When we look for a video camera, we often ask ourselves “what camcorder will give me supreme image quality in a reasonable price?”, then “what features do I get with it, and is it handy without me looking ugly?” and many more. Panasonic provides us one of their best answers to our problems, the Panasonic HDC – TM900K.
Features
HD Quality
Getting an equivalent Full HD quality with the TM900K is made possible with its 3MOS system pro. To break down the system, the image enhancements of the lens is created with the F1.5 Dicomar(LEICA certified) that features a 28.9 millimeter wide-angle. Then, it can reach up to four times the equivalent pixel count in full HD due to its 3MOS sensor. These large amounts of pixels are processed by the Crystal Engine Pro 2 at high speed, giving a full HD quality of footages at an outstanding level.
HD in 3D
With the 3D conversion lenses (VW – CLT2), you can record 3D images in full HD and check on its LCD screen without the use of special eye wear. The 3D conversion lens is made smaller with increased brightness and 1.5x zooming capacity.
3D-Compatible LCD Touch Screen
The LCD screen is 3.5 inches wide and allows bare-sighted 3D viewing. Operations on TM900K are truly made easy by simply touching the screen.
Stable Zoom Shooting
The zoom function can reach up to 23x without the risk of taking blurry footages. With its Optical Image Stabilizer (O.I.S.) lock, hand-shake compensation is even more powerful. The O.I.S. Lock indicator is also found in the LCD screen.
Crystal Clear Sound
The microphone used with it is DOLBY DIGITAL 5.1 CREATOR allowing wide range of sound capture with minimal noise.
Internal Memory – Expandable
It is capable of recording up to 12 hours depending on the mode. It also supports SD, SDXC, or SDHC memory cards for expanded recording time.
Handle With Ease
The TM900K is a light-weight Champ, weighing about a pound (13 ounces) and fits easy with just about a hand dimension. The plastic body is colored full black, giving off the popular Panasonic look.
Pros
Panasonic’s TM900K provides smooth recording and many more. It provides full HD plus 3D recording ability. With the O.I.S. lock, it relieves the risk of shots in zoom to be blurry. Using it has never been easier, especially with its wide LCD touch screen. Operating the camcorder is simple at the tip of your fingers. Also, worry no more on how you look like when recording memorable moments. With its sleek Panasonic look, using it will make you look like a professional.
Cons
Although it features 3D footage right off the LCD screen, this might affect the perception when looking at the monitor. Images may look a little bit unclear for some. Also, it has a small internal memory storage capacity. However, it can be expanded with the wide variety of Memory cards that are available in the market.
Bottom-line
Panasonic HDC – TM900K is a good option for those who want to purchase a video camcorder and look pro. You will enjoy recording memorable moments in a true-to-life quality. You can grab it from Amazon at $759.99 for free shipping.
Ok, a few things here You can copy over an AVCHD file to a PC and just watch it, on the PC. In theroy, you can also create an AVCHD formatted DVD, and play it on most Blu-Ray players, without the need to recode. But you generally want to do some editing, and that probably does entail some recoding. AVCHD is a new format, and much more compex than MPEG-2. This means that support for it is currently a little weak and a little confused (not every AVCHD product is yet interoperable). PCs only recently got fast enough for HDV MPEG-2 editing to be comfortable. So is converting necessary that depends on what you want to do with the video. If you want to watch in on TV, you probably will do some kind of conversion, at least until the tools get better and you have a Blu-Ray player or PS3. 2GB RAM is enough for most HD video editors. I run a 2.2GHz AMDx2, and it’s decent, but Intel’s Core2 and quads are faster still yeah, doing some HD rendering can take a long time; it depends on how much, and just what you’re doing. Converting from AVCHD to, say, MPEG-2 will certainly take LESS time than converting from MPEG-2 to AVCHD (I’m making some Blu-Ray discs from HDV sources at this very moment it’s runs around 24 hours per hour of video using one tool I have )I believe the HDC-SD9 will do standard definition, in MPEG-2 as well, so it’s pretty easy to deal with on a modern PC. As for low-light performance, the Panasonic consumer 3-chip cameras have never offered great low light performance. The original ones used three 1/6 CCDs, which significantly underperformed vs. the 1/3 single-chip cameras from Sony or Canon (while offering better color, in bright light, anyway). The SD-1 went to 1/4 chips, but they’re back to 1/6 chips for the SD-9 and that’s HD. At the same imager size, an HD camera will be much worse than an SD, since the pixels are essentially 1/6th the size. Note that these 1/6 CCDs are only 520K pixels each (they overlap them to get the HD effect) that actually helps, but still doesn’t deliver good low light performance. And of course, this arrangement negates the color improvements of 3-chip vs. single CCD you only get one color per pixel, and have to interpolate.And that’s a general problem in the consumer market the best low-light cameras are 3-chip pro/prosumer-class SD cameras, with 1/3 sensors, like the Sony VX2100 which is why you can still buy the VX2100 HD cams don’t compare in low-light. But I do agree most of today’s SD camcorders are for low-end consumers. Canon used to have some very nice 1/3 sensor single-chip cameras in this market not they’re all 1/6 , likely worse than your Panasonic in SD mode. If I were going to buy a flash-based camcorder today, I would almost certainly get the Canon HF-100. The single 1/3.2 sensor is not only larger than the Panny’s, but Canon’s CMOS technology these days is much lower noise than anyone’s CCDs, so I think you’ll be better off in low-light with that. HOWEVER, most consumer and most HD camcorders will probably disappoint you, if you’re doing any serious low light videography.