Because my English is poor, there may be many unclear things, but I do my best in some questions to answer enduringly.

Series1: http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/2960/an-valkyrie-golgop3-13-gop3zilla-natural-freeze-less-reliable-all-round-gop3-settings-/p1

[The common feature of my settings]

For example, if some setting tries to use low qp with the frame size limited like Intra, many level lines of the high qp macroblocks will also appear in each frame pictures. Although it is unclear for appearance in looking with eyes, it means that the codec is not committing this correctly. I am making the settings which can use the lowest possible qp appropriately, avoiding this isuue by using the biggest possible I-frames. On the high detailed scene, if the minimum qp is too low, the range of qp will spread and, as a result, many of these level lines of the high qp macroblocks will appear.

Therefore, in my settings, on the high detailed scene, it has adjusted so that the minimum qp may become high appropriately. On the other hand, it has adjusted so that the lowest possible qp can be positively used under the lowlight. I think that 3GOP can realize this all-round performance with the motion. Therefore, when using my settings as only for lowlight, you may feel thing insufficient only a few, although sufficient dark place performance is still given. However, also in a bright scene, the codec hardly wavers with my settings. This is the point that especially I am scrupulous.

And

My top priority is "recording does not stop by any means in any situations."

*The issue which the high bitrate hacked GH2 cannot often span more over 4GB is not contained in this.

In order to adjust so that recording may not stop in a high stress scene, you have to test supposing the stress beyond it. I have spent many hours also on the torture test for it.

I understand that this test exceeds the stress assumed practically. However, in the settings which cannot clear this test, the Risk of Freezing Camera momentarily practically is large.

Moreover, although the issue of "freezing the moment a focus suits" is recognized in many other GH2 settings, about it, it cannot necessarily solve only by this test. I have also solved this issue now by the test which repeats focusing for several minutes.

I aim at the setting not freezing.

If my settings may become unstable with SanDisk 95MB/s SDXC, please give me feedback.

*The spanning is possible perfectly in 24p with SanDisk 95MB/s SDXC.

These features are common in almost all my settings.

REMEMBER: IF YOU USE THESE SETTINGS PLEASE MAKE A DONATION ABOVE TO VITALIY KISELEV FOR HIS TIRELESS WORK IN MAKING THIS HAPPEN. THESE SETTINGS ARE TOTALLY DEDICATED TO HIM. THERE ARE MANY QUIET USERS OUT THERE WHO HAVE NEVER BOTHERED OFFERING ANYTHING. PLEASE, PLEASE HELP TO KEEP THESE HACKS GOING. NO MORE DONATIONS = NO MORE SETTINGS. IF YOU HAVE MADE A SMALL CONTRIBUTION IN THE PAST, NOW IS THE TIME TO DONATE AGAIN. Thank you, bkmcwd

Again, special thanks to @driftwood, @cbrandin, and of course @Vitaliy_Kiselev! :-)

Welcome to Apocalypse Now and two new matrices researched & supplied by Chris Brandin - adjusted by Nick Driftwood & bkmcwd and incorporated into a new selection of top quality settings - each tested by our 'Apocalypse Now' Beta team.

The theory behind the 444 matrix is an attempt to simulate a process that turns the codec into the equivalent of 4:4:4 encoding.

Many people complain about the “video” look. In part, this is caused by excessive sharpness and rather “crunchy” rendering of gradations.

These matrices are designed to soften the image and improve gradation rendering (smoothness). The softening was specifically targeted toward Panasonic lenses (or other, modern 4/3 lenses) – which are very sharp. Many people use soft lenses wide open to get a more “organic” look. The '444 Soft' and soon to be released 'Cinema Smooth' matrices were designed to provide some of that effect with the sharper Panasonic glass.

So, if you are using only soft lenses with the '444 Soft' matrix settings that amounts to double softening - and that may be too much in some cases.

In this scenario we will be providing a series of sharpened 444 matrices to offer a bit more balance between soft and sharp lenses (the first of which can be found in the Cluster v7 444 Sharp settings).

The factory matrices render detail rectilinearly, which results in more detail along diagonals than at right angles. Film renders detail the same at all angles. These matrices were designed to more closely render detail the way film does.

The ‘444 Soft’ versions of the matrices render color and luma detail with the same resolution. The effect is that detail, although softer, is rendered in a way that is similar to a 4:4:4 color space. This is accomplished by lowering the luma detail and raising the color detail. It’s not exactly the same as 4:4:4 – but its close.

The best way to test these is with sharp lenses because the entire design goal was to be able to produce a more filmic, organic look with standard optics instead of having to use soft lenses.

Older lenses designed before the digital era will nearly always be somewhat soft with digital sensors. This is because of the way the image is presented to the sensor. Film era lenses supply the image to the film/sensor at all angles. This worked because film is relatively flat compared to digital sensors so it doesn't matter at what angle light is presented. Newer lenses are designed to present the image to the sensor at a right angle - which is necessary for optimal sharpness with digital sensors.

The ‘444 Sharp’ versions of the matrix render color and luma detail with, of course, sharper detail. This is accomplished by lifting the luma detail from the softer 444 variation whilst retaining the color detail of the 444 matrix.

The best way to test the sharper 444 setting is with manual lenses because it slightly compensates for the somewhat softer matrix without overloading it and looking video-ish. This setting may need further adapting so look out for more adjusted matrices soon – and please give us feedback.

The 444 matrix set could also be good for green screen work – assuming, of course, that it still results in QP values of 16-18. Although this matrix is mainly directed at longer GOP's even the Intra based settings at mid to tight scene shots should produce exceptional results (as far as our tests go). The only problem we foresee with the Intra setting with these '444 matrices' is if there is a lot of detail and not enough light the range of Q values will vary greatly - beyond +-4 (the bitrate required to make Intra fully utilise this matrix would be greater than 250M). With Cluster's Long GOP implementation, prediction sampling affords us to use lower bitrate to achieve the same quality as top-end Intra.

The initial design of the Chris Brandin's matrices were intended for 1080p24 modes only but we've provided similar matrix versions in HBR/FSH and 720p patches anyway to see how people receive / perceive them. You will see that the encoder settings of all the 'Apocalypse Now' releases have been fine-tuned or rewritten from the ground up - including detailed analysis of data rate bandwidth, Rate Control, GOP weighting, etc - to bring even better performance.

The Cluster v7 '444 Sharp' releases have been tested under iA and iDynamic on their top settings - if you are of the consensus that you DO NOT require intelligent modes iA/iDynamic, we have decided to offer you additional 'AN' settings that make use of this bandwidth in the basic encoding patches and provide stronger GOP weighting - at the risk of failure in Intelligent modes.

The second Chris Brandin defined matrix, 'cbrandin Cinema Smooth' will be incorporated inside forthcoming Apocalypse Now settings. Details and info TBA.

We hope that you like these settings, a great deal of time and effort has gone into making what could be the last in the line of GH2 hacks with the announcement of the GH3 in the pipeline. Finally, a HUGE thanks to our team of Apocalypse Now beta testers for putting in the hours and testing dutifully.

Thank you guys,

cbrandin, driftwood & bkmcwd

CREDITS

These settings are dedicated to VK @Vitaliy_Kiselev and to all GH2 hack users. Long Live the GH2!

IF YOU DOWNLOAD THESE SETTINGS PLEASE PAYPAL DONATE (ABOVE) TO VITALIY FOR HIS BRILLIANT & TIRELESS WORK ON GIVING US THE HACK & PATCH TOOLS TO MAKE THESE POSSIBLE.

UPDATE: NEW EXPERIMENTAL SETTINGS CAN BE FOUND ON THE DRIFTWOOD EXPERIMENTAL THREAD 2