News about GH2 firmware

Panasonic should just contact him and give him all the resource he needs to build his code. They would increase sales dramatically! PANASONIC, DON'T BE FOOLISH AND BLOCK HIS WORK!
All I really give a damn about is increasing the bit rate up to around 40-50mbits in all modes. I'm quite happy with the camera as it stands now, but would be happier with a mbit jump...
 
Very good stuff. Definitely Vitaliy!! If you need beta testing help when the time comes please advice. I'm in. Looking forward to the possibility of variable ETC among other things. :)
 
GH2 hack chances versus what happened with the most recent GH1 units...

GH2 hack chances versus what happened with the most recent GH1 units...

Vitaliy Kiselev said:
Here is some promised news about GH2 firmware.

First. I have GH2 firmware (obtainded from undisclosed source).

Second. It uses encrypted UPD format. Same as latest Panasonic compacts.

Third. So, we'll have to use approach with compacts firmware dumping that will (with very high probability) result in GH2 firmware decryption.
Click to expand...
What does it exactly mean?

That there is a difference between the GH2 and GH1 non-hackable units because you have access to the GH2 firmware now (something that never happened with the late GH1s), is that so?

Or is it possible Panasonic had blocked the GH2 firmware anyway (and then, even if you have access to the GH2 firmware, it is as same as most recent GH1 units) ?
 
kainekainekaine said:
Its encrypted, so is it actually great news? Would the creation of a donation drive thread help in the main GH section? It could be bumped up regular and get peoples attention to donate to the cause.
Click to expand...



Firstly, if anyone can crack it, I'm sure Vitaly will.

But that might be just the start of a game of cat & mouse with Panasonic. I think the calls in this thread for Panasonic to collaborate with him are over optimistic, to say the least.

When the GH1 hack was under way there were great hopes that Panasonic would give a corporate wink and say, "Well done - now let's assist you from here..."

Well, we all know what Panasonic *actually* did (to their discredit, imo)

Thus, if the GH2 f/w gets hacked, I can see Panasonic being very annoyed indeed. To the extent that future official f/w upgrades will require even more complex decrypting - and, of course, if you decide to stay with the first hacked f/w you will miss out on any other improvements that Panasonic incorporate.

To break this f/w sounds like a *lot* of time and hard work. It would be unrealistic and unfair to expect Vitaly, having done it, to have to keep making such efforts every time Panasonic release f/w upgrades.

That's just my take - and, who knows?, having cracked it once it might be easy (for someone with Vitaly's knowledge) to do it again - but I am pretty sure that Panasonic are going to make things as hard as they possibly can, and that's probably pretty hard.
 
I think Panasonic learned a lesson in a hard way. GH13 hacked firmware boosted hackable GH1 sales. But sales of unhackable GH1 units have been weak. Piles of big inventories until the recent hot deals at big discount. If they had not blocked the hack, they would have sold most of them at much higher price. I don't think it would have hurt GH2 or AF100/101 sales. If they block GH2 hack again, well... they must be fools.
 
We know GH series got a big room for future improvements. As long as Panasonic produces future GH series with enough improvement, most users with hacked units would upgrade to new units. Then why is Panasonic so paranoid about hack? I just don't get it. For them it's like getting free meals. GH hack completes GH.
 
stonebat said:
I think Panasonic learned a lesson in a hard way. GH13 hacked firmware boosted hackable GH1 sales. But sales of unhackable GH1 units have been weak. Piles of big inventories until the recent hot deals at big discount. If they had not blocked the hack, they would have sold most of them at much higher price. I don't think it would have hurt GH2 or AF100/101 sales. If they block GH2 hack again, well... they must be fools.
Click to expand...



I think it goes much deeper than that - more to do with a determination not to have their decisions questioned.

There might be additional reasons, such as the legality of circumventing the EU tax-based 29.59 time limit, concern about loss of battery revenues due to the defeat of their ID chip (perhaps, even, a legitimate concern about the safety of some clone batteries) but, underscoring *everything*, imo, is the paternalism of a hugely conservative Japanese company who are determined to dictate the specification of the products they make.

We see the GH1 hack as wonderfully innovative (which it is), they almost certainly view it as something of an insult.
 
Is this a Japanese culture thing, or a corporate culture thing? Or perhaps a combo of the two...

If Ikonoskop or RED or Arri had their products improved by consumer force, and it boosted sales massively, would they be insulted, or lap it up? (admittedly these companies are making a more expensive, quality product, without intentional restraints.)

When the DSLR video thing started with the Nikon D90, everybody said Nikon would be the champions of the format, becasue they didn't have the corporate problem of a Pro video division like Canon and Panasonic to lobby them to downgrade and limit pro features. Perhaps this might still eventually be the case, if only Nikon would make something that was really really good, like their stills capabilities. Corporations like Panasonic must be very political over these GH1/2 sales - I mean their completely seperate video division must by applying some serious pressure over this AVCHD limitation/ pro features limitation business, or is there another explanation to degrade your product and hit your own sales?
 
Generally this info intended to Panasonic also.
So, they won't be afraid to release firmware files with improvements.
Japan corporations are extremely complicated things.

Want also do add few things as it seems that people interpret first message in this thread strangely sometimes.
First, today we can't decrypt firmware of GH2. Same as we can't decrypt TZ10 firmware (and other compacts).
Our idea is to use cheap compact, desolder flash chip, dump it using firmware reader and analize resulting firmware to understand update file format.
Dumping is the most hard part here (due to extremely low number of readers that support used LSI).
All other steps are not very hard and we can make them.
 
Lucas Adamson said:
When the DSLR video thing started with the Nikon D90, everybody said Nikon would be the champions of the format, becasue they didn't have the corporate problem of a Pro video division like Canon and Panasonic to lobby them to downgrade and limit pro features. Perhaps this might still eventually be the case, if only Nikon would make something that was really really good, like their stills capabilities. Corporations like Panasonic must be very political over these GH1/2 sales - I mean their completely seperate video division must by applying some serious pressure over this AVCHD limitation/ pro features limitation business, or is there another explanation to degrade your product and hit your own sales?
Click to expand...

I suggest to consult Thom Hogan about Nikon behaviour patterns.
For me they look extremely similar to Panasonic.
It is culture (copy, remember, work hard, innovation is dangerous) multiplied by corporate rules.
 
hacking the GH2 would invalidate the guarantee i suppose and only techniclaly minded people risk it which probobly leaves me out which would be a shame as 25P is what i realy miss.
 
Panny will never see it as an "insult". To think that they take this personally is naive. They are a corporation intending to MAKE MONEY. They see this as a legal threat that opens them up to legal suits, losing money and so forth. Sure, you'll say that more people will buy whatever camera can be hacked but that's not really seeing the forest through the trees. Time and time again we hear that the video portion of the camera is a "niche" market or that the people interested in video on these cameras is a very small portion. Well, that's true. Lets say these cameras cost 1000$ to purchase. Generally in design, the sales price is 3x to 4x the cost of the sum of parts. That means that it costs somewhere around 250-350$ in parts to make.

Add deferred design costs, marketing costs, manufacturing costs(new machines, production line personnel, power for the building, the buildings themselves, etc), taxes, tariffs, lawyers, shipping costs and everything else they need to bring those cameras to your hands.

that would mean that the "cost" to make these 1000$ cameras is around 800$ net. That leaves 200$ in profit.

Now what happens when a company sees a bunch of forum people hacking their cameras and potentially bricking each and every one of them?

They see someone sending a camera back for service, most likely under a warranty since the warranty doesn't specifically mention hacking software..

This means they see some technician who makes 15-25$ an hour spending 4 hours working on a camera (lets say 100$ in labor) and then maybe needing to replace a board under warranty (150$ actual board cost) and then send it back to you (15$ shipping) for a total of 275$ they just ate.

That means they see a potential to LOSE money on someone screwing around with their cameras. That's what they see when they read about hacks and mods and all kinds of other stuff. they see loss of control and money.

And that's just the benign side of it.

What happens if someone stuffs a poorly designed knock-off battery in one of these cameras and it goes up in FLAMES? What happens if it burns someone? What happens if it sets someone's house on fire and KILLS someone? That could make the company personnel liable for damages and/or jail time. People ***** and whine about things like 3rd party batteries but the fact is, I've SEEN these batteries go up in flames. I personally would rather see the 3rd party battery limit stay in the camera for safety's sake but it's not my call to make and I'll digress.

I'm all for the hack and the things it brings to those of us who can't necessarily find the resources to move up to more expensive cameras, but let's get real folks, Panny is covering their asses with encrypted code and I can't personally blame them at all. Will I hack my GH2? Hell yes I will. Will I ever hold Panny responsible if I break it? Nope, but I wouldn't expect them to trust me on that either.
 
Svart said:
Panny will never see it as an "insult". To think that they take this personally is naive. They are a corporation intending to MAKE MONEY. They see this as a legal threat that opens them up to legal suits, losing money and so forth. Sure, you'll say that more people will buy whatever camera can be hacked but that's not really seeing the forest through the trees. Time and time again we hear that the video portion of the camera is a "niche" market or that the people interested in video on these cameras is a very small portion. Well, that's true. Lets say these cameras cost 1000$ to purchase. Generally in design, the sales price is 3x to 4x the cost of the sum of parts. That means that it costs somewhere around 250-350$ in parts to make.

Add deferred design costs, marketing costs, manufacturing costs(new machines, production line personnel, power for the building, the buildings themselves, etc), taxes, tariffs, lawyers, shipping costs and everything else they need to bring those cameras to your hands.

that would mean that the "cost" to make these 1000$ cameras is around 800$ net. That leaves 200$ in profit.

Now what happens when a company sees a bunch of forum people hacking their cameras and potentially bricking each and every one of them?

They see someone sending a camera back for service, most likely under a warranty since the warranty doesn't specifically mention hacking software..

This means they see some technician who makes 15-25$ an hour spending 4 hours working on a camera (lets say 100$ in labor) and then maybe needing to replace a board under warranty (150$ actual board cost) and then send it back to you (15$ shipping) for a total of 275$ they just ate.

That means they see a potential to LOSE money on someone screwing around with their cameras. That's what they see when they read about hacks and mods and all kinds of other stuff. they see loss of control and money.

And that's just the benign side of it.

What happens if someone stuffs a poorly designed knock-off battery in one of these cameras and it goes up in FLAMES? What happens if it burns someone? What happens if it sets someone's house on fire and KILLS someone? That could make the company personnel liable for damages and/or jail time. People ***** and whine about things like 3rd party batteries but the fact is, I've SEEN these batteries go up in flames. I personally would rather see the 3rd party battery limit stay in the camera for safety's sake but it's not my call to make and I'll digress.

I'm all for the hack and the things it brings to those of us who can't necessarily find the resources to move up to more expensive cameras, but let's get real folks, Panny is covering their asses with encrypted code and I can't personally blame them at all. Will I hack my GH2? Hell yes I will. Will I ever hold Panny responsible if I break it? Nope, but I wouldn't expect them to trust me on that either.
Click to expand...

Glad to see that not everyone jumped on the corporate overlords conspiracy theory over a sub $1000 product angle.
 
Svart said:
Panny will never see it as an "insult". To think that they take this personally is naive.
Click to expand...

I'm sure that the lower/middle/upper middle ranks are not one bit offended (they probably admired Vitaliy's initiative) - but, in the boardroom, I suspect that they most certainly are offended by the tacit accusation that they got it wrong in the first place.

Don't underestimate the 'loss of face' factor.


Svart said:
They are a corporation intending to MAKE MONEY. They see this as a legal threat that opens them up to legal suits, losing money and so forth.
Click to expand...


No - not Panasonic! :cheesy: Their UK operation impose warranty obligations and restrictions to the letter.

They will do anything that consumer legislation requires them to do - and not one thing more.

The idea of Panasonic ruefully contemplating a pile of returned hacked cameras is laughable - they would toss them back at the purchaser without a moment's hesitation if they even smelled a whiff of hack!

They would also toss a non- hacked camera back if it was 1 minute out of warranty - some companies make goodwill gestures, but not Panasonic.

You can be absolutely certain that they would not lose money fixing hacked cameras - and they would most certainly not consider themselves liable if a third party battery caught fire. They would (fairly) state that they imposed a restriction, the owner chose to remove that restriction - so the consequences are fairly and squarely on the owner's head.

If they have any financial concerns, they would be limited to lost profit on batteries.

None of us can know for certain (and it's certainly not worth an argument :cheesy:) but my own opinion is that corporate pride was a major factor in blocking the hack.

Either way - be it pride or profit - I think we can agree that they will do everything in their power to stop a hack MKll?
 
Why was the GH1 firmware left unencrypted for multiple iterations when it was able to be encrypted right from day one, as seen with other Panasonic cameras previous to and concurrent with the GH1?

Does anyone seriously believe this was not a deliberate policy by Panasonic...?
 
Well, they certainly got that "Magic Lantern" effect in the DVX community. It's kind of edgy and underground, having a "hacked" camera that's genuinely awesome. More settings to play with too. Perhaps they left the back door ajar, but then again, perhaps they just forgot to lock it. It's locked and barred now, eh? Crowbar, anyone?
 
Vitaliy Kiselev said:
I suggest to consult Thom Hogan about Nikon behaviour patterns.
For me they look extremely similar to Panasonic.
It is culture (copy, remember, work hard, innovation is dangerous) multiplied by corporate rules.
Click to expand...

It's so disappointing. If Red can make, well....RED, why can't the mighty and prosperous Nikon make a GH2+ type camera? I don't get it?

Nikon, had they any sense, should put everything into it - it would potentially be their "iPhone."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top