So we have another video sample shot with the GH4 (at Kenmore Camera I mean). I know it's made on-the-fly and obviously not very refined, but honestly I'm not impressed with the footage EDIT: after watching it again, I change my statement: skin tones look better. I guess I expected some bigger/visible improvement in DR

The main reason I've posted that video, is to tell that even the stores which have a direct connection to Panasonic are not sure about its final price and availability. This camera is not yet ready to be judged, particularly relying on the mixed --GH3 and pre-released GH4-- video footage downsampled to Youtube 720p.

Neither you can judge the complete resolution of the GH4 based on these photos, downscaled to 2K, taken by Wasabi Bob: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wasabi_bob/sets/72157641421886023/

He wrote:

I really like my GH3, but the GH4 has suddenly made me loose some of affection for the GH3! This sample had early firmware so I was unable to shoot in RAW. Focus peaking made a huge difference with this type of work. I used the 35-100 lens with the Kenko extension tubes. Not the best combination, but they turned out OK.

If the "real camera is still in full development" there's no way they'd be saying the camera is shipping in April.

It looks like the only source for 4k will be hyper compressed Youtube videos for the foreseeable future. In fact, if Hollywood had its way, streaming would be the FINAL source for 4k, which would be a shame.

The internet infrastructure and ISP's are not ready in the slightest to be the sole source of HD video, let alone 4k. It has to be consistently BETTER than what you could realistically get in a physical medium or it's all just a game of numbers without tangible results.

I absolutely laugh at the home theater industry falling all over itself with Netflix's announcement of 4k streaming. Have they seen their low bitrate 1080p quality? Ridiculous.

I don't think we could judge much of anything IQ wise even if the straight-from-camera output was available, since these demo units seem to be running firmware v.1 - v.3. But I was glad to hear the Panny rep say that in his own testing he was seeing about a one stop improvement in high ISO.

Youtube compression will be there, Vimeo compression will always be there because that's the only two capable sites that we currently can use to deliver good enough Quality to the viewers.. I known there are more but most people don't use them and don't know about them. There is no work around really if you think about it.

@TrackZillas, I actually think it's not reasonable to expect leaps and bounds from any camera anymore. There's just not that amount of difference left in the image from the best to the lower levels. To me that's not really the point. I don't think we can look down on the improvements that come with each of the most recent top cameras. Cinema EOS, BMCC, Sony AX100 or GH4 all bring some really valuable improvements in Image or functionality. My favorite image is the Arri Alexa, which I can't afford but any camera that helps in getting closer to that look is all I can ask for. Don't know if the GH4 can do that, but we'll see.

@IronFilm Thanks for posting..

The firmware is probably not finished and it's being tweaked further. The hardware spec was finalized a year ago or more and production is actively going on. The shipping firmware will be ready after testing which is probably nearly done while stable long term firmware with discovered and patched bugs will be ready for download a few months after like with other cameras. Wish they would ad 120p and be done with that spec wall once and for all.

After all 4k is 4x the 1080p data which means you could probably extract 1080 120 easily considering the cam specs allow for a sensor refresh 2x faster at 240p.

Looks like it was shot under fluorescent lighting. White balance looks good. No noise in dark areas. Auto focus was on. I would imagine it was in total auto mode, so until we get some samples with controlled shooting conditions I'm not ready to pass judgement...

@MRfanny totally agree regarding skin tones

@JohnTollwannabe... yes, exactly like any other "Average Joe User" who might have this in his hands.... :-P

Hopefully we'll see an "Average Personal View Forum Member" shooting samples with it soon ;-) At least, at a minimum.

@Ironfilm: Thanks for posting.

The 4k sample from the store suffers from the same "Youtube-desease" as did the official promo-video: It's compressed to ~15.8MBit/s and thus shows horrible compression artefacts whenever there's significant movement in the picture.

On the plus side, the speed of the continous auto-focus looks somewhat promising (though it's not clear whether it would follow an object that the camera follows).