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Hacked GH2 for live streaming and recording at the same time?
  • thiswayupthiswayup

    I'm helping a local music studio with a live stream show that is usually between 30-45mins. They don't have much budget and I thought a hacked GH2 would be perfect for this.

    I was hoping to record and stream at the same time, plus need to bypass the 30min recording limit. I am using my own GH5 and use the CIne-V colour profile and if possible recording at 422 All-I.

    Would like some advice on: - Which hacked firmware to use? - Any experience with this setup? - What alternatives which I could potentially use with my M43 lenses under £400 / $500 secondhand?

  • 10 Replies sorted by
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Buy used GH3 body.

  • thiswayupthiswayup

    unfortunately the GH3 doesn't have focus peaking

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @thiswayup

    You asked about suitable very cheap camera.

    Instead of focus peaking connect to any 7-10" monitor via $10 HDMI splitter.

  • zigizigizigizigi

    Why do you insist on recording in camera? You still need to use HDMI out to stream so why not recording to computer off a capture card that you need anyway? As for in camera GH2 recording the only firmware that goes reliably past 30min is the stock one. I owned 7 GH2s that I used for filming concerts and theatrical performances, so if you want to record the entire show - forget about hacks.

  • thiswayupthiswayup

    @Vitaliy_Kiselev I'm actually thinking of something similar. Found a couple of cheap monitors which has both HDMI in-out so I can pass through a clean HDMI feed the field monitor into my ATEM mini.

    @zigizigi "why not recording to computer off a capture card that you need anyway?" I should add we're using am ATEM mini to switch between our 3/4 cameras during the live stream, so yes we're recording the live mixed video stream but I also need to capture the original (uncut) camera sources for potentially recutting later. I am looking at a cheap pass-through HD recorder between the camera and my ATEM mini.

    "the only firmware that goes reliably past 30min is the stock one." Unfortunately, I'm based in the EU and we have a 30min limit. I've looked at importing one from the states and further afield but with the additional duty charges, it'll be similar to getting a secondhand GH4r (which is a GH4 without the 30min recording limit).

    "I owned 7 GH2s that I used for filming concerts and theatrical performances" That's really interesting to know, what colour profiles and have you live streamed with them?

  • zigizigizigizigi

    @thiswayup No, I haven't streamed off these cameras. "Smooth" is the color profile with most DR, as far as I remember.

    As for the 30 min EU limit, isn't it hackable? I mean if it is, then you can just turn it off and as long as you don't touch any bitrate settings and that's the only hack you apply, you should be good to go. Utility hacks are okay, I had one US camera in my arsenal that I successfully hacked into PAL and it never failed me. It's only if you modify bitrate and other codec internals it's 99% certainty that the camera won't span to the next 4GB and will stop. But rarely even stock firmware might stop because of flash failure. So there's always some amount of risk involved.

  • thiswayupthiswayup

    @zigzig I'm picking up my GH2 today, turns out there's someone selling one in my town! Whoot :)
    yeah, may look into a few bits more and do some more tests.

    I guess I'll probably spend the cash I save on better lighting equipment as this gig I have coming up is a smaller studio and relatively easy to light.

    Thanks for all the feedback, a couple more q's. What was the longest recording session with your GH2? At the higher recording limit (44 Mbps I believe?), did the file split automatically over a few files?

  • thiswayupthiswayup

    @Vitaliy_Kiselev Thanks for all your work with the PTools, I'm just reading up on it and hoping to use it with my GH2

  • zigizigizigizigi

    @thiswayup The longest session was 3 hours. From my experience ANYTHING other that stock bitrate doesn't auto-split reliably.

  • MeierhansMeierhans

    From my experience only the high bitrate patches had real problems with spanning. It depends on the used card for sure. I remember Sanity was good one for your task. Take a little time to read in, you will find out that you can still get nice quality from GH2 with the right patch: http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/2642/sanity-4-and-5.1

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