Hi Dirk, Sorry I haven't answer earlier. I'm in the field and my access to internet is very limited.

Again, you are right about the picture of the car.. I''ve used the Apple Color meter and 've focused in the reflexion in the rear left window. Is probably the area with higher light in the picture and is very little saturated. Almost white bluish. R235-G239-B254 (so Y239 Cb136 Cr124). If the RGB channels were wrongly patched to the YUV channels, as I thought, they would produce (up to the wonderful converter in the link you posted) an very vivid pink, no that orange midd luma triangle. Even assuming issues with white balance, RGB to YUV mapping or the fact that is an still of a TV screen, these colors are just crazy and i don't understand how they are generated. I'm lost. Back home I'll try to make some tests again using the GH2 and the NANO-flash HDMI. I'll try the Dell HDMI too and I will post some questions to the people of Convergent-design (NANO). I will ask them which kind of HDMI the NANO accepts and which kind puts out. Cheers

i'm in the same boat as @DirkVoorhoeve - no live preview in rec/live view mode in PAL with my 2 computer monitors with hdmi-ins, nor when connected to my steadicam 5.6" monitor through BlackMagic HDMI-SDI or through some ebay hdmi->phono converter. i'm pretty pissed, because the live preview was the only reason i replaced my gh1... and now still cannot make any use of it ;/

of course it works fine in NTSC and in PAL when in playback mode.

@kavadni that's very interesting. I will get myself another cable then, maybe it helps :) What type of cable do you have that works?

I can give anecdotal it was awhile ago. I have always been in PAL mode.

I feed HDMI to a SmallHD DP6 Monitor, and my 40inch Samsung TV.

The DP6 has a HDMI 1.3a and the TV a 1.4.

When my DP6 arrived, I had my GH2 but it would not output to the TV, and I was in the heat of returning cables/adapters to shops .. getting frustrated .. wondering if camera was dud.

It was recording and playing back 50i but no liveview. With PAL my priority at this point I didn't test 24p.

The DP6 arrived with my first mini->standard cable a 1.3a. Connecting this from GH2 to TV worked.

I later managed to get a mini-> standard adapter that works also.

As everything I needed was now working, I did not perform any further tests.

The only speculation I had was that my TV some how senses if a 1.4 cable is connected .. but not carrying any information .. or something .. the GH2 is 1.3a (I think .. without checking). That's just speculation. I concluded that in my case was definetely cable issue.

Or specific to my TV, perhaps, as I do not have a mini->standard that is not 1.3a I can not test against the DP6

Since then with my TV, I have made sure I make the connecting cable match the input device spec.

I think my issue was similar to yours. It's anecdotal but from memory it's similar.

I have been buying additional cables from smallHD .. they are cheap .. if you email them they have a cheaper freight option for accessory orders.

@kavadni @redpaw. It seems like a long shot, but i've ordered the smallHD cable, so i'll let you know in a few days.

@redpaw tested it with the cable I got from smallHD... doesn't help. Still the same (playback mode is fine, record mode is not).

I would say it is not a cadance problem as they say (i've tested in every PAL mode, NTSC is fine) and also not a 1080p mode thing as I am pretty sure that the camera outputs 1080PsF signal when in HBR mode. So the standard speed cables should also be fine.

Did you get any luck yet?

For anyone having trouble with hdmi cables, the one that came with my Zacuto snap works not perfectly. It is a swivel, which is not cool and did not come in handy with the ports being on the opposite side. I went through a couple before trying this one. Hopefully it helps.

Just for the record GH2_fan the HV30 does not output 2048x1056 over hdmi. http://www.hv20.com/showthread.php?19690-Capturing-2048x1536-quot-video-quot-on-HV20-30

@kavadni yes it works fine on my TV and on my wondlan 7" screen. But not on the BenQ screens (I have two of them). So for me the SmallHD cable wasn't the solution, unfortunately.

On the GH2 it is really annoying trying to get lighting and focus right on a large monitor through the HDMI preview mode (before pushing record). As it shows a low light low resolution picture until the record button is pushed then it is crisp. I may wish to setup the lighting a day before a shoot for a whole day and you continually need to have the crisp preview for many reasons otherwise you can really screw up shots. I used to have a consumer canon vixia hg20 (it gave me hdmi out clean) which I shot a film with and got better result as it is all about getting the picture right on the day. You can only do limited lighting in editing.

I think a full resolution preview through HDMI should be a priority fix. Not so much to record from but to see what you are doing on set! trust me you do not want to shoot a feature film of a tiny flip screen!

I have serious doubts weather to use this camera for my next feature. Any work arounds or fixes anyone know of?

Cheers James

p.s actually a good alternative would be a hack to be able to select a high bit rate codec then a low bit rate (so can record all day) for the HDMI preiews. I'll look around. Let me know if one finds one:)

@jameshow73 - are you sure it's not caused by the 'constant preview' setting being set to OFF ? if its OFF and the image is too dark the camera raises the gain so you can see it. if you set it to ON then the exposure on the lcd/monitor is exactly as it's being recorded.

I just did some pretty thorough testing, and my conclusion is the hdmi output is worthless for anything involving luma, chroma, or really anything other than focus. The only thing that ISN'T modified and accurate out of the hdmi output is sharpness.

As james has discovered, the hdmi output is horribly inaccurate when the camera is not actively recording. The gamma is way, way off, blacks are crushed to death. When you hit record, the hdmi output cleans up a little bit, and the gamma gets closer to what is actually being recorded, but it's still off by a bit.

I have two identical professionally calibrated and color managed monitors sitting next to eachother calibrated to the rec.709 color space and gamma response. I put the gh2 on a tripod pointing at a little set-up scene. I recorded a couple second clip, and using Scratch, displayed the clip on one monitor, making sure any LUTs or vcgt's that would be effecting output were turned off. Just the raw clip, as recorded, being displayed.

I then connected the gh2's output to the other monitor. The difference between the recorded clip being displayed and the gh2's hdmi output was absolutely huge, and ugly, while the gh2 was not recording. When you hit record, it definitely cleans up a bit better and the gamma comes back up a bit, blacks are a bit closer to where they should be, but when you have the two side by side, even when it is recording the gamma response is totally not correct, and there is horrible green shift going on, and reds seem a bit shifted hue wise.

Tomorrow I'll bust out the colorimeter and Calman, record some stuff directly off the hdmi output, and see exactly what the differences are, and get some pictures of the differences, but after spending a couple hours testing this my idea of even using the hdmi port for simple monitoring/waveform is way out of the question. Let alone using the hdmi output to RECORD! NO WAY!

That calman sounds interesting Fohdeesha I'll give that a go. I have been searching for some windows 7 software for my Blackmagic Intensity Shuttle like Waveform and Vector scope but with no luck. But if hdmi is stuffed there is no point. I guess I'll have to literally shoot something, take the card out and check it on the computer through premiere pro waveforms etc. to check lighting.

Perhaps the hacks make up for the guess work on set. Its just that I have spent 2 years fixing a feature film that took 2 weeks to shoot.