A Panasonic source at 43rumors says that the GH2 is being delayed for late technical changes only to the PAL European model. The GH2 will be released in the US and EU early December, around 2-3 weeks later than planned.
The native Japanese model has been out on Panasonic domestic market for over 2 weeks now and Panasonic have been busy ramping up production for the worldwide release before Christmas.
Based on the information about the changes only applying to the PAL model, it all sounds like a last minute patch for 25p based on feedback from video professionals who want to use the Panasonic GH2 for broadcast in PAL regions like Europe and Australia.
At the very least it could be the testing of new firmware functionality like the Flicker Reduction mode found on the slightly newer GF2. That mode locks the shutter in A, P and full Auto mode to 1/50 or 1/60 depending on region to avoid flickering lights and high shutter speeds. Of course the GH2 has full manual controls but such a feature would still be handy for A, P and full auto mode, even though auto exposure would have to depend only on aperture and ISO. Fine by me – shutter speed in video mode should rarely go above 1/100 anyway and in bright day light, flickering lights wouldn’t be an issue so you could turn the feature off for proper exposure.
Although 24p is the cinema standard worldwide, and the Blu Ray standard even in PAL regions, we still need 25p here in the UK for legacy reasons and for sync with our 50hz electricity supply – our lights and screens ‘refresh’ at 50 cycles per second. Broadcasters like the BBC use 25p for this reason and don’t accept a mixture of 24p and 25p to be cut together.
Above all Panasonic we need proper PAL / NTSC switches in our camera menus like the Canon 7D introduced. It’s not hard. It’s crazy having to buy two cameras for shooting in two different parts of the world on occasion, just so a Japanese camera corporation can discourage users from buying grey market imports. Canon have taken the right lead on this and I’d like to see the others follow. One international mode, switchable standards (and language) in the menu.
Or we’ll just have to hack it!
