GH1 vs GH13 - Recording Size/Time Limit Question

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NuggetWRX

New member
I have read so many articles and just cannot seem to make sense of all of this information about the unhacked/hacked GH1 camera by Panasonic... so let me apologize in advance if I missed a thread addressing this - I tried "Search" and came up with a ton of B.S. so I just figured I should do this.

I know the recording size limit of 4GB per video file is a function of the outdated but still widely used FAT32 format on the SDHC card, regardless of what class (how fast) the card can be written to. I have seen conflicting information about the GH1 and would like to know once and for all... can the unhacked GH1 blend files so that there's not actual "limit" under respectable bitrate settings or will it stop at 4GB, end the file, and wait for you to manually start another one? Same question for the hacked GH1 (GH13) will it continue to blend files together or create one 4GB file, stop it, and wait for you to press the record button to begin another file?

Second main question, what is this about a 30 minute time limit set by European tax laws? Does it apply to US cameras and how so? I know the 30 min comes from EU having less tax on a camera that records under 30 min at a time, because anything that can record over 30 min has to be taxed higher as it's classified as a "video camera." How does this play a role in the 4GB file size on the card? Is the 30 min time limit a function of bitrate and the 4GB file size cap STILL trumps it no matter what settings you are running on a hacked/unhacked GH1?

Thanks in advance for the help I'm on the market for GH1 to turn into a GH13 and I would love to know the important info before I pick one up.
 
The GH1/GH13/GH2 record continuously for as long as you tell them to. They will split the recording into 4GB files but start another file seamlessly and keep recording.
In Europe, they will stop recording after 29:59, because of EU tax law restrictions. Has nothing to do with the file size.

The reason there's confusion is probably because of the Canons, which cannot span files. They just flat-out stop recording at the 4GB limit, which turns out to be about 11-12 minutes. You'd have to re-start a Canon to get it to record past that. But on the Panasonics they've always had the ability to record continuously for as long as your card has recording space.

So the 30-minute limit is something that applies only to European camcorders, and it is an artificial limitation imposed because of tax laws. And the GH13 hack can remove that restriction. It has absolutely nothing to do with FAT32 or 4GB file sizes, at all.
 
First of all, thanks Barry. That was quick :)

Second - I actually did run into a lot of articles mixing the GH1/13/2 with the Canon 550D/7D/5DMkII. There seemed to be a fine line I couldn't determine between info about all of those cameras I just listed.

So, if you or someone else knows about the hack pretty well, what is a reliable frame rate/bit rate combination setting I should focus on to minimize the risk of files corrupting/ending (apparently a known issue at bitrates of 30Mbps and up with some cards). I will probably be using the Kingston SDHC Class 10 32GB card, unless you absolutely recommend another brand with solid reliability when used in conjunction with this hack.

For what it's worth, I mainly record drum covers. So I set the camera up and play through the song a few times and that's usually over the course of 20-30 minutes at least until I'm happy with a one-take recording. Then I sync the video with the audio recorded through another method (more complicated, won't bother explaining its irrelevant here). I just need one continuous/"spanned" clip and not broken up files to sync up, that's my main focus now.
 
You'll have to ask someone else about that. I got fed up with the hack and went with a GH2 instead, which needs no hack to get high-quality recordings.

As I recall on the GH1-to-GH13 hack, the problematic part was enabling the native 24p mode. If you don't enable that, you can go to much higher bitrates. If you do enable the native 24p, it's gonna fail sometimes. But there are threads that talk about stable bitrates, so you'll have to root around in the GH1 forum to find what the current recommendations are.
 
Could you elaborate on your GH2 choice? What do you mean by "high-quality" recordings in relation to the GH13 hack? I definitely don't need near-2K quality for YouTube or personal projects so if the GH2 is a stable (not to mention under warranty since it's unhacked) I may choose that as well.
 
The Gh1's codec is kind of awful. You can get excellent results out of it sometimes, but there are times where it pukes. To get it to a consistently high-performing system you had to hack it to become a GH13, and up the bitrate substantially.

The GH2 has an incredibly much better performing codec that delivers as good (or perhaps even better) performance than the GH13's hacked codec, in half to 1/3 the bandwidth, and with absolute reliability.
 
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