GH4 REASONABLE requests for future firmware

tacotim

tacotim

Well-known member
I'm stressing REASONABLE here, stuff that panny engineers could actually get to us in a future firmware.

1. please make it so aperture, iso, and shutterspeed don't stick to the C1, c2, c3 settings. It's annoying to have exposure dialed in on c1 and then switch to c2 (which I have set for slow motion) and then have to reset the aperture, iso, shutterspeed

2. Please allow for the in camera audio to be set even lower than is currently enabled. -12 is the current low, -15 or -18 would be great.
 
I actually like #1 since it always annoyed me about the GH3's lack of memory regarding aperture, iso and shutter.
 
I don't have the camera yet, but I've read about the HDMI output with 25p and 30p actually are 50p and 60p. My Zacuto EVF can't take anything above 1080p30.
 
I wonder is there anyway memory can be reallocated to have MORE than just 3 presets? 6 or 9 would be handy. I know the ram is fixed in there now, but "3" seems pretty limited in today's tech world.
 
There's actually 5 custom presets, there's a c3(1) c3(2) and c3(3) but those must be set in menu.
 
My request would be for 4K, 200 Mbps internally

I think it's doable given that we know the resolution is there and it already records up to 200 Mbps
 
True North said:
I think it's doable given that we know the resolution is there and it already records up to 200 Mbps
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The problem is having enough processing power to handle 4x the pixels of 1080p for IPB compression. ( if it was easy, then why doesn't the new Sony A7S record 4K internally ? )
 
I would like to see VFR enabled at 4k - not expecting slo mo (although that would be great) but I really like shooting at 2fps for quick time lapse style shots. Seems smoother than shooting stills and then making a video file.
 
TheDingo said:
The problem is having enough processing power to handle 4x the pixels of 1080p for IPB compression. ( if it was easy, then why doesn't the new Sony A7S record 4K internally ? )
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I just don't know enough about how this would affect the inner workings of a camera to know if this is definitively a limitation or a problem for the GH4

The way I see it is that the camera is already reading 4K in some RAW form right off the sensor. It then needs to crunch some numbers to compress that RAW signal down to 100 Mbps. Would it really be more work for the processor to put out a less compressed version of the same codec? I don't know. To my mind, it's conceivable that it might not be more work for the processor to compress the RAW signal off of the processor to a less compressed codec.

Maybe someone with more knowledge on this type of thing could chime in.

So we know that we can acquire a 4K image and we know that we can write a 200Mbps codec all in Camera. The unknown is whether or not acquiring that same 4K signal and compressing it down to 200Mpbs vs 100Mbps is too much work for the Processor on the GH4
 
I concur that retaining shutter and aperture settings on the C1-C3 memory settings is often not helpful. Perhaps a submenu could be created so that one could choose to have them saved or not.

Also, this might be the realm of the Wifi App, but currently, when the camera is under remote control via Wifi, you can't control the camera locally when you are recording. When not recording however, you can adjust shutter, exposure, etc. It would be nice to have the camera retain this control while recording, and let the Wifi function as a monitor only.
 
hempo22 said:
I don't have the camera yet, but I've read about the HDMI output with 25p and 30p actually are 50p and 60p. My Zacuto EVF can't take anything above 1080p30.
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We need 25p HDMI output! I hope they fix that soon! Everybody should ask them to.
 
True North said:
Would it really be more work for the processor to put out a less compressed version of the same codec?
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There would be no point in a 200 Mbps IPB format if it wasn't delivering more image information than the 100 Mbps IPB format, so the 200 Mbps format would be throwing away less information which means more data to encode, which takes more processing power. There have already been some preliminary tests showing that camera functions like AF tracking are significantly slower when shooting 4K footage, which I attribute to the camera having less processing power for other camera functions while it deals with the huge increase in 4K image information.
 
1. Option to turn off "OLED screen saving feature" of having important picture info disappear after recording for a while. Give us a disclaimer that we have to click through if we need to. Make us sign something when we download the firmware. ANYTHING!

2. Adjust the color matrixes of the picture modes so that they don't distort the colors in the highlights when one channel clips (all modes do according to my testing and Cine-D is one of the worse ones, especially at 5600K)

3. Option to take the raw 12-bit feed from the sensor (before de-Bayer, before everything), bypass all processing and just send it out of the HDMI as the most significant 8 bits encoded to the luma channel, plus the remaining 4 bits encoded to the chroma channel. That will give you a passable greyscale image on an external recorder... and then folks can figure out how to convert that to cDNG which can be fed into Resolve, etc. Yup, I'm talking about RAW output.

4. Option to do the above but with the full sensor area, not just a 4096x2160 crop.

5. Less confusing menu organization.

6. Better customization of what things get displayed in the viewfinder... and where they get displayed.

7. Ability to choose your own peaking colors for low and high beyond the 3 choices.

8. Ability to adjust the gamma and brightness of the viewfinder and LCD more heavily

9. Continued improvements to the remote camera features

10. Any audio fixes that can be done (hardware permitting) eg having the Limiter actually limit, not AGC as well... or at least rename Limiter to AGC if they can't change its functionality. Fix the external mic headphone buzz issues.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
TheDingo said:
There would be no point in a 200 Mbps IPB format if it wasn't delivering more image information than the 100 Mbps IPB format
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I agree

TheDingo said:
so the 200 Mbps format would be throwing away less information which means more data to encode, which takes more processing power.
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I could see this as being correct but you are making some assumptions here which we can't really verify. We know the camera can encode 200Mbps. The question is, is getting from the 4K to 200Mbps more processor intensive than going from 4K to 100Mbps or going from HD to 200Mbps. To me it is perfectly plausible that compressing 4K Raw off the sensor to 100Mbps might be more processor intensive than going from 4K to 200Mbps. The smaller CODEC requires math to shove the same'ish video quality into less bandwidth (100 Mbps) which to me could possibly mean more complicated math and therefore more taxing on the processor. We don't really know if this is a limitation of the processor. It might be but unless you are on the Panasonic GH4 development team you can't really verify 100%

TheDingo said:
There have already been some preliminary tests showing that camera functions like AF tracking are significantly slower when shooting 4K footage, which I attribute to the camera having less processing power for other camera functions while it deals with the huge increase in 4K image information.
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This could also be a function of the lens having to resolve at a higher resolution than HD which just means it's harder for the camera and lens to stay in focus. Doesn't necessarily mean there is less power to go around.

Like I said before, we are both speculating and while your assumptions are logical they are still only assumptions.
 
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StevenBills said:
My only input would be to have AF while shooting 96fps.

SB
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I understand that recording 96fps and having AF capabilities could be too much for the processor to handle... but I sure wish you could AF before you start recording at the very least. It's pretty aggravating to have all these AF Lumix X lenses and not be able to AF before you even start recording, just because your in VFR mode.
 
I would like to see audio levels in the iOS(and android) Image app, not sure if that would be firmware or app update or both. I was using it today for monitoring the GH4 with an ipad as I had to be a few feet away from the camera running a teleprompter, but it doesn't show audio levels so I just had to hope for the best.
 
awelgraven said:
I understand that recording 96fps and having AF capabilities could be too much for the processor to handle... but I sure wish you could AF before you start recording at the very least. It's pretty aggravating to have all these AF Lumix X lenses and not be able to AF before you even start recording, just because your in VFR mode.
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Yes, that would be nice!
 
Ive found Panasonic to be a terrible company to deal with. Very rude on the phone and not at all interested in fixing any issues that their cameras may have. They will just give you the line 'thats how the camera was designed'.

I had countless conversations with Panasonic about the whole info disappearing meaning you had to press the video record button twice to start recording, they said 'thats how it was designed so it wont get fixed'.

Technical issues will get fixed, design errors will not.
 
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