I guess the flange distance of the GH1 gave it some benefits for legacy glass owners like me, but if Vitally hadn't jacked the firmware, it would have been a ho-hum camera, certainly nobody would've ever considered it a substitute for the 7d or even the T2i.

When the slt a55 came out, I read some interview with somebody claiming to be tester13, talking about how imenantly hackable the a55 would be. I think the A77 & the A65 are prime candidates for hackage. There is enough good glass, it has fine IQ

@Vitaliy, Ha! It didn't come out the way I meant it. I love my GF1, but the hacked GH1 footage I saw compelled me to buy one, too bad I didn't know about the firmware encryption at the time.

What is even necessary quality-wise, is a matter of taste and venue for the most part. I for one really liked that movie shot with the Pentax K7, "Uncle Jack." I don't know how it would have looked on the big screen but for a web video, it is great, and probably most of us need to hone our ability to tell a good story using moving pictures, no matter how many pixels the camera has.

Your hack obviously improved the GH1 and now the GH2, and I've never seen anybody go back to the original firmware. It also forced Panasonic to make improvements to, and push forward their release of the GH2. Your hack transformed the GH1 from a gadget to a professional tool. But I think the most powerful effect of the Ptools hack was psychological, not electronic.

The Ptools hack opened my eyes, and others, to the fact that consumer cameras could be much more, freed from the limitations imposed on them by their makers. It is with a very cynical and limited view that these companies are approaching the new technology. Sony and Panny and everyone else should focus their attention on making the best cameras they can, not crippling their camera models based on the MSRP. I feel it is our duty, as consumers, to challenge this mindset, which is why I've donated equipment and money to you.

I think that the Sony a65 is already a really fine camera, and a neat video tool. I know that if it's firmware were open, it would be a mind-blowing tool for filmmakers. it would also probably translate to the entire alpha line, and give you a great many new benchmarks to acheive. If you could squeeze 3860X2160 out of a sony, who knows what technology it would push ahead?

Did a quick test with a friends Sony A77. While the camera body and ergonomics are top notch (the EVF and the display are the best I have seen so far!), the video mode falls short of representing the next generation of video DSLR. 1080 60p is nice but it doesn't help if there is jello, aliasing, moire and artifacts all over the place.

I'm considering buying 6 of the A65's for my work which involves still and video capture of peoples heads inside a custom LED lighting dome..the captured images are used in photogrammetry software to build hi res 3d models.

We need to capture the still images very fast so the A65s 10fps looks to be very handy…the draw back is the lack of tethered shooting, whist we can fire all the shutters via a custom board and the cameras remote socket, what we really need is control over camera settings and some sort of live view as well as saving files direct to PC…basically Breeze Systems but for the A65.

If it was possible to extract higher video resolutions that would be a plus as well for our dynamic capture.

So +1 for A65 Firmware hack…

@ alex

agreed. i tested this camera and found the video quality sub par. i don't get it, particularly given the vid quality of the nex-7 - i would have thought the jello, aliasing and moire wouldn't be such a problem.