The difference is quite staggering - worth a look at this video link.

43 Rumors | Home

__________________
Bill Shinnick
GH1; X-S1; X100; EX1; GRD III; G5(IR).

Flickr.

amazing!

the GH1 looks incredible.

so.... they hack the GF1 yet? :)

Why yes, yes they have!

__________________
[ everythingsablur ]
Panasonic GF1 + LVF1
Native : 20mm f/1.7, 14-140mm f/4-5.8 HD, 7-14 f/4
Legacy: Canon FD 50mm f/1.4 SSC
Flashes: Olympus FL-50

well I'll be damned, i completely forgot about it. I actually do remember seeing it, but they mentioned no manual controls yet, and it looked complicated (well, more effort than I was willing to put in since the GF1 doesn't even have a mic input).

Pretty incredible!

__________________
Amin
Mu-43.com Webmaster (Site FAQ | Help Forum | My Flickriver | My G+ Profile
Olympus OM-D E-M5 Pre-Orders : B&H Photo | Amazon.com | Adorama

Please help support Mu-43.com by using one of these links prior to your next purchase:
B&H Photo | Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.ca | Adorama | Unique Photo
Your price is unaffected, and a referral fee (2-4% of your purchase) is paid to us by the retailer.
Note: For us to get credit for the referral, you must click our link prior to placing any items in your "shopping cart".

What are the pro/cons for Panasonic to release this capability on GH1 with a firmware upgrade?

Pro:

• Happy GH1 customers advicing other to join

• More GH1 (and up) sales
• Non-m43 users joining m43 faster

Con:

• Less value difference between GH1 and successor

• Slower acceptance of new generation (with higher price, new features to correct for inflation) - Only until GH1 sold out and being stuck with GH1 after GH2 introduction is not good either
• Less GH1 customers upgrading to successor - How many customers buy a camera every year and most of those that do that will do it either way

Am I overlooking things or should Panasonic release (and support) the hack themselves?

__________________
Joep

PS: Try to catch a laugh every day

It seems to me that the hack reduces the compression rate (increases bit rate) for video and gives access to other parameters which are hard coded on the conservative side (e.g. to allow for lowest common denominator SDHC transfer speed) or comply with regional veriations (e.g. European limit on record time to avoid tax, or language versions)

The best thing Panasonic could do is make future unauthorised hacking at least as easy (if not easier) and give even more hooks to further parameters.

Cheers

Brian

__________________
Founder, Olympus Photo Safari Group
http://www.ukphotosafari.org

Dear Brian,

That is exactly what I thought, so with higher cost (new electronics, fees) Panasonic can also enable this on future generations. But it proofs for sure that they have technical potential to improve much more very soon (beyond Nikon/Canon).

In the past I looked into a iRiver gadget MP3/4 player on which you could load Flash applications (and write yourself), but firmware hacks are even more down into the electronics. Pretty interesting outsiders can "look" inside a camera that deep...

Wait, I remember reading stories on Canon. Let me google, look for example here:
CHDK Wiki

It is getting close to open source programming. Then Panasonic can sell it as a piece of hardware without software (so no video fees) and at home you install the software to support photo/video/MP4/Etc...
- Hmm, let us keep it this way

Best regards,

Joep

__________________
Joep

PS: Try to catch a laugh every day

Actually Panasonic made a new unofficial firmware update, that ship with the new GF1 and GH1. It prevents users from using the GH13 hack :/

So they are not taking the hack so positively after all…