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Any comparisons between stock and hacked GH2?
  • jimtreatsjimtreats
    Hey folks.

    I just wondered if anyone had put up any stills, or clips of the same scene between a stock and hacked GH2 where the improvements are clear to see?

    I've yet to hack mine and am about to go away for a week's holiday with it next week, I'm torn as to whether to hack with stable settings or just leave it as is because i'll be away from my computer so unable to revert anything if i encounter an issue.

    My gut says play it safe and wait, but I just wondered if there were any comparisons where the difference is so large that it'd be worth me hacking to try and improve any footage i get.

    Cheers
  • 49 Replies sorted by
  • TropiKenTropiKen

    You can check out a video that I recently posted, comparing Panasonic's v1.1 firmware with Intravenus IV2. Moire reduction is very apparent @ 720p. The image quality is so improved over factory firmware that I'm more motivated to use 720p to gain the improved frame rate of 59.94fps.

  • dingerozdingeroz

    They should use better glass on the GH2, not that shitty one.

  • AlexAlex

    GH2 stock and hacked against canon t4i and NEX-6 - side by sinde:

    http://crisislab.com/

    they would go with the t4i ...

    From their blog post:

    Panasonic GH2 with Flowmotion Hack:

    The Panasonic is pretty plain and simple: It is the sharpest. In fact I think it's the sharpest camera under $10,000. I think this camera is the clearest proof that the manufacturers are holding-out on us, and releasing cameras that aren't as aggressively great as they could be, because they want to segment their market and control the upgrade timeline. I was actually surprised as how sharp the camera is right out of the box, sans hack. The hack really comes into play when you have a lot of motion in the scene. On the stock version, the compression falls apart into jpeg-y blocks, on the hacked version it's clean throughout. Sadly, the camera lost (sometimes emphatically) on every other test. So even though it's the cheapest and sharpest by some margin, I can't give it my whole-hearted recommendation.

  • iamfoxmaniamfoxman

    So I applied the hack and adjusted just the 1080p24H & L sections to 42K & 32K respectively. I noticed that my record time on the card & remaining time on the card don't match up. Starts off with 1h39m remaining card time, and after 20min of recording, I still have over 1h26min....??? Is this normal? Anyone else getting this discrepancy?

  • olegkalyanolegkalyan
    @Vitaliy_Kiselev
    ""Chis and I are working on improving our understanding of encoder.""

    Really look forward to that! Cheers! Удачи!
  • cbrandincbrandin
    I think that the patches will work at all raised bitrates, even moderate ones. The improvements, however, will be in proportion to bitrate increases to a large extent.

    Chris
  • mpgxsvcdmpgxsvcd
    @Vitaliy

    Yes thank you for the hard work at understanding the encoder. I think that will show some really good improvement in almost all scenes. Will the changes you guys are testing apply to just the higher bit rate patches or will they also work with the more moderate bit rate patches like 32 mb/sec?
  • proaudio4proaudio4
    @Vitaliy_Kiselev

    Excellent news. Thank you VK and Chris!
  • jimtreatsjimtreats
    I'm going to stick with stock for now, for my time away from a computer.

    Looking forward to ongoing developments though and think this thread could become a great resource for AB comparisons between stock and hacked.
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev
    To see bigger difference in static you'll need new patches that will be coming.
    Chis and I are working on improving our understanding of encoder.
  • ImaginateImaginate
    Here is some stills from some tests we shot with one hacked camera ( KAE 60Mbs 24p 3gop ) and another unhacked. both cameras were using the lumix 20mm pancake lens at 1.7 f

    The test was a situation where the lights above were overexposed by one stop, the shot was handheld with actor wearing a black shirt... as you can see in the overexposed version the blacks broke down into blocky compression.

    It still broke in places on the hacked camera but it was less noticeable... and the grain was finer.

    In the second example the actors moving dark hair would break the codec as well as the dark corner on the cupboard. The Cupboard corner still broke the hacked camera but again it was less noticeable...

    This is a definite improvement especially when color grading...

    shirt_unhacked_a.png
    1901 x 1076 - 1M
    shirt_unhacked_b.png
    1901 x 1076 - 348K
    shirthack_a.png
    1284 x 718 - 787K
    shirthack_b.png
    1284 x 718 - 140K
    hacked_a.png
    1867 x 1086 - 1M
    hacked_b.png
    1867 x 1086 - 460K
    unhacked_a.png
    1910 x 1072 - 1M
    unhacked_b.png
    1910 x 1072 - 796K
  • chipchip
    Unhacked GH2 has already been good for such static, well lit shots without motion going on. These are the shots you won't notice the difference that much, like VK also has stated several times. Great improvements though in 720p modes and motion in 1080p24 mode, so looking forward for your motion test
  • mpgxsvcdmpgxsvcd
    @driftwood

    Interesting results. Are there any noticeable compression artifacts in any of those files? It looks like the bit rate was really low for the first 3 and higher but not significantly so for the 4th.
  • driftwooddriftwood
    Test A) Stationary shoot at outdoor scene using an unhacked Stock GH2 versus a hacked Vitaliy GH2.



    Settings on both GH2s 'MY FILM -2,-2,-2,-2' plus below.

    Test 1 - GH2 unhacked Stock - 1080p24 (22mbs)
    5800k WB, 160 ISO, 50mm 1.2 Lens Prime, Manual lens, stopped down to 5.6

    Test 2 - 32mbs hack - 1080p24 (3 seconds into film)
    5800k WB, 160 ISO, 50mm 1.2 Lens Prime, Manual lens, stopped down to 5.6

    Test 3 - 42mbs hack - 1080p24 (8 seconds into film)
    5800k WB, 160 ISO, 50mm 1.2 Lens Prime, Manual lens, stopped down to 5.6

    Test 4 - 65mbp gop 3 - 1080p24 (13 secs into film)
    5800k WB, 160 ISO, 50mm 1.2 Lens Prime, Manual lens, stopped down to 5.6

    Test B) comparison of movement/moving subjects tomorrow!
    stock body peg test default.png
    1292 x 685 - 75K
    32mbs hack peg test .png
    1297 x 681 - 91K
    42mbs hack peg test .png
    1301 x 684 - 77K
    65mbs 3 GOP hack peg test .png
    1298 x 686 - 92K
  • Brian202020Brian202020
    That's funny, because it's almost exactly like the song I mentioned. Check it out on iTunes and you'll see what I mean. That album came out before Doom did. I wonder if The game designers copied it.
  • AmandaNLAmandaNL
    @Brian202020
    It's a remix of Doom game music, level monster condo
    ID tag:
    Based entirely upon the DOOM & DOOM 2 soundtracks, composed by Robert Prince.
    http://www.dasmirnov.net/cyberdemon/{CR}{LF}http://www.doom3portal.com/
  • Brian202020Brian202020
    @AmandaNL

    Is that song in your test a string version of Pantera's "This Love"?
  • svartsvart
    Has anyone who claims the high bitrate works better for high motion scenes actually noticed that bitrate drops considerably during high motion scenes?

    Just sayin..
  • mpgxsvcdmpgxsvcd
    @driftwood

    Excellent. Can you also test 32 mb/sec? Just change the two bit rate settings and leave everything else stock.
  • mpgxsvcdmpgxsvcd
    @KrisCanonizado

    Sorry I thought that was yours.
  • driftwooddriftwood
    @all ill do a new comparison between my hacked GH2 and my non hacked GH2 today. watch this space.
    Test 1 using Vitalys plain 'For users' reccommendations against stock.
    Test 2 using kae's 3 GOP 65 against the stock

    All using same OM 50mm 1.2 lens, manual everything, ISO same etc...
  • AmandaNLAmandaNL
    This morning I used 720P @60fps with the 42Mb/s setting (standard GOP).
    All speed is down to 50%

  • KrisCanonizadoKrisCanonizado
    @mpgxsvcd

    that's not my video! I just found that vid on youtube.

    besides I'm on vimeo, not youtube.
    http://vimeo.com/kriscanonizado/videos
  • greechesgreeches
    Here are some compression artifacts in 720/60P mode. You can download the original footage on Vimeo (vimeo.com/27272608)



    You'll notice them above the log. I'd love to film this scene again, but will have to find something else that is similar in motion...
  • proaudio4proaudio4
    @fatpig "High motion, especially at high shutter speeds with no motion blur benefits highly from bitrate increase, also from low gop.

    Good point fatpig!

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