Hi,

I'm opening a new thread here as I realize that much of the basic information for absolute GH2 hacking beginners is quite hard to find in this forum (going through this right now myself), and even the "Basics and Beginners" forum preassumes some knowledge that, entering this field, again is hard to find.

I would like to compile a baisc guide with procedures and definitions, and grow it as we go along. I (and beginners like me) would be very endebted to you verterans if you could look over these postings and let us know if the assumptions are indeed correct.

If you guys "greenlight" the information (and/or add to it / correct it), we can then file on it, make it more specific, and even more user friendly.

I realize that much of this must be a kindergarden excersise for most of you… but please, do help us to grow up!

And: THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR WORK!

___

Here is the first set of what I believe to have understood - please to have your way with it!:

(1)
The GH2 Firmware v1.0E is the current hack for the GH2 firmware. It allows to change bitrate settings (that are fixed in the factory settings), as well as other manipulations that Panasonic locked in their version.

(2)
A "patch" is a specially formatted text document (ending with .ini) that contains a unique set of user-defined bitrate and other settings. Many creative useres on this forum have been extensively playing around with the numbers in these settings, trying to find a balance between stability (i.e. no crashes, freezes, drops etc.) and highest possible image quality - sometimes knowingly sacrificing some of one to benefit the other.

(3)
The "PTool v3.62d" is a Windows based software that lets you load the hacked GH2 Firmware v1.0E and marry it with a patch that you may select. The PTool will create a new firmware package, called something like "GH2_V11.bin", which can be loaded into the camera via an SC card through a special procedure.

(4)
In order to use a different bitrate setting, one needs to use a different patch, and hence go back into the PTool, load another patch, output a new .bin firmware, and load that into the camera via the SC card again.
Hence, within one firmware, one cannot switch between different patches, or settings. Once uploaded into the camere, ther is exactly one 24H setting, on 24L setting and so forth one can use. To use a different bitrate, one has to go through the PTool process again.
Alternatively, one could just get a few cheap 2GB or so SD cards, and load a different firmware/patch on each one. This way, in the field new patches could be loaded at liberty, without the need of a computer or going back to the PTool. (Of course, these cards would not be used for recording, but ONLY to load firmware patches.)

(5)
In order to get a new patch into PTool, one just saves the selected patch .ini in the same folder than the PTool. Once starting the PTool, it will recognize the patch, the corresponding letters at the bottom of PTool will be green and can be clicked.

(6)
The most conservative and highly tested bitrate suggested by Master Vitaliy is 42M. The highest bitrate that seems to be absolutely stable is 66M, provided by CBRADIN (66M_44M stable or 66M_44M max variation patch).

THANK YOU AGAIN FOR YOUR CORRECTIONS.