do you guys really think they'll stretch this far for their consumer cam?? They can still enjoy exellent sales for GH2 for very long time. If i was Panny, i would have realesed GH3 only if i had to, and adding minor stuff..

I think that for Panasonic to be taken seriously they need to out perform both the Canon Mk3 and also the Nikon D800 especially with the new 2k / 4k hack in development. If panasonic does this they have a good chance of capturing the dslr market.

@Vitaliy_Kiselev how much more dynamic range you think we will get if any ..To me, if we can get 11-12 stops and custom picture profiles with what the gh2 offers now that would be great .

I do not have many wishes:

• 1080p50/p60 (on top of the current framerates)
• More dynamic range
• Full manual audio levels
• Headphones jack (will probably never happen)

How about the massively disruptive feature of genlock and timecode input?? GH3D (as it would certainly be nicknamed) would find an immediate place in minor and major 3D productions. A very small, but, very grateful group of film makers would rejoice and buy... well.... hundreds!!?? Crap.

• bigger battery

Well, a flat profile in itself wouldn't really be necessary. Only fully customizable profiles.. Or customizable enough. If Olympus can do it, it should not be a problem.

Anyway, if they use a similar firmware build as in the gh2 the gh3 will be the better camera before long.

Clean, fully working hdmi port would be good.

@Vitaliy_Kiselev said "As for peaking, it still can be done properly. Looking at various pro monitors I highly doubt claims about how easy it is to implement."

Au contraire, you'd be amazed at how simple it really is. A long time ago (~2.5 years) I put together a write-up trying to lobby Olympus to put focus peaking on their cameras through the Olympus UK Photo Safari Group. In it's simple Gradient form (which is already very useful) it uses math that was invented by Sir Isaac Newton. Using a Sobel Operator instead gives results that are already better than the Gradient Filter and amazingly useful.

It's a very short document (10 pages, mostly examples).

Personnaly I don't find that blue FP useful. I would rather have something like Canon XHA1 has - a button to enable massive sharpening on the LCD - that's much more visually helpful for focusing, especially in digital zoom (focus assistant) mode.

I have Panasonic SD600 camcorder which was on sale at $400 in the US before discontinued. It does have FP. So the question for Pana is not about developing a function from scratch but simply implementing what they already have even in their budget product range.

Interestingly, Focus Peaking, and a log like profile, would cost nothing implement. without 1080/60p I don't imagine many people upgrading from GH-2? 720p/120 would be cool. DR is nice, but I wish someone would copy Alexa in the highlight roll-off. I'm not as concerned with shadow DR, since most likely you will crush the blacks any way. But to my eye, the highlight roll off with yellowish fringe to white, is the tell tale of a video camera. What gives a film look is the subdued highlight. TV manufacturers, like to pump the contrast and saturation up to prove to the masses they have high quality. Like have a huge 12" base speaker in your trunk. It's loud but is it quality sound?

@pvjames

I think we will see it for around $1500 and the only important new features will be 60fps, weather sealed and better image processing.

The news are unfortunatly not runing so high

Do not worry. Global shutter in GH2, and later GH3 was just favourite idea of Andrea (43rumors author).
He likes it :-) So, "global shutter definitely will be in GHx" and "glabal shutter unfortunately won't be present in GHx" will be constant quests on 43rumors in the years to come :-)