Just back to PV after a long absence and looking for a place to begin again (though not a beginner).

•PT v3.66d? As this is the new PTool, should I use this for my GH2 hacks or stick with 3.65? Vitaly has set in 'BOLD' step #7 which is to read the faq's, yet v3.66 is not even listed (as of this post).

•Why is GH1 is still the name of the link for the firmware manipulation tool? (confusing)

•Why is the link to the firmware update download still unnecessarily convoluted?

•The "Simple "Instructions" still list GH1__V13.zip rather than a generic camera setting file which adds to uncertainty as to it's applicability to current camera models, wasn't that written months ago?

•The Hack Vault is three months stale even though there seems to be a plethora of ongoing hack settings, and all recent efforts seem to be towards the GX1 hack. Is there a comprehensive up to date hack chart that I am missing?

•Are there established procedures for mixing and matching settings that are widely accepted? Any other basic concerns for non newbie users that aren't on the faq page and should be?

p.s. thanks Vitaly for your instantaneous response, deleting my original post and sending me to the correct topic heading where I am sure all the experienced pro's in charge of administering and editing PV will be eager to explain the current entropic state of the Hacks topic and faq's and quickly answer all my queries!

cheers- J

I've been told to post here, so here it goes.

I've produced a new GF3 firmware with a hacked bitrate. I saved the file as GF3__V13.bin (it's GF3__V12.bin at the moment) into the root of the SD. When I power on and press the play button the update progress does not start.

Battery is full. Any ideas?

A question about log and transfer into Final Cut for hacked footage. I've been looking for answers on this forum, but it's hard to find anything completely clear.

I'm using FCP 7.0.3 and shooting with @cbrandin's 44M/32M AQ4. Is the best way to work with the footage in FCP to transcode to ProRes 422 using Clipwrap?

I've seen some people say that FCP recognizes their hacked .mts footage, but this doesn't happen for me. Before I hacked the camera, I could log and transfer in FCP with no problem.

I prefer to keep using Final Cut. What do others in the same position do?

krotal, I don't understand your question. You say that the footage looks fine with 5DtoRGB, which means the hack is doing what you want. There shouldn't be any reason that you can't grade that footage. If the problem appears after using After Effects, then it is an After Effects problem, and nothing to do with hacking.

palmiuga, try menu, setup, reset. If that doesn't fix it, I'd guess you have a defective camera.

Hi, I use my gh2 with flow motion 2.02. When I want to shoot photos with burst I occasionally have a crash: after the last photo of the series, the shutter blocks, I must shut down the camera to open it again. Can you help me?

@SilverPepper There are different opinions regarding your question. I'm assuming, like alcomposer, that you're asking about "film modes". I would also add that Standard and Vibrant (and Cinema) are legitimate choices as well. I stay away from Nostaligc except in circumstances when I want the specialized look it provides.

Also, @cbrandin has a particularly insightful breakdown of some things related to filmmodes related to the gh2 from this thread: http://personal-view.com/talks/discussion/737/gh2-hack-myths-and-realities#Item_45

Here's the relevant passage, which I'm quoting:

"Setting noise reduction in the camera is bad. Not necessarily true. If you are shooting at high ISO’s more noise will be produced. The codec has to work hard reproducing this noise, and you’ll end up just crushing the blacks or doing noise reduction in post anyway. Applying some noise reduction in camera under these circumstances can be very helpful because the NR is applied before video is encoded and you are not consuming codec bandwidth reproducing noise.

The camera should always be set with Contrast at -2. Not true, the camera’s contrast should be set so the histogram shows the entire range being used. If you always set Contrast to -2 low contrast scenes will have poor gradations because you have set the dynamic range artificially low thus limiting the number of bits being used for the image.

In camera saturation should always be set to -2. Not true, for the same reason given above.

In camera sharpness should always be set to -2. Absolutely correct! Sharpening produces fake detail which the codec will have to work hard to encode. Sharpening is always done better in post."

I think Chris is right about all of this (the point about noise reduction in particular is way overlooked in my view). In the end, though, it's going to be your personal tastes that dictate what you use. Happy shooting!!!

thank you @matthere!

I have a question!

First, thank you so much for the hack and patches -- great work!

I just installed the mpgxsvcd "all stable" patch with the hack and am wondering what movie settings I should use.

Thank you!

What ss should we use in VMM 80% (uses 24p settings but records in 30fps)? should it be multiple of 24 (so ss 25-50-100 etc) or of 30 (ss 30-60-125 etc.)?

Is it possible to get 25p 1080 and hacked compression? It seems 25p is only in HBR in firmware1.1 and that HBR is not affected by the hack?

Hi does anyone have an issue with Auto ISO? In shutter priority mode when I try to set the Auto ISO limit nothing changes, it always exposes to 6400 regardless of whether I force the limit to 200/400/800/1600/3200/OFF.

Always something new to find about my GH2. I am flying my GH2 on a Hexakopter, and have set up a video downlink which uses the AV output (not HDMI) of the GH2, so you can see the POV of the camera while flying. I was very frustrated that I could see still images when playing back, but wasn't getting a video signal while recording. Finally, I found the trick: sometimes, you have to press and hold the Delete button on the back of the GH2 to switch on the AV out (the signal comes out of the USB-type connector.)

I added this to the FAQ. Anyone else come across this trick?