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GH5s, Timecode and VFR issue


Hristo Kavalov
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Hello guys, sharing some experience and glad to hear if this is normal or something not well thought by Panasonic.

I shot a concert last Saturday and decided to use the GH5s Timecode feature (first time in my life I count on that, normally I sync to audio).

So I shot mainly with Timecode "Free Run", and I had set Custom profile for 100fps VFR to easily switch across realtime shooting and slow-mo. Everything looked fine until today I realised and the produced timecode is unusable BECAUSE:

Turns out, that when VFR is enabled timecode "Free Run" isn't available and it shoots in "Rec Run" which I somehow looked normal and I predicted that I do not count on the timecode of the Slow mo VFR enabled files. But The big surprise is this:

If you start to record for example at 18:00 oclock at 50p VFR disabled and record for 5 minutes till 18:05h everything is fine
Then at 18:06h you switch to 100fps VFR enabled, the camera freezes the Timecode to that time 18:06h you shoot what you shoot in slow mo and may be scratch your butt for a second and at when you turn back to manual profile with VFR disabled the Timecode resumes from 18:06 even though it might be already 18:30h.

Multiply that by a few switches between manual video mode and some custom mode with VFR enabled and you've got some huge unpredictable delays and time of code completely useless.

The VFR enabled profiles act as PAUSE of the timecode.. I think this is horrible, may be I am a dumb ass since I use the timecode for the first time and this is normal, but to me it looks very unintuitive to expect.
If this is something firmware related I will look where to give feedback.
So, share your knowledge or opinions please. Thank you.

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5 hours ago, Hristo Kavalov said:

The VFR enabled profiles act as PAUSE of the timecode..

This is normal behavior across many cameras for timecode to become irrelevant, because off speed = MOS

5 hours ago, Hristo Kavalov said:

Then at 18:06h you switch to 100fps VFR enabled, the camera freezes the Timecode to that time 18:06h you shoot what you shoot in slow mo and may be scratch your butt for a second and at when you turn back to manual profile with VFR disabled the Timecode resumes from 18:06 even though it might be already 18:30h.

And here is the core problem as to why the GH5S is flawed:

The GH5S doesn't check the external TC source. You jam it, and then it ignores it! Shocking. 

Still, as a general rule of thumb I do try to double check the camera (even if a proper pro camera like ARRI) after it has done some off speed shooting just to be sure the timecode is back to normal. As you never know when it might glitch out on me, or some kind of human error has crept in (for instance I've had an AC change the FPS back to 24fps but leave the project frame rate still at 60fps!! Pretty useless work by him.... but luckily I caught this before too much harm was done)

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3 hours ago, IronFilm said:

This is normal behavior across many cameras for timecode to become irrelevant, because off speed = MOS

And here is the core problem as to why the GH5S is flawed:

 

What is MOS and why is this normal behaviour? If two cameras are shooting both of them should switch to VFR mode exactly on the same time and after that switch back exactly on the same time to profile where timecode is ticking to be in sync?  I dunno what is MOS

In this case, doesn't check the internal source as well. To me this looks something not thoughtfully considered. Timecode can be manually set by Current Time and from there on whatever delay happens by the PAUSE of the VFR enabled profiles (by pause I mean pause, the time code freezes when you are not shooting and counts up only when shooting which is also awkward cause it counts with the speed that you record in), so if you record 1 minute at 240fps it records 10minutes in the timecode ahead of the time. May be this is some sale move to buy two GH5s cameras, one for the slow mo and the other to use reliably the timecode, or to get rid of them and investigate if Sony is well with the timecode and buy a Sony.

 

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8 hours ago, Hristo Kavalov said:

What is MOS and why is this normal behaviour?

MOS = means "no sound"

Anything off speed is kinda expected you won't be recording sound.

 

8 hours ago, Hristo Kavalov said:

May be this is some sale move to buy two GH5s cameras, one for the slow mo and the other to use reliably the timecode, or to get rid of them and investigate if Sony is well with the timecode and buy a Sony.

GH5S is the only stills camera in the world I believe which even has the option to jam an external timecode source. 

If you're looking at buying a new Sony body with a timecode I/O built in then you need to buy at least a Sony PMW-F5 (or get the XDCA back for the FS7)

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Don't praise on that. Jam timecode that is inconsistent and goes out of sync every 40 minutes. Jammed once and never checking again and as we see turning VFR enabled modes hits pause of the timecode which makes unpredictable behaviours externally or internally timecoded. It can be useful if u use jut one profile on all of the cameras but this kills the customisation features, like the C1, C2, C3-1-2-3, profiles on the dial switch. Or after every shot whith VFR you have to go to the timecode setting and set timecode again on the current time to recorrect it.

This looks like just bad implementation and if it is possible to be fixed will be very convinient and make timecode reliable and usable, I wrote some mail to the support but since the responce was autobotic to check the firmware page I dunno if it will reach human eyes. (I installed latest firmware 1.2 as it was released of course). I always thought why the cameras don't have the option to name the files with the time they were started... for example 154302253.mp4 for hit record at 15:43:02:23, then inpoint on a timeline will be the filename, of course the software might not support that, but some script can do it.

 

 

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59 minutes ago, Hristo Kavalov said:

Don't praise on that. Jam timecode that is inconsistent and goes out of sync every 40 minutes.

We both agree it is badly implemented. (I'm just giving Panasonic credit for trying..... they're the only stills camera which has even made half an effort)

But we just disagree for why it is bad, I'm pointing out that it is because the GH5S never stays locked constantly to the external source, and you haven't quite caught onto the fact yet this is my key point?

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yeah, I got that.. I saw reports/ videos when researching the timecode features but I were not aware of that VFR pause anomaly and I wondered on the timeline after that, and quickly found out what's going on but it is very unexpected cause when you are an experienced videographer you try your best to supply good footage and use all the cameras optimizations for that, like the Custom profiles on the dial switch and all the stuff that makes us react fast and jump around settings without much click waisting time. It just looks this can be changed with a firmware update and what scares me that it might won't be adressed. Thank you for the participating in the thread ( :

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