[Carlos E. martinez]

A video file that will apart is not something I’m looking forward to. That was the main problem with analog video, which degraded with each generation, and I thought we had eliminated that with digital video.

Is there any way to prevent degrading?

You still didn’t tell me how many minutes would specific cards, the largest ones you can use on the GH2 and for the hacks, will hold in mjpeg.

[Carlos E. martinez]

Once again thanks for your comments, as they put a lot of things in the right perspective.

Bad news about the short capacity for motion jpeg. How long could I record and on what maximum card size?

How does that banding look? Can you show me an example? I would have to cause it an look for instances where it does show up, so I could learn to avoid it or see how to better cure it.

Can you elaborate a bit more on what problems should I have in post with the AVCHD codec?

I do not log my videos, probably because of lack of habit, and I never worried about learning about it. My fault, probably.

My camera of choice, if I had the money, would be the Sony FS100, which I think is a much better deal than any Canon or DLSR. But it’s over budget at this moment, and I would have to pay 50% customs tax to get it in to Brazil. Photo cameras do not have such a problem.

And I was (am still) considering the Blackmagic as a camera I might get through customs as a photo camera. What I like about the GH2 is that the sensor size is very similar to the BM, and its lenses might probably work fine on it.

[Carlos E. martinez]

Thanks, Fred. I had seen another thread concerning the GH2 and Avid, and I thought it was yours. It was Alan Howard. So there’s at least three people shooting, or considering shooting, with the GH2. 😉

Yes, from I have read I would definitely have to hack the GH2 if I buy it. I want it to shoot NTSC and PAL, and standard it doesn’t. The GH3 does not either, and there’s no hack yet.

Even if I live in an NT country, I shot this project in PAL because it’s easier to transfer to film if necessary. In fact when the Sony Z1 was released I thought it was the beginning of the end for separate TV system on cameras. Unfortunately it was not, and there’s very few cameras that shoot both, as they should.

Anyway, I never said the GH2 was better than the Canon 5D: I said it was excellent when compared to it, which I think is quite an achievement for the price.

About noise when shooting motion jpeg, I don’t care so much for it, as long as it “behaves”. I come from 16mm times, so grain is part of my world. One thing I did like about the GH2 is that it’s very much like super 16, and those s16 film lenses might probably work on it, if you can find any at good prices.

In my case the GH2 would be camera A, as I think it’s capable of a better resolution than the Z1. Particularly on focus fields. The only client in my case is me, as I do not work for others anymore. But it think it does have enough resolution to be the better image on the screen, all the others relating to it. As it’s a doc it wouldn’t be much of a problem.

Investing on a Canon system would be considerably more expensive, and I’m not sure it’s worth it.

What you said about the image is the only thing that matters to me. Audio will be that recorded on the Z1 or on a separate Tascam DR-07 recorder. So what do I look for:

1) Very good image quality, with as few distortions as possible.

2) Some depth of field on wide shots when shooting people close by.

3) Better resolution than the Z1 on a big screen, closing up as much as possible to 35mm film, even if from 10 years ago.

[Carlos E. martinez]

OK. DNxHD is also the format I convert my DV files too, and I will have to do that anyway.

It was advised to me not to use Avid to convert SD to HD, so I will probably use ffmpeg, as I did on my last job. Do you think there’s a better way to convert SD to HD?

[Carlos E. martinez]

Sorry to hijack this thread, but it deals with some issues I may be involved with.

I’m shooting a doc theater feature, which I started in 2007, shooting with a Sony Z1 in HD PAL. This a very low-budget, usually one-person band project, so I’m usually shooting wide-angle.

As a result DOF is wholly to infinite most of the time.

So I was thinking of getting a Pana GH2, which is affordable enough for my budget, and make it my Camera 1, the Z1 downgraded to Camera 2, shooting wide angle and recording the audio.

That should get me a shallower DOF, improve the general image quality for theater release and also a second camera to cut to.

The question is the post. I got some mixed opinions on the AVCHD format, being not so reliable. Would it work fine mixing the Z1 and GH2 formats? What other issues might I have?

[Carlos E. martinez]

So how did this story end?

I’m about to begin a job with MC 6.5.2 on my PC computer, and I wonder what will happen when I export it.

If things are not worked out I’d rather go to an earlier version where they are.

[Carlos E. martinez]

Moving to another camera or video system, even I’d wish to, is not an option.

So I need to maked it work… or not.

What I could find out until now is that OL 5 there is an HDV option on the drop-down menu. On my OL4 there’s no even an HDV option to record, which would be m2t or mpeg.

My main reason for OL was to have monitor and wfm on the same screen.

[Carlos E. martinez]

Thanks, Chris.

I am more of an Avid man than Adobe Premiere, but this might be a nice chance to have a look at a different editing system. A friend of mine uses all the time, and he’s the one trying to convince into full going with Premiere.

OTOS, I know most people are discussing CS6 now, but to go for it I would need a 64-bit OS which would not be possible on my laptop.

I looked at a simple learning Adobe video for OnLocation, and I saw it opens a Waveform screen and an audio level screen. There’s also a Vectorscope screen, but I think that’s less useful on location.

What I wonder is if it is possible to use just the full-screen for video.

[Carlos E. martinez]

Thanks a lot!

[Carlos E. martinez]

I can use version 3.0, which if I am not wrong I did install on this laptop some time ago, so I could view things on my plasma in full screen.

It did work fine, as I recall, but the use was very specific, as you see. Didn’t edit anything on it, just USBed the files HDD on the laptop.

So there were no major problems with the display.

The other problem is that the OS partition has only 3Gb available, which the MC will take 2.0 from.

That’s why I asked if, for this temporary use, with no effects or rendering, I couldn’t use latests Xpress version, which I can put anywhere. The captured files will be alright, won’t they, even if HDV? The edit file should be different, but when I go up to MC again I won’t go back.