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Spanning at 24H-- does this exist?
  • Brian_SianoBrian_Siano

    I've finally acquired a Sandisk Extreme Pro card, 95 mbps, 32 gig, and I'm trying to find a patch that will span reliably at 24H.

    I've been trying various patches, at 24H and 24L, and here are my results: Sanity 5.1 and Flow Motion don't span in 24H, but they span in 24L. Intravenus 2, Quantum 9b, Quantum 2 don't span in either mode. I'm trying Cake 2.3 right now.

    Now, I understand that one needs a Sandisk Extreme Pro 64gig card to be absolutely sure that spanning can work. I'm not sure why that is, but that's been reported. But others seem to be able to get some of the above to span on the 32gig card (for example, Quantum 2's supposed to be able to do it).

    So I have two questions. Is there a patch that reliably spans the 32gig card? And is this an indication that I got a bum 32gig card?

    ADDENDUM: Cake 2.3 seems to be spanning in 24H m mode. But my questions still stand.)

  • 19 Replies sorted by
  • LPowellLPowell

    Seems that the 32GB Sandisk 95MB/sec SD card is not quite fast enough to span in 24H mode with Flow Motion v2. For that, you'll need a 64GB Sandisk 95MB/sec SD card, which I've successfully tested for spanning in 24H mode numerous times. There is apparently an architectural difference in the 64GB card's internal driver that makes this possible.

  • tetakpataktetakpatak

    I've used some of the patches you mentioned very much in 24H mode so I can confirm that the spanning with Sandisk Extreme Pro SDXC 95MB/s 64GB card worked perfectly well with following patches (spanned always, so far without any exceptions):

    • Cake v2.3
    • Flowmotion v2.02
    • Sanity v5.1
    • TimeHBusteR alpha

    I don't use driftwood's patches anymore as they (although they indeed are excellent) "eat" memory space no matter if the situation needs it or not, without giving visibly better results than many other excellent patches which need less memory space.

    I need spanning very much so if you also need it, my advice out of my own experience is that other SD cards but the mentioned one will often mean waste of your energy and nervs. It is also important to start every shooting session with freshly re-formatted card and not to delete the files during the session. Shoot, backup card, re-format it, enjoy spanning :-)

    Added: I've used Cake and Sanity with all kinds of lenses, and Flowmotion only with vintage or new MF lenses (like Nokton), I find it important information because sometimes Panasonic lenses make problems as they make camera's CPU very busy.

  • Brian_SianoBrian_Siano

    @lpowell : That explains the 32 vs 64 gig span issue, I guess. Which means that I'll probably be getting 64gig cards in the future. (Ad it seems to be an issue with a lot of high bit rate patches, not just Flow Motion. But FM spans in 24L mode, with is still pretty good.)

    @tetakpatak : Thanks fore the heads-up: if I sink the cash into a 64 gig card, I can feel more confident.

    In the meantime, I can report that Cake v 2.3 does span on my 32gb Sandisk Extreme Pro card, in all modes:

    HBR, 47mbps, total time 1h15m 24H, 64mbps, total time 1h2m 24L, 50mbps, total time 1h22m

  • driftwooddriftwood

    Driftwood 24H settings span fine on decent cards inc the 64Gb 95Mbps and the older Sandisk 'HD Video' Extreme 30Mbps cards!

    I am currently analysing Peak bitrate 'Span~Kit' settings for a number of GOPs on the GH2 - more news soon.

  • SkyeSkye

    My Gh2 freezes after four minutes. I have Flowmotion hack, can it be unchacked or is there something I can do? Thanks Gerry gerry@skyeye.co.za

  • Brian_SianoBrian_Siano

    @Skye: It's probably your memory card. The only card that spans reliably with high-bitrate patches is the Sandisk Extreme Pro 64gig card.

    I'd suggest getting that card, or using Cake, which seems to span with lesser cards.

  • thepalaliasthepalalias

    @driftwood You might want to be more specific about which ones do. :) I have been testing spanning on a lot of them with the Delkin 633x 16GB (with a 80 MB/s write speed putting it between the older and newer SanDisk cards) and many of them do not span very often.

    But some of them really do so it might help him to know which is which. :)

  • driftwooddriftwood

    I'd asked people to report back on the Cluster Xs - not many peeps did. I did some initial tests & reports but I really havent got the time to spend span testing after the effort to get out the new settings ;-)

  • JuMoJuMo

    Health of the card plays a large factor too (as long as the card is actually fast enough for the hack being used). Try using the SanDisk SD formatter utility, format the cards at LEAST 2-3 times in a row with that, then a couple of times in camera.

    I've found card performance and reliability is most stable when this process is repeated every 10 or so uses of a card.

  • AzoAzo

    @Brian_Sano I have 2-64gb 45mb/s cards and 1-32gb 45mb/s Sandisk Extreme card.

    I personally think that you may have a fake or defective card because all of the 45MB/s that I have span reliably with Driftwood's patches in the 24H mode, furthermore with Cluster X Nebula 6b and Slipstream #3 the other modes span reliably as well. If I were you I would bench mark the card to see if it is writing at the speed that it is supposed to work at. I used the AJA system test to benchmark the 45MB/s cards and consistently get 38-40mb/s with the 64GB cards and 40-42mb/s with the 32GB card.

    I hope that you get it worked out... For me myself I just ordered the 64GB 95MB/s cards because I would like to use Moon Trial #5 on 1 camera and Valkyrie 444 on the other camera and have spanning work in the HBR30p/720p modes.

    Best Regards

  • kingmixerkingmixer

    I can report that I've had success with Driftwood's Cluster X Drewnet (t8) in 24H mode, in both wide and close-ups, spanning in recordings up to thirty minutes. Files can't play/delete in camera, but they showwed up on import. I haven't tested past thirty minutes – the gig didn't require it – but it may work well.

  • omnidecayomnidecay

    Driftwood Moon5 24h did not span on my SanDisk 30mb/s 8gig. However the footage looked great and recorded fine.

  • saltherringsaltherring

    I just purchased two 64gb 95mb/s cards from Sandisk via Amazon and am using Flowmotion 2.02 and didn't get any files to span. I formatted the cards in the camera before shooting but all the files are no larger than 4.29gb. Could I have gotten some faulty cards?

    @JuMo where do you find the Sandisk Format Utility you mentioned? I searched the Sandisk site and didn't see anything. Do you have a link you could pass along?

    Thanks!

  • inqb8trinqb8tr

    all the files are no larger than 4.29gb

    @saltherring

    Does your camera stop recording at 4.29Gb (One fat32 span) or it continues? If you get one or bunch of 4.29gb files on your card and the following shorter one that is the part of the same clip, that's spanning dude, you're fine.

  • CFreakCFreak

    @saltherring Have you tested the speed of the card with a utility like Blackmagic Disk Speed Test (or similar for PC)? That would reveal if it's a fake.

    4 years ago when I lived in europe I bought a CF card off Ebay which was a fake. I recall they had a few pages detailing how to identify fakes and to report them. I also recall reading that this was happening on Amazon. I also got a fake in a store (MediaMarkt, a big German chain store). If you are in the USA and can order from B&H in NYC, they are reliable, have excellent prices and a good return policy.

    It's the same story all over again. Read this: http://petapixel.com/2012/12/09/beware-counterfeit-memory-cards-being-shipped-from-amazon-warehouses/

  • saltherringsaltherring

    @inqb8tr ah, ok. yes, the camera continues to record. for some reason i assumed spanning allowed for larger clip sizes. thanks!

    thanks for the link and info @CFreak !

  • JuMoJuMo

    @saltherring sorry for the super late reply, it turns out it's called SDformatter (my bad). You can grab it here: https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/

  • kletkemankletkeman

    SDXC cards consistently writes faster than equivalent SDHC cards in the benchmarks I have seen, hence the inherent advantage for 64GB cards. However, that said, I was blown away by Cake 2.3, which I run at 24H (60Mbps outdoors) and can span on an old Class 6 Patroit (the super cheap blue ones) ... I tested it several times and it ran the battery dry. Unfortunately, I wrecked that magical card and now use inexpensive 64GB Polaroid PNY cards (40 bucks) to record. I have used Cake 2.3 on the GF3 as well and get 49Mbps outdoors, although obviously at 30p. Of course, dumping these cards is a long journey since they read at Class 10 speeds ...

    I presume that this may not help anyone who is reaching for the stratosphere as I have not tried these cards on FlowMotion V2 ...

  • macjanssonmacjansson

    Transcend 64GB SDXC Class 10 x600 model supports spanning using Flow motion 2.02. Just tried it out of the box and formatted in camera. Successfuly recorded 8GB with flow motion 2.02 at 24H in manual movie mode. Clips show up in OSX as one 8GB AVCHD clip? My card reader does not support 64GB cards though, says its a 32GB card with 64GB capacity, don't know if this will be a problem when recording past 32GB and trying to read from, and importingfrom, the card.

    This leads me to believe no spanning has taken place, am I right? The GH2 is working in exFAT supporting larger file sizes when using SDXC cards?

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