Panasonic HDC-TM300 user reviews

Skyliner65 22 December 2009

Good: Great picture quality on 50" LCD TV. iA works fine

Bad: Battery consumption, complicated audio edit in Vegas Pro 9 and other software

Comment: I have this camcorder for 3 months now, and I have always watched the clips on my TV. Great picture and sound quality.
Yet a couple of days ago I tried to edit some of these clips, and while Vegas Pro 9 supports this format, it seems that there is a problem with 5.1 dolby. Front left and rear channels are practically unusable, whilst the right channels work fine. It could be that I have a defect in my camcorder as I have yet to read a post to this effect.

This problem apart, I really love this small camcorder. I own 6 other camcorders, one being the Sony VX2000 (the king), and while this has tons of manual controls, which unfortunately are missing from the Panny, picture quality is comparable during day shots. Night shots however cannot compare due to the lens diameter. Actually 3 CCD suffer more than a single CCD, as most of the time this single CCD is larger offering superior picture quality in dark situations.

Some users complain of the greenish overcast, yet I only see it on older Panasonic Plasma TVs and certain LCD monitors. I myself had an issue with it, yet I solved it by tweaking display properties on the monitor.

O.I.S is the best I have seen on any consumer video camera. Picture quality remains pristine throughout the optical zoom range.

Panasonic still has not fully resolved white balance issues, and at times one has to enter menus to set the correct mode.

Had it not been for the audio issues I have during editing I would give this camcorder 9/10