The PTool Manual (WIP)

[Tesselator]

Or actually... with 42 total (current) features color tags are going consume too much of the 2000 character (per message) limit.
]color=green[]/color[ = 21 characters x 42 functions = 882 characters or 441 per message.

How about special characters? What do you see below?

☼ <-- 8 pointed star
✰ <-- Drop shadowed 5 pointed star
❍ <-- Drop shadowed circle
❑ <-- Drop shadowed square
☯ <-- Ying yang
✔ <-- Check mark
✓ <-- Check mark 2
☒ <-- Boxed X
☑ <-- Boxed check mark
☠ <-- Skull and bones
⚠ <-- Caution
▣ <-- Boxed filled box
▇ <-- Filled box?
⌧ <-- X'ed box
▢ <-- Box
⤴ <-- Turn up
⤵ <-- Turn down
⤶ <-- Turn back
⦻ <-- X'ed circle
⦸ <-- Crossed circle
⦵ <-- Striked circle
⦿ <-- Circled filled circle
⨸ <-- Circled divide
⨷ <-- Double circled multiply
⑴ <-- Parenthesized 1
½ <-- Half
¼ <-- Quarter
Ⓐ <-- Circled A
Ⓒ <-- Circled C
Ⓕ <-- Circled F

Does anyone not see those? Which ones don't render properly for you?

Or, my Request for information could go white and equal it out?

Or is there a better way yet? Trying to conserve on the character count here. Or how about the mods up the limit (for this thread/author)? Anything?

 

[Martti Ekstrand]

I see all special characters as you describe them with Safari and Chrome on OSX.

You are doing a great job here with the manual.

 

[savagess]

Great idea with listing features. Wish I could help and add, but don;t know enough.

Waiting for the MJPEG settings!..
One thing, could you add if the settings for what ever hack are changed if it's still playable on the camera or not, this I think would be handy to know.
It's really one of the main thnings stopping me changing video settings if it stops the ability to play back on the camera...
Cheers

 

[svecher]

Great idea with listing features. Wish I could help and add, but don;t know enough.

It's really one of the main thnings stopping me changing video settings if it stops the ability to play back on the camera...
Cheers

In the manual such information is noted under "Stable" field. The only patch known to cause camera not to be able to play footage is audio bitrate adjustments. AVCHD adjustments are fine. There are some issues with native patch (23.971 frame rate and Upper Dominance field causing issues in FCP as well as possibility of camera freezing when shooting detailed static scenes). I haven't experimented with MJPEG patches myself, but I don't recall any issues with playability. Use settings from "Stable MJPEG settings" sticky until somebody does the entry for Manual.

EDIT: Tesselator, I noticed that audio bitrate adjustment patch is missing a warning about not being able to play back footage in camera. Please add. Thanks.

 

[rundavids]

Hi, Tesselator. Great manual so far. They need to make this thread a sticky.

I also have a question "version compare patch". My gh1 firmware is 1.2 and if I use this patch, my gh1 would then become 0.0 and can test settings repeatedly as long as this patch is checked everytime?
And I could return my gh1 to it's former self with official panasonic firmware?

 

[svecher]

Hi, Tesselator. Great manual so far. They need to make this thread a sticky.

Hopefully Isaac can work this (and character limit) out. I asked him about that earlier this morning.

I also have a question "version compare patch". My gh1 firmware is 1.2 and if I use this patch, my gh1 would then become 0.0 and can test settings repeatedly as long as this patch is checked everytime?
And I could return my gh1 to it's former self with official panasonic firmware?

Yes, I tested exactly this scenario and it works. However, since PTool is based on stock version 1.32, if you do go back to stock firmware version it is highly recommended that you revert back to stock v.1.32 (because of lens version updates).

 

[jokari]

very helpful job, many thanks!

 

[Isaac_Brody]

Character limit was raised for this thread.

 

[svecher]

Character limit was raised for this thread.

Awesome, thanks very much Isaac!

So, we should have enough space for additional features and color coding as discussed.

 

[Tesselator]

Character limit was raised for this thread.

Excellent! Thanks Brody!

Heh, what a cool name!

rogar-BigGrin(DBG)

 

[rundavids]

Thanks for reply svecher. I'm gonna upgrde to gh13 soon.

 

[Tesselator]

Thanks for reply svecher. I'm gonna upgrde to gh13 soon.

It think I've now tried just about every feature of the camera and the changes I made with PTool seems to have caused no negative affects other than the body version string reporting 0.0.

I'm not sure I set it at all correctly though. I set:

1. Version Compare Patch (never used Version Change - ever)
2. 3rd party Battery (though I only have just the one Panny battery anyway )
3. Interface Language: English.
4. Native 24p/25p
5. MJPEG 4:2:2
6. Bitrate Adjustment FHD/SH Simplified: 40,000,000
7. Bitrate Adjustment H Added: 38,000,000
8. Bitrate Adjustment L Added: 36,000,000
9. Overall Bitrate: 44,000,000
10. Limiting Bitrate: 48,000,000

But as you see below the bit-rates didn't increase much or at all:

So, the first 5 settings there are probably right but I'm wondering if the last ones don't also depend on something else I'm not doing.

Anyway, with those settings everything about the camera works perfectly. So I think it's completely safe to mod at this point.

 

[svecher]

It think I've now tried just about every feature of the camera and the changes I made with PTool seems to have caused no negative affects other than the body version string reporting 0.0.

I'm not sure I set it at all correctly though. I set:

1. Version Compare Patch (never used Version Change - ever)
2. 3rd party Battery (though I only have just the one Panny battery anyway )
3. Interface Language: English.
4. Native 24p/25p
5. MJPEG 4:2:2
6. Bitrate Adjustment FHD/SH Simplified: 40,000,000
7. Bitrate Adjustment H Added: 38,000,000
8. Bitrate Adjustment L Added: 36,000,000
9. Overall Bitrate: 44,000,000
10. Limiting Bitrate: 48,000,000

But as you see below the bit-rates didn't increase much or at all:
So, the first 5 settings there are probably right but I'm wondering if the last ones don't also depend on something else I'm not doing.

AVCHD bitrate adjustment settings are standalone (6-10) as a group. The likely reason you are seeing low bitrates is because of shooting relatively low-detail scenes. Shoot something like a star chart http://www.bealecorner.org/red/test-patterns/star-chart-bars-full-600dpi.png and they will get up there. Or a field of flowers

Patch #5 is probably meaningless without applying other MJPEG related patches.

Patch #4. There is discussion in this thread, linking native patch to some breakage in footage, rogue I/P frames and camera freezing when using high bitrates.
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=213908
The manual entry needs a little revision under testing notes for this entry.

 

[rundavids]

Thanks for the information tesselator. I'm definitely will upgrade soon. Promise

 

[Tesselator]

I recently answered a PM and thought it might be useful to also post it here for consideration and comment:

Hello Tesselator,

I have been reading everything I can about the GH1 hack and need some clarification using the newer "Version Compare Patch"...

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=2021799&postcount=18

Do you still save the new firmware name file by '1' increment?

No. [see the post linked above]

When I want to make additional changes/tweaks to the firmware, do I always work off the original 1.32 file

Yes.

Lastly, if I want to re-install the original Panasonic 1.32 firmware will the camera still read 0.0 in the 'Body Firmware' version display?

No.

I think it would help a lot of people if the instructions on the first-post sticky pages were updated (especially screenshots) - thanks for the work you have done

I probably will not add screen shots (I dunno yet) but the first few "Manual" messages in this thread are actively being updated. There's a slight lull (a few days) in updates as the author says he is revising the layout of Ptool and may also be consolidating some feature patches. It will get a large update shortly after that is released - likely very soon now!

 

[Tesselator]

AVCHD bitrate adjustment settings are standalone (6-10) as a group. The likely reason you are seeing low bitrates is because of shooting relatively low-detail scenes. Shoot something like a star chart http://www.bealecorner.org/red/test-patterns/star-chart-bars-full-600dpi.png and they will get up there. Or a field of flowers

I thought my tests were heavy but OK, I'll try and weight them down with more detail... Thanks!

Patch #5 is probably meaningless without applying other MJPEG related patches.

But it does give me 422. Color resolution like 420/422/etc. is typically only noticeable when compositing or when up-scaling the footage. Since I my want to composite something (sometime) I would like to just always use 422. It's not really that much bigger. I think it adds something like 10% to the relative file size - typically (on average).

Patch #4. There is discussion in this thread, linking native patch to some breakage in footage, rogue I/P frames and camera freezing when using high bitrates.
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=213908
The manual entry needs a little revision under testing notes for this entry.

OK, which posts were you referring to specifically?

 

[Tesselator]

BTW, Just to update a little: I shot the "star-chart-bars-full-600dpi" on the LCD yesterday and yup, sure enough, it jumped right up to 39.8 mbits and stayed between 36 and 39.x the entire time the "star-chart-bars-full-600dpi" was in view (about 3 min. clip test time).

Thanks svecher! (yet again!)

 

[svecher]

OK, which posts were you referring to specifically?

The thought process has been evolving throughout, so I might as well resummarize. Basically, applying a native patch has been linked to appearance of "rogue" I/P frames (usually last P frame in a GOP or standalone I frames that are several times larger than average) in AVCHD stream files. Depending on 1) SD Card used, 2) Amount of detail in the scene (high detail pushes average bitrate up) and 3) Bitrate settings chosen for AVCHD mode, one can experience either good performance, stopped recording with "card too slow" errors or complete freezing of the camera (requires pulling battery and loosing footage). There are no generally agreed upon "safe settings" yet, but a good Class 10 card (Sandisk, Panasonic or equivalent) with PTool's "C" settings has been reported to be least problem-prone. Native patch is mostly about convenience - not having to deal with removal of 60i wrapper. The one functional exception confirmed by Barry Green is true progressive color sampling, which is closer to "real" colors than interlaced sampling. It is therefore recommended that this patch is only applied by users who clearly need the optimized workflow and fully understand the risks associated with use.

 

[pepperidge]

Hi, I'm new to the forum, led by the link to PTools as reviewed on luminous landscape.

I just tried a few patches with the latest 3.37d version, including:

Version Compare Patch
3rd party Battery
Interface Language: English.
Native 24p/25p
Audio bit rate

After the firmware "upgrade", I wasn't able to playback videos on the camera anymore. Were there any settings I should be doing? I tried searching on the thread by couldn't find anything...

Hope I have screwed anything up!

Appreciate any help.

 

[Barry_Green]

The audio bitrate patch is th eone that makes it not able to playback in-camera. Next time you upgrade, don't check that, and you'll be fine.