HPX PAL Support Upgrade?

[David Shawl]

I'm loving this camera and there doesn't go a day when I don't use it....wondering what the status is on the PAL upgrade for the U.S. customers. I last read that it might be a few months. Any official word on a more specific time frame? Also, is there a charge for this upgrade or is it free? I drive by Panasonic HQ every day and I believe the power to get PAL is held within those walls :)

This might be a real long shot, but is it possible for an firmware upgrade to enable a higher frame rate beyond 60fps for slow motion? I figured it depends on the design of the camera and if the hardware can handle such framerates.

Thanks!

[hoeydal]

So is it only Europe that has both pal and ntsc? I can change frequency on mine. 50hz or 59.something hz . I love this, finally i can have 60 frames for slow mo rather then 50 pal frames. It has to restart and stuff everytime i change, but it is worth it. HPX-171 is what i just to clarify, which is europe for HPX-170.

[ilauzirika]

So is it only Europe that has both pal and ntsc? I can change frequency on mine. 50hz or 59.something hz . I love this, finally i can have 60 frames for slow mo rather then 50 pal frames. It has to restart and stuff everytime i change, but it is worth it. HPX-171 is what i just to clarify, which is europe for HPX-170.

yes, only in Europe.....

[cameralover]

Yes, north american users are going to have to jump through a lot of hoops in terms of waiting several months to spend an additional $300-$500 on the upgrade, plus a lot of extra shipping costs & down time (with each firmware update) to get the 170 up to speed with the 171.

It really doesn't make sense to me that it has to be this complicated and I don't really believe that gray market sales were the motivation behind disabling this feature for the 170...