{"id":3451,"date":"2010-06-11T23:35:48","date_gmt":"2010-06-11T13:35:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/?p=3451"},"modified":"2010-07-24T10:56:55","modified_gmt":"2010-07-24T00:56:55","slug":"firmware-hack-unleashes-panasonic-gh-1-video-potential-apparently-giving-it-the-best-looking-videos-of-all-the-dslrs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/?p=3451","title":{"rendered":"Firmware hack unleashes Panasonic GH-1 video potential apparently giving it the best looking videos of all the dSLRs"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you are a Panasonic GH-1 user and wanting the highest quality video – you can now have it courtesy of a free firmware hack<\/a> by tester13<\/a> but please, if you use it, make sure you donate some money to him<\/a> because this firmware hack is said to be truly amazing – yes – even better image quality than the full frame Canon 5D Mark II.<\/p>\n

I must admit, I have not installed it myself yet as I mainly shoot at 720p 50fps motion jpeg as it suits my needs and I am happy to wait a little longer for resolution of a couple of the issues outlined below.<\/p>\n

AVCHD may be the latest and greatest HD video compression for consumers but it is not easy to work with, and on the GH-1 without the firmware hack moving subjects or panning tends to result in mud artefacts.<\/p>\n

The official GH-1 firmware limits HD video to 17Mbps data rate with options of AVCHD 1080i at 50\/60fps derived from native 25fps, or 720p at 50\/60fps in either AVCHD or MJPEG.<\/p>\n

The firmware hack allows an astounding 50Mbps data rate at 1080\/30p MJPEG<\/strong> (detailed scenes with sharp lenses and wide depth of field may deliver up to 70Mbps data from the sensor but then tends to crash the system – they are working on how to limit the data rate to 50Mbps), or 32Mbps AVCHD 1080\/native 24p<\/strong> (although currently videos shot in this mode crash the camera on attempting to play them back and you may need to remove the battery to reboot the camera – but seems this has been fixed here<\/a>). Some users<\/a> are achieving 80Mbps at 720 30p<\/strong> on Class 10 SD cards.<\/p>\n

The GH-1 50Mbps video images are cleaner than the Canon 5D Mark II<\/strong> at 35Mbps partly due to the fact the GH-1 bins the pixels to down- res the 12mp sensor whereas the Canon skips lines to down res its 22mp sensor, and partly as the MJPEG gives less compression artefacts<\/strong> than the Canon’s H.264 codec.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, it seems the GH-1 can write data to the SDHC card at over 8MB\/sec which is almost double the Canon 5D Mark II’s rate. The other good news is, you only need a Class 6 SDHC card and not the more expensive Class 10 SDHC cards as one would think.<\/p>\n

Be warned though<\/strong>, at 50Mbps 1080p MJPEG, you only get about 2 minutes\u00a0 39sec of recording until the 2Gb file size limit is reached, and you no longer have the option of shooting in smaller file sized official 17Mbps video without re-installing firmware and incrementing the firmware another integer. Furthermore it seems in 720 mode you can now only get 30fps not 50\/60fps but they are working on this.<\/p>\n

Finally, Remember\u2026version numbers cannot roll back which may have implications for future official firmware releases.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Post-script: it is possible that the latest production of GH-1 cameras which come with v1.3 firmware pre-installed MAY NOT allow updating the camera with the firmware hack – see here<\/a>. I am sure if this is the case, there will soon be a way around this.
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See:<\/p>\n