Anyone wanter to answer some noob questions?

M

markyf

Well-known member
1. I hacked the GH1 for the first time last Saturday. If I create another bin file with altered settings, will it revert the settings I leave unchecked this time (like 24pn) to the virgin settings that were there when I unpacked the camera? I had turned on 24pn with the original hack I did on Saturday.

2. When I do a firmware hack, should the bin file be the only thing on the card? Does it matter if I have footage on there too? What about having more than one bin file? Big mistake?

3. I see reference to Preset Bitrate1 & 2 in some of the settings. However I could never find those options in ptool. Is that because I had something checked or unchecked?

I might think of some more questions...

Thanks!
 
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markyf said:
2.What about having more than one bin file? Big mistake?
Click to expand...


More then one firmware image on the SAME card? How will the cam know which one you want? Result? Probably catastrophic. Brick-city is my guess.

Why risk anything in going outside of the normal process? I'd ALWAYS start with a clean, formatted card... then put on only one firmware image.

If you create a new bin file and don't tick 24pn when you create that new file... the cam will no longer be doing 24pn.

New firmware = new camera. What you set the firmware to do is what the camera is going to do after the update.
 
Cool. More of an intellectual question. Wasn't about to try it, I was just curious.

MattinSTL said:
More then one firmware image on the SAME card? How will the cam know which one you want? Result? Probably catastrophic. Brick-city is my guess.
Click to expand...
 
When you update your cam, it asks "start firmware up?"... but there isn't a sophisticated enough OS inside of it to make file choices.

A bin file is simply an .exe for the camera... and when you click "yes" to start the .exe (bin) file... it's running that "application" until completion... because if it doesn't... el bricko.
 
[ "If you create a new bin file and don't tick 24pn when you create that new file... the cam will no longer be doing 24pn.

New firmware = new camera. What you set the firmware to do is what the camera is going to do after the update.[/quote]"]


But can you always re-tick the native 24p. Or go back to the original gh1_132. Then up 1 for every new patches? 133/134/135.....
 
Yes, at some point I would expect you to only have a handful of bin files (firmware images) for your GH1... in their own folder. If you're using Ptool 3.40d the camera isn't "incrementing" the firmware every time you put in new firmware... you're only doing that in Ptool and SAVING incrementing firmware... so that YOU have kept track of the firmware images.

Then, if you decide "hey I want to go back to no 24pn" you just put that file on your formatted card... then put that in the cam and do the update (firmware "replace") that way... to return to the image you made w/o 24pn.

The cam is always going to show firmware 0.0 after Ptool 3.40d... so, as I understand it, you could just have (for example) a firmware GH1__133 and a GH1__134 and switch between them (following the instructions of formating a card and loading one image, then inserting in cam, etc.)
 
So if I wanted to get a bare minimum SD card for shuttling the firmware from my laptop to the GH1, what could I get away with? Does it even have to be SDHC?
 
MattinSTL said:
Then, if you decide "hey I want to go back to no 24pn" you just put that file on your formatted card... then put that in the cam and do the update (firmware "replace") that way... to return to the image you made w/o 24pn.

The cam is always going to show firmware 0.0 after Ptool 3.40d... so, as I understand it, you could just have (for example) a firmware GH1__133 and a GH1__134 and switch between them (following the instructions of formating a card and loading one image, then inserting in cam, etc.)
Click to expand...


You're a big help. THANK YOU

Lastly if you want to go back to the original firmware. In case you need to service your camera. I assume you just plug back the orignal GH1__132 version right?
 
In addition to what has been said.

You need not have to format the card each time strictly speaking. Firmware update do not care if the card has existing pics or videos. It is known to create problems in playback though. If you try to play 50i clips in 25p Native patched camera, camera will freeze. You need to remove battery to restart camera. Similarly if you do PAL-NTSC, switching, the clips of one format is not compatible for viewing on camera patched with the other format. Formatting a good practice, but essential for playback issues mentioned above.

If you want go back to original stage just go back to the 1.32 firmware from Panny without any modification.
 
MattinSTL said:
The cam is always going to show firmware 0.0 after Ptool 3.40d... etc.)
Click to expand...

To clarify, camera will show 0.0 version only if you select version compare option each time you patch. If you do not, camera will show the version you put while saving bin file.

To OP

Yes many here have apparently used lowly SD card to do the update. Not sure if there is any minimum speed requirement. Check Panny web site to be sure.
 
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I say throw $10 at a cheap, yet decent SD card (or two) to keep around ONLY for this... why not?

r.e. "prevent version compare"... I can't see any reason NOT to always use that. That's the setting in Ptools that keeps your cam naming (seeing?) any "new" firmware as 0.0... and that's what basically guarantees that a hackable cam will always willingly accept whatever firmware you throw at it. Prior to that "break-through" you HAD to increment everything every time... and the cam was climbing higher and higher with each new patch-experiment. There used to be people worried that Panasonic would come out with official firmware... numbered lower then where they had "ratchetted" their cam up to... and then they'd be screwed.

I definitely like seeing a "0.0" in my cam menu... it's a reminder that I can always go forward OR back :)
 
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