@5thWall Recently I've only been using Moon 5 (balanced or emphasis on wides), IV2 (maximum detail for moderate detail subjects) and occasionally Flowmotion 2.02 (for when I need especially predictable performance).

Moon 5 is really great about giving low bitrates on low-detail subjects. Sometimes the bitrate dropped close to what SMBU V1 would give on average but the results were far better. It really does seem to be efficient in the scaling.

@ 5thwall like you (and everybody else i guess) I've been trying to find that perfect balance. Bitrate, stability, quality, practicality. Since the release of Cluster X it's been a ping pong match for me between DREWnet V8 and Moon T5. (NOTE: I'm using the SanDisk 95Mb/s 64MB cards exclusively) Both have given me almost "firmware" stability - spanning, in camera playback, etc. An occasional stopped recording for longer takes (15 minutes with Moon T5 on 720p 60fps High NTSC) but no camera lock up where you have to pull the battery for either patch.

My humble opinion from personal testing: DREWnet V8 is exceptional all the way around. One of the main advantages over Moon T5 is file size. eg: If an identical movie recording file size is 3.1GB with DREWnet, then the same shot is going to be say...around 5GB with Moon. No big deal until you get a couple hours of takes strung together and find your B-roll is 25GBs with Moon whereas DREWnet would be around say... 13 to 15GBs.

In the end it's about quality to what my eyes see. Moon has me. When I reload Moon after shooting with DREWnet for a while, I'm blown away at the albeit subtle but fantastic quality of Moon T5. Beautiful, clean, edit and grades wonderfully in post with Premiere Pro. My solution to Moon's file size - I've upgraded my computers hard drives for a total of 6.5TB's of working space.

Hope this helps and happy shooting.

PS: Driftwood recently announced Moon T6 is coming. Can't wait to see how it performs!

I would like to report some issues I had yesterday on a wedding with "Moon" trial5. Recording at 50i with the SH settings to keep the bitrate low, GH2 froze 5-6 times and needed to remove battery. Camera on a flycam with the pancake 14mm & Sony wide converter mostly at f/8 with continues focus on. My SD cards sandisk 32GB Extreme HD Video 30MB/s, formatted first on a PC and then in the GH2. My question is, what I have to do so next time won't have the same problem. I need the best settings for motion on 25p or 50i (PAL BluRay). Do I have to buy the sandisk 64GB 95MB/s (not possible right now) or do I have to choose another settings for my SD cards.

@5thwall

The only downside I've seen for DREWnet so far is that it just doesn't scrub as smooth on my older i7 920, whereas Moon plays and scrubs almost like DV.

@sakattag76

I'd recommend you do what you need to do to purchase that SanDisk card. It's the goto card for ALL patches, I think.

New TV:30 shot with Moon T5

@kidgray Really nice grading! Really enjoy the framing if each shot. Nice, very nice.

@kidgray Very nice! Just a focus was a bit off in some of the shots. What lenses did you use?

@benzopilas. Thanx for that! We used a panny 20mm 1.7, Yashica 50mm 2.0, Canon 80mm. Shure some of the shots were little bit out of focus but mostly im loooking for expression in the pictures rather then perfection. Thats the reason. =)

Here's a problem I've been having recently on Moon T5 (overall I'm very happy with it):

On image areas that are basically uniform color and low detail, but somewhat varying in brightness (like a wall, or a white cyc backdrop) I will get really funky pixellation/blocking artifacts. Typically I can fix this in grading, but not always.

Is there a better hack to use in these type of settings? Maybe intravenus v2, or Drewnet?

@Oedipax @vicharris:

I tried to use Moon T5 for first time in ETC mode and I'm just shocked: in low light situation the image is simply terrible - ugly wide horizontal lines, banding and much noise! And I'm talking about ISO160, f1.0!!!!!

Any idea how to avoid this???