@Vesku

I second what Vesku said. The bit rate now sustains right around 100 mb/sec and the AF is improved but not quite up to the 1080p @ 60 FPS AF.

Download the file from here

http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/dsc/download/fts/dl/gh4.html

It is GH4, not AH4. I think the first link was wrong

20mm 1.7 manual, i have not tested with my other lens yet.

Since i've installed the firmware 2.0, changing aperture during recording makes no sound anymore but cause a slow fading, did you experiment the same thing ?

The 20/1.7 is the absolute worst lens to use for testing video AF. Panasonic doesn't even rate it as certified for C-AF.

@AdamT You make a very good point!

Does anyone have a link to the matrix that shows Panasonic lens capabilities (like which are capable of C-AF)? I seem to remember seeing one, but I can't find it anywhere.

@fosterchen the close up on that looks a like 70s B movie! Assault on Precinct 13 !

WOW great footage 'sebfarges ' I installed the 2.0 firmware last night and did some quick afternoon and evening shots. I noticed how bloody sharp and noiseless the footage is, maybe this is due to the Ratios (4x3 and 1.1) being close to the shape of the image sensor??? and not having to much internal fold-down (Folding Down =video Noise) The update didn't work on my Samsung super dooper 64gb SDXC card but worked on a PNY bog standard 32GB SDHC card. Doing some more shooting in Soho, London today while on my late afternoon break from work. Will be using my ISCO anamorphic and my trusty old school Olympus 50mm f1.8, will edit and upload over the week end. So far bloody impressed, well done Panasonic!

@tinbeo

I updated mine with that battery. Unlike other Panasonic cameras the 3rd party batteries for the GH4 will show accurate time left.

I would not be concerned if the "AF Tests with the GH4 with Firmware 2.0" video just showed overshooting the calculated focus position, but it also shows many times that when the person changes head position, the initial big focus movement goes into the wrong direction. And this is an indication of not using DFD at all for video autofocus. Panasonic wrote in their specs that the LX100 does not use DFD for video AF, but I have not seen word on this in the specs of the GH4.

(BTW: The paper from 1992 I linked above says: "DFD1F has been successfully implemented and tested on an actual camera system named SPARCS. SPARCS can determine the distance of an object placed in front of it at any distance in the range of 0.5 m to infinity, and can successfully focus the object by moving the lens with a root-mean-square error of less than 6% in terms of lens position" - that would still today be a huge improvement if available for video AF.)

@mpgxsvcd: In general, "Depth From Defocus" computes the distance of an object from its image, using known blurring properties of the used lens (see this article (paywalled) or this article for more details. BTW: It's interesting to see it took 22 years, from 1992 till 2014, before DFD went from a practical implementation in one camera into the mass market).

Knowing the distance means that the very thing you can avoid is an initial mis-hunt into the wrong direction. What DFD cannot avoid is further small adjustment moves around the initially computed position, but slight variations are not what puts the viewers off - its the long initial "hunt" into the completely wrong direction that looks awful.

Also according to the published properties of DFD in the GH4, the initial movement of the focus plane is precisely what is done "into the right direction", different from when not using DFD.

So I think there is no good known reason why Panasonic could not implement DFD for continous video AF.

I hope it's not the new Remote Control (PTP) function that has been added under the "USB Mode" that may possibly affect the " PC connection" connection function.

@karl

<hunt into the wrong direction first

You know DFD hunts in the wrong direction first right? It just does it quickly and in small increments so you don't notice it.

The video above is meaningless. The lens has more to do with AF than anything else. In this case the 20mm F1.7 is the limiting factor. It is not capable of fast focusing.

I have tested the 35-100mm F2.8 with the new firmware and it is clearly better in the video/still mode than in true video only mode. It isn't perfect but it is much better.