Resolving Power of the Hacked GH1 – Buy one now

With the influx of new cameras coming out, many people are in a rush to sell off their hacked and un-hacked GH1 cameras.

Every time a new gadget, gizmo or toy comes along, it’s natural to assume that the second generation is better than the first. This has left quite a few GH1 cameras on ebay for less than $900. Now is the time to buy. Outside of the ugly FPN, crashing in 24p, and the lack of live preview – the hacked GH1 is still the best resolving video capable still camera to date. Go ahead, click and download the PNG file attached to this post. Any Canon DSLR would be full of Moire, a new Nikon DSLR would be the same story. How about the GH2? Well it would look the same, possibly sharper, until it was put into motion. The only fix is a codec hack.

Where’s the hack? Well if you put faith in this amazing website then you have no reason to fear, the GH2 is already hacked and the GH1 can be left for eBay fodder.


GH2 Native .MTS file – Disappointing Codec Confirmed

gh2 codec failure

One of the first GH2 24PN sample videos is now available here: optyczne.pl GH2 review

Unfortunately this confirms that the GH2 has the same poor codec performance symptoms of the un-hacked GH1. Certainly the bump to 24mb has increased the amount of detail the encoder can handle, which is on par or greater than the hacked GH1. This only seems to hold true as long as the camera is not moving. For instance, take the passing cars. As soon as they pass in the frame, the resulting pavement looks like a bath of muddy pixels akin to DV era camcorder resolution.

Will there be a fix for this? Probably not from Panasonic, but if the firmware is able to be hacked by resident GH1 DVXuser hacker, Vitality – then an increase to the overall variable bitrate might fix this problem. Just as it helps the GH1

First AF100 Footage on Vimeo

Here’s the first streaming footage of the Panasonic AF100. Footage looks exactly as I expected it to. It is a DSLR sensor with a proper OLPF, so things that DSLR shooters are used to, like false detail, appear to be gone. As soon as the production model is ready, we should see native files from the camera available.

We shot at an ISO of 200. Shutter off (shutter wasnt engaging to 180 so we left it)

We rolled internally to SDHC cards and then externally to a AG HPG20 recording AVC Intra 100.

Gamma was the 709 standard, Matrix HD Norm.. everything else set of 0.

We used a 24mm, 50mm and & 85mm for almost everything, Sitting at about t4 for most of it,, and wide open t1.9 on a couple of those shots. All Carl Zeiss Ultra Primes.

Hacked Panasonic GH1 vs the world

It is now late 2010. We’ve seen all the new HDDSLRs (vDslrs) for the year. As usual, we continue to see the same old problems come up in new models, and even other new problems arise as well. Here’s why the Hacked GH1 is still your best bet.

Hacked GH1 vs GH2

Admittedly we’ve seen very little sample footage from the new camera. But what we have seen hasn’t been encouraging. Even though the bit rate has been increased and the codec has been fixed, the samples that are available show the following:

1. Codec falling apart in pans

2. Crippled HDMI by blinking record icon

3. Serious amounts of edge enhancement

Sure, these may be fixed in the retail model come December, but at this point don’t count on it.

Hacked GH1 vs Canon 60D.

The 60D is a perfectly viable choice if you don’t have the cash for a 7D.  The image quality is good, and is exactly the same video picture that is present in the t2i, 7D and 5D. That is to say, in 1080p mode your really only getting a little better than 720p resolution, and compared side-by-side in video mode, all of the Canon cameras look blurry compared to the Hacked GH1.

Hacked GH1 vs Nikon D7000

Again we’ve only seen a few samples from this camera, and 2 years after the D90, Nikon has finally caught up to Canon in resolution, and moire. The D7000 and the 7D are very similar looking in video mode, which is great for Nikon to catch up, but there is certainly no reason to upgrade to this camera for it’s video function over say a Canon t2i. (We are not talking photography specs here, video modes only)

Hacked GH1 drawbacks

The GH1 has no been around for over a year, and people know things can get pretty ugly.

– In the dark, FPN takes over the picture and makes it unusable outside of Neat Video.

– There is no hacked Live Video monitoring option as of yet (not holding my breath that it will ever happen)

– Audio input into the GH1 is a joke, but I think it’s insane that people would try to use the camera alone for EPK stuffs anyway

– No Digital Aperture control for whiny Canon EOS and Nikon G lens owners

Still, even with these drawbacks, I dare you to compare the 1080p and 720p modes of the hacked GH1 to any other still camera available today.

Oh and I expect the AF100 to walk on water and perform all sorts of miracles, but for that we still have to wait a few months, unless Panasonic sends one our way for testing.