GH4 Gx7 4k hack!

Lammy

Lammy

Well-known member
4k-gx7.jpg


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Anyone? Haha got people's hopes up here. But why not try and drum for a hack? It costs half as much as the GH4, and it uses the same sensor as the GH4, and the 1080p quality is near identical. Maybe even the same processors too.

Possibly dump the firmware and coding onto the GX7? Or at least increase the bitrate of the mp4 and AVCHD modes!

Let's go asking around...
 
4K is likely not possible because the camera won't have the processing power or heat-dissipation ability of the GH4.
 
Does 4K actually cause more heat though? My Galaxy Note 3 and GoPro does 4K absolutely fine without overheating...
 
Lammy said:
Does 4K actually cause more heat though? My Galaxy Note 3 and GoPro does 4K absolutely fine without overheating...
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Does your Note 3 or GoPro produce the same image quality as the GH4 ?

At this year's NAB a Panasonic engineer from Japan stated that the main reason why they could not implement IBIS stabilization with the GH4 was heat-dissipation. Panasonic designed their GHx cameras to be able to shoot at full resolution with no time limit, so you can literally shoot all day. Most other large-sensor DSLR can't do this, and will overheat within the first hour of shooting.
 
TheDingo said:
Does your Note 3 or GoPro produce the same image quality as the GH4 ?
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Honestly? In good lighting and good exposures (without the highlight clipping or high shutter motion) and in places where the codec doesn't break apart (not in forests etc)... it's pretty damn close. Essentially only bad thing is the lack of manual controls and small sensor size and bitrate...all of which is not applicable to the GX7.


TheDingo said:
At this year's NAB a Panasonic engineer from Japan stated that the main reason why they could not implement IBIS stabilization with the GH4 was heat-dissipation. Panasonic designed their GHx cameras to be able to shoot at full resolution with no time limit, so you can literally shoot all day. Most other large-sensor DSLR can't do this, and will overheat within the first hour of shooting.
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But the GX7 does have IBIS (albeit, not in video) so what you actually said sounds like the GX7 would be more than OK with heat dissipation.

I prefer the range finder body than the DSLR format, and I want higher bitrates and 4K mode. I have a feeling you just want to say no and be smug in that knowledge... rather than find ways to say yes. In which case... dude, I'm just asking let's try and drum up interest in for reasons to make the GX7 a great alternative.
 
Lammy said:
I prefer the range finder body than the DSLR format, and I want higher bitrates and 4K mode
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And I think you will eventually get this from Panasonic, but I have big doubts about camera hacks enabling any of this. Currently it looks like there will never be a GH3 hack, and I expect the same for the GH4 camera.

Canon folks were extremely lucky that the Magic Lantern hack was created, as I haven't seen anything like Magic Lantern for any other line of cameras.
 
GH2 never really added new features to the camera. It just enhanced what was already there by adjusting the software encoder or allowing the ISO to go higher in video mode. The ISO could always go higher for stills but the video mode was limited. The hack could just turn that limit off.

So it is wishful thinking that a hack could completely alter what a camera was designed to do. Sure maybe the GX7 could be hacked in the future but it would likely only increase the bitrate and not add any new features. Keep in mind the GH hacking scene is kind of dead these days. When Panasonic opened up higher ISO levels, added better audio and greatly increased the bitrates on the GH3 and GH4 the need for a hack was greatly reduced. I'm just not sure how much motivation is left out there to hack these cameras when out of the box they already do so much. Outside of the GH1 and Gh2 there has never been much motivation to hack the lesser models and I doubt there will be in the future. Of course I don't know the future but I would have to say it isn't going to happen.
 
No doubt the GX8 will have 4K. But... bah! The refresh from the GX1>GX7 implies it's a 2 year wait. But I am wondering, hard facts here, not speculation - does anyone know what the differences of the innards of GX7 and GH4 are? There must be some tear down schematics/service manuals somewhere...
 
Lammy said:
Honestly? In good lighting and good exposures (without the highlight clipping or high shutter motion) and in places where the codec doesn't break apart (not in forests etc)... it's pretty damn close. Essentially only bad thing is the lack of manual controls and small sensor size and bitrate...all of which is not applicable to the GX7.
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So that's a no then?

Good luck with Personal-View, I think Vitaly's only interest now is selling things in his 'deals' pages and acting like a dictator on his forums. Personal-View is an awful place now. There has been no movement on the GH3 hack for almost a year....... I just don't think he wants to hack (or can't hack) the newer cameras.
 
vtwiz said:
So that's a no then?
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It's more of a yes, and as I said, pretty damn close.

Good luck with Personal-View, I think Vitaly's only interest now is selling things in his 'deals' pages and acting like a dictator on his forums. Personal-View is an awful place now. There has been no movement on the GH3 hack for almost a year....... I just don't think he wants to hack (or can't hack) the newer cameras.
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He's actually been friendlier and more open minded than the posts here...

I think the potential of 4K, and the ideas of higher bitrate and raw video or 422 output etc is good enough motivation.

Than again, the GH4 is super cheap and good value for money, so yeah there would be less urgency to do anything.

I'm really hoping Panasonic just release their own firmware update to add more bitrates [ie mp4 to match AVCHD like their 50/60p mode]. I really suspect the GX7 has the same insides, so I'm gonna keep haggling them too...
 
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Lammy said:
It's more of a yes, and as I said, pretty damn close.
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Yeah, pretty close if you make all those exclusions.....

Ive haggled Panasonic about fixes to quite a few bugs for the GH3. By all means try, but Panasonic are not known to add features via firmware.
 
I'm sure the GX7 could handle 4K easily as it all depends on the compression scheme and licensing rights, but Panasonic doesn't produce a codec that's efficient like Sony's XAVC S for consumer 4K. 60mbs should sound reasonable on a GX7 body, but again only the designers know the heating problems better than us. AND Sony's FDR-AX100 has no fan, however the heat sync design could be something totally different. Nonetheless, it is highly reasonable that a GX7 could handle some 4K compression. The GH4 doesn't have a fan either. As we all know however, 4K will soon be standardized on almost all consumer cams in the next two years. Optics and resolution is what matters. The future of video camera dynamics will be super sensor resolutions like 80K where we'll be able to crop and recap almost most of the best things we love. For instance zooming to a Hail Mary pigskin all the way to the end zone (motion tracked) up the finger tips of the receiver. This is the future! sorry for the tangent =P
 
There's 4k and then there's 4k as far as smartphones and dedicated cameras go...

As for 4k on a GX7? Never going to happen.
 
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