Just got my GH1 from JR Music from the big sale last Saturday. All of their stock is post July of 2010. The question that I have is whether the current firmware will be hackable if Panasonic should ever release an updated firmware in the future. Are the pre July 2010 versions the only ones that will ever be "hackable"?
New GH1s from JR Not Hackable..Keep?
- Thread starter Ripayne
- Start date
Gordon Prince
Well-known member
Are you sure all of their stock is after July of 2010? Who said so?
I got my GH1 and checked the serial numbers " OB, OC, OD etc.". Mine is OG. I immediately called sales then service. They are apparently aware that the "hackables" are more desirable, but checked stock and apparently could not find any older GH1s. Maybe something is hidden away, but the point is that J&R does not believe that they have any old GH1s.
My issue is that at the $999 I paid for it, the lens is almost worth the entire deal. The question that Vitaly may want to address is whether the hack is gone forever or whether it returns by Panasonic doing a future firmware update to add a new lense,
My issue is that at the $999 I paid for it, the lens is almost worth the entire deal. The question that Vitaly may want to address is whether the hack is gone forever or whether it returns by Panasonic doing a future firmware update to add a new lense,
Gordon Prince
Well-known member
Where have you heard this?
On this forum a couple of times. I believe roelf mentioned it a few times, and maybe some others.
Hi, I was in the same position. My UK store had a v1.34 camera at a good price and I was very tempted to buy it because I was experiencing difficulty finding a late model GH1 that was still hackable.
In the end, I kept on hunting - and am very glad that I did.
I had no experience of the GH1, and no idea what the 'mud' that everyone talks about, actually was.
I own a Canon HG10 that produces very good (down sampled) footage, with very little aliasing or artifacts. However, I wanted easier manual control and the GH1's still image capability.
When I viewed my first few seconds of the test video from my new pre-1.34 GH1, prior to the hack being applied, I thought, "Well, that's not bad"
Then, I saw what everyone ws complaining about - the 'mud' in a not too fast pan of garden foliage.
I had NEVER seen anything like it in any of my HG10 videos - grey/brown smears that looked, when paused, as if someone had spattered diarrhoea over the image! - and the HG10 is only 15Mps.
The lowest hack settings got rid of it - and there is no way that I could have been happy with a GH1 that couldn't be rescued by the hack.
Panasonic should be ashamed to release an expensive camera with such a defect.
By reading Dvxuser you've demonstrated an interest in image quality - and I honestly doubt that you'd be happy with an unhackable GH1.
Regards
You can get hackable ones on ebay, often new, at cost. I tried the bigbox stores when looking for them, JR in particular connected me to one mexican, who connected me to another mexican, who connected me to some guy, who connected me to a different mexican, who put me on hold and then hung up.
It's a cheap $650 consumer grade still photo faux-SLR, basically a point-n-shoot with interchangable lenses, that just happens to shoot some pretty amazing video as a bonus. Want a pro-quality codec...you gotta get a pro video camera. But, hopefully the GH2 will get us a factory 24mbps codec from Panasonic...I'd much prefer that over a hacked GH1.
It's a cheap $650 consumer grade still photo faux-SLR, basically a point-n-shoot with interchangable lenses, that just happens to shoot some pretty amazing video as a bonus. Want a pro-quality codec...you gotta get a pro video camera. But, hopefully the GH2 will get us a factory 24mbps codec from Panasonic...I'd much prefer that over a hacked GH1.
Two points come immediately to mind. The GH1 had a list price in the UK of over £1350 - that's almost $2100 US. Hardly a cheap consumer cam.
I agree, it looks like a consumer cam, feels like a consumer cam, and takes photo's like a consumer cam - but Panasonic obviously took a different view when they priced it.
Secondly, I have a Canon HG10 AVCHD consumer camcorder. This has a bitrate of only 15Mps - yet it shoots better video than an unmodified GH1. There is no 'mud' - absolutely none. It has good colour, it's sharp, fast to focus, and good low light performance with finely grained monochrome noise - no banding, and certainly no purple & yellow Aurora Borealis effects to liven things up -
As we know, Panasonic are one of the pioneers of AVCHD, so how does a consumer Canon camcorder outperform an expensive Panasonic GH1?
Perhaps the ad slogan *is* true after all - 'Canon can' -
thisisapocalypse
Well-known member
The unhacked GH1 is still very good for a lot of things - I'm glad I hacked mine but in the end I was still happy with it unhacked - put really good lenses on the GH1 and you'll be happy.
The GH1 in 720p unhacked is great. If that's all you need, then keep the camera. However, unhacked 1080 is iffy - pan too fast, you get mud. Too much detail (fences, small leaves) and any slight movement, you get mud.
The next question is the FPN / Smearing / vertical bands. I bought mine June 2009 - it had ugly yellow banding. Had to do the burn in thing - now it's much better. There were reports that later cameras did not suffer from the banding thing - then we had conflicting reports of GH1 owners that still suffered banding despite buying them recently.
So - best case is you open the box, test the camera - no banding! Then you find firmware can be hacked as well!! So no brainer - keep the camera.
Next case - great, firmware hackable - but horrible banding.... most likely reject and try to return open box.
Last case - no banding / minor, acceptable banding, but cannot be hacked.... what do you do? If all you need really is 720p, then I'd say, keep the camera.
Or, return camera and wait for latest announcements at Photokina....
The next question is the FPN / Smearing / vertical bands. I bought mine June 2009 - it had ugly yellow banding. Had to do the burn in thing - now it's much better. There were reports that later cameras did not suffer from the banding thing - then we had conflicting reports of GH1 owners that still suffered banding despite buying them recently.
So - best case is you open the box, test the camera - no banding! Then you find firmware can be hacked as well!! So no brainer - keep the camera.
Next case - great, firmware hackable - but horrible banding.... most likely reject and try to return open box.
Last case - no banding / minor, acceptable banding, but cannot be hacked.... what do you do? If all you need really is 720p, then I'd say, keep the camera.
Or, return camera and wait for latest announcements at Photokina....
Skeptikal
Active member
It's a cheap $650 consumer grade still photo faux-SLR, basically a point-n-shoot with interchangable lenses, that just happens to shoot some pretty amazing video as a bonus. Want a pro-quality codec...you gotta get a pro video camera. But, hopefully the GH2 will get us a factory 24mbps codec from Panasonic...I'd much prefer that over a hacked GH1.
This is what encourages the "technology drip feed" strategy of Panasonic's (and Sony's) marketing department. Why didn't they use a decent 24mbps codec in the first place? Or at least 24 mbps for the dumber AVCHD codec version they used. Purely artificial marketing/pricing "differentiation" that's not justified by any engineering considerations! Sure...pay a LOT more for a pro ENG type system ...they are built to a totally different standard. But why not allow ordinary consumers at least the optimum possible picture quality that the DSLR's design technology will permit...it's only a codec tweak!
They unlock a couple of parameters within the intentionally crippled GH1...and we have the next model. Stretch it out as long as possible . Very cynical.
I'm not sure about the "$650 consumer grade...". When first released here in Australia it was $2800.
Given the stunning image quality provided by "C" settings, I'm not so sure that 24 mbps (even with B frames) will do better. I very much doubt I will be getting a GH2 unless it has a global shutter...but the marketing dept have probably reserved that for the GH3...
I got rid of my unhackable GH1 within a couple days...on principle :grin: