GH3 GH3 vs. unhacked GH2

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d1rockwild

Well-known member
Most of the comparisons (and perhaps rightly so) have been between hacked GH2's and the GH3. The general opinion so far seems, they are, comparable, with the GH3 having a slighter edge. I guess this somewhat answers my question about an unhacked GH2 vs. a GH3 but I haven't found any comparison videos that didn't involve a hacked GH2 only. Just something I'd like to see for myself. Anyone have any incite/videos?
 
Unhacked GH2 is not bad at all unless you are doing a high detailed scene. Water, foliage, that sort of thing. The hack adds a tiny bit to the overall image in an average setting, but it's not much. Color reproduction and dynamic range are the things that I'm hoping are noticeably better in the GH3, but at this point I'm waiting for the price to come down before I purchase. If it only came down to image quality I'd stay with the GH2, but the headphone jack is important to me, as well as the weather sealed body. And I'm hoping the wifi comes in handy.

But in my experience, the unhacked GH2 will shoot 95% of what you need to shoot in amazing quality.
 
blazer003 said:
Unhacked GH2 is not bad at all unless you are doing a high detailed scene. Water, foliage, that sort of thing. The hack adds a tiny bit to the overall image in an average setting, but it's not much. Color reproduction and dynamic range are the things that I'm hoping are noticeably better in the GH3, but at this point I'm waiting for the price to come down before I purchase. If it only came down to image quality I'd stay with the GH2, but the headphone jack is important to me, as well as the weather sealed body. And I'm hoping the wifi comes in handy.

But in my experience, the unhacked GH2 will shoot 95% of what you need to shoot in amazing quality.
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That's what I've always thought. I've never honestly been able to see very convincing comparison vids online with unhacked GH2 vs. hacked GH2. The only other output I do are Blu Ray DVDs for couples, but the bulk of my business is dependent on my online uploads anyway. And with Vimeo's 5mbps rule, plus their additional re-transcoding anyway, it just seems like, what's the point. For me, anyway. For me. For others who are able to do more serious film work, and/or make substantial amounts of income from it, it must make sense. I know also, that while the chances are slim, my understanding is some gh2's crash under certain hacks, and not to mention, there is no playback ability in-camera.

I do want to make clear that I am NOT knocking hacked GH2's at ALL. It seems great, inspires a lot of people and is definitely a good thing for the m43 system and community. I just don't think I need it for most of the work I do. I do dip into other things, photography and narrative filming, but it is lightweight, unfortunately. Luckily, weddings have been, not too bad for me, so am thinking about maxing out this m43 system with the GH3.
 
blazer003 said:
But in my experience, the unhacked GH2 will shoot 95% of what you need to shoot in amazing quality.
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Completely agree. I've always felt there was sort of a placebo effect with the various hacks on the GH2. Plus, after one time I had a hack fail on me mid-shoot, I swore I'd never use one again.

Now I'm thrilled with the GH3 - and I do notice an improvement in the IQ, especially at night/low-light.
 
ras815 said:
Completely agree. I've always felt there was sort of a placebo effect with the various hacks on the GH2. Plus, after one time I had a hack fail on me mid-shoot, I swore I'd never use one again.

Now I'm thrilled with the GH3 - and I do notice an improvement in the IQ, especially at night/low-light.
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There is more to the hack than bit rate. There is a good amount more detail, and you have the ability of going all I frames. This changes motion as well. Having done comparisons side by side of my GH2 unhacked and hacked, I can say with 100% certainty that it is FAR from a placebo effect.

Had to state that as I don't want members here getting the wrong information.
 
PaPa said:
There is more to the hack than bit rate. There is a good amount more detail, and you have the ability of going all I frames. This changes motion as well. Having done comparisons side by side of my GH2 unhacked and hacked, I can say with 100% certainty that it is FAR from a placebo effect.
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Amen. When I first got my GH2 I decided to use it with stock firmware initially. Then I filmed a swim meet for a documentary. The codec simply could not handle the detail. It started breaking up with tons of compression artifacts and turned the water into a jpeg wasteland. Horrible. I posted on here to see if I had a bad camera or if my card was faulty. Someone chimed in explaining that THIS is the reason the hack is so beneficial.

I do not use the high-end hacks with insane bitrates since I am not shooting a film, and my clients would not notice the difference. Vimeo/youtube, with half of their viewers watching in SD, the pixel peeping simply doesn't matter. But avoiding jpg artifacts and having clean footage, fantastic! I use between 40-80M/sec on most patches. Have a few loaded up but can't remember them by name. And lets not forget the glorious audio settings that can be changed!! Real metering with Pasedna!

Can't wait to get my GH3. Looks like a little warrior with that sealed body.
 
I'm not going to enter the above debate regarding 1080, but 720p on an unhacked GH2 is really quite dire. So I certainly hope the GH3 has much better 720p, otherwise I can't imagine anyone will be using that option!
 
PaPa said:
There is more to the hack than bit rate. There is a good amount more detail, and you have the ability of going all I frames. This changes motion as well. Having done comparisons side by side of my GH2 unhacked and hacked, I can say with 100% certainty that it is FAR from a placebo effect.

Had to state that as I don't want members here getting the wrong information.
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There is nothing to the hack at all. There is no more detail, and I frames produce no perceivable benefit. This doesn't even change motion either. Having done comparisons side by side of my GH2 unhacked and hacked, I can say with 100% certainty that it is certainly a placebo effect.

Had to state that as I don't want members here getting the wrong information.

See how words mean nothing without data to back it up?

Here is my data.


 
GrahamH said:
I'm not going to enter the above debate regarding 1080, but 720p on an unhacked GH2 is really quite dire. So I certainly hope the GH3 has much better 720p, otherwise I can't imagine anyone will be using that option!
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Why would you use 720p @ 60 FPS when you have 1080p @ 60 FPS on the GH3? You can't even use the ETC with 60 FPS anymore. I never take my GH3 off of the 1080p @ 60 FPS setting. It is simply better for my needs than any other setting. It is also specfically why I bought the GH3 and why I won't by a GH5 unless it has a 120 FPS mode with sound.
 
I have tried several hacks on one of my GH2's and no hack on the other... After a year of this I now have two unhacked, and never miss anything. I'm sure som pixelfreak can spot a difference from time to time, but although shooting mostly landscapes and natureI have found absolutely no advantages to hacking, and a lot of annoying reasons to stop. All of course in my very humble opinion!!
 
mpgxsvcd said:
There is nothing to the hack at all. There is no more detail, and I frames produce no perceivable benefit. This doesn't even change motion either. Having done comparisons side by side of my GH2 unhacked and hacked, I can say with 100% certainty that it is certainly a placebo effect.
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mpgxsvcd, so you've probably seen Lee Powell's frame grabs between the stock GH2 and a patched GH2 running Flow Motion ver 2.02 :

GH2 100Mbps Flow Motion v2 Patch - Banding & Blocking Be Gone!

Are you saying you don't see a difference in these two frame grabs?


...I've been using the Flow Motion patch for about 6 months now and I have noticed image improvements with highly detailed subjects, especially when any motion is involved.

Personally I see no down-sides to using a proven GH2 patch like Flow Motion, other than it will require higher performance memory cards and more space on the card. 2 hours of footage on a SDXC 64GB card is an acceptable trade off to me.
 
TheDingo said:
mpgxsvcd, so you've probably seen Lee Powell's frame grabs between the stock GH2 and a patched GH2 running Flow Motion ver 2.02 :

GH2 100Mbps Flow Motion v2 Patch - Banding & Blocking Be Gone!

Are you saying you don't see a difference in these two frame grabs?


...I've been using the Flow Motion patch for about 6 months now and I have noticed image improvements with highly detailed subjects, especially when any motion is involved.

Personally I see no down-sides to using a proven GH2 patch like Flow Motion, other than it will require higher performance memory cards and more space on the card. 2 hours of footage on a SDXC 64GB card is an acceptable trade off to me.
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No my point is that anyone can make 100% certain statements that means nothing without concrete evidence to back it up.

In fact you are right I don’t even believe that statement that I made. I just said it to prove a point. The hacks do have benefit in very specific situations. They don’t increase resolution. They don’t affect dynamic range. However, they can reduce compression artifacts in extreme scenes where the entire image is in constant and irregular motion like in Lpowell’s demonstration.

I only object to people saying that the hack is absolutely necessary and without drawbacks. Even Lpowell’s settings will fail in 720p Auto mode. That being said I do think his settings are the most stable and useful of the higher bit rate hacks. If those bit rates offered me a benefit based on what I was shooting then I would use those settings.
 
mpgxsvcd said:
No my point is that anyone can make 100% certain statements that means nothing without concrete evidence to back it up.

In fact you are right I don’t even believe that statement that I made. I just said it to prove a point. The hacks do have benefit in very specific situations. They don’t increase resolution. They don’t affect dynamic range. However, they can reduce compression artifacts in extreme scenes where the entire image is in constant and irregular motion like in Lpowell’s demonstration.

I only object to people saying that the hack is absolutely necessary and without drawbacks. Even Lpowell’s settings will fail in 720p Auto mode. That being said I do think his settings are the most stable and useful of the higher bit rate hacks. If those bit rates offered me a benefit based on what I was shooting then I would use those settings.
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Another great benefit of the hack is when you want to bring up the shadows in post, which i do probably 99% of the time. You get less blocky compression in the darks. Huge bonus for me. Granted the hack doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it sure does improve every aspect of the video ( in my eyes ) when it comes to post manipulation.

No one should be brain washed to believe that hacked vs non hacked are universes apart, but the benefits unveil themselves during your post workflow. Whether you believe it is worthwhile is up to the user, however from my experience, there is no question that I am willing to sacrifice hard drive space for the increase of my image quality ( not always perceived quality at first ). Banding becomes less of an issue as well ( less, not gone ).
 
The hack has helped me with macro blocking, and capturing more information in high detail scenes. This is mostly from experience, and doing endless side by side comparisons. The hack definitely has its benefits, although not everyone has the eyes to notice them. And many times the hack's benefits only become apparent in specific situations or lighting scenarios.

The time I was most floored by the hack, was when I had the opportunity to film with 2 GH2's, side by side, one hacked with the original Driftwood 176mbps patch and the other stock. The scene involved spraying confetti and flour into 2 people as they ran by the camera. It was around dusk and was a low light situation. Once the 720p footage was taken into twixtor, I saw a pretty big difference in how it was able to predict the movement in fine detail. There was substantially more warping in the stock footage. But this is just one case... plenty more involving candles, moving water, high detail shots that were easy to pick out without knowing which camera was hacked. I posted most of these tests back in 2011 on my old youtube account, but they were taken down for issues with music. I'll have to re-post them, however there's been a fair amount of test videos showing what I've described.
 
For me...The banding with the stock GH2 is really bad. Flow Motion knocks this out. Faces with FM have more detail.
The overall image is denser than unhacked.
The hacked footage holds up better with coloring fx.

If GH2 owners and the people they show it to are not seeing any problems with unhacked footage, then I guess it doesn't matter!
 
The Gh2 hack is very nice. Hacked, I do prefer the Gh2.
Without a hack - I would prefer the Gh3, whose long GOP mode is comparable to the long GOP Gh2 hacks.
 
Lpowell said:
Here you go. Unfortunately, the unhacked GH2 cannot be relied on to maintain acceptable image quality in all shooting conditions.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...-Gone!&p=1986152356&viewfull=1#post1986152356
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I should clarify, I haven't seen much footage online (specifically via yt or vimeo), that has ME convinced I should do it, considering the type of work I do, the trade-off of larger files isn't worth it for me. I shoot a ton of footage and don't want to budget for more HD's than I already have. The differences are there in the vids, its just, in my opinion, somewhat slight. A million times over I speak for myself only and am not trying to make any super objective claims about the GH2 hacks.
 
There is no doubt that hacking can produce slightly clearer footage of very busy images, viewed magnified... So can more expensive cameras. Just like I don't feel the need to change cameras just for that tiny extra, mostly not needed, detail, I don't feel the microscopic gain with hacking is worth the extra trouble, larger cards and files, instability and worries... And the upped detail level often brings more visible noise to tend to...
 
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