In this moment, I need a camera, and my question is:

What's the most safest option to hack Panasonic GH1 or GH2? And wha'ts the most safest hack?

Thanks.

While Vitaliy, Nick and others have done wonders it's kind of a minefield for relative new comers to follow when trying to ascertain what firmware is what. There's so much information scattered all over the place it would make things easier to have some kind of a 'go to' centralised firmware database. What do you think?

I did read in the FAQ that perhaps I need to do with the version increment number, however I am reluctant to do that since the latest version of ptool says "1" should be selected, I am not sure if I should alter that field?

Thanks for any help!

1. Which hack would be best for a project? (Big Project, I am really interested about driftwood hack)
2. How to hack it properly? ( I have got few link but if you could tell me more)
3. What is GOP? (Details)
4. What memory card should I use for a high bitrate? (like for 176mbps)
5. What sort of camera setting should I use to get the optimum result for post?

DocZ

I just joined and contributed via PayPal. Thank you to Vitaly and everybody who has worked on these cameras for all of us.

I am new (as in brand-spanking new) to video. I hacked the G2 with an lpowell patch, and I got some decent results filming lizards off a tripod. So I got excited and bought a brand new GH2.

I found the "best GH2 hacks in one place" thread, but there is WAY too much information there for me, given my current low level of technical knowledge about video. I will learn more eventually, but at the moment I just need advice on a decent patch to get me started with the GH2.

I am interested in documentary-style video, although much of the time I will be shooting off a tripod. I will be shooting wildlife, and also documentary scenes in the streets of a city. I will need decent low-light performance from time to time. I want a good balance between high bitrates and long record times. I am also interested in time-lapse photography. I am also interested in guidance in the menus of the camera as to what the different settings are. Is this possible? I kind of fly by the seat of my pants with the G2, because the menus don't tell me anything.

Thank you very much for your help.

Bob

P.S. If this is posted to the wrong sub-forum, could you please move it for me? Thanks.

• A Newbie

Tried Mpgx's stable settings and wanted to revert back to panny's 1.1 firmware, but it's not allowing me. I even renamed the .bin file a version higher than what I had...Not sure if I misread the faq (it mentioned having to always make the next version higher numbered.)

Basically, I'd like to know what exactly this stable hack is doing for me over the 1.1. I was under the impression that image quality would improve and that I could shoot in lower light with higher ISOS. But, now I can't go back and check.

Comes my voice in the wilderness - well not entirely, but almost, based upon MOST of the posts I've spent dozens and dozens of hours reading!. What wilderness? Well, there have been so many plaudits evidently so justifiably warranted for the many successful hacks. And here I come, after having mainly experienced one failure after another, even with some of the best that our heroes (including Mr. Driftwood!) have devised for the awesome GH2.

And after lurking here for better than five months, and having been humbled beyond recompense with one failure after another, I have decided to throw caution, and myself to the winds, and make an appeal for some learned and experienced insights from the best (or even the worst!) of you, about the error of my ways.

In a nutshell, as the title of this indicates, I have faced total unreliability with many of the highly touted hacks - most that I have attempted result in anywhere from a few seconds or a few minutes of shooting, to an immediate crash - some of these just inexplicably and abruptly end, with the possibility of an immediate restart. Others crash the camera, total lockup, and even the on and off functionality can only be restored by removal and reinsertion of the battery.

Before I go further with some specific details, I appeal for some possibly useful response, not just for myself, but also MANY others who have had the same dreadful experience as I - and who have either been totally ignored with NO response, or who have been given very short shrift!

Now to the heart of the issue, with some hard, cold facts: 1) I have a GH2, purchased last November, which without hacks, (and a few hacks!) operates with total reliability. 2) The camera is fitted with either the 14-140 Panasonic Lens or the 45-174 Power Zoom Panasonic. 3) Various Azden wireless receivers/mics, camera mounted shotgun mikes and other accessories are used. 4) As advised here, again and again, the data cards I use in the GH2 are ONLY SanDisc Extreme Pro 95 MB/s, 64 GB. 5) Standard Panasonic Batteries are used, fully charged at the beginning of each hack load or shoot. 6) Established procedures for hacking are carefully and methodically followed in all recent tests, without exception. 7) And finally, AND THIS MAY BE THE PROBLEM, I shoot ONLY in Creative Movie - Manual Movie Mode, Smooth ("S" set to "-1", and all others to "0"), AVCHD (1080i), FSH - I say this may be the problem, since many, if not the most of the rest of you are evidently endeared to, and shoot primarily in AVCHD (720p) SH - and I have a strong, though entirely unsubstantiated notion that many of our talented hackers direct their primary design and testing with a focus upon 720p, for the "filmic" look?

I have been shooting in interlaced 60i since 1990. And then mini DV came along, and I shot in that with the Sony FX-1, among others, at the highest possible resolution possible, 1080i (60i), and then for several years used the Sony EX-1, full 1080i/1920, and was thrilled with it, EXCEPT for the blasted interline twitter and other artifacts, particularly when shot in HD and down rezzed to SD DVDs. Such issues were finally and beautifully resolved with the NanoFlash ingesting data at over 100 MBps - this is my main camera today, producing awesome, highly detailed, artifact free results, with exceptional low light performance. BUT, at its best, the GH2 (except with very low light and some lens anomalies) produces equally comparable results.

Here are the hacks that have passed EVERY "torture" test I've thrown at them (including very fine detail movement, exceptionally quick pans, etc.): - Flowmotion v1.1 - Sanity 5 - Driftwoot Cluster v1 (w Orion -AVC Intra Adapted - Matrox VBR) - Cbrandon 66 AQ20 - Panasonic v11 (Original, Second Program!)

Marginally Performing Hack (Marginal Only in regard to probable crash with high detail/movement): - Driftwood Sedna Q20:

Result in Totally Unacceptable Performance, Either with some or NO movement and/or Fine Detail:: - Driftwood Mysterion Standard - Very Frequent Crash - Driftwood Mysterion Burst - Crash - Driftwood Quantum x.v4b Orion - Intra Matrix - Crash Constantly - Driftwood Quantum x.v4 Orion CBR - Crash Constantly - Ralph B Sanity 4.1 NTSC - Total Freeze - Vanilla - Total Freeze

Sooooooooo, there you have it! As noted, the only Driftwood patch that fully passed was the relatively low data rate, 15 GOP. If you have read this far, I appreciate and thank you for your persistance and curiousity. And I would be most grateful for any insights that any of you might have!

Finally, before I go, I have two comments. First, at one point, prior to the only shoot with which I have used this camera, I spent some considerable time in testing several hacks, and settled on one which seemed to pass all tests and also provide superb results. BUT when push came to shove in an overseas assignment, and the only hack I had was this one, installed in the camera (no, I do not now remenber which one it was!), in shooting 1080i, it crashed or froze constantly. Having nothing else at my disposal, I shot in 720p FH, without any issues - I have not had the heart to ingest it into my newly installed Adobe CS6. Second, I intend to continue to shoot in 1080x1920 60i (or 30p, when and if reliably available.

Davidz, aka J. William Urschel

I recently purchased the GH2 after reading about the hacks available that push the quality of the camera much higher than the standard settings. Anyway, I'm doing my best to digest all the different patches that are out there, and trying to figure out what does what, but I'm it's quite overwhelming.

Sorry to a pain, but if some could give me a couple of patches to start out with, I'm looking for something that's tried and tested.

Thanks,

Jason

I believe it's a digital sound added to mimic the DSLR's.

Is there anyway you could lower it or perhaps switch it off?

Thanks

I'm new to this. I just picked up my new GH2 and after first updating the Panasonic GH2 firmware from V1.0 to V1.1 and doing some testing I then attempted to install the Sanity 5 firmware patch. I followed the PTools instructions. I downloaded Ptools and the GH2__v11.bin from Panasonic and opened the bin file in Ptools. Then I applied the Sanity 5 patch and saved the patched firmware as "GH2__v12.bin". After installing it on my GH2 I checked the firmware version and it still shows it to be Version 1.1 not Version 1.2.

How can I determine if I have actually patched the firmware? I would assume it hasn't worked because I don't see any change in the firmware version and can't tell from the menu settings if anything else is different.

I seem to be missing something here.

Thanks pundit.

The video codec settings sure could use some hacking! :)

Other things like IBIS with video when using an adapted lens might be interesting to hack in as well. The IBIS works with adapted lenses for stills - but not video as I understand it. Big bummer! I guess there are other areas which need improvements as well. And the OM-D is certainly a camera worth hacking IMHO.

Cinema mode is completely stable but isn't useable as I need to record at 720p for comparability issues.

I have tried resetting the camera which changed nothing.

The firmware is 1.1 according to the camera & I'm pretty sure that it hasn't been hacked.

I'm currently using a 16gb transcend class 6 card that came with a camera - sandisk card on order

Does anyone have any ideas/suggestions?

Any ideas?

Thanks rj

Any ideas..?? Also looking to download some more stable all around patches.. and maybe Mysteron.. Any idea where to download them?? Am i doing something wrong with my memory cards? I have the Sandisk EXTREME PRO 16GB 95MBs Card.. i don't see why its too slow.. Its the fastest out..

Thanks everyone..

thanks!

is anyone else having this problem?

I filmed passing trucks at the same speed with 1/250th shutter speed. I could not tell any difference in the angle of distortion between the two clips. A lot people think that rolling shutters only affect the video if the camera is moving. It will actually slant vertical lines if the subject is moving fast enough horizontally even if the camera is still.

I do not believe that using ETC mode over just the lens has any affect on the rolling shutter jello effect. Theoretically sensor readout speed is the only thing that could affect it. Using ETC mode should reduce the number of pixels that the camera reads. However, that does not appear to help at all. Instead it appears to read the entire sensor in the same time that it takes to read it without using ETC. Maybe it is just throwing out the data the ETC mode doesn't need?

Something that would make it to every photo you took via EXIF information. I think it would be very useful if we could use PTTools to define a small text signature (ex: "This camera belongs to John Doe, 1000 - Planet Earth, North Pole: john_doe@earth.org").

This way, if your body gets stolen and assuming there is a 50% chance that it ends in hack ignorant hands, you have a meaningful chance to see some traces of it surfacing the Web in the form of pictures taken with that camera.

P.S. - I posted here because my searches for feature requests threads were fruitless.

first I want to thank you all for the work you're putting into this project to get the best quality out of the GH2.

I was looking for a patch that allows me to shoot 25p with the possibility to grade the footage later on in DaVinci Resolve (after transcoding it to DPX 10bit in Premiere CS5.5). I'm only shooting narrative / commercial clips, so long clips are not necessarily needed.

I'm recording to SanDisk 64GB 95MB/s cards.

I don't want to change the hack all the time, also I don't want to use an unstable build. Which hack should I use, and which settings should I choose?

Thank you all David

let me preface this by saying how new i am to all of this. i'm sure there is already a thread for this, but i'm not sure where it is/ how to find it.

once i have loaded a patch onto my camera, how do i access it? or rather, what 'mode' is it in? i loaded in a driftwood patch and saw that it falls under the hbr slot, but what about, say, the aquamotion? will that be under variable, 80?

thanks so much.

e/

I only have typical cards, class-10 (Transcend, real speed - 16Mbyte to write and 16Mbyte to read). I almost do not do postproductions, but only store the original recorded video, as it is. Can you recommend the best settings to PTools? :

1. 720p/50fps c B-Frames with bitrate up to 34Mpbs with the best quality.

2. 1080p/24fps with the best possible quality with two options - 24Mbps (24L) and 34Mbps (24H)

3. 1080p/25fps with the best possible quality with bitrate up to 34Mbps (HBR)

4. 1080p/30fps = 1080p/24fps on the quality of each frame, but just with more frame rate and bit rate - up to 34Mpbs(HBR).

I tried switch to B-Frames in 720p, but always have error messages for bitrate limit exceeded (I set max bitrate to 34Mbps). Although the recording with bitrate up 36Mpbs with a 1080p/24 error does not happen.