The key issues are motion artifacts and grading. My G6 shipped today. I still have some useful footage from my GH2 which should provide an interesting comparison when it arrives.

Hello. Could anybody say is g6 showing peaking via wifi? Thanks.

@calleb Stick to your guns. Of course guys here with hacked GH2s are invested in believing that the stock $600 G6 can't shoot better looking video. If your eyes tell you you're getting better looking footage, you are. And you're absolutely correct, there is much more to this than just bitrate.

I can't wait to pick up a G6 and test it for myself. I'd love a GH2 replacement that's cheaper, smaller, lighter, and shoots better video at 1/4 the bitrate I'm shooting currently. If the G6 is that camera, it should be cause for celebration, not knee-jerk dismissal.

we need another comparison video, that will settle this

Agree, It's more plastic than the GH2. I would compare it to Nikon D5200. But you really have consider the price tag. This is not a 1300 dollar metallic weather sealed GH3 for professionals. Focus pointing has to be engaged on the touch screen and works both in camera video mode and on wifi mode.

Also prefer LCD EVF to OLED. My OLY E-M5 EVF for example is really bad. But it's better in dark environments.

The blacks are black. No banding like with my GH2 and it's sharp.

I hope you'll get more positive. It took me a week but I'm hooked.

@Shaveblog

Post-purchase rationalization and self-deception go hand in hand ;) I own a G6 and honestly would very much like for it to match a hacked GH2 in video compression quality. Unfortunately it does not. Here is a short clip of a cityscape, original MP4 file from stock G6 (1080p50):

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16587899/for_pv/P1340770.MP4

A still frame from it, in TIF format so there would be no further compression to ruin comparison: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16587899/for_pv/P1340770_mp4_frame.tif

And for reference, a JPG of what G6 actually "sees" and what would be close to results of high video bitrate settings. All exposure, ISO, WB etc. settings are same as in video version, but image is resized to 1920x1080 from original 12mpix JPG and saved as TIF to avoid further compression: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16587899/for_pv/P1340769_JPEG_low_still_resized_to_1080.tif

…and the original unresized JPG. You don't need it for comparison, but here it is if you want it for some reason: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16587899/for_pv/P1340769.JPG

Look at buildings and fine details in the clip and frame stills. Look at roofs of buildings. On your computer, flick between TIFs of that MP4 frame and the JPG frame to see the difference clearly.

This is a kind of image that stock G6 can't compress well in video. There are many fine, moving details, the light is low, there are gradients on surfaces, heat in the air is warping the details and lowering contrast. A challenge for any camera that uses high compression ratio codec.

As I don't have a GH2 anymore, can't give you exact comparison of how best video compression settings on it can render view like this. But with 90+Mbps bitrates the GH2 would render that view much more faithfully, and more so with custom matrices you find in some settings here on PV. It'd be closer to that resized JPG than the MP4 frame. This I know after 2.5 years of owning a GH2 and using it both stock and hacked.

I'll save you the rant of how I generally feel about manufacturers doing this "we sell you good hardware, but cripple the software" thing. There would be expletives. But don't fall for post-purchase wishful thinking, because that's what keeps those companies toying with us instead of honestly selling us full-featured devices.

Thanks to all for the information, I almost decided to buy g6 but I still have some questions:-) Could anybody say if the peaking(not focus pointing)is visible via wifi? And one more: can somebody make a clear video of how focus peaking is working on camera lcd in normal light conditions (not in lowlight). Thanks in advance.

I think some people have too high expectation of G6, since it is a designate G not GH so they tend to cripple it to differentiate from GH, if G is good enough who would want to spend double amount of money on the GH?

(having said that the there are some features I do really want with the G6)

@andy_lee can you do a comparison video with a g6 and a hacked gh2 please? i still don't know which one i should buy for the best video, thanks so much

Wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the G6's video quality, from what I see it is pretty solid. I'll be uploading a short comparison between the G6 and hacked GH2 later today.

I have done extensive tests with my hacked gh2 (driftwood quantum 9b 150mb/s) and the G6 using the same Carl Zeiss Vario sonnar lens on both and the G6 is much better image wise Panasonic have done a superb job with the G6 - its has a much finer gain structure alot less mosquito noise in the black and dark areas and is just as sharp as the hacked gh2

Its a no brainer the g6 is very very good - just buy one

Here's a short comparison looking at resolving of image. Both shot with zuiko 50mm f1.4 at f5.6. The GH2 has Flow Motion v2 installed in 24p with average bitrate on the tree shot at 94 mb/s. The G6 is in 24p mode avchd with average bitrate of 22 mb/s on the tree shot. I think the G6 holds up very well indeed. Even scaled in very tight the difference isn't much. Fine motion in leaves in shadows on the tree shot show a little compression artifacting on the G6, but less than anticipated from my side. I think this little camera can prove a very versatile tool to bring along.

@andy_lee I'm afraid your opinion that the G6 shoots better looking video than a hacked GH2 is invalid, as you actually own both cameras and took the time to do proper comparison testing. I put much more stock in uninformed blind speculation and downloaded 3rd party clips of unverifiable provenance - they just feel truthier to me, is all.