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And For My Next Trick....... (aka Why I was hacking the GX80 in the first place)


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Sure thing. Zhiyun makes some great cranes and gimbals but the controls are only available via USB micro to the base. After that, you can record, change camera settings and control focus on the handle. They do not seem interested in expanding their mobile app to control these parameters via Wifi or Bluetooth. It would be great to have a small interface that maps the Panasonic app controls via Wi-Fi and allow input/output through USB-C or USB Micro. No need for any button mapping or knobs, just an interface. 

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18 minutes ago, DanielK said:

Sure thing. Zhiyun makes some great cranes and gimbals but the controls are only available via USB micro to the base. After that, you can record, change camera settings and control focus on the handle. They do not seem interested in expanding their mobile app to control these parameters via Wifi or Bluetooth. It would be great to have a small interface that maps the Panasonic app controls via Wi-Fi and allow input/output through USB-C or USB Micro. No need for any button mapping or knobs, just an interface. 

From their controller you mean?

So you would want their controller to be used but to control the camera by wifi ?

Do you have a link for it?

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Here is the link to the gimbal we have. https://www.zhiyun-tech.com/WEEBILLLAB/en

The base of the unit has two USB micro ports. I have tested both and they both are capable of charging at 5VDC. They have their own app which allows operation and time-lapse functionality. This is the link to their app. https://www.zhiyun-tech.com/ZYPlay/en The gimbal requests both wifi and Bluetooth connection. I have verified the app allows me to operate the gimbal axis. There is no image coming into the ZYPlay app from my camera. I believe this is due to the lack of USB connection and camera control. My hope is that the currently-available streaming of video used the Panasonic Image App, along with the ability to set-up camera parameters and start/stop could be mapped to the hardware controls of the Weebill gimbal.

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36 minutes ago, DanielK said:

Here is the link to the gimbal we have. https://www.zhiyun-tech.com/WEEBILLLAB/en

The base of the unit has two USB micro ports. I have tested both and they both are capable of charging at 5VDC. They have their own app which allows operation and time-lapse functionality. This is the link to their app. https://www.zhiyun-tech.com/ZYPlay/en The gimbal requests both wifi and Bluetooth connection. I have verified the app allows me to operate the gimbal axis. There is no image coming into the ZYPlay app from my camera. I believe this is due to the lack of USB connection and camera control. My hope is that the currently-available streaming of video used the Panasonic Image App, along with the ability to set-up camera parameters and start/stop could be mapped to the hardware controls of the Weebill gimbal.

I've had a look and the answer, unfortunately, would be no.

Well, no, in the sense of the practicality of it rather than it being completely impossible.

The Sony cameras and the GH5/S are supported because they are able to be controlled and provide live view through the PTP protocol which the GX80 isn't. In fact, I think the GH5/S are the only Panasonic ones that can whereas its more or less ubiquitous on Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax and of course Sony.

How the Weebill is operating as far as I can see is that the control input from the handle goes to the camera through USB and the return data from the camera, including the live view, is then passed by wifi to the app which then returns any changes you make back to the handle which then passes them through USB to the camera again.

So....

To make this work with a GX80 we would need to make

A) An interface box that pretended to be a camera to take and return the control information from the handle and then pass those controls via bluetooth to...

B) A custom app that would be connected to the GX80 via wifi to pretend to be the Panasonic app to take the live camera feed and pass the controls it was receiving via bluetooth to the camera.

Neither of those things are insurmountable by any means but they would require a fair amount of time and, crucially, buying the gimbal to develop and test it with.

The end result in terms of cost to make something that custom and with a potentially very limited market would make it pretty expensive.

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