GH2 Thoughts on HBR please

Shooter

Shooter

Veteran
Dont think I have heard or read a single comment about the HBR setting since it was made available in the GH2 firmware update recently.

Everything seems to be about hacking so wondered if this got lost in the hack-fest.

What do people think about the HBR? ie . compared to IQ before .

FWIW...I am trying to find a case for not hacking my GH2.
 
If you're shooting 24FPS (cinema mode), it makes no difference.

If you're a PAL shooter, it's a substantial difference for 1080 recording (50i 17mb/s vs 25p 24mb/s). Sames goes if you're a NTSC shooter (60i 17mb/s vs 30p 24mb/s). The 17 mb/s shooting modes are unusable IMO. That slight boost in bitrate really helps get rid of macroblocking.

The best reason to use 1.1 though is the ability to completely turn off the touch screen. Love that feature.
 
Shooter - You're right, there hasn't been a lot of discussion beyond, "where do I find the v1.1 software?"

There have been a few tests, however.

A couple of 1.0/1.1 side-by-sides:

From NTSC-land http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0cExleEJFI

From PAL-land http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKQeQaib0P4

A couple of 1.1 demos:

http://vimeo.com/33861237

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvjLMFWNwnE

Sadly, I couldn't find any side-by-sides with hacked video - but here is Andrew Reid's opinion on 1.1 vs the hack:

http://www.eoshd.com/content/6534/handling-the-new-gh2-25p-footage-and-faq

As for me, 24 mbps is fast enough :-)


Hope this is helpful.

Bill
 
Shooter,

The existence of the new Panasonic firmware was one of the reasons I picked up a GH2. It gave me confidence that Panasonic would continue development of this line, that they might have actually learned a thing or two from the hacker community. However, once I was comfortable making my own patches, I settled on the 44Mbps setting as my normal. Itʻs a big enough of a jump in IQ, with no risk.

Try it, I think youʻll like it.
 
Thanx Jeff.

Keen to try it ( I have actually tried others before the HBR firmware).

I have no idea how to make my own patches (settings) though .. and I would need it in PAL 25fps.

Are patches " transferable". (ie. emailable ?)

I do have P-tools.
 
Admir said:
When Vitaly first released the hack, it looks like it had 25p 1080 and 720...
Click to expand...
The 25p progressive patch in the initial GH2 version of PTool never worked properly and has been abandoned. Vitaliy is currently working full-time on updating PTool to support Panasonic's v1.1 GH2 firmware with the new 25p and 29.97p HBR video modes. He has not yet announced a release date for the next version of Ptool.
 
dustylense said:
You can though, install a hack and just test it out to get a feel for it. Then reflash back to v1.1...
Click to expand...

Been there and done that already.

If I ever hack it again though ..it needs to be 25p.... otherwise no point for me to do so in PAL-Land.

Even though I had a Pal version of the GH2 I had to wait for 25p anyway. Go figure!
But anyway...the HBR in the latest firmware is NOW ....25p
 
I was about to say, yes, 25p is in the official Panasonic firmware update. Not a very high bit rate, but you know it will be stable!

In looking at PTool, I did not see any settings that would allow you to enable 25p. Gotta say, I spent quite a bit of time obsessing over figuring out the hack process on my Mac, and it got to the point where my head literally hurt! I had downloaded so many Windows emulators and patches, I thought I was losing my mind. Finally settled on using Wine. Itʻs very simple, and works incredibly well. And, yes, Shooter, the .bin files should be e-mailable. (Lord knows it would so much easier if there was a vault of downloadable .bin files.) But, if youʻve got PTools on a PC, you should have no problem... except that there is no 25p answer yet in the hack world.

Best of luck!


Jeff
 
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