I wasn't planning to buy a new cam, but the glowing reviews for the TM700 pushed me over the edge. The true 1920x1080x60p is versatile: From Vegas you can get nice hd interlaced, and DVDs from it look stunning from TMPGenc. You also can go to 24p with no visual artifacts if you want to put it on the web.

The 900 horizontal lines of resolution (according to Camcorderinfo.com) is so crisp, and - in a few years with BluRay player can handle 60p - the progressive format is a bit future-proof.

Editing? I always put it in Vegas first and render to Cineform or other intra-frame codec. Then, I put the Cineform clip on fast RAID 0 array and edit with ease - could do that even on my old Q6600.

More important (for my particular preferred work style), green screen work is the best I've ever achieved with this 3-chip cam. Very clean keys . Colors are great, too. Perhaps the Sony might have better low-light performance, but otherwise the Panasonic is a great cam with lots of manual controls that don't get lost when you turn off the camera.


I'm so glad I made the switch - so many benefits. Either Sony or Panasonic, I highly recommend full HD with 60p.

The way images are recorded in a camera is not that relevant to the final outcome. For example comparing HDV's 1440x1080 to FullHD's 1920x1080 is kind of pointless if the camera cannot resolve more than 900 lines in the first place due to the sensors or the optics.
Of course using some external, uber expensive system to record uncompressed HD will yield a way more accurate recording than HDV or AVCHD. The questions a camera designer faces are a) at what cost and b) better recording of what.

From my experiences with AVCHD it seems to be a codec that is not very robust. It does a good job of fitting a good quality image into the available bandwidth however when the vision gets a bit ugly (noise) it seems to degrade the image in a way that causes it degrade very quickly if it is re-encoded.
The images from our HC5 HDV palmcorder shot under low light seem to hold up better when converted to SD than anything recorded by an AVCHD camera I've seen to date. Both mpeg-2 and H.264 throw away data but for some reason the way H.264 does it with less than pristine images makes it in my opinion not a good codec for acquistion. Unfortunately this is not something that's easy to measure.

Bob.

"1920x1080 is kind of pointless if the camera cannot resolve more than 900 lines in the first place due to the sensors or the optics."

I agree; I'd be just as happy with 1440 instead of 1920 - other things equal.

I've used HDV extensively, but I'm not certain that it's superior to high-data-rate AVCHD (could be . . .)

The superiority that I seem to be experiencing on the TM700 probably comes from better optics and sensors, and the progressive format at 60fps - which definitely is a plus for me. In addition to making it easy to go to 24p for the web, the 60p makes it a lot easier to get good slo-mo - which I use rather often.

As far as I know, there are not progressive-format HDV cameras (I don't think the HDV spec allows it); is that true?

Well I'm pretty happy and content with the quality of HDV from my HC9 for the time being. But there seems to be a lot of interest out there to get full HD, and the only real way still appears to be teathering your HDV via HDMI to a PC or HDD via blackmagic or what not. So these full HD cameras have me interested but sceptical, mainly because they claim to hold up to 100 hrs of footage on a 240 gig internal drive... obviously highly compressed.

"Full HD" means nothing other than the camera records 1920x1080. It implies NOTHING about the quality of that image.

Frankly, I couldn't name one camera with an internal HDD that's I even shoot a kids birthday party with. In general, this class of camera is TERRIBLE. Some of the consumer cameras have internal solid state media, and some of those are ok.

It'll be interesting to see what the new NEX-VG10 from Sony will be capable of, at least the optics can be exchanged.

Skratch wrote: but sceptical, mainly because they claim to hold up to 100 hrs of footage on a 240 gig internal drive... obviously highly compressed..

Right:
240 GB = 240000 MB = 1920000 Mbit
100 hours = 360000 seconds
This gives (roughly) 5 Mbps - which is totally unuseable.

As far as I know, there are not progressive-format HDV cameras (I don't think the HDV spec allows it); is that true?"

Not true. V1 and Z5 both shoot progressive scan to HDV. Version 1 of the HDV spec didn't allow it, it had to be recorded at PsF but now the Z5 and other cameras record "p". Just be aware that much of the first generation HDV gear will not play those "p" tapes.

Bob.

"Frankly, I couldn't name one camera with an internal HDD that's I even shoot a kids birthday party with. In general, this class of camera is TERRIBLE. Some of the consumer cameras have internal solid state media, and some of those are ok. "

Why would the electronics/sensors/lenses be different? Why treat HDD different from SSD? I know HDD cams have anti-drop protection, but what else is different in the design? Of course I am comparing similar models, such as Sony HDR-XR550 and HDR-CX550.

"Skratch wrote: but sceptical, mainly because they claim to hold up to 100 hrs of footage on a 240 gig internal drive... obviously highly compressed."

Make sure you read the specs carefully, paying attention to the prepositions and small print or asterisks to footnotes which may be missing - marketing people are good at misleading.

No doubt the camera is capable of good HD video OR 100 hours recording but not with the same settings. For instance, the XR520 has a 240 GB disk and stores 100 hours in HD Long Play, but full HD is only 29 hours, with max bit rate of 18 Mb/s. (= 234.9 GB)

I didn't say the sensors, electronics, or lenses were different. In general, HDD cameras use poor codec implementation (generally aimed at long record times over quality). I haven't seen anything yet to make me change my mind.

If the bit rate (eg 18 Mbps) is the same in both HDD and SSD cameras, would you expect the quality to be comparable?

Yes, I would.

Officially the XR500/520 are using 16Mbit in their highest quality setting, the newer XR/CX550 uses up to 24Mbit.

So the issue is bit rate rather than storage medium.

Unfortunately people often talk about "full" HD without mentioning bit rate or even frame rate at times. Even the specification page(s) of manuals can be obscure on basic performance data.

Frame rate depends on region, but I guess it's assumed that US camcorders use 30p/60i and European ones 25p/50i.

One thing that have me confused about the data sheet for the NEX-VG10 is this passage (From SonyStyle, emphasis mine):
# Video Format : AVCHD (MPEG-4 AVC (H.264))
# Video Mode : AVCHD: 1920 x 1080/ 60i (FX/FH); FX- 24Mbps, FH - 17Mbps; 1440x1080/60i HQ -9 Mbps
# Video Resolution : 1920 x 1080 captured @ 30p (29.97p), recorded in AVCHD 60i (59.95i)

It captures in progressive, but still saves in interlaced. Wouldn't it be easier to just save it as progressive then? Or are there compatibility issues?

"Officially the XR500/520 are using 16Mbit in their highest quality setting, the newer XR/CX550 uses up to 24Mbit"

The manuals say that the maximum recording times are 29 hrs 20 mins and 22 hrs 50 mins respectively for the XR520E and XR550E respectively, both of which use 240 GB disks. This is consistent with the above data rates for the video only, not total data including audio. MediaInfo says that the video from an XR520E is 16 Mbps for video and 18 Mbps for total.

60i is better supported by hardware than 30p. Blu-ray does not support 30p

Thanks.

I'm assuming that for 30p stored as 60i is identical to 30p once de-interlaced?
(or in my case 25p/50i, why they don't allow the camera to shoot both (50i/60i) is beyond me, it's all in software)

shooting at 60p, the data rate of the TM700 is 28MB/Sec (H.264 codec)

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Panasonic-HDC-TM700-Camcorder-Review-37681/Motion-amp-Sharpness-Performance.htm

when panning across leaves in a tree, my informal tests indicate that the picture falls apart much less than with the HDV of my Sony HC1

Incidentally, I just re-read the camcorderinfo.com article and see that it rated the TM700 as having 1000 lines of horizontal resolution rather than the 900 that I posted above - my mistake.

Maybe I remembered their glowing praise of its vertical resolution of 900 lines:

". . . it was clear in our testing that the HDC-TM700 had a better vertical sharpness than any other camcorder we've tested"

I also have the TM700 picked it up on sale and the one thing I wish it had was 1080p 30fps setting so I can shoot in progressive at lower frame rates in lower light settings. The only progressive setting is 1080p 60fps. All other settings basically throttle the bit-rate and and are ALL interlaced.

Here's a summary of the video settings, bitrates and recording time w/ the built in 32GB memory:

1080p 60fps, 28Mbps, 1920x1080 (VBR), 20hr:40min
HA 17Mbps, 60i, 1920x1080 (VBR), 4hr:10min
HG 13Mbps, 60i, 1920x1080 (VBR), 5hr:30min
HX 9Mbps, 60i, 1920x1080 (VBR), 8hr:20min
HE 5Mbps, 60i, 1920x1080 (VBR), 13hr:40min

There are other features that compensates for this cam's short comings, (let me know if you want me to go into those) and as LReavis mentioned the quality is really nice and the stabilization is really good. But the limited video settings "could" be a deal breaker if you're looking for more progressive settings. I was going for the Sony CX550 but the prices are still hovering around $1100-$1200 whereas you can pick up a TM700 for $700-$800 if you shop around.

HDV was a joke. I feel sad for any sucker who went that route and now has to defend their lame purchase.

The new crop of camcorders especially the TM700 are awesome. The CX550v is fantastic too. These camcorders easily out shoot any HDV garbage.

It all depends on your needs but HDV was yesteryear before it even came out. Only a few bought into it's lame hype.

The TM700 is proof of the future.