it happened on a shoot yesterday multiple times stopping about 10 or 15 seconds in until after about 4 tries it recording long enough for us to capture the shot. it was the only time in the entire shoot we used a native m 4/3rd lens (14mm 2.5) I was shooting with flowmotion on 24p H mode. This morning I put the lens on to test it and it went 24 minutes befor stopping. Panny battery was full at the same settings. I then changed setting to 720p 60 and after about 20 it stopped as well. I now put a samyang 35mm on with adapter and it's been running staring at the tv on 720p 60 settings for over one hour just fine.

@Loganm187 I think the additional strain on the processor just makes it tired. I've never had a failure in FM using anything other than electronic lenses.

It gets worse in TE mode.

This happens once in a while with FM2X (Never had it in the old FM), in all of Nicks settings and everything except Sanity.

I keep preloaded cheap SD cards with all the settings I use. FM2.2 is my all around setting I keep in one camera...Sedna, CM Night and Sanity are the others that get swapped around in the other camera.

@Loganm187 Thanks for your report. It would be helpful if you could detail the GH2 setup and exposure settings you were using at the time the camera stopped recording. This would allow me to better narrow down the possible causes.

The cases where the camera stopped recording after running for 20 minutes or more are very likely file-spanning failures. This is one of the more fragile features of the GH2 and has been very time-consuming to test. You may be able to determine if this was the case by examining the length of the last MTS file the camera recorded before it stopped. If it is either close to 4GB in size, or is a very short file immediately following a 4GB file, then it is a file-spanning failure.

I documented the potential for recording failures when using Lumix auto-focus lenses in 720p60 SH modes in the first post of this thread. This behavior is consistent with your report of the camera working faultlessly with manual-focus lenses, but not with Lumix lenses.

For reliable recording in both the file-spanning and 720p cases, I recommend using Flow Motion's 60Mbps 24L, FH, or H video modes rather than the 100Mbps 24H, HBR, FSH and SH modes. Aside from being safely limited to a 60Mbps peak bitrate, 24L, FH, and H video modes work exactly the same as FM2's 100Mbps modes, producing excellent motion picture quality with just a notch tighter compression.

Another ridiculous flow motion test.

@Lambo Real nice Lambo! What lens, setting and post did you use/do?

Here's a comparison shot of the Nikon D5100, with Picture and White Balance settings adjusted for a close match with the GH2 in 24H mode, using Flow Motion v2.02:

Nikon D5100

Panasonic GH2

Nikon D5100 Daylight Settings:

ISO -1/3 stop slower than GH2

Picture Control - NL

Sharpness 3

Contrast 0

Brightness -1

Saturation -1

Hue 0

WB Sunlight

A+3

M-1

GH2 Daylight Settings:

Film Mode Smooth

Contrast -2

Sharpness -2

Saturation -1

Noise Reduce -2

WB Daylight

A-3

M-2

@peternap Yes, I took another look at the D5100 settings, and decided it did appear a bit saturated and contrasty. I just revised the settings above and uploaded new sample footage.

Top...GH1, Bottom GH2, H, Center....HBR. ?????????

They look very good!

Center is GH1. Actually, the difference can be more pronounced on other subjects. It would be easy to identify the GH1 if there were any thin straight lines diagonally across the image - thats were the GH1 is noticably worse than the GH2 in terms of aliasing.

Congrats to @GMC, who spotted the center frame grab (Untitled-1.jpg) as the GH1. As everyone noted, the bottom shot (Untitled-2.jpg) was shot in 24H mode by the GH2, leaving the top shot in HBR. To my eyes, the best in image quality is the GH2 24H, followed by GH1 FHD, and GH2 HBR. It's a very close competition, however, and all three look much better than an unhacked GH2.

Here are links to the original, downloadable video files:

GH2 HBR - Flow Motion v2:

GH1 FHD - Max Latitude v2:

GH2 24H - Flow Motion v2:

Here are the Film Mode and White Balance settings I used in the GH1 and GH2 tests. These are daylight settings designed to remove the greenish cast of both the GH1 and GH2 in AVCHD video modes.

GH2 Daylight Settings

Film Mode Smooth

Contrast -2

Sharpness -2

Saturation -1

Noise Reduce -2

WB Sunlight

A-3

M-2

GH1 Daylight Settings

ISO -1/3rd stop slower than GH2

Film Mode Smooth

Contrast -2

Sharpness -2

Saturation -1

Noise Reduce -2

WB Sunlight

A-2

M-5

@CFreak It is in reference to the White Balance Adjust menu where you move the WB point three points towards Amber and two points towards Magenta from its default centre point along the 4-point axes.

@LPowell

I just joined, bought My GH2 and switching over from a Canon 60d. I am currently a Mac user, how is it that I can install this hack on my camera and use it? TO my understanding it is only PC? Finally THANK YOU for your hard work & let me know how is it that I can donate to you, the site or somewhere else as I am new here?

Thank you