Panasonic HDC-TM10 High Definition Flash Memory Camcorder With 8GB Internal Memory, SD Card Slot & 16x Optical Zoom – Silver
Posted by Notcot on Apr 5, 2010 in Photography |
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I’m new to camcorders but also a gadget fan and so went for a future proof high definition one. The small size and light weight of the TM10 attracted me. But unlike those cheap Toshiba Camelios and Flip things, this is a full spec HD camcorder. The TM10 is better than the SD10 as it has 8 Gb of built-in memory, which is good for over one and half hours worth of footage. Internal memory is great for when you unexpectedly run out of memory card space. Considering the small price difference I wouldn’t bother with the SD10. Panasonic HDC-SD10 High Definition Flash Memory Camcorder with 16x Optical Zoom – Black
So what’s it like? In short it’s great! It’s very light and can be easily held in one hand. I don’t have big hands so most women should be fine too. It’s very easy to use. Open up the LCD screen. Press the `on’ button. Point it at what you want to film. Press the record button below the screen and you’re away filming. Press record again and you stop (although the firm press that’s need can cause a jerk or two!). It’s that easy. You can then move the switch at the back of the camcorder from movie mode to playback mode and watch your footage. HD video playback is stunning on the LCD screen. And what’s more the screen is touch sensitive so you can instinctively select menus, open files and move them around. I’m an iPhone user and found the touchscreen great to use, unlike a lot of phones I could mention!
The camcorder has a ton of clever default settings such as image stabiliser and intelligent auto which are designed to help even the greenest cameraman/woman get the most out of the camcorder with the minimum of fuss. I also liked the way the auto light kicked in when it was getting dark. The most dramatic feature is probably the face detection system which picks out the face of someone moving towards you and focuses in on it. Although sometimes I didn’t want it picking out the faces of strangers who walked into view! I’m sure most people aren’t even going to bother with the manual settings which are very comprehensive. It can film in four settings from 1920 by 1080 resolution down to 1440 by 1080. I know some people are already using 1440 res with HD camcorders because of the smaller file sizes it produces but more on that later!
I found the camcorder very vulnerable to shake when on max 16 times zoom. I’ve read stuff about the image stabiliser trying to over compensate and that causes issues. May be? Who knows?!. The battery that comes with it lasts less than two hours. That’s ok if you’re just taking small clips but if you’re trying to film a long party or out all day at a site of great visual interest, you will have to be sparing or buy a bigger/ spare battery. There were concerns that the camcorder’s small video sensor used in others might be bad in low light conditions. I know I’m no filmmaker but it was good enough for me.
You can use SD/SDHC memory cards in the camcorder. Go for class 4/6 SDHC cards if you can. Don’t get smaller than 8Gb and get them online. The cards aren’t cheap on the high street at the time of writing. You get a Mini HDMI-component cable to link up to an HD TV. On my 1080P Panasonic Viera TV the HD footage looked spectacular even if the subject material was boring!
Word of warning! Current PC power, as fantastic as it is, is only just catching up with dealing with HD video editing. Don’t expect your beaten up 6 years old PC to deal easily with the huge AVCHD format files that will be generated by your footage. A ten minute video at the highest settings could be 1Gb in size and your poor old processor has to deal with converting it to other formats or cut it up for your custom movie. Also expect to be hunting down file converters as you try and change the format to something more usable for editing or uploading to YouTube such as mpeg or avi. My single core AMD system was taking well over 10 minutes to convert one minute of AVCHD footage to mpeg with some converters. This is quad core territory! Adobe Premiere Elements 7 (PC) Zoostorm Core I7-920 2.66ghz Hyperthreading Quad Core Vista Premium Gaming Pc,1tb Hdd,6gb Ddr 3 Ram,896mb GTX260 Graphics Card,blu Ray
Anyway I’ve got some HD footage on the nitebot channel of YouTube. Remember it’s much, much better on your TV.
Rating: 5 / 5
Over the past few days I’ve been trying out my new TM10 for the first time on a weekend break in France. It’s a fantastic piece of kit. It’s tiny and easy to use ‘out of the box’ after a quick flick through the ‘basics’ section of the manual. The HD quality is superb and on-camera editing is easy. The image stabilisation and face recognition are outstandingly effective. The screen is bright enough even in full sunlight and you can easily do without a viewfinder. It’s easy to hold steady as there are buttons (start/stop, menu etc) along the bottom of the frame of the screen, so you can use your left thumb for starting and stopping while holding the screen between your thumb and forefinger, supporting the camera itself with your right hand. The screen tilts in pretty well every direction you need.
The software that goes with it allows very easy editing and creation of DVDs or output to HD media or PC. The ‘high quality’ output mode for DVDs is excellent. It beats the Ulead software I used with my previous DV tape camcorder hands down. After reading about HD editing problems in reviews on other HD camcorders, the results I’ve got from using the software are a great relief. Transfer to DVD takes quite a long time – it took me two hours to make a DVD in high quality (sub-HD but stunning anyway) out of 1.7GB of footage. The wait is worth it – you just have to be patient. I can recommend this amazing machine without reservation.
Rating: 5 / 5
Bought this with Children’s sports day in mind. Decided to go for this model, although more expensive than panasonic’s sd10. The in-built memory has proved a real bonus, I never ran out of memory after a full afternoon of races. The intelligent auto function really useful switching between different views from the start to finish lines. I’m no expert but the camera was really easy to use and the footage looks great on my hdtv.
Rating: 5 / 5
I couldn’t get over how small this is. And it;s packed with features, all of which actually work well. The anti-shake processing makes a huge difference – you don’t have to be riding a penny-farthing along a cobbled street to get the benefit. In bright light the quality is excellent, but I found it to be great in low light too. AVCHD is the HD-quality format of the future, and connecting the TM10 to an HD TV via HDMI gives stunning images.
Each Gb of memory gives 15 mins of recording time, so carry a couple of 16Gb SD cards and you could record all day. And there’s the 8Gb onboard which, as it equates to about 2 hours of footage, is more than just a reserve memory.
The .MTS files which AVCHD creates are finicky swines which won’t work unless they’ve got the right metadata files and folders with them. This means you can’t just drag/copy them about like mp4s or movs, especially if, like me, you’re uploading your films to a Mac. The only way iMovie will allow you to do it is by connecting to the camcorder via USB and importing directly. And that’s iMovie from iLife 09 and with Snow Leopard. This is one thing Apple haven’t made easy. I had the fond notion that I could just plug the SD card into a reader and do it that way, but, although you apparently can, or you can buy third party software, it’s fiddly and expensive to the point of not worth the bother.
There’s only one thing the TM10 doesn’t do brilliantly – sound. It’s not bad, but the single mic is on the top which means that the wind seems to rush across it when you’re outdoors (and it’s windy) and also if you’re holding the thing in front and below you, your voice will be loud, but others sometimes not quite loud enough. If you’re Whispering Bob Harris and you’re making a documentary about Brian Blessed indoors, ignore this point.
Final thing – without moving parts (tape motors and eject mechanisms and so on) this thing is seriously light and totally silent. And without moving parts, the battery lasts a long time (hours and hours). And also, as it’s flash memory, it can start recording as soon as you open the viewing screen. It does this automatically, saving everything from microseconds after you get that screen open, if you want it to. So if you’re there at a momentous yet fleeting moment (eg a face-planting politico or England sporting victory) you’ll get the lot in HD-quality in less than a second after you remember you’ve got a camcorder with you. I’ve tried this (substituting a face-planting child instead of a cabinet minister) and it really works. The thing is focused and filming accurately before you could could switch on and take a picture on ANY digital still camera I’ve ever used. Oh and it takes not-too-bad still photos too.
So as not to end on too gushing a note, I have one other negative. It’s so small it looks a tad silly mounted on a big, professional tripod. I’m happy to live with that, though.
Rating: 5 / 5
I bought this camera to take on a European holiday. It arrived in plenty of time so that I could try it out before leaving. Once I had read the instructions it was very simple to operate. The one problem I had though was to purchase an additional battery (VW-VBG130) because the one supplied does not last long when filming. I tried to purchase the more powerful battery but nobody seemed to have them in stock. Eventually having an abortive attempt at ordering from one supplier, I found one and it arrived just before we left. This allowed me a total recording time of nearly three hours which was much better. I also bought a 12 GB SDGC card which again increased the total recording time to two and a half hours on its highest quality setting when combined with the 8 GB internal memory. So we went and I used the lowest full HD setting throughout. When we got back I loaded the material on to my PC using the supplied software which was easy. I also played the camera on my Panasonic Full HD TV using a purchased HDMI cable and the results have been superb. No other word for it. The pictures exceed my expectations every time especially a recent trip to a falconry centre and it is so easy and light to handle. A great purchase.
Rating: 5 / 5