How many of you have hacked your GH2?

[Patrick Janka]

Just curious to see if it's made a discernible difference or if it's caused any problems.

[Nigel Barker]

I haven't hacked mine as I am not convinced that there is any point. It only allows you to crank up the recorded bit rate & video already looks pretty decent at the stock 17Mbps. If the price is adding any instability then it's not for me. One reason for doing the hack might be to remove the 30 minute recording limit that we have here in PAL-land although that has never been an issue for me although I am used to the 12 minute limit of Canon DSLRs so 30 minutes seems fine. The one reason that I would hack my GH2 was if it were able to add 25p so that I could easily use footage with my other cameras that are all using 25p.

[Corey Graham]

Originally Posted by Nigel Barker

I haven't hacked mine as I am not convinced that there is any point.

I agree. While higher bitrates will sometimes translate to slightly nicer looking images, it's just not worth it to me. I had problems with the higher bitrates on my GH1, and I don't need to risk any problems in the middle of a shoot.

Concentrating on other things like lighting, framing, camera angles, and audio will go much further to make the video look better, than cranking up the bitrate.

[James Gleason]

Yes, I've done it and I think it's amazing! I upped the bit rate from 24kbps to 42kbps. The file size is manageable and my Class 10 card has no trouble keeping up. The quality boost was significant. I tested before and after and it was amazing!

[Godfrey Kirby]

I would love to see a 'blow by blow' description of how to go about the hack - for the less computer competent amongst us....
And any chance of 25P eventually? Would be most welcome in PAL-land.
Regards - Godfrey

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by James Gleason

Yes, I've done it and I think it's amazing! I upped the bit rate from 24kbps to 42kbps. The file size is manageable and my Class 10 card has no trouble keeping up. The quality boost was significant. I tested before and after and it was amazing!

Do you have some side by side footage for us to compare? I have seen various footage at different higher bit rates but no direct before & after so that you can make a valid comparison. Standard un-hacked 24Mbps looks very good so I really would like to compare footage of the same scene in the same lighting conditions etc The two files need to be as off the camera not compressed to hell by Vimeo.

[James Gleason]

Sorry, but I don't. The hack only takes 15 minutes to install and you can go back in the same amount of time. I saw the most improvement in my low light/night shots. It was like "night and day" to abuse the pun.

[Kevin McRoberts]

In what way was it better at night? Less noise? Greater latitude?

[Brian Luce]

They are trying to hack the HDMI out. There's a cadence bug that sabotages the feature. HDMI out is the Holy Grail for the GH2 as far as I'm concerned.

[Ethan Cooper]

I haven't had time to do a side by side with 40+ vs stock 24 but in playing around with the hack it seems to me that there is better detail in the image. It's a subtle difference but unless I'm shooting something that requires long record times I'll probably use the hack from now on.

It wasn't night and day & the DR & noise didn't suddenly improve, if anything the noise might have increased slightly but it's not at all unpleasant & is easily removed with Neat Video if you're so inclined to like that super clean look.

As the hack matures & the settings get dialed in better I don't see any reason not to give it a shot & see for yourself.

[Martyn Hull]

Surely a good HD large screen tv is needed if comparisons are to be seen not vimeo or you tube on pc size monitors.

[Evan Lloyd]

My only question is this; When I see the footage from the hacked GH2, will my initial reaction be, "Holy Sh*t!"?
If not, I may not bother with the whole affair. To start tampering with my camera, the results need to be pretty amazing. If they are, I'm in.

Evan

[Ethan Cooper]

Since the stock 24Mbps encoding is pretty good right out of the box & the hack doesn't suddenly give you HDR kinda dynamic range it would be hard to say that applying the hack to a GH2 makes it vastly superior. The first couple times shooting with the hack I thought it wasn't that big of a deal but the more I keep playing around with it the more I prefer the look I'm getting out of it even if the difference is more nuance than ground breaking.

The big thing about the hack to me is that it allows for flexability that wasn't there before, such as shooting 30p at anything near an acceptable bit rate rather than the crippled 17Mbps stock & allowing you to bump the audio bitrates up if you're in a situation that calls for relying on in-camera audio.

Also, the hack is so darn easy to apply that fear of damaging your camera need not get in your way. I'm in no way a computer genius or a hacker of any sort, luckily guys who are smarter than me had the foresight to dumb the process down to where average Joe's can figure it out & not be left with a pretty paperweight.

Try it on for size, you might just love it. I think it has made an already good & ridiculously cheap imaging system even better and other than needing to put 3 hours of footage on one 32GB card I can't think of a situation where using the hack isn't a better option than stock.

[Eric Lagerlof]

I'm waiting for the hack to 'mature' before I take the plunge, though it seems pretty safe. I'm shooting 60i footage that has to be matched with a Sony FX-1. Hour plus recording times, (theatrical productions), parts well lit, parts very dark. I wanted 1080P 30 or 60fps to sync with the FX-1, (instead of just 24 fps in 1080 progressive mode) which I believe has already been implemented, and if these hacks help lower macroblocking in the shadows then I'm really happy. If it means more latitude, I'll be ecstatic.

[Brian Luce]

Originally Posted by Evan Lloyd

My only question is this; When I see the footage from the hacked GH2, will my initial reaction be, "Holy Sh*t!"?
If not, I may not bother with the whole affair. To start tampering with my camera, the results need to be pretty amazing. If they are, I'm in.

Evan

The only way you might get the HS factor is if you're used to filming fast moving objects. The hack version handles motion way better. But relatively static shots? Probably it won't be a big difference. However hacking the HDMI will probably really supercharge the GH2. But they don't even know if its possible though the testers seem optimistic.