I can't get it to work guys. Just getting the no valid picture error. Looks like you guys are having fun but I think I'm going back to Canon, I just don't have time for this hacking hobby.

@lstewart When you get a long filename saving a patch from personal-view just use save as and overwite whatever name it is to what you want to call it - e.g. driftwood seaquake.zip (remember these patches are ALL ZIP files and need to be unzipped). Once unzipped, copy the setx.ini files into your ptools folder, run ptools (start afresh by closing down and re-running ptools if you were already running it, and to see the new setting you downloaded and copied to your ptools folder hover your mouse over the A-J buttons below). Click one of those buttons to load the patch. Then, save firmware to sd card, load up to camera off your sd card. EASY!

@toxotis70 Give me ALL your exact settings and shooting location and try and upload a screen grab. Its something I'm looking into.

Hi!
I'm wondering, is it safe to patch if there is no lens attached to the body?
stupid question, I know.

edit: got an aswer, thanks

Hi all, new to this thread. I am planing to get GH2 and i have a noob questions...
Is it possible to shoot 1080p at 29.97/30fps with this hack without stuttering in bitrate quality?
Thanks

I'm trying to start a thread for European Event Shooter Settings, and I need some advice first :)

My plan is to have these settings:
High: 32M for 1080 25p (since I'm counting on it) and 28M for 720 50p
Low: 28M for 1080 25p and 24M for 720 50p
No time limits (of course) and the footage has to span.

Most of the run and gun stuff is gonna be in 720 50p as delivery is going to same size (honestly people don't tell the difference on a 50" screen a few feet away) and I'm going to switch to 1080 25p for talking heads and fixed ceremony shots indoors to be able to use 1/25 shutter speed and gain some low light. The 1080 is also handy for cropping, zooming and panning/tilting in post to 720. Most of the 720 stuff is going to be retimed to slo-mo or framedropped to 25p.

So now for some questions:
GOP length standard or shorter?
AQ settings? 2 for 720/motion and 4 for 1080/interviews?
B-frames on 720? Is this still needed with the latest ptools? In that case, how to activate, and are there drawbacks?

Happy for any advice on this matter! :)

Greetings from Greece. I'm trying to find the most safe and stable settings for wedding video footage. I've tried many patched. So far so good, but the memory cards are getting full too soon. Usually there are some Sony cameras recording at 1080 50i with variable bit-rate between 17Mbps-24Mbps. My question is what are the most suitable settings for my case? I'm looking for a balance among stability, quality and file sizes. Thanks for your time and Vitaliy may the force be with you!!!

Hey guys! I'm new to this board and got a few questions.

First:
I recently bought a GH2 and started testing around with Driftwood's patches. I had no problems whatsoever installing the firmware hack. I used the latest SeAQuake settings from the GH2 Patch Vault here on personal-view.com. Great results, but now I'm not sure if SeAQuake is really the best one I can use. I'm kind of confused by the names Driftwood chooses for his patches, so I can't really figure out for which one I want to go. Maybe you guys can help me out? Obviously, I'm looking for the newest patch, with highest bitrates and best quality. My SD card is a SDHC 32 Gb class 10 @ 45Mb/s, so I guess I should do just fine with whatever you could come up with.

Second:
I bet someone asked this before, but is there a chance for a PAL GH2 to go for 60fps in 720p? Also, I read something about 25fps in 1080p. To my knowledge, 25fps gets deactivated when installing the firmware hack, right? So, is there any way to bypass that?

Thanks in advance!

Best regards,
Nico

@niggo 1080/25p is said to come with the official Panasonic firmware update in December

I've been through the following process multiple times on a Mac using Winebottler :

- saving setc.ini, PTools app, firmware in the same folder as the PTools app
- opening PTools
- loading firmware

But none of the circles (A,B, C, D, E, F) are green.

If I shift click on any of these circles, PTools doesn't find the setc.ini file I downloaded.

J

Any suggestions?


- - - UPDATE

I went through the same process on a PC and it all worked fine within a matter of seconds.

So - my advice to anyone struggling with this on a Mac: use a PC.

Thanks @TraumManufaktur
I have tried again now, after formating both HD and camera Card. I shot one single 10 seconds clip, went to log&transfer and it did not work: after trying to transfer it for a long time the status came as a red sign "error" data missing or something.
I downloaded 5DtoRGB as you told but it asks a 'thm' file along the .mts file and it doesn't start transcoding.
Does the GH has an extra information file like the one from the canons? is this process really that bureaucratic?
I don't understand why it doesn't work on FCP. I don't have a card reader, could this be the problem?
Really appreciate any help.
thanks

@driftwood

sorry, I meant version 1... ;) Yes, I have always had this issue with the cam, as many others, unfortunately. Google GH2 horizontal band and you find others too - lots of threads over at dvxuser as well. It's only visible at certain conditions. But when you know what to look for it's really obvious. It's in underexposed areas like - 2-3 stops. But sometimes you want to have areas a bit underexposed.

edit: just uploaded another clip: b&w, flipping through SS 1/50 ---> 1/100, kit lens 14-42 @ 3.5 ISO 3200

http://www.youtube.com /watch?v=Aw_yYYrvVc0

(remove space after .com) (to make post less intrusive) ;)

oh yes, serial is WE1CA