Gh2 stopped working in middle of shoot!

[Jeff Hinson]

My trusted GH2 stopped working in the middle of a shoot last night...! panic time.
I need to know if this has happened to anyone else and what your problem was. Here's a indepth picture of what happened...

Camera setup..
GH2...flowmotion hack 2, set to HBR 30P, 2 Lumix batteries in battery grip, 32gig extreme pro SD card, 7"monitor attached, 14-140 kit lens.

Shooting style:...shooting closeup clips, starting and stopping cam in between adjusting zoom. Switched several times between auto, and manual focus while shooting.

Problem: Camera froze, power stayed on, last scene stayed on monitor and lcd. Tried to turn cam OFF...but switch did not work, tried switch several times, pushed every button on cam, still camera did not shut off. Had to man cam b and continue shooting...luckily it was a XA-10 with zoom.

Camera was still ON when I got back to the studio. Took out batteries from the grip, camera of course powered down. Re installed the "same" batteries, and the camera on/off switch now works.

Please let me know if any of you have experienced this. Dont know if its a camera problem or a software problem with FM2. I have another similar shoot Wednesday, and need to be able to TRUST my GH2 rig.

Thanks in advance for your troubleshooting tips...
Jeff

[William Hohauser]

The first culprit to investigate is, of course, the hack. The second is the card, although the battery grip you describe is suspect. What brand is it? Even with a lower bit rate hack like Sanity 5, you can experience sudden errors depending on the combination of image you are shooting and the recording card's behavior. The first hack I installed was nothing but trouble, I forget the name, so I installed Sanity5 which is not as good as Flowmotion on things like water or trees in the wind but it's great for interviews and most shoots. Stands up well against XdCam footage.

[Paul Mailath]

I get that from time to time on the GH1 - just pop the battery out and in again and you back up - yes it's scary & shouldn't happen - I don't know what causes it, just how to get going again quickly

[Jeff Hinson]

This problem may not have happened had I let the cam run continuously. I think maybe my starting,stopping,hitting shutter focus, may have contributed to confusing the hack....anyway Ive learned a good lesson. I did have the XA-10 running throughout the performance wide...so I have enough footage. I was using the GH2 HBR for extreme closeups, and what I have looks great. Have audio from both the XA-10 and a ZOOM mounted on stage.

Ya gotta love this forum.....the folks here have helped me dozens of times....thanks to you all.
Jeff

[Chris Duczynski]

I get it particualrly on complex scenes such as running water. My hacked cam cannot handle it that at all. Cam freezes, out go the batteries and all good until the next water scene.
I use a Sandisk 60mb/s card, but I think the hack (44mb/s HBR) freaks the camera out. No big deal.

[Jeff Hinson]

@ Chris...

Yeah not a big deal since I know now I can fix by in/out battery maneuver ..few seconds. Would be a big deal if it were main cam, but I use this for extreme close ups at events...so I can miss a few.
I just edited the clips I had, and the rez is really nice..........however the XA-10 did nearly as well on the few close ups my assistant took with it. Wasn't shooting for cinematic look...just good resolution.

Panic is over for today...ha

Thanks to all for easing my pain... : O )

Jeff

[Jeff Harper]

Jeff, I threw away my battery grip because I experienced shut down issues during a wedding. It happened suddenly out of the blue three for four times, I took off the battery grip, problem solved. Battery grip went into the closest trash receptacle.

[Jeff Hinson]

Harper
My grip was that one from China..is that the one you had also?
Did you know it failed or just eliminated one possibility.
Hinson

[Jeff Hinson]

Originally Posted by Chris Duczynski

I get it particualrly on complex scenes such as running water. My hacked cam cannot handle it that at all. Cam freezes, out go the batteries and all good until the next water scene.
I use a Sandisk 60mb/s card, but I think the hack (44mb/s HBR) freaks the camera out. No big deal.

Interesting...read Jeff "Harpers" reply...

By chance are you using the China made "battery grip" on your GH2 that fails? I like the battery grip but if that proves to be the problem out it goes. Which hack are you using...flowmotion or other.

Tks,
Jeff

[Jeff Hinson]

this is a reply I got from Mr. Powell in another forum...I appreciate his reply and Im reposting for your information.
Jeff
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"Sorry to hear you had a lock-up using Flow Motion v2. While I have tested the patch successfully in a wide variety of circumstances, the nature of hacking makes it impractical to guarantee 100% reliability under all potential shooting conditions. As you discovered, it may be necessary to pop out the battery to reset the camera when it locks up. I've done this literally thousands of times in the course of developing GH1 and GH2 patches, and have never seen a case where the camera failed to recover after powering on again.

Unfortunately, reverting back to stock GH2 firmware will not guarantee reliable recordings either. In highly detailed scenes that require more bitrate than the stock firmware can deliver, Panasonic designed the GH2 to revert to a low-quality "Fallback Mode" that can produce severe image degradation. What's alarming is that the camera can do this surreptitiously at any time, without warning the user in any way. To eliminate this hazard, I designed Flow Motion v2 to disable Fallback Mode, insuring that all successfully completed takes have been recorded at the intended image quality. As a result, a shot may fail explicitly on rare occasions where the stock firmware would have continued to record a degraded image instead. This type of fail-safe operation is how I prefer a camera to perform in staged shooting situations where bad takes occur routinely for any number of reasons. For one-take event shooting, however, I rely on FM2's 60Mbps 24L, FSH, or H modes for their ability to reliably span across multiple 4GB MTS files. "
____________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________

details on FLOW MOTION HERE.........
http://www.personal-view.com/talks/d...10-sd-cards/p1

[Jeff Harper]

Jeff Hinson, yes I used the China grip, it's the only one I know of for the GH2. I do not use a hack.

I re-read the below thread and linked it below for you. It seems your issue might not be the grip. If you read the last page, near the bottom, Bruce Reynolds had an issue manifest itself identical to mine, shutdown accompanied by a flashing of the LCD. You did not mention the flashing, so our problem was likely the grip, whereas maybe yours was not.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/panasoni...y-email-3.html

[Jeff Hinson]

Originally Posted by Jeff Harper

Jeff Hinson, yes I used the China grip, it's the only one I know of for the GH2. I do not use a hack.

. You did not mention the flashing, so our problem was likely the grip, whereas maybe yours was not.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/panasoni...y-email-3.html

Your correct...the difference being MY LCD was not flashing...but frozen will pic of last scene. But I did have the battery grip attached and running FlowMotion hack at full HBR 30p. Soooo...either could have been at fault. Im sitting one GH2 up stock with battery grip, and the other with FM hack..and let them run out a 32 gig SD card, and again with the grip and hack on the same cam............to see if either craps out.

Thanks for the replies,
Hinson

[Jeff Hinson]

results of test on my last post....

Could not duplicate freeze problem. Probably waiting to happen on my next gig. : )

I will use unhacked cam for events, and hacked for controlled shoots & stills from now on.

JH

[Chris Duczynski]

I doubt it's the battery grip - try a few complex scenes such as running water/waves crashing or panning at night with traffic. You'll find it's a bitrate problem.

[Jeff Hinson]

CHRIS...
Your probably right. Used the battery grip all day yesterday and no problem...I love the grip and will continue to use it.

At the shoot where the camera froze......I was zooming a lot "with the cam in record"...I should have zoomed to set up the shot, then hit record. Im sure the fast zoom, while recording, screwed with the bit rate and caused the crash. I was using the GH2 as I would a camcorder....ha

Thanks,
Jeff