Newbie! God help me.

J

janusz

Well-known member
Howdy,

Just bought a used GH13 this aft. The hack was already installed, and the seller gave me his own burned GH13 disk.

Is there a thread that gives new users a step-by-step tutorial on how to use Ptool, from the ground up? This evening, I downloaded a fresh Ptool.exe from the DVXuser posted link, and tried to install the most recent .bin version on the seller's disk, but Ptool prompted a file type error and wouldn;t allow to .bin to be loaded. Where can I go for a "for dummies play by play"?

Background: I have the body, and that's it. No SD cards yet or card reader, no lens (waiting on a Nikon to M43 adapter for my Nikon glass. Everything is still in the mail.

Thanks everyone!
 
if you look up there is a sticky called ptools for beginners. its long but if you read the first couple pages you will get familiar with how it all works. there is also a youtube clip giving you a rough idea of how the early ptools work...its essentially the same as the new onewith just the added feature and tweak here and there.

now when using ptools you load the ORIGINAL v1.32 firmware from the pana site not a hacked one.
 
So I load the original firmware first, then make changes to it and load it again?

Does the SD card and reader need to mounted on the computer for to properly customize the firmware (or must it only bed mounted on the desktop when I'm ready to transfer it to the card)?
 
Watch this;

If your waiting for an SD card, just stop. You can't do the hack without an SD card.
Watch the video, and read the threads, and learn what works and what doesn't.
And, while you are waiting for all you parts and pieces to arrive, try to think of what you are going to create with your new camera ;)
 
havasuphoto said:
Watch this;


If your waiting for an SD card, just stop. You can't do the hack without an SD card.
Watch the video, and read the threads, and learn what works and what doesn't.
And, while you are waiting for all you parts and pieces to arrive, try to think of what you are going to create with your new camera ;)
Click to expand...




It's worth bearing in mind that the advice given in the video to leave 'version compare' unticked can lead to problems when re-hacking in the future.

My own advice would be to always tick, both, 'version increment', and 'version compare'. This might not be strictly necessary - but I have always done this, and the camera has always reported the new firmware as version 0.0 - which precludes any problems with mixed up version numbers and an inability to conduct future upgrades because the new file numbers is lower than one already installed (which you've probably forgotten the number of by then :undecided )

With 'v0.0' you'll never go wrong because anything is going to be higher. Hence always tick 'prevent version compare'

The other video tip to be wary of is 'selecting native 24/25p' I've never found this stable - in fact, my only record failure came after I selected the 25p option. It won't harm anything and can easily be removed by re-hacking without the native option ticked, and it's interesting to fiddle around with - but for someone using the hack for the first time I'd suggest leaving it well alone.
 
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I hacked my GF1, went throught first two pages of ptool for beginners, and still don't know where can I find CURRENT and STABLE settings for a good quality 720AVCHD out of my little camera
And nobody on these forums is willing to answer my questions.
The only settings I found for the GF1 were in the spreadsheet and dated more than a year ago
At the same time I still have a question about shutter speed, and how it affects the filming- but no answers a well :-)
 
hi i am in a similar boat. there is so much information here and much of it seems to relate to older versions of Ptools. some of the settings suggested dont seem to match the fields available in Ptools. I am also confused about whether the native 24p is reliable or not?
after checking my version was 1.32 in temporary service mode i jumped in and manged with no problems to hack my camera. I only had the native 24p checked in my new version. i have entered temporary service mode again and can see the version is now 0.01 (set to 0 then increment 0.01) so it seems to have worked fine. i dont know how to check if my video is now 24p. i can play it back in the camera. i thought that from reaidng the threads that this should not happen.
can anyone tell me a good set of settings to get a noticable improvement in the video quality, especially I am wanting 'that film look'
i am elec eng and not stupid my i am just learning this level of detail wrt video.
thanks in advance
 
Howdy.

So I got my SD card: Lexar Professional 16GB Class 10 133x Speed. Please stay with me... it's been a LONG day.

Now, I've been hacking away to absolutely no success. At first, I went Rambo, trying all kinds of settings, while keeping track of the increment numbers. Setting yielded no success: low bitrates, muddy blacks, etc.

Then I had marginal success using the "C Setting". But I was disappointed that during some moments in my clip there were bit rates as low as 7mbps. These were obviously low detail scenes, but I find this unacceptable. If one of the main points of the customizable firmware is to have higher bit rates, it seems counter productive that certain moments in images would have such compressed data.

So back to the hack I go, with the intent of getting higher bit rates. No more success. I got frustrated and realized that nothing was working the way I had been reading on all the threads. And I tried and retried, thinking/hoping I was meticulously following instructions. In my irritation, I definitely lost track of the version increment number... I think.

After some fresh air, I found lpowell's 40mbps firmware for download and tried it... no success. So I re-downloaded and installed PTool v3.50 because I thought that using lpowell's 40mbps hack (made on v3.50) wouldn't work on the v3.51 I was using. But again, no success with PTool 3.50. I decided maybe I should go back to the 1.32 firmware to start over. I tried to install it. But my GH1 said "No image to display" or such (I forget the exact phrase it uses when you press PLAY to install the firmware and it isn't detected).

SO.... I think (at this very moment) I'm trying to install the Panasonic 1.32 firmware in the camera with a higher numbered firmware, perhaps 1.36 or similar. I believe I've done this WITHOUT having checked the "Prevent Version Compare" function.

And so... I need help. I'd love to get lpowell or Mark Crabtree's (*) firmware settings to work.

I want my beautiful little GH13 to work guys... but how? Please help. Please. Oy.

(*(After a lot of experimentation, I seem to be getting fairly stable 24pn at GOP 2 and 54 mBS.
I have not tested the 720p only the 1080p.
It will crash if you are recording very dark almost black scenes or cap on. If there is any kind of bright area, even a small one in the frame is seems to keep recording. I have not had a crash other than recording black and the famous chart of doom which it will record for more than 10 seconds before it crashes. I have let it record for over ten minutes at a time on busy high detail scenes and had no crashes. I hardly ever do longer takes than ten minutes so I have not tested longer. I see no strobe effect and the resolution is very high with the GOP 2. I tried to up the over all rate to better handle bursts of high data rate. I also tried to keep all the numbers multiples of 9000.
I just shot a green screen for a TV spot and it keyed perfectly.

Here are my settings.



Ptool v3.50d

GH1__133.bin

Prevent version compare Check

Battery Third party Check

Interface all languages Check



AVC

Wrapper Native 24p Check

AVC compression
FHD 54000000
H 45000000
L 45000000
Overall bit rate 99000000

AVC GOP
720 60P 3
1080 24P 2

Patches for Testers:


AVC HD Movie Mode:
Preset bitrate 9000
Preset bitrate 2 9000
Overall bitrate 108000000)
 
janusz said:
Howdy,

Just bought a used GH13 this aft. The hack was already installed, and the seller gave me his own burned GH13 disk.

Is there a thread that gives new users a step-by-step tutorial on how to use Ptool, from the ground up? This evening, I downloaded a fresh Ptool.exe from the DVXuser posted link, and tried to install the most recent .bin version on the seller's disk, but Ptool prompted a file type error and wouldn;t allow to .bin to be loaded. Where can I go for a "for dummies play by play"?

Background: I have the body, and that's it. No SD cards yet or card reader, no lens (waiting on a Nikon to M43 adapter for my Nikon glass. Everything is still in the mail.

Thanks everyone!
Click to expand...

I think maybe your priorities are screwed up. You had a working camera. Wait for the lens and them go and shoot everything and have fun. Experiment, do tests, find what settings you like, find what it does good, find what it does bad. Then after a few months worry about changing the hack.
 
I can't get any hack into the camera now and I have no idea which one is currently in there.

I have a 50mm/1.8 and a 80-200mm/4 Nikon, with Nikon mount.
 
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