GH2 Hack Considerations

[aguia]

This is what you need to see to understand hacked vs unhacked gh2.
Download the 1920x1080 version available on vimeo and see in a full hd monitor.
Observe when the videos shows the 400% blow-up.

http://vimeo.com/27883337

This is a bad test to judge anything by. The majority of the scene is in open shade. It might be an acceptable test for trying to "break" a codec but I think the move is too slow to accomplish that.

So far most of the good examples I've seen from hacked GH2s had lighting situations or setups that really showed the potential of the sensor but I would never attribute to the bitrate of the codec, and I guess the potential of shooting ISO 12K or such has pretty limited appeal for what I do.

As for the people that actually believe the IQ of a hacked GH2 even begins to approach an AF100 using an outboard recorder all I can say is "dream on".

The GH2 is a great tool, I love mine. I'm installing the new Panasonic firmware tonight and maybe next week if I have some time I will shoot some tests to compare it to my AF100 and if I can get my hands on the charts I might even try an A/B hack/unhacked test.

 

[JMZ]

I think a lot of people here are confusing an aquisition codec with a delivery codec. The whole point in having high bitrate capture is so that you have the best quality master footage to work with. For some odd reason Panasonic decided to incorporate a delivery codec into their cameras (ie. AVCHD max 24mbps) even though no-one would be dumping their rushes directly onto BD Disc as final masters - they would be edited (even a basic top 'n' tail edit per shot) and re-encoded for Bluray before burning onto disc. This is where the hack comes into play, as it allows you to bump up the bitrate to something more acceptable for an aquisition codec - something that ANY camera manufacturer should have done in the first place. Also if you are shooting for broadcast in the UK, the BBC won't allow anything under 50mbps to be classed as HD, which is why we had to go for Canon XF305s as replacements for the Sony Z1s and have just bought a load of XDCAM 500s to replace our Betacam SX and Digibeta cameras.

Energy,

Thanks for posting this. You break it down quite nicely. It's about having the highest quality acquisition format you can going in so you keep as much quality as possible going out. It's that simple. I might watch HD quicktime versions of movie trailers online. But we all know those images didn't originate as quicktime files. So they still look quite good in most cases. If someone can't see the difference in the final product of one hack versus another; then they should use what they think looks best. Heck, I believe you should approach most of your image making choices this way. Use what works for you and have fun doing it.