DMC-TZ10 / ZS7 GPS does not work in China

[stolsvik]

I arrived yesterday here in China with my newly purchased DMC-TZ10, being happy that my holiday pictures would be geo-tagged - oh, the future!

Today, the camera´s GPS got its location fixed, and instead of displaying the location, it states "gps feature is not available in this region" with all-caps scrolling across the screen.

That must be the dumbest thing I have seen in quite some time for a electronic gadget. So, how do I crack this piece of crap?

 

[tinpusher]

I'm glad you've highlighted this as it would stop me buying the camera.
Reading the manual I notice that the new Leica V-LUX 20 is similarly disabled.

 

[f8_accpmpli]

From Panasonic:

http://panasonic.net/avc/lumix/compact/zs7_tz10/functions.html

in the red highlighted box-
• The GPS function is not available in China.

--
Never put off until tomorrow. . .
that which you can avoid doing altogether.

 

[Bruce0366]

I think what's going on there might, at least, be that the GPS system, developed by the American military, and still probably marching to their drum, is likely jammed to ratshit by the Communist government there. If only Panasonic could talk them into welcoming the American military's signals into their country, your 'piece of crap' might work.

 

[tinpusher]

GPS is available in China..ask Garmin ; they sell mapping for China.

 

[trevmar]

.

All Maps are offset in China by between 200 and 500 yards. Check out Google maps, overlay satellite and road images of any city... When I travel there, I have to use satellite images to figure out where I am. I have satellite images of the key cities loaded into my Blackberry (takes 6Gig), because you don't want to be paying for data downloading maps dynamically, either. I use the mGmaps freeware application.

But disabling camera GPS is overkill. I don't know what got into the minds of these camera manufacturers. Accurate car-navigation GPS units are sold in China. The Government does want to know who is buying them, however.

And the GPS satellites most definitely work really well there. When my flight was diverted a few months ago, landing at a tiny Chinese airport without any obvious English-language signage, it was my pocket GPS system which helped me figure out what had happened, and where we were...
.

 

[Nanosec]

Its intentionally disabled for your own protection from the Chinese government and has nothing to do with GPS coverage or selective availability. See article below.

Foreigners using GPS face arrest in China: http://goo.gl/hXdD

--
Trent R. Stanley
San Diego, CA
http://www.sdbirder.com/

 

[LuckyDip]

I bought the DMC-ZS& specifically because I was going to China for a vacation. I read in the manual that I should not use the GPS in China so I turned it off before I left Canada. Once in China - nothing. The camera would not even come on. I tried repeatedly, changed the battery etc. I assued that it had been damaged during the flight.

The day after I returned I planned to return the camera to the store. I thought I would check it again and lo and behold it came on and has worked flawlessly ever since.

It is one thing to disable the GPS, but disable the camera entirely? That is ridiculaous. At least now I know I am not paranoid.

 

[trevmar]

Sounds like a camera firmware bug. Contact Panasonic (in writing) about it. You should be able to turn your camera on, even if the GPS has been disabled. But it sounds like the sort of thing a software engineer may not fully test out before shipping his/her software (or firmware).

Google Maps is now not available from inside China. Not just GPS, but maps also. I still use the GPS in my phone without any problems, however, I am not sure why Panasonic implemented such a huge kludge, or why their screen-message doesn't tell you that it was the government of China (or whomever) who requested that the feature be disabled.

Of course my LX5 works perfectly in China (it has no GPS).

 

[trevmar]

Oh - and a piccy from my LX5's most recent trip to China (last week).

It was taken in RAW, processed in Sillypix and saved as a 1.7MB jpeg for my album here..
(ASA 200, not cropped, not sharpened either in camera or in pp)
.





.
And a 100% crop, slightly sharpened, not color balanced, 891K jpg,

 

[glanglois]

given that every intelligence service with the possible exception of that of Tuvalu has detailed maps of China.

Rather like protecting Charing Cross Station from being photographed by terrorists who would have no other way to recognize it ....

 

[Detail Man]

LuckyDip wrote:

I bought the DMC-ZS& specifically because I was going to China for a vacation. I read in the manual that I should not use the GPS in China so I turned it off before I left Canada. Once in China - nothing. The camera would not even come on. I tried repeatedly, changed the battery etc. I assued that it had been damaged during the flight.

The day after I returned I planned to return the camera to the store. I thought I would check it again and lo and behold it came on and has worked flawlessly ever since.

It is one thing to disable the GPS, but disable the camera entirely? That is ridiculous. At least now I know I am not paranoid.

That's an interesting story. One would think that if you had disabled the ZS7's GPS functions - then the ZS7 would have no way of knowing that it's location was in fact in China, and thus would not refuse to power-up ... ?

Your account implies that the GPS system in the ZS7 is never fully disabled. Yet, it would seem that if that were true (and the GPS receiver-section and computational hardware is always operational), then there would always exist (an at least somewhat) higher battery current-consumption ...

Have had my ZS7's GPS disabled throughout it's use - so I do not have a good feel for battery-life when GPS is enabled. I have, however, been able to record around 500 JPGs on it, spend a fair amount of time looking at them in Playback mode, uploaded all of them to my computer via USB, with a bit of battery-power still left. That's quite good as it goes (and at least as good as my TZ4)

I've read ZS7 users report that having the ZS7 GPS enabled results in significantly less battery-life (per single charge). This seems puzzling - because it seems that such a silently operational GPS receiver would draw roughly the same amount of battery current whether GPS was "OFF" or "ON".

Are you sure that you had disabled the GPS functions before entering mainland China? When the camera came back to life, was the GPS system (still) disabled (as you remembered setting it) ... ?

 

[windmillgolfer]

No doubt this is not of Panasonic's making. China is paranoid about external and internal 'disruption'. Disabling GPS is just one of the many ways in which the Chinese Gov't tries to control who does what and where. Be interesting to know if the approximate location function using mobile cell location, on many smart mobile phones, is allowed to work.