Talking about the second video demostration. At the end he said: "Remember, all the benefit of this patches will be lost if you recompress the footage" So, if I take the footage and use, 5dtoRGB or log&transfer, mpegstrem or compressor to make a proress for example, am I screwing all my highbitrates? Means that is better to edit in CS5, CS6 native mts? recompress a the end? I think that the footage will benefit equal of high bitrates because it will do a proper proress in case yo wanna mix several cameras or not?

flablo: observed, expected, predicted. Guaranteed? :P

Jakartaguy, flashing the camera doesn't erase the camera's settings. But on occasion you will need to do menu, setup, reset, to get the camera to behave correctly. So make a habit of keeping your camera settings written down, so they can be reprogrammed if necessary. You can keep firmware image files on multiple cards, to flash them as needed. Of course formatting those cards will erase the firmware image files.

@balazer, do you mean with Cake I'd obtain "guaranteed" 45-50 Mbps

I'm fairly experienced hack user with GH1 and GH2, but I've always played with how to get the best quality. Right now, I'm going to be doing a project where I'll be filming a ton of footage, but using little of it, but want what I do film to be good.

So here is the question.

What is a good hack that ups bitrate very slightly, and keeps the encoder from going into "fallback mode"? I want the files to not be much bigger if possible.

Basically, what's the next step up from basic firmware? I've never had to deal with something quite like this. I may just keep the original firmware, but there will be a fair amount of shots of water and for those I'd like to not have the camera going to fallback/ugly macroblocking mode. Thanks for the help!

Hello, I'm using a PAL GH2, and I'm trying to find the settings with the best quality/highest bitrate. I tried Flow Motion, Sedna, and others, but I can't reach the highest bitrate (shooting HBR 1080 25p). I shot a scene involving a singer on a white background, so no complex frame data, but the bitrate I obtained was 21 mbps with Sedna and only 17 mbps with Flowmotion. I guess that is because the scene is "simple" (2/3 white background, 1/3 singer singing and moving), the bitrate went down, but I couldn't get the best detail on the subject, there was clearly too much compression going on. I know Sedna could do more than 100 mbps, but the problem is that it DIDN'T and I went just 21 mbps. Basically the question is: how can I "force" the bitrate to stay high even without having a complex/busy frame? Is it just a matter of choosing the right patch with the right settings of GOP, matrix, etc for that kind of shot? Thank you people for your help!

capebio, you seem to be confusing the lens firmware with the camera firmware. They are separate. The latest GH2 firmware is version 1.1. Your lens firmware is version1.2. PTool only deals with camera body firmware images. You should have firmware version 1.2 on your lens, and use PTool to modify camera body firmware version 1.1. Nothing will change about your ability to use that lens with the GH2.

Jakartaguy, flashing your camera with a firmware image modified with new encoder settings won't change what you see in the camera's menus. It simply changes internal encoder settings. You'll know it worked when your recorded video has a higher bit rate and looks better.

Hello,

Anybody knows how can I find the menu to switch from NTSC to PAL and viceverse?. I checked it in the hack but I can´t find it. I´d like to shoot in 720/60p!

Thanks for your help!

I'm currently using my GH2 with an Olympus 35mm macro lens connected with the DMW-MA1 adapter. However, compatability only came with Firmware 1.2 update (Otherwise I can't use the lens at all!). I'm concerned that in installing PTool (which I would really like to do), I will lose my lens compatibility - and can I backtrack to V1.2 if so? p.s. Olympus lens focus is accurate, but atrociously slow and illogical. Lens messes around for a few seconds before finding focus. I have to press trigger button three times to get it to macro range as it jumps about a third closer with each press, and then goes hunting for focus in the long end. :(

Mark....yes I tried it with checking "version increment" and without, no luck either way.

Vitaliy.... by the smiley face at the end of your comment, I am assuming your comment is humor? I don't know what a hex system is, so not sure how to find that in my menus.

Thanks for your input so far !!! :-)

@snoopy Did you check (tick) the "version increment" box in ptools? PThat's the only thing I can think of...

Hello, im a beginner too, i think this is the right place for my simple question. I use the FM 2.02 and i like it very much, but i don´t wonna have the 100Mbps in the HBR mode, the half is good for me, let´s say about 45-50 Mbps, Question: which changes in the ini file for the Lower Bitrate must i make?. sorry for my bad Englisch. greetings René

After 3 days reading all the posts, I think I am ready to ask a question (Hope I don't get banned after my first participation) Details: Pal area, mostly docs. Tripod, but more often I am running and filming under bad circumstances. I would like one (the) best patch (like most of us I suppose).

Besides the 'basic' patch settings ( pal -ntsc, iso limit removal etc) my sincere wishes would be:
• good quality also in low light (45- 50 mb/s)

• Most fluent motion in 1080p (as I prefer 1080 above 720, and I have read I should not film 1080i

• extreme stable / reliability (no crash)

• Preferable compatible with class 6 cards (in case I would run out of class 10 cards, and I would not be able to film at all).

• (preferable steady, but I suppose no patch can help me with that ;-)

I found Flow motion v2.02 and my questions are (to everyone who can answer them) :

• Can I just lower the bitrates in the Flow Motion @LPowell settings? Or will the whole idea of the 'flow motion' be gone, or worse, will there be other possible errors)? Or would you suggest to only lower the bitrate of (for example) 1080i, so in case I would only have class 6 cards I can always shoot 1080i.

• Besides Flow motion, do I need to use other patches (for the other wishes, as filming in low light)? If that is the case, I haven't figured out yet how to combine patches.)

• Other suggestions are welcome ( perhaps an adaptation of Sanity 4.1 @Ralph_B or Cluster v6 @Driftwood ?)

It's all quite complex Thanks you all!

thanks @balazar, to sum it up; things are the same as they were a few months ago in regards to the GH2 hack, there are no plans to update the Settings Vault with the many new patches have been created so it is just a matter of searching them out and testing.