My experience hacking a GF3 at DVinfo.net

Chip Thome · September 6th, 2012, 12:01 AM

I have read a bunch on the hacks, those promoting and those unsure of them. I saw Don discuss here the GH2 hacks are most aptly for post, and I would tend to agree with him. I do know Gary Hannah uses his GH2 hacked for his wedding work, and his stuff I think is always excellent. I don't have those needs, but was curious none the less. What I read said the GF3 hack came about somewhat because of the GH2 hack and the newer ptool. As I investigated the hack settings for the GF3, I saw most were using GH2 hacks there too. So...... I thought this is a great way to test out this new hack, but doing it on the GF3 so if I blow it up, I'm not out much. :-)

I tested out a number of hacks. Most busted the buffer inside of 5 minutes. One completely crashed the camera, had to do a restart after pulling the battery out. The image was froze on the screen, and there was nothing shy of pulling the battery that was going to fix it. I was surprised at one of the higher bit rate hacks actually gave me mud in the foliage from across the street. I ended up with one called Nature and am using a GOP of 6. This one feeds the card instead of filling the buffer. I am getting files of about 34000 kbps, compared to stock of around 16000.

I would say the GF3 now is.....ummm.....better, but to put a quantitative value on that, it's just a little bit better. I honestly don't think anyone will notice any improvement between this and the original firmware, unless they are pixel peeping into the shadows and details. Unlike the original GH1 hack that was needed to fix a really screwed up aliasing situation, the GF3 doesn't have any real issue, that the hack to improve upon.

What I did see is that regardless of what number you place on the firmware file, the camera recognizes all of them as ver. 1.2. Ptool is automatically checked for version compare, so you no longer have to keep bumping the number in the file name. If you go to check the version in the menu, it tells you it is ver. 1.2. Where this I think screws it up, if you want to go back to pure original firmware, you can't. The only way you can get the camera to upgrade now is by using Ptool and loading firmware into that. In the GH1 if you hit version compare and one other box, it gave you version 0.0 in the menu. Because I do not know what else ptool automatically does when firmware is loaded, I probably won't be hacking the GH2 if there's no way to bring it back to pure factory firmware later. I have heard of issues of ptool and hacks with 64gb cards and don't want to introduce an issue, if all the gain is this little bit I see. I don't want to take the GH2 from functioning perfectly now on 64gb cards and lose that completely with any version of ptool firmware.

So that's my experiences, as always, YMMV.

Laurence Kingston · October 9th, 2012, 08:53 AM

I just cot my GF3 a couple of days ago. I love that the hack now works on it. I just have my bitrate boosted slightly to 25mbps. That and I took away the record time limit and added PAl/NTSC switch ability. No these aren't earthshaking improvements, but I love the extra tweakability. The GF3 really is quite an amazing little camera!

September 6th, 2012, 12:01 AM	#1
Chip Thome Major Player Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Green Bay Wisconsin Posts: 553	My experience hacking a GF3 I have read a bunch on the hacks, those promoting and those unsure of them. I saw Don discuss here the GH2 hacks are most aptly for post, and I would tend to agree with him. I do know Gary Hannah uses his GH2 hacked for his wedding work, and his stuff I think is always excellent. I don't have those needs, but was curious none the less. What I read said the GF3 hack came about somewhat because of the GH2 hack and the newer ptool. As I investigated the hack settings for the GF3, I saw most were using GH2 hacks there too. So...... I thought this is a great way to test out this new hack, but doing it on the GF3 so if I blow it up, I'm not out much. :-) I tested out a number of hacks. Most busted the buffer inside of 5 minutes. One completely crashed the camera, had to do a restart after pulling the battery out. The image was froze on the screen, and there was nothing shy of pulling the battery that was going to fix it. I was surprised at one of the higher bit rate hacks actually gave me mud in the foliage from across the street. I ended up with one called Nature and am using a GOP of 6. This one feeds the card instead of filling the buffer. I am getting files of about 34000 kbps, compared to stock of around 16000. I would say the GF3 now is.....ummm.....better, but to put a quantitative value on that, it's just a little bit better. I honestly don't think anyone will notice any improvement between this and the original firmware, unless they are pixel peeping into the shadows and details. Unlike the original GH1 hack that was needed to fix a really screwed up aliasing situation, the GF3 doesn't have any real issue, that the hack to improve upon. What I did see is that regardless of what number you place on the firmware file, the camera recognizes all of them as ver. 1.2. Ptool is automatically checked for version compare, so you no longer have to keep bumping the number in the file name. If you go to check the version in the menu, it tells you it is ver. 1.2. Where this I think screws it up, if you want to go back to pure original firmware, you can't. The only way you can get the camera to upgrade now is by using Ptool and loading firmware into that. In the GH1 if you hit version compare and one other box, it gave you version 0.0 in the menu. Because I do not know what else ptool automatically does when firmware is loaded, I probably won't be hacking the GH2 if there's no way to bring it back to pure factory firmware later. I have heard of issues of ptool and hacks with 64gb cards and don't want to introduce an issue, if all the gain is this little bit I see. I don't want to take the GH2 from functioning perfectly now on 64gb cards and lose that completely with any version of ptool firmware. So that's my experiences, as always, YMMV.

October 9th, 2012, 08:53 AM	#2
Laurence Kingston Major Player Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Clermont, FL. Posts: 941	Re: My experience hacking a GF3 I just cot my GF3 a couple of days ago. I love that the hack now works on it. I just have my bitrate boosted slightly to 25mbps. That and I took away the record time limit and added PAl/NTSC switch ability. No these aren't earthshaking improvements, but I love the extra tweakability. The GF3 really is quite an amazing little camera!