GH4 = Europe vs USA

[Dave Partington]

I'm looking seriously at the GH4 for various reasons. These include interviews, theatrical performances and also mounting to a UAS (octocopter).

Is a GH4 sold in the USA capable of :

1) Recording in 25p (both 4K and 1080p) ?

2) Recording in 25p for more than 30 minutes (i.e. unlimited up to the size of the SD card) ?

I really don't want to be limited to 30 mins if I can help it since theatrical performances are rarely under 30 mins!

[Gary Huff]

Yes to 1 and no to 2. 25p mode is limited to 30 minutes at a time.

[Dave Partington]

Thanks - is that just for 25p or all frame rates?

[Fran Guidry]

Based on my reading of the manual only the MP4 file format has a time limit on the US GH4 regardless of system frequency.

I'm starting on page 194 of the Advanced manual.

In AVCHD no time limit is mentioned.

In MP4

When the motion picture size is set to [FHD], [HD] or [VGA] in [MP4], you can continuously
record a motion picture up to 29 minutes 59 seconds or until the file size reaches 4 GB. You
can check the recordable time on the screen.
– Since the file size becomes larger with [FHD], recording with [FHD] will stop before
29 minutes 59 seconds

However still in MP4

You can continuously record a motion picture with its size set to [4K] in [MP4] without a pause
even if the motion picture exceeds 4 GB. However, the recorded content has to be played back
as multiple files.

When MP4(LCPM),MOV is selected the only limit is a file break at 4 GB. No time limit is noted.

In order to confirm, I set my camera to 50 hz, rebooted, selected 25 fps and hit record. The clip is currently 41 min 21 sec and counting.

It is my understanding that the 30 min limit applies only to EU bound cameras and that Asian market cameras as well as US cameras do not have this restriction.

Fran

[Dave Partington]

Thanks. Are there any frames dropped at the 4GB break or do they join up correctly on the timeline?

[Fran Guidry]

I haven't tested this with the GH4 but with the GH3 the clips spanned seamlessly. I'm confident that the same will be true with the GH4.

Fran

[Andrew Dean]

I dunno which model they sell here in New Zealand, but my gh4 spans the 4gb files with no dropped frames. I've recorded 2 hours of 4k on a 32gb card with no dramas. (The codec is adaptive, so if you are shooting a locked off shot for pan/scan later, the file sizes are crazy small.)