//Moved from original location//
Exposing to the right saves the trouble of using LCD for anything but framing (EVF is better for focusing). the point of exposing to the right using the histogram is precisely that ( I would also turn on the highlights blinking) you will get a good exposure without picture confirmation. Good exposure in that sense that you record maximum tonal information, the image might look washed out unless you grade it in post. Low contrast Nostalgic or Cinema are always good. Though honestly I rarely see gradient problem with what I get out of GH2. For me the real reason to expect the hack is so that codec would give more attention to the areas that are below the mid-tones so when I try to grade them up if needed there would be actual detail and not just areas of flat fill with squared edges.
There is no fix for sky banding short of 8bit>16bit>color key for the sky color>blur keyed region>apply noise to the keyed region only and it must match unaffected areas or will look fake. And it is very tedious and slow, and painstaking. So no - there is no fix.
To answer for Vitaly no probably there is no easy way that 10bit color can be enabled (as he only tweaks existing firmware and does not write new one, it also may be hardwired so no firmware may change it)

Let's make a separate thread for the gradient problem, we should continue talking about it but just not in the hack thread.

I've seen this gradation step issue, although normally it's almost unnoticeable. In one case though the steps were actually moving across the picture (in one direction, diagonally) where there was a flat area of white wall in the image. This was with a manual lens and fixed exposure, so the exposure wasn't changing. Therefore I'm not sure what was happening there and why the steps were constantly moving across the image. That's the only time I've really noticed it, and it was in a shot with a single bright area (a window) elsewhere in the frame, so maybe that was affecting the exposure enough to make the gradation steps visible. Still don't know about the movement, though.

Dkitsov's idea about changing exposure is an interesting one - not one I've tried. But then, I've not seen the gradations on the LCD, only afterwards, probably because the LCD seems to go to a slightly lower quality during recording, so I wouldn't have been aware of it at the time I shot the footage. But something now to watch out for in particular scenes.

@dkitsov, you mention that this is essentially a LF effect - which I suppose it is - so I wonder if there's any post-treatment (chroma blur?) which can improve it?

Also, do you think that by changing the in-camera contrast settings, it could help to use more of the values available where it matters?

Finally, Vitaliy, any chance of the hack making it possible to record 10 bits per channel? One can always hope!!!

Edit: have looked again at the shot with the moving banding. I was very slightly changing exposure during it (just playing around with a new lens). But in a more conventional shooting situation, I could see how you might get that effect of changing exposure with lighting / shadows that vary during a shot.

>only a higher bitrate will allow the codec to not through out all that graduation

are you sure?
i thought the 8-bit codec itself causes the contour banding. this will never change.