I for one call myself an "early adaptor" on quite some things (gaming consoles, TV, cameras, etc.) though I think this 4k thingy is a long shot and maybe just a "gimmick" as for now. I live in Germany. The first soccer match they showed on TV in WIDESCREEN caused many complaints from people with 4:3 TV screens. HDTV took forever to get to Germany and 4k stuff? Seriously? When will it be broadly accessible on TV? So many TV stations already look like crap because of the low bitrates. How much bitrate would a decent 4k stream require? This is not so near future I'd say. Also how big does a TV need to be to really show that extra resolution? For sure it makes sense to film in as good quality as possible. Post-editing, cropping, stabilisation...all these will benefit from 4k. Future shoots I may do in 4k and render to 1080p and when I know I want someting in slow motion I will shoot in 1080p with 96 frames. I was still thinking of buying a GH2 in addition to my GH3 because I need another one for multicamera shoots. Now with the GH4 coming I am thinking to wait and go for the GH4 to have more matching cameras (I am very positive that the GH3 will better match with the GH4 than the GH2 will with the GH3) and finally get myself a camera without this stupid 30 minute recording limitation and some of it's other new features (not the 4k one) sound lke quite some upgrades to the GH3. So I need to save money now and find some kind sould who sends a GH4 to me in Germany ;-)

To all the folks worrying about Moire and Aliasing...it's nearly impossible to tell from a youtube video what will be what, and somewhere in the announcement they specifically addressed something to deal with M&A so I'm feeling quite optimistic.

Since Panny didn't specifically state that the GH4 complies with the new Rec. 2020 color gamut for UHD, I'm going to assume that even the 4k footage is limited to the very old yet still current HD Rec. 709 standard.

I'd love to see the first company that actually delivers an HDMI field recorder that can capture 4k at at least 10 bit 4:2:2 using a superior codec that isn't budget-busting expensive. Indie filmmakers will need it. It's not that 100 Mbps can't look decent for 4k, it's the codec that's doing the compression that is the issue. The GH4 uses MPEG-4 and 8 bit 4:2:0 internally. That doesn't exactly scream "professional-grade" image capturing to me. We all know the problems with 8 bit consumer video.

The cost to do 4k, let alone 10 bit 1080p, is going to be relatively expensive for the foreseeable future, unfortunately.

@jamesgh2 The Canon C300 records 8 bit 4:2:2. When it comes to grading, the banding is a bit depth issue not a colour sampling issue. I'd be interested to see what the 4k 4:2:0 recordings look like when converted to HD 10 bit files before grading. Everything is only speculation at this point & it won't be until we see the actual camera in use that we will REALLY be able to criticise it.

Nicely put @bwhitz

@jakepowell that's what I was reading only, but it seems that it does true 10bit 422, and it also does record 4K footage.

Its funny how Canon has a codec that can squeeze 1080p 50mbits 4:2:2 on the C300 but the GH4 needs up to 200mbits on 4:2:0

Maybe it will have more details on the GH4 but the color res can be more important. a Canon MXF MPEG2 codec at 200mbits would look beautiful and plays back very easily on a lower end system. Editors love the codec and it is approved by the BBC at 50mbits. Would love to have a similar codec on the GH line.

The scaling and output could be so good that it will be very good quality color even with 4:2:0 from the initial sampling.

But seriously.. stop these discussions / comparisons of bitrate because they seem absolutely pointless! Bitrate is one thing but the encoder parameters play the most important part. Just ask Driftwood or any other person in this forum which is skilled in the craft of developing encoder settings. And if you have a decent implementation of parameters it´s up to the shooter to make best use of that given situation.

Without a thorough side by side comparison you are just throwing numbers back and forth. Even then you have problems in that some encoder parameters might handle certain types of scenarios better than others.

And then we have not even touched upon other differences between cameras, which influences what kind of material you will get from it.

I am personally looking forward to trying out the gh4, and with an Odyssey 7Q in the picture before long (mainly for the fs700), I don´t worry about 4k acquisition. IF I was to make a setup for fast recording on the gh4, I´d consider the cheapest (reliable) recorders to go with it to get prores 422 out of the box as that is great for both clients and fast editing. 4k is largely superflous for most applications so far. But first of all, I want to try out the cam and see how I like the image and the overall handling.

Are there any news on how the gh4 handles low light, higher iso settings. I know it comes with a new sensor, but still at the same size of the gh3.

@caveport

"The quality is in our skill, not in the equipment."

+1 !

I loaded that Yucatan video from YT and watched it with potplayer in 200% enlargement (100% pixels in screen). In my 50 inch plasmaTV it looked OK and I didnt see moire and aliasing almost at all. Some were in parrots feathers. Resolution in static shots was quite good but not perfect. Compression was very heavy in moving parts due to YT. Bitrate was generally 8-15 Mbs peaking 20.

@amateur Comparing aliasing and moire paters in those two videos is pointless because severity of the issue really depends strictly on the pattern/object and specific camera combination. The angle of the lines, how they are spaced, how far they are from the cameras, etc. combined with the camera's resolution make all the difference. After all it is an interference so as such the camera's resolution and the type of the pattern have to be considered as frequencies. Even putting the cameras side by side and filming the same target does not give an absolute answer about how they handle moire and aliasing, only about how they handle it in the given shot.