Hacked GH1 for live events?

B

Beernardo

Active member
Hi I'm the owner of a couple of unhacked GH1's and I was wondering if someone here has dare to shoot a live event with the hacked software? even with a not so high bitrate.

I haven't hacked mine because I wouldn't want to take a risk when shooting a wedding and loose a big clip of footage due to a crash :violin:. So I would like to hear some experiences of people doing live events (if there are any) or any warnings or suggestions from experienced hack testers before I dare to do it myself.

Thanks for your replies!
 
Beernardo said:
Hi I'm the owner of a couple of unhacked GH1's and I was wondering if someone here has dare to shoot a live event with the hacked software? even with a not so high bitrate.

I haven't hacked mine because I wouldn't want to take a risk when shooting a wedding and loose a big clip of footage due to a crash :violin:. So I would like to hear some experiences of people doing live events (if there are any) or any warnings or suggestions from experienced hack testers before I dare to do it myself.

Thanks for your replies!
Click to expand...

I'll reply tomorrow with results...
I've done a lot of testing for my shoot tomorrow, and to get stable as a rock settings for long tripod shots I had to go with settings between "a" and "b" with native 24p unchecked. I'm getting little to no mud, and very stable repeatable shots that look better than stock 1080p footage.
I won't be done until 11PM tomorrow so it may be late, but I'll let you know how it goes.
 
I would REALLY appreciate your feedback on this, I have an event on July 3th on which I think I'll go with the original firmware because I don't have enough time to run tests. But I'll defenitely will try to hack it for the event a couple of weeks after this upcoming one.

What kind of event will you do? For weddings we run two cameras on tripods and stabilizers when moving. We need at least 40 to 60 min of continuous shooting for the ceremony and some other moments on the reception.

It will also be cool to know what other equipment are you taking with you, specially the cards. I have a "SanDisk 16GB Video HD SDHC Class 6" and a "SanDisk 16GB Extreme Class 10 High Performance".

Thanks!
 
I've shot a wedding - on 720p, no problems - with a Sandisk Ultra rated class 4, using the C settings.

Just yesterday I shot a seminar in a dimly lit auditorium - first segment was one hour and twenty minutes, second segment was just over an hour. I was shooting with zoom h4n, sennheiser ew100 g2 wireless (hooked up to the presenter) and a rode videomic - all devices fed into the zoom h4n, and then line out (through the headphone jack) into the GH1 mic port (you can achieve "good enough" recorded GH1 sound if you set the headphone level to around 40).

Again, using the Sandisk Ultra card - after about 19 minutes, the camera froze in the middle off a slow, creeping zoom - and then the dreaded warning " camera stop recording due slow card writing" (or something like that - can't remember exact words). Had to switch off of camera and restart. This happened a couple of times.

The last segment of the shoot, I used back the original settings - of course I had no problems.

So I speculate:

1. Card may be too slow to handle creeping zoom
2. Recording sound into the GH1 may add to CPU processing, thus causing the freeze
3. Any number of combinations including low light, kit lens struggling to keep focus....

So my advice after this experience?

1. Get a fast card ( I just got a Sandisk Extreme)
2. Have the original firmware on another sd card and reload if you run into problems

Hope this helps (oh, my camera settings - 720P, Smooth (sharpness +1, nr -2, the rest at 0), shutter 1/30, ISO 800). My tester13 hack settings - 40,50,52,60 otherwise known as c settings, GOP - 5.
 
I forgot to mention, the clips that froze can be recovered! I have windows 7 and when I inserted sdcard, it asked if I want to scan and fix problems - after running that, I managed to recover my files! Thank God.... so I suppose you could run a chkdsk /r /f if you run into file problems.
 
I did a load of tests with the C settings as well and although it looked GREAT, it did freeze or stop with a card speed error like you mentioned a few times, so I kept testing with lower and lower bitrate settings until I found some settings between "a" and "b" that looked good and didn't freeze the cam at all.

I have a wedding at Chateau Elan winery here in GA tomorrow... I'll post results.

I'm keeping a couple of cards with settings for different situations so I can load 'em up real quick if I want. I probably will stick to the "a-b" settings tho as stability is my priority.

ETA... What I've come away with from this GH1 hack.... I'm saving up for the AF100! Man, that's gonna be SWEET!
 
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The 720p mode stresses the camera considerably more than the wrapped 1080p AVCHD mode, so it isn't surprising that it fails every now and then. The "C" settings are very stable for me in 1080 mode, the 720p - not so much. I'm using Transcend class 10 cards. Of course, this is with Native 24p mode not checked.

Chris
 
I've recorded a few concerts with "D" settings 1080/24p (native). Will record another one this week. So far I haven't had any problems. As long as none of the performers look like Pappas star chart I think I will be OK.
 
@ATL. I’m also excited about this new micro 4/3 sensor camcorder, a bit pricey at around $6,000 USD but it saves a lot of the hassle to hang up all of these accessories to the GH1 and keep under control, turning off/on the gadgets, checking batteries, be ready with new batteries, etc.

@mpgxsvcd. Congratulations on your son’s competitions, so no safety rope or nothing? amazing, I feel like a wuss now, (I don’t know nothing about rock climbing) What SD card were you using?

@jamesjjs. Thanks for letting us know your experience. Which lenses did you used at the wedding? The original firmware copy on another SD card is a very good backup plan. About the files recovering, this software is very good as well http://www.piriform.com/recuva.

@cbrandin. I would have thought the 720p mode will stress the camera less because of the smaller resolution, but then again, you are recording 60 frames a second there.
Can’t wait to hear back from ATL about his event experience. Although mine won’t be with the hacked firmware yet, you’ll hear about it next week.

FYI, here's a more detailed list of my setup on both cameras for use at weddings:

- GH1 and Kit lens
- 20mm 1.7 lens
- Two Panasonic DMW-BLB13 batteries
- Black Bird Stabilizer
- Merlin's Arm and Vest (without the Merlin)
- Zoom H4N (with 4GB Sandisk Class 6 SD card) on one camera (waiting for the new more compact Zoom H1 for the second camera)
- 1 San Disk 16GB Class 10 & 1 San Disk 16GB Class 6
- Audio-Technica ATR6550 connected to the H4N using a Monster XLR Male to 1/4" adapter, this allows me to capture two channels of audio with the H4N, one is the built in Mic and the second the shotgun mic.
-Rotolight RL48-A
-All these will be supported on a The CineCity rod system and CPM Film Tools Struts to form a cage. (I'm still waiting for these to arrive :S )
 
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butler360 said:
Stay away from Insane Clown Posse then.
Click to expand...
Somehow, I doubt I'll be able to keep those guys in perfect focus required for the codec overload...

Speaking of live events:


I'm pretty amazed how much better hacked GH1 responds to color changes in post - even without 4:2:2 MJPEG. Before I'd only dare to touch it in Color and mostly for brightness/contrast and skin tones here and there and that's it. Now if the shot is exposed properly (slightly overexposed) I can pretty much throw any MB look at it and leave it alone. It allows me to be exceptionally lazy. Lazy Anthony = happy Anthony.
 
Wow great stuff. I am so torn about using tester13. Really really really want to try it, but have to many weddings this month, and even a one percent increased chance of malfunction is to high for me. Can you install it, but switch between the panasonic firmware and the hacked firmware?
 
Okay... Finished up, and I'm nearly done editing the raw footage in CS5. I wanted to have a good look at it while editing before I commented.

Stability: 10
Image quality: 10

I used slightly lower than "c" settings.
H: 40
L: 40
Overall: 45
Limiting: 50

Native: NO

Not a single crash ion a bright sunny day with kit lens in AF mode for ceremony. I filled 2 16GB Patrot LX class 10 cards without issue!
After pixel peeping.. I can't see ANY mud or artifacts at all.
Very sweet! Now to upgrade my video card to a GTX260 and hack the premiere pro cs5 text file to make it work with the mercury engine!

SWEET... Go for it!
 
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