Panasonic HDC-SD9 camcorder
Pros:
Stable; easy to use; beautiful output on a computer screen
Cons:
Extremely proprietary; grossly excessive time to convert from proprietary format to DVD.
The Bottom Line:
I would not buy this camcorder unless you're willing to waste hours while your computer reformats your movies to a DVD
|
|
Overall Rating:
|
 |
|
Author's Review
There are many, many things I can say about this camera, but at the moment all I can say is, "I don't like it."
Actually, the camera itself is a beautiful device. It's easy to use, has decent 'vibration reduction' capability and outputs beautiful images. It has a lot going for it and could be one of the best compact camcorders on the market.
But it has several serious drawbacks! It uses a proprietary video format that requires Microsoft Windows and DirectX 9(WinXP) or DirectX 10(Windows Vista) just to dowload it off the camera or just off the SD media card through a card reader. It has no capability whatsoever to playback through a television or VCR! Compound that with limiting the camcorder to connect to the computer via USB2 only.
Follow the downloading issues with the limitations of using their proprietary file format in their own video editing software or through the Pinnacle demo they bundle with the camera and you think maybe you're ok; until you try to record the finished work to DVD and you hit a brick wall. Panasonic warns you up front that recording the video in DVD format could take several hours per video. On a 2.4Ghz Core2Duo machine a 30 minute clip took almost 100 minutes to process and burn. More than 1-1/2 hours!
This is a massive step backwards for anyone, especially Panasonic; a company whose motto used to be, "Just slightly ahead of our time." When I first read about the camcorder I thought, "I've just got to have it." But after spending four hours trying to figure out how to download a video and put it on a DVD compared to half that to download and convert a one-hour video from my old Canon ZR70, I'll wait until someone figures out how to make HD video more user-friendly.
Please note that I do not fault the camcorder itself. There is a lot to like with this unit. However, the inability to play back on a television or copy to a different media format without a PC makes this an extremely limiting one. If you don't own a Windows PC with a minimum of Windows XP and DirectX 9, you can not download, edit or burn the recordings you make in this camera. Apple Mac users need not apply unless you have Windows installed either through Boot Camp or virtualization.
