Why can't Panasonic offer it's own high bitrate firmware update?

scorsesefan

scorsesefan

Veteran
With the GH3 announced at 72mb Panasonic would do a great service to current GH2 owners to offer a high bitrate firmware update. 50mb+ would be awesome! I am leary of hacking because I am afraid of bricking/voiding the warranty. Please Panasonic/Jan hear my plea:cry:...
 
scorsesefan said:
I am leary of hacking because I am afraid of bricking/voiding the warranty
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...I've been using hacked GH2s for over a year now on commercial paid projects. I would never go back to the stock camera. Lee Powell's Flow Motion ver 2.02 patch is a huge upgrade to the image quality of the GH2.

To date I have only heard of one person who bricked their GH2, and this was caused by a 3rd party camera battery that failed during the firmware flashing process.

As for warranty, the camera is cheap enough that I could easily afford to replace it if something went wrong.
 
Fair enough. I shoot mostly long form doc/verite stuff and I need long recording times. Does anyone know of a reliable hack that allows for longer recording times...
 
Truthfully, they spend a lot of time and money developing a new piece of hardware and they want to see that in sales. If someone with a current (stock GH2) was looking to get a better bit rate they might consider buying the GH3, if someone wanted to get a Panasonic camera period and were mainly interested in video and overcoming the AVCHD in the Canons/Nikons they could look to the GH3, with the introduction of a firmware update for the GH2 that person might just save his money and buy Panasonics older cameras and even worse, buy a used GH2 for next to nothing.

It's protecting sales, sort of like how the Canon C100 uses AVCHD 24mbs @ 4:2:0 instead of Canons XF50mbs 4:2:2..... even though the $3000 XF100 camcorder offers the XF codec the C100 does not.... Why? Its one more way to protect that several thousand dollar jump to a C300.

I actually became active on this forum because I am really excited about the AG AC90 from Panasonic, I love all that it offers, but it uses a histogram instead of a Waveform monitor.... truthfully this is a big deal for me, would it be easy to toss it in there? Sure, but then its one less reason for people to a little more money for an AC130 or HPX170 etc etc
 
scorsesefan said:
Fair enough. I shoot mostly long form doc/verite stuff and I need long recording times. Does anyone know of a reliable hack that allows for longer recording times...
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That sounds like a hack that would use less than AVCHD's 24Mbps...which would make for some terrible quality.
 
scorsesefan said:
Fair enough. I shoot mostly long form doc/verite stuff and I need long recording times. Does anyone know of a reliable hack that allows for longer recording times...
Click to expand...

At the high bit-rate 24H setting, the FlowMotion ver 2.02 patch will capture 2 hours of video on a 64 GB SDXC card. I imagine at the lower bit-rate 24L setting you would be looking at 3+ hours for a 64 GB SDXC card.

For longer shooting times than this, I would stick with the stock Panasonic settings.
 
Ditto FlowMotion for long records... 24L and a ~$50 64GB Transcend Class 10, and you're set for 4 hours... but don't forget that at anything over ~1.5-2 hours, the battery becomes the limiting factor.

Back to the business of the original question, as a Panasonic user, I'm pleased they didn't waste R&D time and money on patches for a 2+ year old camera and instead addressed some of the other issues in developing a new camera (such as, for instance, the miniscule battery life and lack of audio monitoring).
 
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scorsesefan said:
With the GH3 announced at 72mb Panasonic would do a great service to current GH2 owners to offer a high bitrate firmware update. 50mb+ would be awesome! I am leary of hacking because I am afraid of bricking/voiding the warranty. Please Panasonic/Jan hear my plea:cry:...
Click to expand...

You are being a ridiculous child. Are you afraid of forks because they may get stuck in your nose instead of your mouth? Seriously man up and just do it.
 
Yea, at this point... you need to take the plunge, and just apply the hack already!
Complaining at panasonic, why they dont put out a legit bit rate upgrade is utterly nonsense!
If you have been reading, obviously you havent. But panasonic choose not too, simply because this is a camera meant for the masses. They CANT push the camera beyond what their target market was aimed at originally. That means, people using low end SD cards and standard shooting needs... i.e. children's soccer games, and cruise ship vacations. NOT cinema grade films, or RED like competitors.

Canon/Nikon/Sony/Olympus havent put out any bit rate upgrades for their cameras... so i really cant understand why you'd even think panasonic would.
As for bang for the buck, you own it already... just apply the hack and stop whining.
Seriously... go cry elsewhere or just, as meinyvr said, "MAN UP"!
 
Holy crap you two, settle down. Simple consumer camera tech doesn't have to rival Festivus in "Feats of Strength" and "Airing of Grievances." Put on some Kenny G and take a bubble bath or something.
 
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