

    thxs. according to the handbook frame rate is 25 p

  • balazerbalazer

    Then you can shoot 720/50p or HBR 25p. Either one will downsample to 960 x 540 25 fps nicely.

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