Panasonic HDC-HS250-K Hard Drive High Definition Camcorder (Black)

by Panasonic

Product Details

• Item Weight: 14.9 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0020KUXEG
• Item model number: HDC-HS250K
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,606 in Camera & Photo (See Top 100 in Camera & Photo)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 17, 2003

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Full-HD images that bring out all the beauty of your memories.

High Definition vs. Standard Definition: What's the difference?
HD images contain 6 times as much information as standard images.  HDTV has 1,080 horizontal scan lines, SDTV has 480.  That translates into much higher resolution and much finer detail.  With HD images on an HDTV, pictures are so clear and sharp that you can see textures.  The shift in the industry from SDTV to HDTV is well underway.  For shooting once-in-a-lifetime scenes that you want to capture in full beauty, an HD camcorder is the best choice.

3MOS System for Beautiful Images For videos of important moments you want to preserve, you want high image quality.  That's what Panasonic's 3MOS System delivers, with a combination of optical technologies that further enhance the quality of full-HD images.  The 3MOS System produces extremely accurate images with superb rendition of differences in darkness and light, rich color expression, and a full 1,080 lines of horizontal resolution.  This advanced technology helps turn once-in-a-lifetime moments into vivid, beautiful images.

iA (Intelligent Auto) for Smart Control There's nothing more disappointing than shooting a once-in-a-lifetime event on video, only to discover that the images are blurry or poorly exposed because of backlighting.  Panasonic's iA helps avoid problems in difficult shooting situations by automatically making the optimal camera settings and activating certain functions.  For example, iA now includes AF Tracking, a new function that "locks" on and follows a subject as it moves, so images are sharply focused and properly exposed.  This technology is a huge help for everyone.

Advanced O.I.S. (Optical Image Stabilization)
Panasonic's advanced O.I.S. helps suppress the effects of hand-shake as you shoot, for both motion and still images.  This system uses gyrosensors to detect even tiny amounts of hand-shake, then shifts a lens and adjusts the optical axis to compensate - all at an astounding 4,000 times per second.  It also covers approximately 3 times the stabilization area of our previous SD9 model.  Because the system is optical, there's only minimal loss of image quality even when viewed on a large-screen TV.  In addition, to shoot high-resolution still images, the normal O.I.S. Mode 1 is joined by an O.I.S. Mode 2, which has a higher stabilization capability.  The O.I.S. corrective lens shifts and stabilizes the image the instant that the shutter button is pressed, to enable greater precision in stabilization.  You get all the beauty and minimal blurring.

Product Description

Full-HD images that bring out all the beauty of your memories. The 3MOS System in HDC-HS250 produces extremely accurate images with superb rendition of differences in darkness and light, rich color expression, and a full 1,080 lines of horizontal resolution.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Camcorder, still needs some improvement, October 21, 2009

By 

M. Young "myoung" (SJ, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Panasonic HDC-HS250-K Hard Drive High Definition Camcorder (Black) (Electronics)

I got this camcorder for about two weeks already. It's very easy to start operating it even without reading the manual. The touch screen feature is great! You can basically play on the touch screen and see the difference of the picture quality right on the screen. Here's some of the Pro & Con that I think after playing with this camcorder.

Pro:
-Easy to use
-Great video quality (I hook on my Sony 48 inches 1080p LCD screen, the picture looks great!)
-Picture quality is great too if you got enough light when using indoor (outdoor, no problem)
-Indoor video recording is pretty good using backlight function if indoor light is not enough.
-Outdoor video quality is excellent
-Digital zooming is great (I can basically zoom in and get so detail that I can see the pore of the person's face right across of the street with 3 traffic lane in between it.)
-LCD touch screen is great (you can flip the screen too! You can also use fingernail to touch the screen if your fingertip is too big, the screen don't have any problem recognizing your command.)

Con:
-Not enough battery life (got around 90minutes of recording, good thing is that you can see how much time you got left on the LCD screen for recording so you'll know when you need to charge the battery or switch to power cord or new battery.)
-You cannot charge the battery while using power cord!
-The power cord plug on the camcorder is hidden underneath where you put the battery at, so you cannot use both battery and power cord at the same time (very bad when you try to record using power cord, once you accidentally pull the power cord plug, all of the recording stops, and it takes long time for camcorder to get back to recording and it also causes temporary hard drive malfunction while the camcorder trying to recover what you just record.)
-You cannot turn on the light that came with the camcorder to do the recording (it's use mostly as flash function when taking picture)

So far that's what I thought playing for two weeks (without reading the manual.)

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great camcorder for the price!, December 7, 2009

By 

Mad Mom (Ohio) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Panasonic HDC-HS250-K Hard Drive High Definition Camcorder (Black) (Electronics)

I bought this camcorder primarily to videotape my daughter's gymnastics meets. I have recorded two so far and the video quality for those is excellent. The lighting in both cases was bright flourescent lighting like you would find in a high school gymnasium. I made a brief test video in my kitchen at night with just one light on and it wasn't so great. I don't know if this would be a great camcorder for birthday parties and that sort of thing. For that you would be better off getting a camera with 720 HD like the Panasonic DMC-FZ35 for less than half the price. It takes great video in a variety of lighting, but it cannot handle some of the very fast action of gymnastics without blurring. But that's another review!

Pros:

- Very large (120gb) built-in hard drive.
- Available SD/SDHC memory card slot.
- Great video in bright indoor or outdoor light - the same video quality as the HDC-HS300 that costs over $1000.
- Very easy to use - my 8-year-old was taking pictures and videos and playing them back with no instructions.
- Video is very easy to import to iMovie '09 on my iMac - I just attach it using the included usb cable and a window comes up allowing me to choose the clips I want to import.
- The image stabilization works well - smooth footage without a tripod.
- Zoom is very smooth and adequate.
- Great price if you can get it for under 600 dollars.
- Display shows how much battery life (in minutes) and how much recording time is remaining.

Cons:

- Lacks an electronic viewfinder and an external microphone jack - to get those you need the HDC-H300.
- Probably not great for low light indoors.
- The battery charger/AC adapter are a bit strange but you can live with it - you have to remove the battery to put in the AC/Adapter but the battery will not charge while you are using the adapter.
- Battery life is not very long (about 90 minutes) and extra batteries are pricey - this is the case for most HD camcorders.
- Like probably every HD camcorder, the included software is not so great (although I don't need it for my iMac) and you will have to invest in expensive software to edit the video using a Windows PC.

I researched extensively and for my needs this is by far the best camcorder for the price. It would also be great for videotaping any sports, including indoor sports like basketball.

Update: I've been using it for about two months now. When recording indoors (convention centers, gymnasiums, etc.) the video has good resolution, but often a strange color cast, especially at the start of recording. I don't know if other cameras would be better in this kind of light with subjects that are far away.

56 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Very good, but: Not as Advertised!, July 6, 2009

By 

Tom Keliher (Northridge, California) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Panasonic HDC-HS250-K Hard Drive High Definition Camcorder (Black) (Electronics)

Pros:
Awesome image quality and color. LCD screen surprised me that I could see it in daylight very easily. Touch controls work very well for me using the stylus. My previous two camcorders were Sony DVD. This Panasonic HD blows them out of the water!

Cons:
1) Not as advertised
2) Video editing software is barely adequate, and very spartan in its features.

Summary:
Panasonic, on their own webpage with their own product flyer claimed this camera had Time Lapse capability. It does not! I contacted Panasonic via their customer service asking about this and so far have only received a run around from them! Being directed to a telephone number, which when called inserts you into a horrendous automated system that is extremely difficult to navigate. Once you get to where you can ask for technical assistance, you are put on hold. After 20 minutes I gave up.

It is False Advertising, pure and simple! Shame on Panasonic!

Other than the deceit about the time lapse photography feature I really like this camcorder. The image quality and color are far superior to the two Sony DVD camcorders I had owned previously. The still shot capability is quite impressive also. Certainly not on a par with a dedicated DSLR, but from a point and shoot standpoint the images are quite good. The burst mode, of 60 frames per second is a stunner!

The camcorder is quite handsome in its black and chrome livery. It is small and light, but not too much so. It feels like a quality instrument.

I am quite satisfied with the camcorder overall, and if it actually had Time Lapse as advertised, I would have been thrilled with it.