I do own a BMPCC and a GH2, too. No hack will give you the same codec quality as the BM Pocket - simply because the GH2's AVCHD is limited to 8bit 4:2:0 vs. 12bit raw/10bit 4:2:2 log of the BM Pocket. On top of that, the GH2 has ~2 stops less dynamic range. (11 stops according to DxOMark vs. 13 stops of the Pocket - with the GH2 being likely more in the range of 10 stops in video mode since there is no log picture profile, and the BM Pocket being in the range of 12 stops usable dynamic range.) The GH2 has other limitations such as baked-in pixel sharpening. On the other hand, it has one great advantage over the BM Pocket: audio quality of its built-in mics and built-in mic preamplifier.

Flatness of the image has nothing to do with the hacks, since the hacks don't change the GH2's picture profiles. What the hacks actually do is increase the encoding bitrate/change encoder matrices in order to do away with the encoding artifacts of the unhacked cameras. Using one of the high bitrate hack settings (such as Moon T7) would be recommended in your case.

The flattest profiles on the GH2 are "Nostalgic" (which however adds color tints) and "Smooth" (flattest for accurate colors). I'd personally advice to shoot the GH2 with settings that are as close as possible to the result you want to achieve, so that a minimum or no color correction will be necessary. Any color correction applied to 8bit 4:2:0 footage will degrade color resolution and introduce banding (even if it's minor and can be masked in post with techniques like dithering).

On the upside, turnaround times for GH2 footage are much faster because you get a usable image directly out of the camera, with no need of tweaking in post.

I'd simply consider the Pocket and the GH2 two different beasts - the pocket is the poor man's RED, the GH2 is the poor man's C300. Both have their respective uses and advantages, depending on what you shoot.

Just my 50 cent.

Bitrate just indicates amount of compression - the higher the bitrate, the lower the compression. The lower the compression, the less smudged-out image detail and pixel block artifacts. It's the same as with JPEG still images where you have different quality percentages based on compression: 70% is small file size, low quality, 100% is large file size, high quality. With the GH2, the standard video compression setting is on small/low, the hack settings simply set it higher.

Dynamic range is a property of the sensor and also depends on the color curve that gets applied to its image data. If the curve crushes shadows and clips highlights (what most standard camera image profiles do in order to match raw sensor data to the way the human eye sees), then you lose DR. The hacks/higher bitrates may help the codec to retain more differentiated colors in the highlights and shadows (rather than smudging them in order to save space), so this may have a very small gain in DR. But otherwise, DR has nothing to do with bitrates.

The reason why the BM Pocket has more DR is (a) its high dynamic range sensor, i.e. pure hardware; (b) the codecs that preserve that DR thanks to the flat log profile in ProRes (no matter the bitrate - even ProRes Proxy with its low bitrate will preserve your DR) / thanks to raw recording. Raw makes the difference not because its bitrate is higher, but because it doesn't apply a curve (and hence doesn't throw away recorded shadows and highlights) to the sensor image.

Again, it's the same difference as with raw vs. jpeg in digital photography. Even 100% Jpeg quality doesn't retain the color information and dynamic range that's stored in a raw file. As a video camera, the GH2 can only record processed/cooked images encoded by its JPEG/MPEG engine.

It's not just about bitrate. The GOP structure makes a huge difference too. Moon patches are GOP1 which means every frame recorded is a complete frame like the ProRes codec. It is still in a avchd mpg4 format but shows none of the typical Long GOP 12-15 frame artefacts, which show up as blocky smudgy detail in shadow areas. There are still issues with chroma resolution due to the 4:2:0 8-bit sampling used in the GH2. You can get banding in smooth gradients like sky etc. The Moon patches are some of the best available but have issues with spanning (long clips are broken into 4GB files on the memory card) in some cameras. My camera will not span using Moon T5 or T7. There are some 3GOP patches from @bkmcwd designed for high quality and spanning for Pal 25fps users which I like better than all the others I have tested.

GH2 = "Poor man's C300"

BMPCC = "Poor man's RED"

Great way to think about it! (Though I'd say in 2015 that NX1 / BMPC4K would be a better example, however they're more expensive.... maybe "On a Budget" rather than "Poor man's" instead)

Try either one or try out all patches. Once you understand how simple it is to upload the patches, you can try them out and see which you like. Just make sure you follow the steps in FAQ to install the patch and nothing will go wrong. From what I understand no one has reported any issues when following each step. But if you don't follow the steps you can ruin your camera.

The differences between some patches will be minimal. Some more pronounced. From what I understand there has been no complete comparison between all the patches. So really you have to test them out yourself or read what others are saying about each patch in TOP SETTINGS of the forum.

@matt_gh2 thanks a lot! and just one more question, how do I turn off the exposure compensation on this camera ?!

What do you mean turning Exposure Comp off? Off just means 0? You press the command dial until the Exposure Comp icon is highlighted in yellow near the bottom of the screen. Then turn to dial to turn Exposure Comp up or down. Hope it helps.

@LiquidAlpinist I tried that, but it always skips the exposure comp option and goes to the iso speed icon instead

@LiquidAlpinist manual in movie mode

@LiquidAlpinist so just to clarify, that light meter isn't affect the exposure of the video, just indication whether or not it's under or over exposed

@LiquidAlpinist I almost forgot to ask, how do you enable autofocus ? I've been going through the af options in the menu but none of them seem to work(at least I think they don't). I'm so used to a af/mf switch on canon lenses