GH1 firmware research volunteers required

[tyampel]

I have a Japanese model of GH1 (Cheaper and I love the color Red), will the hack firmware work? If so, I'm planning to donate $$. Oh, how difficult to convert from Japanese menu to English?

There is region code that controls the language set in the menus.
The Japanese region limits it to Japanese only. The firmware has all languages all the time. The patch will need to ignore the region code compare or substitute another region instead of the Japanese one.
Definitely doable.

[rotrier]

Just donated $50. Good luck!!

[NURBS]

Testing new settings:

Bitrate 1: 20000000
Bitrate 2: 24000000
VA 720p 50 GOP size: 3
VA 1080P 25 GOP size: 10
VA Param 3 - 32768 to 131072 (okey) but - 262144 show that - card have too low speed
VA Param 4 - 393216 to 1572864 (okey) but - 3145728 show that - card have too low speed
VA Param 7 - 139264 to 1114112 - or less - no changing any digits in mediainfo
VA Param 1080p 1A - 777600 to 6220800 - or less - no changing any digits in mediainfo
VA Param 720p 1A - 345600 to 2764800 - or less - no changing any digits in mediainfo

Testing more...

[g.l]

I think the less obvious encoding settings will be easier and quicker for Tester to check out when he gets his body. There are just too many permutations and Tester has a better idea of what they actually might do.

[NURBS]

Yes I know, but this information important for the future tests.

[yanbee]

donate 10 usd right now....go go go!!! good job guys ;)

[DrBlaz]

I tested my sandisk videohd 16gb, speed also depends on card reader, but I got about 3.7mb/s thats about 30mbps, this would explain the speed problem .

sorry my fault, better test software gives as minimum 6-8mb/s , thats 50mbps , enough to record 30mbps.

[jeracravo]

One question... any plans to have the firmware tool running on a Mac?

[x_WOrPIG_x]

one question... Any plans to have the firmware tool running on a mac?

+1

[Park Edwards]

are we killing the threads so much the boards are getting messed up?

[Ben_B]

One question... any plans to have the firmware tool running on a Mac?

Not that hard to run windows apps (especially tiny ones like this) in Mac OSX or run windows on your mac.

[e-steve]

It would be interesting to see some Google Analytics on this thread to see WHO is reading and how often...

[billy fattey]

Testing new settings:

Bitrate 1: 20000000
Bitrate 2: 24000000
VA 720p 50 GOP size: 3
VA 1080P 25 GOP size: 10
VA Param 3 - 32768 to 131072 (okey) but - 262144 show that - card have too low speed
VA Param 4 - 393216 to 1572864 (okey) but - 3145728 show that - card have too low speed
VA Param 7 - 139264 to 1114112 - or less - no changing any digits in mediainfo
VA Param 1080p 1A - 777600 to 6220800 - or less - no changing any digits in mediainfo
VA Param 720p 1A - 345600 to 2764800 - or less - no changing any digits in mediainfo

Testing more...

I tried those settings and was able to record for 18 seconds before getting the "card too slow" error. To be clear:

Bitrate 1: 20000000
Bitrate 2: 24000000
VA 720p 50 GOP size: 3
VA 1080P 25 GOP size: 10
VA Param 3: 262144
VA Param 4: 3145728

It was a static shot and I ended up with a file about 20MB big or ~1MB a second. I tested my SD card and can write to it with a sustained speed of 10-12MB/second (transcend 16gb class 6). This is using the built in SD slot in a Macbook Pro.

So, I don't really see how this "card too slow" error can be real. The card can definitely keep up with 1MB/second. Is it maybe the firmware just locking the data rate below a certain point and using that error message as a default when it hits the ceiling?

On a testing note, I reshot with the original firmware and found no difference at all in either the size of the file or the way the image looked. I point the camera out the window, put everything drastically out of focus and keep my exposure in the left half of the histogram. This is a good way to see banding and compression noise. Anyway, no difference.

I'm really excited about what you guys are doing with this. I really hope you can increase the bitrate. I don't know how remote this is, but if the bitrate could match the SD card (10MB a sec), that would be legendary.


Billy

[Ryan McCarvill]

Could it be that the card slot in the camera can't keep up with the output rate?

[Kholi]

Oh boy, does Kholi return to the GH-1 camp?

Any thoughts on video out during recording? At lest Standard Definition??