Panasonic GX series

JakeJY wrote:

Chris666666 wrote:

Keithpictures wrote:

What remains a mystery is why Panasonic differentiates the European and American markets - GX80 vs GX85, the same camera. Perhaps it is because they are technically different internal systems, one video system focused on PAL, one on NTSC. That is my guess. Still, it is a marketing blunder. (As is the similarity in naming between the GX line and the G line, which are SLR-style versions, with some spec improvements. There are lots of other letters, Panasonic.)

There is really no technical reason for this. They are neither PAL nor NTSC. It is simply the frame rate which is different. There are many devices, TVs in particular, which are happy with either 25 or 30 fps, and cameras could also handle both - I doubt there is any physical difference between them. It has more to do with marketing and sales - keeping products from being sold in other markets.

They aren't switchable between the two. The frame rates still matter because using the wrong one can result in flickering in the respective territories.

The other difference is Europe has an extra tariff on cameras that can record longer than 30 minutes. USA does not. Making two products ensures the US model is not crippled by a European tariff. The G9 was disappointing in this regard since it is also limited in the US market.

In EU, it can also be problematic to sell a product that has 29min59s video recording limit (for EU copy-right tax reasons), if that limit can be disabled by entering service mode or by using a custom firmware hack. It's much simpler to call it a different product. Otherwise, it would be like selling a bottle of vodka bundled with a bottle of water and claiming that the product only contains 4% of alcohol (yeah, in most countries this is would not make the difference in the first place...).