PTools can do many things to your GH2, or nothing. You cannot just launch PTools, dump firmware to your camera and be done, Ptools has many parameters that, if set in correct combinations, will improve your camera. IT is not just firmware that you dump, it is a hacking tool for modifying camera firmware. That is as close as you will get to what it "does", but as a hacking tool you can do many things with it.

Vitaliy and other hard working individuals here do a lot of work hacking et cetera, and this site is (among other things), the place where a lot of their communication and group work to hack this takes place. The things that Vitaliy has cracked open on this camera are amazing, so give the guy some slack if he's not super interested in walking every newbie through what his FREE hack tool is capable of.

OSgondar writes: "There is a good reason why every forum and thread and place like this on the internet starts of with a very familiar stickied thread."

I agree. And if such a stickied thread could be found here, it might have avoided a lot of argument.

I'd also like to mention that the first post in _this_ thread-- which, I'll assume, is the sticky-- announces the release of the latest version of the hack, plus a list of steps to install it. There is no mention of what it actually _does_.

@jeffryalan

No problem.
Find reputable member who'll promise to spend his time on writing and maintaining wiki page and
I''ll add it at https://www.personal-view.com/faqs/gh2-hack/ptool-software.

Agree. It's a mess; little snippets of very useful information burried in a wealth of posts. A wiki would be a far better format for a lot of this information. Either you devote days to reading through every topic, or you loose out. A wiki is not that hard to maintain and there is clearly a dedicated community here that could support it.

+ 1 for FAQ

@Brian_Siano Great post. I totally agree.

Let me explain why a simple FAQ would be of immense help. One of the concerns I originally had about the Stalin hack is whether it enabled 30 or 60 fps at 1920 x 1080 resolution, progressive scan. I know the answer _now_, of course. But to _find_ that answer, I had to read several dozen messages at least three or four different blogs devoted to the GH2 and other cameras, and evaluate a lot of contradictory information. Depending on who was asked, I learned a) that the hack _did_ enable this, b) that the hack did not enable this but it might be possible in a future version, c) that the camera _could not_ be configured to work that way, d) that the camera's mJPEG feature could accomplish this, e) that the mJPEG method was limited to about eight seconds' worth of recording time, and f) that the upcoming GH3 would _certainly_ include these features so wait until then...

In other words, I _did_ read through a lot of blog messages, as OSGondar demands. At no point could I regard any bit of it as definitively true or false, let alone complete.

And yes, some of these other blogs had OSGondars as well. People would wander in, ask a perfectly valid technical question, and be told by some angry kid that they had to read every blog post before even considering asking such "stupid" questions. And when people stop asking questions, that cuts down on the information content of the blog, doesn't it?

So I don't think it's stupid or silly or selfish to suggest that _this_ website offer an FAQ of simple and definitive answers culled from the blog posts. At they very least, we'd know it was _definitive_, as far as the Stalin hack's concerned. Otherwise, we're left with our respective Google-fu and a jungle of incomplete answers, rumors, and misinformation.

I agree with @pedro on this subject, you see @Brian_Siano this IS the official page to find out all that stuff, if you spend enough time reading the threads on here you will downright become a bit of an expert on the on all of your questions, spend some time reading on here and you will see that its true, how do you think the rest of got this far? I'm glad you liked my tutorial ( @greenshift ) but it should be noted i write about it assuming you are at least trying! but still having trouble.

On the other hand i guess you guys are right that there could be an easier way than reading a bunch of threads covering the topics separately but i will say ( @Brian_Siano ) that having the camera or not does not stop you from opening ptools and seeing the options & features it offers while you consider purchasing this FANTASTIC camera. I'm with the patchers and testers on this and spend time on developing and testing and cant say i sympathize much for someone that just wants the answers when we all put a lot of time in discussing the topics you are interested in. Those very topics and threads have all of your answers!

I am happy to provide my website to you and my videos that result of my tests and even the tutorials i write to make it easier for those who still cant manage, but i do that assuming you are at lease trying and putting in an effort, i don't feel happy about anyone demanding more tests and answers when all they have to do is read a little more to find out everything they need to know just a thread or two over. I'm sorry if you didn't like my response about downloading Ptool and seeing for your self, but its not hard to find the answers on here or my site or many others like it either, just a little of your time reading for A LOT of our time to get those answers to you. On my page besides the tutorial there was another thread about driftwood patches with VIDEO tests! http://osgfilms.com/gh2-driftwood-patches. As well as another post i did covering audio quality & it's possibilities. What more could you want? I definitively covered all the important stuff and this site as well goes into more depth on all the technicalities. We put a lot of work into this stuff for you and for free, you just have to put a little effort into consuming it.. surely you can see why we feel that you want to be spoon fed.

Look guys,

I understand that you would love to get spoon fed everything with a platinum spoon by a genie who simply tells you which camera to get but frankly I think everyone on this site has put in a lot of time reading through all the topics and working issues out on their own, and yes taking a chance and actually buying a Gh1 and/or Gh2 and seeing what it can and cannot do for themselves. And then coming back here for more advice and giving advice based on their work with the Gh13 and Gh23. In short this site isn't for people who want to be spoon fed everything. You need to take some initiative to read through what's already here and make your own decisions, and make your own list of what it can do.

At the end of the day this is a bit like college where no one wants to carry dead weight on their back. If you want to join the study group you have to kind of carry your own weight, get up to speed and offer useful information to this site.

If you want to be lazy about everything this isn't the way to go and the gh13 and Gh23 aren't a fit for you. But if you really feel a list should be made of the gh13 and the gh23, why not make a topic yourself and write up a list. It isn't a bad idea but I think you should take the initiative to do it yourself.

While the osgfilms.com site was very helpful in my successfully hacking my GH2, I too believe that, as Brian Siano suggests, there be a there be a page on this site that outlines the features and how-to of the hack. Since this website is a collaborative effort (under Vitaliy's supervision), wouldn't it be possible to have a sort-of Wiki page, with all the information one needs to successfully hack the camera and get the results desired in one place. It could be updated, refined, and edited by all the collaborators with the knowledge to bring new GH2 owners up-to-speed quickly and without the frustrations many new users experience? Even the GH1-hack-info wiki site isn't a collaborative effort.

@Brian_Siano This tutorial lists the key features : http://osgfilms.com/hack-the-panasonic-gh2 . I have posted this here before too. Have you ever considered instead of just complaining.. i dunno, DOWNLOADING IT? That will enable you to simply see what the options are... its not like this site has an abundance of information concerning what the hack "actually does".

Thank you very much for the ISO unlock. It's very handy!

I'm not sure if this has been requested, but would there be a way to enable AUTO ISO when filming in Manual mode (M)?

@driftwood

2 more questions:

1) So if the HRD error happens - what causes it? Anything I can control?

2) You suggested looking at L settings. Here is the analysis of my 24L setting from the same modified patch, at 44mbps. The actual video looks fine (not quite as good as the 66mbps, but certainly OK). It was a locked-off camera of a stage performance with lighting changes, using the 14-140 at ISO 320. I forgot to do the downward ISO trick, and this was quite a noisy picture, but ran (and spanned) for 45 mins before the card filled up. This was taken from one of the middle "spans". I'm guessing this doesn't look at all right to you. Does this basically mean I've got the buffer size too high for the bitrate? And therefore wasting card space? Or is it not as simple as that?

Hope you don't mind my asking all these questions. If there's a topic already here that explains all this, then by all means point me to it!!

Cheers