50Mbit 1080p MJPEG on the Panasonic GH1 Firmware Hack looks AMAZING.

A buddy of mine just asked me about this. . . so I had to google it.

Longshan's People Part II - 50Mbit GH1 MJPEG from Andrew Reid on Vimeo.

Here's what I found.

Now you can adjust the AVCHD bitrate on your GH1….up to 32Mbit !!!

From Engadget

The Panasonic GH1 can do some great video for its size, thanks to that fancy micro four-thirds optical setup, but it's been held back the low bitrates it uses when recording. Now some enterprising hacker named "Tester 13" has reversed engineered the GH1's firmware and unlocked the true power of the camera (much like Magic Lantern has done for the 5D Mark II). In fact, the main trouble now is that Tester 13's firmware uncovers too many options: users are trying out different configurations to maximize quality without bumping into the camera's buffer limitations. The current flavors of choice include 50Mbps MJPEG at 1080p (the stock camera caps out at 720p in MJPEG), to be augmented by 32Mbps AVCHD when the crazy high-end MJPEG causes the camera to buffer overflow. It's all very technical and video-nerds-only in theory, but results speak for themselves: check out a sample video after the break. And try out the new firmware if you dare.

Buffer Size Issues? OBVIOUSLY.

For a more technical explanation, click HERE(The EOSHD Community Site)

Summary, what is means for the none-techno-geek (From The EOSHD Community Site)

>Hugely better image quality. 50MBit MJPEG shows zero compression artefacts, zero mud and much more photo-like gradients, tones and textures

>It's better looking than the 5D Mark II's H.264 and less compressed

>MPEG 50Mbit shows low noise and the noise is of a finer grain, more film-like

>The workflow improvements are immeasurable. The 50Mbit MJPEG, this can be edited directly, no transcoding required. As for AVCHD, thanks to Tester13 the native 24p can go straight into Log & Transfer without pulldown or deinterlacing work.
Before I was waiting around 6 or 7 hours per project for Voltaic to transcode and deinterlace the GH1's AVCHD to ProRes. Now the same amount of footage can be done in one step in Final Cut Pro Log & Transfer and takes 30 minutes.

>Non-native 24p 32Mbit AVCHD (60i) can be played back in-camera. Focus assist works in both AVCHD and MJPEG mode. It's expected playback of native 24p AVCHD can be fixed in the near future once a patch is released by Abed.

>A JPEG is saved containing shot EXIF info, shutter speed, ISO, etc.
The image is smoother looking and better scaled from the 12MP CMOS compared to the 5D Mark II which has 22MP to deal with. Pixel binning is in action, not line skipping.

50Mbit 1080p MJPEG on the Panasonic GH1

AND, Finally, THE HOW-TO(s):
Beginners GH1 Custom Firmware Guide

Original DVX User Post



Let me know what you guys think!!