Panasonic HDC-TM300 Twin Media HD Camcorder
Saturday, November 21st, 2009 at
7:25 pm
- Capture Full HD video; 1920 x 1080 resolution
- Records to 32 GB built-in Hard Disk Drive or SD memory cards
- 12x Leica Dicomar lens with Optical Image Stabilization
- Capture stills up to 10.6 megapixels
- 2.7-inch widescreen touch-panel LCD
Product Description
HDC-TM300-K black Twin Media Hi Definition camcorder… More >>
Panasonic HDC-TM300 Twin Media HD Camcorder
Tagged with: camcorder • HDCTM300 • media • panasonic • Twin
Filed under: camcorder
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*Pros: Comfortable to Operate, Great Features, Great Outdoor Quality, GREAT stabilization, Great zoom, Simple Controls, Versatile
*Cons: Low quality indoors, Poor Battery Life, POOR support
*Best Uses: Home Movies, Travel
*Describe Yourself: Video Enthusiast
*Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend
Well, not too sure what to say… I saw this camera at CES 2009 and anxiously waited for it’s release. I played with it at CES and just fell in love… Well, the quality indoors was terrible. I bought it to video the inside of my rental properties and wanted HD to show every little detail. Well, what I got was a VERY GRAINY picture. I got better shots with my MiniDV SD camera. I mean it was TERRIBLE. I called Panasonic and of course got NO help other than to read the manual and check the settings.
Now, outside shots were WOW, GREAT! Truly amazing!
So, if you want a good outdoor, daylight only camera, THIS IS IT! If not, PASS!
Rating: 3 / 5
Purchased a few weeks ago, so haven’t tried all the features yet. This is my first AVCHD camera, coming from Sony SD DV tapes, so it’s hard not to be enthused about eliminating tapes and getting video that looks decent on a 100″ projector.
Besides the basic requirements (AVCHD & no hard drive), I was looking for a camera that performed well in automatic mode but provided thorough manual controls. My most important application is recording action on a football field under night lights. Being able to set white balance from a white card, and making compromises between shutter speed and “iris” (aperture and gain combined), were vital to making video that minimizes blurring the fast moving subjects. These manual controls are pretty easy to use, even the very first time without practicing. I found that the LCD provided good visual feedback, accurately showing overexposed white objects when zoomed out that were good when zoomed in. A live display of a luminance graph was also a help to confirm what I saw when making the shutter & iris adjustments. The manual focus ring (that can also perform other adjustments) was also a help to confirm focus, though even under the football lights the auto focus worked well. Another feature that was a big help for this application was the outstanding image stablization. I was quite surprised that I was able to follow the fast moves of subjects when fully zoomed in and produce watchable video.
The passive accessories “shoe” requires a physical adapter that mounts on the side of the camera. That adapter will be easy to misplace, but it’s probably worth the hassle to allow a smooth top to the camera where your fingers wrap around. I used the adapter to mount an external microphone. There is a manual gain adjustment with graphical level display available even for the external microphone — I found this helpful to adjust levels for dynamic music recording to avoid the compression that comes with AGC. Lastly, I was able to use a third-party wide angle lens (0.66x) on the standard 43mm threads to get about 2/3 of the football field in view.
In daylight (fully auto) the camera produces vivid saturated colors; I’m more than satisfied with the picture quality. Projected on a 100″ screen, all possible flaws are highly magnified, yet I could not discern any macroblocking during fast pans, just some image softness (using the default 2nd-to-highest recording quality setting). For typical slow movements, the projected image was very good — not quite HDTV video sharpness, but very good — sharpness somewhere between filmed HD and broadcast video camera HD. I’ll bet that on a more conventional display (like a 50″ LCD), the quality would be outstanding, but I haven’t tried that yet. Also, some people have commented negatively about indoor low light quality, but I haven’t tried recording inside a home. Based on those comments, I’d probably use manual controls under those conditions. It’s nice to have that option with this camera. I’m looking forward to using the feature that follows a subject to make automatic adjustments, such as following a child’s running play.
I had no problem downloading the AVCHD files from the camera via USB and editing them in Adobe Premiere Elements 7.0 — but I have a fast machine (Core i7 overclocked to 3.6GHz). It’s wonderful not having to wait for an hour to download an hour video like with DV tape.
Some reviews have knocked the LCD touch screen as being hard to control, but I had no problems at all with it … maybe because my previous camera “trained” me to use the corner of my fingertips instead of pushing straight on. My biggest complaint with this camera, that has been mentioned by others, is the stupid charger arrangement. You MUST take out the battery to using wired power … but you can’t charge the battery and use wired power at the same time! Obviously it would be common work flow when preparing to download to take out the battery, put it in the charger, and use wired power for camera video management. Here’s the really stupid part: the battery will not charge on the charger if the power cable is physically connected to the charger EVEN IF the cable ISN’T CONNECTED to the camera. I’m sure many people will not get their battery charged because they forget to disconnect the cable FROM THE CHARGER.
Overall, I’m happy with this purchase. It’s one of the most expensive consumer cameras, so unless you’re looking for those outstanding manual controls, you may find a better value elsewhere. OTOH, if you like or need to fuss with camera settings, I don’t think you can go wrong with this camera.
Rating: 4 / 5
Pros:
This camera has amazing color saturation. The 3 chip sensor design can be attributed to that. I have 2 Canon GL-2 cameras and their color with the 3 chip design had awesome color. That 3 chip design is what pointed me to this camera as no other HD cameras by other vendors.
The 10 mega pixel picture mode is nice too but is a little slow in processing the shot after the button is pushed.
The camera is small and the only thing I added that makes it a little bigger is a wide angle view lens. I highly recommend this add-on because it does lack a wide enough angle for indoor shooting. The flash works great but not with the wide angle lens as it is so large that it covers the flash.
Cons:
Panasonic does not provide any AVCHD support for Mac (but does for Windows) in that there is not an app on the software CD that will transfer the video files to your computer. iMovie and Final Cut Pro/Express work for pulling in video but you cannot simply copy the media from the card to the hard drive. The files are not self contained and the movie apps need additional meta data that is in other folders on the card to do anything with the files. A 40MB file turns into a 200+ MB file after Final Cut has log and transfered the file. This is a 5x change in file size. Yikes! Better buy more hard drive space.
Charger has a green light for charging and no light for when charging is done. Seems that if the power went off for the receptacle or the cord unplugged, you would not have a reliable sign as to whether the battery was charged or the cord came unplugged. Green light should note charging is done and an amber light should note it is charging.
Rating: 5 / 5
I bought this HD video camera and so far I am really enjoying it
I wanted a 3 CCD Camera for the longest time and I finally bought one, I think 3 chips give better color depth than single chip ccds
This particular camera is HD specifically AVCHD and gives me full 1080 X 1920 in the AG mode; this is not the default I had to choose it in the settings; higher the resolution higher the storage on the built in card.
So far I am using the built in media and I think 32GB should keep me going for this year and I am waiting for the prices to fall on these HC cards.
The video quality is fantastic when I connected it to my Sharp HD LCD TV
It does not come with mini hdmi cable although it comes with the component video cables but I don’t have the sound with that, so play back you need to buy this cable, I will do it later when I have the money for it
I shot in low light and the video is fine, In the daytime low light is better than night time low light; the best is out door daytime, especially the spring colors came out pretty good
Editing is a bear, this is the problem with AVCHD format, I need to upgrade my old computers, right now I will just stash those videos on big NAS drive, the HDWriter that comes with the camera is decent and it also can be used for Youtube (I have not tired this yet)
The touch screen is pretty good for choosing the clips I want and delting the clips I don’t want
There are lots of features in the main menu and the quick menu is good for choosing the recording mode such as high res etc.
I have just tired one photo and it came out fine, I have not really pushed the envelop on the still photos
the media tree structure allows me to copy the photos and video easily this is inherent on AVCHD
Overall I give it 4.5 stars out of 5
The Camera is pretty light and my 10 year old daughter feels it is pretty light and she too loves it
I like the lens as it is bigger than the lens on cheeper cameres and it closes automatically, no more losing the lens cap
the view finder is takes some practice to use as I am used to my old view finder;
Defenately had to read the manual to get the most out of it
I have not tried the time lapse yet
It has many interfaces for headphone and mic etc, this is good as I wanted all these
Eventually I want to try green screen effects so the 3CCD should be an advantage, I hope to find a good editor for this
Rating: 5 / 5
I’ve had the Panasonic HDC-TM300 for a little over a month now and have had several occasions to test it out in a multitude of situations and exposure levels. Overall, I think the video quality is excellent. Indoor footage with incandescent lighting is a little noisy, but so is the same footage on every other camera in its class. I also considered the Canon HF S10 and eventually decided on the Panasonic for several reasons, which I will discuss later. The camera is very close to being perfect, but there are a few nitpicky issues that annoy me about it, which prevent me from giving it a 5. Overall, I am very happy with the purchase and don’t regret buying the camera.
I paid $950.00 for it from Dell, which is a reasonable price. It retails for $1,299.00, which is a little ridiculous in my opinion, but if you can find it for under $1,000, it is reasonable.
The video might be the best overall against all competition in its price range. I did a good amount of research looking at sample videos at websites such as YouTube and Vimeo and found the video of the Panasonic to be as good, if not better than anything out there in the “Consumer” or “Prosumer” range.
[...]
Main reasons I purchased the Panasonic HDC-TM300 over the Canon HF S10:
1) Price. I was able to get the Panasonic for about $150 bucks cheaper than the Canon through Dell.
2) The Panasonic has an optical pull-out viewfinder. The Canon has none.
3) The Panasonic has a full-size manual focus ring. The Canon only has a manual settings knob and no manual focus setting.
4) I personally liked the look and design of the Panasonic a little better.
Other than that, the cameras are VERY similar in all respects. I really liked the manual controls that the Panasonic offered, along with the excellent video quality and overall design. On any other given day, I might have decided to buy the Canon HF S10, but I’m happy with the Panasonic.
Pros:
- Overall look and feel of the camera is of a very high quality instrument. It has a very solid and expensive feel to it.
- Manual focus ring is very nice and quite useful.
- Pull out viewfinder is a nice addition in this price range.
- Very good video for its class, especially outdoors with plenty of natural light.
- Touch screen works very well. I read several professional reviews online that stated the touch screen was horrible on the edge of unusable, but I have had no such issues.
- Menu system is very easy to use and get used to.
- Excellent manual feature set for a camera in its class.
- Excellent battery life with stock battery.
- Comes packaged with a nice set of accessories, including a remote control.
- Smaller and lighter than I expected and has a nice feel in my hand.
Cons:
- Operation selector knob on the side of the unit is in a very bad position. The selector knob is designed to be used with your right thumb while holding the unit, but due to its position on the device, it is impossible for me to use it with that thumb, forcing me to use it with my left hand. VERY poor design.
- Other controls not laid out in the most ergonomic of positions. Panasonic should buy a Sony camcorder and check it out for some pointers.
- Average audio quality at best. I have had some very lackluster audio quality and mixed results when using the device. The video might look nice, but the audio will always remind you that the footage was taken from a camcorder.
- USB port cover is annoying to use, but that’s par for the course for such devices.
- No Firewire.
- Accessory shoe port on the side of the device is a novel design and well thought out by Panasonic, but poorly engineered. Right when I unboxed the device, I attempted to slide in the accessory shoe adapter and check it out. Bad idea. The adapter became jammed into the camera, taking me about 45 minutes and a badly cut finger to remove. I came very close to just returning the unit. Either the port was too tight or the adapter was molded too big, but it went in and didn’t want to come out. The release button worked, but it was just jammed in there. Since then, I have been able to get it in and out without loss of blood, but it is still very tight. Bad design.
- I’ve had issues with HDMI compatibility between the camera and my Philips HDTV. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I also experience audio problems with outputting to the TV via HDMI. I attempted to contact Panasonic tech support with no reply a week later….and that leads me to my last point.
- Panasonic tech support stinks. Their website is virtually useless and their e-mail support seems to be staffed by ghosts or something, because they don’t respond. Also, the camera is so new, that you really can’t find any info online about issues. I haven’t tried to call Panasonic yet, but I’m not holding up any hope.
Rating: 4 / 5