I looked back at your video in the original post and it does exhibit quite a lot of this nasty banding in the highlights, where it jumps straight from blown-out white to a wide band of pale cyan (for example at 3:00 to 3:11 or in the bubbles at 5:23). Was that all shot with an AVCHD hack? I'd say my old Z1 handles blue-water highlights better at 1/5 of the bitrate. I'd be interested in seeing any shots using MJPEG that demonstrate improvements in that highlights range.
Fingers crossed that the GH3 improves in that area, will still be as hackable, and resolves those lock-ups.
Thanks for the answers.
I looked back at your video in the original post and it does exhibit quite a lot of this nasty banding in the highlights...
Was that all shot with an AVCHD hack? I'd say my old Z1 handles blue-water highlights better at 1/5 of the bitrate. I'd be interested in seeing any shots using MJPEG that demonstrate improvements in that highlights range.
Fingers crossed that the GH3 improves in that area, will still be as hackable, and resolves those lock-ups.
Until the last trip I've always shot using AVCHD. The overall quality of the HBR video has always been good...but the color banding just became too unacceptable. It's actually a disgrace that Panasonic let that get through to production. Turns out it's not the camera...just a crappy implementation of H.264. The fact that there's virtually no banding even under the most extreme lighting conditions now that I'm using MJPEG proves there's nothing wrong with the hardware. I'll get some new videos posted on Vimeo as soon as I get the time.
The GH3 will almost certainly be using AVCHD 2.0...but it remains to be seen if Panasonic bugger that up as well. I hope the rumored removal of MJPEG is not true. I've come to like it much more than the AVCHD (not just for banding issues but the color "purity" is nicer and I'm liking 30 fps).
I think Pana have given up trying to prevent the hack...but there's no guarantee of avoiding lock-ups since there's always going to be extremists like me who are determined to push the hackable cameras to the limit of what they can handle.
HDV,
Is ur MJEP video ready for us to see ?
My NEX7 also AVCHD can handle highlights, strong sunlight etc etc decently well. No banding and no white "solar" balls and no compression artifacts white meeting blue.
I am kind of confused you pointed out AVCHD as the problem. On consumer level gear , Panasonic and Sony who owns the AVCHD uses the same AVCHD, but on the auto exposure of the camera, I bet to each of their own choosing. Sony probably understood UW environment better than Panasonic.
