The series of AVC-intra bitrate hacks/patches by ‘Driftwood’ are getting crazy popular.
His latest servings include “seAQuake”, an AQ3, 166mb AVC-Intra patch. It’s quite stable, but you’ll need very good SD cards. The GH2 hack community recommends SanDisk 95mb/s cards. I personally have a 32gig card. But one thing to note is that it can only record in roughly 4:05 segments (equalling 4.3gig) – this is because the card can only record a limited chunk before it needs to go to a new file. But new tests seem to confirm that the 64gig SDXC version can record longer.
Of course, I was thinking how great it would improve anamorphic footage.
I did a quick test here with the 50mm roundfront:
Usually I output to Vimeo with h.264 at 10000kbps. So this time when I’ve uploaded this seAQuake footage, it definitely looks sharper and less muddy. I can’t put my finger on it but I know it looks way better than stock camera footage. Though, in fairness, I think the 66mb hack 3GOP is already good enough for me. seAQuake’s 166mb does seem like a bit overkill.
I also tried out EX TELE with it but definitely not advisable with these kind of lenses. Lomo’s aren’t known for their sharpness and the EX TELE function only highlights it more! Oh well, guess I do need to keep my eye out for a tele anamorphic lens!
I’m spending Christmas holidays in my native Ireland next month so hope to shoot more anamorphic footage with the GH2.
You can find all the popular hacks compiled here.
Thanks again to Vitaly Kiselev and Driftwood.
