GH2 Driftwood Hack V5 And Installation Guide

Lately we’ve seen some very good hacks for the GH2. The first one I tried was the Driftwood V5 Hack. The procedure to install the firmware was a little difficult at first and to make it more complicated I’m a Mac user. The software used to make the patch is for PC’s. I found a great resource for installing the firmware that worked perfectly. If your interested in doing this read up and take it slow. Don’t rush in and brick your camera. Do this at your own risk. I don’t want to be responsible for turning your awesome GH2 into a bookend.

If your new to the hack thing go to Sam Mallery’s website and read up. Its a great guide to the process.

For the latest and greatest GH2 Firmware hacks go to GH2 Vault at Personal View. You will need to register to download any firmware from the site.

I got interested in performing the hack after I watched a video from Phillip Bloom. He did a Christmas Camera Shootout that showed a side by side non-scientific comparison. The hacked GH2 was the clear winner of the resolution test. That’s pretty darn amazing since its being compared to cameras that cost $10K!

I hacked my GH2 with the Driftwood V5 hack and started shooting around my home. Mostly tight shots with the a Voigtlander 25mm f.95. It’s a great lens and has a bit of macro capabilities to it.

This is the version description for V5

v5. Quantum v5 (Dec 15th, as tested by Philip Bloom)
* Thee 720p60p / 1080i60 test!!!! AQ4
* Both settings are now on much higher bitrate together with GOP3 (inc analysis of encoder settings to achieve better stability) higher frame limit and better temporal quality. They are at their peaks and are looking very good on cadence.
* 1080p24H INTRA The highest average frames over all other patches around! Totally spatial!*
* Sandisk 64Gb 95mbps users before saving firmware can take the 1080p frame limit upto to 6208888 without problems if you would. This will bring you over the 800k mark for i frames (constant) 🙂
* INTRA 1080p24L has been taken upto 100M for longer recordings with better quality – please test for spanning.
* MJPEG Stabilised (as before with slightly lower bitrate and table analysis) and is stil better than has been seen before in other patches.

Shot in 24p mode. Nostalgia with default settings. ISO 650. Tried to stay in the sharpest part of the lens around 5,6. The GH2 is a very good camera and with this high bitrate its crazy good.

Happy Hacking!!

UPDATE:

New V7 Driftwood has been released. Details below. Haven’t tried it yet hopefully I can soon.

v7. Quantum v7 (Jan 7th 2012)
(this is v6 updated – don’t bother wiith v6)
Tuned buffers 70% of bitrate all round. Plus, 1080pL setting is slightly down on bitrate/buffer ratio – test for spanning please. 720p now on AQ2 for balance. Everything else virtualy the same. This patch looks great in real world preliminary tests. Use the L setting for 80% mode. Tested on Voigtander 0.95 manual lens.

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Filed in: Camera News • GH2