Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Almost a Prosumer Camcorder, June 3, 2009
I bought this camcorder to replace a Sony DSR-PD170. I needed to switch to from miniDV/DVCAM to HD, and in the process I wanted to go to flash media. There are very few choices right now. Panasonic's AG-HMC70U is a gigantic monster compared to my DSR-PD170, and the new Panasonics and JVCs aren't getting the greatest reviews - so I looked at the consumer camcorders.
I wanted 3CCDs and XLR inputs, but no XLR on a consumer camcorder, so I'm using a Studio One stereo mini to XLR box. The CCD vs. MOS isn't important to me, as long as I get 3 sensors. This is the only 3-sensor consumer camcorder using flash media I could find.
The quality is good, and I would say it's at the top of the consumer camcorder heap at this point. AVCHD is great for good quality with a very small file size, but make sure your editing software can handle the MTS format.
Panasonic supplies a utility that gives you some preformatting options when you download your video from the camera, but I'm not using it.
Here's how the camera records: Each time you record, it creates an mts file (AVCHD), if you pause and then continue, it writes the first file, and starts a new one. So you end up with a lot of sequentially numbered MTS files. I just download them to my PC without any pre-processing, and import them into Premiere Pro CS4 (it reads the mts files with no problem). You just put them in order on the timeline.
I am so happy to be done with tapes. The last vestiges of an ancient era in video processing. No more capturing video from the camcorder. Just lay the files into the timeline and edit them there.
Just for the heck of it, I tried to upload the mts files directly to YouTube. YouTube accepts the files and transcodes them, but they are very choppy, dropping frames left and right once on YouTube. So I bought a batch converter that converts them to 720p MPEG 2 files, and that makes YouTube happy.
So is the Panasonic HDC-TM300 a pro camcorder? Not hardly. Is it a prosumer camcorder? Not really. But it's a good choice if you want good quality HD video at a low price (compared to pro camcorders).
On the other hand, I just used this camera to record a 6-hour workshop in a hotel with not-so-great lighting. The video was very washed out - not even close to the low-light quality of my Sony DSR-PD170. The TM-300 has a manual iris/gain feature that lets you open up to 18db. Surprisingly, the brightness improves significantly without getting too grainy. Still not close to the PD170 in auto mode, but significantly better than the TM-300's auto mode.
I would have liked to have replaced my Sony with a Panasonic AG-HMC150, but at $3800, I just wasn't ready for the price. Although the TM-300 isn't quite good enough to cause me to get rid of my PD170, it's good enough to make it my camcorder of choice in well-lit shooting environments.
The Panasonic HDC-TM300 is a really great consumer camcorder that's well-worth the price.
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28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very solid HD camcorder and almost a 5., July 4, 2009
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.
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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Camera HDC tm300 compact, May 17, 2009
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
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